Merry Christmas, Lincoln (A Take Care, Sara Christmas Novelette) (5 page)

So he smiled and said sure. Sara hugged him and kissed him and left with a wave. That was hours ago. After filling up the wood stove and brewing a pot of coffee, Lincoln was back in the garage, willing the wood to speak to him. If Sara could create a whimsical scene on the walls of their baby’s room, why couldn’t he create something for their baby as well? He wanted to, but he was stuck.

He tried to picture what their baby would look like, but every time he attempted it, an image of Cole’s laughing face showed up instead. Lincoln yanked a piece of lumber from the pile and stared at it, trying to imagine what it could be transformed into. Instead he saw Sara, broken over Cole’s death, crying on the floor.

With a curse Lincoln slammed the wood into the cement floor. What the hell was wrong with him? He looked at the splintered wood, his insides in turmoil with no explanation why—no explanation he wanted to investigate anyway.

“
Lincoln?”

He whirled around, trying to steady the pounding of his heart. “What?” His voice was harsh and he regretted that the instant the glow seeped from Sara’s smiling face.

“Nothing.” She retreated, turning to leave.

“
Sara, wait.” Lincoln crossed the room and stood behind her. “I’m sorry. What is it? Did you need something?”

“
I thought you wanted to get our tree.”

“
I did. I do. Just…give me a minute, okay? I’ll be right out.”

She wordlessly nodded, slipping through the door and closing it behind her.

Get it together, Lincoln.
He took a large inhalation of breath, and another, until he was closer to the control he had felt slipping away when Sara showed up. Maybe it wasn’t time for him to create anything just yet.

He rubbed his eyes and rolled his shoulders, determined to not let whatever was eating away at him ruin the rest of the day. He was supposed to be the unbending one, the positive one, the one that never let doubt overtake logic, the one always confident and hopeful.

Closing the garage door, he looked at Sara waiting for him in her purple jacket with her cream-colored stocking cap, gloves, and scarf, she a dark beauty standing in a fountain of white, and his resolve was reinstated. He would be that man. For her.

He was studying a tree, determining whether or not it was sickly enough for Sara to approve, when a snowball hit the side of his neck. It was so cold it burned his skin. Sara’s laughter filled the trees around him and he grinned, stooping down to pack some snow, his competitive nature bubbling up.

“You really want to do this again? Every year it’s the same. You throw snow, I retaliate.” Another snowball blasted his back. “Apparently you’re getting better at this,” he muttered to himself, standing and ducking in time to miss a mouth full of snow.

When his eyes narrowed, Sara shrieked and began to run. Lincoln took off after her, intent on her and nothing else. The tree was so spindly and hunched over he tripped over it, sprawling into the snow face-first. He spit snow chunks from his mouth and flipped onto his back, arms and legs sprawled out. The cold layered the back of him, coating him in a film of snow.

“What happened?” Sara asked with a giggle, looming over him.

“
I tripped over a stupid tree limb.”

“
And you’re supposed to be the graceful one.”

“
Don't tell anyone, all right?”

She knelt beside him, studying the pathetic plant-life. It had few pine needles and its tip slanted dangerously low. It could only be around five feet tall. He warily watched her, already knowing what she was thinking before she put it into words.

“It’s not a tree limb. It’s a
tree
.” With a wide smile on her face, she leaned down to kiss his lips, her cold nose bumping his. “You found our Charlie Brown Christmas tree.”

Lincoln groaned. “Sara. No. That’s the worst one yet.”

“Which makes it the
best
one yet.”

“
Our kid is going to wonder what’s wrong with us.”

“
Our kid is going to think we’re amazing, you especially.”

Lincoln sat up and Sara scooted back so that her backside was to his front. He put his arms around her and they stared at their tree in silence, the icy air and snow not enough of a determent to make them leave. There was calmness in their embrace, in the comfort they took from each other’s presence. He’d never felt as complete as he did when he was with his wife. Even before, when he was just the brother of the guy she dated, she was more to him, always.

It seemed unreal at times that she loved him and had said yes to being his wife—and now they were having a baby. His arms tightened around her and he took a shuddering breath, closing his eyes as he rested his chin on the crown of her head.

“
Do you ever think…if one small, insignificant detail of our lives had happened differently, we wouldn’t be here, right now, doing this?” Sara pulled away to glance over her shoulder at him. “That we wouldn’t be together, that we wouldn’t be having a baby?”

He brushed hair from her eyes. She turned back around as he answered, “I suppose.”

“This is our time now, Lincoln,” Sara told him quietly, her voice firm with resolution. “We can’t regret that.”

“
I don’t,” he promised, and when he said the words, he realized he didn’t—couldn’t.

***

He had just lain down on the bed when Sara announced, “I want to pick out the baby’s name.”

Reaching up to turn the lamp on the nightstand on, he looked at his wife. “Isn’t that something we do together?”

“Yes. Normally. But…can I make it a surprise? Please? I want to do this.” Her face was turned toward him, her dark hair a cloud on the pillow beneath her head. Sara’s expression was curiously earnest.

“
Why?”

She let out a heavy sigh, sitting up against her pillow. “I know what I want to name the baby. This means a lot to me, Lincoln.”

One eyebrow lifted. “Girl or boy, you have a name picked out?”

Head nodding, she bit down on her lower lip as she waited for his response.

It was important to her—not that it wasn’t important to him—but it was really important to her. Lincoln’s eyes dropped and he perused the mound where his baby resided, trailing a finger along the side of Sara’s exposed stomach. He leaned down, kissing the sweet-smelling skin of her abdomen. He loved her baby bump.

She shivered, a sigh of content leaving her.

He looked up, catching her eye, and grinned. “You can pick the name, as long as you promise it won’t be something really nerdy, like Oliver.”

“
I
like
Oliver.” She smiled, kissing his bare shoulder when he reclined beside her.

“
You would.”

“
What if it’s a girl?”

“
I would hope you wouldn’t name a girl Oliver. Anything is fine except Lena.”

“
Grandma Lena would be crushed.”

“
Grandma Lena would hate it if I named a child after her. She wouldn’t want her legacy to live on in my spawn.”

Sara snorted. “Grandma Lena didn’t know anything. I hope they take after you as far as athletic abilities go.”

“You have
no idea
how much I hope the same.”

Sara laughed. “Unless it’s running. Then they can take after me.”

“Yeah. But if it’s a boy and he is uncoordinated like you, I will have to learn to hide my shame under the guise of a proud father.”

“
You’ll be proud no matter what.”

“
You’re right. I will. Maybe they’ll be a famous painter like you.”

“
I’m not famous. Maybe they’ll take over the construction business. Or be a talented woodworker like you.”

“
Okay, well-known, and I’m not that talented, although I would like that. If it’s a girl, she’s not dating.
Ever
.”

“
Same goes for a boy. You know I’ll analyze anyone he brings home and most likely disapprove.”

“
So it’s agreed; there will be no dating.”

“
Ever
,” she reaffirmed.

Lincoln laughed, moving so his arms barricaded Sara between them, his body fitting between her legs. The thin white tee shirt of his she wore as a nightshirt didn’t mask the heat radiating from her body to his unclothed upper half.

“Have I told you today I love you?” he murmured against her throat.

Her body trembled beneath him as she breathlessly replied, “Only three times.”

“Ah.” Leaning down, he placed a soft, lingering kiss against her collarbone. “Have I
showed
you?”

“
No,” she rasped.

“
How very
un
husbandly of me. I need to rectify that.” Lincoln sat back, his fingers skimming her hip bones as he grasped the hem of the cotton shirt between his fingers and pulled upward, exposing his wife’s softly rounded, never more beautiful body.

She moved to cover herself and he put a hand out to stop her. “No. Let me see. I kind of like this look on you.” He grinned.

With a pout, she said, “It’s not very attractive.”

Lincoln put his face close to hers, locking her in place with his eyes. “You are the hottest pregnant chick I have ever seen.”

Sara’s lip wobbled as she half-laughed, half-sniffled. “I love you.”

“
I know. Show me.”

“
I thought you were going to show me.”

“
I tell you what; we’ll show each other.”

And they did.

***

It was exactly one week away from Christmas. Sara had finally gone to the doctor a little over a week ago at four and a half months along. She received a verbal slaying from the medical doctor for waiting so long to come in, all of which she took in stride. Lincoln was there. He cried like a baby when they listened to the heartbeat. Sara had to comfort him. It was pretty embarrassing.

Every day was one day closer to seeing his baby and he was electrified with energy, alight with positivity and good humor. Spencer teased him that he glowed more than Sara did. At times he was a nervous mess thinking about all the possible things that could go wrong, and every time he was in one of those moods, Sara brought him back with a certain look or a simple sentence.

“
You’re going to be a great father,” was the sentence that usually had the power to calm him.

The drive to create something was undeniable and Lincoln glared at the wood pile, daring it to let inspiration abandon him once again. He thought of his baby and he
needed
to make something for him or her, only he didn’t know what.

“
Why do I keep finding you in here, looking at a pile of wood?”

He jumped at the sound of her voice, whirling around. His gaze latched onto the sugary substance she held within her hand. “What are you eating?”

Sara paused with a cinnamon roll halfway to her mouth. “Food.” She took a gigantic bite, closing her eyes as she chewed. “Yummy.”

“
You’re not supposed to eat stuff like that. And I saw you drinking a soda the other day. All of that goes to the baby. That stuff isn’t good for the baby, Sara.”

Her eyes popped open. “Wow. You’re being more than slightly irritating at the moment. And maybe it’s good for
me
.”

“
The doctor said—“ he began, heat filling his face.

“
I can eat and drink what I want!” she interrupted angrily, chucking the partially eaten cinnamon roll at him. It hit him in the chest and landed on the ground next to his feet.

He blinked at Sara, stunned by her aggressive behavior with a food product.

“I’m…sorry,” she gasped out around giggles, placing a hand to her mouth to contain them.

“
You just threw a cinnamon roll at me,” he said slowly.

“
I know.” Her hand dropped. “It was the last one too,” she said, sounding sad.

“
Sara—“

She put a hand up to halt his words. “Lincoln, relax. I eat and drink healthy most of the time and I walk thirty minutes a day five times a week. Once in a while I get a craving. It’s okay. I know you’re worried and you want everything to be okay and you think I need to strictly follow the doctor’s orders, but you’re acting like a mother instead of a husband, and I’m sorry, but you’ve been driving me
crazy
this last week. So lay off. Also, I’m hormonal. So,
really
, lay off.”

He stared at her, taking in her messy ponytail, the tightness of her pink long-sleeved top on her chest and stomach, and forced his shoulders to loosen up. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m…high strung at the moment. I want everything to be okay and I feel helpless because there’s
no way
for me to be able to make sure everything is going to be okay.”