One Christmas Knight

Oh, God, what is this? she wondered. Could it possibly be normal? Something she’d missed in all those books she’d read, some kind of postpartum high, perhaps. It would certainly explain why she seemed to see him as a blur in a wash of shimmery golden light.

But it wouldn’t explain the desolation and longing she felt, seeing him over there in his seat, so far away from her. So far away. The emptiness in her arms where her baby should be-that she understood. But what was this chill all around her where his arms had been? Why did she feel so lost without him near her, so lonely without his body next to hers? Come back! she wanted to cry. Please come and hold me again. Her face ached with the pressure of her longing.

He must have seen something in her expression, because he rose slowly and came to lean over her, crooning as he settled the once-again-peacefully-sleeping baby in her arms. Crooning to her, not the baby. “There now…it’s okay. Here she is…here she is. Yeah…see there? Everything’s okay now.”

And as she gazed down at her daughter’s face-so perfect, so lovely-a sob shuddered through her. No, it’s not okay. We’re not enough, Amy and me. We need you. Please stay. We’re not complete without you!

“Hey, now,” he said huskily, sitting on the edge of the bed. She felt his fingers under her chin, gently lifting it. Felt his thumb brush at the wetness on her cheek. “What’s all this, hmm? Come on, now, Marybell, don’t cry.”

She raised her eyes to his face, able to see it clearly now that he was close to her again, even without her contacts. She could see his kind, warm eyes, his sweet, familiar smile.

Oh, God, what am I doing? she thought. What am I thinking of? After everything he’s done for me. After everything I’ve put him through…

She sniffed and said in a low voice, “I’m okay. It’s just…I think I’m just really tired.”

“Sure you are.” He stroked the hair back from her temples, and she tried, really tried not to find anything but his own natural compassion in the tenderness. “You just lie back there and sleep. I’m not gonna let anything happen to your baby.”

She nodded, but couldn’t tell him how she felt inside-trembly and wired, her nerves jumping around inside her like popcorn in a popper. “You must be exhausted, too,” she said huskily. “Jimmy Joe, I don’t know how I’m ever going to be able to thank you-”

“Oh, hey-” he began, but she put her fingers to his lips.

“For everything you’ve done. I know I must have put you through hell.”

He kissed her fingertips, then shook his head, eluding them. “Naw, you were great,” he said in a gravelly voice. “You were fantastic. Beautiful.”

She smiled ruefully at him. “I don’t think so. I seem to remember I hit you a couple of times.”

“’S okay…I had it comin’.” His dimples flickered on and off, like signal lights.

“I know I yelled mean things at you.”

“Hey, I told you to, remember?”

She allowed herself a brief ripple of laughter, throaty and precarious. “Well, anyway…I just want to apologize, okay? For the god-awful mess I’ve made of your truck, for any really weird and embarrassing things I might have said or done…”

He winced as if she’d poked him and made an exasperated clicking sound. “Now there you go again. You worry about the doggonedest things, you know that? Woman, you just brought a brand-new life into this world! You got nothin’ to apologize for, understand?”

“Yes, sir,” she said meekly, and he laughed and leaned over and kissed her. So naturally, so easily, as though he’d done it many times before. And her heart stood still.

“Although…” he said thoughtfully as he drew away from her. She blinked and struggled to focus on the teasing glint in his eyes. “Now that you mention it…”

“Oh, no,” she groaned, closing her eyes. “I knew it. What did I do?”

“Well, now, there was one thing you said was kinda cute-really had me goin’ there for a while.” He paused for dramatic effect, showing his dimples.

“Tell me,” she breathed. “I can take it.”

“You told me you’d never made love before, and since that’s not very likely to be true, I was kinda wonderin’ if you could tell me what you mighta meant by that.”

“Oh, God.” Heat flooded through her, rose from her belly and chest and rushed up into her cheeks. She tried to cover her face with her one free hand, desperately wishing she had something bigger-like a grocery sack, maybe. “I can’t believe I told you that,” she whispered. “I never tell anybody that. Ever.” Her deepest, most closely guarded secret. Oh, God. Oh…damn.

“Yeah? Why not?” His voice was light, and she didn’t notice, then, how still he’d gotten.

She took her hand from across her eyes and glared at him. “Well, how would you feel?” she asked hotly. “If you were pushing forty years old and still a virgin, would you go around admitting it? It’s not like I planned it that way, you know. It’s not like that’s what I wanted. It just happened.”

“Are you tryin’ to tell me…it’s true?”

Humiliated beyond bearing, she couldn’t look at him, could only hear the shock and utter disbelief in his voice. “Well, technically, I don’t suppose I am anymore. But…yeah, it’s true. I’ve never made love before. Ever.”

There was a gust of incredulous laughter. “Marybell, I don’t know how to tell you this, but unless I just witnessed the Second Coming, that just ain’t possible.”

She flicked him a pitying glance, then fastened her mortified glare on the front windshield. “What century are you living in? Of course, it’s possible. Didn’t you ever hear of artificial insemination?”

After a stunned silence, he repeated it. “Artificial… insemination?” The words seemed to hang in the air like an accusation. He rose from her side, moving slowly and stiffly, and paced the two careful steps to the front of the cab. Standing there facing the windshield, rubbing mechanically at the back of his neck, he said hoarsely, “Are you telling me…you did this by yourself? You went and had this baby…and you’ve never-Oh, man. I mean…I don’t believe this.”

“It’s not what you think,” Mirabella said in a low voice. He was looking at her now, and in his blanched face, his eyes seemed almost as black and cold as the night outside the windows. Looking into them she suddenly felt desolate and afraid. Words tumbled urgently from her. “I’m not…gay, or anything. I just always wanted children. I always took it for granted I’d have them someday-the usual way-you know, meet somebody, fall in love, get married. But that didn’t happen. I never met the right one.” Until it was too late. Until… tonight.

She took a deep breath and went on, looking down, now, at her baby’s face. Her voice grew calm and soft. “I thought, maybe it was never going to happen. And meanwhile, the years were going by, and I was getting older. I didn’t have forever, you know? Maybe I could have settled for something less. Settled for anything. Anyone. Just so long as he gave me children. But…” She shrugged, and her lips curved into a smile that ached all through her tired body. Mirabella had never “settled” in her life. “I thought this way was better.”

And it was. It was. She’d seen enough of her friends suffer in bad relationships to know that. Her way was better. She was right. She knew she was right. Don’t you dare judge me, her heart cried. I have my baby, and it was worth it. It’s worth it.

Jimmy Joe suddenly realized that she was waiting for him to say something, watching him with a wry and weary smile that was going to haunt him from now on. Not the smile so much as the pride and disappointment he could see in her eyes. But he didn’t have any words to give her. He never had been one to spend them freely, and the ones he did, especially at important moments like this one, he generally liked to think about first, to make sure they were the right ones and a true indicator of what he was feeling. Right now he didn’t know what he was feeling, and he couldn’t think. So he stayed silent.

He’d taken a deep breath, then didn’t seem to know what to do with it. The air in the cab already seemed too dense, charged with tension and cluttered with emotions. He thought suddenly that he was going to suffocate if he didn’t get out of there and get some fresh, uncrowded air.

“I, uh, think I’m gon’ go use the rest room,” he mumbled, and grabbing up his sleeveless, down-filled vest, yanked open the door and dived out into the night.

The door slammed. Mirabella winced involuntarily and closed her eyes.