by Scott, D. D.
The snow storm still raging outside, sending branches full of snow battering against the great room windows matched the storm blowing a gazillion tiny flakes of ideas through Audrey’s head. She focused on the fire spitting, hissing and crackling as Damian tossed additional logs onto the starters.
Their handlers were now all over the property, inside and out, securing both the perimeter and the home itself, while the death-defying paps who’d ventured out into the blizzard would be literally stuck in their driveway if they could even make it down the lane.
Being as they’d be snowed in tonight and probably a good portion of the next day too, Roxy and Jules, along with Zayne and Cody and The Mom Squad, had gone to the kitchen to start whipping up a ton of food to feed all these people.
When Audrey stopped to take account of all the amazing resources she had within a little more than arms reach, she was able to relax a bit. She knew how to work a crowd, and that’s what she had to do. For her safety and livelihood, as well as that of the man who meant more to her than anything, and now their baby too, she had to keep her head in this new game.
“So I guess our first test of this new plan will be at our first doctor’s appointment next week, right?” Damian asked, using the poker from the hearth tools set to spear the logs and once more make the fire roar.
“Sounds like it,” Audrey said, glad to be back on baby talk for a bit.
Returning to the sofa, Damian took Audrey’s Kindle off the coffee table and handed it to her. No techno guy, which was fine with her, as she’d much rather he dote on her instead of gadgets, he hadn’t attempted to use her E-reader yet, but she’d have to give him a lesson now that he’d have baby stuff to learn too.
“Pull up that baby book you got in there, and let’s see what we need to do first,” Damian said, a small grin almost coming across his lips, but so small it disappeared almost as soon as it presented itself.
At his interest in their pregnancy, Audrey’s heart squeezed with a tight little push of joy. Knowing he didn’t want this anymore than, and if not a whole bunch less than she did, but seeing him give it his all, confirmed again that she’d really done good finding and falling for this amazing guy.
He truly was an incredible man. Such a wonderful and kind human being. She’d never seen someone who could give the kind of unconditional love, without a price tag attached, that he could.
Audrey opened the leather cover of her Kindle and pressed the Home button, watching as the WHAT TO EXPECT title appeared on the screen. Toggling down to the title and pressing the center of the toggle button, she moved the reader over so Damian could see it better too.
Waiting on the page to pop-up was just a mere couple of seconds at most but it felt like an eternity of uncertainty waiting at their fingertips.
Seeing the “Making the First Appointment” section fill the screen, Audrey felt little bubbles of unease flow through her upper body.
“That’s us,” Damian said, taking the side of the cover holding the Kindle. “Here, let me hold it. You probably shouldn’t be lifting too much.”
“Damian, I’m not quite to that point yet,” she said unable to stifle a giggle.
Damian’s face filled with a light red that gushed up from his neck then took over his cheeks.
“Well, just in case. I told you you’re going to start taking it easy and letting me take care of you,” he said, crimson still burning his cheeks.
Audrey showed him how to use the turn-the-page bars then read aloud, “The home pregnancy test I just took came back positive. When should I schedule the first visit to my doctor?”
• • •
“Here we go,” Damian said settling in for the read, but not before covering Audrey’s shoulders with her favorite blanket.
Damian was sooo relieved to note, on the very first page they read together, that regardless of when you get in to see your doctor for the first time, you should start acting pregnant as soon as you see the positive read-out on the home pregnancy test.
Ah hah, he thought. Audrey was sooo screwed.
He’d be waiting on her hand and foot. And for once, there wouldn’t be a damn thing she could do about it.
Audrey may not listen when people told her to do things, but if she read it in a book, she followed it. Ohhh yeahhh. He had her.
But with every paragraph they read, he grew more and more worried.
The book mentioned she should be on some kind of prenatal vitamins plus get a list of diet do’s and don’ts as well as a list of medications she could take.
Damn there was just sooo much he hadn’t even thought of.
What if she shouldn’t have had that meatloaf?
Also, he didn’t like it that she was automatically going to be a high-risk pregnancy because of both their ages and the stress in their life. Which also meant she had to get into the doctor immediately. She could not wait ‘til some appointment just opened up, and he’d see to that.
Now the due date thing seemed to be a mystery, because of Audrey being irregular, so that would be interesting to try to get a grasp on. And he had to chuckle a bit, because it was also hard to figure because they’d had such an active sex life.
Damn, he hoped that continued.
Maybe he’d try to read up on that real soon, perhaps skipping a few chapters ‘til he found that section.
Who was he kidding? He was gonna read this whole God damn book. There wasn’t any of this he was going to miss out on.
Chapter Seven
Following almost two hours of reading with Damian, Audrey’s body was numb. Numb, in part, from sitting on the damn couch for so long. She could hardly feel her feet when she stood up, putting Damian in a panic, flipping through the book to see if that was a known pregnancy issue.
She was numb too from the overwhelming realization that she didn’t know her ass from a huge hole in the ground about anything babies or having one.
And talk about overwhelmed…how she was going to keep this a secret for the first two trimesters, as instructed by their handlers, was a part of this new game plan damn near doing-in her relatively strong nerves.
Leaving Damian on the couch, where he was beyond anxiously ready to dive into the chapter for Dad’s, Audrey headed for the kitchen to escape What to Expect-ville for a nice hot cup of cocoa.
That’s what she needed…cocoa and commercials. Hopefully they had her first need in a mug, topped with marshmallows, and as for the second, she could already hear the TV blaring so she was good to go there too.
Audrey had first fallen in love with commercials when she was about five while watching them with her favorite nanny Violet. She and Violet scored them, from one being a real stinker to ten being a hit. Even now, Audrey could sooo nail one of Jay Leno’s Jay-Walking skits where he had random people put the product with the jingle or brand tag-line.
And few things got her going like all the fabulous Super Bowl Ads. There wasn’t a Super Bowl she’d missed since, well, she couldn’t say when. And she anxiously waited for the day-after-the-game polls to see which commercials drew the most viewer responses. Whether the ads got good or bad ratings, positive or negative reactions, she learned a ton from the viewers’ feedback.
Feedback that would come in handy as she set out to re-brand herself now that her cover had been blown.
Maybe it was time to be Alexandra McCall. Maybe not. The vote was still out on that one.
Although she was sure, after stepping into the kitchen and watching all the faces of her extended family turn their focus on her, she was about to get results whether she was ready for ‘em or not.
She averted their silent inquiries, and after making it to a chair at the table where Jules had already set a steaming hot mug of cocoa overflowing with bobbing marshmallows, she thanked the gods that hadn’t given up on her. And the cinnamon chip scone, oozing butter next to her mug, was also super heavenly and another sign that she was still in the gods’ favor.
Sometimes life was just so strange. Here
she was super power ad exec and marketing genius, and she was reeling from the spotlight being turned on her.
But she’d always been shy. Unlike her playboy brothers, who ate up every piece of attention they brought on themselves, Audrey had never wanted to stand-out or be considered privileged and different. She wanted to be normal, not the filthy-rich offspring of a Wall Street tycoon. ‘Course now that filthy had all new meaning for her family, she really wished she could just disappear.
“How ya doin’, Honey?” Jules’ Aunt Tulip, Sex Therapist and now Aphrodisiac Produce Connoisseur, was the first to break the uneasy silence filling the room.
“Hangin’ in there, Tulip. Barely. But there,” Audrey said, letting the warm scone and cocoa bolster her spirit.
“You know, we were all sayin’ that perhaps you should just stay in hiding for awhile. At least ‘til things calm down a bit,” Tulip said as she began a nice, slow massage of Audrey’s shoulders and neck.
Audrey rolled and stretched her neck and head with the movement of Tulip’s adept hands then sighed, trying to balance for herself the outcomes inherent in Tulip’s suggestion.
“You know me, Tulip. All of you do. And you know how much I’d like for that to be my M. O. But maybe I’ve run from this long enough. Maybe that’s what makes me look guilty instead of innocent.”
There. She’d said what had been burdening her since the day her handlers had shown up, unannounced and unwanted.
Audrey had become awful good at hiding. And hell, if she were honest, she’d been hiding long before her father’s downfall. She’d been hiding since she was a kid being drug into her parent’s Wall Street firm.
Her brothers had both thrived on and begged to spend time on the McCall’s trading room floor and had grown-up to have permanent seats there calling all the shots of the firm’s legitimate trading business.
But Audrey had gone in there as a kid throwing a fit. She despised the intense pressure, the huge highs and lows of one day in the life of a professional trader.
Little did she know what was going on two floors below them in her father’s scheming underworld of feeder groups.
“I see what you’re saying, Audie,” Roxy piped in, the heels of her boots, today’s custom pair of fabulous-ness, clicking against the hardwood floors of the kitchen as she paced off her thoughts.
“Do y’all remember my first ad campaign? Well…sorry, I know some of you don’t,” Audrey said, motioning to everyone in her new Music City extended family, “but it was…”
“Are you referring to the one you did for your father’s firm? What was it something like Running with the Big Bulls, right?” Damian asked walking thru the kitchen, grabbing a scone and sitting down in the chair next to hers.
Audrey hadn’t known ‘til she’d heard his voice that he’d quit reading and joined them.
And she was always amazed and flattered when he came up with some piece of her past that she’d told him during one of their many, truly great conversations. He always remembered everything. Every detail she told him, he listened to. What a lucky girl she was.
“Yes, that’s the one, Baby,” she said then smiled and reached for his hand, squeezing it to let him know how much she appreciated his support and interest.
“Unfortunately the same one that’s now spoofed on most late night shows as yeah, what do they say, running with the big bulls as in bull-shitters,” Roxy said then harrumphed.
“Honestly, Rox, can’t you ever just keep your mouth shut,” Jules said, walking by and pinching her arm through her bedazzled western top.
“Ouch.” Roxy rubbed her arm and quickly threw-on her trademark pout.
“No worries, Rox. You’ve kind of lead me where I want to go with this idea anyway. So thanks,” Audrey said, always one to appreciate Roxy’s bravado, wishing at times, especially now, that she had more of Roxy’s moxie.
“See? I did good,” Roxy said sticking out her tongue at Jules.
“Whatever,” Jules said rolling her eyes. “Audie’s just too sweet to put you in your place.”
“What I need to be doing is carving out a sweet place for me. The real me. Alexandra McCall. I’ve got nothing to hide. I did nothing wrong. So why am I running and assuming to be someone I’m not?”
“Because that’s what we need you to do,” Roman came into the room, Zoey following close behind him.
Audrey didn’t miss the fact that Zoey remained silent but seemed to be considering what Audrey was saying.
Next to Damian, Jules and Roxy, Zoey knew her better than anyone. And she knew Audrey never missed when she was building a marketing campaign for a client. She could damn well build one dazzling package for herself too, mirroring any of Roxy’s bling-bedazzled creations.
“Maybe Audrey has a point. But I don’t know, Roman, what’s your take?” Damian rubbed his thumbs over Audrey’s knuckles and looked in her eyes with his all-serious, ocean blues tossing with the waves of his uncertainty.
“My take is as I’ve already stated. Audrey will remain in hiding until we can’t cover-up your pregnancy any longer. So I’d give it what…I’m not good on this stuff. Zoey? Six months about?” Roman inquired of his partner who still wasn’t looking like she agreed with him.
“Six months. Yes. But I do want to consider, after that point, that we take a look at Audrey’s ideas. She’s damn good at what she does, and if anyone can rebuild or rebrand someone it’s her. I think she could make it happen. No. I know she could.” Zoey sat in the empty chair across from Damian and nodded her head, very matter of factly, as if there was absolutely no doubt she’d said the right thing.
“I agree. One hundred and fifty percent, I agree. You gotta sit this one out for awhile, Audie,” Jules spoke-up in the soft but assured tone she used when backing one of Audrey’s ideas for her own bakery and catering company. “And with Roxy already drawing designs for your new cover-up get-ups, no worries, you’re in good hands.”
“Fine,” Audrey said, knowing she wasn’t going to win this argument for at least six months.
But after that, all bets were off, and they were all playing by her rules. By then, with just three months left ‘til their baby was due, she wasn’t focusing on Roxy’s boutique and belt buckles or Jules bakery and gourmet cupcakes and scones. Uh-huh.
The product she’d be “selling” after that was her new identity…as the old Alexandra McCall.
Having everyone against her wasn’t an issue. She’d kind of grown-up with that. And now, after her father had been exposed and was waiting trial, the entire world was against her because of her family pedigree.
Criticism, thank God, had always motivated her.
Although once upon a time, it only came from her family. Now, it was on every television station or satellite radio program and in every tabloid news magazine rack.
Yeah. She’d always grown-up “in the show”, her parents feeding off the drama their lifestyle of wealth and privilege brought to their doorsteps — the doorsteps of all six of the homes they used to own on three continents as well as the deck of their outrageously huge yacht.
But what a joke to think that kind of life brought closeness and a strong family bond.
The McCall’s never functioned as the picture-perfect, hard-working family their official portraits and magazine shots portrayed.
And actually, Audrey could now thank the powers that be that that was the case.
Fortunately for her, nepotism in their family stopped with her brothers. Although her father still paid them miserable wages for the jobs they did.
Audrey, on the other hand, had always made her own money. She’d refused her trust fund. And had carefully scrutinized and accepted only her own clients, never those her father had tried to convince her to take.
She’d amassed a small fortune. But it truly was her fortune. None of it was McCall feeder money.
In fact, that was the only reason she’d agreed to do the Witness Protection Program. Originally, when all this went down, she was
n’t afraid for her safety. She just thought it would be a way to rebuild her client list, since many of them had bailed on her due to her father’s fall. They simply couldn’t afford to remain associated with the McCall name. Although, many of them still contacted Audrey for marketing advice.
“Okay then. That’s settled. Good,” Roman said then suddenly, in a very strange way, with a sudden look of concern taking hold of his angular features, reached for his gun and stood up from the bar stool he’d been seated on.
Damian hadn’t missed the change in Roman’s demeanor either.
“What is it?” He asked shoving back his chair and rising to apparently follow Damian toward the bay window.
“Get down. Now,” Roman ordered in an eerie-soft but firm command.
“What?” Audrey asked.
But before she could assess the situation, Damian was damn near shoving her under the table.
“Just do as he says,” Damian said going under the table with her and shielding her body with his.
The next few moments came and went as if Audrey were in one helluva nightmare. Except she heard the roar of what sounded like motorcycle engines coming at ‘em from every direction - loud, large engines that were way too close and unaltered to be manufactured in her dreams.
But that couldn’t be right. They were in the middle of a blizzard for God’s sake.
Then she felt the ground shake, followed by pounding on the windows and hollering from the security team positioned outside the house.
“You’ve got to be fucking kiddin’ me?” Cody yelled.
“Damn if those assholes don’t have snowmobiles charging at us,” Zayne said. “Shit.”
“If I get my hands on those bastards,” Damian started to get out from under the table, then stopped, as if he were torn in how best to protect her.
Evidently deciding to stay by her side, he repositioned himself over her body and cupped her head in his hands.
She may have never been scared for her life in this whole entire ordeal. But she was now.
