Holidaze
Amanda and Dotty sat at the kitchen table deciding on the menu for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the baby shower. "Mother, I am just trying to figure out why we have to decide all of these now. I mean Thanksgiving I understand it is two weeks away, but Christmas and the shower both now too?"
"Amanda, dear, in a few weeks are you really even going to feel like making out a menu, much less even cooking?"
"Mother, I am not helpless. I am pregnant not dying. I can handle making a menu when the time comes." She said laughing.
"Yes, I know. I am just saying in a few weeks if you don't have to do it, won't that be better?"
"Sure, okay, Mother."
"Will Lee's Uncle Clayton be in town for any of the holidays?"
"I'm not sure you can ask Lee tonight when he picks me up for dinner. Okay, so which menu do you want me to make?"
"I don't want you to make a menu I want you to make a guest list for the baby shower." Dotty instructed just as the doorbell rang and she went to answer it.
"Okay, Mother, I will get started on that."
"Dean, it is so great to see you!" Amanda heard her mother exclaim as she started the list for the baby shower.
"Thank you, Dotty, is Amanda home? I didn't see her car."
"Right in here, her boyfriend borrowed her car his was, well; he is waiting on his new one." Dotty wasn't sure she even understood how Lee's car ended up over a cliff when he was working undercover at the car show event with Amanda the week before.
"Amanda, look who is here."
Looking up from her list she stood and said, "I heard, Mother. Hello, Dean it is good to see you again."
Looking at her rounding belly Dean waved his hands and said, "It apparently has been longer than I thought."
"I didn't know when I last saw you that I was pregnant. I am due late February." Amanda explained.
"Do you know what you are having?" Dean inquired.
"No, Lee and I want to be surprised."
"I want to know." Dotty stated flatly.
"Mother, not again. So, Dean, what brings you by?" Amanda said rolling her eyes.
Laughing at the two women Dean continued, "I wanted to hand deliver my wedding invitation to you and your family. I also wanted to know when a good day or night would be for you to meet my fiancé."
"Well, I don't work a lot next week. I am helping with a charity event with my friend Gale, you remember her."
"Yes, which charity is this one, you do so many."
"This one is to raise money to help train guide dogs for the blind."
"Sounds interesting, I'll see if we can't generate some press for it at the station."
"That would be great, now let me get my calendar and see if we find a date that the four of us could get together." Amanda pulled her calendar out just as Lee was knocking on the back door.
"Lee, come on in." Amanda yelled without even looking up.
"How did you know it was him?" Dean asked.
"The same way I always knew when it was you knocking, hello, sweetheart." Amanda leaned up to give Lee a kiss on his cheek as his hands automatically went to her back and stomach.
"Lee, I would like you to meet Dean McGuire, Dean, this is Lee Stetson." Amanda explained without looking up from her task.
"Hello." They said in unison while shaking hands. Lee looked over at Amanda and asked, "What are looking for?"
"I'm looking for a date." She said going back to her book.
Raising his eyebrow he said, "Will I do, or do you have some other man in mind?"
Dotty, Lee, and Dean all laughed at the statement, while Amanda deep in her task never really paid attention to his comment.
As Lee's words fully sunk in she looked up, slapping his shoulder, she said, "Keep making statements like that and I will need a new date to take with me. Dean wanted us to have lunch or dinner with him and his future wife; so, I am looking for a date where we are available at the same time since I am off a lot right now."
"Oh, okay. Well, you know my schedule better than I do, so just let me know. So, Dean, when is the big day?" Lee asked.
"We will be getting married right after the New Year. Collen wanted to wait for the holidays to be over but still as her family will already be in town."
"Sounds like a plan, a nice way to start the New Year." Lee said.
"We thought so too. Do you two have any plans to get married?" Dean inquired.
"No." "Not yet." Amanda and Lee answered respectively.
Amanda looked at Lee as he said the words, 'not yet' and began to wonder if he had started thinking about marriage in more serious terms. She knew she still wasn't ready but the baby rolling around in her belly as Lee rubbed made her start to believe more and more every day.
"Dean, how is Thursday for dinner for you two?" Amanda asked.
"Thursday for dinner would be perfect, Amanda. I will call you later with the restaurant." Leaning over he kissed Amanda on the cheek and she returned her own.
Dean left and Amanda looked over at Lee who was looking away making a cup of coffee, "Lee, are you okay with having dinner with Dean and his fiancé?"
Turning he smiled at her saying, "If we are both available and it is important to you, than I can deal with it."
"Lee, I don't want you to deal with it, I want you to go and enjoy yourself." Amanda said looking to the ground.
Turning her face to look him in the eyes, he said, "Amanda, I am kidding. Dinner with Dean and Colleen will be fine. So how are you and this one doing?"
"We are doing great. I am just still waiting to hear from the tests we had done."
"You should be hearing from them soon, right?" He asked taking her in his arms.
"Yeah, so um, how is work?"
"Fine, don't worry about the office; you will have plenty of typing and transcriptions waiting for your return. When do you come back?"
"I only work two days next week because I am helping my friend Gale with a charity event. That is why I was looking for a night we would be available. I really feel like I am talking in circles."
"Well, in Lee's defense he wasn't here when Dean asked when you were available. He only came in to the conversation part way through." Dotty said sipping her tea.
"True, Mother, but it is more than just this, I really feel like I have just been repeating myself a lot lately. It is like I am in a fog or daze. I know I am not but I don't know, maybe it is just pregnancy brain."
Lee stopped his cup from reaching his lips as he asked, "Pregnancy brain?"
Dotty patted him on the arm and said, "That is when a pregnant woman's brain goes all fuzzy at times. Don't worry it clears up around the third hour of labor when she begins to cuss you from here to the far reaches of the planet."
"Good to know, thanks for the information. Amanda, what are all these papers?"
"Oh, Mother wanted us to make the menus for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners as well as the menu for the baby shower."
"Thanksgiving is two weeks away, I get that, but Christmas is a month away and the baby shower isn't even until the beginning of the year I thought."
"I know but Lee the holidays are a crazy time of the year. I know that you don't think so, I mean buying scarves for everyone instead of thinking about the present at Christmas and watching games while eating chips. We have to actually plan things around here; we are having a lot of people here this year."
"Who all is going to be here?" Lee asked as he pulled her onto his lap.
"Well, for the holidays, we will have Mother's sister, Lillian here, Joe will be here at Christmas this year, you are invited; also," as she began to fidget with her fingernails, she whispered, "The Colonel might be here."
"Colonel Robert Clayton? That Colonel?" Lee exclaimed.
"Yes, Lee, he is family now and as such whether he shows or not he is welcomed and invited." Amanda defended.
Hugging her Lee kissed her neck and said, "I understand perfectly, just don't be disappointed if he puts work first and doesn't show up."
"He sounds like someone else I know and love."
"I will be here as long as I am not on the duty roster and have to work. I usually am working, you know."
"That is because you are the one that puts your name on the roster to work; I have seen you do it."
Smiling Lee said, "Guilty as charged. Are we still on for tonight for the movie and dinner?"
"Yes, the boys are going to a friend's tonight and Mother has a date."
"Great, well, I am going to go back to work and I will see you later." Standing up he leaned over and gave Amanda a deep kiss with promises for later, then with no other thought he leaned over and whispered to her round belly, "Daddy, will be back later, be good for Mommy. I love you." He kissed her belly and then as he turned to leave he said, "Amanda, I love you too."
"I love you too Lee, see you tonight."
Dotty came back in the kitchen and said, "Can we finish up now with these menus?"
"Yes, Mother, let us please get this done!" Laughing the two sat and finished up just as the boys were coming in from school.
"Do we have any cookies, I'm starving!" Phillip begged.
"No, you two have fruit for your snack today and you need to get your homework done before you go over to Danny's for the night." Amanda scolded as Phillip went to grab the cookie jar.
"Mom, homework on a Friday, come on, can it at least wait until tomorrow when we get back?" Jamie asked.
"Well, if you put off your homework then you can just do you chores for tomorrow today."
"Deal!" The boys shouted in unison, each reaching for an apple to eat.
Thursday evening Amanda stood pacing her kitchen as she waited for Lee to come and pick her up. She had been so preoccupied since Gale had disappeared on Tuesday from the charity event. She had asked Lee to look into it but he said he could only do little since it wasn't an Agency issue. He had kept his promise and continued to look but as of that afternoon he still hadn't any new information. He was at the moment on his way to her house from leaving one of his contacts that might have an idea.
Lee didn't even knock he just walked in the back door and dreaded the news he was about to give Amanda. "Lee, did you hear anything?"
"I don't think you are going to like what I have to say, but I have given all the information to the local authorities and they assured me they will follow up on it."
"Oh, gosh, what is it Lee?"
Sitting her on the couch he watched as her expression went from worry to terror as he explained that it was a good possibility that Gale had been taken in order to sell. "She may have already been sold, we just don't know."
"Human trafficking, that is a federal matter isn't it? That means you can officially look into it, right?"
"Only if it is confirmed, but that is a matter for the FBI, not the Agency." He hated that he couldn't give her the answers she needed or wanted from him. Hopefully a night out will make her feel better a little.
The drive to the restaurant to meet with Dean and Colleen was one of silence. Lee wanted to console her, but he didn't know how in this situation. He was thankful that she only worked that one day at the event. He didn't want to think about what he would do if she had been taken and sold.
Dinner was pleasant and Amanda even found herself distracted from the news of earlier as Colleen spoke of some of the wedding details. "Amanda, I have to be honest Dean is teasing me like crazy over the honeymoon, he will not give me one clue as how to pack."
"Maybe that is the clue in itself, Colleen, maybe you don't to pack anything." The two women laughed as the two men looked at Amanda and her shocking statement.
"What, you know you both were thinking the same thing." Amanda said as she took a drink of her ice tea. All four started laughing and the rest of the night seemed to move toward a happier way of thinking for the two agents.
The week before Christmas Amanda got the call from the doctor telling her all her tests came back with no foreseeable problems with the baby. "Now, nothing is one hundred percent, but the tests that we checked for all showed perfect healthy results. We should have no problems in delivery or after."
"Thank you, doctor."
Lee, Dotty, and the boys came in the back door from the yard when they found Amanda sitting on the sofa crying.
"Amanda, what's wrong?" Lee asked and was at her side before anyone else could get to her.
"The doctor called with the test results. Oh, Lee." She pulled him into her arms and allowed him to hold her as all her fears that she had been holding in fell in the form of tears all over his shirt.
Assuming the worst Lee braced himself for the results and problems that their child would be challenged with. "Amanda?"
"The baby, well, the baby is perfect. Nothing I did harmed the baby. It is really going to be okay."
Dotty and the boys excitedly hugged Amanda and Lee as they sat together on the couch. In all the excitement the baby began to move in wild rapid movements and Jamie yelled out, "Hey, the baby just kicked me."
"I would too but they won't let me, Wormbrain." Phillip said.
"Enough, fellas, we have a lot of things to do to get ready for next week. Lee, did you ever hear from your Uncle?" Amanda asked wiping her eyes and standing.
"Uh, no, he is going to call either me or you to let us know if he can get a flight out. Kind of ironic isn't it?"
"What is, Sweetheart?" Amanda asked.
"That an Air Force pilot, a Colonel at that and he can't get a flight booked for travel." Lee said as he stood. He took Amanda by the hand and said, "I will be back in the morning about ten, is that oaky?"
"Ten is perfect, unless you just want to stay here tonight?" Amanda whispered in his ear while walking toward his car.
"That sounded like a suggestive proposition, Mrs. King." Lee accused.
"Yes it was. What do you say, Stetson, why don't you just get your bag out of the trunk and stay tonight?" Running her fingers over his chest she was making it difficult to leave. He resisted the urge to give in to her, but he had some things he had to take care of and if he stayed much longer he would lose his resolve and stay.
Kissing her he pulled back and said, "I'll compromise, I leave tonight and come back in the morning and I stay all night on Christmas Eve. Deal?"
"Really, you are willing to stay overnight on Christmas Eve?" She spied him from the corner of her eye as if he had just grown a third eye.
"Yup, I sure am." He answered with a huge dimpled grin.
"Okay, you are off the hook tonight, but I had a special time planned."
"Oh, right I could see how that could work with your mother, boys, and aunt all in the house tonight. Nice try, I will see you later. Love you."
"Love you."
Amanda went back into the house not knowing that as soon as Lee made it to the park he pulled over in his car and sat crying. He didn't know what was wrong with him, he didn't cry. The last time he cried was five years old and he was being told that his parents were gone and not coming back. He picked up the phone and made a call, "Please, I have to talk."