The Sweetest Gift - Scarlett Cole Page 0,5

Lake Ontario, and he’d slide back momentarily into a place where only Lexi or one of his brothers could reach him.

Those episodes had become less and less as he’d become accustomed to the idea that the happiness he’d found with Lexi wasn’t temporary. Nothing he’d ever done or said had pushed her away. The fears he’d clung to like a safety jacket had been shed.

At least, they had been.

But right now, sitting in Dr. Cherry’s office with its tabletop Christmas tree, watching as the good doctor herself approached his wife with something that looked like an intercom from Star Trek, fear clung to him like the peanut butter he’d had for breakfast had stuck to the knife.

The squeeze of Lexi’s hand in his brought him back to the present and he turned to face her. Her smile was glorious. “Ready?” she asked.

“Not even fucking close,” he muttered.

The doctor had already squirted something that looked a lot like lube all over his wife’s stomach. “Right, let’s see what we have here,” Dr. Cherry said, placing the gadget in her hand on Lexi’s stomach. Slowly, she moved it around, angling it this way and that.

And then…

Woosh.

Woosh.

Woosh.

Woosh.

The sound was fast, but it still matched his heart rate as he became breathless. Blood started to leave his brain, leave his legs, leaving him floating somewhere close to elation and about to pass out from fear, from the enormity of it.

His eyes met Lexi’s again. He couldn’t form words. If he said anything, everything might fall out of his mouth. Words, feelings, fears. Lexi reached for his cheeks and brushed away a tear he hadn’t even realized had spilled over his lashes.

“Angel,” he said gruffly.

“That’s our baby,” Lexi said with laughter that spluttered on the verge of tears.

He swiveled in his chair and gently laid his forehead to her chest, wrapping one arm over her. He bit his tongue… hard. Dug the nails he played bass with into the palm of his hand. Anything to stop the overwhelming flood of emotions that were about to overtake him.

“I’ve got no idea how to be a dad,” he muttered.

Lexi stroked his hair. “Your relationship with Petal would suggest very strongly otherwise,” Lexi said. “Plus, we’ll learn together.”

A cough from the good doctor interrupted their moment. “Everything looks perfect for twelve weeks. If you look at the screen, you can see your little one.”

They both looked at the monitor. “You can see the baby’s head there, and that’s a foot. It’s even got its hand in the air, waving to you,” Dr. Cherry said, as she pointed out various parts with a blue pen.

Holy shit.

“We made that,” he said to Lexi. “Our…baby.”

He’d not allowed himself to believe it when Lexi had taken a test at seven weeks. He’d asked her to take another test, and another, and another. And she’d humored him, saying she’d need to drink a lot more water first. Thanks to her athletic frame and ballet career, her stomach was as flat as it ever had been, no visible proof that such a wondrous creation was growing inside her. He’d been scared to touch her. Scared to make love to her, no matter how much she’d reassured him that it wouldn’t do the baby any harm. Given biology had never been his strong suit at school, he’d had to look up on the fucking internet where exactly the thing was growing because he didn’t want his dick anywhere near it.

And he’d not been able to share a single fear or worry with anyone he knew because Lexi had told him that miscarriage before twelve weeks was fairly common and she hadn’t wanted to deal with that publicly. So, they’d kept it a secret, a painfully glorious one that had scalded his heart.

But now, there was moving, breathing, wiggling proof of its existence. Proof that had a head…and hands that waved. And it was alive.

Woosh.

Woosh.

Woosh.

“Is she okay?” he asked.

Dr. Cherry looked confused and then down at her file. “It’s too early to tell the gender yet, but it says here you don’t want to know. Is that correct?”

Jordan shook his head. “I didn’t mean the baby. I meant my wife.” He squeezed Lexi’s hand tightly.

Dr. Cherry grinned. “Lexi is completely fine.” She turned to Lexi. “You are taking the vitamins we talked about at our last appointment, right?”

Lexi nodded. “Jordan set an alarm on his phone to make sure I remember to take them every morning.”

Dr. Cherry put her hand to her heart. “That’s very supportive