Another Man's Baby (21 page)

“In about two seconds I’m going to strangle you.” Eric glared at her and took a step toward her.

“You’re into wife beating now?”

“I’m not going to beat you, just strangle you.”

Gabi laughed and rolled over to her side of the bed. “Brown Sugar,” she whispered softly in a seductive voice. “I want me some Brown Sugar.” She laughed harder and pulled the covers over her head. Good, she thought, let him stew.

“I know you didn’t sleep with Reggie.”

But he didn’t know it. He was stomping around the room trying to reassure himself, plopping down on the bed. “Gabi, don’t do this to me, I can’t take it. I know I’ve been treating you like crap, pushing you away. I thought I wanted you to leave me. Baby, I can’t take it. Come on, please tell me the truth, tell me you haven’t been sleeping around with Reggie.”

He was begging, begging her. He’d never begged for anything. If he had he would have begged her at seventeen to be his. His voice was hoarse. He swallowed, pulling her closer. “Baby, please tell me you didn’t do it.” He was about to give up when finally Gabi turned back to face him.

“I didn’t sleep with Reggie. I didn’t sleep with anyone. I love you…you’re my husband. Don’t you know that I would never cheat on you?”

A tremor started in Eric’s soul and traveled through-out his body at the deadpan voice Gabi was using. She was saying the right words but she was saying them in that stupid monotone voice just to piss him off. He hissed and threw a pillow at her and headed for the shower.

“I know you, Gabi, you wouldn’t cheat on me. You’re just trying to hurt me, make me crazy. I know you.”

“Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think,” she taunted.

Eric didn’t even bother to turn back to glare at her. She was just torturing him. She wouldn’t sleep with Reggie just like he wouldn’t sleep with anyone else. But he’d been tempted, he’d wanted to, he’d thought about it more than once. And he knew his wife. If she thought he’d done it, and she did, she would do anything to get back at him. He scrubbed his bald head. Then again, she would also set it up so that it would look like she had, just to get revenge. He pounded his fist against the shower stall, wishing he knew the truth. Payback is a mother, he thought.

***

It was positive, there was no doubt about it, Gabi was pregnant. She’d doubted the urine test strip, but the blood test was irrefutable evidence. But how? Her husband was sterile. Now how the heck was she supposed to tell him this news? She could hear him now after all the fighting they’d been doing for the past weeks over Reggie.

“
Whose is it, Gabi
?”

“
It’s yours
.”

“
Right
.”

Gabi couldn’t blame Eric. If she didn’t know she’d not slept with another soul other than him, she would wonder also. But she knew she hadn’t, despite what Eric would think.
And what you led him to believe,
the little voice nagged. God, how stupid could she be? That was the last thing a woman should ever do to her man.

But she’d busted him dancing with that skank and feeling her up and she’d retaliated in the way she knew would hurt him the most—by finding an old boyfriend and making sure her husband saw her with him. It hadn’t taken much encouragement to make Reggie think he was getting into her panties. He’d been licking his lips and giving her sly glances, even after her husband had snatched her arm and shoved Reggie. Who wouldn’t think that she’d been screwing around?

And don’t forget you called out Reggie’s
name and pretended it was an accident.
Her apology and the crocodile tears, swearing nothing had happened, had made Eric believe otherwise. Now this. Damn.

Gabi groaned. It all made so much sense now, the tender breasts, the vomiting, the raging hormones, the unusual bloating. A wave of nausea rose so quickly that had she not already been in the bathroom she wouldn’t have made it.

A couple of minutes later she spat out the toothpaste and allowed the tears to fill her eyes. This was a mess, a for real mess and she didn’t know how she was gong to handle it.

“Gabi, are you going to stay in that bathroom forever?” Eric yelled.

Why wait? It was now or never. Gabi pushed the door open and squared her shoulders for a moment. Her husband with his deep pecan brown skin that was smoother than a baby’s bottom, took her breath away. She looked at his nicely shaped bald head and a shiver traveled from her womb to her heart. She closed her eyes for a second, loving this man more in this moment than she ever had. He’d given her the one gift she didn’t think they would ever have. And telling him would rip their tattered marriage to shreds. She watched as he narrowed his gaze and looked at her.

“What’s wrong with you, girl?  You look like you’re sick or something.”

She heard the concern coating his words and swayed as his brown arm reached to steady her. As it did, darkness claimed her.

“Gabi, Gabi, baby, what’s wrong?” This time the worry had elevated into full scale alarm.

Gabi moaned and forced her eyes open to look into the worried eyes of her husband. She was surprised to find she  was on the bed. Eric hovered over her, his right hand holding a cold towel on her forehead.

“I’m sorry we’ve been fighting so much, baby. It’s stressing you out, I know. Damn, it’s stressing me out as well. I love you, baby. Nothing happened with Jamilla, nothing happened with anyone, I promise you that. Let’s start over, baby.” He leaned down, placed his lips lightly on hers, and kissed her.

Oh God, for just a moment let us be the two people we used to be before we started fighting, before we stopped trusting each other
. Tears ran down her cheeks and Gabi succumbed to her husband’s embrace. Her head pressed against his broad shoulder, she listened to the beating of his heart and held on tighter.

“Don’t cry, baby, I love you,” Eric said softly, his arms going around her, holding her close.

“I love you too,” she admitted, hoping that it wasn’t too late.

“Then stop crying, okay?”

“I’m pregnant.”

The words burst out of her before she could reel them in, before she could prepare her husband.

“You’re what!”

She couldn’t say it again. Gabi could only look at him as he moved away. Betrayal quickly filled his eyes and disbelief ravaged his features. Tears replaced the look of betrayal in his eyes and he moved across the room, wrapping his long arms around his body. He stared at her, shaking his head, unable to talk.

“It’s yours,” Gabi whispered softly. “I swear it is.” The look that came into her husband’s eyes made her want to die. She’d killed something in him. A chill pierced her core and snaked its way slowly over her spine. She had what she’d wanted; she’d killed his soul as surely as he’d killed hers. But now that it was too late she was aware that she had never intended to heap this kind of pain on her husband.

“Eric, it’s yours. I swear I’ve never cheated on you.”
She moved backwards on the bed as his glare cut a hole through her.

“Is that what our fighting has been about for the last months? I couldn’t give you a baby so you found someone who could? What about me, Gabi? What about us?” His voice broke. “I can’t look at you right now.” Gabi started to speak and he held up his hand to stop her, then pointed a finger in her direction, his arm shaking with fury. “Don’t speak, not now.”

He couldn’t look at her, not now, not knowing she carried another man’s baby in her belly. He had to get away, had to leave her before he hurt her and if he hurt her he’d never be able to live with himself. Nothing had ever hurt him like this. Actual pains were shooting through his body.

As he drove around aimlessly, Eric thought of the time he’d spent in
Iraq
, the knowledge that he could be killed at any moment never leaving him, the sounds of gunfire, the wounded, the dead and dying. None of it had ever given him the feeling he had now.

In all of it he’d known he would come out of it alive. He had a wife to get home to, a wife he loved with everything that was in him. He’d promised her they would start a family when he returned home.

He pulled into the lot of the supermarket and parked at the back, away from any cars. His chest was tightening up and he felt as though he couldn’t breathe. The sobs tore lose from his throat and there was nothing he could do. He shook his head, trying to make himself stop. He’d not cried like this when his best friend went down in battle beside him, or when he’d held his bloodied body and looked into Bo’s eyes begging him not to die. Sure he’d cried, but not like this.

In one moment he’d lost all that he’d ever wanted and with that loss the will to live was slowly seeping from his pores. If there were a way for him to erase the last hour from his memory he would. But there was no such magical elixir. Eric breathed in hard as the images flooded him. He saw his wife’s face with the tears falling non-stop and he shuddered, sobbing harder. This wasn’t supposed to happen, not to them. He’d loved Gabi since she was fifteen and he’d seen her with a group of friends in the park. She’d been licking an ice cream and had stopped for a second and smiled at him. In that instant she’d claimed his heart and his soul.

Eric could still see her smiling at him. He remembered all their firsts. Damn, this was the only first that hurt like hell, t
he first time one of them cheated on the other. Or was it the first?
he wondered. He’d come so close to doing it himself when he first came home from Iraq and he’d almost done it again once they were given the news that they could not ever have the babies they’d planned for, waited for. “Oh Gabi
,”
Eric moaned aloud. “Gabi, how could you let this happen? How could you sleep with someone else? How could you be having another man’s baby?”

***

If she could die right here, right now, she would. Gabi touched her stomach and looked down. She was going to have a baby. She couldn’t die. This was what she’d wanted for the last seven years of her marriage. If only she could go back to six months ago, if only the one guy she’d chosen to make her husband jealous had not been Reggie. If only, if only…  But it was too late now. They’d been fighting for weeks over an affair she’d never had and she’d only pretended because she’d thought he’d cheated on her. God, what a mess.

             
ANOTHER
MAN
’S BABY
             
229

Chapter
Seventeen

“Whose baby is it, Gabi?”

“It’s yours.”

“Right.”

The conversation was going as she’d anticipated, word for word. Eric’s voice was ice cold, all traces of feeling removed from his voice or his features. Should she beg, plead?

“There’s a simple way to prove it.” Gabi watched while his head tilted just slightly and a glimmer of hope lit his eyes and died out.

“
DNA
, once the baby is born.” She looked down. “Or you could go back to the doctor. He must have made a mistake. I don’t know. I only know I haven’t been with anyone.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I know you don’t but it’s true.”

Eric’s fists closed and his eyes followed. “I’m not a fool. I want to believe you more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life.”

“Then believe me.”

For a moment they stared at each other until she heard the groan from across the room that told her he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t believe something so crazy.

“Please, just go to the doctor and get another test, you’ll see. It’s only an hour out of your life. That’s all I ask, just have him repeat the test.” She saw him swallow as he stared at her and read every thought she was having. That part was easy because they were having the same ones. “I’ll call and set up the appointment for you.”

Eric stared at his wife, the love of his life. He wanted so much to believe her, to believe the doctors had made a mistake. He went to the drawer and pulled out the sheets of paper that had destroyed their lives and their marriage. The papers said he was sterile, not a low sperm count, sterile. How was that going to change? He watched Gabi move toward the phone and a sound issued from his throat. He shook his head. “Not your office. I’ll find my own doctor and make my own appointment.”

“You think our lab would lie because I work there? Are you crazy?”

“No, I’m not crazy. That’s the reason I’ll find my own doctor. There are enough of them listed. I’m not stupid.”

“I didn’t think you were. Until you go to the doctor what are we going to do? Are we going to talk about this?”

“There isn’t really anything for us to talk about…not until we know.”

“There’s a baby involved now, not just the two of us. We have to stop this silly squabbling.”

Before he could stop himself he was across the room and standing an inch from her. Gabi had pushed his last button. She knew how much he loved her, had always loved her, had once wanted a dozen babies with her. He could feel the rage boiling upwards. He took a deep breath, a mistake, he realized, as soon as her scent hit his nostrils. She always smelled like fresh baked sugar cookies, always good enough to eat.

“I haven’t done anything wrong.”

He held up the papers he was still clutching. “Was it through osmosis or maybe wishing? Is that it, you wanted a baby so badly that you wished it into being?”

“I didn’t want just any baby, I wanted our baby, yours and mine and this is what we have, our baby.” Gabi couldn’t help cringing as her husband’s eyes flashed fire. She blinked, suddenly afraid. She didn’t even sense the pain, just his anger. She took a step back cautiously, wondering if her husband would hit her. He never had and she’d always sworn that if he ever did she would pick up whatever was handy and do her best to lay him out in spite of his being six-three. She was far too old to take a butt whipping. Uhh uhh, wasn’t going to happen, not to her.

“Stop looking at me like that.” She tried to say the words firmly but they came out as a mere whisper and she cursed herself for it.

“What are you going to do if I don’t?”

“Move.”

“Move?” Eric planted his massive body more squarely, blocking his wife’s path deliberately.

“I’m not kidding,” Gabi hissed.

“Neither am I.”

So what did she do now? Gabi drew back her hand and swung it forward only to have Eric catch it in his viselike grip. “You’re hurting me,” she said, attempting to use her other hand to pry loose from him.

“I hurt you? Just what do you think you’ve done to me? You’ve killed me. I’m still breathing, but I’m dead. How could you do this, Gabi? How could you?” He loosened his grip.

How she wanted to shout at him that he’d killed her also. She wanted to remind him of Jamilla, of the panties and the condom, but she wanted him to believe her more. They’d been given a miracle and she wanted to make him see that. “I…I’m not going to keep pleading with you. If you don’t believe me then there is nothing I can do. Just be careful you don’t destroy what little we have left. You’re going to feel like a fool when the doctor tells you you can father a child, aren’t you?”

Gabi shoved past Eric, wanting and needing more space. Her breath lodged in her throat. If she heard his footsteps behind her she swore she was going to run like hell.

Eric sank into the thick mattress and wished he were dead, that he’d died in
Iraq
. At least he would have died believing his wife loved him, that they could fix any problem they had between them.

Well, this was one problem that he didn’t think they could fix so easily. No, this one would require a test result showing he was not sterile. Even then, Eric didn’t think he would believe it.

He could demand
DNA
of the baby and Gabi, and even from Reggie. He shuddered hard. This had happened to a lot of his friends when they’d been so far from home, fighting. Their wives and girlfriends had deserted them, cheated on them, had babies. But he’d never worried, not about Gabi. He could count on her, come hell or high water. She loved him. Again, a hard shudder. Eric rolled out of the bed and went to the medicine cabinet. He had to take something to dull the pain, anything.

He rummaged in the cabinets, not finding anything that looked as if it would cure what ailed him until he spotted the bottle of over the counter sleeping pills. For now he needed them. He wanted to lie in bed and sleep for a thousand hours. Hopefully when he woke he would find that this had only been a nightmare. If he were lucky, the whole last year of his marriage would have only been a nightmare.

Tears filled his eyes. He’d made it home alive and whole. After an entire year from his wife, what a cruel joke fate had played on them. Sure, he’d wanted to fight for his country, but he’d had no idea what the hell they were even fighting for. For twelve months he had not seen his wife, not kissed her thighs, not tasted the sweet nectar that was Gabi, not made love to her. Hell, if he’d thought it out, he would have never enlisted in the first damn place.

Then again, he hadn’t really enlisted. He’d sort of been forced into it from having gone to college and allowing Uncle Sam to pay for it. Man, payback was a real rip-roaring bitch. Just because he’d done the ROTC thing and been promised a commission, he’d gone for it, anything to impress his wife, a woman he should have never had to impress after they were married. But Eric had always felt a little out of his league with her, like anytime he stepped out of line there would be someone there to take his place.

Eric growled. Reggie had always been the fly in the ointment, the one who’d dated Gabi because Eric had lacked the nerve to ask, the one to take her to her first prom, the one who’d broken her heart when she’d caught him kissing another girl at the prom.

It was at the prom where Eric had found Gabi crying and comforted her. He’d always wondered and believed she’d dated him out of gratitude and at the time it hadn’t mattered. He’d loved her so much that he was ready to take her any way he could get her, gratitude not withstanding.

Pain radiated through Eric, but there was one thing he could do, one person he could force to tell him the truth. He glanced over at the closet, the thought of what he was about to do weighing heavily. He was only going to scare Reggie, not kill him. He gazed at his trembling hands, not knowing if his thoughts were the truth or a lie. Either way, he was going to do it. He returned the pills to the medicine cabinet. Sleep could wait. Right now he had more important matters to attend to.

Eric walked to the closet, reached up and brought the locked steel box down. He ran his hand across the cold metal, swallowing as he did so. What ifs ran though his mind. If he shot Reggie, what then? Did he come back and kill Gabi, then himself? Because if he killed Gabi there was no way in hell he could live with that.

He laid the box on the desk and went to his drawer across the room to retrieve the key, telling himself the entire time that he was just going to use the gun to force Reggie to tell the truth.

A few minutes passed and he was almost done. He should have moved quicker, done less thinking, but no matter, he was still going through with it. He heard the door open, heard Gabi’s gasp of surprise. He pulled the brush from the barrel of his 9mm and continued doing what he was doing. “Eric.”

He ignored Gabi calling his name. Picking up the magazine he loaded the bullets. One by one he felt the tips of the smooth projectiles. He’d had so much guilt over the killings he’d done. None of it had been personal, this was.

“Eric, what are you doing?” Gabi asked, standing directly in front of him.

“What does it look like I’m doing?”

“Are you planning on killing me?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“You’re crazy, you know that?” Gabi splayed her hands on her hips and glared at Eric.

“Should you talk that way to a man with a gun?”

“Not to any man, to my husband. We’ve both made mistakes, we’ve hurt each other.”

“That’s true,” Eric agreed as he dropped another bullet into the magazine. “But I didn’t make a baby with anyone. I didn’t sleep with anyone.”

“You did make a baby, Eric, you made a baby with me.”

He sighed, glared at her and looked at the gun in his hand. “I was willing to try and forgive you, but you don’t want that. You want me to pretend that a miracle happened. Sorry, Gabi, I can’t do that.”

Eric finished what he was doing, put his gun in his pocket and replaced the case in the closet. “You can still stop this, Gabi. Tell me the truth. I have to know the truth. You tell me that you slept with Reggie, that it’s his baby, and I’ll find a way to forgive you.”

“I’m not going to tell you that, it’s not true.” She was shivering. Though diamonds sparkled in her eyes, the tears didn’t fall.

“You don’t care if I kill Reggie?” he asked.

“Of course I care,” Gabi said slowly. “I care because I lied to you and had you thinking I was sleeping with him. I wanted revenge. That never works out, does it? Eric, baby, you’ve got to believe me. Reggie didn’t even know what I was doing.”

“You telling me he didn’t want you?”

“He wanted me, and he thought he had a chance of getting me. But he never had a chance and he doesn’t deserve to die for just wanting me.”

“What does he deserve to die for?”

“It’s not his baby.”

“Then tell me whose baby it is.”

“I’ve told you.”

“Not good enough, Gabi, but I give you credit, you’re playing it real cool.” Eric tilted his head a tiny bit and smiled half-heartedly at her. “You don’t believe I can kill?”

“I don’t believe you can kill an innocent man and not in cold blood.”

“But I have, Gabi, I’ve killed an innocent man in cold blood.” Eric laughed again as her mouth widened in surprise. “What the hell did you think I was doing in
Iraq
?”

“You’re not there anymore. You’re home. This is not a war zone, and you don’t get to shoot people. You’ll go to jail.”

“And I’ll get out. Depressed marine officer, combat fatigue, unable to cope. My behavior since I’ve been home will be the proof to set me free. I’m a soldier, Gabi, I’ve been trained to kill. Do you think it’s easy to turn it off?” He watched as Gabi narrowed her eyes.

“You’ve thought about this?” she asked.

“Some.”

“You can’t do this.” Gabi was trying to keep the fear from her voice but it was impossible. She was afraid, afraid for Reggie and herself, but most of all afraid for Eric. Too late she wished she’d listened to the voice. She’d had a choice, and now her choice had led her here.