The Best Man's Baby(27)

A little boy with a runny nose and cough that sounded worse than a hacking mule sprung out from one of the neighboring chairs, startling Jake into action. He quickly shielded Claire’s face with his hands. “Don’t breathe in the air. That kid has the plague,” Jake roared. Claire swatted his hands away and gave him a dirty look, not nearly as bad a look as the child’s mother. Well, it wasn’t his fault. Who brings sick kids out in public anyway?

“I hardly think that was necessary,” Claire hissed at him, her face turning red.

“Just trying to keep you from getting whatever flu that kid has,” Jake said, holding up his hands. She obviously wasn’t grateful for the help.

“I was thinking about maybe setting a date and time,” he said, ignoring the insulted parents in front of them and turning to face Claire. She stared straight ahead, apparently engrossed by the poster on the wall advocating the importance of quitting smoking. Since he didn’t think she had ever even touched a cigarette in her entire life, he fought his urge to grin at her not-so-subtle attempt to ignore him.

“We don’t choose a date, the baby picks it,” she said, her eyes still glued to the poster.

“I’m not an idiot. I was talking about meeting with your mother.”

Jake watched her expression go from patronizing to persecuting in five seconds flat. She turned to give him the full-on glare, and for the tenth time that morning he wished he could kiss her mouth until it sighed against his with desire.

“We did agree to do this together, remember?”

“No. We agreed you would be involved.”

“Same thing.”

Before Claire could blast him with what was sure to be retaliation, a thin, gray-haired woman wearing hospital scrubs called them in. Claire hopped out of her seat, not bothering to wait for him. It was easy to catch up to her since she was almost a foot shorter than him. He grabbed her hand as they walked down the hall. He felt the jolt he was beginning to recognize as the one he always felt when his body came into contact with hers. After he’d left her house last night, he’d taken a ride to the rectory and sat in the church parking lot, thinking about all the times he’d gone to see her dad, all the talks he’d had with him. It was because of him that Jake felt the power to be anything he wanted. He’d gone to bed last night determined to make everything work. For her father, for Claire, and for their baby.

…

“So Claire, your next prenatal appointment will be with an ob-gyn and she’ll be taking care of you for the rest of your pregnancy and the delivery,” Dr. Elise Hopkins said with a smile as she turned in her chair to look at Claire half an hour later.

Claire smiled back at her. She felt very comfortable with the woman who had been her general practitioner for the last twenty years. She heard, rather than felt, Jake shift in the chair beside her, reminding her of the only complication in her checkup. The appointment had gone well, all of her blood work had returned normal, but now Claire was anxious to leave. It had felt odd having Jake here with her, but he was right, he deserved to be a part of their child’s life, and prenatal appointments and ultrasounds were probably something he should be involved in.

Last night, after she agreed to this, they had eaten dinner together. The mood had been altered, and walls had come up. Claire was shaken up and yet oddly reassured by his vehement vow to make sure their child was loved. And while the intensity of his emotion made it easy to believe he was telling the truth, it also held with it an undercurrent of anger and hostility in it. It was nothing she could openly ask him about, and she wasn’t entirely sure she wasn’t just being overly dramatic. Claire felt sad that the only possible solution for them was just a civil sort of arrangement in the best interest of their baby. Didn’t every child deserve a mother and a father? This was the man she had adored her entire life, and it would have been wonderful to think this pregnancy would have brought them together. But that ship had sailed when he had sailed out of town.

“So as soon as the appointment is made one of the receptionists will give you a call, okay?” Dr. Hopkins said. Claire nodded. The appointment would have gone much faster had Jake not intervened every two minutes with a question, including whether or not she could continue jogging. And despite her irritation, she was impressed by his knowledge, because all of his questions were based on fact and not ignorance. That also meant Jake had done a crash course in mommy-to-be 101.

“So we see the OBG person when Claire is twenty weeks, right?” Jake said while Claire watched him type the date into his iPhone calendar. She resisted the urge to scoff at him when he punched in five different alarm reminders for the date. He was more of a control freak than she was.