June 2002
"Are you disappointed?" Laura asked, worrying a brow with a pair of fingers.
"Disappointed?!" Remington asked, flabbergasted. "I believe I once told you I would never regret how our children came to us."
"Then, what is going on with you? I'll be the first to admit, I wasn't exactly jumping up and down when Dr. Adams told me I'm pregnant. I thought I was beginning menopause, to be honest. Shocked, would be an understatement. I'm forty-six, you're fifty—"
"Forty-nine," he corrected.
"You'll be fifty by the time the baby gets here."
"Mmmm – thank you for not leaving that unspoken."
"Let's face it, Mr. Steele, we're getting old."
"Er. Older. Not old." She paused to roll her eyes.
"Dr. Adams told me today-"
"Can't believe that old bird is still working at his age."
"He's retiring at the end of the year."
"He must be in his seventies—"
"Eighties," she corrected. He did a double take, then gave a nervous tug of his ear.
"You're not concerned he might… well… drop the babe or—"
"Don't be ridiculous. He reminds me of you, in a way, not growing old but more refined-" His lips twitched upwards as they did when she'd stroked his vanity.
"More refined, eh?" He shifted from foot-to-foot unable to contain his pleasure at her words. She narrowed her eyes, refusing to answer.
"The point, Mr. Steele, is Dr. Adams isn't a doddering old man, but a man in excellent physical condition with a mind that's still as sharp as a tack. There is no doctor I trust more."
"Have you grilled him on the most current information about post-partum and placental percreta?"
"Grilled? No, I didn't grill him," letting him know how absurd the thought was. "We talked about the most recent research into post-partum and placental acreta often and have since Holt was an infant."
"You've never told me that."
"Do you tell me what articles you discuss with your urologist?" she challenged. He frowned.
"Laura, my conversations with my urologist consist of one word answers to questions - when we are speaking at all and I'm not trying to pretend I am not mortified by his hands being on me in places where only your's should ever journey." She laughed aloud and smiled at him.
"Is that what's been bothering you? Dr. Adams?" He looked at her as if she'd gone mad.
"I hadn't thought about him at all until you brought him up."
"Then, what is it?" He drew a hand through his hair.
"What do you think, Laura? I'm bloody well scared half out of my mind. You're not in your thirties any longer—"
"No, I'm not," she agreed.
"You'll be sixty-four by the time this one is eighteen…"
"And you'll be sixty-eight," she shot back smoothly.
"I mean you'll have gray hair-"
"Move on, Mr. Steele," she advised.
"And me? I'll be using a cane to creakily make it to my seat by the time the child graduates and—" Laura's llps pinched.
"Don't you think you're being overly dramatic, even for you?" She quickly decided how to play this and decided on the most distracting. Hair up in a ponytail, she turned to face him, raking her eyes slowly down his body, from shoulder to groin, with open desire on her face. Seeing this, his back straightened. "After all, I have every intention of still taking advantage of you regularly, eighteen years from now." Ugh, she silently lamented. She might have gone too far given the wide smile on his face, the positively chuffed look on it, and puffed out chest. "What else, Remington?"
"You nearly died, Laura, right here in this very room," he waved his arm around an empty bathroom in unseen emphasis, "And on the heels of that, you damn well nearly ended our marriage!" In the closet, she closed her eyes and nodded her head. She'd thought so. The months after Holt's birth had been a difficult time, first her hemorrhaging on the bathroom floor putting her life into peril and then the serious bout of post-partum depression she'd battled.
"We didn't know when I was pregnant with Holt that I was at risk of either placenta percreta or post-partum," she pointed out. "This time, we do and Dr. Adams and I have already discussed how we prepare for it, including starting me on an antidepressant as soon as the baby is born."
"I dunno, I dunno," he muttered on his way out of the bathroom. "Nine months of worrying and wondering. I think I may have a heart attack, Laura." She patted him on the upper arm as she emerged from the closet.
"You'll be fine, Mr. Steele. And it's only five-and-a-half months." His nose twitched with irritation. Only, she says, he groused to himself. A hundred-and-seventy some odd days to imagine the worst. That heart attack might not be such a joke after all.
"Tell me, why is it necessary for us to spend overnight on the boat in order to tell the children? Assuring they can't make a run for it?" he laughed.
"No," she answered easily, as she dropped her robe and tugged on panties and bra. "Livvie will claim we've once again ruined her life and Holt will go with the flow. It's Sophie I worry about."
Three months prior, Sophie's half-brother had appeared in her life and managed to convince the young girl their father had not only never wanted her but that Steele's had only adopted her out of guilt and pity. The arrival of Julian Castoro had also brought with him old nightmares long ago forgotten and now remembered, reviving old fears and insecurities. In three weeks, they were due to depart on their annual pilgrimage to Europe and it was their hopes extended time spent at the castle, with Thomas and Catherine and her beloved Yaya and Populi would go a long way to restoring how she'd felt only months earlier: wrapped in a cocoon of love and security.
"Mmmm," he concurred with a hum, dressing nearby her. "She is still… fragile…"
"Fragile," Laura pondered aloud. "I suppose that's as good a description as any."
"Given that, do you think it's wise to tell them this soon?"
"I'm three months pregnant, going on four," she reminded. "I was already showing with Holt by four months. That's not how we want them to find out."
"You showed late with Olivia," he noted.
"She was also my first child." He lifted his brows at her.
"And a girl." She looked at him in the mirror while changing her earrings from hoops to studs.
"Are you trying to tell me something, Remington?" Looping an arm around her waist he slipped a hand between t-shirt and shorts, laying it over where their child grew.
"Only that we won't be needing a lad's name," he predicted. She slipped away from him without a word. "No argument to be had, no wager to make?"
"You were right the first two times," she shrugged, sitting down to put on her deck shoes. "We'll still need to choose a boy's name, just in case your uncanny ability to name our child's gender fails."
"If you wish, although it will prove a fruitless endeavor." He faced her and made a pained face. "It seems Holt and I are destined to be outnumbered by the Steele women two-to-one. We can only hope the next generation helps even things up." She grinned at him. She loved it when he spoke so casually about them in the distant future. Rising, she took several steps until she was standing toe-to-toe with him.
"Are you alright?" she asked, allowing her concern for him to show. She saw the stark fear that flashed in his eyes in the moment before he pulled her into his tight embrace, sighing heavily before he spoke.
"Just don't leave me, Laura," he murmured the quiet plea. She knew he didn't mean just in body, but heart as well.
"I won't," she promised. "How could I?" she asked lightly, to lift his mood. "Within a month you'd be teaching the children how to pick locks, nick wallets and open safes." He was chuckling when she pressed a kiss to his cheek. "I'll see you downstairs."
"Oh, Laura," he called as she stepped from the room. She turned her head to look over her shoulder at him. "Livvie already has shown to have inherited my 'magic fingers'. I'd wager it would take me less than a week to have her nearly as good as I."
"And I wager you'll be sleeping on the couch if you do…." she shot back, with a smirk. Ponytail wagging, she disappeared into the hall.
A/N: I thought I'd share with you a funny story.
My son does not understand my love for this show. It would be fair to say he, personally, loathes it. To each their own. But, I have a slightly skewed sense of humor when someone keeps complaining about something I enjoy.
We have six family pets: 2 Chesapeake Bay Retrievers Mixes, 2 Basset Hound Mixes and a lionhead rabbit and a lop. The retrievers arrived first, and I named the boys Zeth and Xenos. Next came our rabbits: Mr. Steele and Murphy. Then our last two arrived 2 months ago: Livvie and Holt.
One day I may tell him what all the animals around him are named for. For now, I'll just keep laughing each time he calls one of them.
~~RSteele82