“Thank you. But I don’t know if I’m ready to decide yet.”
Henry slid down the bed, cradling me in his arms. “We’re in this together, Catnip. One way or another.”
I spent the next day eating small meals, which I managed to keep down, although there was a constant roll of nausea. A doctor visited to run me through some balance and cognitive tests. He seemed confident that there was no lasting damage from my ‘hiking accident’.
“And congratulations are in order, I hear,” he boomed, pounding Henry on the back. Henry flinched, and I bit back a giggle at the sheer strangeness of all of this. “What a way to find out you’re going to be parents, eh? That’s a story to tell the grandkids one day.”
He headed for the door, stopping to tell me he could prescribe me some anti-nausea medication for the morning sickness before bustling off once more.
I was pregnant. Even thinking it felt like an out of body experience.But suddenly I was imagining growing old with Henry, jostling cheeky toddler grandchildren on our knees and telling them all about how we found out we were having their mummy or daddy. It seemed like such a nice future to look forward to. A future that was filled with hope and joy. And cats too. Although I doubted Trink and Abs would last long enough to see grandkids.
I shot upright. “Abernathy! Henry, he escaped! I was out looking for him when?—”
Henry was on the bed in an instant, wrapping his arms around me. “Abernathy is fine, although apparently very miffed that his mummy isn’t around. Josie locked him and Parker up in the crew quarters so she could lure you off the yacht.”
His hand swept my hair away from my neck, fingers curling around my nape. “I’m so sorry I didn’t reassure you earlier. I’d honestly forgotten, with everything else that’s been going on.”
More tears welled. “Just thinking about poor Abs trying to survive on an island covered in overgrown tropical rainforest …”
Henry snorted. “The mollycoddled beast wouldn’t have known what hit him. Trink, on the other hand … she’d turn feral and be hunting giant moths before sundown.”
“It’s funny how their personalities are the exact opposite of their namesakes.”
“If only we could tell what a kitten would grow up to be when we name them,” Henry sighed, combing his fingers through my hair.
I nuzzled into his chest. “What would you want to call the tiny human … if we decided to keep them?”
Henry stilled. “Don’t you think we should wait until you know whether you want to proceed before we start picking names?”
“It’s hypothetical, Henry. I’m just curious.”
“I don’t know. Definitely not characters fromThe Hunger Games.”
“Why not? Seneca could work for a boy or a girl!” I teased.
Henry shuddered. “No child of mine will be named after a villain, Catnip. And … this child would be ours, not just mine. We’d need to think of a name that is meaningful for both of us.”
Tears sprung to my eyes as immediately two names came to mind. “I think these pregnancy hormones are going to really shit me! I haven’t cried this much in my entire life! But what about … Andrei, if it’s a boy? And maybe Andrea, if it’s a girl, and—” I laughed wetly— “Céline for the middle name, either way.”
“You want to subject our child to the teasing I experienced growing up?”
“Of course not! I want our child to know that he … or she … should be proud to share a name with their brilliant, kind, adorable father.”
“Well …” Henry cleared his throat. “When you put it that way.”
My stomach dipped, certainty settling over me.
“And, they’re sure that the tiny human is okay? Me being bashed over the head, tied up and passing out didn’t …?”
“The heartbeat was very strong, and your vitals were always good, even when unconscious. They think the fainting fits were a pregnancy symptom.”
My eyes welled up again at the thought of Henry, sitting there, listening to our baby’s heartbeat.
“We’re keeping it.” My heart thrummed wildly, and I wondered for a moment whether I should think about this a bit longer. But one look at my sweet, perturbed man, brow furrowed adorably, watching me carefully, and I was sure.
I wanted to have his baby. I wanted baby Andrei or Andrea Céline Baxter.
“Ri … you can take more time to think about this. You’ve just been through something very traumatic, and you haven’t had a chance to process?—”
