Penelope (19 page)

The doubt then turned into a warm goo that must have oozed into her blood stream and coursed through her veins. And it carried with it the end of doubt. She had finally realized that she too had fallen in love with him and as the baby fluttered in her stomach she was sure he too had fallen in love with Brock Romero.

As he pulled back, he kept his forehead pressed to hers. Both of them fought for breath that should have been offered by the cool night, but no, they still sucked in what they could because the passion between them make everything harder to control—even breathe.

“My mind isn’t going to change. I love that baby as much as I love you,” he said placing his hands on her stomach and the baby moved to meet him. “I think maybe she likes me too.”

“I’m sure she loves you. Or he does. You’re all he knows.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that, but I want to be who he comes to. I’m not afraid of it, Penelope—instant fatherhood. Or hell, just friendship. I just want to be here for both of you.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him hard. “I believe you. I think this is what you want.”

“You’re what I want. And I know that I don’t owe you for saving my life too. For keeping me sane when I thought everything around me was ending.” He pushed her hair back over her shoulder. “Adam gave you that baby. He spared me my life. He led me to you.”

She’d been searching for answers from Brock from the moment she’d met him and she’d finally decided that she wanted him to be the man her baby knew—and she meant as a father.

He was the kind of man who would take care of and perhaps marry a woman having someone else’s baby. He was the one.

Every emotion she could keep in check seemed to surface at that moment. Tears. Laughter. Happiness. But there was no sadness. Even knowing Adam had lied to her. Deceived them all and left her when she needed him the most—she wasn’t sad. Because of him she was gazing into the deepest, darkest, sexiest set of brown eyes and she wanted him—Brock. She’d ask him to marry her after she met his family. She’d ask him to be husband to her and father to her child—their child. Adam gave him that power when he asked him to find her and he let go of his own life in Brock’s arms.

And at that moment Penelope felt at peace with Adam.

She whistled when she was happy, Brock observed as Penelope moved around the kitchen preparing breakfast. Today must have been one of those days when she felt really good, he thought. That made him happy too. It was an important day and he didn’t want her under the weather.

There were a million things to do before his barbecue that afternoon. He’d spent the past few nights in her bed in her arms and he should have been putting his house together. Instead he’d helped Sam finish the play yard, assembled all the cribs for the baby room, and let Amelia kick his ass two more times. That woman was a huge force of power in a tiny little package.

On Monday he’d start his new job and he hadn’t discussed that with her either. He’d focus on that later. Right now he was going to watch her try to scramble eggs and make bacon. After that he’d head toward home and set up his party. Vivian and Amelia had promised to keep her occupied and that was good. They too were setting her up for something special and she had no idea what the day would bring.

“I hope you like scrambled eggs,” she said as she stirred them in the pan. “I’m no good at over easy eggs. I’m really not good at much more than this.”

“You’ve heard me talk about my mother’s cooking. I’m game for anything really.”

She let out a hum. “I can’t believe none of you have told her you don’t like her cooking.”

“Can’t see a reason to break her heart. When you meet her you’ll understand. Taking care of people brings her joy.”

Penelope’s shoulders pushed back. “Is that where you get it? The wanting –to- take- care- of- people gene?”

Brock stood and moved to the cabinet where he knew he’d find plates. He took down two and set them on the counter. “Not a bad gene to have inherited. I’d say I got it from both my parents.

“I look forward to meeting them.” Her voice was sincere as she scooped eggs onto the two plates he’d set down on the counter.

He was glad she was ready to meet them. Things between them were about to kick up a notch. He hoped she was ready for that.

Penelope sat on the back porch and watched Ava and Emma play on the new play set that Sam and Brock had built. Tomorrow the sandbox would be filled with new sand and as of Monday she’d be stationed at the daycare taking new applicants—and God, she hoped they had some.

Either way, Clayton had enrolled his girls and that was a start.

The baby squirmed and she rested her hands on her stomach. She’d swear she’d grown twice her size in the past two weeks, just as Brock said she would. But with Brock in her bed she’d slept better than she had in months.

When he’d drape his arm over her and rest his hand against her swollen belly the baby would calm. She truly believed he’d love her and the baby.

Emma ran up the side of the play yard and quickly over to the slide. “Penelope! Watch me!” She called in her sweet little voice.

Penelope watched as she zoomed down the slide and landed with both feet planted firmly on the ground and her hands in the air as if she’d just finished an Olympic gymnast routine.

“That was great,” she called out across the yard.

“Come slide with us.”

That brought a laugh to the surface. “After the baby is born I will come and slide with you.”

Emma fisted her hands on her hips and climbed up the two steps to the porch and to Penelope.

“When is that baby coming? She’s been growing forever.”

Didn’t she know it? “Soon. Very soon. He or she will be here before Christmas.”

Emma let her arms hang and Penelope thought she looked like a monkey with her lip out and her eyes wide. “That’s—too—long.”

“Not that long.”

“I think it’s a girl.”

“Do you?”

Emma nodded. “I’ll have two sisters.”

“Maybe.”

Emma walked next to Penelope and rested her hands on her stomach. “Is she moving?”

“She was.”

“What’s her name?” Emma asked as she repositioned her hands to try and feel the baby.

“I don’t know yet. I like Gwendolyn. What do you think?”

Emma scrunched her face in thought. “How about Merida? You know from
Brave.
”

Oh, she should have known a Disney Princess name would sneak in there.

“What does your sister think?”

Emma motioned for Ava to join them. “What do you want the baby’s name to be?”

Ava also crinkled up her face and gave some thought to it. “Dora.”

“Dora?” Penelope thought that was old fashioned.

“Yep. Dora the Explorer.”

“Oh,” Penelope wrapped her arms around both girls and drew them in for a hug. “We will have to keep thinking on this.”

Vivian cleared her throat from the back door. “What are you three doing?”

“Naming the baby,” Penelope called back.

“I want Merida,” Emma shouted.

“I want Dora,” Ava copied her sister.

Vivian shook her head. “What about Vivian? What’s wrong with Vivian?” The girls laughed as they ran toward their mother. “C’mon. Time to leave for Brock’s.”

Penelope smiled as the giggling girls disappeared into the house and Vivian moved toward her.

“Need a hand up?”

“It wouldn’t hurt,” Penelope said reaching for Vivian’s extended hand. She managed to get to her feet and then stood a moment to get her balance, her hands rested on her stomach.

“I carried Emma all in front. From the back you couldn’t tell I was expecting. With Ava, that was a different story. She liked to lie side to side, I guess. I was huge and gained forty pounds.”

Penelope winced. “I’m at twenty six pounds. I close my eyes on the scale, but I looked at the chart.”

Vivian laughed. “You look healthy and with Brock around you look happy.”

“I do?”

Vivian nodded. “You do.” She moved in closer. “He’s treating you okay? I mean, I know he’s sleeping here and…”

“That’s all he’s doing.”

Vivian’s brows rose in a look of surprise. “You’re
sleeping
with him? As in not having sex but snoring in his ear sleeping?”

God she hoped she wasn’t doing that. Was she?

“Yes, I guess. I’m not having sex with him. That would be awkward.”

“Sex when pregnant is amazing,” Vivian smiled. “Don’t say you weren’t warned.”

“I’m a whale.”

“I don’t think he thinks so,” she said as she turned and walked back to the house.

No, even though she said it Penelope didn’t think he thought so either. But sex—that was something she’d have to give some thought too.

~*~

Balloons, cake, drinks, and food. Brock looked around the backyard of the little duplex that Sam had managed for him. What a deal. A place to live, a job, and a girl. And it all rounded out when he looked at the people in the yard laughing—family.

That family was only going to get bigger too. With no disrespect to Adam Monroe, Brock had decided he wanted that baby to carry his last name. Oh, he wouldn’t hold it past Penelope to shoot him down. And who would blame her if she did. But he was going to bring it up, right there in front of his mother, father, sister, and brother.

“Brocky, this looks so nice,” his mother’s hand came to his cheek and she gave it a little pat.

“I want her to be surprised. I’d have brought her home to you but…”

“I know. After that false labor scare I wouldn’t want her far from home either. I’m just as happy to be here.” She looked around. “Where is my potato salad? Your father must have left it in the refrigerator.” She walked away to find her skillfully hidden dish in the refrigerator. Brock smiled. He was so happy they’d come.

Penelope’s mother, however, hadn’t responded to the invitation. That broke his heart. What mother just didn’t care?

Penelope wouldn’t be that mother. No matter her upbringing, she’d be fully attentive to her child. They both would be.

Amelia gave him a friendly nod as she and Sam talked to Clayton in the corner of the yard. He’d taken Vivian’s invitation to the party, but when he’d shown up and realized a baby shower was attached, it took Sam’s coolness to bring him down. It was informal, he’d told him, and that seemed to calm him.

Clayton’s girls were already very involved with his nieces and nephew in a rousing game of Ring around the Rosie.

Sadie found him near the punch bowl still taking in the group that was there. It was too small, he thought. There should be more people there for her.

“They just pulled up,” she said to him.

He sucked in the air that had seemed to catch around him. “Okay. I’ll go help them in.”

He walked around the side of the duplex through the gate and toward the street. Vivian helped unbuckle the girls and they ran past him with a squeal. Vivian took a box out of her trunk and headed around back.

He moved toward Penelope who had managed her feet to the ground, but looked deep in thought as to how to get the rest of her out of the car.

Brock reached out his hands. “Let me help you.”

She took hold of his hands and he gave her a pull.

“I feel helpless,” she actually whined.

“But you look amazing.” He scanned a look over her admiring just how beautiful she did look. He rested his hand on her stomach. “How’s our kick boxer doing?”

“He quit kicking once we got out of bed. Is this a sign? I’m going to be up all night long and have to work all day long?”

Brock smiled. “They seem to think so in the beginning.”

Penelope rested her head on his shoulder. “Thank you for being there last night and trying to calm him down. When your hand is on me he seems to know everything is okay.”

Brock lifted her chin with his finger and looked down into those eyes he loved so much. “Everything is always going to be okay,” he said brushing her lips with his. “C’mon, there is something I want to show you.”

He interlocked their fingers together and walked her around to the back of the house.

It hadn’t skipped Penelope’s attention that the street was full of cars and some of them had Missouri license plates. As they turned the corner she quickly realized she had been set up because standing in the small back yard were at least twenty people, she only knew some of them from around town. There were balloons, food, and an enormous table of gifts.

Emma and Ava were running toward her with one of Clayton’s girls, though she couldn’t remember which one, and another little girl.

“Pur-pize,” Ava shouted and jumped up and down clapping her hands.

“Surprise?” She turned toward Brock who shrugged.