by Sky Winters
“Isn’t she pretty?” C.J. cooed.
“Yes, C.J. She is beautiful, just like you.”
“C.J., let’s get your stuff in,” Buck told her.
Lorna looked up to find him shrugging apologetically in her direction, but she waved him off, continuing to look at the family photos for a moment before walking away. She stood awkwardly by the grandmother while the men brought in C.J.’s bags.
“Will you be staying for lunch?” she asked him as they brought things in.
“No. I have to take care of some things in Los Angeles, so I’m going to say my goodbyes and let you two get on with the spoiling,” he said.
“That’s too bad, son,” Harvey added, sitting a bag down inside the door.
“Maybe next time,” Buck replied, pulling C.J. up into his arms. “Are you going to be a good girl for your Nanna and Paps?”
“Yes. When are you coming back?”
“I’ll be back in a week to check on you and give you a big hug, but you can call me anytime if you need me. Okay?”
“Okay, Daddy. I love you.”
“I love you too,” he replied.
He sat C.J. down on the floor and turned to go but found her running past him and grabbing Lorna’s legs. Lorna leaned down to pick her up, giving her a little hug of her own.
“I love you, Lorna!” she said quietly.
Everyone in the room froze, including Lorna. She looked up at Buck, a bit bewildered. Surely, she was just a child and it was just something kids say to adults who have been kind and played Barbies with them in the foyer.
“I love you too,” she said, not sure what was proper here. Putting C.J. back down on the floor, she found herself looking at two smiling men and one scowling woman.
“Well, I guess that’s us done here then. See you next week, honey,” he told C.J., who had already resumed her place by her grandfather’s side, holding his hand.
They made a hasty exist to the car, pulling away from the estate in complete silence. Not one word was uttered about the exchange between herself and C.J. as they sat down in a rather posh restaurant for lunch and drinks. Several people stopped by to say their hellos to Buck and eyed her questioningly, but he didn’t bother to tell them anything about her other than her name and that they were collaborating on a screenplay. Some of them seemed quite surprised and at least one squinted his eyes at her in recognition. Yep, Dalton was still a big ugly blockade in her life.
Chapter 10
Back at home, later in the evening, she confided her concerns about Dalton casting shadows over anything that might have her name on it.
“Perhaps you should just put your name on it and leave me out of it. You can go it alone or I can be a silent partner,” she told him.
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not worried about Dallas Dalton.”
“I am.”
“Well, you shouldn’t be.”
Lorna started to argue the point, that she had good reason to be and that he couldn’t just dismiss her concerns so easily, but she wasn’t in any mood to talk about that particular mistake in her life. Instead, she shifted the discussion to the screenplay. They sat around and hashed out some ideas, finally deciding on what way they wanted to go with it and then settled in for drinks.
“Here you go, one screwdriver for me and one virgin screwdriver for you,” he said, handing her a glass.
“So, orange juice then,” she said with a little laugh.
“Yeah,” he told her.
“Listen, I don’t know what to say about C.J. this afternoon. I hope I didn’t respond wrong to that. I didn’t know what else to say.”
“Do you love her?” he asked, unblinking.
Lorna stopped for a moment, not expecting the question. Then she smiled and looked back up at him, “Yeah, I do. I kinda do.”
Buck smiled and looked down at his hands for a moment, seeming pensive. When he spoke, his words were deliberate, well chosen. It was almost as if he had already practiced them in his head.
“I wasn’t sure if it was such a good idea to let her get so attached to you, but it happened so quickly. It’s like she laid eyes on you and decided that you were okay with her. She never does that. She’s hopelessly shy with people. You’ve seen her with some of the staff, she still hides behind things to talk to them. But you? Not you. I have to consider that what she might need just as much as a sibling is a woman in the house, one she likes and feels happy with . . . one she loves.”
“Perhaps so, but that shouldn’t be someone who signed a contract to have a baby and will be leaving,” Lorna replied sadly. “That can’t be good for her either.”
“I know. It’s something I’ll need to figure out. For now, it’s just simply too late. You’re here. You’re having a child. She loves you. Those are just the facts. Don’t think I’m second guessing the baby. I’m absolutely not, but maybe I should have tried harder to find a stable relationship rather than just trying to get her a playmate.”
Lorna shifted a bit in her seat, unsure of what she should say to that. Reaching for her juice, she finished it off, giving him an easy out to the conversation if he wanted one.
“Do you want something else?”
“Maybe just water,” she replied. “I can get it.”
“Don’t be silly. I’ll get it. I’m going to make myself another drink anyway.”
“Okay,” she said, watching as he got up and left the room, taking the dirty glasses with him.
He returned with his refilled and a clean glass for her, along with a bottle of chilled water. Rather than resume the conversation, they went back to discussing the screenplay, making some notes on his tablet as they began to hash out a basic plot. The room grew dark as the sun went down outside. Buck got up to turn on a few lights and glanced at the clock.
“Oh, wow. I didn’t realize how late it’d gotten. You need some rest. I’ll let you get to bed,” he told her.
“It’s okay. I’ve enjoyed the conversation and the work,” she told him.
She stood and turned to walk around the sofa, bumping right into him as she rounded the corner and he was reaching for his phone that had been laying on a side table. There was a charge of electricity that shot through her like a bullet, leaving her a little breathless. He didn’t miss it.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes.”
“You seemed out of breath for a moment,” he replied.
“No. I’m good.”
“Are you sure, because for a moment, I thought it might have been because of me.”
“Wha…,” she started to say, but her words were cut off as he dropped the phone on the sofa and pulled her into a kiss.
Lorna leaned into him, letting the kiss happen. They stood there, pressed against one another. Her heart was racing. She hadn’t realized how much she had wanted this until it actually happened. All this time, she had convinced herself that maintaining her distance was in all their best interests, pushing down any desires that she might have felt toward him, not allowing herself any feelings. Nothing good could come of it, but in this moment, all that mattered was this kiss. This kiss was everything.
Just as quickly as it has happened, it was over, with him pulling away and taking a step back. He looked stricken, uncertain. It wasn’t like him at all.
“I’m sorry, Lorna. That was inappropriate. I shouldn’t have done that.”
“It was nice,” she said meekly. “I enjoyed it.”
“I enjoyed it too, but we shouldn’t. We have an agreement and that isn’t part of it. Nothing good can come from it. Um, I’m going to head up to bed. Let’s just pretend that didn’t happen,” he said, already on his way out the door, making a hasty retreat.
She stood there looking at his disappearing form, not sure what to say or do. Well, she couldn’t do anything or say anything was the answer to that, because he was gone. After standing there feeling completely out of sorts for a few moments, she finally walked out, making her way up to her room to sleep. There was a l
ot of tossing and turning, but she finally drifted off.
Chapter 11
“About last night,” he began to say over breakfast the following morning.
“No, listen. It’s no big deal. Just the heat of the moment. You’re lonely, I’m lonely. We just let it go to our heads,” she said.
They were well rehearsed words that had been forming in her head from the moment she had woken up. She had laid in her bed last night wondering how she was going to deal with this latest development and it was what she had come up with. She would merely feign ambivalence about it and move on. He was right about one thing, there was no room for romance in their agreement.
“I’m glad you see it that way. I felt horrible about it. It wasn’t fair to you and it wasn’t fair to . . .,” his voice trailed off before he changed directions with his comments. “It won’t happen again.”
“Good enough. Are we working today?” she asked, changing the subject.
“Yes. I have to run some errands this morning, but I will be back after lunch and we can get some work done.”
“Perfect then,” she replied, finishing her breakfast as he excused himself to get going.
She busied herself the rest of the morning by going for a walk along the edge of the lake. There was something about the air here that made her feel peaceful, something she definitely hadn’t been when she woke up this morning. She was glad they had a discussion about it, no matter how brief. At least the air was clear, and they wouldn’t be tiptoeing around one another for her remaining time here.
At least, that was what she had thought. Buck’s return proved different, as he seemed different, perhaps having had his own thoughts on the subject while away. Working together was awkward, charged with words unsaid, despite their earlier discussion she had felt would put that at ease. After a while, she just couldn’t cope with being so close to him anymore.
“Buck, can we call it a day for now? I’m incredibly tired. I want to go take a nap before dinner, if that’s okay.”
“Of course. This isn’t your first priority and we’ve made tremendous progress, as it is. Take a break. Get a nap. We’ll work on it some more when you feel like it.”
“Thanks,” she replied.
It wasn’t a lie that she felt tired, but she suspected it was just as much mental as it was physical. Climbing into bed, she was quickly asleep, drifting off into a dream about Buck that did anything but make her forget how attracted to Buck she had become without even realizing it until he had kissed her. It was like a Pandora’s Box that had been opened and now wasn’t so easy to close.
She woke up less than an hour later feeling breathless, longing for his touch even more. It wasn’t an option. Instead, she ended up in the shower, washing off the perspiration that had accumulated on her body during the heating dream. Of course, the real relief she desired wasn’t on the menu, so she was forced to take things in hand, masturbating quietly beneath the shower to stave off the screaming hormones that were now in full control of her libido and weren’t going to let her just push them aside.
She dried off and slipped into her bikini, making her way down and outside to the large salt water pool that sat to one side of the house. So far, it still fit well, as she had not even begun to show yet. Slipping into the water, she swam a few laps and then leaned against the edge of the pool, just enjoying the coolness of the water clinging to her still heated skin. The dream had left her in quite a state, or so she thought, but when she climbed out, she found that she felt weak and still very hot, as if her face was on fire.
Stumbling to the house, she went to find the nurse, asking her to check her temperature. As it turned out, it was almost 102, resulting in her being put right back in her tub, but this time in a tepid bath. She tried to protest that she had just been in the pool, which was also cool, but she was shushed.
“Just let me worry about this, right now. I’m the nurse here. Okay?”
The woman was kind as she said it, but not afraid to remind her who knew more about this than she did. She sat in the water until she began to shiver and was quickly pulled out to towel off again. She stripped down and was put back between the covers to rest after being given some sort of medication she wasn’t familiar with.
“I’m going to go get you some dinner and bring it up here to you. I don’t want you out of the bed the rest of the day.”
“What is it? What is wrong with me?”
“Nothing that is as serious as it probably feels to you right now. Your body is just changing, accepting a baby that it isn’t as equipped to handle as a human child. It will be fine after a few days.”
“Are you sure? Will the baby be okay? Will I?”
“Yes. I’ve done this dozens of times, gone through shifter-human pregnancies. It happens to about fifty percent of the mothers at this stage. I promise you that nothing will happen to you other than a few days of fever and weakness. We just have to keep you medicated properly with fever reducers, supplements and make sure you eat well. I should have already put you on a strict diet schedule. We’ll make sure that happens from now on.”
“Okay,” Lorna managed before drifting off to sleep again.
She was awakened a short time later with Buck standing in her room with a tray of food. He sat down by the bed and helped her sit up, looking away as the covers fell away slightly to reveal one of her bare breasts beneath the covers. She blushed and pulled it back up over her naked form.
“I can do this. I can eat alone,” she told him uncomfortably.
“I know you can, but I want to help. I’ll let you eat by yourself, so you don’t feel babied, but I’d like to stay and make sure all goes okay, if you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind,” she replied, reaching for the fork on her plate and beginning to eat. She found that she was starving and finished it off pretty quickly, dozing back off as quickly as she had before, once he had taken her plate.
She awoke some time later to find him still by her bedside, reading something on his tablet. Rather than attempting to engage him in any conversation, she closed her eyes and returned to sleep. When she woke again, it was to accept some medicine that the nurse had stirred her to take.
“Your fever is subsiding already. I think you’ll be grand by this time tomorrow, if not sooner.”
“Thank you,” Lorna replied, feeling exhausted still. She faded back into darkness, having fevered dreams that seemed to run from one to the next with no conclusion.
Chapter 12
A couple of days later, Lorna was none the worse for wear. Once her fever had broken, she felt perfectly normal again. Things around the lake house, however, were anything but normal.
“I’m glad to see you are filling so much better,” Buck told her as she walked in for breakfast.
“Me too. Honestly, I didn’t feel bad really, just very hot and tired, like I’d worked in a field all day or something.”
“I was worried, but Melanie says it is normal, just your human form adjusting to having the baby’s more powerful metabolism to support. You should be fine now, she tells me.”
“Yes. She told me the same.”
“Do you feel up to working today or do you want to give it a rest a bit longer?”
“Maybe a bit longer.”
“That’s fine. It’s nothing that has to get done.”
“Thanks for understanding.”
Their words were terse, as if they had been rehearsed for a bad play. After all the days of being comfortable with one another, they were back to merely being polite. This was going to be the longest pregnancy anyone ever had if this was the way it would play out from now on.
Buck left the table in silence and she returned to her room. She felt claustrophobic. She put on her bikini and a pair of sandals, returning to the pool for a nice soak and to pick up some rays of sunshine. It was quite a surprise when Buck joined her, diving in on the deeper end and swimming toward her. The sun glistening off his powerful shoulders as he made his way closer.
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“I thought you’d like some company,” he told her.
“Conversation is always nice.”
“Okay, maybe I wanted the company too.”
“You haven’t seemed to want to be around me much lately.”
She noted the way his eyes cast downward when she said it, as if he was trying to gather his thoughts before responding. After a moment, he looked up at her, making direct eye contact with her as he spoke. His body was dangerously close to hers, so close that he made it hard to breath, even out here in the wide open space around the pool.
“Listen, Lorna. I know I’ve behaved like a bit of a shit. I kissed you and it was amazing, but it scared the hell out of me and it felt wrong somehow. My wife died only three years ago. I know that seems like a while, but for me, it’s like yesterday. I feel like I did something wrong. It feels like cheating somehow.”
“I understand.”
“No. I don’t think you do, not really. I’ve adjusted to life alone, accepted it. I made this huge decision that I would just get on with things, just me and C.J. It was only for her that I decided to have a second child, not that I won’t love her sibling as much as I love her, but I wouldn’t have pursued this surrogacy otherwise.”
“I don’t understand what you are trying to say.”
“That’s because I’m saying it very badly. What I’m trying to say is that I didn’t realize that I was the one that needed someone else in my life, not a child, but someone I could love again and when it happened, it scared the living hell out of me.”
“Buck, I don’t . . .”
“No, let me finish before you say anything. You turning up out of the blue is the best thing that ever happened to me. Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for a surrogate?”
“No-”
“Almost two years and not one single person has been right. There have been a couple that were compatible blood wise, but you are the only one that I was instantly drawn to when I walked in that room. Perhaps that is the very reason I should have steered clear of you, but I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. I think that, somehow, this was destiny. I was meant to wait on you and I was meant to be with you, if you will have me.”
