Chapter Eight

Me, Myself, and I

Whoever the hell called this mess morning sickness had no clue what he was talking about, Jordan thought to herself as she heaved one more time into her bathroom basin. In a cruel twist in the irony that was her life, Jordan was never sick in the morning. She woke up tired, but managed to pin on a happy face and get to work…most mornings on time.

But somehow her hormonal driven body seemed to know each night when eight o'clock came and her stomach would give Mt. Vesuvius a run for its money. She'd throw up breakfast, lunch, and dinner…plus spend most of the rest of the night running between her bed and the bathroom. She wavered on either putting a cot in the shower stall or a sink by her bed to cut down on having to run back and forth. And forget hurling in a trashcan or bucket. Emptying the contents of either just made her heave more.

Two months had passed since she had left Woody the positive pregnancy test at the bar. Two months. Sixty-one days. And no word from him about them, her, or their child. Maybe he meant what he said, she thought between examining the tile work on her bathroom floor as she waited for the next wave of nausea to hit. Maybe that night was just that…one night. Nothing more, nothing less. Maybe it meant nothing more to him than one night of sex…and it's up to me to deal with any consequences. It was hard to think of their child as a "consequence."

When Woody had left her that night, she physically and mentally ached for him for days afterwards. A word. A call. A note. Anything. She understood why she couldn't go back to the bar. Her relationship with Woody could put him and her in jeopardy.

Now that baby was making three, the stakes had been raised even higher.

As the days passed, and then a month, after their one night together, Jordan began to notice subtle changes in her body. A fullness in her breasts, coupled with a tenderness she wasn't used to. Her emotions could run the range gamut in fifteen minutes. She would be weepy, then happy. It was dizzying. Her appetite, which had always been sparse, grew sparser as food held no appeal to her at all.

She blamed it on stress, working too hard, the flu….anything but what was staring her in the face. Finally, when the time for her period came and went twice, she sucked it up and stole a pregnancy test out of trace, took it home, and ran it in the privacy of her own bathroom.

It came back blue. She was pregnant.

More than just pregnant. She was expecting Woody's baby…a man who was now linked to Boston's Irish mob families.

She was pregnant with a mob lord's baby.

For the first time in years, Jordan felt pure panic run through her. Stuffing the test in her pocketbook, she got in her El Camino and drove aimlessly through the Boston streets until she had somehow found herself at Garret's. When he answered her knock and asked her what was wrong, she had simply handed him the test. He had pulled her in side, sat her on his couch, and held her until her crying had stopped…or at least slowed down.

"You're pregnant, Jor?" He had to ask…he needed to hear it from her own lips.

She nodded.

"I know this may be none of my business, but who's the father?"

"Woody." It had came out of mouth in a broken, bitter whisper.

"Does he know?"

Jordan shook her head. "You're the first….besides me," she replied, choking back a bitter laugh.

"Are you going to tell him?"

"Not yet. I don't know…Maybe. Things are kind of ….difficult between us right now."

Garret nodded. He could only imagine. And now that Jordan was pregnant with Woody's child…it was only going to get more difficult.

And Garret had been right. As the days continued to pass, Garret had made sure that Jordan had regular hours, overlooked her napping on her couch…and unobtrusively took her out of some of her usual tasks, such as x-rays. Jordan was thankful for his attention…but could not ignore the continued changes in her own body. Her size two jeans quickly grew too small by the third month. It was then she could not deny or hide the fact that she was having Woody's baby. And it was then she went to the Rose.

And it was then, once again, Woody cut her off, shut her down, and kicked her out of his life. She had hoped the positive pregnancy test would make some sort of difference to him, but it didn't. She still hadn't heard a word.

By this month, the middle of her second trimester, she couldn't hide the fact from anyone that life was growing in her. She sat Nigel, Lily, and Bug down and told them that she was expecting. She didn't tell them who the father was. After their initial shock had worn off, they tiptoed around the issue…not sure if she was happy or not with her impending motherhood.

Only Nigel seemed to guess that there was more to this baby than just…a baby. That the father could jeopardize the baby's future. He had been mum about it at the morgue, but had questioned Jordan closely about it one night at her apartment.

And left frustrated because she would neither confirm nor deny the baby was Woody's. As far as Jordan was concerned, the fewer people that knew who the father was, the better.

But keeping the fact from the father…that was something Jordan really didn't want to do, but felt she had no choice. The Woody she knew…the old Woody... the Woody he was before a bullet had changed him…would have been over the moon at the thought of a baby. Jordan smiled at what that Woody's reaction would be. He would have moved in, not let her lift a finger…took care of her and their baby. Insisted on marrying her.

However, like she had said to Woody before, sometimes things change. And they certainly had. Now she faced single motherhood without a definite support system in place. Oh sure, Nigel and Garret would be there, but Nigel definitely had a life outside of work – even if Jordan didn't understand it – and Garret was still battling the loss of Renee' and his attachment to the scotch bottle.

The only person Jordan could depend on was herself. Me, myself, and I….

Woody stood in the doorway of the Rose and looked across the street at the flames that were greedily licking their way through a neighboring building. It was an old building, with no sprinkler system or even fire alarms. An old textile warehouse that had sat empty for years, owned by one of the older families in Boston…the McMartins.

The warehouse, due to years of neglect and then total abandonment, had been falling apart. Not that it really mattered. Textile jobs in Boston had long gone south to Mexico. The warehouse, in and of itself, had little value to anyone in its present state of disrepair.

But the property it was on did. Woody knew that Little Johnny had been lusting after that corner piece of real estate for years. He had offered the McMartins good money…a lot of money…for it. But because the warehouse and the lot was actually owned by numerous McMartin heirs, it was nearly impossible to get the whole group of them to agree on a price.

Little Johnny had reach the point where part of his "business" needed expansion. His chop shops needed a bigger location and one that Johnny could keep under his watchful eye. That piece of property fit the bill. So with time and patience lacking, he had offered one more sweet deal to the McMartins. Woody was there when Johnny gave them the proposal.

He was also there when their lawyer shot it down.

The drive back to the Rose had been a silent one. Johnny didn't say a thing until they had gotten back to the bar. Then Woody had seen the mobster pull out his cell phone and punch a number. When the person on the other end answered, all Johnny had said was "Do it." It was whispered quietly and Johnny had immediately flipped his phone shut.

Woody said nothing, but simply went about his business at the bar. It was only later that he could safely report what he had overheard to Captain Freeman and Renee'. He couldn't give them a date or time or even exactly what it was that Johnny had wanted done. He just knew something was going to happen. Renee' had put men all over it; called in paid informants….but nothing could be discovered.

Until this morning when the fire alarms sounded. Woody heard them from his apartment and had high tailed it to the Rose, afraid that somehow, someway, the bar had caught fire. Instead he was confronted with blockaded roads, fire trucks, and the Boston PD. He had backtracked, parked six blocks from the bar and jogged to the back entrance. Inside he had found Little Johnny calmly watching the activity across the street. When he caught sight of Woody, the mobster had simply smiled, took another long draw off his cigarette, and walked back into his office. No words were exchanged, but Woody knew. He knew that the mobster was behind the arson. Johnny may not have lit the match, but he had set fire to the events that did.

And that's all Woody thought it was. An arson fire at an old, abandoned, textile warehouse. Until he heard the paramedics yell for the Boston PD to call the ME's office and get someone out there, quick. They had found a body inside the warehouse. Probably a homeless person, but the police would want the ME to determine cause of death.

So now he watched in fascination as the morgue van pulled up and he saw Nigel get out of the driver's side. Then he saw her. Jordan. With her hair pulled back and her sunglasses on…he watched her go inside the building. He had to stop himself from shouting at her to be careful…burned buildings could be compromised so quickly and collapse without warning. It seemed she was in there for hours, when in actuality, it was only about 45 minutes. He heaved a sigh of relief when he saw her come back out and tell the other morgue worker to go and help Nigel load the body.

It was then he noticed the bulge around her middle. And he didn't have to be a mathematician to add up what had happened.

Jordan was pregnant. With his child. Holy shit….