Stepping up – chapter 2
A/N: Just a short bridge between the action
Nearly three months later, with a little more than a month to go in her pregnancy, Samantha found herself sitting at a café completely unlike the one near her old apartment. This café wasn't more than five years old and everything screamed upscale, right down to the casually mismatched cutlery and tableware. Sam sighed and sipped her herbal tea. She was early, but considering she no longer walked—she waddled—it seemed better to be early than to make Martin worry by being late.
'Maternity leave isn't so bad,' Sam mused. At least she got to sleep in late and hang out in her pjs if she didn't want to leave their new brownstone. Moving while pregnant had been really interesting; thank goodness for her friends, Martin's friends and the Tolands and their co-workers—not to mention the movers who did all the heavy lifting. She and Martin had found the brownstone on one of their Sunday walks and it was a great compromise to his picket fence fetish.
Samantha hadn't expected Poppa Fitzgerald to be thrilled with his son's choice, but Martin must have laid down one convincing argument because she never heard anything from Victor Fitzgerald other than 'Welcome to the family.' Truth be told, he had shocked the snot out of her, but was relieved to meet Martin's mother and knew she'd be a fantastic grandmother to her—no, their—child. Martin was insistent that they call the baby theirs. That he was still willing to be her child's father astounded her. Even if she spent the next ten years pregnant with his children, she didn't think she'd ever be able to repay Martin for his generous spirit.
She glanced at her watch and realized ruefully she had misread the time earlier—Martin wasn't due to meet her for lunch for another hour. Well, at least she came prepared. Samantha pulled out the paperback she was reading and put her feet up on the chair opposite.