4 - THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM #2
Their eyes met across the kitchen. The air thickened. Somewhere outside, a bird was singing, and the coffee maker was gurgling, and Victoria could hear the shower running upstairs where Joey was getting ready for work.
"Okay," Brock said. "I’ll tell my lieutenant I need the day off."
“Thank you,” Victoria replied, holding his gaze.
Joey came downstairs ten minutes later, his hair still wet, his tie slightly crooked. Victoria straightened it for him—an old habit, automatic—and he smiled at her with such naked gratitude that she had to look away.
"Dad's going to take me to the ultrasound on Wednesday," she said. "Since you can't make it."
"Really?" Joey turned to his father. "You don't mind?"
Brock shrugged. “Just doing my part.”
"That's—god, that's great." Joey clasped his father's shoulder. "I really appreciate it. I was feeling terrible about missing it."
"Don't mention it."
"You'll get copies of the ultrasound photos, right?"
"I'll get copies," Victoria said.
Joey kissed her forehead. Grabbed his laptop bag. Paused at the door. "I love you. Both of you. I don't know what I'd do without this family."
The door closed behind him. The silence that followed was deafening.
—
Wednesday arrived wrapped in the gold light of early autumn.
Dr. Chen's office was in a medical park on the outskirts of Raleigh County, a low brick building surrounded by dogwoods that were just beginning to turn. Victoria sat in the passenger seat of Brock's truck, her hands folded in her lap, watching the trees blur past the window.
Brock drove with one hand on the wheel, the other resting on the center console.
He was wearing civilian clothes—dark jeans, a gray Henley that stretched across his shoulders—and he'd shaved that morning, the faint scent of his aftershave filling the cab.
They hadn't spoken much on the drive. The silence between them was comfortable in a way that felt dangerous. Domestic.
"There's something I need to say," Brock said, his eyes still on the road. "Something I've been thinking about."
"What?"
"Not here. After the appointment." He glanced at her. "When we can talk properly."
Victoria's heart stuttered. "Is it bad?"
"It's honest." He reached over and covered her hand with his. The touch was brief—three seconds, maybe four—but the warmth of his palm lingered long after he returned his hand to the wheel. "It's what I should have said weeks ago."
Dr. Chen's exam room was painted a pale lavender. After speaking with the receptionist, Victoria walked inside, Brock following behind her, playing the role of proud grandfather. Victoria sat on the exam table while Brock took the chair in the corner.
"Let's see what we've got here," Dr. Chen said, and the wand pressed against Victoria's belly, and the screen flickered to life.
The baby appeared in shades of gray.
Not a blur anymore. Not a comma-shaped shadow.
A baby. A profile—nose, chin, the curve of a skull.
Arms and legs, impossibly small, moving in jerky little waves.
The heartbeat filled the room, that rapid whoosh-whoosh-whoosh that Victoria had heard before but never like this, never with Brock's eyes fixed on the screen.
"There's your baby," Dr. Chen said. "Measuring right at twelve weeks. Heartbeat's strong—168 beats per minute. Everything looks perfect."
Victoria couldn't speak. When she looked at Brock, his gray eyes were wet.
"Grandpa," Dr. Chen said, glancing at Brock. "You want to come closer? Get a better look?"
Brock didn't correct her. Didn't explain that he was the father, not the grandfather. He just stepped forward and stared at the screen like it held the answer to every question he'd ever asked.
"That's—" His voice was hoarse. He cleared his throat. "That's really—"
"I know," Victoria whispered. "I know."
Dr. Chen clicked buttons on the ultrasound machine, taking measurements, saving images. "I'll print you some pictures."
—
The drive home was quiet until Brock pulled over.
They were on a back road between Raleigh County and Beckley, a two-lane strip of asphalt that wound through the hills with nothing but trees on either side. Brock guided the truck onto the shoulder and killed the engine. The silence rushed in, broken only by the rustle of leaves outside the windows.
"What I was going to say earlier," Brock said. He was staring straight ahead, his hands still on the wheel. "I've been thinking about it for weeks. Since that morning in the guest room. Since you told me you were falling for me."
Victoria's pulse quickened. "Brock—"
"Let me finish." He turned to face her. His gray eyes were steady, the way they must have been when he was talking down an inmate, when he was making decisions that meant life or death.
"Every night, I lie awake and think about what we're doing. About Joey. About the lies. About this baby."
He gestured toward her belly. "Our baby. And every night, I come to the same conclusion."
"What conclusion?"
"I don't want to be a grandpa to this child."
His voice cracked on the word. "I want to be a dad. A real dad. I want to be there for the first steps and the first words and the first day of school. I want to teach them to throw a baseball. I want to read them bedtime stories."
He reached over and took her hand. His palm was calloused, warm, solid. "I want to do all of it. With you."
Victoria's vision blurred. "What are you saying?"
"I'm saying I want to be with you, Victoria. For real. Not stolen moments in the kitchen. Not lies and secrets and pretending. I want—" He exhaled. "I want a life with you. A real life."
"But Joey—"
"I know." His grip on her hand tightened.
"I know what it'll do to him. I know he'll hate me. I know he'll probably never forgive either of us. But I can't keep living like this. I can't keep pretending that baby on that screen is my grandchild when I know—" He stopped.
Swallowed hard. "When I know it's my son or daughter. When I know I'm the father."
Victoria was crying now. The tears came without permission, spilling down her cheeks, dripping onto her blouse. She didn't wipe them away.
"I've been thinking the same thing," she said. "For weeks. Maybe since the beginning. I just didn't know how to say it. I didn't know if you'd want—"
"I want it." He cupped her face with both hands.
His thumbs brushed the tears from her cheeks.
"I want it more than I've wanted anything in thirty years. Since my wife died, I thought—I thought that part of my life was over. Love. Family. A future. And then you came into my house, and you looked at me with those eyes, and I—" He shook his head.
"I fell for you, Victoria. Hard. And I'm not going to apologize for it."
"When?"
"When what?"
"When do we tell Joey?"
Brock's hands dropped to her shoulders. The question hung between them, heavy and terrifying. "Not yet. Not until we have a plan. We need to figure out where we'll live, how we'll handle everything. The divorce, the baby, all of it. We can't just drop this on him and hope for the best."
"I don't want to hurt him." Victoria's voice was small. "I know I'm going to. I know I've already hurt him in ways he doesn't even understand yet. But I don't want to destroy him."
"We're going to destroy him." Brock's voice was gentle but unflinching.
"There's no way around that. He's going to lose his wife and his father and the baby he thinks is his, all at once. It's going to be the worst day of his life. But living a lie for the rest of our lives—that's not better. That's just slower. More cruel."
Victoria closed her eyes. The tears were still falling, but her chest felt lighter. The secret had been a physical weight inside her for weeks, a stone lodged beneath her sternum. Now, for the first time, she could see a future where the stone was gone.
"Okay," she said. "Okay. We'll figure it out. Together."
"Together." Brock pressed his forehead to hers. "I love you, Victoria. I know I shouldn't say it. I know it makes everything more complicated. But I do."
"I love you too."
The words felt right. They felt more right than anything she'd said in months. More right than the lies she'd told Joey, more right than the excuses, more right than the careful performance of a happy marriage she'd been putting on since the day she saw those two pink lines.
Brock kissed her.
It was gentle at first—the kiss of a man who was learning to be tender, who'd spent decades keeping his emotions under lock and key and was finally letting them out.
But then Victoria's hand slid to the back of his neck, and she pulled him closer, and the kiss deepened.
His tongue traced the seam of her lips. She opened for him.
The taste of coffee and salt and something that felt like promise.
"We should get home," she murmured against his mouth.
"Yeah."
He pulled back onto the road. The truck's engine rumbled. The trees blurred past the windows. And Victoria sat in the passenger seat with her hand on her belly and her heart full of hope and dread, wondering how much longer she could carry both.
Brock pulled her into the kiss the moment the front door closed.
His hands were on her waist before she could take off her shoes, his mouth on hers before she could catch her breath. The ultrasound photos scattered to the floor—fanning across the hardwood like a hand of cards—and Victoria made a sound that was half laugh, half moan.
"The pictures—"
"I don't care about the pictures." Brock's voice was rough against her throat. "I just watched our baby move on a screen. Our baby, Victoria. Our child."
"I know. I was there."
His laugh was breathless. His fingers found the hem of her blouse and pulled, and the fabric slid over her head, and then his mouth was on her collarbone, her shoulder, the swell of her breasts above the cup of her bra.
She reached behind her back. Unhooked the clasp. The bra fell away, and Brock's hands were there instantly—cupping her breasts, his thumbs brushing her nipples, the calloused pads of his fingers sending sparks down her spine.
"They're bigger," he murmured. "From the pregnancy."