Chapter 40

As Woody said that, Jordan of course immediately felt guilty for all the times recently she hadn't told him. But Woody was still speaking, "We will catch him Jordan. I swear that to you! He will face charges for what he has done to you as well as for escaping prison."

"I hope so," she stated. "I just wonder what we will end up telling the baby about him."

"That's something we won't have to worry about for quite some time because if we tell him at all it will have to wait until he's old enough to understand it all."

"When you say 'if', do you mean that we might not tell him at all?"

"I don't know. I guess it might all depend on what ends up happening to Palmer. But if we choose to raise him as if I were his father, we could avoid the whole mess."

"I don't have a problem at all with him thinking of you as his father and believe me I would much rather never have to ever tell him about the awful man who did father him! But Woody, I can tell you from very personal experience, the truth always ends up coming out at some point, usually when it hurts the most. If we choose, and control how he is told, it would hurt a lot less than him finding out on his own someday. Every TV show out there has had that episode where the kid needs a transfusion or transplant and the truth comes out then in an already highly emotional situation!"

"Yes, but in the shows it's not only the child that finds out then, but the guy who thought he was the biological father. I know that truth going in, so we already have fifty percent of that problem dealt with," he replied.

"True," she agreed. "But I still think we should tell him at some point, okay?"

"Okay, as long as we do it together and we make sure he is old enough to understand. Now how about if we pick out a name for him?"

They bickered back and forth for a while as they continued to munch on the food Woody had made. After much fuss and bother they decided on Riley for the first name. But Jordan was leaning towards Nathan for his middle name, while Woody kept saying it should be Jordan. They talked about flipping a coin to choose, but instead decided to ask family and friends to vote and go with the majority.

Later that evening as they sat and watched the fireworks only one of them was enjoying the show. Jordan, who rarely let anything phase her, jumped as if a gun were going off every time one of the reports of the fire works went off.

It took a few of these reactions for Woody to notice, but when he did, he slid over next to her and put his arm around her shoulders. He didn't say a word, but the comfort he offered was just what she needed. Leaning into him she put her head on his shoulder and was able to watch the rest of the show with appreciation rather than apprehension.

The next couple of days Jordan was clearly in the 'nesting' phase of her pregnancy. She was cleaning the apartment from top to bottom. Nothing it seemed would miss her attention. Woody tried not to laugh when he saw her standing next to the living room lamps dusting the light bulbs!

Jordan glared at him when he couldn't hold back a chuckle and said, "I want everything to look nice when your mother gets here!"

He tried to redeem himself by reminding her, "The reason she is coming is to help out so you don't have to do everything. I don't think she expects you to work yourself to exhaustion getting ready for her visit."

"Oh sure! Then she gets here and thinks that you've married a slob! I already have four strikes against me for being pregnant when we got married, for getting you to marry me without your family here, for not having our wedding in a church, and for keeping all of that from her for all this time!"

To be continued…