Chapter 7 #2
Cassie flinched away from the unfamiliar touch. Griff never touched her, never held her hand except for a moment when she would step out of a carriage perhaps, never hugged or kissed her. Except for the brief and infrequent coming together in the dark, nothing physical ever passed between them.
Red didn’t let her move away from him, and after the first shock, she found she liked his touch. It was as if a part of her uncurled and grew, nurtured by the human contact. She didn’t tell him all that, but she forgot herself enough to lay her hand over Red’s and press it against her stomach.
“Cassie, I want you to take pleasure in this gift and understand the glorious work you are doing to bring a new life into the world. This baby will be a blessing to both of us.” Red’s voice was as solemn as if they were exchanging wedding vows a second time.
“I’ll try, with God’s help, to be a good husband to you, Cassandra Dawson, and a good father to the baby.
We took vows before God today, and I want you to know, I intend to keep them.
I don’t think we know each other well enough to promise to love like a romantic love.
That will take time. But for now, I love you because God calls us to love others as we love ourselves, and I can promise to keep doing that.
I’ll honor you. That means I want to know what will make you happy.
I’m not talking about things. I can’t give you nice things like Griff did, but I want to give you what you need for your heart and your soul.
I’ll give you all of that as part of honoring you. ”
Cassie nodded, unable to look away from Red’s kindness.
“And I’ll cherish you. That means love, too, but to me, it means more than that. It means enjoying all that is special about you and making sure you know I do.”
Cassie listened, wide-eyed. She’d never heard such talk from a man before.
He went on. “And the vows say a woman has to obey her husband, but I want you to know, I’ll never ask you to do something that sets wrong with your conscience, and I won’t be issuing a bunch of orders and demanding you obey them.
We’ll talk things through and make decisions together.
If the day comes when we just can’t decide something, really disagree over what is right and wrong, I may pull out the marriage vows and try to insist you obey me, but I don’t make a very good dictator.
I had too many bossy older brothers and sisters.
“Getting married like we did was a crazy thing to do, I reckon, but we’ve done it, and now we’re going to build a life together, doing our best to love and honor and cherish and obey.
So don’t be embarrassed about anything, Cass.
There shouldn’t be anything a wife can’t say to her husband, all right? ”
Cassie nodded, and the heat of tears burned behind her eyes.
She had the strange sensation of the China Doll Cassie and the screaming, childish Cassie drawing together until they were nearly one.
She pressed her hand more firmly over Red’s, which still touched her stomach, and wanted to say something as nice to him as he had said to her.
Maybe that she liked him to touch her and she’d be glad to obey him—he didn’t need to worry about that.
At that moment, the baby kicked. Red pulled away with a gasp, then he stared at her stomach. “It moved!” He laid his hand on her again.
After a second, Cassie pressed both of her hands over his. “Try over here.” She guided him to where there was more movement. The baby kicked harder this time.
He looked up from staring at her stomach. “Does it do that all the time?”
Cassie couldn’t stop herself from smiling.
Until this moment, she’d thought Red must know everything about babies.
But then, he’d started this off by asking her questions.
Now, with that little kick, she realized she knew lots of things he didn’t.
Eagerly, she said, “The baby kicks a lot. Sometimes I can’t get to sleep at night for the kicking and rolling around it does. ”
“Rolling?” Red asked, his eyebrows arching to near his hairline.
Cassie nodded. “It sometimes feels as though she’s trying to beat her way out.
Sometimes the whole top of my stomach stretches back and forth, and I can picture the baby’s head bunting me.
Or over here.” She moved Red’s hands slightly to her right side, at waist level.
“I’m sure that is her feet.” Cassie looked up at him.
“The movement is littler but harder, if that makes any sense.”
“Her, huh? You think it’s a girl?”
She had said “her.” Imagining the baby to be a little girl was something private she wouldn’t have admitted to if she’d been thinking. “Men want boys, I guess.”
The baby kicked again, and Red moved his hand to find the source of this activity. “Is it exciting to think about a little person living in there?”
Cassie had never thought about it that way because Griff didn’t want her behaving like a giddy girl, so excitement was something she controlled. But now that Red put it like that, she decided it was very exciting. “It’s strange, isn’t it, to think that he?—”
“Or she,” Red interrupted.
Cassie smiled. She wanted it to be a baby girl so badly. “That he or she is in there, alive and waiting to get out. Nine months—no one ever told me that. That’s only two more months. I’ll have a baby by Christmas.”
Red had both hands on her stomach now. He moved them around, searching for more movement. He looked up at her and lifted one hand to lay it on her cheek. “We’ll have a baby by Christmas, Cass. We’re in this together from now on.”
Cassie’s eyes burned with tears again, and she had the strange sensation of feeling safe. She’d never been safe with Griff, because she was always waiting for him to find fault with her and punish her. Now, at the surge of safety, hot tears spilled onto her cheeks.
Red wiped them away with his thumb. “Don’t cry, Cass, honey. I know you miss your husband and?—”
Cassie leaned forward, only thinking about making him stop talking because she was so ashamed at her disloyal thoughts about her newly dead husband. But her hands were holding Red’s on her stomach, so all she had left was to bump her mouth into his.
The kiss was over before it started, but it had the desired effect. Red quit talking.
Cassie jumped to her feet. What had she done? She knocked the chair over behind her as she backed away and might have fallen if Red hadn’t caught her arm.
“It’s all right, Cass. I know it’s…I understand you’re still in mourning.
” Red pulled her close and wrapped his arms around her.
She stiffened against him, but he didn’t do anything but hold her and smooth her hair.
It felt so wonderful that she slowly relaxed against him.
But relaxing was a mistake because the minute she did, she started to cry.