A Mayhaw Christmas Read online

  Not everything that had happened in the old house had been bad. They had made love for the first time there. They had planned a future there. What happened afterward—the brutal beating, the arson—had almost ruined that future.

  “I’ll list it with a real estate agent and let him or her see to it, then,” he told her. He kissed the top of her head. “You can still go with me though. I could drop you at the mall or Books-A-Million. When I’m done, we can get some barbeque. How’s that sound?”

  “Like I’ll gain another three or four pounds,” she said on a sigh then looked up at him. “But so what?”

  “I like your thinking, lady,” he told her.

  “Ever feel like our life is coming together like it should?” she asked.

  The question—coming out of left field—surprised him. When he didn’t answer, she craned her head back to look at him.

  “I think life is good,” he answered.

  “After all the stuff we’ve been through,” she said, “things just seem to be falling into place.” She rubbed her stomach. “Us meeting where we did, in church. God put us together, Drew. He meant for us to be a family.”

  He put his arms around her and cradled her against him. She was his entire world. He’d never known happiness until he met Allison. She’d given him a reason to live, to get up in the morning. She was his happy ever after, and the child she was carrying was the greatest gift she would ever give him. When she yawned, he pulled back to look down at her and saw her eyelids fluttering.

  “Okay, lady, it’s up to bed for you,” he said and ran his arms under her knees and behind her back. She’d been getting tired a lot lately and naps were high on her agenda every afternoon. He lifted her then got to his feet.

  “I love you,” she mumbled against his shoulder.

  “I love you more.”

  “Not possible,” she said.

  “Is too,” he stated.

  “Is not,” she countered and yawned again.

  He carried her to their bedroom and laid her gently on the bed but before he could straighten, she shot out her hand, grabbed his, and brought it to her belly.

  The shock went through him from head to toe like a live current traveling a hundred miles an hour. Beneath his palm her stomach bunched then shifted. He stood there with his mouth open, eyes wide and heart thundering behind his rib cage.

  “Sweet mother of God,” he whispered, easing his ass to the mattress.

  Another kick made him giggle like a teenage girl.

  “She’s gonna be a ballerina,” he said.

  “It’s a boy,” she said. She kept hold of his wrist as he molded his fingers over the shifting bump. “And he’s going to be a football star like his daddy was.”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “Soccer, maybe. Football, no.” Even as he said the words the old injury to his leg—gained during a vicious college game—throbbed in protest.

  “Soccer it is, then,” she agreed.

  The baby bunched then shifted to kick again so hard his eyebrows flew up. “I take it back. She’s going to be a frigging Rockette.”

  He stretched out beside her on the bed with his hand still upon her. Their foreheads touched as they stared into each other’s eyes.

  “I am the happiest man on the face of the planet,” he told her.

  “And I am the luckiest woman,” she replied.

  It had been a long, winding road to their final destination. There had been roadblocks and potholes—more than a speed bump or two—but now they were on fresh pavement and the highway stretched out ahead of them without a curve in sight.

  Chapter Three

  “Are you sure you don’t want to see the picture?” the ultrasound technician asked.

  “Yeah, we’re sure,” Drew answered.

  “But we want to hear the heartbeat again,” Allison said, smiling up at Drew.

  “Okay,” the girl said, drawing out the word. She reached over to turn on the sound. The moment she did, two sets of eyebrows clashed.

  “Why are there two heartbeats?” Drew asked then Allison watched all the blood drain out of his face and he staggered back. “Holy shit!” His eyes flew to the technician. “Twins?”

  “Like I said, you sure you don’t want to see the picture? I think both of you will be pleased.”

  “No,” Allison said, shaking her head. “Definitely not but print it out and put it in an envelope for us like last time, please.”

  “Wait a minute,” Drew said. “Both of us will be pleased?”

  “I believe so,” the technician answered.

  “We’re not looking at…” Allison began but he cut her off.

  “There are twins and both of us will be pleased,” he stated. “Both of us will be pleased, Allison.” He glanced up at the technician’s smiling face and knew. He knew.

  Allison frowned. “We agreed we wouldn’t…”

  “Both of us will be pleased,” he repeated. “Think about it, woman.”

  His wife opened her mouth to argue with him then seemed to assimilate what he’d said. Her forehead crinkled.

  “Twins,” she said—wonder filling her voice. “We’re having twin boys.”

  “No, we’re not,” he said with what he knew was a goofy grin. “I’m having my little girl.” He looked over at the technician. “Right? My little girl is hatching in there?”

  The woman didn’t answer but she didn’t need to. He knew. He moved around the table so he could see the ultrasound screen. Even his untrained eye picked out the difference between the two fetuses right away.

  “Hello, little Avery,” he said quietly.

  “We’re having boys,” Allison stated with a surety that made her eyes flash. “I knew it.”

  “You’re having your son, Mrs. Dunne,” he told her. “But I’m having my little girl, too.”

  That hit her like a ping-pong ball to the noggin and she blinked. “One of each?” she asked breathlessly. Her eyes snapped to the technician. “A boy and a girl?”

  “You want me to show you?” the woman asked.

  *****

  All the way home in her car, he drove with her hand clasped in his atop the center console. The June day was balmy and sweet. She’d finally stopped crying her tears of joy and was sitting there staring through the windshield with a silly grin on her face. He kept turning his head to look at her profile and each time he did, his heart gave that fierce tug it always did.

  “I’m thinking,” he said, tugging down on the left turn signal as he slowed at an intersection. “A little mini-log cabin playhouse on one side of the yard and a miniature fantasy castle-type pink playhouse on the other. His would have a nice mulch play yard with a swing and slide and sand box. Hers would have something similar but dainty. Maybe in the middle between them I could build a seesaw, some of those rocking-springy things. A horse for him and a dragon for her.”

  She turned to look at him. “You are, of course, assuming he’ll be a cowboy and she will be a princess. What if it’s the other way around?”

  “A cowgirl and a warrior prince?” he asked, thought about it, and then nodded as he made the turn. “I could live with that. I’d have to rearrange the design so we’d have a gray castle and a…” He couldn’t think of a cowgirl structure.

  “Miss Kitty’s Long Branch Saloon?” Allison provided.

  He pursed his lips. “Not funny.”

  She squeezed his hand. “Knowing your daughter, she’ll like that pink fantasy castle you’ve got floating around in that mind of yours.”

  “And your son?” he countered.

  “Log cabin works but you’ll have to put it on stilts or a platform of some sort with a rope ladder so when he has friends over, they can put up a No Girls Allowed sign and go in to smoke their bubblegum cigars and drink their root beer out of plastic mugs.”

  “That’s chauvinistic,” he complained.

  “No more so than your frilly, poofy castle,” she reminded him.

  “No boys at her table to s
hare tea with her dollies,” he stated.

  “Of course not.”

  “But Daddy will be welcome,” he said. “He’ll bring her cookies to share.”

  “You’ve spoiled her already and she isn’t even born yet,” she grumbled.

  He braked for a red light. “Don’t tell me you haven’t already made a mental note to buy a ton of Lincoln Logs and Legos for when he’s old enough not to try to eat them for a snack.”

  “Whatevs,” she said, looking out the window as a young man rode past on a bicycle—taking a right turn sharper than was safe. “Avery’s bike will have rawhide streamers on the handlebars and a horn and I’ll put a couple of playing cards on the back spokes so they can make that dumb noise boys like when they’re riding.”

  “Bailey’s bike will have pink streamers on the handlebars, a bell, and a big-ass wicker basket. No playing cards but plenty of reflectors.”

  “No helmets,” she said, shaking her head. “Those bike helmets make kids look like the Sleestak creatures from the old Land of the Lost TV show.”

  “Agreed. I never wore a helmet and I turned out all right,” he replied.

  She frowned. “I might have to revise my thinking on the helmets.”

  “Ha ha,” he groused.

  The light changed and he drove forward. Traffic in Dothan had gotten bad over the years. It was a cosmopolitan city with a population of a bit over sixty-five thousand, and it was busy. Not as congested as Albany with its seventy-seven-thousand-plus population, but the traffic nevertheless seemed worse. He didn’t like driving in the city and even less so with his pregnant wife beside him. She had gotten so big of late that she couldn’t climb into his pickup and the car just didn’t seem as safe to him as the big Chevy.

  “Wanna get a slushie?” he asked, pointing to a Sonic.

  “That would hit the spot,” she said. “I’m beginning to melt into the seat.”

  He dragged the turn signal up to turn into the drive-in restaurant.

  *****

  June steamed into July. July broiled into August. August just broiled. Seven months into her pregnancy, she felt like a beached whale. Her moods were all over the place and woe be unto any husband—hers, Bea’s, or Lenore’s—who dared look at her the wrong way or said the wrong thing. Hell hath no fury like a woman with swollen feet that would no longer fit into nice shoes.

  Sitting in the church pew fanning herself as though she were on fire, she listened to her husband’s voice as he sang and wondered why she had never noticed what a good voice he had. She turned her head to look at him.

  Lord, but that man was so darn handsome, she thought. She’d noticed that the first time she met him—right here in this church, not five pews away—but he had grown even more good-looking. Devilishly so. Women used to look twice at him but now they tended to stare. Women who wouldn’t have been seen talking to him a year ago now went out of their way to engage him in conversation. They made excuses to put their hands on his arm as they talked. They actually flirted with him right in front of her—the hussies.

  But to give her husband his due, he never seemed to notice. He shied away from their touches—politely so but away, nonetheless—and ended the conversations as quickly as he could. He never ogled the women who passed him by. He simply ignored them.

  I have the most beautiful woman in the world at my side, he’d told her when she’d asked if he noticed a particularly gorgeous woman trying to catch his eye. All I see is her.

  She ran her eyes over his thick dark chestnut curls, his masculine nose and chin and jawline. The lone dimple in his right cheek fascinated her when he smiled. His bold eyebrows and his glorious knock-’em-dead blue eyes…

  She sighed and he glanced around at her.

  And winked.

  Man, what that demonic wink did to her insides. She wanted him so badly, wanted his hands on her so desperately she could hear the blood rushing through her ears. What a wicked thing to be thinking about while the congregation was singing “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” When he reached over and took her hand, threaded his fingers through hers, she felt the world tilt slightly off its axis. She loved this man so intensely it should be a sin.

  One of their offspring took that moment to kick her and she winced. The immediate concern that gathered in his gaze melted her heart. She shook her head to let him know nothing was wrong. His attention lowered to her belly and when the fabric of her maternity top moved, she knew he understood. He squeezed her hand to let her know he did. The love, the pride in his eyes was humbling.

  The hymn ended and Brother Gilbert strode to the pulpit. As he walked, he loosened his ugly tie. Once he got going, the dark blue suit coat would come off. When he hit his stride and was on a roll, the long sleeves would be unbuttoned and peeled back to mid-forearm. That was usually the signal he was about to go into full fire-and-brimstone mode. The elevating and shaking of the bible, the piercing stare aimed at the congregation, the pounding of his fist upon the pulpit, the louder-than-normal voice would be the punctuation marks for his sermon.

  Sometimes, Allison thought, they should look into converting to Catholicism. She’d heard their services were beautiful, sedate and uplifting. Brother Gilbert’s services were an exercise in seeing how many decibels he could spew across his worshippers to keep them awake.

  When they were filing out after the service, finished shaking hands with just about every churchgoer, the usual gaggle of flirtatious women made their presence known to her husband.

  Or tried to.

  As usual, he ignored them.

  She had to wonder what their menfolk thought of the new and vastly improved Drew Dunne. That he was now a successful businessman, with his sixty-forty partnership in the car dealership he ran with his ex-brother-in-law Whip Thompson and the popular garage he co-owned with Early, had not gone unnoticed. The mayor, the councilmen, the local newspaper owner—the movers and shakers of Colquitt—all made a point to seek him out, to pound him lightly on the back in a brotherly fashion They might have hated him when he was the old Drew, but the new Drew was something else entirely. Overnight it seemed he had become someone they trusted, liked, and wanted to befriend.

  Who would have thought? she mused.

  But…

  They also feared him. A lot of them had been there the day he beat the heck out of his half-brother, Boyd—a beating that was long overdue. The townspeople knew it wasn’t over between the two brothers. One day, the animosity would boil over again and Boyd would start another fight. He wouldn’t win—everyone knew it except Boyd—but he would try.

  “Why are you smiling?” Drew asked as they reached her car and he reached around to open the door for her.

  “I was just thinking,” she said.

  “Should I be worried?” he asked.

  She swatted him playfully and looked past his shoulder to see a trio of younger women gazing at him as though he was a platter of baby back ribs.

  “My baby back ribs,” she mumbled.

  “Huh?” he inquired, eyebrows shooting together.

  She shook her head. “Nothing.”

  *****

  August baked into September and Allison got bigger still. She’d never felt more like the old adage of having a bun in the oven than she did the first week of September. Not only one bun but two were rising inside her. It was becoming uncomfortable to sit, to sleep, to walk, to even breathe. She’d given up trying to force her swollen feet into anything except flip-flops. Her maternity clothes were a size too big to accommodate her breathing. Everything made her cry—from commercials for Viagra to the information supplied on cereal boxes. The babies were playing field hockey inside her womb when they weren’t doing gymnastic routines. Her hair was dull and lusterless and her complexion was mottled.

  “I’m so dang ugly,” she complained as she stared into the mirror over the vanity.

  “You are beautiful,” Drew made the mistake of saying from the shower stall.

  “Oh, what do you know, you
stupid poopy brain,” she shouted at him and ran—well, she waddled—into their bedroom and rolled onto the bed.

  *****

  “Stupid poopy brain?” Drew repeated. He was standing in the shower scrubbing the towel down his chest. As naked as the day he was born, he felt completely helpless. Everything he did was wrong. Everything he said was wrong. He looked at her the wrong way or she accused him of not looking at her at all. He couldn’t win—no matter what he did.

  Slowly, he lowered the towel to his belly and rubbed listlessly at his wet body. He was in no hurry to leave the bathroom because no matter what, he was going to be on the receiving end of her fickle mood. Thank God she wasn’t given to throwing things at him.

  He loved her. Dear lord how much he loved her. Had loved her from the moment he saw her standing in the aisle at church. She was the very air he breathed. If not for her, he was fairly sure he would have sucked on the business end of a shotgun long before now.

  “Shit, shit, shit, shit shit!” he heard from the bedroom.

  Oh hell, he thought. When she cussed, things were about to get interesting.

  Stepping out of the shower, he wound the towel around his waist—wishing he had some clothing in the bathroom. He was going to venture out into the bedroom girded only in a Turkish ribbed thirty-inch by fifty-inch piece of one hundred percent cotton. Battle armor, it wasn’t.

  “Drew!”

  What he wouldn’t give for a Kevlar vest and a titanium shield to cringe behind. He took a deep breath, tucked the end of the towel in at his waist then padded over to the door.

  “Yes, sweetie?” he asked in what he hoped was a respectful tone.

  “I can’t reach my toes,” she complained.

  It was on the tip of his tongue to ask why she felt the need to do so but he bit it back just in time. She turned a woeful, tearful face to him.

  “I can’t reach my toes.”

  Okay, he thought. Here goes nothing…

  “What do you need to do with them, sweetie?”

  The woeful, tearful face screwed into the face of a woman hell-bent on relieving him of what was being protected behind the flimsy towel.