Macy’s Awakening (12 page)

She supposed that made good sense.

But a woman’s heart didn’t run on good sense.

* * * *

As the days ticked by without a phone call or email from Jerrod, Macy allowed herself to be pulled more and more back into her real life. She worked for her father and got herself enrolled for her sophomore year at Southern Oregon University. She hung out with Leticia and her sisters, going to the mall and the movies, as they always had. But the days seemed to have a hollow quality, as if she was trying too hard just to feel normal again.

At night, as she lay in bed thinking back on the day, she often found herself wondering what Jerrod had done that day. Had he come home early and made pork chops on the patio, with Peter-the-cat overseeing everything? Had he lounged in the hot tub under the stars? Had he thought about her?

Or had he maybe taken that blonde grocery checker, Pam, out on a date? For a moment Macy let herself imagine the worst, picturing the two of them having sex in Jerrod’s bed. Her whole body seized up as she thought about Jerrod kissing and fondling the other woman, putting his beautiful, delicious cock into Pam’s blonde pussy. Her stomach roiled in protest and she burst into tears. She hadn’t really felt well in days.

Chapter 12

Jerrod glared at the tall stack of gold embossed Christmas cards that Verna had placed in the middle of his desk. It was the first week of December, and this was the annual holiday mailing, thanking all his clients for their business during the past year. He had always taken the time to sign each card himself and add a personal note; it seemed like a wise practice to maintain friendly contact with everyone he had served.

But this year the Christmas season was rubbing him the wrong way. Not just the commercial aspects, which everyone agreed were completely out of hand. But the whole “merry and bright” theme was depressing. He didn’t feel merry and certainly not bright. He hadn’t felt really content since Macy had left the middle of August. The light had simply gone out of his life. Even Peter had taken it hard, disappearing for several days before wandering listlessly into the back yard one day and flopping down beside him in the late summer shade.

“I know how you feel, Pete. It’s not the same here without her, is it?”

How many times over the past three months had he picked up the phone, ready to dial her cellphone number? Not to start anything up with her—he told himself—but just to hear her voice. Just to touch base with her and find out how she was doing. Did she like school? Was she getting along okay with her father?

Was she seeing anyone?

This last one always stopped him cold. Although he’d told himself over and over that that’s what he wanted for her, the idea of another man being with Macy was more than he could bear. Another man kissing those ripe pink lips, another man touching her delectable breasts, sucking her nipples. Another man—a stranger!—putting his mouth on her sweet pussy. The very idea drove him mad.

And it wasn’t just the sex he missed. It wasn’t just her body in his bed. He missed the comfortable dinners together, the cribbage games, the way she pointed out the colors in the sunset. He missed cooking beside her in the big sunny kitchen and laughing with her as they watched a silly comedy together. He missed the debates and lively conversations. The passage of time had done nothing to lessen the dull throb caused by her absence.

He growled and shoved the images away. He picked up his pen. Working quickly, he signed a dozen or so cards until he came to the one addressed to her. He hesitated, his chest tight with pain.

Thinking of you
, he finally wrote. An understatement if there ever was one.

* * * *

The three words were enough.

Macy reached out and fingered the gold embossed card sticking up from her purse on the car seat beside her. After so many months of silence, his simple message—letting her know that he hadn’t forgotten her—was all she needed to set her into action. Telling her father that she and Leticia were spending a long weekend together studying, she borrowed her friend’s car and set off Friday morning, heading north.

Leticia was all for it. She’d been urging Macy to write or call Jerrod since mid-September.

“It’s about time your baby’s daddy knows what’s up. How can you expect him to do right by you if he doesn’t even know you’re pregnant?”

“But I don’t want him to do right by me,” Macy had insisted, fighting tears. “I want him to
want
me.”

That hadn’t changed in the intervening months. Despite Leticia’s reminding her constantly that “pride won’t put a man in your bed”, Macy had stubbornly waited for Jerrod to reach out. The single line in the Christmas card wasn’t much. It wasn’t a confession of true and everlasting love, which is what her heart was hungry for.

But it was enough.

She wasn’t showing much yet. No one but Leticia knew she was four months pregnant. With her bulky winter coat on, Jerrod wouldn’t have any reason to suspect. She wanted to meet him on her own terms, to see how things really were between them before she told him her secret.

Her heart thumped unevenly at the possibility that he would send her away.

By the time she reached Portland, it was mid afternoon. A light snow fell as she walked the two blocks from the parking garage and into the busy lobby of the building where Jerrod’s offices were. A towering fir tree stood in the center of the lobby, bedecked with gold streamers and red balls. Beneath the tree, a mountain of donated toys awaited local homeless children. As she waited for an elevator, Macy stopped to look at the gifts, warmed by the generosity of the building’s workers.

Unconsciously, she put her hand on her belly, circling gently, as thoughts of her own child’s uncertain future tumbled chaotically through her head. Would her baby’s father want to be part of their lives? Or would she end up raising their child alone?

* * * *

Jerrod crossed the lobby, heading for the elevator, checking his phone for messages and appointments after being in court since nine that morning. Ahh. Except for a couple of calls to return, he was done for the day if he wanted to be. He could head home for an early start to the weekend, or he could hang around for the office Christmas party that was scheduled to start in a couple of hours. Or he could lock himself in his office and play Scrooge, using the time to brush up on case files. He had to admit that last option had its own appeal. There were pitfalls aplenty in attending the annual office shenanigans. Invariably one or more of the female legal assistants drank too much and came on to him, which made things awkward in the following weeks.

As he walked past the Christmas tree, he turned his head to look at the back of a woman standing near it. Something about her seemed familiar, though she was bundled in a wool coat, knee-high boots and knit cap. The color of her hair and the size of her body reminded him a little of Macy.

And then the elevator chimed and she looked up, and he saw her profile clearly.

The air left his lungs as if he’d just taken a mean punch to the gut. He froze in place, watching as she joined a small wave of people getting onto the elevator. The group jostled and reformed, leaving her standing in front. Just before the doors closed she glanced up and saw him.

Her eyes went wide.

He came to.

“Wait!” He strode forward and reached in, grabbing her by the hand and pulling her into his arms. As she melted into his embrace a smattering of applause broke out among the elevator riders and the doors shushed closed.

He couldn’t believe it! Was this for real?

Was the warm, living bundle of woman in his arms really Macy?

She tipped her head back and smiled up at him, tears spilling down her cheeks. His own eyes prickled, his throat felt tight.

“Hello, Jerrod,” she said.

“Macy?”

He lowered his head and kissed her. Softly at first, their breaths mingling as they drew away and then kissed again. And then, as it began to sink in that it really was Macy he held in his arms, and not some crazy replay of the fantasies he’d been having these last four months, he groaned and gathered her closer, deepening the kiss. Who knows how long they might have stood there, locked in each other’s arms, if a crowd of would-be passengers hadn’t surged toward the elevator?

Jerrod lifted his head and chuckled. “I guess we better get out of the way before we get mowed down.”

She smiled and nodded, wiping her face.

Five minutes later they had settled across from each other in a back booth of the coffee shop on the second floor. Mid-afternoon, the place was a tomb. He reached over and took her hand, rubbing his thumb across her knuckles.

“What are you doing here, Macy?”

“I got your Christmas card. It—it made me want to see you.” She shrugged. “Leticia let me borrow her car and here I am. I may do some shopping while I’m in town.”

“Does your father know you’re here?”

“Are you kidding?” She giggled and he found himself laughing along. Maybe what Chuck didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. It wasn’t like they were going to end up in bed this time. He would hold his libido firmly in check. But God, it was good to see her.

“You look wonderful. I’ve missed you,” he said.

Her gray eyes studied him for a long moment, light from the window hitting her face just right so that the gold flecks in them looked like Christmas stars.

“I’ve missed you too.”

“Peter has missed you as well. He went into a two-week depression after you left.”

“Poor little guy.”

“And poor me. I’ve been in very sad shape myself,” he admitted, trying to keep a teasing tone in his voice.

She frowned briefly, toying with her spoon, and then pierced him with her gaze. “Don’t kid around, okay?”

“Okay.” His heart began to pound roughly.

She hesitated, measuring him against some unknown criteria before she finally spoke. “I want to come home, Jerrod.”

“Home?” He honestly wasn’t sure what she meant.

“Yes. Here. Your house. Home.” She was staring at him, waiting for his response.

What could he say?

“Oh, Macy, honey. That sounds so good to me. But baby, what about school, and your dad and your friends, and having a life with people your own age?”

“It’s not what I want,” she said somberly. “I’ve been trying to do that since August, because that’s what you and my dad both kept telling me I should want. But I’ve just been going through the motions. Don’t make me keep doing that. Please.”

Jerrod sat back and stared at her.

A new and stunning idea bloomed in his head.

What if he was wrong?

Maybe, just because he had twenty some years on the girl it didn’t mean he knew what was better for her. For them. It was true he made his living with his mind. Knowing what was right and just and good made him excellent at his job. But what if mastery in his profession didn’t necessarily apply to his personal life? It was an exhilarating idea.

Maybe Macy knows best this time.

Cautiously, he let his heart crack open just a sliver. He let himself imagine what it might be like to have Macy back with him every day. To start over again with her without the complications of their attorney-client relationship, her virginity, her father’s looming presence. There wasn’t much Chuck could do about their relationship if Macy no longer lived at home.

As Jerrod let the imaginings take hold and become real, he was suffused with feelings of vast relief and simple joy. The list of considerations that he had always used to keep her at arm’s length crumbled to dust. And then there was only Macy herself, sitting opposite him in the café, looking uncertain but determined in her little knit cap.

It was worth the risk! Maybe someday she would leave him and go away with someone younger and more virile. He could see now that that was his deepest fear. But between now and then he would take her love for him and savor every golden moment they had together.

“Stay with me, Macy.” He heard his voice shake with passion and unshed tears. As soon as he spoke, his chest seemed to fill with light.

“Are you sure?” Her expression hadn’t changed yet; she seemed uncertain about whether to believe him.

“I’m sure.” More light poured in. He
was
sure. This is what he wanted, to spend the rest of his life with Macy. Smart, funny, beautiful, sexy Macy.

A happy smile broke across her face.

* * * *

Later that night he took her hand and led her up the stairs to his bedroom. To
their
bedroom, he corrected himself, grinning broadly. They’d bought a Christmas tree that afternoon and decorated it, and now the whole house smelled of evergreens and the jars of cinnamon candles she’d lit and placed along the fireplace mantle. There hadn’t been a Christmas in this house last year, but today Macy’s child-like enthusiasm had brought the holidays fully back to life.

He turned on the bedside lamp and pulled her close. She came into his arms with a sigh and lifted her lips. He tasted her, and his need rose hard and rigid against her belly.

Without breaking the kiss, he found the buttons of her blouse and opened them, filling his palms with her naked breasts. They seemed fuller and heavier than he remembered, and his cock twitched in anticipation.

“Jerrod?”

“Hmm?” He thumbed her nipples and she squirmed, her tummy brushing his erection provocatively.

“Jerrod, there’s something I want you to feel.”

He drew back. What had she just said? He grinned. “I’m game.”

She unzipped her jeans and pushed them down. Then she took both his hands in hers and placed them on her abdomen. Beneath her silky skin, her belly was firm and slightly rounded.

She stared up into his face.

“This is your baby.”

Stunned, he jerked his hands away.

“What? You’re pregnant?”

His mind reeled. How could there be a baby? They’d used condoms every time they’d fucked. Of course
that
was no guarantee; condoms could break. But he’d always assumed that happened to other people, not to him. He took two steps back and shoved his hands through his hair, struggling to process this piece of news. Macy waited silently, her eyes steady and dark as she watched him.