Tanya Michaels - Mistletoe Baby

Rachel was afraid a single star couldn’t help her. She needed a galaxy or, barring that, a fresh start.

Rachel parked the car, then sat staring into the gray morning light. You are going to feel like an idiot if you do this. Technically she felt like one already, driving to the store this early on what felt like a fool’s errand. But it was Saturday; she still hadn’t started her period. What if-?

Stop it. Too many times she’d allowed the painful blade of hope to slip beneath her ribs. She was here simply to rule out the unlikely possibility so that she could stop torturing herself. Huddling deeper into her hooded knit sweater, she opened her door. As she hurried toward the grocery store, it occurred to her that there were more cars in the lot than she would have expected on an overcast weekend morning. With temperatures dropping and rain in the forecast, this was the perfect kind of day for sleeping in-a luxurious concept that Winnie’s dogs did not grasp. Rachel had quickly learned that it was folly to ignore the whimpering of a puppy who hadn’t been outside yet.

The store’s automatic doors parted, and she sighed at the immediate warm air. On mornings like these, she couldn’t imagine why anyone willingly lived up north. Inside, she faltered, not entirely ready to know the truth one way or the other. Stalling, she grabbed a cart even though she only intended to buy one thing. When the test came up negative, it would close another chapter on her marriage-necessary but painful. Like a root canal.

She squared her shoulders and shoved the cart, its one squeaky wheel grating a resolute tattoo against the tile. The pharmacy section was just ahead. Determined to get this over with, she rounded the corner at top speed, nearly crashing into Mindy Nelson.

“Sorry.” Rachel drew up short. The older woman had her buggy parked directly in front of the section Rachel needed.

“Hi! Haven’t seen you around much lately.” Following Rachel’s gaze, Mindy arched an eyebrow. “Am I in your way, hon?”

Since there was nothing on the other side of the woman but pregnancy tests, Rachel shook her head in quick denial. “No. I was just on this aisle to get some…lotion.” Blindly she grabbed a container off the shelf closest to her.

“Well, I’m glad I ran into you. You’ll be buying tickets to the winter dance this year, won’t you?” Mindy was one of the administrative staff at the local seniors’ center. Every year they sponsored a charity ball held at the Mistletoe Inn to benefit the center.

“Sure, put me down for one,” Rachel said distractedly. Even if she didn’t attend, she was happy to make the donation.

“Don’t you mean two?”

“What?” Nervously she grabbed another tube to give her hands something to do. “Oh, two tickets. Of course. My brain’s not really awake yet. Winnie’s dogs have been getting me up early, so I’m on autopilot for most of the morning.”

“I see.” Mindy peered into Rachel’s cart, making her aware that she’d thoughtlessly accumulated four bottles of lotion.

“My skin gets so dry during the winter,” Rachel babbled. Go away, go away!

“Uh-huh. Well, you take care. And tell that dishy husband of yours I said hello. I look forward to seeing you both at the dance.”

“Right. Bye now.”

Finally, Mindy returned to her cart and leisurely steered it to the next aisle. Rachel waited another moment, her palms sweaty and her heart thudding. One of the boxes announced in boldfaced type: Now you can know two days before your missed period! She was waaay past that. Taking a deep breath, she grabbed the box and tossed it into the buggy. It bounced off one of the lotion bottles.

Sighing, she gathered the bottles up and began placing them back on the shelf. Then she headed in the direction of the checkout lanes. She wasn’t sure exactly what she noticed as she walked by the shampoo aisle, what she glanced in her peripheral vision that left her rooted to the spot. David. Was he so familiar, imprinted on her brain, that she knew him even with the barest sidelong glimpse? Maybe she’d instinctively recognized his jacket, which she had given him. Or smelled his familiar soap-shampoo combination. Whatever tipped her off, she took comfort in the fact that he hadn’t noticed her yet. She had her hood up; maybe she could just-

“Rachel?”

She scrambled around the side of the cart, retrieving the lone item inside and trying to tuck it beneath the hem of her sweater before he noticed. After the holidays, she needed to think seriously about making her fresh start somewhere else, not a small Georgia town that had only one major grocery store. “Hi.”

“You’re out and about early,” he said casually. “You looked so tired when you left Mom and Dad’s last night, I expected you would sleep late.”

The same frantic dizziness she’d felt in the car last week overcame her, a hundred times worse. She willed it away. David would probably notice if she hyperventilated or-

“Miss!” A man in a white shirt and red pharmacy vest was speed-walking down the aisle, waving his hands. “Miss, I’m afraid I need to…Oh, hi, Mrs. Waide.”

Rachel had refilled enough prescriptions here that most of the pharmacy staff knew her by name.

The bespectacled young man gestured at her hood. “I didn’t realize it was you. Thought you were a shoplifter.”

David laughed outright. “A shoplifter? She once made me turn around and drive back into Atlanta when she realized the restaurant left our dessert off the bill.”

“Well, I was afraid it would come out of the waiter’s pay,” she said weakly.

Too bad she didn’t have that Christmas-tree star with her now; she knew exactly what she’d wish for-the earth to open up and swallow her whole before the kid in the vest-

“Well, obviously she’s not a shoplifter. But you wouldn’t believe what people are too embarrassed to buy from this section. When she stuck that box under her-”

“I was on my way to pay for it!” She flinched at the shrillness of her own voice. The pharmacy guy actually rubbed his ear.

David pinned her with his gaze. “What box?”

“Nothing. Girl stuff,” she prevaricated, already walking toward the register.

Her stubborn husband, holding his green basket of skim milk and men’s deodorant, fell in step with her. “You’re embarrassed? Hell, Rach, I’ve bought tampons for you before.”

“That was different.”

“You know, you should probably put the ‘girl stuff,’” he said in an exaggerated whisper, “in the cart so that no one else thinks you’re shoplifting.”

“No one else saw me with it.” But when David chose to pursue something, he was doggedly single-minded. It would be just like him to follow her into the line. She chunked the pregnancy test back into the cart.

His jaw dropped. For a moment, she took satisfaction in having rendered him speechless.

“When,” he demanded, “were you going to tell me?”

“I don’t even know if there’s anything to tell. Hence, the test.”

His blue eyes shone. “You think there’s a chance, though?”

He looked excited, and it was hard to battle back her own automatic eagerness. A baby! What would it be like to hold a baby of her own? She gave a little jerk of her head. Don’t set yourself up for disappointments.

“I don’t know,” she said.

“You’d have to be more than a month and a half along. Maybe two?” In his enthusiasm, he was getting louder, drawing a few glances. “It’s been at least that long since-”

“Hey! Do you mind if we don’t have this conversation in the middle of the grocery store?”