Нора Робертс - Year One

So many changes, she thought, small and enormous for both of them.

And the most enormous she’d yet to tell him.

“Max.” She rolled to sit up, realized then that he wasn’t just replete, but half asleep. The day, full of stress, effort, strain—personal, physical, magickal—wore hard.

She considered waiting until morning, then decided no, now, before she put the candles out. Now, while the act of their love still hummed in the air.

“Max,” she repeated. “I have something I need to tell you. It’s important.”

“Mmm.”

“Very important.”

His eyes flashed open. He pushed up. “What’s wrong? Something happened when I was gone today?”

“Nothing’s wrong.” She took his hand, and with her eyes on his, pressed his hand to her belly. “Max. We’re having a baby.”

“A—”

She saw it, all the layers. Confusion, shock, caution.

“Are you sure?”

Rather than speak, she got up, walked to the dresser, drew the pregnancy test out from where she’d hidden it. It sparkled in her hand. Then in his when she gave it to him.

“It’s what we made together. You. Me.”

He looked up at her, and she saw what she’d most needed. She saw the joy.

“Lana.” He drew her to him, pressing his face between her breasts. Breathed her in, breathed in the miracle of the moment.

“A child. Our child. Are you all right? Have you been sick? Do you—”

“I feel stronger than I ever have. I’m carrying what we made together. Our love, our light, our magick. You’re happy.”

“I don’t have words,” he told her. “Words are my business, but I don’t have the words for what I feel.” He laid a hand protectively over her belly. “Ours.”

“Ours,” she repeated, pressing her hand over his. “I want to keep it just ours for now. I don’t want to tell the others. Well, Eddie knows. I didn’t want to say anything to you until I was sure, so I asked him to get the test. But I don’t want to tell anyone else.”

“Why? It’s momentous. It’s beautiful.”

“Ours,” she said again. “Like tonight. Just ours. And maybe part of it is simple superstition. I think they say not to tell people until the end of the first trimester. And that’s about all I know about being pregnant. God.”

She sat beside him, immediately stood again. “And no alcohol. That’s off the table. It might be why that glass of wine Allegra gave me smelled off. Anyway. God! It’s not like I can just Google what to do and not to do, what to expect. I’m nervous about that part, about not knowing. And maybe I’m selfish and superstitious about not telling.”

“Then we won’t tell anyone else until you’re ready. And we’ll find out … whatever we need to.”

“How?”

“We’ll find a book. There has to be a library or a bookstore somewhere. In the meantime, we’ll use common sense. Rest when you need to rest, good nutrition.”

“I think there are special vitamins I’m supposed to take.”

“Maybe we can come up with those, too. But women have had babies for thousands of years without them.”

On a half laugh, she sent him a steely stare. “Easy for a man to say.”

“It is, isn’t it?” He reached for her hand. “I’ll take care of you, both of you, I swear it. This is meant, Lana. How it happened, when we took every precaution. When it happened. This sign,” he added, looking at the sparkle. “This child is meant. We’ll learn what needs to be done to bring him or her into the world, and to make the world safe for our child.”

She sat beside him again. “You always know how to keep me calm. Give me confidence. I believe you. This is meant. We’ll find a way.”

He turned her face to his, kissed her. “I love you. I love both of you already.”

“Max. I feel the same.”

He took her hands in his. “I pledge to you, all I am, all I have or will have. I will protect you, defend you, love you with every breath. Be my partner, my wife, my mate, from this moment.”

Her heart simply swelled. “I will. I am. I pledge to you, all I am, all I have or will have. I will protect you, defend you, love you with every breath. Be my partner, my husband, my mate, from this moment.”

“I will. I am.” He kissed their joined hands, then sealed the promise with his lips on hers.

“This is all we need between us, but I want to give you a ring. I want that symbol for us.”

“Both of us,” she said. “The circle, the symbol.”

“For both of us.” He lay down with her again, stroked her as they lay face-to-face. “I didn’t ask if you know how far along you are.”

“Nearly seven weeks.”

She saw the understanding in his eyes. “Of course. It’s meant,” he murmured, holding his wife and child.

* * *

The mood stayed bright, a study in group cooperation, for two full weeks.

Max knew himself, and his brother. As predicted, they clashed more than once over practice and study. But Max reported to Lana they made progress.

Arguments broke out, but normal ones that ebbed and flowed as they might with any insular group.

An early March thaw melted some of the snow, and though it turned everything sloppy, the sign that spring would return someday lured everyone outside for longer stretches.

Poe scavenged a hunting bow and spent an hour practicing every day. Lana often watched him from the kitchen window as he shot arrows into a target he’d drawn on a square of plywood.

He was getting better. To her relief, he had yet to aim one of his arrows at any of the deer that wandered freely out of the forest.

Shaun and Eddie bonded over fishing and Xbox.

Poe went down with Max, and reported the Wolf Boy, as he called the boy Flynn, didn’t seem interested in joining the group.

Max slipped Lana some prenatal vitamins he’d found at the pharmacy.

As she entered her ninth week, Lana felt healthy and strong. She cooked, joined practices with Max and Eric, took long walks with Max or with Eddie and Joe, and participated—generally losing—in what became the three-times-weekly game night.

She knew Max pored over maps and routes, looking for the best direction for them to go in the spring. Though she’d begun to feel settled, even content, in their strange new home, she understood his reasoning.

They needed to find more people, a location they could defend rather than one with only one road in or out. And even with what they’d found in the little village, supplies wouldn’t last forever.

“Why wait?” Allegra asked at a group discussion. “Why not leave now?”

“Because we have shelter and supplies. We have heat and light,” Max reminded her. “We don’t want to end up traveling without any of that and get hit with a snowstorm. Another month, we’ll be past that.”

“Another month.” Allegra pressed her hands to her head, shook it. “I know I’m whining, but oh shit. We’ve already been here for ever . We haven’t seen another soul—except for that weird kid you ran into. If the goal’s to find people, we’re failing big-time.”

“And if we run into the wrong kind of people?” Kim asked. “When we’re not prepared?”

“Okay, I know things were crazy back at college, and even on the way here. But that was weeks ago. For all we know things are getting back to normal. They’ve got to have come up with a vaccine by now. We don’t know anything because we’re in the middle of nowhere.”

“She’s got a point,” Eric put in.

“Yeah, and I get we’re in this box and don’t know what’s outside it.” Shaun shifted in his seat. “But Max is right about snow through March into early April. We had a thaw, so we’re getting antsy again, but it won’t last.”