An Act of Persuasion(49)

CHAPTER ELEVEN



“DO YOU WANT TO HEAR the heartbeat?” the doctor asked Ben.

“Yes, please.”

Ben watched Anna lean back again and tried not to think about what he really wanted to do between her legs. It was almost unseemly given their current surroundings. He’d been worried since their date over the weekend that he was somehow losing his connection to her. After they had woken from their rest he’d sensed a change in her. A certain distance. Like every time she looked at him now she was reassessing her feelings for him. Examining them in some new light.

Maybe entirely rethinking her claim that she loved him.

She was probably right to question her emotions. He couldn’t recall one moment during their long working relationship when he’d done anything to merit her love. He was a fair boss. Yes, they were friendly with one another. Probably spent more time together than other employers did with their employees outside of work. He could honestly say the bounds of their relationship had transcended beyond that of merely professional. Certainly even more so when he’d gotten sick. He’d depended on her then. Leaned on her in a way he never had with another person before.

But love? Had he been love-worthy? He never remembered her birthday, she always remembered his. His Christmas gifts to her were typically impersonal gift cards, while hers were always thoughtful. She’d found an out-of-print copy of a book that detailed spying strategies during the American Revolutionary War including those of Nathan Hale. The guy who regretted only having one life. Ben had loved that book.

She gave him six weeks of Italian cooking lessons once, because he’d made an offhand comment about wanting to learn how to make pasta. He had, in fact, learned how to make excellent pasta and he could remember having her over to dinner to enjoy his cooking, never once thinking that she thought those invitations might have meant something more.

Every year she found the thing he wanted most without knowing it.

Every year he gave her money to places like Ann Taylor Loft and Barnes & Noble.

It was a crazy idea that she loved him. But when she’d confessed why she’d taken his dismissal of what had happened between them so hard, he grabbed on to it with both hands. If she loved him, she wouldn’t leave him again. If she loved him, she would let him be with this miracle child.

If she loved him, she would marry him.

Yet when that didn’t happen instantly he had to resort to proving his worthiness and so far he found himself coming up short. Chinese food and some books on pregnancy seemed like a pale version of romantic gifts.

There was the other thing he’d bought for her when he feared he might die. He’d wanted to make sure she had security if he wasn’t around to provide it for her. But when she left him and he didn’t die, it seemed like a thing she might not want to have from him. Maybe too clumsy of a gesture. Maybe too much. He couldn’t say because he didn’t know women that well. Didn’t know Anna well enough.

But now he was here. The doctor was putting something on her stomach and then turning up the dial on a monitor. The whir and bump of something moving at a high speed caught his attention.

“That’s it?” he asked, feeling a creeping sense of awe fill his body. It was like seeing the Egyptian Pyramids for the first time, only so much more intense.

Bump, bump.

“That’s it. In four weeks you can make an appointment for your sonogram and at that point you’ll be able to know if it’s a boy or a girl.”

“Shhh.” He’d done it unconsciously. He didn’t want any noise interfering with what he was hearing. Was it normal that it beat that fast? Did it sound like a healthy heart? Did boys’ hearts beat faster than girls’ hearts and if so, how did this one sound? Because he wanted...he didn’t know what he wanted. He wanted this life.

“He’s still coming to grips with the whole thing,” Anna said.

The doctor took away the device and Ben almost snarled.

“Sorry, but she’s all checked out,” the doctor told him. “Make sure you pick up a sample cup before you leave and I’ll see you in four weeks.”

“Thanks, Dr. Connelly.”

“No problem. And congratulations.”

Ben nodded and waited for the door to close. When he looked at Anna, he thought he had no words.

She reached out and cupped his face and he pressed her hand against his skin. “I know. Crazy, right? It’s alive!”