I pulled off my boots and walked in stocking feet toward the bedroom, calling out,
“Carrie?” I had the door open before I heard them, Carrie giggling and Doc laughing as they rolled around naked on the bed.
“Sorry.” I took a step back, going to close the door, but Carrie held her hand out to me.
“Come join us,” Doc called, pulling the edge of the sheet up and exposing Carrie’s nude bottom and Doc’s raging hard-on. I hesitated, feeling the weight of my divorce, my future, as I looked at them together. They had taken me in, made me their friend, their lover, had practically adopted me when it came down to it. But what was I doing here? What was I doing with my life?
“Come on, sweetness.” Carrie crooked her finger at me, smiling mischievously, and I remembered just what I was doing with the Baumgartners. I didn’t care of it was crazy or mixed-up or weird. I wanted it, and I wasn’t going to deny myself anymore. I took off my jeans and panties and hopped into bed in my t-shirt. They moved around and made room for me in the middle.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Doc said as I snuggled down between them. “Carrie, Dani and I have something to tell you.” He leaned over and kissed his wife’s cheek. The look on his face was so loving and sweet I thought I might melt into a puddle on the bed.
“Sort of a Christmas present. Right, Dani?”
I thought of the letter in the pocket of my jacket and realized-it didn’t matter. It was true that Mason and I hadn’t managed to fix our broken marriage after Isabella. The pieces just wouldn’t go back together, no matter how hard we tried. And I regretted it.
But this thing I had with the Baumgartners wasn’t broken, and I wasn’t about to jeopardize it. I wanted this-I wanted Doc and Carrie, this love, this life together. And I wanted to give them this gift. If I didn’t, I knew I would regret it for the rest of my life.
Italy could wait, but this wouldn’t.
“Well, that’s funny.” Carrie grinned. “I have something to tell you too. The best Christmas present ever.”
Doc met my gaze over his wife’s glowing face and my eyes widened. Somehow I knew. I already knew.
“I’m pregnant.” She could barely contain her excitement.
Doc made a sound like he’d been punched in the gut. “Are you sure?”
“More sure than I’ve ever been.” She had tears in her eyes as she looked between us. “I’ve kept it to myself for so long. I’m almost four months. Sixteen weeks.”
She took each of our hands and pressed it against her lower belly. It was slightly rounded and even a little hard. How had I not noticed? Had I been that self-involved?
And then it all fell into place-she’d been so tired, avoiding alcohol, and her weight gain didn’t have anything to do with the holidays.
“I used your cream, Dani,” she explained. “I went back to that chiropractor and he gave me more. He said after the first trimester, I probably wouldn’t need it anymore, that I would carry to term once the placenta took over production of progesterone.”
“You what?” Doc blinked at her. “You went to some kind of quack?”
Carrie sighed. “I knew you’d say that. Doc, listen to me. Sixteen weeks! She’s sixteen weeks!”
“She?” Doc was utterly flabbergasted. “You know it’s a girl?”
“I had to.” She pleaded with him for understanding, pressing her hand against her belly again. “I had to see her moving, know she was alive in there before I told you. But now I know for sure. I felt her.”
“You did?” Doc ran his hands over her still rather flat belly-she had phenomenal stomach muscles, it was no wonder she was hardly showing. “You can feel her?”
“Uh huh.” Carrie smiled as Doc leaned over and feathered kissed on her tummy below her navel.
“I can’t believe it.” Doc settled there, his cheek against her thigh, his hand petting her belly. “Baby,” he whispered, his eyes bright. “Baby…”
“Are you mad?” Carrie asked, her hand in his hair.
“Are you kidding me?” He laughed.
She looked over at me for a reaction, but I was still too stunned to speak at the perfection of the moment. “So what was your present?”
I opened my mouth to speak, wondering how to phrase it now, and then just blurted it out. “I was going to offer to carry a baby for you guys.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “Oh Dani.”
“But now I guess I’m going to Italy.”
Doc’s head snapped up, his eyes wide. “You got in?”
I nodded, blinking back my own tears, too overwhelmed with it all to speak.
“Damn, we’re going to have to do some big-time celebrating.” Doc smiled at me and I smiled back.
“I bought something for the baby,” Carrie whispered in my ear. “Just a little pink bunny. But it seemed right… like it’s all going to be okay.”
“It is.” I kissed her cheek, feeling tears sting my eyes as I thought of my own little girl. “When are you due?”
“May twenty-eighth.”
“A little spring bunny.” I smiled, remembering the weight of Isabella in my arms, how perfect, how still. “You can have everything, Carrie. Everything.”
She looked at me, puzzled.
“Dani, no…” Doc looked at me, understanding before she did and then her eyes widened.
“I want you to have it.” I insisted, thinking of Isabella’s crib, all her pink bedding and clothing and stuffed animals. “We’ll paint your little girl’s room pink and move all Isabella’s things in here.”
“Where will you stay?” Carrie asked.
“Until I leave for Italy…” I reached into my bra and pulled out my twenty-thousand dollar check. “I’ll stay here in bed with you. Where else?”
Doc grinned. “I can live with that.”
“What is this?” Carrie snatched the check and gaped at the amount.
“My divorce settlement.” I tucked it back into my bra. “Mason was very generous.”
“You’re more generous.” She tilted her face up and I kissed her softly. “Thank you.”
“No.” I nuzzled her throat and cuddled up with them both, my hand resting on her belly against Doc’s. “Thank
I had intended to give them a gift, the greatest gift I could imagine, but somehow, the Baumgartners had given me my life back, had actually brought me back to life. I closed my eyes and breathed in her scent, not quite recognizing the feeling that had overcome me. It seeped in slowly like honey around the edges of my consciousness, sticky and thick and sweet. It wasn’t until I felt the tiniest little bump against my fingers, my eyes widening and my gaze meeting Doc’s and then Carrie’s in wonder, that I got it.
The baby had kicked, letting us know she was alive and well, and that’s when I understood what I was feeling.
I was happy.
