Another Man's Baby (5 page)

“Gabi.” He called her name softly, allowing all of the love he had for her to seep into his voice. Yes, he was addicted, but right now his trying to give up the habit was hurting the woman he loved.

“Gabi, I’m sorry.”

He could see a tiny tremor around her shoulders and suspected she was trying not to cry. “It’s not you, baby,” he said. “It’s not your fault at all. I love you. I’m just so tired. At the base we’re swamped, there’s not enough people to do the jobs and it’s causing stress.”

“You made it sound like I was a nymph or something.”

     “I didn’t mean it like that,” Eric said softly, surprised and relieved that she was talking to him. That was more than she’d done the entire time they’d been at his parents.’ She’d directed all of her conversation to the two of them, ignoring him, refusing to even look at him. His parents had laughed at the both of them.

“Are you really just tired?” Gabrielle asked.

“Yes.”

“And it has nothing to do with me?”

“No, babe, nothing,” Eric lied.

“Good. I was beginning to think I was funky or had bad breath or something.”

He laughed, as she’d meant for him to do. The ice was broken. He moved his right hand from the steering wheel and slid it in her direction. When she took it he felt the relief rip through him.
Yeah, I’m whipped
.

“Gabi, I want to make love to you, baby.” He squeezed her fingers. “But in order to do that I need to stop at the drugstore.”

He waited.

“I can’t take any chances on your getting pregnant right now. Can you go with me on that?”

Her nerves were frayed, her body was in knots, her womb was empty and her husband hadn’t made love to her in a month. She needed him to hold her to let her know that he loved her, that she still turned him on. Short of begging him, at the moment she was willing to do nearly anything. Her eyes closed and she shook her head. She’d never thought this desperation to have her husband make love to her would be part of their life. She felt him squeezing her fingers.

“Eric, I’m still taking the pills.”

“I need more assurance that you’re not going to get pregnant right now. The pills are not one hundred percent.” He licked his lips and breathed deeply, glad that he was in the car and couldn’t see her face. It was bad enough that he could feel her pain like a living entity wrapping around him, suffocating him, making him want to forget the need to protect his wife. “Are you going to be okay with this, Gabi?”

“Yes, she murmured. “I’m on board.”

Chapter
Four

Gabrielle pursed her lips and narrowed her gaze, determined not to glare. “
Have faith
.” She’d heard those words now for months and hadn’t known exactly what they meant, but it seemed she was learning fast.

Eric had been home for months now and with the exception of the first month he seemed to be going out of his way to avoid her. But why? she wondered.

She moved closer to Eric, reaching out to stroke his shoulder as he reached for the remote control. She was preparing to hear the worst, hoping to hear the best. She sighed softly as she observed her husband, wishing that for once when he turned on the cable channel there would be no news of
Iraq
. What a silly thing to wish for.
Iraq
was forever on the news and it was taking her husband slowly into a deeper depression. Something had to give.

“Eric, honey, are you okay?”

“Yeah, why?”

“I’m not trying to pressure you but I miss you. I miss our making love. You asked me a couple of months ago to keep taking the pills.” She shrugged her shoulders. “There really hasn’t been much need for the pills. Are you ever planning on making love to me again the way you use to?” She held her breath. She needed to know the answer.

“But I’ve been…”

“That’s not making love.”
And definitely not the way for me to have a baby
, she thought.

“Is there a reason we’re not making love more often and when you do, that you’re using a condom? Do you have a disease?” She wanted to try for lightness. “I’m not saying I haven’t enjoyed what you’ve been doing but that’s like an appetizer.” She shrugged her shoulders. “I’m still waiting for the main course.”

“You didn’t complain last night.”

Gabi rubbed her forefinger up and down against her chin. So it was going to be like that. Okay, she hadn’t complained last night, just like she hadn’t complained for the past two months after they’d talked and he’d told her how much he loved her.

When they’d gone home from his parents’ and he’d begun undressing her, caressing her, making sweet love to her, Gabi had agreed to the use of condoms. But more and more lately they were engaging in oral sex. If it was what he needed, she didn’t really mind, but she kept waiting, each time thinking he was going to completely consummate the act. Yes, she’d had release, that was the thing. And she hadn’t minded on occasion. But it wasn’t what she wanted for the rest of her marriage. More important things were at stake now. Now she wanted to broach the subject of their having a baby. He’d promised.

“Do you remember the promise you made?” Gabi watched  Eric pull his lips tightly together. His jaw was hard, as though it wouldn’t break if she decided to take a sledge hammer to it.

“Eric?”

“Listen, we have time.”

“You promised,” she answered softly.

“I didn’t tell you the moment I got home. Is that the reason you wanted me home? What am I to you, a sperm donor?”

Gabi licked her lips and bit back her retort. She was trying her best to be understanding. True, she didn’t know how rough it had been fighting a war. She’d only had a dream. Eric had experienced the real thing.

“I have to go to work.” She looked at him expecting an apology, getting none. Something inside her snapped. “If I were looking for a sperm donor, I guess I looked in the wrong place. You haven’t touched me in weeks, not the way that I want you to. What we’ve been doing is definitely not the way to make a baby, or to keep your wife. I don’t know what your problem is but I know I’m much too young to give up making love. I’m sure there are plenty of men who aren’t repulsed by me.”

She walked out the house, anger fueling her. She shouldn’t have said what she had, but it was done. As she passed the trash she dumped her birth control pills into the can. She’d kept her word; in fact, she’d stayed on the things an extra month. Now she was done with them. She’d leave it up to God. If He wanted them to have a baby, then they’d have it. Given the fact that Eric’s recent aversion to her would make it hard to reproduce, it would take a power greater than theirs to conceive. But her womb would be ready just in case.

***

Gabi stretched as the last patient left the office. For once she was glad the receptionist had overbooked. It had kept her mind occupied.

“What’s up? Are you and your hubby fighting?”

Gabi looked in shock at Tracie, the other nurse on duty, but refused to respond.

“What?” Tracie laughed, “you didn’t think you’d ever fight?”

“What makes you think Eric and I are fighting?” Gabi took a step back and peered at her coworker waiting patiently for an answer.

“Because since the moment you began dating him there has not been one day you haven’t come in here and told us something cute he said, did, or how cute he looked in general. Now all of a sudden you’re not talking. Something must be wrong.”

“Maybe I finally realized after all of these years of everyone hearing me rattle on that you were all probably tired of it. Maybe I got a clue.”

Laughter met Gabi’s answer and she felt heat rise to her face. She was embarrassed, but she wasn’t going to discuss her problems with Traci.

“Listen, Gabi, you’re not the first wife who had a fight with her husband and especially not the first to find readjusting to a husband that’s been in a war hard. When my husband returned from Desert Storm we tried hard to make it work, but it didn’t. We ended up getting divorced. He died before I ever found out what the problem was. For years I thought it was me, but so many of our friends’ marriages dissolved also. Your husband’s been to
Iraq
three times. That has to be very hard.”

A sigh escaped and Gabrielle sank into a chair. “I know it was hard on Eric, but he keeps watching CNN. What does he expect to happen? It’s not like the war ended because he came home.”

“And therein lies your problem.”

For a second all Gabi could do was stare at the older woman before her eyes closed and she sighed again, louder. “I hadn’t thought about that. We haven’t talked a lot about what happened. I’ve asked and he keeps saying he doesn’t want me to know. I told him I see it every day on the news and he gives me this look, like I’m crazy.”

She hunched her shoulder. “I know some of his men died and several of his friends. If he talked to me I could help him through this.”

“Have you ever been in a war?”

“No, but I’m sure I can help him…I love him.”

“It’s not your love that’s the problem, Gabi, and this isn’t your particular battle. More men than people know come back from wars all screwed up. But it’s swept under the carpet so there will be no objection to the next war. This one your husband will have to handle on his own.”

For several seconds Gabi thought over Tracie’s remarks. This was not a battle Eric would have to fight alone, she’d help him. She’d make him remember how it was for them before all of this craziness started.

“
Have faith
.”

Damn it. There it was again, the voice that had whispered to her. She hoped it didn’t mean she was fighting a losing battle. Gabi shivered thinking of
Iraq
. The things Tracie spoke of would never happen to her and Eric. They would get through this. Divorce wasn’t even in their vocabulary; that would never happen.

***

Eric was pissed. Had rational thinking prevailed, he would have addressed the real issue, which wasn’t the fight he’d had with his wife or the fact that she’d practically called him a eunuch, had threatened to take a lover. Eric glared at no one in particular. Maybe those hadn’t been the words Gabi used but that had been the sentiment behind them.

“Lieutenant, is there anything else I can do before I take off?”

Eric glared at the civilian secretary, wondering what the hell she was rambling about. When his eyes lit on the papers in Linda’s hands he was jerked back to the business at hand. He was still a soldier, albeit a soldier who got to go home off base at night and travel an hour and a half to make it back each day. Gabi was giving him shit about being tired, but neither of them had time for a baby; they barely had time for each other.

And when that excuse wears off, what are you going to use?

“Lieutenant, will there be anything else?”

“No, thank you, Linda. We’re done for the night.” Eric shuffled papers on his desk until the woman left the office. Then he turned and looked out the window. He blew out the last of his frustration knowing it was time to go home and fight it out with his wife.

Two steps from his car he turned to answer the voice that called him. Mike had a huge grin. He’d returned from
Iraq
about a day or so before Eric left. Since Eric’s return he had become closer with Mike.

“See you tomorrow,” Mike waved.

“Hey, man, aren’t you going to ask me to go clubbing with you tonight?”

“Why should I? I’ve done that for the last two weeks and every night it’s the same answer. No. Let me know when your wife has gotten enough of looking at your tired behind and then I’ll ask.”

Eric looked Mike squarely in the eye. “Then I would suggest you ask me tonight.”

“Problems?”

“A few,” Eric answered.

“Welcome home.”

***

“Come on, man, let off a little steam. It’s just what you need.”

“How would you know what I need?” Eric asked, narrowing his eyes at Mike, twirling his glass in his fingers.  “I have a wife at home. I’ve never cheated on her and I’m not about to start now.”

“Don’t get bent out of shape. I know you have a wife at home, same as I do, a wife who keeps wanting to fix things, who wants you to tell her everything that happened, without leaving out one single gory detail. And all so she can kiss your boo boo and make it all better.”

Eric squinted, taking a look at the women who were eyeballing them, the ones Mike was trying to coax him into leaving the club with. He took in several breaths, exhaled noisily and took a drink. “You think that will make it better?”

“It does make it better. One night of holding a woman in your arms, a woman who doesn’t give a damn about you, doesn’t want to fix things for you? Hell yes, I’d say it makes it better.  All you have to do is get your rocks off.  You don’t have to worry about cuddling with her, you don’t have to worry about soiling her with the things we were ordered to do.”

“How did you…”

“How did I know?” Mike shrugged his shoulder. “Hell, Eric, you shouldn’t have gone an entire year without. If you had eased your ache while you were there it wouldn’t be half as hard on you now.”

“I suppose you did.” Eric worried his top lip with his tongue. He glared at Mike as he remembered the stories of the rapes, the tortures.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Mike snapped back. “I had a willing partner.”

“Look, I went to fight a war, not to screw around on my wife. No, thank you. You think I feel dirty now, what the hell you think I’m going to feel like if I cheat on her?”

“A hell of a lot better than you do now. Do what you need to do, take the edge off, then maybe when you go home you can handle it, mellow out.” Mike smiled. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said and sauntered off, motioning for the woman in the tight gray dress to come with him.

Eric watched him walk away with his arms around the woman. He watched until they were out the door and still he could not turn around.

For a moment he wondered if it would help. He had a boner the size of
Texas
and it hurt like hell. Mike was right about one thing, Eric was having a hard time connecting with his wife. He shook his head. Gabi would kick his behind if he screwed around on her.

Picking up his drink, he sipped and turned to look at the other side of the bar. He jerked back as a full pouty mouth pressed against his.
What the hell
?