AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She set the paper down atop the rest of the stack on the kitchen table when she heard the now familiar pattern of Caleb’s footsteps. Heavy steps, trying hard to be light. Measured, but not hesitant. Pausing, always, when he got a certain distance from her. She wondered about that.
“Morning,” he said softly.
She looked up. He was whiskery this morning. His hair was tousled, his eyes sleepy. He’d been up half the night plotting with Bobby and the two lawyers her mother insisted on calling Oompah and Loompah. Not to their faces, of course. The lawyers and Bobby had taken up residence at the boarding house. Caleb had spent the night here, in Edie’s old room.
“Morning,” she replied. Then she held up her coffee mug. “You want some?”
“I’d love some, thanks.” He took her mug, took a sip, licked his lips and handed it back to her with a smile that told her he knew full well that wasn’t what she’d meant. “That’s so good I think I’ll get a cup for myself.”
“That was the whole idea,” she said.
He crossed the room, poured his mug full, sipped again and said, “Caffeinated?”
She turned to look at him. “Half. I swear it won’t hurt the babies. But I might have collapsed without it.”
He frowned at her. “Not sleeping well?”
“No.”
He lowered his head fast. “It’s all this stress. I knew it would be bad for you—”
“It’s only partly because of the stress, Caleb. Mostly, it’s these kids of yours, wriggling around. I swear they’re line-dancing in there.”
Smiling at her, Caleb returned to the table, set his mug down and moved behind her chair. “It won’t be much longer, Maya.” His hands closed on her shoulders, squeezed, pulled, released. “Lean forward, hm?”
She sighed deeply and, folding her arms on the table, laid her head on them. “You don’t have to do that,” she said, and didn’t mean a damn word of it.
He rubbed between her shoulder blades, then down her spine, and finally made small, delicious circles right at the small of her back where it seemed all the tension of the past eight and a half months was centered.
“Oooh, yesss,” she moaned very softly.
His hands stilled, but only for a moment. Then he went right back to rubbing again. “We, um…we’ve got an interview scheduled with Dirk Atwater, today at noon. He’s with the Oklahoma Times. They’re putting out an evening edition, and we’re the lead story.”
She lifted her head a little. “Do I have to be there? I mean, you’re the celebrity here. Can’t you do the interview?”
He stopped rubbing. “I can. Sure I can, if you want.”
“Keep rubbing.”
She almost heard him smile, but he started massaging her again.
“It would be better if I was there, though, wouldn’t it?” she asked.
“It’ll be fine either way.”
“Is that what Bobby would tell me if I asked him?”
He hesitated. His hands stopped moving on her back. So she sat up and turned to look over her shoulder at him. “You don’t have to protect me, you know. If it’s better for me to be there, I can be there. It’s not my dream come true, but it won’t kill me, either.”
“I just…don’t want you doing anything you’d rather not be doing right now.”
She smiled. “Tell me that when I’m in labor. Speaking of which—I’ll make a deal with you.”
His brows went up. “A deal?”
“Yes. I made a little appointment of my own for us today. You come to mine, and I’ll come to yours. Okay?”
He narrowed his eyes on her. “Do I dare to ask what I’m agreeing to here?”
