Carnal Christmas-epub (5 page)

“It wouldn’t matter how you told me,” she sniffled into Mandy’s neck. “I just…wanted…I was hoping…so much…”

“What, sweetheart? What did you want? Tell me.”

God, she couldn’t believe she was going to say this to Mandy—couldn’t believe she was
acting
like this with her—but she just couldn’t hold anything back.

Taking a deep breath, she confessed, “I wanted all of us to live together because I miss you and Hake so much when we’re apart. Now it’s never going to happen.” The final word ended on another choked whisper, and she let Mandy pull her close again as her tears continued to fall.

“Oh, my sweet girl, that’s why you’re upset?” When AJ nodded, Mandy said, “I thought maybe it was because I was having the baby you wanted.”

“Of course not. I’m not that petty.” AJ wiped her swollen eyes with the corner of the towel. “I might be a little envious, but a baby wasn’t really high on my wish list anymore. Even if we were all younger and could adopt as a poly group, I don’t think Joe could handle it after the way he lost Travis.”

Joe’s fifteen-year-old son had been killed when he rolled a stop sign on a country road and got hit by a semi, and Joe could never quite forgive himself for what he saw as setting a poor example.

After a long pause, Mandy said, “Maybe Joe can handle more than you think.”

“Maybe so, but it doesn’t really matter. There’s too much stacked against us and I’m not taking any chances on him.” She gave a shuddering sigh, feeling like the crying jag might finally be over. “Besides, this way I’ll be free to help you with
your
baby. If you ever need me, I mean.”

Mandy closed her eyes and chuckled. “Oh Ariel, I love you so much.”

Wishing she didn’t want that to mean more than it did, AJ said lightly, “And you haven’t even noticed my bathtub yet.”

When Mandy opened her eyes, she didn’t look at the tub—she just looked at AJ long enough and intently enough to bring a flush to her cheeks. Only then did she finally focus on the tub and stand up. “Oh my God, that’s gorgeous.”

AJ stood too, more awkwardly because she tried to stay decently covered in the process. She was feeling a little too exposed already, and a little too vulnerable, even though she knew Mandy would never deliberately hurt her.

“I love it to pieces,” she admitted, sliding her hand along the smooth acrylic edge of the double-ended clawfoot slipper tub. “We had to order it online and pay to have it shipped because there was nothing like it around here.”

“It’s very romantic.” Mandy’s admiring smile turned naughty. “Have you and Brent taken a bath together yet?”

“All three of us have, actually,” AJ was pleased to report. “The first night we were in the house. I had to sit on Brent’s lap. And then Joe’s, of course,” she added with a smirk.

“Of course.” Still wearing that naughty smile, Mandy reached across to the center-mounted faucet and started the hot water. “Then it’ll easily hold both of us, won’t it?”

AJ’s pulse jumped and she pulled the towel tighter around her as her blush rekindled. Here she was, all puffy and congested, with the residual evidence of sex with Hake creeping out of her, and Mandy wanted to frolic in the tub with her?

On the other hand, she
had
planned to hop in the shower before putting a pot of soup on to simmer, and a bath with Mandy held infinite appeal. “Supper might be late.”

Mandy pulled her sweater off and hung it on the six-peg oak wall rack. “We can have omelets or something simple. And those wonderful gingerbread cookies.”

“I have to finish decorating them,” AJ reminded her, watching avidly as Mandy slid her leggings and panties down and stepped out of them. Now that she wasn’t the only one naked, AJ had no qualms about taking the towel off and looping it over her towel bar.

Seeing steam rising from the stream of water, she leaned over to flip the drain closed and added some cold water. “How hot do you like it?”

Mandy’s palm slid over one of AJ’s butt cheeks and squeezed. “You have to ask?”

AJ grinned. “I walked right into that one, didn’t I?”

“You certainly did. If you’re talking about the water, body temperature or a little lower, please.”

AJ mentally thumped herself on the head. She knew that—she’d used a thermometer religiously when she was pregnant because too-hot water could put her baby at risk. Not that it had helped.

After she got the mix adjusted, she grabbed another towel out of the cupboard and hung it on Brent’s empty rack while Mandy climbed in and leaned back against one comfortably sloped end. When she got in and turned to sit at the opposite end of the tub, Mandy shook her head and spread her knees, her expression wavering between demanding and pleading.

“Sit here with me, Ariel. Please.”

Her stomach fluttering, AJ hesitated briefly before obeying. She had no problems being the small spoon, but that was with two tall guys. Mandy was several inches shorter than she was.

“I should be in back,” she said uncertainly as she sat down.

“You should be in my arms,” Mandy countered, using the arms in question to pull AJ’s body tight against hers and then sighing deeply.

It took a couple of minutes, but as warm water continued to flow into the tub and Mandy just held her, AJ started to relax and eventually laid her head on Mandy’s shoulder. Although she was hyperaware of the baby bump against her spine, she closed her eyes and tried to simply enjoy the intimacy until the water was lapping at her nipples. Then she reached up to shut it off and let her arms rest comfortably on Mandy’s again. Without the roar of the faucet, the silence was broken only by faint trickling sounds from the drain, the occasional ripple of water when one of them shifted, and the steady, synchronized rhythm of their breathing.

It wasn’t what she’d expected, but it was nice. Confusing, but nice.

Then Mandy rested her chin on AJ’s shoulder and sighed deeply again, this time with a bit of a shudder, and AJ was dismayed to feel something drip on her collarbone.

Her eyes popped open. “Mandy, are you
crying
?”

She tried to crane around to see her but Mandy held on tight. “Don’t. Please. I need you in my arms for this.”

“For what?” she asked, her heart pounding now.

“Just…relax for a second, okay, and let me tell you.”

“Okay.” AJ took a calming breath and leaned back against her, suddenly on pins and needles. Oh God, was something wrong with the baby? With
her
?

Mandy squeezed her fiercely. “I love you so much, Ariel Jane.
Love
you. You’re my best friend and my lover, and I thought I was doing the right thing, because everything happens for a reason, you know? And I really thought this was the reason, but now…” She swallowed and sniffled. “Now it’s too late to
not
go through with it because Hake’s probably already told the guys and I’m afraid it’s going to tear us all apart.”

“Mandy, just tell me already,” AJ demanded, truly worried now.

“I want you to take the baby.”

The bald statement made everything inside her go still. “What?”

“Hake and I both want you and Brent and Joe to raise this baby. It’s one of theirs as much as it is mine, and you need a child of your own. You were born to be a mother.”

AJ could hardly breathe, much less formulate a response. “Mandy…oh my God.”

“The thing you have to understand, Ariel, is that I’ve been thinking about this for such a long time… Since before I got pregnant. Almost since the day we met, in fact.” Mandy sighed and kissed her shoulder. “I’d talked to Hake a couple of times about offering to carry a baby for you—in vitro, so it would be yours and one of theirs—but he reined me in because it was too soon and we didn’t know how your relationship would work out. I’d planned to bring it up with him again after your house was finished, because I thought the time would be right…”

“And then you got pregnant,” AJ said numbly, her mind whirling.

Mandy nodded. “And like I said, everything happens for a reason, and I thought this was the universe’s way of rubber-stamping my idea, only with a twist. I truly believed this baby was meant for you, so that you could have a family of your own.”

Dear God, and AJ had just told her she didn’t want a baby, that it wasn’t worth risking her relationship with Joe. Even as she said it, she’d known it wasn’t exactly true. It was just what she’d always told herself and Brent and Joe when she thought a baby was too far out of her reach. In her heart of hearts, she wanted one more than she’d ever wanted anything—except Brent and Joe.

AJ started to shake. Oh God. She was going to have to choose between them, wasn’t she?

This was turning into a hell of a Christmas, Brent thought, making a conscious effort to relax as he sat back down at the table and started in on his second bowl of Ariel’s spicy vegetable beef soup. He’d never experienced a meal quite this uncomfortably silent—and he’d endured a lot of silent, uncomfortable meals over the course of his mother’s many marriages. Tension practically crystallized the air around them, making every move, every breath, seem hazardous.

These were the four people he usually felt most comfortable with, the ones he could say anything to. Now they all seemed to be watching each other, waiting for someone else to shatter the fragile silence and start the conversation no one wanted to have but everyone knew had to take place.

Well, everyone except Joe—he just kept his head down, eating as if he were alone at the table and liked it that way. As far as Brent knew, he hadn’t said a word since Hake made his game-changing announcement in the living room a couple of hours earlier. He’d just gotten up from the couch and left the room, and a few minute later, Brent could hear the clink of weights being swung in the basement. At least he hadn’t left the house. Yet.

When they were alone, he’d had a long conversation with Hake and they’d agreed Joe was the variable that could either bring this whole situation together or blow it completely apart. They’d also agreed he was likely to run because he
knew
it all hinged on him and he wouldn’t want that responsibility. He’d feel compelled to ride off into the sunset so that Brent and AJ could get married and raise the baby like a normal couple if they wanted to. Even if the baby was his. Maybe
especially
if the baby was his. Travis’s death had seriously compromised Joe’s faith in a lot of things, including his own parenting skills.

Brent frowned as he dipped his cornbread in his soup and took a bite. If one of them was going to be deficient in the parenting skills department, it was him. Joe, at least, had been raised by a decent father—a county sheriff, of all things—and by Joe’s own admission, Travis had been a great kid. That didn’t happen without great parenting. Meanwhile, Brent and his three brothers had had four different fathers they’d hardly ever seen. The only reason they were all named Andersen was because their mother had reverted to her maiden name after every divorce and changed any new child’s name right along with hers just to cut down on confusion.

How she and Hake’s mother could have been identical twins was beyond him. Aunt Cora had been a salt-of-the-earth farmer’s wife who baked her own bread, hung the wash out on the line even though she had a new dryer, and made Hake and his dad spiff up and go to church with her every week without fail. Brent’s mother Carleen, on the other hand, had been dying to shake the dust of their parents’ farm off her shoes and married the first guy who came along—and the second, and the third, and the fourth, and who knew how many more. It had been enough to sour Brent on the whole idea of marriage and children.

Until he met Ariel and Joe.

“Anybody else want more?” Hake asked as he stood up from his chair, bowl in hand. It was interesting how they’d all settled into the seating arrangement they usually used at the Stivers’ table—the implications of giving up his customary place at the head of the table hadn’t even crossed Brent’s mind when he sat beside Mandy.

He shook his head. “I think this’ll do it for me.”

“Everything is delicious, Ariel,” Mandy said as Hake went into the kitchen, smiling valiantly even though she was still pale and a little puffy around the eyes. The sight squeezed Brent’s heart like a vise, one-eighty that it was from the glowing excitement she’d worn when they arrived. He wanted to put his arm around her shoulders in sympathy, but Ariel was across the table by Joe, looking every bit as strained, and he didn’t want to comfort one if he couldn’t comfort both.

Ariel’s return smile was genuine but subdued. “Thank you. They’re my mother’s recipes.”

“She must have been an excellent cook.”

“She was.”

And that was the end of that conversational gambit.

Brent fought back a frustrated sigh. Apparently the girls’ conversation hadn’t gone well either. When they finally emerged from the master bedroom and started preparing the meal, their usual happy chatter had been glaringly absent. After listening to a half-hour of nothing but drawers opening and closing and utensils clattering, he’d offered to help Hake carry in their bags and then shown him and Mandy to the guest room so he could have some time alone with Ariel.

Unfortunately, she wasn’t ready to talk about it yet, so all he could do was speculate about what had happened between them.

“How are you feeling, Mandy?” Ariel asked abruptly.

Mandy’s smile was more hopeful this time. “Good. I was pretty sick for a while, a lot more than with Ryan, but I’m doing better now.”

“I don’t remember her being sick at all with Ryan,” Hake said as he sat back down and grabbed another piece of cornbread off the plate.

“It’s always more memorable when you’re the one hugging the bowl,” Mandy told him dryly.

He chuckled. “True.”

“And everything’s…all right?” Ariel asked. “With the baby?”

Brent and Hake traded oblique looks. What had the girls been doing all that time if they hadn’t even gotten this far into the hard questions?

“Everything’s fine,” Mandy assured her. “Since the pregnancy is considered high risk because of my age, I’ve already started seeing a perinatologist, but my regular OB says I’m in a lot better shape than most of his patients. They both think we’ll come through this with flying colors.”