Chapter 23: Hope

"Ooooh. She kicked again," I said with a grin as I held my hand over Annie's stomach. She frowned at me.

"And you think its going to be girl?" she asked and I chuckled.

"Of course," I said and she smirked, shaking her head.

"Why do you think it's a girl?" she asked curiously. I just shrugged.

"Because that's what it looked like on the ultrasound. And I want a little girl to spoil," I teased as I kissed her.

Sometimes I really thought I was dreaming. Here I was, at Foxworth Hall, with my new wife and a soon-to-be child on the way. Annie was six months pregnant so her stomach was very swelled out by now.

I had hated it when Melodie had been pregnant but it seemed different with Annie. She looked beautiful even as she was, though I hoped she would regain her figure back after all of this was over.

Still, her face glowed and she was far more happier than Melodie had ever seemed to be.

"I hope we don't have twins," I muttered and she chuckled.

"Too many in your family already?" she teased and I smirked at her.

"Definitely," I said. I'd had enough blond haired, blue eyed twins in this family, even though Darren and Deirdre were quite cute.

Our marriage wasn't perfect though. With her raging hormones in full effect, sometimes Annie and I got into the most passionate fights, but more often than likely, we ended up somewhere else after our heated words had finally died down.

Sometimes Annie complained that I thought she was a piece of china because of the way I would keep her from doing too much work. I allowed her to do her painting but reminded her that we had Trevor to help out with the cleaning of the house.

I won't say it didn't sometimes amuse me to see Annie picking up around the house and cleaning it even though we had servants and everything.

No servants were allowed into the room I'd given her to do her artwork, however, and it was amusing that she was as protective of her office as I was of mine. Up towards her eight month, she pained many pictures, and most were of the baby.

When I saw the baby she painted had her cornflower blue eyes and our dark hair coloring, I hoped that our baby would look like that. I'd had enough blonds to deal with in this family.

When the actual labor came, I was nervous and clueless about what to do. The pregnancy books Annie and I had looked over seemed to have vanished in my mind but luckily Toni was there to help. Unlike Melodie, we were able to get Annie to a hospital.

I was at her side, holding her hand as she gave birth, even though I was scared to death of losing her, the baby, or even both! But fate had decided to give us a chance for early on an April morning, our baby girl came into the world healthy, with ten fingers and ten toes, and a birthmark on her right elbow.

She had Annie's eyes but not enough hair to tell what color it would be yet. I had stared at this little alien for a long time after it had came out of Annie and as they cleaned it up.

Although the baby was far from winning a beauty contest, I found myself smiling at her nonetheless. I was a father. A father! Then my eyes darkened for I knew how much Mother would have loved to be here … but I shook off my depression as soon as the nurses allowed Annie to hold our seven pound daughter.

"Hope," Annie whispered, her eyes locking with mine. For a moment I didn't understand and then my mouth slowly opened with understanding. She wanted to name our daughter Hope.

"Hope Catherine Foxworth," she finished and if she hadn't been so exhausted, I would have squeezed her to death with happiness! Hope. To me, it was the most perfect and best-fitting name in the world. And it wasn't a C name!