Expecting the Boss's Baby / Twins Under His Tree: Expecting the Boss's Baby

He sipped a little more, swallowed, “How long …?” His voice trailed off. Words were hard to come by. His throat felt dust-bowl dry.

She finished for him. “….have we been here?”

At his nod, she told him, “This is the fourth day.”

The fourth day? How could that be possible? He whispered, wonderingly, “So much time …”

“You’ve been very sick. Drink a little more.”

He obeyed her. It felt good, the warmth, going down. He realized he was stretched across the backseat. Hadn’t he been in the front before? He asked, “Back … seat?”

She nodded. “I managed to get you back here the second day. You don’t remember?”

“No. Nothing …”

“It’s better for you back here, without that big console between the seats.”

Outside, lightning flashed. The answering clap of thunder seemed very close. Hard rain pounded the plane.

“Rescue?” he asked.

Her smile was tender. “Not yet.”

His eyes were so heavy. He wanted to stay awake, to talk to her, to find out all that had happened, to make sure she was okay, that nothing had hurt her because of his foolish need to buy big toys and then take risks with them. But his eyes would not obey the commands of his brain.

He couldn’t keep them open any longer. “Zoe. Thank you, Zoe …”

“Shh. Sleep now. Your fever’s broken and you are going to get better. Just rest. Just sleep.”

He dreamed of Nora—Nora, crying. Nora begging him to understand.

“Please, Dax. I know when we got married I said I was willing to wait. But I’m pregnant now and we are going to have to make the best of it.”

“Liar,” he said to her, low and deadly. He said all the rotten things, the cruel things he had said all those years ago. He accused her. He’d always known how much she wanted a baby. And he didn’t believe in accidents.

“I’m so sorry.” The words were a plea for his acceptance, his forgiveness. She swore to him that it had been an accident, her big brown eyes flooded with guilty tears, her soft red mouth trembling.

He wasn’t ready. He didn’t know if he would ever be ready.

But he knew it wasn’t right, to be so cruel to her. He was going to be a father. He needed to start learning to accept that.

So in the end, he reached for her, he wrapped his arms around her and held her close. He comforted her. He dried her tears. He said it would be all right.

“All right, Nora. We’ll work it out. It’s all right….”

A cool cloth bathed his face, his neck. “Shh, now. Shh …”

He opened his eyes, half expecting to see his ex-wife gazing down at him. But it wasn’t Nora. “Zoe.”

“I was just going to check your bandage.”

“Is it …?” He reached up to touch his forehead.

She caught his hand, guided it back down. “It’s fine. Healing well.”

He blinked away the last of the dream about Nora. “What day?”

“It’s Friday.”

“The fifth day …”

“Yep.”

“No rescue plane, no search party …”

She slowly shook her head. “By now, it’s safe to assume they have been looking. By now, my father knows. He will have mobilized and when my father mobilizes, things get done. But no sign of anyone looking for us so far. I found the flares from that large, wonderful, lifesaving box of equipment of yours and I haven’t had a chance to use one yet.”

Five days, he thought. And how much longer would they have to last here? Were they going to die here? He said, “It’s a big jungle.”

“But you gave me the coordinates, remember? We know approximately where we are. Eventually, we can try and walk out of here if we have to.”

He said what he was thinking. “But we shouldn’t have to. We should be wrapping up our ‘great escape’ in San Cristóbal de las Casas about now. And we would be, except for the fact that I’m a fatheaded ass who had to show off his pretty little plane.”

“Stop that,” she said sharply. “Don’t you even go there, Dax Girard. This plane was perfectly safe. The weather was the problem.”

“But if I had only listened to you—”

“If, if, if. Please. You want to talk if? Fine. What about if I hadn’t proposed this trip in the first place, what if you hadn’t liked the idea? And we can always go in the other direction. What if you weren’t an excellent pilot? What if you hadn’t had the foresight to install that box full of necessary equipment in the back? What if you hadn’t put together a first aid kit that has everything but an operating table inside? We cannot afford to get all up into the ‘if’ game, Dax. We need to keep our chins up and our minds focused on what needs doing next.”

He stared up at her. “Wow,” he said.

“Wow, what?” She glared down at him.

He didn’t even try to hide the admiration he knew had to be written all over his face. “I don’t think I realized until now just how tough you are.”

“I have seven bossy brothers and a pigheaded dad. You’re damn right I’m tough.”

His stomach chose that moment to growl. He put his hand on it. “I think I’m starving.”

Her sudden grin was like the sun coming up. “And that is a very good sign.”

The next day, which was Saturday, she helped him get up on his feet and out of the plane for the first time since they’d left Nuevo Laredo almost a week before. Every muscle, every bone, every inch of his skin—all of it ached. He was weak as a newborn baby. And he was filthy. He could smell himself and the smell was not a good one.

But his ankle was healing faster than even he could have hoped. He could put weight on it, gingerly, could hobble around if he took his time and was careful. Zoe had a camp set up, with the two collapsible camp chairs from the box in the baggage area, the tent and the few cooking utensils. And a campfire ringed by rocks she had gathered, with a large, jagged piece of the wing nearby. It took him a moment to understand the purpose of the piece of wing.

Then it came to him. When it rained, she could use it to shield the fire a little, to keep at least some of the coals dry. The wood she’d collected waited under another hunk of the ruined plane.

She had water heating for him.