Accidental Fiancé

by R. R. Banks

  Could I?

  Five hours later I was pulling back into Rue’s yard. Lights were burning in the windows, so I knew that she was still awake. I let myself in and made my way to the living room where I found her curled up on the couch beneath a blanket, her face calm and peaceful under the flickering light of the TV. I touched a kiss to her lips and her eyes fluttered open.

  “Richard,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

  “I didn’t want to be away from you,” I said. “Not yet.”

  She opened her arms to me and I folded into them, taking my place on the couch so that she sprawled across my chest. I ran my fingers down her back and tried to figure out what she was watching.

  “What are they making?” I asked.

  “Pies,” she said dreamily.

  “They don’t look like pies.”

  “They’re full of meat.”

  Everything felt calm, contented, like this was the way that it was always supposed to be. She knew now that Flora was gone, though I hadn’t told her the full story of what happened. I didn’t want her to feel betrayed or taken advantage of. For now, all that she needed to know was that Flora was not a part of my life any longer. The peaceful quiet was suddenly broken by a whooping sound in the distance followed by what sounded like a low explosion.

  “What the hell was that?” I asked.

  “Probably just some of the guys doing target practice.”

  “At night? That doesn’t seem wise.”

  “They want to make sure that they can still hunt even if they went blind.”

  She said it in complete seriousness, as though it made all the sense in the world.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Of course.”

  “Why did you come back here?”

  She pressed on my chest to lift up so that she could look at me.

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “Why did you come back here? Why did you leave your apartment in the city to come back here?”

  “It’s my home. It was going to be foreclosed on. I needed to save it. That’s why I agreed to be a surrogate.”

  “It was?” I asked, stunned.

  “Yes,” she said. “I needed the money.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me that?”

  “No one ever asked.”

  “Yes, they did. That was literally one of the first things that Ellery asked you during your initial interview. You just said that you had reasons for needing the money. Then you seemed to have a panic attack when he walked out of the room. Maybe that should have tipped me off that you weren’t telling the total truth.”

  Her eyes narrowed at me.

  “How did you know that?”

  Heat burned across my cheeks.

  “I was watching you through a hidden camera,” I admitted.

  “You were what?”

  “I wanted to make sure that I was getting the full picture of each prospective applicant.”

  “So, you spied on us? You let us think that we were alone and then you watched us?”

  She sounded horrified, and I knew that she was justified.

  “Look,” I said, trying to deflect the situation. “That’s not the point. I wish I had known that this was your motivation all along. I could have just bought it for you.”

  “I didn’t want you to.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s my responsibility, not yours. Money doesn’t always just automatically fix everything. My family earned every day in this house, and I wanted to earn it, too. If you had just paid for it, it wouldn’t have had any meaning.”

  I tried to understand, but I couldn’t, so I pushed the thought aside.

  “Now that you’ve paid for it, though, what are you going to do with it?”

  She tilted her head at me.

  “Live in it,” she said.

  “Always?” I asked.

  “That was kind of my plan for the foreseeable future.”

  “Look, you don’t have to do that. And you don’t have to drive so far just to come to the medical center. Let me get an apartment for you in the city. You can live there, be close to everything, and it will make it much easier for all of your appointments especially when the baby gets closer to coming.”

  “I don’t need you to get me an apartment,” she said.

  “But it will be so much better than this.”

  I knew as soon as I said it that I shouldn’t have. I was right back in the position that I had been in on Thanksgiving and she was looking at me with the same disappointment and pain in her eyes.

  “Don’t you have a plane to catch?” she asked, standing up from the couch and disappearing into the bathroom.

  I heard water rushing into the tub and I knew that I had been dismissed.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Rue

  Dear Baby,

  You’re a girl. A girl. I can’t stop saying it enough. I can’t stop thinking about it. I’ve thought of you for so long as just “the baby”, but now I know that you are a little girl. You are going to be so incredibly beautiful. I hope your hair is like your daddy’s. More than anything, though, I hope that you are strong. I hope that there is a little bit of Grammyma in you somewhere. Even if you never know it, she will be there to carry you through, to help you know that you can do anything. Don’t be afraid. Don’t ever be afraid. Even when something scares you, face it down and refuse to be afraid. One day, you will know the difference. At least I hope that you do.

  I wish that your daddy had been able to be with me today when I found out. He was supposed to be. His trip was supposed to end last week, but it didn’t. Something delayed him, and he doesn’t know when he’ll get back. I’m sure that I could have rescheduled the ultrasound so that he could be there, but frankly I didn’t want to. He’s so used to getting his way all the time and expecting the world to just mold to him and change anything to work around him. I’m not going to do that. Unfortunately, I worry that you are going to be waiting for your daddy a lot in your life. He would never do anything to hurt you, and I bet he wouldn’t even understand why you were upset, but that’s just the way that his mind works. There will be many times when you have to wait, and I wasn’t going to let that start now.

  This was for us.

  I can feel you moving. It’s the most incredible feeling. I thought that it would be hard and that I would know for sure what was happening, but it’s more like bubbles. I asked Kathryn about it, thinking that it might be something wrong or that I could do something about, and she just smiled and told me that it was you making yourself known. Now all I want to do is press my hands to my belly and feel you. Soon you’ll be able to hear my voice. Try to remember it, OK? Tuck it away in your heart somewhere so that it’s always there.

  Love,

  Rue

  ****

  I still hadn’t written the baby a letter about what happened with Flora. I didn’t know how to put it into words that wouldn’t need to be censored before she was allowed to read them. I knew that one day, if she ever got a chance to read the letters that I was writing to her, that she would see me mention her mother and ask Richard. It would be up to him what he told her about Flora, their relationship, and where she had gone. I didn’t need to be a part of that.

  I was just filling a glass with cold water, needing to cool off even though it was only still spring, when I heard the front door open. I was expecting Norma to come by that afternoon with a quilt that I had found in an old cedar chest and asked her to mend, so I called out to her. The voice that came back to me wasn’t hers.

  “What do you want to do?”

  I turned and saw Richard coming into the kitchen.

  Dammit. This man has got to stop startling me in my own house.

  “What?” I asked.

  I turned the rest of the way toward him and saw his eyes lower to my stomach.

  “You have a belly,” he whispered, coming toward me. He lowered himself to his knees in front of me and
rested his hands on either side of the small, but distinct swell that had developed in the last few days. “I can see her.”

  “You know it’s a girl,” I said.

  “Yes,” Richard said, getting to his feet again. “Ellery told me. I tried to get back here for the appointment. I really did. But I couldn’t. I missed it and that kills me. I never want to miss anything ever again, and I don’t want you to, either. So, tell me, what do you want to do?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What do you want to do?” he repeated. “Anything. Pick something.”

  I thought about it for a moment.

  “Ride a Ferris wheel,” I said.

  “What?”

  “I want to ride a Ferris wheel. The closest carnival to here never had one and I’ve never been to the big state fair. I’ve never gotten a chance to ride a Ferris wheel, and pretty soon I won’t be able to for a while.”

  “Alright,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  “Now?” I asked.

  “Why not? I’m offering you the world, Rue. Why wait?”

  ****

  Dear Baby,

  Can you hear the train? There are few sounds in this world that I love quite as much as the sound of a train at night. It cuts through everything and reassures everyone who hears it that no matter what they are facing, life keeps going. Everything keeps going. I haven’t been back to Grammyma’s house in almost two months. Your daddy told me that he was sending a crew to make sure that my plants get watered and my mail gets brought in, but somehow, I don’t think that’s really the truth. Considering no one ever sends me any mail, all of my bills are sent straight to my email, and I don’t have a single houseplant to my name, I think that that was his code for he’s sending in a crew to do all of the renovations that I told him needed to be done to the house. I told him that he didn’t need to do it, but there seems to be no stopping him. Suddenly he is driven to take care of everything. I finally relented and let him get me an apartment, not that I’ve been using it. I wouldn’t let him get one in the expensive buildings, though. I chose a simpler place near Tessie. It’s just a few minutes’ drive to the medical center. Your daddy spent days making sure that it was perfectly furnished and decorated. Could this be nesting?

  Before we left he said that he was offering me the world, and it certainly seems that he is trying to do just that. I left the house with nothing but my purse, but now I’m toting three suitcases and have had to send home some of the clothes and shoes that I’ve collected during our travels. Anything that I can think of that I want to do or see, he makes it happen for me. He checked with Kathryn to make sure that it is still OK for me to fly and as soon as she approved it, we were on his private jet zipping to anywhere that I mentioned. In a single weekend we ate meals in nine states and on both coasts. We cuddle in front of a roaring fire at a ski lodge one day and the next were spread out in the sand of a private beach. We have visited every state. I got my passport and on the same day we were in Mexico exploring the ruins and then the next in Canada looking at the falls. I suggested we try hiking the Klondike Trail, but after telling me that that was the wrong Gold Rush trail, Richard suggested that piling on a hundred pounds of equipment and hiking over mountains might not be the best for me at this point. I’ve seen and done more in these weeks than I would have ever thought that I would be able to accomplish in five lifetimes.

  There’s only one thing missing. One thing that he hasn’t offered me. He’s giving me the world, but what about his heart? I want to tell him that I love him and that I want us to be a family, but I can’t bring myself to say the words. Not unless I know that he feels the same way. What if all of this is just one big adventure, his one chance to be impetuous and frivolous before he has to settle down to raise you? I can’t imagine living even a single day of the rest of my life without the two of you…but what if I don’t have a choice?

  Love,

  Me

  ****

  I slid the letter into the folder that I had been keeping in the satchel that I now carried everywhere with me. I couldn’t bring myself to sign it “Rue”. It didn’t feel right anymore. I glanced over at Richard where he lay sleeping on the lower bunk. He had complained that this was the least luxurious sleeper car that he had ever traveled in, but that hadn’t seemed to stop him from falling asleep as soon as he laid down. I tried to be as quiet as possible as I changed into one of his shirts and slipped into the bunk beside him. I didn’t want to disturb him. I knew that our traveling was coming to an end soon. He couldn’t avoid his career forever and in a few days, I would be at the point in my pregnancy when I would need to see Kathryn every two weeks rather than once a month. It was time to settle down again and I wanted Richard to get as much rest as he could before the stress of real life came back down on top of him.

  He shifted slightly as I curled my body against his and I felt his hand come to rest on my belly where I could feel the baby still tumbling around. I pressed my lips to his shoulder, closing my eyes against the words that I wanted to say, but that I couldn’t bring myself to voice.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Rue

  Three weeks later…

  “Have dinner with me tonight.”

  I turned away from the mirror where I was checking my makeup and looked at Richard, sure that I hadn’t heard what I thought I had. I stared at him for a few moments and then took a step toward him.

  “What?” I asked.

  He finished tying his shoe and stood, shaking the front of his pants to straighten them and ensure that the pleat fell smoothly. It was something that had irritated me when I first saw him do it, thinking that he couldn’t possibly be fussier, but now it was almost endearing. He took a step toward me and took my hands in his.

  “Have dinner with me tonight,” he repeated.

  “You mean like a date?” I asked.

  “No,” he said, and I felt my heart sink a little. “Not like a date. Not kind of a date. Not something similar to a date. A date.”

  “You’re asking me on a date?” I asked, my heart lifting and a smile coming to my lips.

  Richard laughed and nodded.

  “Yes,” he said. “I am asking you on a date. I want to go on a date with you. I want to pick you up and bring you on a date. I want to be on a date and look beside me and see that you are there with me. I want to accompany you to dinner and have it be romantic in nature. I want this to be our first date. I want to date you and have it begin now.”

  “OK,” I said, laughing. “Alright. I got it.”

  “Are you sure?” he asked. “I think that I could come up with a few other ways to say it if you give me a minute.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Then will you?”

  I nodded, my smile getting bigger.

  “Yes,” I said. “I would love to go on a date with you.”

  Richard grinned and squeezed my hands.

  “Perfect. I’ll have Abraham bring you to your apartment, so you can get ready. I’ll be there to pick you up at seven.”

  “My apartment?” I asked. “But I don’t have anything there that I would want to wear on a date. Especially my first date with you.”

  A glint came to Richard’s eyes and I knew that I had, yet again, underestimated this man.

  “You might have something waiting for you,” he said.

  “You were pretty confident in yourself, weren’t you?” I asked.

  “More like hopeful.”

  “And if I had said no?”

  “Is there any way that you would have?”

  “No, but what if I had?”

  “Then you would be very prepared for the most formal birth in recorded history. Our daughter would have the most glamorous delivery of any child ever.”

  I felt my breath catch in my throat.

  “Our daughter?” I asked.

  Richard pulled me closer to him until I could feel his heart beating in his chest. The rhythm was fast and deep, and I concentrated on it, e
njoying the security of it. He nodded.

  “It’s something that I want to talk to you about at dinner tonight.”

  I nodded back, and he smiled, bringing his mouth down to gently touch mine.

  “I’ll see you at seven?” I asked.

  He nodded and kissed me again. My heart was fluttering in my chest and the butterflies swarming around in my belly were doing a bang-up job competing with the baby’s tumbling that she had gotten extremely skilled at in the past few weeks. I couldn’t get the smile off my face as I headed out of the house and into the waiting limo. Abraham headed in the direction of my apartment without me saying anything, telling me that this was all put into action well before Richard asked me to go to dinner with him that night.

  When we arrived at the apartment, he escorted me to the door and unlocked it for me just as he always did. There was something about that that I really liked. It went beyond just feeling special because he was helping me. It was more that I was never the one who unlocked the door. This kept me from feeling like the apartment was a replacement for my home in Whiskey Hollow. As long as I wasn’t treating this apartment like my home, Richard wasn’t trying to control me, he wasn’t trying to change me.