Tara Taylor Quinn - The Baby Gamble

He thought about that. Wondered what could possibly have not been right about a baby between him and Annie. A baby that they’d conceived together in love.

“What are the chances of it happening again?”

How could talking with Annie feel so awkward? And at the same time so natural? Right?

“Slim. I’ve had all the tests, just for my own peace of mind, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with me—no reason I shouldn’t carry a healthy baby full term.”

Suddenly, he could feel the tremors starting—behind his knees was always the first place they hit. He had to get out of here. Or at the very least, out of a conversation that was triggering such painful memories.

“Were they able to tell…if it was a boy or a girl?”

Stop, man. Go home .

The interior of his uncle’s old Lincoln was beige. With white stitching. After all these years, the smell of the leather still permeated the car. And if he concentrated hard enough he could smell it.

If Blake stood up, he could be driving away in less than a minute.

It took him several seconds to see that Annie was shaking her head, the curls around her temples brushing against her skin. “It was too soon,” she said, her voice hushed.

She still hurt. The loss of their child tore at her, undiminished with time. He’d known that, of course, on some level. He just didn’t want to think about it.

Not unless he couldn’t help it. Like all the other things locked away in that cave inside him, numbing him to much of what went on in the outside world. And in his own world, as well.

“I was expecting to see a three-and-a-half-year-old girl when I got off that plane.”

What in the hell was he doing? He didn’t relive this stuff. This wasn’t why he’d come here.

He had a plan. Strict orders to himself.

One of which was to be out of Annie’s house within ten minutes.

He’d already disobeyed that order.

Annie sat still, not looking at him.

“She had blond hair, like my mother’s,” Blake continued. “And curls like yours.”

He could feel the anticipation, the sweat down the middle of his back. Could hear the sound of the plane’s engines, the landing gear dropping down. And then metal clanking on metal—a cell door closing. Locking him in.

“She took her first step on what I calculated to be October 12.” He heard his voice, but wasn’t completely sure that it wasn’t just in his head. “She said ‘Mama’ on Christmas Eve—the best Christmas present you could have received.”

When he’d imagined all this the first time, he’d been lying naked on a dirty cement floor somewhere in Jordan, shivering with cold. The nudity had been his punishment for refusing to eat until he was granted some kind of contact with the American embassy. By then he’d been imprisoned for eighteen months. Had only known the exact date because one of his guards had taunted him about the Christian holiday.

Blake had grown used to the mental and emotional torture by then. Or at least, he’d become as immune to it as a human being could be, living under such duress for an extended length of time.

They hadn’t beaten him. He had no outward scars. And he was thankful for that.

“I used to picture you breast-feeding her,” he continued. “I had set feeding times, and I’d sit and picture you, the creamy whiteness of your breasts. The softness in your eyes as you looked at our little girl. The gentle smile on your lips. I’d see her little hand, with her tiny fingernails, cupping you, opening and closing against you. I could hear her suckling. For months, I would wake up in the morning, eager to get to feeding time. And look forward to subsequent feedings throughout the day.”

His voice trailed off, but the vision didn’t. He was there. Feeling the cold. The hardness. Seeing the rough gray rock of the makeshift cell that a group of extremist insurgents had held him in—U.S. collateral for whatever they might decide to bargain for, following the terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C.

“She was almost three when she was finally potty trained. Though you gave it your best effort for six months prior to that, she refused to be interested before then. But then, almost overnight, she had it.”

And shortly after that his captors had been identified by the Jordanian government. It had taken them another three months to find Blake and the other civilians the group had held hostage.

Blake blinked, his eyes burning, as he relived the first experience of daylight he’d had in nearly four years. He had hardly been able to comprehend the blue skies and sunshine overhead, and the fresh air against his skin had been almost painful.

And so beautiful he’d actually wept as he walked down the path to medical help and a series of debriefing meetings, counseling, hand-holding, more debriefing, exercising, recovering his strength.

And finally, after one brief phone call announcing his arrival, home.

Home.

The hot air surrounding him suddenly cooled, chilling his wet skin. Blake blinked again. Less painfully this time. His eyes came back to his surroundings and focused on the friendly lighting in a kitchen in River Bluff, Texas.

And he saw Annie sitting not two feet away from him, tears streaming down her face.

“I… TELL ME ABOUT IT, Blake. About what happened to you.” Dry-eyed now, Annie tried to reconnect with the man she’d once loved with all her heart. He sipped his wine. Acted as if he hadn’t just given her more of himself in five minutes than he’d given her during their entire marriage.

He shrugged. “There’s not much to tell that you don’t already know. I was among a small group of American and British civilians taken captive by a rogue band of bin Laden supporters who hoped to gain his approval by offering him human bargaining tools.”

She, and a lot of other people, knew the political part. The official explanation for innocent people losing years of their lives to terrorist factions.

“You were in captivity for four years, Blake. What was it like?”

“Not as bad as it could have been,” he said at last. “We were never tortured.”

The words hinted at something that remained unsaid, and Annie shivered.

“Holding someone against their will is torture.” She dared to push him, which was something she wouldn’t have done six years before. She’d begged once. And that had netted her nothing but a husband who was presumed dead, and a miscarriage that had nearly cost her her sanity.

Talk to me , Blake . Her pleas were silent now. For once in your life , give me even a small bit of all that you hold so deeply inside of you .

He stood. “I’m sorry to have kept you so long,” he said, pushing the folding chair back up to the card table. He set down his glass. “I came to talk to you about this…thing you intend to do.”

He’d come to tell her no, and she didn’t want to hear it—not right then. Not when her feelings were so raw, her heart still breaking at the thought of her proud, loyal, private-to-the-point-of-breaking-her-heart husband locked away all alone in some cell in the Middle East, imagining their nonexistent child at her breast.

“It’s okay.”

His brows raised, he glanced down at her. “You’ve changed your mind?”

“No. I just…”

“In that case, I agree.”

AS SOON AS HE HEARD himself say the words, Blake turned around and walked out of Annie’s kitchen. Out of her house. And her life.

He drove for an hour, but without leaving River Bluff. Past the Cross Fox Ranch, which was the home of the Carricks, a father-andson duo who cared deeply for each other while struggling to see who each had become in the time Brady had been gone. Around town, and then out to see Luke Chisum, another of the gang of poker players who had taken him on as one of their own.