A Baby For Christmas

by Layla Valentine

  “Earth to Shayla,” he said, waving his hand in front of my face.

  “Huh?” I asked. “Oh, sorry. Um, I’m still working on the logos for that dog clothes boutique in Long Island City. Uh, ‘The Perfect Pooch,’ I think. They seem to like the dog in a dress. It’s going fine, I think.”

  Richie and the rest of the staff regarded me for a long moment, a couple of chuckles breaking out here and there among the crew.

  “Good,” said Richie. “Uh, I think that’s all of you. Go ahead and get back to work, and let me know if you’ve got any questions.”

  The staff got up, and I rose out of my seat along with them.

  “Why don’t you hang back, Shay?” Richie asked. “There’s a few things I want to go over with you.”

  I dropped back into my chair as the rest of the staff left, a few of them glancing over their shoulders at me.

  As soon as the door shut, Richie dropped into the chair next to mine.

  “Okay,” he said. “Don’t try and tell me there’s nothing going on with you, Shay.”

  He had me dead to rights. At that moment, I didn’t even think I could’ve lied if I wanted to. Richie stared hard at me, waiting for the next words to come out of my mouth.

  There was no getting around it—I would have to tell him sooner or later, and I might as well get it over with.

  “I’m pregnant,” I said, the words tumbling out. “And Colton Cooper is the father.”

  Chapter 18

  Shayla

  A strange expression flashed on Richie’s face. I couldn’t quite make out what it was—shock and confusion, perhaps? It was as if I’d just shoved a difficult math problem in front of his face and told him to solve it on the spot.

  But it went away as quickly as I noticed it, and he returned to the look of serious-eyed professionalism.

  “You’re pregnant with Colton’s baby?” he asked, lowering his voice and looking around. “That means that when we were working on the project…”

  He waved his hands in front of his face as if trying to banish the thought. “Whatever,” he said. “What happened in the past doesn’t matter.”

  I felt major relief at these words. Part of me had worried that Richie might react negatively to the news, and I was glad this didn’t come to pass.

  “What matters is what you’re going to do now,” he said.

  “I hadn’t thought that far ahead,” I said, feeling more normal now that I’d gotten it all out in the open. “But I suppose I have to tell Colton. What else is there do to?”

  “No,” Richie said, his voice flat and stern.

  “Wait, what?”

  “You shouldn’t tell him, that’s what.”

  “Are you seriously telling me that I shouldn’t tell the father of my baby that he’s going to be a dad?”

  Every bit of that sentence sounded bizarre coming out of my mouth.

  “Right,” he said, cool and calm as though it was the most natural suggestion in the world.

  “And do you mind telling me why you think that?”

  He stood up from his chair and began to slowly pace back and forth. His face was in a tight expression of concentration, as if trying to formulate his thoughts perfectly.

  Finally, he stopped and slid into his chair.

  “The logo,” he said. “The fact that he took your work. What does that tell you about what kind of man Colton is?”

  I grit my teeth at the thought of the logo, my fingernails digging into the pads of my hands. “It tells me he’s a real asshole,” I said.

  “No doubt about that,” said Richie. “But more specifically—what does it say about him?” It was clear he was trying to lead me to a specific answer he had in mind.

  “It…tells me that he’s the sort of man who takes what’s his. The kind of man who decides he wants something and doesn’t care what it takes to get it.”

  Richie nodded, pleased that I’d said what he’d apparently had on his mind.

  “You’re dead right about that. The only issue up for debate is what Colton wants.”

  “And what do you think that is?”

  “One of two things, I’d bet. I doubt that he’ll want to…have some kind of relationship with you, and even if that was what he wanted, you’d be a fool to do it. So, I’m thinking that he’ll either want the baby or he won’t.

  “If he doesn’t want the baby, he’ll likely deny that it’s his. And then you’ll be stuck raising it as a single mother. I doubt he’d even offer child support.”

  “But couldn’t I just make him take a paternity test?”

  “You’d think so, but you’d have to legally compel him to do that. And you can bet anything that he’d spend whatever it took to get the process tied up in courts until you ran out of money and had to drop it—the same thing he’d do if you tried to get him for the logo.

  “Like I said,” he went on, “men like Colton don’t play by the same rules as we do. People like us think that the courts are there to provide justice. Nope—they’re there to help men like him get whatever they want.”

  I swallowed, nodding. It was all so bizarre to hear, but I knew Richie was right.

  “I just can’t imagine him doing something like that,” I said.

  “That’s because you’re still naïve,” he said. “Sorry to speak so bluntly, but it’s true.”

  I didn’t know what to say. So, I listened.

  “Then again, he might actually want the kid. And you’d better hope that’s not the case.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he’d have the same legal power, only now it’d be used to take the baby from you.”

  I scoffed, unable to believe that he’d be able to pull something like that off, even if he had the will to do it.

  “How could he take a baby from its own mother?” I asked.

  “Easy,” said Richie. “He’d do whatever he needed to in order to make you look like an unfit parent. He’d slander you, hire investigators to dig up dirt or make it up if they needed to, find every person from your past who you rubbed the wrong way to come in and tell the court that you’re a horrible person and an unfit mother.”

  “Just think about that,” he went on. “Think about giving birth to your baby only to have him taken away from you.”

  I wasn’t a mother yet, but something about having this child inside of me was already making me feel rage at the idea of this baby being taken from me.

  I wouldn’t allow it. No way.

  I was mad and scared at the same time. Richie must’ve been able to see this because he stood up from his desk, came over to me, and placed his hand on my shoulder.

  “But you don’t need to worry about any of that,” he said.

  I felt the hot wetness of tears in my eyes, and I quickly wiped them away.

  “Yeah, because my only option is to be a single mother.”

  “It doesn’t have to be so bad,” he said. “Plenty of single moms manage to make it work. I can tell you’d be no exception.”

  “Are you kidding?” I asked. “I can barely afford to live in the city on my own. No way I’d be able to afford a bigger apartment and everything this baby’s going to need.”

  Richie sat on the edge of the desk and smiled.

  “I think I can make all of that easier for you,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you’re a stellar employee, and I think this might be the perfect time to give you a raise for all the work you’ve been doing over the last year. And I’ve been meaning to put together a maternity package for the staff. It’s just that no one here is a mother yet. And now you are. I can cover a portion of your daycare and medical expenses. That with the salary increase should be enough to…”

  Richie’s voice faded into a muffled din as I retreated into my own thoughts. Sure, whatever he could offer would help. But the fact of the matter was that I was about to be a single mother, the responsibility for this baby resting entirely on my shoulders.

&nb
sp; My entire life was about to change in ways that I didn’t even think possible. I had no idea if I was going to be ready.

  “What do you think, Shay?” he asked. “You think you’re going to be ready to handle all of this?”

  I took a deep breath, let it out, and then spoke.

  “I don’t have any choice,” I said. “I have to.”

  And that was all there was to it.

  Chapter 19

  Shayla

  Seven Months Later

  The shrill whistle of my tea kettle snapped me out of my reverie. Hopping up from my desk chair, I plodded across the wooden floor of my cabin and rushed to grab the kettle, taking it off the burner and setting it on the counter. My mug ready to go with a bag of herbal tea, I poured in the hot water and let the wonderful aroma drift up to my nose.

  I’d become something of an herbal tea connoisseur over the last several months of my pregnancy. It’s not like I’d ever been a huge booze drinker, but being totally unable to drink even a single glass of wine had left a hole in me that I needed to fill with some other delicious, sippable beverage.

  So, tea it was.

  Watching the tea bag steeping in the hot water, I placed my hand on my very, very round belly and waited for the mug to cool enough for me to pick it up.

  I watched the late summer wind gently rock the skinny, leaf-covered branches on the beech trees outside of my window. And as I did, I considered how happy I was that I’d made the decision to move here to Holly Lake, the town in upstate New York where I’d spent the only happy Christmas of my childhood.

  The year had gone by in a blur. Not only was it more than halfway over already, but I was also well into my third trimester.

  About the middle of February, I’d decided that I couldn’t stand another year in the city. The winter had been extra dark and cold and grey, and since the news of my pregnancy hit, my mood had taken a turn for the worse.

  I was overjoyed to be a mother, each day bringing a fresh wave of excitement and joy at what was on my horizon. But New York was the city where I’d learned I was going to be raising the baby all on my own. And each morning when I left for work and sloshed through the dirty snow down the street to work, I became more and more convinced that I needed to get out of the city.

  Sometimes I found myself wondering if the salary boost had been Richie’s way of making sure that I stayed around. Maybe he just didn’t like the idea of me leaving his company and going to work for someone else after having taken me under his wing. But I put the idea out of my mind.

  Then, around mid-March, an idea occurred to me. The weather had been especially unbearable that day. The days before had been almost tolerable and I’d managed to fool myself into thinking that spring might be arriving early. But when I stepped outside that morning and was hit by a freezing blast of air that let me know that, no, winter was still here, I knew that I had to do something.

  Something had to change, but at the same time, I couldn’t leave Liminal. So what to do?

  Sitting at my computer on my lunch break, I chanced across an article about remote working. I read it eagerly, the article comprised of brief interviews with employees who’d broken away from life in a cubicle.

  The more I thought about it, the more I found myself wondering if it could actually be something I’d be able to do.

  I decided to talk with Richie to see if it was even an option.

  “You want to quit?” he asked. “Are you serious?”

  “No way!” I said. “It’s not quitting. I’d still be an employee here. I’d just be out of the office…permanently.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t see how that’d be possible,” he said. “What if I need you here in person?”

  “Then you can make a voice call. Think about it—pretty much everything I do is digital. I can do all of my work on my computer and send it to you, and whatever you want to talk about, we can discuss through email or chat. And if the conversation is more detailed, then there’s phone and voice chat. There’s really no reason for me to be here in person.”

  He opened his mouth to speak, but caught himself, one eyebrow rising in consideration. He knew I was right.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Where would you even go?”

  “Haven’t decided yet,” I said. “I can figure that all out in time. I love the northeast, so I doubt I’d go far. But I have to go somewhere. The idea of raising my baby in a cramped Bushwick apartment is too awful to even think about.”

  Richie nodded in agreement. “I get that,” he said. “Kids need space. And that’s not exactly the best neighborhood.”

  He was right. Bushwick, with its hip bars, restaurants, and shops, was a great place for a young, single woman. But a young single mother? That was a different story.

  “How about this,” I said. “We’re finishing up the project for Penski Real Estate this week. Once that’s all done, I can take a long weekend and put together a proposal showing you how this would all work. That way I can answer any questions you have and not leave even a single doubt in your mind.”

  Richie looked away, thinking about it.

  “Sounds good,” he said. “Excited to see what you’ll have for me.”

  So, that’s what I did. I busted my butt on the project, and when it was all finished up, I put in my days off. I wanted to go somewhere quiet, somewhere I could think about what my future was going to look like.

  And then it hit me out of the blue—Holly Lake, the little town where I’d had some of the few happy months of my childhood. It was only a couple of hours upstate, and a room in a cozy little cabin by the lake struck me as the perfect place to collect my thoughts away from the bustle of the city. I booked a room that day and packed my things, beyond excited to spend some time in nature and reconnect with my past.

  The train ride upstate was calm and pleasant, and I loved seeing the snow-touched scenery. It reminded me of Colton, and how he’d loved the sight of fresh-fallen snow in the winter.

  As soon as he appeared in my thoughts, I did my best to shake him out—after all, he was the reason my life had been totally upended. But as much as I hated to admit it, I still felt…something for him. My heart still tugged when I thought about him, and though Richie had made it very clear why Colton was someone who shouldn’t be in my life, I couldn’t help but wish things might’ve worked out differently.

  An almost unbearable wave of nostalgia hit me as I stepped out of the train station in downtown Holly Lake. The small cluster of red brick buildings situated along the main drag that comprised the downtown, the domed city hall in the center, were just like I’d remembered them.

  I stopped in a small diner near the station and sat by the window, sipping coffee and nibbling a club sandwich as I watched the citizens of Holly Lake go about their business downtown. Everything seemed so calm, so…pleasant. I’d only been out of the city for a few hours, but I already felt more at peace.

  Once I was done at the diner, I rented a car and drove to the small cabin I’d rented near the lake. The timing had been perfect; the couple who owned it was out of town for a few months, which meant I could have the place all to myself.

  I made myself at home right away, changing into a cozy cable-knit sweater, starting a fire in the fireplace, and curling up on the couch with a book. The view from the living room looked out over a snow-covered stretch of land, the tree branches heavy with frost.

  For the first time in as long as I could remember, I enjoyed the sight of winter.

  After getting some very necessary relaxation in, I decided to go for an early evening walk down to the lakeside where my foster family’s house was. I knew they were both long passed, but just the idea of seeing the place where I’d spent those happy months was enough to warm my heart.

  I threw on a warm parka, stepped into my boots, and tossed a scarf around my neck. Braced against the evening chill, I stepped out of my cabin and began toward the lake.

  The first thing that struck me during my walk
was the quiet. There were no honking horns, no people yelling into their phones, and no garbage trucks clanging down the street.

  And as I continued on, I felt the combination of the quiet and nature work their magic on me, the stress from my pregnancy and everything else melting out of my body. By the time I reached the blue expanse of Holly Lake itself, I felt like a different woman. Being away from the city was just what I’d needed, and I was even more eager to move forward with my plans.

  I walked slowly along the lakeside, memories of those precious months playing in my mind as though they’d happened only a short time ago. After a time, I reached the house where I had stayed with my temporary foster parents.

  However intense the nostalgia was when I’d arrived in Holly Lake, it was nothing compared to what I felt standing behind that little cabin. Memories rushed into my head, one after another as I walked the grounds.

  The place was rundown, sure, though it still had the charm I remembered from when I lived there. More than anything, I wanted to go inside, but all of the lights were off. And the more I looked around, the more it seemed that not only was no one home, but no one even lived there.

  When I reached the front, my suspicions were confirmed. Planted in the lawn was a steel sign painted red and white, the words “FOR SALE” written in bold letters above the information for a local realty company.

  The sign got the gears of my mind turning right away. I slipped my phone out of my pocket and searched for a real estate listing website, typing in the address of the cabin, eager to find out how much it was worth.

  A smile spread across my lips as I saw that the price was well within my reach. I’d become so used to exorbitant New York prices that I’d almost forgotten that in other parts of the country homes could be affordable.

  Not wanting to waste another second, I hurried back to my rental cabin, pulled open my laptop and went through my finances, figuring out how much it would cost to get out of my current lease and put a down payment on the abandoned cabin. I got more and more excited as I looked over the numbers—it looked like this was actually something I could do.