by Rae Foxx
"What are you doing out here?" Lucian asked.
I squeaked and whirled around again. "Stop scaring me!" I scolded. "You're going to put me into labor."
Concern washed over his face and he stepped outside. "Is that possible? I didn't mean to scare you."
Bless him. He was so worried about me all the time. "No, silly. I don't think it's possible to be startled into labor."
He put his hands on my belly and rubbed softly. I couldn't stand for anyone else to do that, but when he did, I wanted to purr like a kitten. "Good. I wouldn't do anything to harm either of you." He bent and nuzzled my belly as I tickled the back of his neck and smiled at him. "Why are you out here, though?"
"I thought I saw something through the window."
He straightened and looked around. "Like an animal?"
Shaking my head, I looked toward the barn, but the owl was long gone. "I thought it was a person, but when I got out here, nobody was here. Just a huge owl. I'm guessing the owl flew by really close to the window."
He nodded. "That makes sense."
"It’s almost time for you to leave." We walked back into the house, and I grabbed a towel to clean up the soup I'd spilled.
"Fifteen minutes," he said, his mouth already full of soup. "This is so good."
I smiled and rinsed the rag out. "I'm glad you like it. You always cook for me, it's nice to do it for you once in a while."
Lucian hated for me to cook. I wasn't particularly good at it, but I could follow basic instructions like a badass. I didn’t consider throwing ingredients into a pot Michelin star cooking, but he still hated to see me work, though.
"You're my princess," he said around his soup. "I like pampering you."
Beaming, I made myself a bowl. He finished his in minutes, while I was still blowing on mine.
"Kiss me, I'm leaving," he said.
I jumped up from the table and threw my arms around him. "When you get home, I'll have a surprise for you." I wiggled my eyebrows. "In the bedroom."
He moaned and buried his face in my hair. "I love your surprises."
I knew he did. That's why I kept giving them to him. "Have fun at practice."
As I watched my husband walk out of the kitchen and into the garage, I sighed. My childhood had been somewhat chaotic, but Lucian had been my best friend for as long as I could remember. His family lived next door to mine in our small, run-down neighborhood. It had always been him and me against the world.
Nothing had changed, and I hoped it never did.
2
I sipped my grape juice out of a wine glass; I would swirl it around in my mouth wishing it was wine instead. It was worth it, giving up wine, but I was looking forward to a glass after my nine months was up.
I took another sip and watched Lucian move around the kitchen. He had his grandmother’s cast iron skillet out. It had been seasoned by her over decades of use, and she claimed she'd fed her husband his first meal from it when they married. I loved that idea so much that I followed in her footsteps. “I hope you’re hungry." He flipped the steaks and added butter to the pan. "I'm starved."
"Ravenous. I was a little nauseous earlier and skipped lunch." I'd napped straight through it if I was being honest.
"I had back to back meetings, so lunch was packs of crackers from my desk." He grinned at me and poured mushrooms into the sauté pan with the fresh green beans. The smells rising from the stovetop made my mouth water. I was sitting at the island that was installed during our kitchen reno a couple of years ago. We spent many evenings with him cooking dinner and me sitting on the other side of the island talking to him. We were the picture of modern domestic bliss.
"When is the next ultrasound?" he asked.
"Next week,” I said, smiling and rubbing my stomach. I've got it in your work calendar, so you won't book any appointments during that time."
He turned to look over his shoulder at me. "You always make sure I'm organized."
While he continued to cook, Lucian launched into a story about an insurance claim he'd had to follow up on today. He'd left his position with a large insurance company a couple of years ago, where he was nothing more than a faceless salesman, in favor of a smaller company. It was a risky move, but it had been worth it. Instead of just sales, he now stayed with his clients through the process from sales to claims and everything in between. He even sent cards for special events like holidays and births...
He loved it.
I only had to be social a couple of times a year, when he threw parties for his clients, so it worked for me too. Lucian was the social butterfly. I preferred my makeup brushes and the internet. Introverts unite.
His story was cute and I was about to tell him so until something caught my eye. I looked up from my grape juice and gasped when I saw the same shape from yesterday fly past the window.
Launching off the barstool, I had to grab the side of the island to steady myself as I ran around it toward the back door.
"What are you doing?" Lucian ran after me, shocked at my behavior.
"I saw something run past the window!" I exclaimed. Jerking the door open, I stepped out onto the back porch.
Lucian met me at the door and pulled me backward, using both hands to make sure I didn't lose my balance. Then he stepped in front of me and searched our backyard.
On my tiptoes, I looked over his shoulder. "See anything?"
"Well, it's almost full dark," he said dryly. "Are you sure about what you saw?"
"Yes! Luc, it was the size of a person, but maybe bigger. Remember when I thought that maybe an owl flew close past the window? I'm telling you; this was too big to be an owl."
He looked to the right, squinting, and I stepped out from behind him, peering to the left. "We need a big flashlight," I complained.
He huffed. As much as he loved me, sometimes he thought I was a lunatic. "Doesn't pregnancy cause stuff like brain fog? I think they call it baby brain?"
I elbowed him in the side as hard as I could. "Don't be a jerk. I'm not foggy."
A large, dark shape darted behind the neighbor's barn, but it seemed to be on all fours. "There!" I whisper-yelled. "Behind the barn."
"I saw it," he muttered. "I'll go look."
"Lucian, no. What if it's a deer?" I plucked at his shirt as he walked away from me.
His shoulders slumped, then began to shake. I set my lips in a pout as he turned toward me, and the porch light illuminated his face.
He was barely holding back laughter, probably at the thought of him being scared of a deer. "I'll be okay."
"Lucian, you know damn well that white-tail deer are one of the most dangerous animals in Wisconsin." I put my hands on my hips. “They kill more people than most other animals.”
"Because they run out in front of cars, honey. I'll just go have a peek over Adam's fence and see if I see anything." He gave my lips a quick peck and pulled out his phone. "I'll use my flashlight."
I paced the porch, squinting in the waning light to see him step up on the fence and look over. "Just a deer or maybe a large dog," he called. "There's nothing there now."
"Well, come back in. Our dinner is burning."
I giggled as he raced back toward me, eager to save supper. Stepping to the side, I let him run into the house and straight to the stovetop, yanking on an oven mitt and grabbing the cast iron handle. "Just in time." He checked both sides with a spatula and realizing they were overdone, he put both steaks onto a plate to rest. "There."
While he stirred the side dish, a little crunchier than he intended, I climbed back onto the barstool.
"Now, do you feel better?" he asked. "I can't have my beautiful wife worried about a big, bad deer outside."
Oh, so he wanted to be like that. "Okay, Mister Macho." I puffed up my chest in mock anger. "Next time we see it, I bet you scream like a girl."
"Well, girls are good at screaming." He gave me a leer, which I returned, adding in a tongue wiggle.
"I bet I could get you to scream lik
e a girl after dinner," I said in a low, sultry voice.
He froze in the act of stirring. "Again?”
"You game to see how it goes?"
He grinned and put down his spatula making his way over to me. "Always. Just say the word. But I didn’t want you to feel pressured," he whispered. Lowering his face to mine, capturing my lips in a soft kiss, but all of a sudden, I was in no mood for soft.
"Can dinner be put on hold?" I asked against his lips.
"Heavens, yes." He pulled away to turn off the stove, then pressed a few buttons on the oven, lowering the temperature. "We'll come back to it."
I turned toward the stairs and squealed when he swept me off my feet, lifting me up like a new bride.
Giggling, I looked over his shoulder, about to move my face into his neck and kiss him under his hairline.
My eyes strayed towards the window. We'd left the back-porch light on. "Lucian!" I exclaimed. "Stop!"
He froze and looked down at me. "What?" His voice sounded worried, but I didn't take my eyes off of the view out the window.
"Move slowly," I said. "Put me down, but make sure I can see the window at all times."
He stiffened. "Is someone out there?"
"No." I lowered my voice even more. "It's the owl."
He huffed out a breath. "Seriously? Now?"
"Yes," I hissed. "Now." No way in hell was I letting this owl get away without him seeing it.
He slid me to the ground, but I stayed on my tiptoes so I could watch the owl over his shoulder.
"Now." I pushed on his other arm. "Turn around very slowly."
Following my directions he faced the window and let out a breath we both seemed to be holding. "Wow. It's gorgeous."
"Are they supposed to be that big?"
Lucian shook his head. "I don't think so. I went through a bird phase in middle school."
I interrupted him. "I remember." He'd driven me crazy with books about birds. He wanted to go bird watching. I'd taken my romance novels and read while he sat for hours looking for birds.
"Well, that looks like a Great Horned Owl. They're supposed to get to maybe two feet. This thing is three times that."
I tried to judge how tall it was as it sat on the railing and he was right. Its head nearly went to the top of the porch. Another two feet and it would brush the ceiling.
"Its eyes are too aware," I whispered. "It's freaking me out."
"Yeah, I see what you mean." Both of us stared at it for several long moments. "That thing is clearly a barn owl. I'm sure of it. But it's size is alarming."
"Could it break that window?" Suddenly I was more than freaked out. If it got inside, it could cause serious damage to the house and us.
"I don't see why it would. It has no reason to want to come inside." His words were reasonable, but his tone was worried.
"It has no reason to sit on the porch and fucking stare at us through the window either," I said in a squeaky voice. "But there it is."
"Okay." Lucian sucked in a deep breath. "We should move."
"Where? Toward it, or into a room with no windows?" I laughed, but I wasn't kidding.
"Um." He turned his head toward the stairs, calculating our move away from the window. As soon as he moved, the owl launched itself off the porch railing and into the air, its wingspan wider than we could see through the window. "Sweet Lord!" Lucian yelled. He and I both flinched and ducked, but I didn't move my gaze from the huge bird as it sat on the sill.
Its wings beat up and down a few times, then it turned in an unnaturally smooth flight path and disappeared above the porch where we couldn't see it.
"Holy shit," I breathed. "Now do you believe me?"
Lucian wrapped his arms around me. "Damn, baby. That was some insanity. That's what you've seen flying past the window?" His voice went up an octave. "That thing was out there while I was looking over the fence?"
"It could've eaten us. I knew we shouldn't have gone out there."
He turned away from the stairs. "I don't know about you, but knowing that thing went toward the upstairs makes me want to stay down here for now."
I nodded. "My lady-boner has disappeared."
Being on Earth as a human replenishes an Archangels’ magic.
3
"Adam," I said in a low voice. "That's not very nice."
"Oh, come on Constance," my husband's best friend said. "I'm just messing with ya." I glared at him and didn’t give an inch. He arched one handsome eyebrow, but it had no effect on me.
He'd come up behind me in the kitchen, put his hands on my waist, and swayed back and forth dancing with me. I'd thought it was Luc at first, but when I realized it was Adam, I jumped away.
"Adam, I know you're an affectionate person." I put the pizza rolls on the tray with a spatula. It was Lucian’s monthly poker night, one of the times he let himself go a little wild. "But, dancing with your best friend's wife isn't appropriate."
"Oh unclench." He took the tray and walked out of the kitchen.
"Unclench," I muttered. "I'd like to wrap a rope around his neck. How dare he touch me?"
"Everything okay?" Lucian stuck his head in the door. "Adam said he pissed you off."
I rolled my eyes and waved my hands around as I pulled more beer out of the fridge to take into the dining room where the boys were set up. "Adam being Adam. He irritates me."
"Yeah, he's good at that." Lucian stepped into the kitchen and the door swung shut behind him. "Want me to beat him up?"
I giggled. "Maybe not yet. But if he doesn't stay out of my bubble..."
"I don't think he means to do it," Lucian said. "He's been like that as long as I've known him."
I held out the bottle opener for Luc. "With you or everyone?"
Lucian froze in the act of picking up the necks of the drinks. "Huh. Thinking back, I don't know. I know he was like that with me, hugging, touching my back. As if we were brothers, always."
I shrugged. "Oh, well, some people are funny."
Turning to kiss him, I was surprised to find him gone. "Okay, then."
With a chuckle, I dumped a pack of frozen fried pickles onto a baking sheet. Those boys ate a ton of horrible food on poker night.
While the pickles cooked, I joined the guys in the dining room. They always included me, and I always liked making them snacks. Especially when they looked at me like I'd hung the moon for setting a bowl of pretzels in front of them.
My chair was between Lucian and Adam tonight, which was fine. I guessed. Ugh. Adam normally didn't bother me so much, but he'd been extra irritating lately.
"How's the pregnancy?" he asked. His eyes looked like he’d put a thin layer of black eyeliner around them, but Lucian had told me he’d always looked like that.
"Good." I picked up a handful of pretzels and nibbled the end of one. I'd given in to my cravings, for the most part, and gained about twenty-five pounds. Lucian hadn't minded at all. He said he loved seeing me filled out and curvy. All I could see was my belly and now-enormous boobs.
"Baby healthy?" Adam persisted.
I nodded. "Yep."
"And you're not finding out the sex?" he took a card from the dealer, another insurance agent from the same company Lucian worked for. He had territory
in the next town over. They tried not to cannibalize on one another's stomping grounds.
"We want to be surprised," Lucian replied for me. I smiled at him and put my hand on his knee. Adam's questions were perfectly innocent, but they put me on edge for some reason.
He owned the house next door. Thankfully, his personal space issues didn't extend to being a bad neighbor. He kept to himself, for the most part, extending the occasional invitation to us for dinner or a game of horseshoes.
It was his barn that had been the hiding place of the owl and deer. Lucian recounted the tale while I rolled my eyes and giggled at my silliness. But to be fair, Adam said he'd seen the owl as well.
"Yeah, he's a big one. I don't see him very often." Adam considere
d the cards in his hand and put two down. "But I figure an owl that big has the right to come and go as he pleases."
Lucian nodded as I chuckled. "As long as he stops trying to come into our kitchen, I'm okay with it."
Adam cleared his throat and set his cards on the table. "So, have you had all the scans for the baby? Ultrasounds and stuff? They know nothing is wrong with it?"
Lucian gave him a frustrated look. "What kind of question is that?"
It was a rude question. "Why would there be anything wrong with our baby?" I clutched my stomach. "That’s so weird of you to ask. Actually, just rude.”
He held up his hands as the other guys around the table glared at him. "No, guys, I'm sorry. My uh," he stammered, "cousin recently had complications. They didn't get the right scans and could've prevented it."
Lucian nodded, but still gave Adam the narrow eye. "Okay, man, okay. But watch how you ask questions like that. That's a good way to freak an expectant mom out. And you pissed me off to boot.”
Adam apologized again, and I watched them play. I wasn't allowed to play after I won every hand for three months in a row. I was sure they'd let me win, but they swore they hadn't, and that I was just that hard to read. After some begging, they let me play just one hand per night, which I always won.
I tried to jump up when the oven dinged that the pickles were done, but it was more like a creaky hobble out of the chair as my hips protested.
Lucian put his hand on my back. "I'm okay," I said before Adam tried to help me, too. "Just getting achy sitting on the wooden chair."
"You don't have to stay down here and tend to us," Lucian's buddy from high school, Robert, said. "Go relax, we can see to ourselves."
"I think I will." I'd never left one of the poker games early, but if anyone was allowed a nap it was me. Thinking of that gigantic owl was making it harder to sleep, when I didn’t have to pee, of course. "I'll get these pickles out and then go have a late nap."
As soon as I walked into the kitchen, I saw it. The back-porch flood light had tripped, showing me that damn owl was on our porch rail again. I'd had enough.
