An Abundance of Babies

The rueful smile came and went, replaced by a complacent one. Facades had always been part of her world and she had learned her lesson well at her father’s knee: never let them know what you’re thinking.

Stephanie finished signing the slip and offered it back to the white-haired man.

“I was.”

“Hopefully it was some place air-conditioned.” Silas Abernathy chuckled, separating the yellow copy from the others and snapping it off. He offered the slip to her. She noticed that a thatch of his hair was pasted to his forehead. “These voluntary brown-outs are a bear.”

“A little air is better than none,” Stephanie murmured philosophically, absently dropping the charge slip into her purse. Weather, a nice, banal topic, she thought.

A wave of bitterness swept over her the next moment as she snapped her purse shut. Unseasonable heat had been the reason Holly and Brett had decided to go off on an impromptu, three-day vacation. A vacation they’d invited her to share, but, miserably uncomfortable in her condition, she’d opted to remain home.

If she hadn’t…

Stephanie shut the thought away. No sense in going there.

“Good attitude,” Mr. Abernathy was saying, slipping her prescription into a small, slim bag. “Wish all my customers thought like you did. Can’t tell you how many come in here, complaining about the lack of air in the store. As if it was my idea to cut down on the power.” He shook his head. “And they’re not even in your condition.” He held out the bag to her, his eyes on her very swollen belly, a belly no amount of fabric, with its artful folds and layers, could any longer disguise. “Any day now, huh?”

Because the man was as old as her grandfather would have been had he lived, and just as kindly, Stephanie took no offense at the very personal probing, though these last few days, she’d taken offense at almost anything.

“Any day now,” she confirmed brightly.

And much, much too soon, she thought, taking the small paper bag with her prenatal vitamins in them. Extra prenatal vitamins her obstetrician, Sheila Pollack, had prescribed because she was still so dangerously anemic. The babies were taking a lot out of her.

She wasn’t ready.

Wasn’t ready to greet these babies she’d suddenly been placed in sole charge of. They weren’t supposed to be her babies, they were supposed to belong to Brett and Holly. She didn’t know if she could love them the way they were meant to be loved.

Holly and Brett had been so eager, so filled with love for them from the very first moment the test had turned positive.

Maybe even before.

Murmuring something that passed for “goodbye,” Stephanie turned away from the counter and made her way to the pharmacy’s electronic doors, feeling not unlike a lumbering bear.

The doors yawned open as she approached. With the doors no longer acting as a barrier, a blast of heat came at her.

She bit her lower lip as she stepped outside and the southern California heat surrounded her in an atypically hot, sweaty embrace. Even the air she drew into her lungs was heavy, daunting.

It was all supposed to have been so straightforward, so easy. Far less complicated than most surrogate mother arrangements. Her brother, Matthew, a corporate attorney, had insisted on documents being signed, though she’d never felt the need for that.

She’d done this out of love for a woman who had been closer to her than a sister—certainly closer to her than her own father had ever been.

Hell, it had been her idea in the first place.

She’d volunteered to do this over Holly and Brett’s initial self-conscious protests. Desperate for a child, the couple still hadn’t wanted to put her through this. It had taken more than a little convincing on her part to make them both understand that this was something she was more than willing to do if it meant that they could ultimately have their life’s dream come true: a child of their very own.

But “easy” had turned complicated right from the start.

The “child” had turned into “children” shortly after her pregnancy had been confirmed. Sheila had been bubbling with pleasure when she’d told her that she was pregnant not with one baby, but with two. The whole procedure had taken only two tries.

Fertility personified, that was her. But then she already knew that, she thought, fighting a second onslaught of tears. She and Sebastian had shared one time together, just one time, and she’d become pregnant with his child.

A child he’d never even known about. A child she’d lost soon after she’d lost him. It was as if she wasn’t allowed to hang on to anything at all that would remind her of his ever having been in her life.

Except for fading memories she couldn’t seem to eradicate from her head no matter how often or how hard she tried.

There was no doubt in her mind that he’d long since purged her from his.

It didn’t matter. He wasn’t part of her life anymore, hadn’t been for seven years. But these babies were.

Her hand went over her belly again. She had two babies on the way and no parents waiting in the wings to receive them.

Damn, why did life have to keep getting this complicated? Why couldn’t things go right for a change? Was that asking too much?

Dragging her hair off her neck, she stepped away from the marginal shade cast by the pharmacy’s awning and ventured out into the parking lot. She could feel the heat sizzling as it rose up along her legs. The asphalt felt as if it was going to liquefy with very little encouragement.

So, probably, she mused, could she. She’d never responded well to heat, and now, since she’d gotten pregnant, it was twice as bad.

With a sigh, Stephanie looked around, trying to remember where she had parked her car with its life-saving air-conditioning.

Stephanie Yarbourough.

The sight of her struck him with the force of a two-by-four being swung directly at his middle.

She wasn’t the last person he’d ever expected to see here. After all, Bedford was her hometown, just as it had once been his. But he’d never expected to see her like that, her belly clearly distended beneath the wide, blue-and-white floral print dress.

Pregnant.

Stephanie was carrying some other man’s child.

And why not? he demanded of himself dourly. She damn well had a right to go on with her life. Wasn’t that what it had been all about, his leaving Bedford almost seven years ago? To allow her to go on with her life the way he knew in his heart it was really meant to go on? With someone from her own class. Someone who knew what fork to use, what words to say. Someone she would never find herself being ashamed of, who could make things happen for her the way he couldn’t.

Yes, that was what his leaving had been all about, he thought. But in all the time that had passed, he hadn’t once considered the possibility of Stephanie giving herself to anyone else.

Wanted to be her one and only, despite all your so-called noble intentions, didn’t you, Sebastian? he mocked himself.

But it hadn’t been because of some vain desire on his part. It had been because he’d loved her. And wanted to go on loving her. Forever. And he’d wanted her to love him that way.

Showed how naive the tough kid from the wrong side of the tracks had been, Sebastian thought cynically, leaning over the steering wheel of his abruptly halted car to get a better look at her. In the pressed pages of his mind, Stephanie had remained eternally twenty, eternally innocent.

He debated driving on. Just shutting the image he’d just seen out of his mind and moving on, mentally and physically. After all, he hadn’t returned to Bedford because he wanted to pick up where he’d left off. He’d returned because he was needed.

Go, damn it, she hasn’t seen you. Go.

He didn’t listen. Instead, he pulled up the hand brake on the car and turned off the key in the ignition. A force greater than noble thoughts and the need for self-preservation had him getting out of the car close to where she was wandering through the parking lot.

“Stevi?”

Hearing the voice above the din of passing cars and stray voices in the lot, Stephanie froze. Despite the scorching heat, she felt s sharp chill zip like lightning up and down her spine. She told herself that she was hearing things, that she was imagining them.