Chapter 11--Whoo hoo, another update done! I hope you enjoy it, thanks for reading (and your patience, lol) and your feedback!

C.J. walked into the Brick but not without saying a silent prayer to herself. She almost turned around and went back to the cabin before she decided to just go inside and have dinner with him. Inside, Matt had sat at a booth and sat, waiting for her to arrive. Then he happened to look across the room and saw that she had entered the bar, dressed head to toe in wool. She removed her scarf and her coat and placed them on a hook on the nearby wall. Hollings looked up at her from the bar.

"He just got in before you did and he's waiting," he said, as he rinsed some shot glasses in the sink.

She nodded and walked over to where he sat, dressed in jeans and a cambray shirt worn over a turtleneck. He smiled up at her.

"You look…nice."

She smiled.

"Thanks," she said, "So do you."

She sat down in the booth and looked across at him. He took in the view, thinking he had never seen someone so beautiful.

"So you play Scrabble now," he said, nodding, "Sounds tame."

"It's great fun actually," she said, "We're in the middle of a tournament and I think Maggie's going to win it."

"What's the prize?"

"I'm not sure," she said, thinking, "I think it's just an excuse for the women town folk to get together and talk about the men."

Matt raised a brow.

"I see," he said, "Similar to when the men go deer hunting or ice fishing?"

She nodded.

"They'll invite you on one of their trips soon."

"So how are you doing," he asked, as the waiter handed them their menus.

"I'm doing great," she said, then spoke to the waiter, "I'll take a ginger ale please."

"I'll have a beer," Matt said, "You look really great."

"So do you," she said, "Like I said, you look a lot better alive than dead."

He looked down at his drink for a while, after the waiter delivered them.

"I'm not here to hammer you with what you did Houston," she said, "But it did impact a lot of people that you left behind."

"I had a long talk with my uncle about that and he did chew me out."

She smiled a little bit at that.

"If I had known, I'd have never left that hotel room," he said, "and you."

She sipped her ginger ale and he watched her.

"You sure you didn't want a beer?"

She smiled again.

"I'm fine," she said, "I have to get up early tomorrow."

"You have a doctor's appointment," Matt said, "I ran into that Joel Fleischman guy and he told me. Listen, are you sure he's really good? He seems nervous all the time."

"No, he's really a great…doctor," she said.

He narrowed his eyes.

"What's going here anyway," he said, "Are you sick?"

She shook her head.

"No, I'm perfectly fine."

"Then why…"

Shelli buzzed by with a tray of food and they both looked at her puzzled.

"We didn't even order yet," Matt said.

Shelli shrugged as she skillfully maneuvered the plates onto their table.

"Oh Adam's been busy in the kitchen," she said, "I'm not sure exactly what it is but it's on the house."

Both Matt and C.J. looked at each other and then smiled back at Shelli.

"Thanks," they said, as she nodded and then left to return to the television set next to the bar.

"That's really nice of them," Matt said.

"They're very nice people," C.J. said, "They've made things much easier for me since I arrived."

He started eating.

"This is delicious," he said, "Whatever it is."

C.J. dug into her food and he sat watching her.

"You're very hungry these days," he said, "not that I'm complaining."

She had lost some weight and both knew it but she knew she had a reason to eat even if he didn't. He looked at her carefully for a few moments, as she ate.

"C.J…"

She looked up at him.

"What?"

He tried to find the right words. She wondered what was making him struggle with them but didn't want to make it easier for him. No, he had to figure out how to handle the situation between them on his own.

"About that night…"

She looked at him wary.

"The night that we slept together?"

"The most wonderful night of my life, actually."

She sighed.

"Houston…we both said and did things that night that maybe were due to the stress we were under …and the assignment."

"Do you really believe that?"

She stopped to think about it. Maybe she had believed at the time that their coming together had been a accumulation of feelings that had always existed between them, that had built up over the years that they had suppressed any physical attraction they had between each other.

"I don't know," she said, "But when you died or left me, I was all by myself with all these feelings and regrets that I didn't know what to do with them. I just knew I had to go on. I had reasons to not just stop living like I wanted to so much those first days."

He heard the pain clearly in her voice in a way he hadn't because she had finally allowed him to see that part of her.

"My uncle told me what you were going through."

Clearly not all of it. But probably that she had been stricken by grief so overwhelming in nature that it almost immobilized her. And if it hadn't been for the life that they had both created that night, she didn't know if she would have ever freed herself from that enough to start anew. But now, her feelings were so mixed up because his return had turned her world back upside down and a large part of her that she kept hidden, still believed that if he could disappear once without warning, it could happen again.

"I'm not blaming you for anything that happen because as I recall, I made the first move," she said, playing with the fringes on her scarf.

He smiled.

"Whatever that happened between us has been going on so long, it's impossible to determine who started it," he said, "Besides I didn't say no to your invitation."

"No you didn't," she said, "and I thought for a moment that you would and I would just pretend that nothing had happened, that things were normal."

"Is that what you're doing now," he asked.

She almost reacted to that in denial but she stopped herself, when she saw the expression in his eyes. Taking a deep breath and exhaling, she considered his words.

"We can't go back," she said, "At least I can't…at least not right now."

He nodded.

"I understand that now," he said, "But that doesn't mean that we can't enjoy a nice dinner that's on the house."

She smiled broadly at that.

"True," she said, "and the food's great as is the company."

He reached over to take her hand in his own and she didn't stop him. Just as he hadn't stopped her that night.

An hour or so and a few delicious courses later, C.J. went to the Scrabble game and found that there was even more food spread out on a table while the women gathered around the table. Shelli had saved her a spot and she sat down, receiving her letters.

"So is this just for legal words or illegal ones," asked Barbara Semanski, who dropped in on Cicely to give her on and off boyfriend Maurice a hard time every once in a while.

Shelli shrugged.

"Whatever Ruth Ann says," she said, "She keeps a record of all the rules of play."

Everyone looked at the storekeeper who thought about it and then nodded so then they started the latest round of the tournament.

"I flew to Anchorage today and picked up some beauty products," Maggie volunteered as she fiddled with the letters on her rack, "So Shelli if you want to pick them up for the next spa night, they're at Ruth Ann's. Just make sure she doesn't try to sell them first."

"I wouldn't do that," Ruth Ann insisted, "Spa night is one of the highlight's of my month. I have it marked right on my calendar."

"That's cool then," Shelli nodded, "I'll set it up with Hollings next week that the Brick will be a girls' only zone on one night."

"Wait a minute," Maggie said, "Isn't Chris having a poetry reading with his brother Bernard?"

The discussion became animated at that news. Shelli closed her eyes and sighed.

"His writing is just so hot," she said, "I'll have to schedule spa night around that."

Everyone else nodded in agreement. C.J. looked at all of them and smiled.

"I wanted to thank you for the clothes," she said, "I didn't have anything."

They looked at each other and finally Marilyn spoke up.

"It was nothing," she said, "You need new clothes."

Shelli patted her own pregnant belly.

"They won't last you long," she said, "It won't be long before you start blowing up like a balloon."

"Like I told you it was the least we could do," Maggie said, "I am all for relationships with the opposite gender but the sisterhood needs to be there when they go kaputz."

"or the men die," Shelli said, "in a series of strange accidents."

Eve piped up from her corner.

"Or the man of the house, the father of my child takes off on another whirlwind culinary conference tour without even leaving me enough gas in the car to see the endocrinologist in Vancouver."

"I'm so lucky to have friends like you," C.J. said, "I felt so alone before I came here."

"But he's back," Shelli said, "Your baby's father."

C.J. shrugged.

"I know but I haven't told him," she said, "I don't know how."

"If you wait long enough, he's going to figure it out on his own," Ruth observed, "since he's made it clear he's not going anywhere."

Shelli nodded.

"He's practically set up shop at the Brick and at Ruth Ann's store," she said.

"He's waiting for me to say I'll go back to L.A. with him and I can't do that," C.J. said, "Not right now."

"I think he just wants to know that you're into him," Shelli said, "Because he sure seems to be into you."

C.J. had figured out that part but didn't know if that would be enough for her or their baby.

"It's just that I don't know at this point how he feels about what is between us," she said, "I want to know that he'll be there for us and not leave again."

"Had he ever left before," Eve asked, putting on her pair of glasses and pulling out a notepad and pen.

"Well no," C.J. said, "Well except when he was a fugitive being framed for murder but he couldn't help that. Besides I got shot when we were inside this building that got burned down."

Shelli shook her head.

"You do leave an exciting life," she said, "This is better than those telenovelas."

"It's part of our work with the agency," C.J. said, "and I've loved most of it but I've got another life that's depending on me to make the best decisions for both of us."

"And that doesn't involve him," Shelli said, "I mean I leave Hollings out of the simple things but the major stuff…no way, he's my guy even if we're not married or anything."

"I would never leave him out of his child's life," C.J. said, "or any decisions but as for my life…"

"You want to be sure he's going to be there for you and not flake out," Maggie said, nodding, "That sounds smart to me. You can't give the guy in the relationship too much control."

C.J. rubbed her forehead.

"Houston's not like that," she said, "He's always respected my ability to make decisions. Business or otherwise."

Ruth Ann put her letters down on the board, spelling out a huge scoring word.

"Wow Ruth Ann," Shelli said, "That's going to get you some major points."

"That's because I'm focusing on the game not someone else's personal life," Ruth Ann said, reaching for a cookie.

"Six sessions of psychoanalysis might help you with your issues," Eve said, nodding, "preferably on a couch."

"It's a couch that got me in this situation," Shelli said, sighing as she placed her hand on her abdomen, "Well Hollings, me and a couch."

C.J. rubbed her eyes.

"I'm going to tell him," she said, "I just have to find the right time and the right words."

"'You're going to be a father' usually works quite well," Ruth Ann said, "It's a place to start."

Maggie snorted.

"Those words would have sent any of my dead boyfriends off running so fast…"

C.J. frowned.

"Oh he's not like that," she said, "In fact, I think he'll probably insist on doing the proper thing and getting married."

"That can work," Shelli said, "if you find the right wedding planner."

"I don't want to get married," C.J. said, "At least not because I got too caught up in the moment to even protect myself."

Maggie rolled her eyes.

"It takes two to tango and both parties have that responsibility if something happens not just the woman."

Shelli snorted.

"It's the woman who has to carry the rug rat for nine months," she said, "Varicose veins, back aches and my bladder…excuse me I'll be right back."

Shelli waddled off.

"I guess that's what you have to look forward to," Maggie said, "I'm sure glad it's not me…no offense."

C.J. fidgeted with her letters.

"Actually once I got over the shock, I was very happy," she said, "I still am. I want this baby. I just want to be able to figure out how it all fits together."

Ruth Ann chuckled.

"In a very messy way," she said, "That's how relationships usually are and it doesn't change when the children come along."

Matt sat in the Brick, having pulled some files out of his satchel and begun working on them. If he finished up these invoices, he would be able to fax them to Murray's from Ruth Ann's store when it opened in the morning. His eyes grew tired after a while and he closed the one he had been reviewing and ordered another beer.

He thought his dinner with C.J. had gone very well. She had been wary of him still, but he could feel the control she had over her feelings melting slowly. And that left him feeling hopeful, but still he knew she was holding back from him in some way, in some very important way. Looking up, he saw Joel and Ed enter the bar.

"Dr. Fleischman, you should really see all of Martin's movies to appreciate them," Ed said, "Including his earlier works."

Joel frowned.

"Martin's from the old neighborhood near where mine," he said, "I used to sneak off to the matinee during Bar Mitzvah classes to check out his movies."

"Wow Dr. Fleischman," Ed said, nodding approvingly, "I didn't know that."

"Ed, there's very little about me that you do know."

The budding filmmaker couldn't argue with that and after they got their drinks from Hollings, they walked over to where Matt sat with his files.

"What are you still doing here," Joel said, "I heard you had dinner with C.J. How did it go?"

Matt raised his brows at the doctor.

"I'm only interested of course in a clinical sense as her attending physician."

"Who can't tell me why she needs a doctor in the first place," Matt finished.

"Look you know I can't violate the oath that I took," Joel said, "even if I wanted to tell you, I can't. Besides it's up to her to choose who she shares that type of personal information with."

Matt's eyes narrowed.

"What type of personal information?"

Joel and Ed looked at each other and then Joel smiled, shaking his head.

"Oh no that's not going to work," he said, "Nothing's going to make me…"

"Violate the Hippocratic oath," Matt said, "I understand that."

"You do? Really?"

Matt nodded.

"Whatever is going on, she'll tell me when the time is right," he said.

"Just remember that," Joel said, "What are you still doing here?"

Matt looked down at his stack of files.

"Finishing this stack of work so I can catch up," he said, "I was gone for a couple of months and things piled up in my absence."

"We're going to a planning meeting for the party next week," Ed said, "It's the men's turn to host it this time."

"Party?"

Ed nodded.

"To celebrate the middle of winter," he said, "It should be fun."

Joel sighed.

"It's something to do to pass the time," he said, "Reduce the visits to my office from cabin fever."

Matt thought about it and then nodded.

"Okay."

He put his files away and the three men walked to the coat racks. Hollings looked up from the bar.

"I'll see you at the Elks' lodge in a few after I clean up here," he said.

Matt, Ed and Joel put on their coats and walked out into the frigid air.