Their Baby Girl...?: The Baby Mission / Her Baby Secret

There was no need to place an order. The instant the waitress saw the four of them, she began making notations on her pad. The women’s choice almost never varied.

“I’m really glad you called,” Sherry told Lori as she settled back with her hot-fudge sundae. “I’ve been meaning to get in touch.” Her eyes swept over the faces of the other two women. “With all of you.” Leaving her spoon buried deep within the mountain of French vanilla ice cream, she dug into her purse and pulled out three official-looking ivory envelopes. She handed one to each of them. “I’m not economizing on stamps,” she explained. “I just thought the personal touch was nicer.”

Taking a generous spoonful of ice cream, Sherry savored the taste as she watched her three friends open up the lacy envelopes.

The tearing of paper was followed by squeals of enthusiasm and mutual joy.

C.J. was the first to collect herself and say something closer to a level pitch. “You’re getting married.”

Sherry grinned. If anyone had told her three months ago that she would be marrying one of the richest men in the country, not to mention one of the best looking, she would have told them they were crazy. But here she was, wildly in love and engaged. Life had a funny way of working things out with excellent results. “Yeah, I know.”

Joanna tucked the invitation away into her purse and began sipping her strawberry ice cream soda in earnest. “Talk about the lengths that a journalist is willing to go to in order to get an exclusive interview…”

A reporter for the Bedford World News, Sherry’s assignment had begun as a challenge. To get a background story on an elusive, successful corporate raider dubbed Darth Vader. Things had gotten tangled up when she’d suddenly gone into labor at his mountain hideaway. St. John Adair had wound up delivering her baby. From there, everything had just escalated.

Sherry looked at her friends. They all knew her story. She’d become as close to them as she was to her own family.

“Exclusive is definitely the key word here.”Sherry sighed, temporarily forgetting about the sinful dessert. “I’ve never felt this way about anyone before.” Her grin widened. “Part of me feels that it’s got to be illegal to feel this happy.”

Reaching over the table, C.J. squeezed her hand. “Enjoy it while you can. As far as I know, they haven’t passed a law against that yet.”

Since her sundae was beginning to drip a little around the edges, Sherry’s attention reverted back to her dessert. “I tried to time the ceremony so that it didn’t interfere with either of your due dates.”She looked at the two pregnant women. “You will come, won’t you?”

She could use a little happy diversion in her life, C.J. thought. “Try and stop me.”

Lori patted her stomach affectionately. “Count me in. This little darling’ll be out and smiling in time for you to exchange your vows.”

“Babies don’t smile until they’re at least six months old,” C.J. contradicted. She saw Lori begin to protest. “Those funny little expressions you see on their faces is just gas.”

“Don’t you believe it,” Joanna interjected with all the confidence of a new first-time mother delving through the mysteries of babies. “My baby smiles at me all the time. And at Rick.”

“That’s not surprising,” Sherry commented. “A stone would smile at Rick.” Her eyes shifted toward C.J. The FBI special agent was the next one due and had plied both her and Joanna with questions about what giving birth actually felt like. “So, are you getting excited?”

C.J. had gone from excited to nervous to feeling twinges of encroaching panic. With the big event less than a month away, she was now banking down any and all thoughts regarding the pending experience. It was easier getting through the day that way.

“I’m trying not to think about it.” She took a long sip of her mint chocolate-chip shake and let the coolness slide down her throat before continuing. “I’m not much on anticipating pain.”

Or dealing with the fear that had descended over her, she added silently. For probably the first time in her life, she found herself afraid of the unknown. Afraid of what she did know about the unknown. Afraid of what came after, as well. Because, despite the support of her family and friends, she was afraid of screwing up.

Joanna waved away the comment. “That’s just a small part of it,” she assured C.J. “It’s true what they say, you know. You do forget.”

C.J. curled her lip cynically. “Probably because it hurts so much, you black out.”

Lori looked at her in surprise. “I’ve never heard you sound so negative before.” She studied her for a second. “Anything wrong?”

C.J. sighed, pushing her straw into a glob of ice cream. “Just feeling sorry for myself, I guess.” She saw the others were waiting for a more detailed “My partner’s out in the field, tracking down a serial killer.”

Sherry was the first to break the silence. “Serialkiller envy.” Exchanging looks with the others, she laughed incredulously. “Boy, that’s definitely not my thing.” And then she became serious. “You’re a mom-to-be, C.J. You’re supposed to be agonizing over what shade of blue or pink to paint the nursery, not about wanting to go chasing after the bad guys with a gun strapped to the inside of your maternity bra.”

They didn’t understand, C.J. thought. Though she gave the appearance of being flamboyant and quick to act, deep down, she felt a strong commitment to her work. She defined herself by it. There was this overwhelming need within her to put “the bad guys,” as Sherry called them, away.

“Speaking of nursery,” Joanna, ever the peacemaker, interjected, “have you decided to finally let us give you baby presents?”

It was a sore point with everyone, C.J. sensed. Even her brothers were commenting on it. Warrick’s crack this afternoon had made it unanimous. She shook her head, a curiously shy smile creeping along her lips. “There’s no need to give me presents.”

“Yes, there is,” Sherry insisted. She waved her hand around the table, taking them all in. “It’s part of the bonding process.”

Sherry thought back to when they had all initially gotten together. She knew as far as she went, talking with the women had gone a long way toward helping her remain calm about the challenges that were ahead of her. She had her parents, whom she loved dearly, but there was something infinitely comforting about being able to turn to women who were in the exact same rocky boat as she was and be able to talk out the fears that plagued her.

“We’re all in this together, so to speak,” Sherry pointed out. “C’mon, C.J., why won’t you let us give you anything?”

“After,” C.J. told them. “Once he or she is here.”

This time it was Joanna’s turn to shake her head. “I can’t believe that you’re the only one of the four of us who had an amniocentesis done and you didn’t ask the doctor to tell you what you were having.”

She had her reasons. “I always liked opening up my gifts at the end of the day, not the beginning.”

C.J. didn’t add that she was afraid if she knew the sex of the baby, she’d start thinking of it as a real person. This way, if something unforeseeable did happened and she lost the baby, she could still mentally divorce herself from it somehow.

Just the way she had from Tom.

All her protests to Warrick and her family notwithstanding, when Tom told her that he thought it was best if they just stopped seeing each other, she’d felt cruelly disappointed. She’d honestly thought that for once, she’d found someone she could count on. Someone who felt as strongly about her as she did about him.

That was what happened when you expected too much, she told herself. You wound up with too little. Or, in this case, with almost nothing at all.

But she was determined that no one would suspect how she really felt. It didn’t go with the image of herself she wanted to project.

Wanting to change the direction of the conversation, she looked at Joanna. “So, your turn. How are things going with you?”

Joanna’s eyes glowed. She pushed aside her almost depleted dish of dessert, wiping off the area in front of her. “I thought you’d never ask.”

Digging deeply into her purse, she pulled out a small white album that was almost bursting at the seams. It was crammed full of brand-new photographs of her brand-new baby.

Sherry laughed as she dug into her own purse. “I’ll meet your stack—” she plunked down her own album “—and raise you five pictures.” “You’re on,” Joanna declared.

Lori exchanged looks with C.J. “I think we’re about to get babied to death.”

“Bring them on,” C.J. encouraged. “I can’t think of a sweeter way to go.”

* * *

Last night had been nice break, but it felt good to get back to work, C.J. thought as she sat, reading over the folder that Warrick had left with her yesterday. She was reviewing it for the umpteenth time.

The office was empty, except for her. There were times she welcomed the quiet.

She enjoyed getting together with the other women. That in itself was a constant source of surprise to her. Apart from her mother, she’d been raised in a world of men. With three older brothers and one younger one, C.J. found that she had a difficult time relating to other women.

But Lori, Sherry and Joanna were different. Maybe because, for different reasons, they had all found themselves approaching motherhood while in a single status. Facing the biggest event in their lives without a life partner beside them had given them all something in common.