Page 47 of Forever His This Christmas

“Do what? Tell everyone about Abby and what happened?” he asked as she sat down on the bed beside him, facing him and she nodded. “Okay, then what was it that reminded you of that?”

“A test I took two weeks ago after being two days late. A pregnancy test that came up positive…”

“Pregnancy…you’re pregnant?” Corey asked leaning towards her as shock hit him. “You’re pregnant with our baby?”

“Yeah, and I was worried about how I felt about it…about all that it meant until I saw this,” she said taking out the ultrasound photo and showing him it. “I saw our baby’s heartbeat on that ultrasound, and I knew without a doubt that I would do anything for this baby. I knew I’d do anything to make him or her happy and the only way to do that was to be happy myself.”

“And to do that you needed me?” he asked, and she nodded. “You have no idea how much I have wanted you back, wanted you as my wife, wanted you to have my baby…and now it’s all coming true. I’m almost afraid I’ll wake up and this will all be a dream.”

“It’s no dream Corey. Nothing about the situation is a dream. We can make it our dream though if we can push past all of this together. Abby’s so excited about the baby and I am too. I was terrified to tell everyone, but I couldn’t keep this baby from you, because it’d hurt me too much to not have you with me. I didn’t want you to stay with me just because of it after you learned everything.”

“I will never leave you. I don’t care if you used to throw puppies off bridges—I love the person you are, baby. I know how much you’ve struggled trying to find who that is, what makes you happy. I knew something had hurt you even more than this town, but you refused to talk about it, and I didn’t want to pushyou away so I let it go and tried to show you that together we can be whatever we want.”

“After I got back at the beginning of my junior year, I missed Abby so much. I thought I was going to die not having her with me. I hated him and everyone else in this town for being who they were and forcing me to keep her quiet. I didn’t care anymore—it didn’t matter to me what any of them thought or did. I just wanted my baby girl and without her…”

“You went a little crazy?”

“Yeah—like having sex under the bleachers at a football game crazy.”

“I don’t get how you could…”

“Get to that place?” she said when he stopped.

“Yeah, after what happened…I would have thought someone…”

“Would refuse to have anything to do with sex? I did somewhat after I left here but…I was trying to make a point to him.”

“What?”

“That he didn’t ruin my life, that I had come out on top. The more I was caught making out at school, the more gossip there was about me floating around, the more guys who claimed that I’d slept with them…the madder he got. He told me once that no one would ever want me again—that no one would ever give me what he had.”

“God, I hope not,” Corey stated cupping her face and giving her a soft kiss.

“Yeah, I learned that not all sex was horrible—not as long as I had a say in it and the other person was someone I wanted to be with. So, I slept with some of the guys I dated. I was a cheerleader, head cheerleader my senior year, the party girl, it would have been odd if I hadn’t, and I didn’t want to get into why I wouldn’t. Part of me hoped that being so outrageouswould also get my parents to send me away, because perception meant so much to them, which had me going overboard a bit at first as well, which caused a lot of the gossip. I know what people thought about me, but I didn’t care, if they were focusing on what I was doing wrong, they weren’t focusing on what I was doing when I wasn’t in public—they were assuming the worst about me.”

“Your friends never asked you about your first time? Your first boyfriend wasn’t surprised to find you weren’t a virgin?”

“I lied and said I’d gotten close to someone at cheer camp that summer. I came back from ‘camp’, and I was a whole new Lisa compared to the previous year. I wore tiny little tops that kept eyes on my body rather than my face. I strutted around instead of walking. I threw the back-to-school blowout, and everyone loved it. They stopped talking about how I did in school and started talking about what I did out of school.”

“I can’t imagine how much it took to keep quiet all these years. All the times your brothers got onto you for your attitude, or your mother kept telling you that you needed to settle down…become responsible for your actions…”

“You can’t begin to understand what patience and restraint is until you have a baby. I wasn’t perfect with Abby. There were nights when she’d be crying, and I’d nearly lose it. I’d think what the hell am I doing? Why am I bothering? No one would know if I didn’t, but then there would be one second that she’d stop, that I’d see her tiny little face, her little fingers would curl around mine and my heart told me everything I needed to know.”

“And now we get to experience all of that together…Lisa, baby, I love you,” Corey stated pulling her back down onto the bed as he kissed her. “I can’t imagine not having you or this miracle.”

“Neither can I, which is why we’re here,” she told him as she slid over his lap letting the robe slip down her shoulders, stillconcealing her chest from him. “But you can’t treat me like I’m made of glass. I don’t want you to be different with me just because you know.”

“Baby, if that warning label were any bigger it’d cover all of this,” he teased cupping both of her cheeks as he lifted her slightly.

“Is that so?” she asked grinning when he lightly smacked one side of her butt, distracting her while he guided himself into her aching body.

“Absolutely, and it’s all mine, every bit of this sexy and sassy body is mine,” he stated showing her just how much he claimed it and her. Not that she minded at all.

Chapter 16

Lisa moved down the steps quietly, pulling her heaviest sweater on over her tank top, as she headed to the side door adding her coat over the sweater. She turned the knob, keeping it held open as she shut the door behind her and slowly released it until the latch caught. She didn’t want anyone waking up and asking her what she was doing. She was positive this was insane to do but she couldn’t sit back and wait for something to happen, she had to stop it from happening and this was the only way to do that.

The SUV started soundlessly, and she backed it out of the spot, keeping the lights off as she moved down the driveway, waiting until she turned onto the main road to flip them on. The drive was etched in her memory as she fought against the need to turn around and go back to the house, back to Abby and Corey and forget about all of this, but she’d come this far, she could do this for them.

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