Jamie Sobrato - Baby Under The Mistletoe

For a least an hour now, her mother had been holed up in the guest room, napping or, whatever it was she was doing. Composing an angry poem about what a bad daughter Soleil was? It wouldn’t have been the first time.

One of her mother’s more famous poems-one that had shown up in quite a few feminist anthologies over the years-was entitled “Stranger of Mine.”

Stranger not as in strange, but as in, someone you don’t know. As in Soleil, apparently.

She’d never asked her mother about the poem. It had been composed when Soleil was in her teen years, but she hadn’t seen it until thumbing through her freshman anthology in college.

The poem’s theme of alienation between mother and child had felt like an insult all those years ago. As if her mother had announced to the world that she didn’t really know her daughter, without ever telling Soleil herself.

What was not to know?

Was her mother merely being dramatic?

That was a distinct possibility, but the very fact that the notion had occurred to Anne only served to drive Soleil further away.

She wanted to have an entirely different relationship with her own daughter. She wanted to be a loving, fun, strict but kind mother. A sane mother. Someone her daughter could trust to keep it real.

She would be all those things. She was certain she could trust herself to do at least that for her child.

But what else could she do? Could she swallow who she was and give her baby a live-in father? Or give up the farm and go play air force wife in God-knows-where?

No way.

She was just as certain that she couldn’t do that.

A DAY AFTER her mother’s arrival, Soleil was tense and counting the days until Anne would leave. Which would have been a lot easier if she wasn’t in Promise for an open-ended visit.

She’d disappeared in the morning, on her way to a day at the local hot springs, where she’d scheduled a massage and was attending some kind of relaxation workshop.

If it meant she’d learn how to relax without the aid of alcohol, Soleil was all for it. And she was relieved to have her mother gone for West’s visit to assemble the crib.

“So, this is the baby’s room,” Soleil said as she led West into the bedroom next to her own.

It was the smallest bedroom in the house and would work perfectly as a nursery. She’d originally intended to put off creating a nursery until later, once she’d figured out other more important details of her impending motherhood-like how to tell the baby’s father she was pregnant, and how to take care of a baby and run the farm at the same time. Then she’d dreamed of painting the baby’s room purple, so she’d done it.

Now, with West commandeering her life, she could ponder things like where to place the crib in the room, and what view the baby might enjoy best.

Her baby girl.

Preparing the nursery was one more step along the path to the baby becoming a real live person, complete with name and favorite foods and a set of eyes through which to view the world as no one else did.

“Great location. We-I mean, you will be able to hear her when she wakes up.”

Soleil bit her tongue, choosing to ignore his little slip. Maybe it had been an honest mistake, and not yet another example of him insinuating himself into her world. Either way, because he’d been so nice about wanting to help out around the farm when she needed it, and because she was enjoying his company more than she’d thought she would, she was playing the diplomat.

When she didn’t say anything, he apparently took her silence as a sign that she was upset. “I didn’t mean to suggest-”

“It’s okay. I know you’re trying to work your way into my bed,” she joked, but as soon as the words were out of her mouth, they had an unintended effect.

They shined light on a fact she’d been working hard to ignore-that she was still attracted to him physically.

Wildly attracted, in spite of their differences, in spite of her ever-increasing girth, in spite of the stress of the holidays. It had always been her problem.

West smiled, a little too knowingly for her comfort. And, in that infuriating way he often had, he let the awkwardness hang there in the air between them, not saying a word.

“Okay,” Soleil said. “There’s the bed. I’m going to start the second coat of paint. Just let me know if you need any help putting that puppy together.”

He eyed the huge cardboard box. “Do you have any tools inside, or are they all in the barn?”

“In the kitchen there’s a tool set in the first drawer to the left of the sink.”

He disappeared down the hallway, and Soleil put the old T-shirt on that she’d been using for painting. She turned on the radio, tuned in to the local station that was currently playing a tribute to Joni Mitchell, to save them from any more awkward silences. She pried the lid off the paint can, poured more paint into the pan, then started applying the second coat.

They worked without talking for a while, and Soleil tried to get lost in the rhythm of painting. It was something she normally enjoyed doing, finding it meditative and physical in a satisfying way, but today she felt West’s presence like a wild animal that she had to constantly be on the lookout for.

“Could you give me a hand with this part?” West asked, and Soleil turned to see that not only did he have his shirt off-dear Lord-but that he’d managed to put together most of the bed already.

Some part of her was disappointed that he might be leaving soon.

“Sure.” She put down the paint roller and wiped her hands on her stained T-shirt.

“I need you to help me get these two pieces into the headboard, and hold it while I screw them in place.”

“You’re fast,” she said, trying to think what else she could ask him to do, and simultaneously berating herself for wanting to keep him around.

“This was easier than it looked,” he said as he reached for the screwdriver.

His arm brushed against Soleil’s, and a ripple of pleasure traveled from her arm down her chest and past her belly to the apex of her legs.

She shook off the hot flash and forced herself to focus on the bed. The baby bed. The bed for their baby. The one she was very pregnant with.

They guided the final pieces of the crib together while Soleil crouched on the ground. She held the supports still as West screwed them to the headboard, and she tried not to stare at the way his jaw muscle flexed as he clenched his teeth in concentration.

The faint dusting of freckles on his shoulder was what did her in. That shoulder, well muscled, leading down to flexing biceps and triceps, which led to a hard forearm sprinkled with brown hair, which led to large, capable hands that were alternately gentle and teasing or firm and demanding…

Those freckles, she’d seen them up close and kissed them each in turn. She’d dug her teeth into the skin there as he’d made love to her, urgent, almost at climax.

She had nothing but the best of associations with those freckles, those shoulders, those arms, those hands. Not to mention the broad, perfect chest and the flat, rippling belly.

The day she’d found out she was pregnant she’d promised herself that she wouldn’t ever lose control sexually again. She’d sworn she would never let lust get the best of her. She’d be responsible, restrained…She’d only make love to a man when they were in a committed relationship, using at least two forms of birth control.

But now she was as knocked up as she was ever going to be, and it wasn’t clear whether she’d ever be in a committed relationship again. It wasn’t clear if she’d ever have the time or energy before she hit menopause to date or have a relationship, when she was going to be so busy running the farm and taking care of her child.

What if West was her last real chance to get laid?

And what if it wasn’t even a chance? What if he didn’t want to be with her now that she was shaped like a cartoon character?

“You’re looking awfully serious. What’re you thinking about?” West asked as he finished the second bed support and checked to see that it was secure.

He had remarkable timing.

“I was thinking about the characters on children’s shows, and how adults hate them.”

“I think some of them are kind of cute.”

Truly remarkable timing.

“So this is it? The bed’s done?”

He nodded.

She started to stand, and the change in her center of gravity set her off balance for a moment. West caught her elbow and steadied her, but instead of taking away his hand once she was fully upright, he lingered, caressing first her arm, then her lower back.

The contact was more than her hormone-addled libido could take. She turned toward him. They were only inches apart. Close enough to kiss.

“Thanks,” she said. “For putting the crib together.”

“Anytime.”

“I’m hoping I won’t need another crib anytime soon,” she said, but she got the distinct sense that he wasn’t really listening now, because he was staring intently at her mouth as if he had a mission.

So now she had to step away, or she was going to kiss him. She needed to take one step backward, then another, and another, until they were a chaste distance apart. She had to remember her vow about no more knocking boots with guys she wasn’t in love with.

He leaned down and kissed her, and she turned into a puddle. His kiss was soft, lips barely brushing hers at first, then lingering, asking if he should continue.

Yes, he should definitely continue.

She reached up and twined her fingers in his hair, pulling him closer as she turned his sweet, gentle kiss into something animal and urgent.

He pulled her closer, in that I’m-in-command way he had, and it all came back to her. The way they moved together, a perfectly choreographed dance, the way their bodies fit together so divinely, the way he knew how to find the places where she ached the most and drive her crazy with teasing and coaxing and pleasuring.

He was the best lover she’d ever had.

And, hallelujah, they were kissing.

Her eyes closed, she felt as if no time had passed between the past summer and now, until she tried to grind her pelvis against him and came up against the barrier of her belly, round and protruding.

It definitely wasn’t the summer.

She tugged at his hair a bit, pulling him back just enough so that she could talk. “I can’t get pregnant now,” she whispered. “I mean, since I already am.”

“I haven’t had any other lovers since-”

“Neither have I,” she said.

He looked relieved.

“Is that what we’re doing?” he asked.

“We’re not exactly painting the walls. I mean, unless you don’t want to-”

“I definitely want to.” He ended the discussion by kissing her again as he slid his hands up her shirt, under both her T-shirt and the sweatshirt she wore under it, straight to bare skin.

His cool touch turned her skin to gooseflesh, and when he reached her bra and undid it with one flick of his fingers, she said a little silent prayer of thanks. He slid his hands around to her breasts and cupped them, and she gave a little gasp.

She was humming, a live wire, electric with the desire coursing through her, more aroused than she’d ever been in her life.

It had to be the pregnancy hormones. If he tried to put the brakes on now, or had second thoughts, she feared she might later be compared to a black widow in the newspaper story about how she’d killed her lover.

“Let’s go to your bedroom,” he said.

She didn’t need an invitation. “Yeah,” she said, then dragged him in that direction.

SOLEIL HAD ALWAYS been a passionate lover, but her enthusiasm now was unprecedented. West almost laughed at the way she’d grabbed him a few minutes ago and dragged him in here.

He’d no more than blinked before she was unfastening his pants and he was kicking them aside. While part of him wanted to put on the brakes and slow them down enough so that he could savor the experience, the part of him that was actually in control wasn’t about to slow down anything.

He wanted her as badly as she wanted him, except he was pretty sure he didn’t have the same glazed look of determination she had.

Now he was fumbling with her shirts, trying to tug them off of her, except she seemed to be resisting.

“Wait,” she said, breaking their kiss. “I, uh, I’m wearing maternity pants…and panties.”

“So?”

Her look of distress turned to a wry grin. “I don’t want you to see them.”

“Why?”

“Because they nearly come up to my armpits.”

West recalled the fabric his hand had brushed over on the way to her breasts. At the time he hadn’t thought much of it, but now he laughed, imagining her distress.