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That was one of the reasons Amber worked two jobs at one point. The other job was at the Murumbian Embassy before she got fired for helping her friend Venus, who was in some serious trouble. But Amber was glad to be back at the café full-time. Sometimes money wasn’t everything.
Mrs. Van Hogen was one of the original customers of the café since Amber’s parents first opened it. Her eyes then drifted to Amber’s enormous midsection.
“I see you’ve been quite busy yourself lately,” Mrs. Van Hogen commented, looking at Amber’s baby bump. “I didn’t know you got married. Congratulations.” The woman’s voice was full of animation.
“Oh, I…didn’t,” Amber said, rubbing the enormous swell of her belly.
“Are you engaged?”
“Um. Well, no. The father’s not in the picture.”
Amber caught the look of sorrow sliding across the old woman’s face like a dark cloud moving in on a sunny day.
Oh, no. Please don’t feel sorry for me. I’ll be okay, really.
From the corner of her eye Amber caught the daggers from her aunt’s piercing glare. Her aunt then swiftly made her way to where Amber was standing as she continued to speak with her customer.
“Hi, Mrs. Van Hogen,” Mavis Murray interrupted the conversation in a boisterous voice. She placed her hand on Amber’s elbow. “If you’ll excuse me I need to speak with Amber.”
“Oh, fine. No problem,” the woman hesitated, looking a bit stunned at the interruption. “Thank you again, Amber. And thank you for those lovely flowers you sent me at the hospital. You’re a darling.”
“Oh, no worries, Mrs. Van Hogen. Enjoy your meal.” Amber tried to keep her calm and hide her annoyance at her aunt’s rude intrusion. She knew what was coming.
“Is everything okay, Auntie? You seem upset.” Amber asked pointedly when the ladies approached the staff area in back of the café. The kitchen wasn’t so busy then. It was just after the morning rush. So things had quieted down. It was a good time for Amber to take her break.
“Must you parade your condition in front of our customers?”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard what I said. Do you have to let everyone know you’re…an unwed mother?”
“Mrs. Van Hogen asked a question and I answered it.” Amber felt her heart pound hard in her chest. It wasn’t her original choice to be a single parent but that was how things worked out. The last thing she needed was someone close to her throwing it back in her face or treating her like an embarrassment.
As much as Amber enjoyed working at the café, working alongside her aunt, who could be a bit overbearing at times, was often a nightmare. But Amber tried to be as understanding as possible. Everybody’s personality was different, right? After Amber’s parents were killed in a car accident when Amber was much younger, her aunt took her in and raised her. The cafe was willed to Amber, but she was too young at the time, so as guardian her aunt Mavis took responsibility and ever since was active in running the business—it was, after all, her aunt who saved the café from going bust.
Amber tried not to focus on negative behaviour and only on good things as much as possible. She had to for the baby’s sake. The last thing she wanted was her blood pressure or anxiety levels to soar.
Amber glanced down at her watch. “I have my prenatal class soon. I’ll be away for about an hour and a half and then I’ll be back,” Amber said, pulling off her white apron and hanging it up on a hook.
Amber rubbed her hand over her swollen belly. She felt a ticklish feeling and a maternal warmth filled her heart. Her little baby had just kicked from inside. At least something was pleasant in her life.
“I’ll take you there,” Mavis insisted. Perhaps she wanted Amber out of there as fast as possible.
“You don’t have to.”
“I know that. But I will nonetheless.”
Moments later, the car pulled up to the front of the Mayberry Hill Family Resource Center. Amber arrived for her first of many prenatal class visits.
“Thanks but you really didn’t have to drop me here,” Amber said again to her aunt Mavis who barely spoke a word since they had driven from the Murray Cafe.
“Nonsense. I’m not going to have you hobbling about town like that, alone. You’re getting bigger every day!”
Amber felt uneasy and rubbed her belly again. Aunt Mavis and Amber never really got along, though Mavis was Amber’s mother’s sister.
Amber knew why Mavis was treating her this way. Mavis was head of the Women’s Reading Group at the Mayberry Hill First Movement Church, and Amber, being unwed and pregnant, just didn’t sit too well with her aunt—or her aunt’s group.
Well, Amber had always been the careful one. She only had one real boyfriend with whom she’d been intimate. Unfortunately, he turned out to be the king of jerks. They had lived together and were supposed to get married. But Amber quickly learned that he wasn’t what he pretended to be when they’d first met. He was cruel, lying and cheating on her and she was all too glad to end her relationship. Sometimes, things didn’t work out the way one intended. But Amber was going to make the best of her life—regardless of what others thought of her.
Amber never wanted to be alone. And it wasn’t her preference to be a single parent. Heaviness and pain swirled through her body at the thought.
“It should be the father of your child here with you. Where is he?” Mavis asked rhetorically, her lips pressed together in a thin line. The expression on her face, as often was the case, was stony. She was never one to mince words. Ever.
“I told you, Aunt Mavis. It’s a nonissue. I’m not getting into it again. He’s not in the picture.”
“It’s obvious he isn’t. You should feel ashamed going to these classes alone.”
Amber rolled her eyes and shook her head. She’d learned to try to ignore her auntie’s criticism and harsh words. She’d read in one of her self-help books that sometimes you can’t control how a person treats you but you can control how you feel about it. Amber thought she was solid in deflecting her aunt’s rude demeanor but there had been times, especially while growing up, when it sank into her soul and tore her up. Who knew if that’s why Amber spent much of her childhood being an anxious basket case with low self-esteem. Amber ended up being cautious of others and afraid of being hurt so she often kept to herself.
Amber was just grateful her aunt took her in when she lost her family or else she would have been forced into an orphanage. Still, that was no excuse for Mavis’s rudeness at times.
“I don’t know if I’ll be alone, Aunt Mavis. I’m sure I’m not the only single parent in this class.”
It was Amber’s first time taking the prenatal class at the suggestion of her obstetrician. But she was okay with that. She enrolled late, though she was fortunate to join at all since another couple had dropped out of the class.
Amber made her way out of the car and slammed it shut. “Thanks again, Aunt Mavis. I’ll catch a bus back to the café when I’m done.”
Amber proceeded into the building and searched the signs looking for Room 15A on the main floor. She found it and saw the orange glossy poster: Mayberry Hill Family Center Prenatal Class. When she made her way towards the door, her heart came to a screeching halt. Standing a few feet away outside another door that was marked Conference Room 16A was a tall, dark and deadly handsome young man looking sexy in his tailored business suit. The man was talking on his cell phone until she came into his view. He promptly told the person on the other end he would have to call back and ended his call to look her square in the face.
Jules Romero.
“Amber?” Jules said cautiously. It was the way her name slid off his smooth tongue, so silky and deep. Oh, his voice got her each and every time. It had been a while since she’d seen Jules. And he looked hotter than Amber remembered. He sported an Italian-designed dark blue suit with a navy blue silk tie and he filled it out so nicely with his broad shoulders. Those Romero men predominantly had athletic builds. Her friend Venus was married to one, Jules’s brother Carl, the youngest mayor to ever run the town.
In fact, it was her friend Venus who had introduced Amber to Jules.
“H-hi, Jules,” she stuttered, caught off guard as she tried to keep her voice from wavering. His sexiness had always overwhelmed her.
Amber’s heart hammered in her chest and a quiver surged through her body at his delightful presence. The man was sexy as hell and always caused that stirring reaction inside her body. The truth was, she’d always been aroused by Jules Romero.
Jules’s beautiful eyes drifted to her bulging baby bump. His dark, sexy, brown eyes widened a fraction.
“I know, it’s good to see me again, right? You just didn’t think you’d be seeing so MUCH of me.” Amber grinned, trying to bring some humor to the situation.
This was Jules Romero. Jules hot-as-heaven Romero. They first became friends when her friend Venus was in trouble, then Amber and Jules were a couple but that didn’t last long enough. Jules wasn’t ready to commit and she wasn’t ready to have sex—yet.
