Page 14 of Broken SEAL'S Secret Baby
“Here is your water, and a light snack,” I say, suddenly feeling a little nervous myself. This is my first good look at Miss Bailey, the adult, when she is not wearing an unflattering daycare uniform or a coat. She is tall for a woman, and slender, but subtly rounded at hip and breast. Her long, dark hair is neatly braided back from her face and only a little mussed from her long ride. She is not classically beautiful, but she has regular features and a competent, put together air that is reassuring and oddly appealing. “I’ll just go look inon Cece and do a couple of things while you read through the contract.”
I go out into the hall, then walk down to Cece’s room. Her door is shut, and I don’t really need to check on her, but suddenly I want to see her. It is as if I need to remind myself that I am a father, a . . .what is the term? A widow? No, that isn’t right. A widower. Yes, a man who was once married, but whose wife was . . . and definitely not a man interested in the live-in nanny. Talk about a cliche!
I can’t face the emptiness where my life partner had been. We’d not had a fairy tale romance, but Em had been something solid in my life, a presence I could count on. Until I couldn’t. Until she wasn’t there.
I step into the shadowy bedroom. Cece has her face turned away from the nightlight. The soft illumination shows her rounded cheek and tousled hair. A tuft of white sticking out from under the covers suggests that her cat, Mr. Fluffy, is cuddling with her. The sound of her soft breathing steadies me.I’m her dad, I think.I’m who she has. My job is to take care of her.
When I go back to the kitchen, I find Miss Bailey nibbling at a cheese and cracker sandwich and frowning at her computer.
“Is everything all right?” I ask.
“Yes,” she replies. “This will be fine. I was just wondering how to sign it. I don’t have a program to write on a pdf.”
“Not to worry. I’ll print it out on the office printer, and you can sign that. Would you like some juice to go with your cheese and crackers?”
She shakes her head. “I’ll not be able to sleep if I have any.”
I studied her for a moment. The harsh kitchen lighting reveals that she isn’t wearing make-up. Her oval face has a farm-girl tan, with a light sprinkling of freckles across hernose. Her cupid’s bow mouth has a tired droop to it, and for just a moment she looks as young and vulnerable as Cece. That fleeting expression reminds me that she is my best friend’s baby sister, given to me in trust.
Then she looks up from the laptop, and she seems almost like an avenging Athena, timeless and wise. I suddenly remember the stupid remark I’d made about her high school friend, and how bad I’d been about closing farm gates. As an undergrad, I really had been pretty much of an ass.
She is calm and no-nonsense, like every teacher I’d ever had, all rolled up into one stern young woman. “Thank you,” she says. “I’d rather not wrestle with software tonight.” Her eyes are bright and almost look as if she’d been crying, although I could not think why she should.
“I’ll just go get those papers,” I murmur. It seems safest to simply retreat.
By the time the contract is signed, and I have given her the schedule for the cook, the maid, and the dog walker, it is nearly 2:00 in the morning. We roll the luggage cart into her room. I leave her to explore her room or to fall into bed as she prefers and retire to my own room.
I settle into bed, put in my earphones, and listen to the recording of the last video chat I had with my wife.
The hospital had cropped her hair close to her head, and she was wearing one of those ugly hospital gowns. We had talked for a little while, then she said, “Charlie, listen to me. You are not to blame yourself for this. It was my decision to go to the convention, and my decision to take care of the other people in quarantine.”
“I know,” I hear my recorded voice saying. “But if I’d fought you harder on going in the first place . . .”
“I would have gone anyway,” she said. “Thankfully, we’ve said goodbye to the era when husbands owned wives. Mostly, anyway. But I am sorry that I didn’t hug and kissboth of you more while we were together. Video just isn’t the same thing.”
“No,” recorded me said, the voice hoarse with unshed tears. Real me lets the tears fall. If I had known that the day I took her to the airport would be our last together . . .!
Her recorded voice goes on, inexorably saying the words that had run around and around in my brain as I watched the funeral presentation. “Charlie, I know we’ve not had the best marriage, even though we both tried.”
“Em . . .” recorded me protested.
“No,” she interrupted, “hear me out. If you meet someone, take the chance. You are a handsome man, a good man. You deserve to be happy. Just make sure she’s someone who will love Cece.”
That got me, every time. As if I would let the classic wicked step-mother into our lives!
Oh, Emily…I yank a handful of tissues out of the box beside the bed, wipe my eyes and blow my nose. I shut the recording off, and set the sound system to play some bland music advertised as guaranteed to lull you to sleep. Ha. As if.
Emily and I are together again, and we are in the honeymoon suite we’d reserved for after our wedding. I caress her lush breasts with their high, perky nipples. She has beautiful breasts, pillowy and soft with sweet, pale pink nipples. Her skin is pale. She’d lamented her inability to tan. I ran my hands down her sweet curves, admiring her soft, slightly rounded stomach. Her skin is like silk. She shivers under my touch and reaches for me.
I let her pull me in beside her and brush my hand over her pubic curls. They are as delicately blond as the hair on her head, proving that it is all natural. I use my fingers to explore her mysteries, marveling at the warmth and growing wetness of her private places.
I slide my finger inside her, exploring this foreign territory.I wasn’t completely inexperienced, but I’d not had a lot of practice in the bedroom arts. Most of what I knew was gleaned from books and articles in gentlemen’s magazines. It was our joy to learn about sensuality together.
I feel again her intake of breath that tells me I’ve found a good spot. I explore a little more, then she catches my hand, moving my thumb to a nub of flesh that is somehow a little larger than it had been a minute before. I let my thumb run over it, eliciting a soft sound that was almost a purr. But I must have gotten off target, because she asks, “Do I need to draw you a map?”
I had nearly lost my erection at that point and say, “Maybe?”
But she touches me, doing her own exploration. It feels so good, I am quickly ready to go again. Then, inexplicably, I am inside her, caught in our first fumbling, but sweet, coupling as we find our inexperienced way of joining. I can feel my manhood sheathed inside her, I can see her wide, blue eyes opening even wider as we find our perfect rhythm. She is warm and alive in my arms, moving under me in a perfect symphony of motion.
