Color of Forgiveness (59 page)

Myra was lucky enough to find someone to
rent Grampie’s house in Nyssa so she didn’t have to sell it. So far
the new occupants have not complained of any ghost sightings or
paranormal activity.

As he makes his way through the kitchen into
the family room, he shrugs out of his coat and smiles when he sees
Myra sitting on the couch. She has her laptop propped up on the arm
and her feet in her fuzzy pink socks are perched up on top of the
coffee table.

She smiles ear to ear when she looks up and
sees him. She quickly closes her laptop and sets it down on the end
table. He returns the grin, sitting down on the couch beside her.
He wraps one arm around her shoulders, and places his hand on her
stomach. Myra’s hand moves on top of his as he buries his face in
her hair. “Mm. Have I told you how beautiful you are today?” he
asks, moving his hand over her swelled belly.

“Yes…” Myra says before giggling, “…before
you left two hours ago.”

“Well, that’s too damn long ago. You need to
hear it again.” He rubs his hand slowly over her stomach. “Is my
baby sleeping?” He begins chuckling when his hand gets hit with a
powerful kick.

He smiles, keeping his hand in the same spot
and feeling a little foot or hand hitting against him repeatedly.
“My baby’s definitely not asleep.”

“Nope, definitely not sleeping.”

“Where’s mom?”

“She’s upstairs trying to get Jilly down for
her morning nap. She’s been a little fussy because she’s cutting a
tooth.”

He hums in acknowledgement before he leans
down and pushes Myra’s sweater up, exposing her bare stomach. He
kisses across the top of her belly and smiles when he gets kicked
against his lips. “Hi, baby. It’s your daddy,” he whispers. “I’m
ready to meet you now.”

Dylan feels he really
is
ready. He’s
worked hard to get to this point and has been seeing Dr. Mitchum
every week since the Rhonda incident. She helped him accept that
what happened with Mel was an accident and wasn’t his fault, and
she helped show him that he never really grieved properly. But now
he finally feels like he’s in a good place, and he’s every bit
excited about this baby as any soon dad-to-be would be.

He also knows that he still has a lot of
things to work on, like trying to control his overprotective
feelings that he has towards Myra and the baby. Dr. Mitchum has
also been trying to prepare him for the fears he’ll face once the
baby gets here.

Myra threads her fingers through his hair as
he turns his cheek and lays it against the warm skin of her
stomach, feeling the baby move against his skin. Somewhere in the
room, his mom loudly clears her throat. He shuts his eyes and
groans because he’d totally forgotten about her. He pulls Myra’s
sweater back down and sits up, moving his hand back to her stomach
possessively.

His mom sits down across from them and sets
the baby monitor on the coffee table. Then she smiles at him in
that ‘I told you so’ kind of way.

“Yes, I’m back,” Dylan says with an eye
roll. “You don’t have to say it.”

Sherri’s eyes crinkle up at the corners when
she smiles brightly at him.

“Did Jilly go down okay for her nap?” Myra
asks. Dylan rubs his hand gently over the top of her stomach.

“Not really. That tooth is really bothering
her so I put some Ora-jel on it, but I—” Sherri gets interrupted by
a loud wailing coming from the baby monitor. She smiles and shakes
her head. “Like I was saying, I didn’t think she would stay asleep
for long. I’ll go see if I can rock her for a bit.”

Once his mom leaves the room, Dylan’s lips
attach themselves to Myra’s neck. She giggles as he kisses his way
up her throat and along her jawline until he finds her lips. He
kisses her softly, but then it turns more serious as his tongue
slips gently into her mouth to taste her. Feeling himself grow
hard, he groans and turns his body towards her, trying to get a
little friction on his cock.

She pulls back and whispers, “What are you
doing?” in a breathy voice.

“I’m trying to touch you as much as I can
before Susie gets here and steals you away from me.”

“She’s not going to steal me away. Besides,
we’ll still have our nights together.”

“I don’t want just your nights. I want you
all the time.” He grabs her hand. “Feel,” he says as he pushes it
onto his cock.

She gasps, laughing. “I can’t believe you’re
hard,” she whispers, her eyes darting nervously towards the
stairs.

He smirks. “It’s your fault. You’re always
so beautiful and sexy. I can’t help it if my cock gets hard every
time I’m around you.”

“If your mom wasn’t here and Susie wasn’t on
her way, I’d take you upstairs and…” She stares intently at his
lips and slowly licks hers.

Dylan groans. “And…?

Myra makes a humming sound. “I’d strip your
clothes off…”

“Yeah?” Dylan says, practically panting.

“And I’d—”

Myra’s interrupted by a loud knocking on the
door.

“Goddamn it,” Dylan mumbles, quickly
adjusting himself. “I’m gonna do some dirty fucking things to you
tonight, baby,” he whispers in her ear before he stands up and
helps her to her feet.

“Well, they say lots of sex can help start
labor.”

“
Lots
of sex?” he repeats with a
raised eyebrow. “You’re in so much trouble, woman.” He waves his
hand towards his jeans that are tenting.

Myra giggles. “I guess I’ll go get the door,
huh?”

He nods and grins at her waddling towards
the front door before he escapes upstairs to try to get rid of his
erection.

* * *

Myra fans her face on the way to the door
and hopes she doesn’t look as hot and bothered as she feels. She
smiles when her hand touches the doorknob and she hears Susie and
Jackie’s loud voices.

“It’s a boy,” Jackie says vehemently.

“It’s a girl, damn it. I’m her best friend
and I know this crap,” Susie shouts back.

“Well, you may be her Philly best friend,
but I’m her Boise best friend, and I’ve been feeling on her stomach
now for months, and I just have this
special
feeling that
it’s a boy.”

“Well, you, little missy and your
special
feelings can kiss my over-sized white
cellulite-ridden ass because that baby in there is a girl, I tell
you and you can’t convince me otherwise.”

Myra throws open the door, expecting to
catch Susie and Jackie throwing fists.

“Myra!” Susie shouts with a gigantic smile,
dropping her bags and grabbing Myra in a hug. “And your widdle
watermelon,” she says a cutesy voice, rubbing her hand on the top
of Myra’s stomach. “You look absolutely gorgeous. Skype sucks. It
has done you no justice.”

“You look great too,” Myra says with a grin,
looking Susie up and down.

“I do, don’t I?” Susie says. She strikes a
pose with one hand on her hip, the other behind her head. “Can you
believe I’ve lost twenty pounds? It’s like a miracle of modern
science.”

“You look fabulous,” Myra says. “Come on
in.” She looks at Jackie and gives her a wave. “Hey,” she says.

Jackie shouts ‘hi’ back and waves
frantically.

“Do you have much luggage? Dylan can bring
it in for you. He’s upstairs, but he’ll be back down in a few.”

“I’m good. I only brought this one suitcase
and my carry-on.”

Myra shows her to her room upstairs where
Susie stows her bags. Then the three of them sit in the family room
together. “Okay, Myra. Just be prepared for my hands to be planted
on your stomach until you have this baby,” Susie says, animatedly
stretching and exercising her fingers before attaching them to
Myra’s belly. “There’s nothing more exciting in the world than
feeling a baby kick. A baby
girl
kick, I should say.”

“Baby
boy
,” Jackie argues. “When Myra
first told me that she was pregnant, she handed me a
blue
teddy bear. That was a sign. I believe in spirits and signs and I
just know that was the universe’s way of letting me know that it’s
a boy. Plus, look at her.” Jackie says, waving towards Myra’s
stomach. “She’s carrying low. That’s proof right there.”

“That’s an old wives tale. Besides, she
looks like she’s carrying high to me. Myra, stand up.”

Myra smiles and rolls her eyes but still
stands up, her face warming under their scrutiny. Susie taps her
finger against her lips while she stares intently at Myra’s
stomach. “That little girl is definitely high. It’s
so
a
girl.”

“It’s a boy!” Jackie shouts back.

“Will you two stop?” Myra shouts. She sits
back down and Susie’s hands immediately go to her stomach again.
“You’ll find out soon enough so quit arguing.”

“Hey, that reminds me,” Susie says. “I’m
ready for you to go into labor right now. I’m only going to be here
for a week so I need you to have this baby tonight so that I can
hold her the rest of the week.”

Myra laughs and shakes her head.

“Where’s mom?” Jackie asks Myra.

“She’s upstairs.”

“We need to tell her to fix Mexican tonight
for supper. I’ve heard that eating spicy food can make a woman go
into labor.”

“Oh… I know. We could get her to eat a
habanero pepper,” Susie says to Jackie. “That little girl would get
the hell outta there fast.”

“Uh, you’d have to take me to the hospital
for throat injuries, not labor, if I did that,” Myra says,
laughing.

“Wait. I know,” Susie says. “We need to go
buy some castor oil or maybe some prunes. Maybe you could drink a
bottle of prune juice. That’d give you the shits so bad you’d have
to go into labor.”

Jackie starts giggling hysterically.

Susie busts out laughing. “Can you imagine
going into labor while sitting on the toilet with the shits? Oh my
god, that’s hilarious. You wouldn’t be able to go to the hospital
because you wouldn’t be able to leave the toilet.”

All three of them laugh and giggle until
they have to wipe tears from their eyes. Myra moves Susie’s hand up
to a spot just below her ribcage. Susie gasps her face lighting up.
“That’s her foot, isn’t it?” Myra smiles and nods at her. “Oh my
god, that’s awesome. I remember those rib kicks. Damn, they hurt.
Weston used to kick me right in the bladder so hard that I’d piss
myself every single time. I was so danged excited when I got
pregnant because of the ‘not having to wear freaking pads for nine
months thing’, but I
still
had to wear pads to catch the
piss.”

“Let me feel,” Jackie says in a whiny voice.
Dropping onto her knees beside Myra, she puts her hand next to
Susie’s.

“Hey, you’re around her all the time,” Susie
says with a frown, trying to push Jackie’s hand away. “It’s my
turn, so get lost.”

Jackie doesn’t flinch. “I don’t get to spend
as much time with Myra as you think. I’m always either working at
the clothing store here in Boise, or driving back and forth to
Nyssa to check on the bookstore or trying to sneak some time in
with Nick in between his classes.”

“Fine… but just know that I hate sharing,”
Susie says. She scoots her hand over about a centimeter, and Jackie
grins brightly at her.

“That sucks that you couldn’t sell the
bookstore,” Susie says to Jackie.

“I know. It’s been on the market for about
eight months now with no interest at all. But thankfully I was able
to find some good, reliable people to run it when I can’t be there
so at least I didn’t have to close the doors.

“Whoa,” Jackie says, her eyes going
wide.

“That had to hurt,” Susie says, rubbing
Myra’s stomach in sympathy.

Myra nods, her face grimacing. “That did
hurt.”

“It’s not fair how damn skinny you are,
Myra,” Susie says. “I was the size of a house by the end of both of
my pregnancies. The only thing I could fit into was one of those
big housecoat moo-moo things that you see ninety-year old women
wearing. I swear my feet were so swelled up that I had to buy shoes
two sizes bigger to fit my Yeti feet in. I kept tripping all over
the damn place because of my big bozo feet.

“And my face… I swear my nose looked like it
had somehow tripled in size like I’d shoved a big old Idaho potato
in the center of it. I was a scary sight. But you? You just look
like you stuck a basketball underneath your shirt. You make me want
to hurl.”

“Isn’t she the cutest?” Jackie says. “She’s
just all belly but still so tiny.”

Myra laughs and rolls her eyes because she
can’t get a word in edgewise with these two.

“So when are you and Nick going to have some
babies?” Susie asks Jackie. “How long have you been married now? I
think it’s time you start trying.”

“We’ve only been married for two months,”
Jackie says with a giggle. “But I can’t wait to be a mom. Nick will
be the best dad ever. I want two kids; a boy and a girl. I’m going
to name the girl Jasmine Rae and the boy Jaden Ryan.”

Susie shakes her head and blinks her eyes.
“Okay... So you’re not pregnant yet, right?”

Jackie giggles and shakes her head.
“
No
.”

“Well, then how is it that
you’re
announcing your baby names and you’re not even pregnant, yet here
sits little Miss Myra about ready to pop, and she won’t even give
us a hint as to a baby name?”

“I know!” Jackie says. “Myra,
please
tell us the baby names.
Please?
We promise we won’t tell
Dylan that you told us.”

“Uh… no,” Myra says with finality.

“Why not?” Jackie whines.

“Because Dylan and I will announce the
baby’s name at the hospital when the baby is born… that’s what
we’ve decided, and we’re not changing it.”

* * *

When Dylan gets to the bottom of the stairs,
he catches the tail end of their conversation. “That’s right,
Jackie,” he almost snarls when he steps into the room. “Quit
bothering Myra about that shit. She’s told you a dozen times what
we’ve decided.”