Page 128 of Shame the Devil

His hand stilled. “You can feel him?”

She put a gentle hand on his face and kissed his mouth. “Yeah. I can. It feels so good, Harlan. It’s magical. I never got to enjoy it the first time, I was so scared, and now … it’s magical. He’s active, I think, even though what I feel is just flutters right now, like butterfly wings inside me. In another month or so, though, you’ll be able to feel him kicking, too. He’s in there growing, getting strong.”

“So …” He hesitated.

“Oh,” she said, “go on and tell me. Whatever it is. Surely we can be honest now.”

“So when you go on Monday,” he said. “And have the … the sonogram and all. See the doctor. Do you want me to come with you?”

She still had her hand on his face. “Do you want to come with me?” She wasn’t sure which way he was asking the question.Whyhe was asking the question. She knew, though, that they needed that honesty.

Your truth is your sword and your shield.

“Yeah,” he said, and smiled. “Yeah. I do.”

“I want that, too,” she said.

He smiled like the sunrise, and she laughed and kissed him and thought,I can’t stand this much happiness.

He said, “Well, good. Also, do you want dinner?”

She sighed. “I so want dinner, you cannot imagine. Please. Feed me.”

* * *

An hour later,Harlan was loading the dishwasher and Jennifer was pouring the leftover soup into a plastic container and looking sleepy, even though it was barely eight o’clock. Barefoot, in her pink PJs and robe, sweet as cotton candy. In his kitchen, and all he wanted was to keep her here.

As if she’d read his mind, she asked him, “You know what I want to do?”

“It had better not be having sex,” he said, finishing with the dishwasher and closing it up, then starting to wipe down counters. “I’m good, but I’ve got a limit.” He didn’t. It was more about whatever crazy ideas she might have about what she was now required to want, seeing as she was the most conscientious woman in the world and he was a football player.

How the hell did a sweet, conservative, monogamous woman get that good at oral sex? And why the hell would a guy not want to give a woman like that everything he had?

Never mind. He had her now, and he could take care of it.

If you asked him, though, she just looked tired. Also, he wasn’t positive that doing it again would be good for her, or the baby, either. You bet he was going to be at that doctor’s appointment. He didn’t trust her to ask the embarrassing questions, and he needed answers.

She smiled at him, still soft and sweet, and said, “I want to lie in your bed with you and watch a movie until I fall asleep. If you have a TV up there. If you want to.”

“Ah,” he said. “We cuddling? That it?”

“Well, yeah. I’m trying to be honest here, Harlan.”

She looked so serious, and so damn cute, he had to cuddle her a little right now. “You bet we can do that,” he told her. “You in my bed works for me.”

In the end, it took her twice as long to choose the movie as it did to fall asleep. She didn’t even manage to scoot down in the bed, just conked out then and there, her head on his chest, his arm around her, sitting up against the pillows. He turned off the set, put a hand on her belly in the dark, felt the roundness under his palm, and imagined his baby boy in there. His eyes closed, one little fist clenched, his legs kicking. Sucking his thumb, maybe.

His son.

He whispered, “Pretty safe place in there, little guy. She’ll take good care of you.” And thought about his mom when she’d been pregnant with Annabelle.

One morning, she’d put his hand on her stomach to feel the baby kick. What had he been, twelve?

Probably, looking back, she’d been looking for somebody to share her excitement with. Looking for some sweetness. She’d held her hand over his and said, “She’s lively, huh? I think she’ll be strong, like you.” She’d smiled at him, and he’d been embarrassed, had taken his hand away as soon as he could, muttered an excuse about meeting the guys to play ball, and got out of there.

Now, he cradled his own son, sheltered there so safely, and wished he could have that moment back. That he could tell his mom that she’d been right. That Annabellehadgrown up to be strong, and brave, too, and that she was happy. That he was taking care of her, and he’d be doing it from now on. He wanted to tell her that she was having a new grandson, and that he was going to do his best to be the kind of dad she could’ve been proud of. That he’d found a woman who knew how to be a mom, and maybe that was because he’d known, somewhere inside him, what a good mom looked like. Because he’d had one.

But most of all, he wanted to tell her he was sorry.