Chapter 24----Ooooh, got another chapter of this cross-fiction story done. Hope you enjoy and thanks for the feedback!

C.J. had finished her lunch with Matt and then had headed off to check on the progress of Ed's film. The young man had holed up inside a room in his house hunched over his editing equipment for the past couple of days. He surfaced to eat and to sleep but then quickly returned to work, eager to create the best final product that captured his vision.

"You know what they say," he said, "The perfect film is waiting to be carved out of the raw footage."

She had nodded.

"Kind of like what Michelangelo said about his sculptures like the Pieta and David," she said.

"He's a genius," Ed agreed, "If he were a filmmaker, I wonder what his movies would be like."

"They'd be beautiful," she said, "Dynamic and perfectly formed…"

Ed smiled.

"Chris is the artist in Cicely," he said, "I'm more the craftsman."

"You both contribute a lot through your creativity."

Ed fiddled with his equipment.

"Chris seems to really like you," he said.

C.J. felt an intake of breath.

"He just asked me out for coffee after his poetry reading," she said.

"Which means he likes you," Ed said, "Chris is a good guy. Everyone likes him."

C.J. sighed.

"I like him," she said, "There's something about him that just draws you in…"

Ed nodded.

"His magnetism," he said, "Dr. Fleischman said he might have special pheromones that attract women."

She considered that, deciding that it might not be impossible for a man to attract women through their sense of smell.

"But it's not like that," she explained, "I'm not interested in him that way."

Ed nodded again.

"You're in love with your baby's father."

Well yes she was, she thought but she didn't know how Matt felt about that. But he must know because she had told him that night.

"Yes I am," she said, "But I'm realizing it's not that simple for us."

"Because he hasn't said he loves you back," Ed guessed as he spliced two pieces of celluloid together.

"He's so wrapped up in this baby," she said, "and I think that's great but I wish he saw me as something more than the mother of his child."

Ed concentrated on what she said and then he brightened.

"That can be quite a dilemma," he agreed, "but in the movies whenever that happened, the female protagonist usually asked her best friend, usually a supporting character played by a well known actor in a cameo role, for help in showing the male protagonist what he was missing."

C.J. chewed on that advice for a moment.

"That might work," she said, "Maybe I'll give it a try."

Ed nodded.

"It works every single time," he said, "At least..in the movies."

Matt paced inside the confines of his room at the inn, reliving the last conversation he had with C.J. after they left Dr. Fleischman's office. He had thought the ultrasound had gone great, the baby was healthy and he and C.J. had shared one of the most important experiences in their lives. He had wanted to celebrate to their baby's health at the Brick but somehow, she had wound up caught up by Chris, thanks to his legendary method of attracting young women. He had invited her to coffee after he gave his poetry reading tonight and Matt had heard at the Elk Lodge meeting the other night exactly what kind of poetry Chris favored. The man clearly had this all planned out, after all what red blooded man would be able to resist a woman as beautiful as his best friend?

After all, she had turned him into putty easily enough the night they had created their baby. Maybe she had chalked it up to the heat of the moment which caused the sexual tension which had lain dormant between them for so long to finally explode. But something very special had happened between them that night, something he couldn't walk away from and that something was more than just a child.

Clearly Chris had been attracted to C.J. even knowing she was pregnant with another man's child, something that would be obvious soon enough. He couldn't blame C.J. for being drawn to him because he treated her as a good looking woman…which Matt admitted to himself he hadn't been doing. What had nearly happened between them in her kitchen had been a step in the right direction but she had brought that to a halt quickly enough.

He walked to what passed for a mini bar and poured himself a glass of Scotch, sipping it down slowly. In a few hours, the town's poet would be wooing his woman with poetry designed to do exactly that and the question was, what was he going to do about it?

C.J. sat at a table at the Brick with both Shelli and Maggie giving her advice. She had gone to them for some assistance in remembering how to attract a man's attention. Naturally, they had given her contradictory advice.

"Play hard to get," Maggie advised, "Don't make it too easy for him. After all he's put you through he needs to work for it."

C.J. thought that sounded a bit harsh.

"But…"

Shelli shook her head.

"Put on something that really shows off your body so that he can't miss it," she said, "Something with a low neckline and above the knees."

C.J. looked down at her body.

"I'm starting to get thick…"

Shelli shrugged.

"Pregnancy gives a woman some serious knockers…you might as well put them to good use."

Knockers?

C.J. swallowed carefully, feeling totally confused. So she had to play hard to get but with an outfit her body poured out of, at the same time?

Maggie shook her head.

"If he's looking at your chest," she said, "He's not paying attention to your…mind and you've got to lay the law down to him in the first 30 seconds…"

"Okay…"

Shelli disagreed.

"You've got to make him feel like a man," she said, "Like he's in control."

Maggie scowled.

"That's the problem with men," she said, "They always think they're in control because they wear their plumbing outside the house."

C.J. thought, did she just hear the woman right?

"That might be Maggie," Shelli said, "but inside they're as scared of women as they are attracted to them. But I just know that when I wear my cheerleader outfit, Hollings can't control himself."

Maggie rolled.

"Maybe you can loan her your pom poms."

C.J. spoke up.

"I just want him to see me as something besides an obligation."

Shelli looked confused.

"I don't see that when he looks at you at all," she said.

Maggie had to agree with that.

"I don't either," she said, "He's a bit old school for me but I think he's really into you."

C.J. ran her hand through her hair.

"All he talks about is wanting to do the right thing and get married," she said, "to give our baby his name."

"Would marrying him be so bad," Shelli asked.

Actually C.J. didn't think it would be bad at all. But she wanted to marry a man who loved her fiercely enough to want to show the world.

"We posed as a married couple," she said, "and I don't think I imagined what he felt about that. But a baby's really complicated things."

Shelli nodded.

"I can see that happening," she said, "but I think he's an honorable dude just trying to do the right thing."

C.J. sighed.

"He's exactly that," she said, "but that makes me think he looks at me as some fallen woman who needs him to do that...to rescue her from her own mistakes."

Maggie and Shelli looked at each other and Shelli shrugged.

"I don't know, that sounds kind of romantic," she said, "for a man to care to do that much for a woman."

C.J. began pacing.

"I don't need to be rescued," she said, "I didn't do anything wrong. I'm having a baby that I want very much and Houston wants to be part of its life too."

"But you want him to be part of your life because he loves you," Maggie said.

C.J. nodded, happy that Maggie understood what she wanted.

"I've heard it works for some couples," Maggie continued, "but love's such a crapshoot and it always puts the woman in a compromised position."

Okay, so maybe Maggie didn't get everything but C.J. really couldn't blame the woman. Maybe if she had six boyfriends that she had loved die on her, she would wear the same cynicism.

Shelli shook her head.

"I think we're going about this all wrong," she said, "What she needs is a pushup bra, a hot dress and some high heeled shoes."

Maggie scoffed.

"That's too obvious," she said, "and it will make her seem desperate. I told her playing hard to get is the way to go. That's how my mother landed my father."

Shelli just looked at her.

"Then on the other hand, that didn't work out well," Maggie conceded.

"I don't want to play any games with him,' C.J. insisted.

Maggie raised a brow.

"That's not why you accepted a date with Chris?"

C.J. felt her face grow warmer.

"It's just to go out for coffee after his poetry reading," she said, "Nothing more."

"If you say so," Maggie finished, "though you could do much worse than him. He's pretty hot in a bohemian kind of way."

Shelli nodded approvingly.

"It might not be such a bad thing to let Matt know he's got some competition," she said.

C.J. protested.

"Chris isn't competition," she said, "I would never do that to Houston. I just need a few hours to spend in a man's company and feel like a woman again."

"So you are going to bed with Chris…"

C.J. looked at Maggie in shock.

"No…of course not," she said, "I don't think that's what he wants anyway."

Maggie didn't seem so sure.

"Like I said, you could do worse," she said, "You could have accepted a date with Dr. Fleischman."

"Maggie, I think she's right about Chris," Shelli said, "He just wants to talk about his poetry."

Her friend shook her head.

"Shelli, we both know what kind of poetry Chris writes," she said, "It makes me melt just thinking about it."

C.J. looked at the two of them, wondering what she was going to do.

Matt walked into Ruth Ann's store to check on whether or not Murray had faxed him in the last several hours. He hoped not, because he was beginning to burn out on his own company and its incessant demands on his attention. When he had given up the day to day operations of his multi-million dollar business empire, he had felt a weight lift off of his shoulders.

Murray still tried to get him to play a larger role in his empire even though he was more than capable and willing to take good care of it for Matt. He had poured his energies into his investigative firm in the past several years with C.J. at his side.

He sighed wondering how to proceed next with her. For the first time in his life, he didn't know how to engage her. He had told her how much he wanted to build a future with her and their baby but that hadn't been enough for her. Otherwise why would she had accepted a date with Chris, a man who after all wrote poetry about…sex. He had thumbed through a book that had included some of his latest works and to be honest, it wasn't just about the mechanics of male and female interactions but about the feelings of those involved as well. Maybe that's why his poetry collections had done well in sales far away from Cicely.

Ruth Ann walked up to where he was checking for faxes.

"I heard about the ultrasound," she said, "It's great news to hear that the pregnancy's proceeding well."

Matt wondered at this point who in Cicely didn't know about their doctor's appointment this morning. Even for a small, close-knit town, news sure spread quickly.

"We're both very happy about it."

Ruth Ann tilted her head.

"I heard she's going out for coffee with Chris after the poetry reading."

He nodded.

"I heard that too."

Ruth Ann shrugged.

"I wouldn't worry too much about him," she said.

Curiosity got the better of Matt quickly.

"Why not," he asked, casually.

"Because the woman loves you, not him," Ruth Ann said, "She's just looking for something."

"What?"

The older woman looked at him pointedly.

"You know what I'm talking about," she said, "because if you were really all that dense, you wouldn't be about to become a father."

He nodded slowly.

"I think I do know," he said, "She wants me to tell her that I love her."

"For starters," Ruth Ann said, "But she wants to know that you still want her."

"I do," he protested, "I told her that."

Ruth Ann felt the young man trying her patience.

"That's not the kind of 'want' I'm talking about," she said, "and I think you know that already too."

Matt nodded again.

"I guess I do," he said, "and I haven't been very good at showing her how I feel let alone telling her."

Ruth Ann sighed.

"She needs to know how you feel about her as a woman," she said, "rather than just as the woman who's pregnant."

Matt knew that the older woman was right. He needed to change his tactics if he were ever going to win her back. He knew that there was no other option for him and that he could succeed. After all, he had once been a businessman who excelled in overseeing mergers.

Then he stopped himself, for even looking at C.J. in that way. Maybe that had been his problem all along.