Another Man's Baby by Dyanne Davis Read Free Book Online Page B

night, just like she hadn’t complained for the past two months after they’d talked and he’d told her how much he loved her.
    When they’d gone home from his parents’ and he’d begun undressing her, caressing her, making sweet love to her, Gabi had agreed to the use of condoms. But more and more lately they were engaging in oral sex. If it was what he needed, she didn’t really mind, but she kept waiting, each time thinking he was going to completely consummate the act. Yes, she’d had release, that was the thing. And she hadn’t minded on occasion. But it wasn’t what she wanted for the rest of her marriage. More important things were at stake now. Now she wanted to broach the subject of their having a baby. He’d promised.
    “Do you remember the promise you made?” Gabi watched  Eric pull his lips tightly together. His jaw was hard, as though it wouldn’t break if she decided to take a sledge hammer to it.
    “Eric?”
    “Listen, we have time.”
    “You promised,” she answered softly.
    “I didn’t tell you the moment I got home. Is that the reason you wanted me home? What am I to you, a sperm donor?”
    Gabi licked her lips and bit back her retort. She was trying her best to be understanding. True, she didn’t know how rough it had been fighting a war. She’d only had a dream. Eric had experienced the real thing.
    “I have to go to work.” She looked at him expecting an apology, getting none. Something inside her snapped. “If I were looking for a sperm donor, I guess I looked in the wrong place. You haven’t touched me in weeks, not the way that I want you to. What we’ve been doing is definitely not the way to make a baby, or to keep your wife. I don’t know what your problem is but I know I’m much too young to give up making love. I’m sure there are plenty of men who aren’t repulsed by me.”
    She walked out the house, anger fueling her. She shouldn’t have said what she had, but it was done. As she passed the trash she dumped her birth control pills into the can. She’d kept her word; in fact, she’d stayed on the things an extra month. Now she was done with them. She’d leave it up to God. If He wanted them to have a baby, then they’d have it. Given the fact that Eric’s recent aversion to her would make it hard to reproduce, it would take a power greater than theirs to conceive. But her womb would be ready just in case.
     
    ***
     
    Gabi stretched as the last patient left the office. For once she was glad the receptionist had overbooked. It had kept her mind occupied.
    “What’s up? Are you and your hubby fighting?”
    Gabi looked in shock at Tracie, the other nurse on duty, but refused to respond.
    “What?” Tracie laughed, “you didn’t think you’d ever fight?”
    “What makes you think Eric and I are fighting?” Gabi took a step back and peered at her coworker waiting patiently for an answer.
    “Because since the moment you began dating him there has not been one day you haven’t come in here and told us something cute he said, did, or how cute he looked in general. Now all of a sudden you’re not talking. Something must be wrong.”
    “Maybe I finally realized after all of these years of everyone hearing me rattle on that you were all probably tired of it. Maybe I got a clue.”
    Laughter met Gabi’s answer and she felt heat rise to her face. She was embarrassed, but she wasn’t going to discuss her problems with Traci.
    “Listen, Gabi, you’re not the first wife who had a fight with her husband and especially not the first to find readjusting to a husband that’s been in a war hard. When my husband returned from Desert Storm we tried hard to make it work, but it didn’t. We ended up getting divorced. He died before I ever found out what the problem was. For years I thought it was me, but so many of our friends’ marriages dissolved also. Your husband’s been to Iraq three times. That has to be very hard.”
    A sigh escaped and Gabrielle sank into