Baby & Bump (The This & That Series) (8 page)

             
I looked up at my big brother, and my heart swelled in my chest. For weeks now, I’d fought tears every time I pictured Corbin and Andrea’s deflated expressions. Their unsuccessful attempts at starting a family were a sore subject in our family, as Andrea’s pain was apparent every time she saw one of Candace’s kids at a family get together.

             
“Really?” I squeaked. I sounded more like a kid sister than I had in a few decades.

             
Corbin offered me a one-shouldered shrug. “Of course. Andrea and I are psyched to have a niece or a nephew.”

             
The hammering inside of the house stopped. Andrea appeared in the doorway, her hair pulled back from her face with a dusty bandana. “I heard my name.”

             
Corbin put his arm around his wife and tucked her against his side. “I was just telling Lexie how excited we are to be an aunt and uncle. Oh, and get this, Lex. Darren said he’s going to babysit for you.”

             
“No, thank you.” I pictured our younger brother sitting in a strip club with a baby seat next to him.

             
“Stop it. You’re scaring her.” Andrea’s gaze turned to me, and she smiled sadly. “My reaction to your news wasn’t great, and I’m sorry. We’re very happy for you.”

             
“And we’ll be here for you every step of the way.” Corbin finished for her.

             
“And to live vicariously through you,” Andrea added with a sad chuckle.

             
Joyful tears filled my eyes. Stupid hormones. “Thanks, guys.”

             
Pastor Irm’s warm hands touched my shoulder and Corbin’s. “It seems your family has recommitted themselves to each other, Patsy,” He announced proudly. “There’s nothing better than a unified family. Praise God.”

             
My mother practically levitated. “Thank you, Pastor.”

             
Corbin looked down at me. “Were we ever
un-
unified?”

             
I giggled, and my mother cut me a sharp look. “Praise God,” she echoed. “Why don’t we all go inside and start this tuna salad before it gets warm.”

             
Following the line of people into the ramshackle brick bungalow, I looked around with a rueful smile. Just when I was starting to think that my family was entirely unsupportive of me, they pulled through. Now all I needed was to find a bigger place where my baby and I could live. A place with plenty of space to play and collect all sorts of oversized and noisy toys. And I needed to find a delicate way to make my mother understand that I would not be moving back in with her in the House Of Dolls.

Chapter Seven

             
A few weeks later, I sniffed the cantaloupe and immediately placed it back on the pile.

             
Okay, cantaloupes are out
.

My stomach keened, and I quickly pushed my cart away from the produce department of my favorite grocery store. That sucked. I hadn’t managed to eat anything fresh since the day I’d found out I was pregnant. Which basically meant that I was walking around with my jeans unbuttoned on a carbo-load month
s in the making. Gazing longingly at the ripe Hot House tomatoes, I headed towards the frozen foods section with heavy footsteps.

I had a lot on my mind.
Ever since my lunch with my family at the brick house, I’d been trying to decide where I was going to live with my baby. As much as it pained me to say so, my mother had a point. I couldn’t raise a baby in my current apartment. It was too small, and in its current state, I would have to put the bassinet on top of the refrigerator.

             
But I didn’t have any money saved to put down on my own house. As much as I wanted to buy the brick bungalow that Corbin and Andrea were working on, there was no way I could manage paying for my half of Eats & Sweets
and
a fat mortgage. Oh, why couldn’t I have a trust fund from my estranged Floridian father, the way Marisol did? Her house was perfect for a kid. Large corner lot, eat-in kitchen with granite counter tops, even a tree house in the willow tree in the back yard—built by the last owners.

The only thing about that house
that was
not
conducive with children was Marisol herself.

             
“I miss you, my friends,” I whispered to the tomatoes, as I lumbered past.

             
WHAM.

             
“Crap!” I yelped.

Sure enough, as if fate didn’t already have the upper hand on me—as I was shoppi
ng with my pants open and a holey Creedence Clearwater Revival T-shirt on—I’d just tried to take out Fletcher Haybee.

             
“Lexie.” He looked good enough to eat when he smiled at me.

Fletcher looked totally
relaxed and informal. He wore a faded flannel shirt and jeans with stringy tears on the knees. If he’d not given me a pap smear just a few short weeks ago, I would have assumed Fletcher was a mechanic or a logger or something else incredibly manly.

             
“Doctor… er, Fletcher! Hi!” My voice came out entirely too shrill. As proof, an old lady glared at me from her motorized cart. Clearing my throat, I tried to lower my voice an octave or two. “What are you doing in my part of town?”

             
He held up a cream cheese Danish roughly the size of a bedroom slipper. “Word on the street is this place makes the best pastries.”

             
The little mom and pop grocery in my neighborhood didn’t exactly offer the most variety, but I was able to walk through a park to get there. Candace was always appalled that I was willing to pay more for their food rather than going to the local Super Foods to bargain shop, and Marisol never went with me because she said the place smelled like old people. This was false, unless all old people smell like hothouse tomatoes and homemade danishes.

             
“Word on the street is correct.” I held my breath as another wave of nausea bum-rushed me. “The couple who own this place used to own a bakery in Ellensburg before moving here.”

             
A line appeared between Fletcher’s eyebrows. “You’re still nauseous, aren’t you?”

             
I waved a hand. “It’s no big deal. Really, I…I’ve always wanted to go on an all carb diet, honestly.”

             
He tilted his head. “I can prescribe something for it. Why don’t you call my office tomorrow morning, and I’ll see what we can do. I’m here for you, you know.”

             
The light from the front store windows gleamed against his back, casting an angel-like glow around his body. If I heard correctly, a chorus of heavenly music sounded, too. Of course, that may have been my imagination.

             
“Thank you.” I scanned the aisle for a point of interest that would continue the conversation. Great, I’d run into him in the dog food and feminine hygiene aisle. Curse this tiny store and their disorganized shelves.

             
I smiled. “So… the dog food aisle.”

             
Fletcher looked around with a chuckle. “Yeah. I needed some kibble to go with my danish.”

             
I laughed too loudly, and the old lady glowered at me again.
Get out of here, Grandma!
I thought to myself, before focusing on Fletcher’s face again. “Well… do you have a big one?”

             
Fletcher’s face reddened, and he coughed. “Do I what?”

             
I fought the urge to grab a box of Kotex to hide behind. “Uh, a dog. Do you have a big dog?”

             
“Oh, okay.” His laugh was like butter melting over pancakes, making my carb-pit gut gurgle. “Yes. It’s a big one. I mean, Martha and I have a Komondor.”

             
“Isn’t that a naval officer?” I asked, watching him pluck a ten-pound bag of dog treats off of the shelf.

             
“No.” Again with that buttery laugh. I was finally starting to feel hungry. “That’s a commodore. Our dog is a Komondor.” Fletcher pronounced it slowly. Tucking the bag under one arm, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and turned it on. The screensaver was a picture of a lovely little girl with one arm thrown around the neck of the biggest dog I’d ever seen. The dog’s hair hung to the ground in thick, white ropes, covering one of its eyes. It looked like a mop.

             
“Wow, look at that thing.” I couldn’t help but grin. It was so ridiculous looking, it almost didn’t seem real. “What’s her name?”

             
“She’s a he,” He informed me with a wink, stuffing the phone back into his jeans pocket. “And his name is Libman.”

             
I snorted, then slapped a hand over my nose. Just at the end of the aisle, right beside the cranky old lady on the scooter, was a rack of Libman mops and brooms, their green and white labels gleaming in the sunlight. “That’s the coolest dog name I’ve ever heard.”

             
“Thanks,” he said with a heart-stopping grin. “We’ve had him since my ex wife left. He’s gotten us through some tough times.”

             
We started walking towards the dairy department, my hands fidgeting on the cart handle like a restless kid. “Your daughter is beautiful. She’s got a great smile.”

             
“Thanks. She’s got her grandmother’s smile.” There was a hint of pride in his voice. “My mom was Miss Memphis about forty-five years ago.”

             
“No kidding?” I raised my eyebrows. “Impressive. So you have pageantry in the blood?”

             
He chuckled and grabbed a box of crackers off of a shelf as we rounded the corner. “Yeah. I guess. I have one heck of a parade wave.”

             
“So were you raised around here?” I pretended to examine the back of a can of spray cheese thoroughly.

             
“Nah. We lived in Tennessee until I was about fifteen. Then my dad transferred to Spokane.” He said. “We lived on the north side. I went to WSU, then transferred to the U of W for medical school. How about you? Did you grow up around here?”

             
I nodded, putting the spray cheese back onto the shelf. “Uh huh. My whole family lives here. Well, not my dad. He died when I was a teenager.”

             
I felt Fletcher’s blue eyes on the side of my face. “Oh, I’m sorry,” He said. “That must have been hard for you.”

             
“It was.” I picked up a box of saltine crackers, thought about it for a moment, then grabbed three more. “But I went on to college and now I own my own business, so I turned out all right. My youngest brother, though? Not so much.” Dumping the crackers into the cart, I started strolling again. “He was only eight when it happened, and he never really matured much. He’s still a giant kid.”

             
Fletcher touched my elbow, redirecting me around a cardboard display. My skin flared with a prickly heat. “I have an older brother like that. Unattached, flighty, you get the idea.”

             
“There’s one in every family, right?” I smiled up at him. “So are you and Martha close to your parents?”

             
“Martha spends every day after school with my mother. They’re currently making a quilt together.”

             
“Oh, how sweet. I hope my mother does things like that with this kid.” I imagined my mom quilting with my child. The image was quickly squashed by a vision of my mother dressing my baby up in doll clothes and propping him on a shelf. “Well, scratch that. She’s a little bit…intense.”

             
Fletcher grabbed a bag of coffee grounds. “Isn’t everyone’s mom intense?”

             
“Mine takes the cake.” I raised an eyebrow at him. “She has a huge collection of stuff.”

             
Crinkles appeared on either side of his eyes. “My mother collects bells. They’re all over the house. Whenever you shut a cupboard or closet door, the whole house jingles.”

             
“I can beat that,” I challenged. “My mother’s walls are lined with hundreds of Cabbage Patch dolls, and she has an entire filing cabinet filled with birth certificates for each and every one.”

             
Fletcher released a low whistle. “Wow. Birth certificates. That
is
intense.”

             
“Told ya.” I tossed a loaf of white bread into the cart, looked up at Fletcher, then replaced it with a whole grain loaf. Didn’t want the good doctor to think I wasn’t nourishing my unborn child.

             
“Who’s the father?” he asked. When I scowled, he quickly added, “Of the Cabbage Patch dolls? If
she’s
the mother, who is the father?”

             
“My deceased father,” I replied. “Though, I’m sure she’d have Pastor Irm be the father, if she thought she could get away with it.”

             
“Who’s Pastor Irm?”

             
We stopped next to the small display of fresh flower bundles, and I studied Fletcher as he examined a bouquet of bright yellow daisies. “Pastor Irm is the reverend in the church I grew up in. My mother’s in love with him.”

             
He raised his blue eyes to meet mine. “Are they dating?”

             
“No.” I shook my head. “They’re both widowed, and devoted to their dead spouses like a couple of martyrs.”

             
“But she’s in love with her pastor?” He picked up two bunches of daisies. One white, and one yellow. “Which ones do you like?”

             
Holy Hannah! Was he buying me flowers?
I pointed to the white ones and started planning which vase I was going to put them in when I got home. “Yes. She has been for years. My brothers and I tease her all the time, but she won’t admit it.”

             
Fletcher put the yellow daisies back. “Why not? Will you and your brothers be upset?”

             
“Not at all.” I laughed. “Actually, it would be a relief. Maybe if she found love, she would stop obsessing over our lives a little bit. Plus, it would be nice to see her happy. She’s really lonely.”

             
His smile returned. “Maybe she’ll be happy when she has a new grandbaby to enjoy.”

             
Nodding, I led him up to the counter, where a white haired woman started scanning my groceries. “I think so. Though she’s none to pleased that her daughter is single and pregnant.”

             
“Lots of single women have children,” he said. “It isn’t unheard of.”

             
I offered him a one-shouldered shrug. “She’s sort of old fashioned. She still calls her answering machine the recorder-thingy, and keeps her remote control in a kitchen drawer, because she’s afraid the laser will start a fire.”

“Wow.”
Fletcher stifled a laugh. “Well, maybe she’ll adapt with time.”

“Here’s hoping.” I handed the old woman my debit card, and eyeballed my—er,
the—
flowers. Okay, so I had no reason to believe the flowers were for me, but I couldn’t help myself. We were getting along so well. And when he’d touched me, it felt like being shocked by fresh laundry coming out of the dryer. “Either that, or she’ll use it to guilt trip me into going to church with her every week for the rest of her life.”