Not Quite Forever (Not Quite series) (21 page)

“I can’t. You know that’s not the way it works here. What am I going to tell my friends when they start calling?”

“Tell them I’m a slut.”
Just go away.

“Dakota!”

“Tell them whatever you want.” Dakota met her mom’s eyes. “And while you’re telling them whatever you want them to hear, make sure to keep your chin high. Just make sure it’s a chin and not a nose, Mom. Every woman in your friendship pool has had sex and I sincerely doubt they hit their marital bed a virgin.”

With pinched lips, Elaine shot daggers with her eyes. “I didn’t think you were a virgin. But you could have been more careful.”

The room shot up ten degrees, or maybe it was her. Dakota tossed off the covers. “I think I overestimated you. I didn’t expect you to be happy about this, but I didn’t see you chastising me like I’m sixteen.”

“What
did
you expect? Did you think your father and I would be pleased to find you entering parenthood single and struggling?”

“I’m not struggling,” Dakota all but yelled.

“You ran home.”

“My mistake. I thought I could turn to my parents to offer some emotional support. I’m supposed to lower my stress level, have people around me.” She pushed off the bed, moved back into the bathroom, and mumbled, “I should have just hired a live-in nurse.”

Elaine blinked several times, followed her. “Live-in nurse? What are you talking about? Pregnancy doesn’t require professional care day and night.”

“My blood pressure is too high.”

“A lot of people have high blood pressure.”

“This isn’t about me, it’s about being pregnant.”

Elaine tilted her head. “I don’t understand.”

“When Walt comes over today, I’ll have him tell you all about it. Right now I need to empty my already empty stomach.” She pushed her mom out of the bathroom with an index finger and closed the door.

Chapter Nineteen

Walt’s road to redemption started with an hour-long discussion with Dakota’s parents about her health. He’d shown up at just after ten to hear that Dakota wasn’t up to seeing him yet, but would he please explain her medical condition to her parents.

By the time he and Dakota left the Laurens’ home, Elaine and Dennis were a little less worried about how their daughter’s pregnancy looked to the outside world, and more concerned with their daughter’s health.

Walt tucked her into the passenger seat and cracked the window to fill the car with crisp air.

“Morning sickness bites.”

“I’m sorry. I can be here every morning to hold your hair back.”

Dakota looked at him like he was crazy. “Yuck.”

“I mean it.”

“I don’t think so.”

He glanced over his sunglasses, smiled. “Offer still stands.”

Walt handed her the key card sitting in the cup holder of the car. “Here. My room key.”

“Why?”

“Because I want you to have it. I want you to think of me whenever you need anything.”

“Do I get a drawer to put my things in your room, too?” she teased.

“You can have the other side of the bed . . . or the other room. Then you’ll have to put up with me holding your hair back. Fair warning.”

She played with the key but hadn’t handed it back. Walt considered that progress. “Does this have anything to do with your talk with my dad last night?”

“No. Not directly.”

“Not directly?”

He shrugged, followed the guidance of the navigation of the rental car. “I don’t want your parents to hate me. I’d like them to know I mean it when I say I’m going to be here for you and our baby. More importantly, I want
you
to know I’m here.”

“I want to believe that.”

He hated that she didn’t.

“What did my dad say last night? Wait . . . on second thought, I don’t want to know.”

Walt smiled. “Your dad is just looking out for you.”

“Unlike my mom. Lord, what was I thinking? You’d think I was thirteen and you were a high school dropout strung out on crack.”

Walt turned down a narrow road, following the signs to the first stop on his path to redemption. “You don’t think she’s just worried about you?”

“My mother worries about herself. About her image.” Dakota blew out a breath. “I know she cares but she has a hell of a time showing it. I really hope I won’t be like her.”

Cars pulled alongside a dirt lot with families jumping from them. Walt pulled into a spot, turned off the engine.

“In some ways I think we are destined to be a little like our parents. I think the parts we despise the most will be the ones we know to avoid. I won’t manipulate our child to go into medicine, and you won’t chastise them for writing.”

The warmth he’d grown used to seeing in her eyes started to return. “Is it that easy? We just make a decision not to parent a certain way and that’s it?”

“I don’t know if it will be easy, but yeah . . . why not? What possible profession can our child pick that we wouldn’t approve of?”

Dakota blinked a few times. “Porn star.”

He laughed. “Prostitution and all things sex trade we both agree to deter Junior from. We can add hired assassin or thief to the list.”

“Those things are easy to agree on. What if our child wanted to be a nude model or a nun?”

Walt lost his smile. “Neither one of us are Catholic. Chances are that won’t happen.”

“Still could. Could we handle our son or daughter posing in the buff for others to get off on?”

For the first time in his adult life, Walt thought about the skin magazines he’d picked up in his youth and actually considered that all those women had parents. “I don’t know how I’d handle that.”

Dakota stared out the window. “I don’t know either. What if we suck at being parents and we screw up our kid?”

He reached over and took her hand.

Her eyes met his. “We’re going to be awesome . . . and we’re going to screw up. I’ve delivered a few babies in my line of work and none of them come with an instruction manual.”

The smile on her face warmed him.

“I’m scared, Walt.”

“Thank God I’m not alone in that. We’re going to make mistakes, Dakota. As long as we love and take care of our child, they’re going to be amazing.”

“I hope you’re right.” She looked out the window again, stared up at the big orange balloon. “So, why are we in front of a pumpkin patch?”

“Halloween is only two weeks away. Pumpkin carving and costumes are important.”

He pushed out of the car and moved around as she opened the door. Walt took her hand after closing the door and didn’t let it go.

The pumpkin patch was also a petting zoo, a farmers’ market, and a craft zone for little kids. Walt pulled her to the first patch of jumbo pumpkins and spread his arms wide. “Now this is a pumpkin.”

“It would take a chainsaw to carve it.”

“But think of all the seeds.”

The thought of salty food made her mouth water. “I do like roasted pumpkin seeds.”

“Just salt, nothing fancy.”

She licked her lips. “Do you know how to roast them?”

“No. Do you?”

“I’m sure we can figure it out.” Dakota moved to a patch of smaller pumpkins. “Tall and skinny or short and fat?”

Walt rubbed his chin. “One of each.” He walked over to a parking lot of red wagons and pulled one next to the pumpkins. They debated size and girth, moved to the extra-large monster pumpkins, and hauled one into the mix. They rolled the wagon around, found mini pumpkins and gourds that Dakota knew her mother would like to have as an addition to her fall centerpiece.

Dakota found a bale of straw to perch on while Walt stood in line at a popcorn stand.

A little girl, probably around three years old, walked behind her mother with a pumpkin half her size in her arms. Dad was close by, clicking pictures.

A tiny towhead with chubby cheeks sat in overalls as he tried to stack the small pumpkins on each other. He didn’t look old enough to walk without help.

Walt sat beside her, offered the hot popcorn, and followed her gaze.

After a couple of bites, she interrupted their silence. “Did you ever think about having kids?”

“I didn’t dwell on it. I figured it would happen someday.” He grabbed a handful of popcorn and asked, “What about you?”

“When I was younger, I worried about having a baby. I’d stress about not taking the pill within an hour of the one the day before. I’d worry about a condom breaking. Then somewhere after twenty-five I just didn’t think about it. The more my mother asked when I was going to settle down, get married, and have babies, the less appealing the idea became.”

“Yet you write about happy endings as a day job.”

The chubby-cheeked toddler pulled himself up onto a pumpkin only to fall back on his padded butt. He pursed his lips and tried again.

“The ultimate contradiction. I believe in happily-ever-after. But I know it’s a lot harder to find than how I fictionalize it in a book.” Dakota looked up to see Walt watching the little boy with a smile.

A shadow passed over his face.

“Finding the right person to spend forever with shouldn’t be easy. When things come easily, the relationship ends up being temporary.”

“Like with you and Vivian?”

He didn’t stop watching the child when he reached for her hand. “I knew Viv was going to die. I loved her, but not the way a husband should love his wife. We both knew that if she made it out alive, a divorce was inevitable.” He turned and smiled at her. “There’s a difference between forever and not quite forever. Viv was the latter. When I get married again, it will be forever.”

Walt let go of her hand long enough to place his on the side of her face. She leaned in and accepted his lips on hers. Her fractured heart started to fuse together as his tender kiss reminded her how complete she felt in his arms. How empty she was when he wasn’t there.

When Walt pulled away, he ran a thumb under her right eye to collect the moisture that dropped from her lashes.

The sound of clapping broke their brief moment. When she turned, she saw the toddler standing on his own with arms opened wide while Mom crouched and encouraged her child to walk. The baby took one step, giggled, and plopped on his butt.

Dakota leaned her head on Walt’s shoulder and watched the entire routine repeat. “We’re going to have a baby.”

His arm pulled her close. “We are.”

“Wow.” She thought of the graphics all over the social media platforms where she chatted with her readers, her fans. The phrase
shit just got real
came to mind. Dakota realized her free hand rested on her stomach. “Wow.”

Walt smiled and pulled her to her feet. “C’mon, Baby Mama. We need to get you two fed. Do you feel like eating?”

The popcorn sat on the ground, the bag tipped over. “I’m famished. Such a crazy cycle. Sick all morning, hungry all day.”

“Pickles and ice cream?” he joked.

She cringed. “No, but I have a crazy desire for cotton candy.”

Walt shook his head. “Now I
know
you’re knocked up. My Dakota eating refined sugar. I’ll be watching for the zombie apocalypse next.”

As they walked to the checkout, Dakota wondered if maybe things could work out.

“We need a tiny bit of advice,” Walt told the helpful cook that had the misfortune of answering the phone.

“Anything to be of service, Dr. Eddy.”

Of course! He hid a smile behind his hand and turned away from Dakota, who was checking out the suite. “We’re roasting pumpkin seeds and would like to avoid burning down the hotel.”

“I’d be happy to—”

“No, no! We need to figure this out. Just a small tutorial would be great. Roasting means top heat at a high temperature, right?”

“Doctor Eddy . . .” The man’s voice hitched up a notch . . . or three. “I have at least twenty minutes before the dinner orders start coming en masse. Might I come up to your suite and help you?”

Walt placed a hand over the phone to ask Dakota. “The cook is asking to come up and help. What do you think?”

“I think you’re going to make the Morrisons rue the day they met you.”

He laughed, turned back to the phone. “We’re college educated and catch on fast. Won’t take but ten minutes of your time.”

“I’ll be right up.”

Walt placed the phone back on the receiver and moved to Dakota’s side. Her hands were stuck in the inner muck of her small, fat pumpkin. “This will never last until Halloween.”

“Practice,” Walt insisted. “When was the last time you carved a pumpkin?”

“I think I was twelve.”

He picked up a scalpel, one he kept in his kit that he traveled with, and etched into his soon-to-be masterpiece. “We need practice if we’re going to show Junior that his parents aren’t completely lame.”

“And if we have a girl?”

It didn’t go unnoticed that Dakota stopped talking about a
pregnancy
and started referring to their child as a person. “I like the name JD. Junior Dakota works for me.”

Dakota stopped midpull of stringy pumpkin crap. “No Junior. I will have to veto anything Junior.”

Walt did his best to appear offended. “You don’t like Walter Junior the Fourth?”