Baby Makes Six (8 page)

“I wouldn’t argue about a baby.” Jeez. Is that what she really thought of him? That he was some kind of ogre?

“This baby is going to give us one more reason to disagree about things. There’s going to be one more little body to take care of. More stress. More noise. More problems.” She put down the cookie sheet she was drying.

Weighing each word carefully, he said, “I was there, Shawn. This baby is going to be just like her sisters. I’m going to be a part of her life. I want to be a part of her life.”

“I wasn’t saying you wouldn’t. I just don’t want to live with you.”

She’d said it. She’d said the words before he could. And what was worse, he felt the same way.

And, of course, he had Jayne.

So why did hearing those words hurt so damn much? Pushing away from the kitchen counter, he said, “Shawn, I need a minute. Can I come back to get the girls in an hour or so? I can’t even think right now.”

To his relief, her eyes softened. “Of course.”

“Thanks. I’m sorry. This is my night. I bet you have plans.”

“I don’t.”

Though he heard her, he just kept talking. “I won’t be long. It’s just a little bit hard to take it all in. It’s—”

“It’s a lot. I know.”

A burst of giggles erupted from the back playroom. “The girls. Damn. I don’t know what I’m going to say to them about just taking off like this.”

“I’ll say the station called and you’ve got to go.”

He felt guilty. It wasn’t like him to dodge responsibilities. To dodge uncomfortable situations. “I hate leaving like this. I’ll be back. I’ve just got to—”

“It’s okay, Eddie. Believe me, I needed time, too.” She opened the back door. “Why don’t you take the whole night to yourself? The girls will be fine. It’s almost bedtime, anyway. Want to come back tomorrow morning? Will you have time or will you be working?”

“I’m off.”

She smiled. “Good. Well, then, how about we see you around nine?”

“Thanks. I mean, okay.”

“See you in the morning. Bye, Eddie.”

He held up his hand, ready to wave and turn away. But all of a sudden, that didn’t seem right.

They were going to have another baby. He looked at her.
Really
looked at her.

Shawn’s chin was tilted up, her mouth curved in a forced smile. And her eyes—those eyes he could read always. Pain and tension and worry and regret.

Before he could think about what he was doing, he gave in to instinct. To what his heart wanted. To what he needed. Stepping back from the doorway, he curved his arms around Shawn and pulled her close.

Automatically she wrapped her arms around him, tucked her chin against his chest and leaned close. Her clean scent filled his senses. Her soft skin felt incredibly familiar.

And that slight difference in her stomach—it felt familiar, too.

“We’ll make it work, Shawn,” he murmured. “Somehow we will. I promise.”

She leaned closer. “I know. It’s going to be okay.”

To his surprise, tears pricked his eyes. They had another baby on the way.

Right then, out of the blue, Eddie realized that all those feelings he used to have for Shawn were still alive and well.

He still had feelings for her. Something deep and abiding and so integrated with layers, that attempting to sort it all out was nearly impossible.

He backed away quickly and turned, not daring to meet her eyes. Stepping out into the garage without daring to look back.

He rushed out into the heat of the afternoon sun and climbed in his truck without looking her way.

As he reversed and drove out of the neighborhood, all he could think was that his life had become twisted again.

What were they going to do?

What was he going to do? What were his parents going to say? His dad would never understand—he’d put the blame completely on Eddie’s shoulders, with a few choice words about keeping his pants zipped.

All of which he deserved.

Just as he turned out of the neighborhood and drove toward the entrance ramp to the freeway, Eddie realized there was someone else who was never going to understand. Jayne. No, she wasn’t going to understand in the slightest.

His life was so screwed up he could hardly think straight. Although what he had been thinking that night five months ago wasn’t too clear, either.

Pretty sad for a guy who had always prided himself on being logical.

For the first time since his divorce, Eddie was grateful the drive to his condo took almost an hour. He needed space and time to think about Shawn and her news. News—the words was an understatement if ever he’d heard one.

No, the better word was
baby
. They were having a baby. Another one. Shawn was pregnant again and he was as much to blame as she was.

That was the plain and simple truth.

But as the consequences of that baby flashed in his mind, Eddie felt his stomach knot in ways it hadn’t since he was on patrol in Iraq.

He needed to decompress, and fast.

As soon as he pulled into his carport, he slipped on a pair of swim trunks and walked down to the beach. From the moment the powder-soft grains of sand edged between his toes and the sharp scent of salt water blew his way, he felt better.

The water pulled at him in a way Shawn had never understood. Perhaps it was the chaos of the sea—so different from his regimented occupation. Maybe it was the sheer vastness of it—who knew? But whatever it was, just being near the water relaxed his state of mind and gave him hope.

After a particularly bad few months in Iraq, Melanie sent him a box of worn seashells, sand and a CD with just the sounds of the ocean. His army buddies had teased him about the care package for days.

He couldn’t blame them. They’d had enough sand in every crevice of their bodies for a lifetime. But it sure hadn’t smelled like the sand from home.

And the CD, though it held no value to anyone else, was pure gold to him. He still had that CD in a drawer—he couldn’t bear to part with something that had meant so much at one time.

But Shawn had never understood its attraction, beyond the beauty of the water. It was probably because she hadn’t grown up with it. No, Shawn was a St. Louis girl and had only moved to Destin for her job at Carnegie. Florida and the give-and-take of the weather was still something she noticed and commented on.

Sometimes lately, he’d begun to take it for granted. He’d come home late from a shift and hardly look out the window, so eager to relax with his feet up and watch anything on TV to take his mind off things.

After tossing his flip-flops next to the wooden steps near the sidewalk surrounding his home, Eddie walked down to the surf. Very few people were out. He was grateful.

When he finally reached the water and it licked his toes, he breathed deep. This, he was familiar with. This, he could count on.

Shawn, not so much.

She was pregnant. Again.

Fate really had a sense of humor. One night with each other had produced another Wagner.

Maybe it was fitting. Eddie couldn’t recall the number of times he’d thought about that night together.
The way being with her had been so comfortable. Her body had felt so good. So familiar.

He’d never been without a condom when he’d been in the military. And though there hadn’t been all that many women, he’d known himself and how situations could spiral out of control as soon as liquor or emotions were involved.

Shoot, he’d bought a box weeks before he and Jayne went to bed the first time. And though the sex had been good, they hadn’t been together all that often.

He’d blamed it on their crazy schedules. But maybe it had really been because Jayne wasn’t the one he loved.

Well, that relationship was now going to be in the past tense. There was no way Jayne was going to understand how he could have slept with Shawn while he was dating her.

Hell, he didn’t understand. It had just…happened.

Very little in his life just happened. His years in the Army had prevented spur-of-the-moment impulsive decisions. His career in the police force demanded careful planning and preparation with constant thought of consequences.

Enough time had passed since their marriage for him to realize that it had been wrong to put those perimeters on his home life. Little girls did stuff. They got sick. They got grumpy.

They crawled into his lap for a nap and made him forget everything but how great it was to hold a child and just be loved.

Shawn had been full of surprises, too. When they had first been dating, those surprises had been a rope to a new life out of the military. He used to love hearing her laugh. Used to look forward to going out with her, just
because she was so different from him. Friendly and outgoing and ditzy in the best possible ways.

He still chuckled every time he remembered how she’d driven him to the pier, kissed him so sweetly for what felt like hours, then cried when she realized she’d managed to lose her keys in the ocean.

He’d never once chided her for being irresponsible. Instead, he’d shocked her by showing her that he not only knew how to break into her sedan, he could hot wire it, too.

When had everything changed? When had her love of life, her joyfulness, start to grate on him?

When they’d lost the baby? When so much of that joy had disappeared and he’d been hurting too much to do anything about it?

As Eddie watched the tide roll in, he had the uncomfortable feeling that he now knew what it was like to be Shawn. Things happened.

Things he’d never planned to happen.

“S
OME THINGS
never change, huh?” John Nelson muttered next to Eddie as they surveyed a dozen or so teenagers standing in the kitchen full of vodka bottles and beer cans. “We get older but kids still do dumb stuff.”

“You said it,” Eddie replied before picking up his phone and calling the next set of parents on the list.

The station had gotten a call about an hour ago about a party going on, one that had gotten too loud and out of control. When he and John had arrived, what they found was no surprise. Underage kids, parents out of town, liquor bottles sneaked out and a barrage of bad decisions all around.

Now the kids were sobering up, looking pretty green around the gills, and the steady stream of concerned parents took turns being angry, shocked and mortified.

He and John had been through this scenario at least a dozen times over the past few years.

After speaking to an irate mom, he clicked off his phone and pointed to the far wall. “Might as well have a seat, Tommy,” he said to the pale-faced teen. “From the sound of things, I think your mother is going to be a little bit.”

“I told her I was at the movies,” the boy said, looking sick.

“Too bad you didn’t go,” John said as he gestured another kid forward.

Two hours later Eddie and John were in the cruiser and heading back along the highway to the station. “Thank God they were only drunk in a house,” Eddie said. Oh, how he dreaded finding victims in drunk-driving accidents. And they had seen their fair share, patrolling in a resort city like Destin. College kids and tourists all seemed to feel like vacations meant they had a free pass from the consequences of drinking and driving.

As the clock edged toward midnight, John reminded Eddie about another incident involving dumb kids, which, of course, led to another story. That’s what they did, after all. They told stories and let off steam and bolstered each other up.

Their partnership was a good one, their friendship as solid and real as any he’d ever known.

Which was why Eddie was kind of surprised when John mentioned Melanie just moments before their shift was up. “I’ve been calling your sister.”

“Yeah? Is she answering?”

“She is.” With a sideways look, John added, “I think one day she might even agree to meet me for coffee.”

John was a good guy. Melanie would be lucky to have someone as caring as he was in her life. “I hope she says yes real soon.”

“Me, too.” Relief at Eddie’s approval showed in his eyes.

“Hey, John, you don’t have to tell me about you and Mel, you know.”

“We’re partners. We tell each other everything, right?”

“Almost.” Eddie grinned, fighting off the impulse to share all his news.

Once again, he was reminded of Shawn. Of how maybe she’d been on to something when she’d mentioned that the time to talk about the pregnancy had never felt right.

It sure felt hard at the moment.

“S
O
, R
AMONA
, I just thought you should know,” Shawn blathered as she finished up her speech to the call center manager. “I’m going to be on maternity leave come September.”

“I see.” Standing, the woman moved two thick binders onto the credenza behind her, giving Shawn a full view of her stylish gray suit, which was paired with a steel-blue shirt and platinum-colored heels.

It was an outfit that would never flatter Shawn, but made Ramona look elegant and beautiful. The suit’s color set off her gray eyes and silky brown hair, which she always wore up in a clip. All in all, Ramona Greer looked far younger than her forty-three years.

In contrast, Shawn was sure her too-snug sundress looked frumpy and hopelessly out of style.

It took a full minute for Ramona to finish typing her e-mail, send the attachment and exit the Internet. Finally she removed her glasses and broke into a smile. “So, are you okay?”

Nervousness made Shawn’s mouth go dry. “Yes.”

“Sure?”

She and Ramona had a complex relationship. Though they’d become friends of sorts, Shawn never forgot that the lady was her boss. A split decision could affect Shawn’s whole future. “What? Yes. I mean, of course. I’m not going to let this pregnancy interfere with my duties here.”

“You’re not, huh? Come on, Shawn. I might be your boss, but we’ve been through a lot together. Did you really think you could just come in here, announce your news and I’d only be thinking about work?”

“Sorry.” Shawn did feel chagrined. Though they’d never been lunch buddies or shopped together, they definitely did have a relationship. Ramona had first hired her when she was twenty-one. She’d been through her engagement, marriage, three pregnancies and one divorce.

For her part, Shawn had kept close tabs on her manager when her husband had died from lung cancer and she’d had to suddenly adjust to life as a widow at forty-one. “You’re right. I just don’t know how to describe this soap opera life of mine anymore. I’m feeling completely off-kilter. I never imagined being pregnant again. Or like this.”

“Like that?”

Though she knew Ramona was attempting to lighten the atmosphere, Shawn didn’t know if that was possible. “Yes, like this. I’m recently divorced! Everyone’s going to wonder who the father is.”

“Maybe not.”

“But even if they do all think it’s Eddie, I still feel dumb. Like some kind of scarlet woman, which is ridiculous.”

“I’d say.”

“And the father is Eddie. Did you know that?”

“I didn’t.” A bit of amusement flickered in her eyes. “But I would’ve bet money on it.”

“We’re divorced.”

“I remember the divorce well. I also remember the day you first talked to him on the phone. And your first date.”

“We walked on the beach,” Shawn blurted.

“Oh, you were so happy then. I have to say I was just a tad envious.”

“We were happy, but marriage isn’t for wimps. And, well, we grew apart.”

“You and Eddie have certainly been through a lot.”

“I still love him, but not as a husband. I mean, we just can’t live together.”

“You sure about that?”

“Pretty sure.” Shawn shook her head. “Scratch that. I’m definitely sure. We can’t live together—at least not on a day-to-day basis. And we’re not sleeping together, either.”

Ramona raised an eyebrow. “Just sometimes.”

“I don’t know what happened.” Once again visions of their incredible night together leaped to mind. Eddie had recently returned from a weekend fishing trip. He’d been as tanned as he’d been coming back from Iraq. He’d worn new cologne, too. He’d smelled so good. After one kiss, all she’d wanted was another taste of him. “We just…lapsed.”

Something painfully sweet passed over Ramona’s face. “Don’t be too hard on yourself, Shawn. Some days I’d give a lot to have a lapse. And a baby on the way.”

Looking down, Shawn nodded. “I know. And I want a healthy baby. After last time, I feel guilty for even having a moment’s doubt. I know I’ll love her, too. But sheesh! This was unplanned.”

Pulling out an oversize calendar, Ramona said, “So what do you want to do about your job? Do you still intend to work after the baby comes?”

“Of course! Actually I’ve been trying to find a way
to ask if I could have more hours. I’m going to need the money more than ever now.”

“I was hoping you would say that.” Ramona stood up, pulled a sheet from one of the many colored folders on her credenza. “There’s going to be a job opening soon. Faye Clancy is going to the Phoenix office to take a position in human resources. So I’m going to need someone to fill her spot. Faye, as you know, is a dayshift manager. It’s a forty-hour-a-week job, but it will mean a better insurance plan and quite a pay raise.”

“Do you think I could do it?” In her wildest dreams, Shawn had never imagined Ramona would greet her news by offering her a promotion.

“I think you could do anything you set your mind to. You’ve got a lot to offer here, Shawn, and not just to the company and our customers. A lot of employees look to you for guidance and support. Carnegie is lucky to have you. I know it, and what’s more, corporate in Phoenix knows it, too.”

Handing the paper to Shawn, she said, “Think about it for a week. I’ll post it next Friday if you turn it down. So, there’s no pressure. You’re my preferred candidate—but there are plenty of others in the office who would want to interview for it.”

“I’m interested.”

“I’m glad. You are certainly our first choice. And, well, it might be just what you need, Shawn.” With a wry grin, Ramona said, “Never underestimate the healing benefits of a good job.”

After taking the paper, Shawn clasped Ramona’s hand. “Thanks. Thanks a lot. There aren’t too many places that would offer me a job like this.”

“I would have been a fool not to. You’re an excellent employee and you have a way about you that others
admire. But don’t let this pressure you,” she warned. “If it doesn’t feel right, other offers will come along.”