by Cj Howard
“You took her to a bed and breakfast for the weekend? You… you two are having an affair now?” Justin asked incredulously.
Cameron ran his hand over the back of his neck. “Yeah… it’s kind of gone that way.” He sighed and looked over at his friend.
Justin blinked and sighed, planting his hands on his hips. “Look, you’re a grown man and you can do what you want, but I have to tell you, I really don’t think this is a good idea. I mean, the woman is carrying your child, Cam. I really don’t think you should be sleeping with her.” He stopped then and closed his eyes, raking his hand through his hair.
“You know, that might be the strangest sounding thing that I’ve ever said, but you know what I meant. She’s your employee. She’s a surrogate mother for you. You’re paying her. I believe in that old rule that you never mix business with pleasure. It’s just a bad combination. It leads to all kinds of things, and none of the things that it leads to are good.”
“I know you’re trying to look out for me, but I’ve kind of been seeing her. I mean, it didn’t start out that way. It started out with us just being friends and spending time together, and well… one thing led to another and here we are. We’re…” he paused, wondering just what it was that they were.
“You’re not even sure what you are because there isn’t a nice name for what you are. She’s your employee, Cam. Listen, I know it’s none of my damn business, but I’m your best friend, so I’m going to say it straight to you, because I know sure as hell that no one else is going to. You can’t do this. You’re using her. What are you going to do when she has the baby, stop seeing her and walk away from her? You hired her to carry your kid, she did it, you slept with her along the way, and now that the kid’s here, which is coming up fast I’ll remind you, you’re just going to say thanks and take the kid and leave her behind?
Or let’s look at another option here, you stay with her. So, then what, you’re a happy family? You aren’t in this for a full family, Cameron, and you know it. You can’t even call her your girlfriend right now. You won’t even say that, and give her at least that title, so what’s going to happen when she has that kid? Think about that Cameron. You’re a good man, and I know you wouldn’t want to hurt anyone on purpose. You’re being selfish as hell right now and it has to stop.” Justin shook his head and looked away from Cameron.
Cameron sighed and sank down, sitting on a large stone at the side of the trail where they were hiking. “You’re right. I know you’re right. I just… god I can’t get enough of her. It’s like I breathed her in and I don’t want to breath her back out again. Do you get that? I don’t know what’s going to happen later. You’re right though, I’m not looking for a whole new family. That isn’t part of my plan, it was just for the heir, but even that hasn’t gone right. I let myself get too close to Jasmine. I did. I know I shouldn’t have.”
“No, you shouldn’t have. You’re not going to do anything permanent with her, or even long term. You never should have started. Not with her. There are so many women that you could have, Cam… and you choose the one who’s carrying your baby because you hired her to do it. There’s just no way that this could end well. She’s going to wind up getting hurt, and you’re going to be the cause of it.”
Justin’s voice dropped down and he grew quiet. “I don’t like saying anything like that to you, but I know you have to hear it, and I know no one else will say it. Hell, no one else probably even knows about it but me. Cameron, you’re better than this. You’re far better than this. Don’t do that to her.” He looked back over at his best friend and waited until Cameron raised his eyes and looked at his friend.
“You’re right. When I get back, next time I talk to her I’ll tell her that we shouldn’t have gone that far. She’ll understand. We’ll just cut it off at this point, and have the baby and be done. I’ll make it simple.” He looked at his friend in earnest. “Hurting her is the last thing in the world that I would ever do.”
“Then end it now and let her heal over the next few months before she has that baby.” Justin told him with a kinder voice.
He nodded. “That’s good advice, Justin, and I’m glad that you said something. I hadn’t thought that far ahead. In fact, neither one of us did. We were both too wrapped up in right now.”
“So, change it. Make it right.” Justin said as he began to walk up the trail again.
“I will. I’ll do it when I get back.” Cameron said as he followed his friend along the trail.
***
Jasmine drove down the winding road that twisted and turned through towering redwoods and forests of other kinds of trees, past houses and ranches and the occasional roadside café or gas station.
She pulled up the driveway to Kelly’s home and saw her out on a far pasture, driving a small tractor. She honked her car horn and Kelly waved to her, bringing the tractor to a stop and hopping down off of it.
Kelly strode in across the field toward her house as Jasmine walked up to the front porch. Kelly met her there a few minutes later, giving her a big hug after she pulled off her sun hat and gloves.
“This is a sweet surprise,” Kelly grinned as they walked into the house, “what’s got you over here today? I’m glad to see you, but we’re having lunch the day after tomorrow, so something must be up if you’re over here this early. Can I get you anything? I have berry and herb infused water in the refrigerator, and I know you’d love it.”
“That sounds good.” Jasmine answered as Kelly headed over to her refrigerator.
They sat down together a few minutes later on the sofa in Kelly’s sunroom, overlooking her orchard and a small brook that rolled and tumbled down the hill near it.
“Okay. What’s going on?” Kelly asked again, looking at Jasmine.
“It’s something that’s kind of on my mind… I need an outside perspective on it, if you don’t mind.” She gave her best friend a little smile.
“Of course, I don’t mind. One outside perspective coming up.” Kelly winked at her.
“Well, it’s Cameron. We… we’ve still been seeing each other as much as we were, or more even, and things have kind of changed between us.” She looked down into her glass of ice water and concentrated on the bits of berries floating in it.
Kelly’s eyes narrowed. “What’s changed?” she asked with a note of apprehension in her voice.
“Well, we’ve been close, we are kind of… dating, I guess. Anyway, he asked me to go with him out of town for a weekend last weekend, and I thought about and at first I thought I wouldn’t. I thought that it probably wouldn’t be a good idea, but then I gave in because it sounded like so much fun and I just love spending time with him. So I said yes, and we went.” She chewed on her lower lip and looked over at her best friend.
Kelly sighed. “You went out of town with him for the weekend?”
“Yes.” Jasmine answered quietly. “He took me on a train to a little bed and breakfast in this tiny town south of here on the coast. We had a gorgeous room, and it was so romantic and sweet, and…” Jasmine trailed off and Kelly took a long slow breath in and finished her sentence for her.
“And you were intimate with him.” .
“Yes.” Jasmine answered with a sigh.
“So, what is the perspective that you need from me? What’s stuck in your brain?” Kelly asked, not offering any other commentary or judgment.
“Well, I knew that I wanted to do it going in, but now I’ve had some time to think about it, and I’m not entirely sure that I should be doing anything like it at all. I mean, we haven’t talked about it really. We haven’t said what we are; whether we are a couple or anything, and we haven’t said what we want to do or what we want to be to each other.
We just kind of went ahead and did what we want, rather than discussing any of it first. And now I’m not sure about where it could go.” Jasmine lifted her glass and brought it to her lips, taking a long drink of it.
“Where do you want it to go?” Kelly asked, watching
her closely.
“I’m not sure. I think it could go a few ways. I could have the baby and give her to him and then he could stop seeing me, and I’ll be on my own. Or, if he doesn’t want a girl, and right now he doesn’t know that I’m carrying a girl, he could decide that he doesn’t want her because she’s a girl, and he’s so hell bent on having a son, and he could just walk away from us both and then I would be a single mother. That’s a possibility.
Or… maybe, he could decide that he wants to be in a serious relationship with me and then we’d wind up together, but I don’t think that’s going to happen. He seems to be shying away from anything serious. He likes being friends with me. Maybe we’ll wind up just being friends with benefits or something. I don’t know what to do with this. It’s kind of a confusing situation.” Jasmine looked over at Kelly again, and Kelly leaned forward and looked directly in to Jasmine’s eyes.
“It’s a mess, honey. That’s what it is. I warned you already about getting involved with him. It’s really not a good idea. I said it wasn’t the last time we talked about him, and I’m saying it again now. It’s not a good idea. He’s a temporary situation for you. He’s not going to be a permanent situation. You’re having his baby because he’s paying you to perform that service for him.
I’ll tell you exactly what I think about this. I’m adamantly against it. It’s going to be over in four months and then what are you going to do? You’re going to be busy with the flower shop, and he’s going to take the baby, and that will be that. You two aren’t going to see each other again.” Kelly spoke honestly, but kindly.
“And now this business with it being a girl? That shouldn’t be an issue for him, and if it is, then it tells you that he’s a chauvinist and you don’t want to be in his life anyway. Think about this, Jasmine. There’s not really any way that it can have a good outcome. You need to think of yourself and you need to think of that little one that you are carrying. If he isn’t sure what he wants to do with you right now, if he isn’t sure about you two being a couple right now, then he’s not going to be sure about it later.
Don’t take on a problem that you don’t need. This is an unnecessary headache that could turn into a huge heartache. You’re such a smart girl. You’re so smart… really you are. Think about this with your head and leave your heart out of it. There is no place for him in your life on a personal level. You just finish up the pregnancy and you have the baby and you give it to him and go on with your life.
That’s been the plan all along. If he is stupid enough to reject that baby because she’s a girl, then you keep her and we will raise her, and I’ll help you and you can run your flower shop. But don’t look for anything else, or you’ll be setting yourself up for a failure and a huge broken heart.” Kelly reached her hand out to Jasmine and Jasmine took it, holding it.
“I know that you’re right. I do. In my head… there’s no question, but if I’m being honest with myself then I have to admit that I am falling for him, and I don’t think that there’s any way that I can stop that.” Jasmine said quietly.
Kelly shook her head. “You have to. You have to stop it. You can’t continue with this. Jasmine, you have to end this thing with him right away. Have the baby with him, fine, but that’s it. Don’t you do anything else with him at all from here forward.”
Jasmine listened to Kelly and nodded her head. “I’m going to try. I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but I do know that you’re right, and I’m just going to have to try.”
She sipped her water and looked out of the sunroom to the countryside outside. The little girl inside her moved and kicked, and she placed one hand on her belly, rubbing it and comforting the baby there. She knew that she was going to have to figure it out and change it.
Kelly was right. Cameron hadn’t made any kind of promise to her about what they were or what they were going to be. It might even be true that he was using her, though she couldn’t see him doing that. If he was using her, then she was using him just as much, and it was a fair trade. It wasn’t a good one, but it was a fair one.
Jasmine knew that she had let herself get carried away with all of the romance that seemed to be happening between them, and she knew that there wasn’t any way that it could go forward. Not in a permanent way; a way that she could count on and rely on. Kelly had mentioned what kind of man he really was if he didn’t want his own child just because she was a girl, and if that was the case, then she knew that she wouldn’t want to be with him at all.
She was going to have to tell him that their child was a girl, and see what his reaction was, and she was going to have to try to stop everything that was growing between them, because there was no place for it grow, and no way for it to grow forward.
“You’ll make it through this, dearest.” Kelly gave her hand a squeeze. “No matter what, you’ll make it through this and I’ll be with you all the way.”
Knowing that she wasn’t alone gave Jasmine a good deal more confidence about the situation, and about herself. She would make it through, somehow.
Chapter6
Jasmine had decided that the best way to start to get over her feelings for Cameron would be to stop seeing him so much, and when she did see him, to keep their conversations strictly to discussions about the baby.
She told herself that she could do it. She told herself that she had to do it. When she got an unexpected call four days after she had gotten back from her weekend with Cameron at the bed and breakfast, she thought that maybe it was the universe listening to her about what she needed.
“Hello?” she asked, answering the phone with a note of concern. The call was from her doctor’s office. At first, she was worried about the baby, and thought that perhaps something had come up that might not be good.
“Jasmine?” she heard the familiar voice speak her name.
“Dr. Clayton?” She closed her eyes and squeezed them shut tight, realizing too late, “I mean, Andrew… what can I do for you? Is everything alright?” she asked, hoping that it was nothing to do with the baby’s health.
“Yes, everything is fine. I just… I know we’ve talked about it when you’ve come in to see me, but I thought that perhaps if I asked you when you aren’t laying on an examination table in front of me, it might seem a little less strange. I was hoping that I could convince you to come have dinner with me, please.” He sounded happy to hear her, and hopeful that she would say yes to him for once.
She blinked in surprise. She hadn’t been expecting his call at all. “Oh!” she tried to think for a moment as he waited for her. Her first instinct was to tell him yet again that she wasn’t interested, and that she wouldn’t go, but then before she could say it, her conversation with Kelly came back into her mind and she realized that Andrew might very well be just what she needed.
He was the hidden answer to her getting over Cameron. If she started seeing him, then she thought that perhaps she might not be so interested in Cameron, and she could also have some sort of justifiable reason to tell Cameron that they couldn’t see each other anymore, at least romantically.
“You know what, Andrew, you’ve really been persistent in this and I think that maybe I might give you the chance that you’ve been after for so long. I know I said I wasn’t ready and that the time wasn’t right, but I think that might be changing, and perhaps the time really is right now to see you the way that you would like to see me.” She took a deep breath. “I will go out to dinner with you.”
She could hear the surprise and delight in his voice as he spoke to her. “When are you free? I can go anytime.”
“Friday night would be best for me.” She said with a little pinch to her heart. Friday night had become kind of a go to night for her and Cameron to go out and spend time together. Friday and Saturday nights, she realized, and taking one of those away from him to spend the time with another man was exactly the kind of thing that might work to put some much-needed space between her and Cameron.
“Friday is great! May I pi
ck you up at your home at five?” he asked with a tone of excitement in his voice.
“Yes, that would be fine, and Andrew, thank you for trying so much and for not giving up on this. It might work out really nicely.” She smiled, hoping that he could tell just how genuine she was being with him.
“I’m so glad that I didn’t give up. You’re worth being with, and that would be obvious to anyone who really cared about you and who had any common sense.” He laughed lightly. “I’ll be looking forward to it until then. See you Friday.”
They said goodbye and she ended the call, wondering how it was going to go, seeing her baby doctor while she was pregnant with another man’s child. She didn’t know too much about Andrew, but she was determined that she was going to find out all that she could about him, and she hoped that it would be enough to sway her attention to him from Cameron. She was certain that he was hoping exactly the same thing.
Friday came and she dressed with great care, taking the extra time to make herself look good. She wore a light lavender colored dress and styled her hair, making sure that the dark curls around her head were shining and framing her face perfectly. She took her time doing her makeup and making sure that it was perfect.
