He Chose His Ex Over His Pregnant Wife (From Grovel to Redemption #3)

1. Heidi

HEIDI

At thirty-eight weeks pregnant, I can no longer bend far enough to reach the bottom drawer of the changing table.

I discover this with one of our daughter's sleepers hooked around two fingers and my stomach pressed against the drawer above it. I can see the yellow fabric. I can touch the yellow fabric. I cannot persuade it to come with me.

“This is how it ends,” I call. “Tell my mother I fought bravely.”

Beau appears in the nursery doorway with two glasses of water. He sets them down, comes behind me, and takes the sleeper from the drawer.

“A difficult rescue,” he says.

“Your daughter moved my center of gravity.”

He rests one hand under the weight of my stomach and lifts just enough to take the strain off my back. Relief moves through me so quickly that I close my eyes.

“Better?”

“Marry me.”

His mouth touches the side of my neck. “Again?”

“You have useful hands.”

“A sound basis for four years of marriage.”

I lean into him and look around the room we have made.

Pale walls. A secondhand rocking chair Beau stripped and refinished because I loved the shape of its arms. Two framed prints waiting on the floor because we still disagree about their height.

The crib is ready, although the baby will sleep in our room at first. The hospital bag is in the hall.

On top of it is a folder containing our paperwork and a white card with two names.

Ivy.

Jennifer.

We have tried saying both to my stomach. She has declined to express a preference.

“Jennifer sounds cheerful,” Beau says.

“Ivy sounds stubborn.”

“You have no evidence.”

Our daughter pushes against the place beneath my ribs where she has apparently established a permanent office.

“There,” I say. “Supporting evidence.”

Beau crouches and speaks toward my stomach. “Your mother is attempting to influence the naming process.”

I rest my hand on his hair. “Your father has been campaigning for Ivy since June.”

He looks up at me. “It has excellent structural integrity.”

“It’s three letters.”

“Efficient.”

I laugh, and he kisses the curve of my stomach through my dress.

This is how the last weeks have gone. We argue about names and picture height.

We stop in the middle of making dinner because the baby has hiccups.

At night, Beau sleeps with one hand spread over me as though he can keep both of us safe by maintaining contact.

I have never felt more cumbersome. I have never felt more loved.

“Last day at the school clinic,” Beau says.

“Half day. I finished at noon.”

“You went back at two.”

“I forgot the medication audit.”

“Your replacement could have done it.”

“The nurse covering my leave is perfectly capable. I wanted to finish what I started.”

His palm moves once across my stomach. “I know.”

There is no criticism in it. Beau knows the difference between helping me and treating me as if pregnancy has removed my judgment. He drove to school with lunch because he also knows I forget to eat when I am worried about leaving work unfinished.

Our daughter pushes a hard foot against his hand.

He laughs. “That was a vote.”

“For which name?”

“Mine.”

“Absolutely not.”

He turns me carefully inside the circle of his arms. At six feet four, he has to bend a long way to kiss me. At five feet five and currently shaped like a planet, I meet him as far as I can.

His mouth is warm and familiar. I catch the front of his shirt and draw him closer.

He slides one hand into my hair. The other stays at my waist, steadying without directing.

Fourteen months of trying, nine months of wanting every ordinary milestone, and we are close enough now to measure the wait in days.

He kisses me until desire settles low beneath the weight of the baby.

“Bedroom,” I whisper.

He smiles against my mouth.

“You were the one who said bending was impossible.”

“I have several other skills.”

His hand slides from my waist to the underside of my stomach again. The support changes the pressure in my hips. I turn in his arms until my back rests against his chest.

“Five minutes,” I say. “Then you can help me to bed.”

“Help?”

“You may interpret the word generously.”

He kisses the place beneath my ear that makes my knees unreliable even when I am not carrying a full-term baby. I cover his hand with mine and feel our daughter move between us.

“She has terrible timing,” he murmurs.

“She has your sense of occasion.”

I am still laughing when his body goes tense against mine.

His phone rings in his pocket.

Neither of us moves at first.

It rings again.

Beau breathes out against my forehead and takes it out. The name on the screen is Celeste.

Celeste Halstead, his former fiancée. The woman who returned his ring eight years ago. The woman who came back into his life after her mother's surgery and was, according to Beau, just an old friend who called occasionally.

She is also thirty-one weeks pregnant by another man.

“Answer it,” I say, because refusing would make me feel petty and because he is already looking worried.

He steps into the hall. He does not close the door.

“Celeste? What's wrong?”

His voice drops. “You're not back there. This is a different ward.”

I look toward the doorway.

“No, I remember what happened with your mother. I know.”

The call continues while I put away the small stack of clothes. Celeste is not bleeding. She is not in labor. She has been thinking about giving birth in a hospital and cannot stop remembering the monitors around her mother after surgery.

I try not to listen. The nursery is small, and Beau has never learned how to make his voice private without making it suspicious. Every pause gives me another piece.

He asks whether Celeste has practiced the breathing technique someone showed her. He reminds her that Saint Catherine's has a separate maternity entrance. When she says something I cannot hear, his answer comes immediately.

“No, the room won't look like your mother's. I checked the photographs online.”

The sleeper in my hands remains unfolded.

He checked.

I know Beau runs a building company with crews and managers working across the county. I know he reads building regulations in bed and remembers the exact angle of a roof he saw once from the road. I know he looks things up for people. That is one of the ways he loves.

I do not know when Celeste became somebody he researches after I fall asleep.

Beau knows which corridor she waited in. He knows she cannot tolerate the smell of antiseptic wipes. He knows the hospital has suggested a tour and that she canceled the first one.

Until I hear his half of this call, I do not know any of that.

I know she is pregnant. I know her mother recovered. I know Beau sometimes answers when Celeste calls. Those facts used to sit in separate, harmless places.

Now they draw together.

The baby rolls beneath my palm. I want to ask him to hang up. The request feels ugly before I make it, so I say nothing.

“Call April,” he tells her. “You shouldn't sit with this alone.”

April is Celeste's sister. I know the name from the old engagement stories, although I have met her only twice.

Beau listens again. His shoulder rests against the hall wall. The tenderness on his face is one I know well. It has carried me through fourteen months of negative tests, the first terrifying spotting at nine weeks, and every night I needed him to believe in this baby when I was afraid to.

I did not know he had been giving it to Celeste too.

The warmth leaves my skin. I press my palm more firmly over the baby and count two breaths before I can look at Beau again.

When he ends the call, twenty-three minutes have passed.

“She's all right,” he says.

“I heard.”

“How long has she been worried about the hospital?” I ask.

“A while.”

“You knew about the tour.”

“She mentioned it.”

He picks up one of the water glasses and gives it to me. I take it because I am thirsty, then dislike the gratitude that rises automatically when he remembers what I need.

“You looked at pictures of the maternity entrance.”

“She was afraid it would feel like the surgical ward.”

“And you checked for her.”

He studies my face. “It took two minutes.”

The answer makes the act sound smaller. It also confirms it.

“I didn't know you were talking about her delivery.”

“We aren't making plans together. She asks questions sometimes.”

Sometimes. Occasionally. Words with soft edges.

He puts the empty glass down and reaches for me. I let him touch my waist, but I cannot find the easy way back into his arms.

I take his hand and place it on the place where our daughter is moving.

The desire from before does not return. Beau kisses my temple as if we have merely been interrupted.

I stand inside the room he made for our baby and wonder when occasional became enough for him to know another pregnant woman's hospital plan.