A Mother's Secrets

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  She couldn’t, of course. She wasn’t licensed nor was her home equipped to serve as a safe house. But it felt good to care.

  It always did.

  * * *

  On Monday, Christine was at her desk at six, getting her mind fully back into her life’s focus. She might be pregnant, she might not be. Either way, her life would only be impacted short-term. She’d continue to take the uterine lining thickening hormone she’d been prescribed, and she’d abstain from wine and fried foods, but otherwise, she had to continue moving forward with her own life. Until her appointment a week from the upcoming Friday—two weeks after implantation—there was absolutely no further reason for her to have contact with Jamie Howe.

  She told him so, as gently as she could, when he called.

  “At this point, I’m supposed to resume normal activities.” She gave him a pretty close rendition of the version she’d rehearsed in the shower that morning.

  “I agree...”

  “And I might not even have anything of yours living inside me,” she interrupted, reminding them both.

  “Exactly...”

  “We might just be going through the process again next month.” She cut in, again.

  He could change his mind. Or she could. The contract gave them each that choice. She’d just be required to return the money already deposited in her account.

  Which was why she wasn’t starting on any major renovations until they heard a heartbeat: roughly six weeks from time of successful implantation.

  “So... I’ll see you at the doctor’s office for the urine test?”

  They’d already made the appointment. Together. Friday, by phone from the fertility specialist’s office, before the procedure.

  “Yes,” she said, swallowing disappointment. Did he have to be that eager to have time apart from her?

  Show that little interest in seeing her, even once?

  Maybe getting to know her a little bit better? After all, she was hopefully going to be carrying his child.

  He’d hung up before she could speak further. Or even come to her senses and choose to keep her mouth shut.

  Leaving her unusually disgruntled, even a bit put out.

  She was a person. With feelings. Not some... Some...

  Shaking her head, Christine got up from her desk, heading out to see where she could be of service in the clinic for a few minutes before getting back to the fundraising correspondence. She had an inbox full of responding emails. Had functions to schedule.

  Of course she was only a body to Jamie Howe. A machine. She’d known that going in.

  It was the only reason she’d agreed to help him in the first place.

  But after the weekend... His attention...

  Most definitely, they needed the space between them.

  Implantation, the beginning of any new project, tended to prompt emotions to run high. Add in the element of the intimacy involved with her part of the process, along with hormonal increases, and it was natural for her to feel a little different than normal.

  To begin to accept a familiarity between her and the man whose child she intended to carry. It meant nothing more than that. Wasn’t a permanent change in her life. She’d feel the same for Emily Howe, too, were she still alive.

  Maybe more so. She could see herself becoming friends with the other woman, had circumstances been different.

  And spent that next two weeks training her brain to immediately switch to thoughts of Emily—whose embryo was trying to take root inside of her—anytime she found herself thinking of Jamie. After about ten days of no contact, thoughts of Jamie translated to thoughts of Emily.

  Problem solved.

  Chapter Nine

  Jamie looked at eight houses over the next ten days. He’d had twice that many people going through his home. Every day it became more of an issue to him that he wasn’t finding anyplace that felt like home to him.

  He had to have a place to go in the event that he got an offer. He was in the process of making a baby and had to have a home for it. His Realtor reminded him that he could take his house off the market and just stay there, but that wasn’t an option he wanted to consider. He’d never liked the floor plan of the place. The vaulted ceilings with the upstairs looking down over the living area, made the place feel more like a party house than a home. The house was always too cold upstairs in the winter and too warm in the summer. And when he and Emily had had the backyard surveyed for the pool they’d planned to put in, they’d found that due to city sewer lines, they couldn’t dig deeply enough in their backyard in the only area where a pool would have fit.

  She’d loved the place. Thought, if nothing else, it would be a great investment. Turned out, it wasn’t even that. Due to recent ground settling that had cracked the foundation of a home in the neighborhood, all of the homes in their community had lost value. There was no danger to anyone living in here, but there was the possibility that a homeowner would have the added expense of having to have the home raised and the foundation repaired.

  He wasn’t going to start a family and then, with single dad duties, also take on moving into a new home. A father provided a home for his children. Gave the child a room that he could grow up in, move away from, and then come back to.

  Like Christine’s. The place just made you want to walk in the door and stay. Every home he looked at in their exclusive small town failed the “Christine’s home” test. It wasn’t until his Realtor, after a third frustrating foray out to look at houses, asked him to be more specific in exactly what he wanted that he even realized he’d had a standard.

  He was just getting off the phone with the man, finalizing a plan to see three more properties that afternoon, as he pulled into the parking lot of the office building across from the private offices of Christine’s ob-gyn.

  As though programmed, his gaze immediately searched for her car. Found it parked toward the back of the lot.

  Leaving closer spots for those who needed them, he’d guess. He hadn’t known the woman long, but could already list several facts that told him she put others’ needs in front of her own. The clinic. Her volunteer work. Having his baby.

  She wasn’t a surrogate who’d put herself on a list. She was doing a favor for him and Emily. On his request.

  In deference to the importance of the occasion, he’d put on blue pants with a white polo shirt, instead of jeans or shorts and was glad he’d done so when he caught his first glimpse of Christine. The long, colorful, flowing skirt she had on with a short-sleeved T-shirt would have made him feel underdressed. Every time he’d seen her, even in her home on Sunday, she’d been dressed as though on her way out to some kind of classy lunch with friends at an expensive restaurant.

  The outpouring of warmth he felt toward her as he entered the building and saw her standing there by the elevator shook him a bit.

  As did his sudden desire to have her standing there because she’d been waiting for him. Not the elevator.

  “You ready for this?” He purposely kept his greeting casual as he approached. She’d made it pretty clear she wanted nothing to do with him other than that which was dictated by their contract.

  Since that was all that he wanted, too, all that he needed, all that he’d agreed to, he had no problem with adhering to her stipulations.

  “Jamie, hi!” Her smile, when she saw him, wasn’t at all casual. At least its effect on him wasn’t.

  But then, getting ready to find out whether or not he was a father in the making, had him a bit flummoxed.

  That had to be all it was. He was about to find out if Emily’s baby was on the way.

  The elevator bell dinged, the doors opened and they got in together. Both reached for the third floor button at the same time, bumping hands. She dropped hers.

  Rather quickly, it seemed to him.

  “So...” He held his hands down,
clasped in front of him, in the way men did when standing respectfully.

  Her lips pressed together, she nodded.

  He needed more than that. The contract gave him the right to know medical specifics. Not to know how she was holding up emotionally. Was she still sure she wanted to do this? Having regrets? Okay and ready to go?

  Panicked?

  “I haven’t heard from you so I’m guessing there’s been no news...”

  Glancing toward the lights showing the movement past the third floor, she said, “I spotted a little bit yesterday.”

  His stomach dropped. Details were necessary. They’d been told about two kinds of bleeding. One that was common during implantation. The other, a regular monthly cycle, that likely meant no baby.

  “I’m sorry. I should have called,” she said, glancing at him as the elevator stopped at their floor. “But it wasn’t enough to indicate anything, and I knew we were going to be here today...”

  They stepped off the elevator, his heart beating a little harder than normal.

  “It just felt...a little awkward, you know?” she continued. “Oh, hi, it’s Christine Elliott. I just went to the bathroom and saw this... How’ve the past two weeks been for you?”

  Her gaze was open, searching as she pulled him aside. “I’ve never talked to anyone about my monthly cycle, other than my doctor and the high school nurse when I started the first time. I’m not...”

  “Shhh.” He shook his head. Aware of far more than he could consciously understand. Aware of her. “It’s okay. We’re in the learning stages here.” Standing against a hallway wall, with doors into office suites around them, he spoke as though there was a microphone nearby. Barely above a whisper. “So...it wasn’t like normal monthly stuff?” he asked, as delicately as he could manage.

  She shook her head.

  “So, do you feel anything?”

  “Of course not. It’s way too early for that.”

  He knew. He’d read. Just...

  He wasn’t ready to go in. Wasn’t ready to move past the point of getting started.

  Wasn’t ready to be disappointed.

  “Do you think you might be?” he asked, when what he wanted to do was grill her on her normal monthly cycle. Was she ever late? If so, how often? Did she ever spot first? If so, how much and how often? What kind of chances were they looking at here? How did the data figure into percentages?

  With a crook of her head and a small smile she turned toward the door closest to them. “Let’s go find out, shall we?”

  Jamie followed right behind her.

  * * *

  She’d opted for both urine and blood tests. The first to get an answer quickly, and the second because it was the contractually required confirmation method. Minutes after she’d done both, she sat with Jamie in Dr. Miller’s office, waiting for the results. Jamie was to be present for distribution of all medical information relating to the pregnancy.

  He sat unmoving, his hands on his thighs, not even a hint of the finger twitch she’d noticed in her office more than seven weeks before. He hadn’t looked at her, or spoken, since he’d entered the office.

  She wanted to ask him how he was feeling.

  He seemed so alone and someone needed to care.

  And then she noticed the wedding band he still wore. And remembered that in his world she wasn’t so much a someone as a something.

  That in order to get this job done well, she had to rein in her usual nurturing instincts. She had to quit being motherly to have a baby. She was chuckling inwardly over the irony of that one when the door opened and Cheryl Miller, a woman who’d known her mother and had been the original and sole doctor at The Parent Portal when she’d first opened, walked in.

  She knew the second she saw the smile on Cheryl’s face what she was going to say and so was looking at Jamie when the doctor spoke.

  “Congratulations, Dr. Howe, you’re going to be a father!”

  His mouth open, he looked immediately at Christine, met her gaze, and for one brief second she felt like the mother of his child. Felt as though they’d just been told they were going to have a baby.

  She wanted to jump up. To hug him.

  To kiss him long and hard.

  Then his gaze dropped reverently to her belly.

  And she came to her senses.

  * * *

  “We need to celebrate.” Jamie could hardly get a hold of his thoughts as he and Christine exited the doctor’s office together. They had a list of dates, future appointments. She had prescriptions that needed to be filled. The plethora of information they’d been given regarding what to expect, what to watch for, when it would be necessary to call the doctor’s office—all of it reverberated through his mind, needing to be put on a spreadsheet of some kind.

  “No.” Christine smiled as she shook her head. “You need to celebrate. I imagine Tom Sanders will be thrilled with the news,” she added.

  Tom! He hadn’t even thought about his father-in-law! Yes, Tom was going to be overjoyed at the prospect of being a grandfather. Even though he didn’t think Jamie had made the best decision for himself.

  Why hadn’t he thought of Tom?

  Or worse, why wasn’t he thinking of Emily? They’d just reached the culmination of their dreams.

  Thanks to the woman walking beside him.

  “The blood test results won’t be back for a few hours,” he told her as they exited the building. “And I’ve got some houses to look at. How about if we meet at your office right before four?”

  Dr. Miller had said she’d call Christine with the results at four.

  He was going to be a father.

  A father. For real. Not just in plans.

  She’d stopped just outside the door, standing in the shade of the large awning covering the entryway.

  “That’s the second time you’ve mentioned looking at houses.”

  A statement. Not a question. “I’ve got my place on the market.”

  Her frown was unexpected. “You’re going through all of this to have the baby you and Emily created, but you’re moving from the home you shared with her?”

  “I wanted to move from that place when she was alive,” he told her, too het up to pay much attention to her remark. “It never felt like a home. And it’s dropping in value so isn’t a good financial risk, either.” He brushed off her questions, wanting first to solidify the location of their four o’clock appointment.

  To take her out to a fancy dinner and celebrate their humongous accomplishment. And to make a nonalcoholic toast to the future.

  They’d brought an embryo to life.

  They were embarking on a partnership. There was so much to talk about. Visitation to discuss. He was to spend time with the baby while in utero so that it would know his voice when it was born, for one thing. Plans to make. Schedules to set.

  And all that the doctor had just said about birthing choices. Natural. Epidurals. Assisted. Midwife. Classes.

  He was familiar with most of the rhetoric in theory.

  In practicality, he knew nothing.

  Hadn’t discussed any of it with Christine ahead of time, which seemed remiss of him.

  “So, your office just before four?” he asked when his thoughts slowed enough to allow him coherent conversation.

  She nodded.

  “And then dinner?” He’d taken a step toward the parking lot. She was right beside him. “We can go out,” he said, hearing the supersonic energy in his voice. Hoped he didn’t sound as frenetic to her as it felt to him. “Nothing personal. Just business. We have so much to discuss...”

  When he glanced at her, she was grinning. And nodding. “Fine. We can go out. But Jamie...”

  “Yeah?”

  “Call your father-in-law. You shouldn’t be celebrating this alone.”

  He wasn’t alon
e.

  He was with her.

  But she wasn’t celebrating.

  She was doing a job.

  Chapter Ten

  With hands that were shaking for no good reason, Christine pulled out her phone the second she was in her car, checking for pertinent emails or voice messages that might have come through during the time her phone had been on silent.

  There’d been a few of both. Important, but not urgent.

  And Olivia had texted. Her friend had been heading into court but wanted to know the results.

  Positive, she typed back, and dropped her phone into the pocket on the side of her brightly colored bag.

  This wasn’t life-changing news for her, just life altering for a short period of time.

  The baby wasn’t even hers.

  She started her car, pulled out into traffic, thought about the emails she’d briefly skimmed. The voice messages she’d sort of heard.

  Wondered if Jamie had called Tom.

  Hoped he had. Now Jamie was one who’d just had life-changing news. He’d been so happy he’d almost been irritatingly talkative.

  Except that she’d found his uncharacteristic lack of focus endearing...

  The man really wanted this baby.

  Such a great thing.

  Men wanted children. She saw it every day in her business. So why was she glomming on to the way his eyes had glistened in that first second after the announcement? On the almost uncontainable energy coursing through him so quickly he couldn’t seem to rein himself in?

  Why did it hurt so badly that a man was feeling that way about a baby she was carrying?

  No. She wasn’t going there.

  This most definitely wasn’t about her.

  And that fact made it much more difficult to smile at the barrage of faces entering her office, sometimes in duplicate, on and off for the rest of that afternoon. Her full-time staff of seven, the doctors who worked for them, the technicians who were assigned by their employer labs to clinic, even the crew from the cleaning company, one by one, came in to either hear the test results, or to congratulate her because they had heard them.