by Rie Warren
Sitting him on the couch, I laid it all out even though he must’ve known soon as he walked in. I wasn’t spreading to doublewide dimensions for the hell of it. Palmer had seen me pregnant before.
He tore off his cap, mashed it in his fist. “Aw hell, Shay.” He fumed around the room. “This is why you wanted me to come over? This? To tell me you ain’t broken after all? So I can know another man’s got no problem gettin’ you pregnant?”
I folded my arms over my belly. “It’s not like that, Palmer. I’m not askin’ you to like it or even accept it, but I had to tell you.”
“You told me. Can I go?”
“Palmer…”
“I wanna know, what does he do for you that I didn’t?”
Jesus. “The truth?”
He nodded.
“He talks to me. He listens to me. He’s in love with me.”
“Pretty much everything I stopped doin’ in the end, huh?” A worn smile dented his mouth.
“You’re a good man, Palmer. You won’t be alone.” My words came out thick and sad.
Spinning toward the door, he left. At the window–a rare soft snow falling outside–I sagged when he kicked the tire of his truck and pounded the door until he climbed in and roared off.
The cold wind howled through the entryway. The front door swung wide, delivering pretty white snowflakes onto the mat. They melted like the tears on my face.
Closing up the house, I found my phone. Curled in front of the fire, I called Reardon.
Late into the night, I listened to his voice.
* * * *
Five months came and went. Five months and one week was a milestone for me. We didn’t celebrate. We weren’t stupid. Five months was nothing. We were scared, in the cold room with the heated gel on my tummy, while the ultrasound created a wavy picture of our baby. I couldn’t swallow; Reardon’s breaths were shallow. Our little nugget sucked its thumb. Exhaling, this new daddy bent forward, his mouth in the curve of my shoulder, his shoulders shaking.
Both of us always waitin’ for the other shoe to drop.
We didn’t find out the gender–our way of cheating fate until my far off due date. Reardon told the technician our decision. “It doesn’t matter either way, as long as Shay and the baby are healthy.”
By March, the flutters baby tickled me with–the ones joining those flirty butterfly wing-whispers Reardon caused–turned into sharp kicks and high waves across my tummy.
At breakfast, the second time it happened, I bent forward with an, “Ooof!”
Reardon sped to my side. “What? What is it?”
“Baby’s got a…” I shifted around while it pressed on my shrinking bladder. “Oh! Baby’s got good aim.”
Lifting my shirt, he waited. A tiny foot took shape from inside out, and I grinned through a grimace.
Reardon’s hand was right there, caressing. “You like a little foot massage, sweetheart? That’s alright, your momma does too.”
I gulped and blinked before bringing him to me for one hell of a kiss.
Bedtimes found us curled together with him leaning on his side, his lips pressed to my belly. Caressing the circumference, he spoke real low and real quiet, secrets of a father already in love.
One evening, he looked up from beside me with his deep blue eyes and overripe lips, with his dimples and disheveled hair and the beginnings of a beard because he hadn’t shaved in the morning. Love and awe shone from his flushed cheeks, his bright eyes. The same sort of devotion I felt, reflecting right back at me.
* * * *
Being all spring-like–if not exactly sprightly on my feet–I took to the new beginnings idea.
Palmer and I had been cordial enough to get our house sold. We didn’t make all that much of a profit, but in this Depression-Recession economy–or whatever the hell the pork barrel politicos on the Hill were calling this sad state of affairs–we were lucky to unload it at all.
Investing a portion of my half in setting up a roadside flower stand, I started my own cottage industry. Reardon wanted to be a silent investor. I said I never knew him to be silent, not in business and not in the bedroom. He took it graciously, with grumbles, sulks, and sexy pouts.
Hell if I didn’t get a warning letter the first day I opened the stand on my front lawn. In the Old Village. I found the Cease and Desist order flattened amongst bills and flyers in my mailbox. Shit was signed by none other than Sharon Hawke.
I’d be damned if I’d bend my knees to her, not after what she’d done to my family. ’Sides, curtseying was reserved for much higher-uppers, like Miss Charlotte. I didn’t attend no Town Meetings, but I followed the minutes in the Moultrie News. True to form, she was a mongrel with a chew toy between her teeth, tearing up and down about rules this and rules that.
So when Reardon offered to take her off my hands by greasing some palms, I gleefully accepted.
Constance, the constant vigilante conscience, definitely disapproved.
Score.
In the Thursday edition, there was nary a mention of me or my eyesore. That evening, Reardon didn’t get a chance to sneak up on me because I was waiting. Naked. In bed.
Clothes hitting the floor, he was hugely smug, hugely hung, and very ready. “I take it you got the paper today.”
Sighing when he slid inside me–because I was ready too, so, so ready–I mentioned against his mouth, “Mmm, sure did, baby.”
“I won’t stand for anyone messing with my woman.” His hands drifted to my nipples, making me arch and moan.
“Just you.”
Lunging quickly, he locked his fingers in mine above my head. “Damn straight.”
* * * *
Five months was long past. When six and seven delivered no catastrophes, we began rejoicing, and redecorating. Getting the nursery in order put me in a dream-like state, almost a fairy tale, vanquishing the miseries of cankles and heartburn.
Patterns were chosen. Momma sewed them. We indulged in stuffed toys and soft carpets, sunset colors and frothy canopies.
When painting day came, I was ordered from the house. Two hours later, I stood in the doorway to the nursery, regarding a bare-chested, old-sweats wearing Reardon.
“Ain’t you done yet?”
He swiveled, marking his arm in ochre. “You’re not supposed to be here.”
“There’s such a thing as too much prudence.” Stepping inside, I tugged the paintbrush from his hand.
Side to, in limp sweats, his erection visibly formed. His husky laugh confirmed it. “Don’t think you know the meaning of prudence.”
We watched one another in a moment shifting from playful to passionate. We covered each other in multicolored smears. Gasping cries, bowed bodies, I was so swollen and tight, he was never harder. On his thighs, facing away, I held onto the windowsill, spilling my hair back over his face when he sat forward to whisper wicked dirty things against the nape of my neck and twist the beads of my breasts. In my hands, his balls were heavy, full. My fingers wandered to where we joined, stroking out his come.
He dropped ragged kisses down my back, and his thumb on my clitoris made me holler with release.
Taking us to our sides, Reardon found me staring at the toy Junior had dropped off. A tiny tin railroad set. “What’re you thinking, Shay?”
The crib was carved lovingly in lacey filigree, handmade by Augie. Looking around the room, I gazed at each precious piece given to us. The windowpane quilt Temperance had crafted, Momma’s cross-stitching, the old rocker from The Drugstore–the one Addy’s momma used to sit in, dispensing her wisdom. “We’re very lucky, Reardon.”
There was no announcement–Reardon made sure my pregnancy didn’t get an expose in the newspapers or the glossy magazines he sometimes graced, although occasional photos of us did sometimes make the cut–but still gifts from well-wishers arrived. Mt. Pleasant word-of-mouth worked faster than a press release.
I saved everything. The nights he was away, I spread cuttings and scans, ribbons and gewgaws and ol
d photos and new ones on the farmhouse table. With the speakerphone on, I described everything to him as I scrapbooked. One for our baby, one for Will, and one for us. Each night I tucked them on the shelf in our bedroom. The mirror had moved from his penthouse to our ceiling, occasionally getting a gloriously naughty unveiling. But in the corner, our memories–old and new–sat side-by-side with the album I’d made for Delilah, pressed cuttings from her flowerbed at the old house decorating the cover.
Easter approached and tired didn’t cover the half of it. The babe kept me awake all night. Pushing at my bladder, sticking an elbow into my stomach, causing the cake I’d eaten at bedtime to yurp back into my throat with stinging reflux for three straight hours. I rolled from one side to the other–it took a mighty heave to accomplish that feat–and still found no comfort. My hips cramped so much no number of pillows between my thighs soothed the ache. My tits? Shee-it, they needed their own damn time zone, forget about zip code.
Reardon was on the West Coast, and I felt like a beached whale. Blubbery and bitchy. Even my swishy maternity wardrobe didn’t make me feel better. I wanted to stuff rolls of raw cookie dough into my mouth and pass out for a day or two, but I couldn’t, because of salmonella and crap.
Waddling to The Drugstore the Saturday before Easter, I figured I could help Addy with the lunchtime crowd. Do some pay it forward. Have some company. Lord knew they all did a lot for me. Helping me set up in the morning, delivering snacks and lunch, putting everything away at night when I was so wiped out all I could do was sit on the sofa with a sweet tea in hand, rubbing my tummy, waiting for Reardon to come in and knead the small of my back.
Meeting me at the door, Addy shooed me away with a box of pastries. So not the thing to give the ginormous fat-ass, feeling-sorry-for-herself chick. In the middle of Pitt Street, I shrieked, “You can take your pastries and shove ’em where the sun don’t shine. Matter of fact, you can kiss my–”
Broad smile over black arms crossed over her broom, Addy called out a robust, “Happy Easter!”
I went on my way, complaining, “I was gonna say, Kiss my keister.”
* * * *
The Blessing of the Fleet on the grounds of Alhambra Hall became the Day of Oh My Aching Feet.
What with ten thousand-plus people descending on our quaint side of town, it was either lock the doors and bar the windows or join ’em for an afternoon of seafood and send-offs.
It was mid-May, and my jugs were more like gallons. Hell, I could use my own personal flotation devices to make sure those shrimp boats stayed afloat. The sun beat down from the outside, and baby heated me from the inside. I had heartburn, but my heart was filled to bursting.
It was so not an easy breezy CoverGirl moment, and I wouldn’t have traded it for the world.
But a damn bench would’ve provided some much needed relief for my sore feet.
Festooned with flags and nets and streamers, the bedecked shrimp boats paraded past the shores of Alhambra, receiving clergymen’s blessings for a season of prosperity and safety on the open waters.
The Winds of Fortune was followed by Neptune. Mermaid’s Tail swished along with the Sea Witch off its stern, its captain and first mate gliding by, grinning and waving. On deck, Reardon swept over the crowd until his eyes lit on mine. His fingers pressed over his heart. Looking beyond me, he pointed to the Hall.
I scanned the throng of well-wishers on the backside of Alhambra Hall. The bottom portico and upper tier of balconies burst with people. Amidst the red, white, and blue bunting, Badger’s shock of black and white striped hair was unmistakable.
Seeing me, he parted the pastel colored sea with NFL-sized shoulders, hollering, “Hey there, Shay!” He locked his big paws onto my shoulders, grinning in my face before staring at the dome of flesh poking his midriff.
His eyebrows peaked.
I blushed and smiled and shrugged.
His eyes bugging out, he made staring a college-league sporting event. “Damn, girl.”
Already docked, Whistler strode across the lawn, weaving around the seafood vendors’ tents. “Sissss!” came his sibilant shout. Soon as he was within yelling distance, he started conversing with me. “I ever tell you I named that old boat out there after Chanty here?”
His gal Chantal elbowed him in the ribs when he threw an arm around her shoulders. “Might as well call me your old boot while you’re at it, Wayne.”
I murmured to Chantal, “He been in the sauce?”
“Little bit.”
“Where you been keeping yourself, Miss Shay?” Whistler talked over us.
Badger coughed. I placed my hands on my hips, drawing Whistler’s attention to my humongous baby belly.
While Whistler did his fair share of gawking, his friend commented, “’Course Boone told us you were knocked up. Don’t hardly talk about anything else these days.”
“That a fact? Then how come you boys haven’t come out to visit me?”
Whistler gnawed the side of his mustache for a moment before answering. “Y’all pregnant women are…”
“Bitchy.” Badger earned himself an elbow jab from Chantal’s free arm. She was ambidextrous when it came to doling out abuse.
Then she stared at her man until he mumbled, “Was gonna say emotional.”
I laughed at the big boyish buffoons who looked like they wanted to prod my belly to test the pounds per square inch.
Chantal told ’em off, with her handbag over their heads. “She ain’t wearin’ a damn baby suit, you fools!”
Suddenly Whistler whistled tunelessly, Badger broadly grinned, Chantal batted her eyelashes, and a firm wall of man met my back. I melted when his breath ruffled my hair.
“They bothering you?”
“Not near as much as my feet.” I was pitiful.
Scooping me into his arms, Reardon started toward a bench way over yonder in the shade. I squealed and beat his chest.
Chantal called, “He always like this?”
“Yeah.”
“You love it, don’t you?”
I snuggled in. “I love him.”
Reardon’s grip tightened and his strides lengthened, delivering us to the bench.
His kiss made my toes curl, sending tingles from the tips of my breasts to the soles of my feet.
“Can’t keep my hands off you,” he groaned. The glint in his eyes was dangerously passionate.
“I can tell. Ooh, and so can everyone else.” I threw my head back as his lips journeyed down my neck.
A suave voice interrupted. “The lady doth protest too much.”
The lady definitely protested then, telling Augie, “Fuck off, Shakesqueer.”
“I know how tired you indisposed women get, so if you need a hand with anything…” He ogled my man. “And I mean anything, let me know,” he offered, then ambled away.
“Wanna head home?” Reardon asked after I’d done some hefty eye-rolling at Augie’s retreating back.
He carried me all the way, not that it was very far, only half a block and around the bend, but I was no easy armload. For the weight of me and our baby, I felt light in his arms, as I always had.
Over the threshold, he slid me to my feet. “Bedroom. Now.”
I waggled my fingers, swished my hips. “Need I remind you, Mr. Boone, you’re standing on my property? I’ll give the orders.”
Hunting me, he lost his shirt on the way. His trousers were undone, and my jaw went slack at the sight of his wide chest and the arrow of muscle leading from hip to groin. “Yes, ma’am, Miss Greer.”
I flipped his waistband farther open and skipped away. “Come.”
He gave chase. I might’ve moved slowly, but with the slim window open at the end of the passage, a sultry wind whipped the full skirt about my thighs. This was definitely a CoverGirl moment.
In the bedroom, I loosened the bow behind my neck. The bodice of my sundress dropped under my breasts. With a shimmy–and one hand braced on Reardon’s shoulder so I wouldn’t topple over–the dress
skimmed to the floor.
“Damn, Shay. You look good carrying my baby.” His forefinger trailed a line from my neck to my navel. “You’re radiant.”
“It’s called sweat, baby. I don’t care that the good women of Charleston refer to it as perspiration.” I arched an eyebrow. “You make me hot.”
He licked his lips, shucking his shorts.
His powerful body thrummed with life, every inch of him hard and sexy and mine.
I pushed him onto the bed. Relaxing with his arms folded behind his head, his mouth and eyebrows quirked in a wicked dare. Crawling next to him, I pressed light kisses all over his face and neck and jaw until he sought my lips. “Please, Shay.”
Relenting, I eased my tongue into his mouth, nibbling his plush lips, circling lower and lower. My breath over his belly button made him shiver and jerk. My lips passing the pulsing veins running up his lower abdomen from his erection met a twist of his hips and a throaty groan. My tongue darting in and out of the muscled indent of his pelvis found him fisting my hair and his shaft thrusting toward my mouth.
Nuzzling his musky scent, I gave a gritty laugh. “You want somethin’, baby?”
“Your mouth.”
I wet my lips with the tip of my tongue, launching a lusty stare at him. “Where?” My nipples grazed his thighs, his coarse hair abrasive, arousing.
With his fingers wound around his base, he aimed his heavy shaft at my lips. “On my cock.”
Urging him to his side, I laid with my belly nice and comfy against his legs. He fed me his cock, an inch, another few, a couple more until my fingers folded around his, and we slowly moved him in and out.
He brushed the hair from my face, trying not to grip too hard. His features contorted, he watched while I sucked him, licked him, made him slippery and sloppy, my tongue lapping his hot red tip and the sensitive crepe skin under his cockhead.
“God, woman!” He pushed me down, swelling inside my throat, filling my mouth with salty creamy come, only closing his eyes when he drowned in orgasm.
I licked my lips, his penis, the lush maleness of his sacs, leaving nothing to waste.
Reardon played with my nipples, teasing them with light licks and long deep drags from his mouth. His fingers wandered between my legs, into my wet slit.
