The Touch of Magic Series, page 23
Gently he pulled off her shoes and tucked her under the covers.
CHAPTER 30
Brandon was thoroughly dismayed with the time schedule the world had set for him.
He left Delilah in his bed the morning after their illuminating talk. She mumbled something sweet and rolled over. It was the second time he’d gotten up and gone to work, leaving her there alone at his place. Nothing special, just a normal day-to-day kind of thing, and he was surprised to find just how much he liked it. He liked the idea of Delilah waking in his room and making herself breakfast in his kitchen or watching her cooking channel on his TV. She could see pastry cream in larger-than-life high-definition at his house. It gave a little more credence to his visions of her moving in with him. Regardless of the fact that his desires were originally fabricated by her spells, they were certainly taking hold.
But apparently she hadn’t stayed. She called him from her little apartment not three hours later to say that she managed to get an appointment with her doctor and would he like to come with her?
Brandon wholeheartedly agreed, mapping out the time in his calendar. The only real issue was trying to figure out how he was going to explain this to Dan who still didn’t even realize how involved he was with Delilah. Then again, ‘obstetrician, 1p.m. UCLA med plaza’ pretty much said it all.
Brandon was caught in his musings, wondering why he hadn’t told Dan what was happening. Was it because he knew the response he was going to get ahead of time and he just didn’t want to deal with it? Was it because he didn’t know how much to say? Dan, Delilah’s a witch and she . . . Or was it because he was avoiding the legitimacy of everything he knew Dan was going to say? But Brandon didn’t get the chance to follow that train of thought. He noticed the date on the appointment, “What? That’s over a week away!”
He heard Delilah’s resigned sigh across the phone line and he could tell she wasn’t any happier with it than he was. “I know. It was the earliest they had available. And I’m not a high priority.”
“How are you not a high priority?” That made no sense to him whatsoever. He was pretty certain the harsh pitch of his voice conveyed just that. He was sorry as soon as he’d practically yelled it.
But, thankfully, Delilah didn’t seem to take offense. “I’m barely pregnant, so if something is wrong there’s not much they can do. There’s not much they can see or test at this point, and I’m not an in-vitro patient. The baby’s just going to grow anyway.”
Still, he was frustrated. “Don’t they want to be sure that you’re taking good care of yourself? Eating right?”
Oh, lord, as he said it, all these thoughts came into his head. Things he hadn’t worried about before: Delilah’s health, whether she was on medications, what she was eating and drinking on a regular basis. Could her witchcraft hurt the baby? There was often a lot of burning of various herbs. It probably wasn’t as bad as cigarette smoking, but he really didn’t know.
Her voice pulled him back to the present. “They handed me off to a nurse who asked a bunch of questions, told me not to drink or take drugs—”
“Duh.” He interrupted, then let her continue.
She laughed, “They’re busy. I’m not a priority. I’m not in danger and there’s nothing they can actually do for me now.”
There was a shrug in her voice. He wanted to know now. “Is there another doctor you could see faster?”
“Probably, but there may be a reason if an OBGYN is available.”
“Well, that’s a catch twenty-two.” It was probably a good thing she couldn’t see his hands scrubbing through his hair. He already didn’t like the doctor, just on the principle alone. Even though he knew he was being unreasonable.
“And this is my doctor. I know her and I like her.”
Brandon resigned to waiting the week, totally bummed. He wanted an ultrasound now. He wanted to see his baby. His baby. The words tumbled around in his brain, finding a home, and putting a slight smile on his face. His baby.
He was getting loopy about it and almost missed Delilah’s next words.
“They did recommend a book.”
Brandon copied down the title and they talked for a few more minutes before hanging up. He was going to have to confront her about the witchcraft. He’d wanted to wait until she told him. He really needed it to come from her. But his baby needed that discussion to happen now. What if tansy smoke was toxic? Surely Delilah wouldn’t keep drinking the wine so many spells seemed to require? Surely, he could initiate a tough conversation about his child with the woman who was going to be that child’s mother. Well, the witch who was going to be that child’s mother.
Telling himself she wasn’t going to give the baby some rare herbal smoke cancer before he could talk to her, he took a deep breath and forced his brain back to work.
At lunchtime, Dan stuck his head in the door, and Brandon agreed to go along if they could stop at a bookstore. Dan caught on when Brandon perused the Pregnancy section comparing titles to the one he had jotted down.
“What? Who?” Then a layer of relief settled over Dan as though he figured it out. “You’re just picking it up for your sister or something. It’s a gift for someone!”
Apparently satisfied with his own answer, he stepped back, letting Brandon thumb through the books looking for the one he wanted.
But Brandon didn’t leave it that way. Was it a bad sign that it was easier to start the conversation with Dan? “Nope, this is my copy. Delilah’s pregnant.”
The indignation switch flipped back on in Dan. “The same Delilah who drugged you? She got herself knocked up? That’s what it was all about? Sperm thievery! She’s one of those women who wants a baby but the sperm bank isn’t good enough. Although this was really taking it to a new level.”
Brandon laughed away his partner’s zany explanation. “No. She’s only a few weeks along.”
Dan let out some air. “Then maybe it won’t last. I’ll pray for you, buddy.”
An unexpected jolt of anger struck Brandon. “Don’t.” His voice was low and rough, in accordance with his surprise at the hurt he felt at the thought of losing the baby.
But Dan didn’t see the pain in the response, his brain had already latched onto another tangent. This time he looked truly horrified. Not the expression Brandon wanted to see. “If she’s only a few weeks along then you guys are still seeing each other. Really seeing each other.”
Brandon just nodded and took the book up to the check-out line. Dan followed. “Was this planned?”
“No. Just happened.” Brandon paid and got his receipt and wished the interaction with Dan was just as easy to terminate. For once, Brandon wanted someone to tell him he was doing the right thing. But that wasn’t to be and he knew it. Delilah was hiding things. Dan thought he’d gone off the deep end. And if he told his father there would be discussions of marriage that Brandon was not ready to deal with. If he told Bethy . . . well, his very catholic sister might just go get that dunking stick.
So he decided not to tell anyone who didn’t already know. At least not for now. Still, Dan pestered him all the way back to the office and through most of the afternoon.
Brandon put up with the henpecking because Dan was his business partner and his best friend, and truly only had his best interests at heart. Even if he didn’t see what Brandon really needed.
Delilah went home that night because she had to work the next morning, leaving Brandon with time to himself. Normally he would have found a game on TV, but instead he decided to read. Then he had to choose if he was going to read the pregnancy book or pick up the witchcraft guide. Both seemed truly important to his future with Delilah.
A future that he still wasn’t sure existed. A future that still hung by a thread. He sat on his couch, staring at the ceiling for a while wondering if there was any way he could push this process along a little. At one point he seriously considered going down to the loading dock at Othello and just hashing it out. But then all those people wouldn’t get their desserts. He had to afford her the same courtesy he’d want. He’d be pissed if she walked into his office one day and slapped all this at him.
So he resigned himself to waiting until there was a better time. It seemed he was doing that a lot lately. Making a decision, he picked the pregnancy book because it was on the couch still in the bag, rather than under his nightstand in the bedroom. Not the most astute method of choice, but he started reading.
Quickly he was pulled in by the information he was absorbing like a sponge. There were drawings of what happened as a baby grew, recommendations for what the mother should and shouldn’t eat. How much she should eat. How much weight she should gain. What she might feel. What she should record. What other women had experienced.
By the end of the first chapter he was overwhelmed. Delilah might be happy or irritable or sad and weepy—or any combination of those—for the next nine months. She might eat him out of house and home or not at all. She might run around like a chicken with its head cut off while she ‘nested’ or she might get put on bed rest.
The way Brandon figured it, the book should really just say ‘We have no clue what is going to happen to you. Good luck.’
Even though he’d been up all night by that point he wasn’t ready to stop. Wanting more information, and hoping that he could either support or refute what he’d just read, Brandon turned to the internet then, knowing full well he couldn’t trust everything he read. If the bulk of the information agreed, then he’d go with it. He was really hoping he could get a little more definition to what was going to happen. Then he might be able to make a few plans. Or something. After an hour and a half, he had Delilah signed up for discounts at three different maternity stores and had a free package of very tiny diapers on the way.
He wanted to call Delilah and ask her exactly how far along she was, so he could put it into the due-date-counter and see when their baby would come. He would also be given a daily email with a new picture of the baby’s development, but not until he produced that date.
Knowing he couldn’t call her—he’d never interrupted her at work before—he tried to guess when it might have happened. For the life of him he couldn’t figure it out. He needed Delilah to tell him what she knew. But she was at work until maybe as late as eleven and then she would head straight home and crawl into bed. She said she’d been so tired lately, with the pregnancy and all. And he didn’t have the heart to wake her when he knew she hadn’t slept well for the past few nights and hadn’t eaten much at all in days.
Eventually, he gave up and went to bed.
CHAPTER 31
Delilah worked every night that week. Partly because she owed a few nights to the chef who took over for her the week before on such short notice. Also because there was a good likelihood she’d need a few more days here and there just to take care of herself. So she needed to rack up some extra hours just in case. It also didn’t hurt to get in everyone’s good graces early.
She ignored the fact that her work kept her away from Brandon—and the knowledge that she still hadn’t told him anything. She saw him at lunch twice early in the week. Being out like they were, she couldn’t really spill her whole story. LeJune was a great place for light lunch, not a good place to confess. Not in the middle of his workday.
It was just an excuse, but she clung to it like a lifeline. Logically, she knew that she had a better chance with him if she came clean sooner rather than later. But she would have had a much better chance if she’d done it before she realized she was pregnant. With a sense of fatalism about the whole thing, she ignored her obligation for a while, only talking to him on the phone. Using their opposing work schedule to keep it so they weren’t ever truly alone.
If Brandon suspected anything, he didn’t say it.
She’d dreamed every time she went to sleep. That hadn’t happened to her in a long time. When it happened before, she’d tended to have the same dream over and over. First, right after David and Juliet had died, she relived watching the car go over the edge of the canyon every time she closed her eyes. That had been when she’d taken to the cooking sherry. She hadn’t really drunk it, she’d just cooked with it and didn’t cook off all the alcohol. It had been the only way to sleep without seeing it all again. The only way to rest.
Tristan gave her hell about it, and she gave up the cooking sherry. Delilah had been surprised to find that the dreams didn’t return. She’d slept well for a while. Then her brain altered things. In the next round of dreams it was she who plunged into the water and died. Again and again. For a month she hadn’t slept. But, finally, mysteriously, the dream disappeared as fast as it came. And the dreams hadn’t come back.
Lately, however, she’d been dreaming all kinds of things. Maybe because she was pregnant. She’d read that in one of those books. But her dreams weren’t repetitive. They kept morphing. Still, none of them were pleasant.
Twice this week she dreamed she managed to pull Juliet out of the river. Her sister gasped and coughed up water while David was washed further and further away. Delilah wondered what kind of sick construct her mind had made up. Over and over she watched the man she’d married drift away on a current she knew was going to kill him while she sat on the shore.
But in that dream, Juliet’s baby lived. A sweet healthy baby boy that her sister named David. A baby that made Delilah’s own arms ache when she held him because her own baby hadn’t been strong enough to survive the dive into the water to save Juliet. In the dream, Juliet showed little compassion.
That one woke her up cold.
Delilah was running on little fuel and less sleep. A condition that only seemed to make itself worse as the days went on. She didn’t toss her lunch like she had before, but maybe that was because she was eating so little. And the lack of sleep only made her more restless. The dreams didn’t stop.
The worst had come the night before. It hadn’t been as bad as the others. At least not on the surface. She hadn’t woken up in a panic, in fear, or in tears. Instead, she felt so cold and so full of dread that she hadn’t dared go back to sleep even though it was only eleven thirty when she woke up. She would just stay up until work rather than face that dream again.
It was too late to call Brandon, he’d probably already be in bed to get himself up and get to work at a decent hour the next morning. In fact, she’d been so exhausted that she’d been sleeping—or rather, trying to—pretty much most of the time she hadn’t been at work. Which left her precious little time to talk to Brandon about all the things she needed to.
The dream re-played in her mind while she waited for the hours to pass. She’d watched Oprah in re-run and a few infomercials, but her brain couldn’t shake the vision that kept creeping in.
She and David had been throwing a party at the house on the hill. There were numerous open white tents set up around the yard with streamers floating on a breeze she couldn’t feel. A tiny blonde toddler ran past on the over-green grass. Dressed all in white, he dodged in and out of the manicured guests, all of whom commented on how precious he was. Delilah beamed.
Tons of people were at her party. She didn’t know any of them, but she felt she ought to. David talked to all of them. They all stopped her to complement the champagne, the crustades, the canapés. It was truly the perfect party.
Then the whispering began. Hadn’t the child been wearing white? There he was again, but dressed all in blue. Delilah blinked. She chased her son. He usually came when she called him, but this time he played coy and darted away. It was Juliet, wearing a bright and shiny smile, that scooped him up. He hugged her and called her ‘mama.’ Even though she called him ‘David.’ Just like Delilah’s own little boy.
Delilah was angry, ready to point out that Juliet was not his ‘mama’ when the child in white appeared again. People were whispering about how much the two children looked alike. How much they both looked like Delilah’s husband David, and that they were both named after him. Nearly identical, the two children cooed at each other, while Juliet pasted on a serene smile and explained to everyone that she had no idea who the father of her baby was.
David, her husband, stepped up at the time and embraced Juliet and her little boy, he was so glad they could come to the party. He kissed her ‘hello.’ With tongue.
Delilah smiled at them, glad that her family got along so well.
But the voice in the back of her brain was clamoring to wake her up. Screaming at her to not be so blind. Her eyes opened to the ceiling in her apartment and to pain. She stared at it for a while. The dream had been so clear, even though in the dream she had been a complete idiot, oblivious to what was going on right under her nose.
She’d stayed in bed for a while before she gave up and watched TV, but she hadn’t been able to shake the disturbing, nagging feeling that she had been just as blind when David and Juliet had been alive. And, though she might have wished they’d lived, she had no idea how she would have lived with it.
She’d eventually turned off the TV and gotten dressed. Driving in to Othello and pushing herself through another early morning at work. Another day of eating very little and of still being haunted by her dreams when she was fully awake.
Not wanting to go back to sleep, Friday after work she stopped in Blessed Be to see Tristan. It was easier to confess to Tristan than to Brandon. So she used her key to let herself in the back just after nine thirty that morning. Tristan was exactly where she expected to find him—at his desk with a mug of coffee in his hands and his ledgers and receipts spread out across the desk in various piles.
He looked up as she came in and smiled before asking how she was doing, if she was still sick, and Delilah found she had a hard time getting her own information out there.
“Hey,” Tristan looked at her sideways, “did you think that maybe you made yourself sick? By bottling it all up inside?”
