Calamity Rayne Knocked Up (Calamity Rayne #4)

22. Screw Santa

Screw Santa

“ I s that another one?” I asked, as I grunted and stretched, pulling the wrapping paper over the gift.

Hale read the card. “Looks like it.”

“Send it back.”

It had been four weeks, and Remington still hadn’t apologized or tried to make things right. He had, however, sent numerous gifts to Elara, posed as Christmas presents, but she hadn’t accepted a single one. If he wanted to play the doting grandfather card, he could bring his mean ass to our front door and act like a decent human being.

I whined when I realized I left the tape out of reach.

“I don’t know why you insist on wrapping everything yourself. We have people for?—”

“I am not going to let people wrap my daughter’s Christmas presents, Hale. It’s the parents’ job. Now, hand me the fucking tape.”

My sciatica was killing me, despite my ass going numb an hour ago. I would have moved to a more comfortable position, but I couldn’t get up.

Snatching the tape from his hand, I snapped, “You could help.”

“I am helping. I did all the little things in her stocking.”

The paper ripped as I tightened it around the corner of the box. “Son of a!” I flopped back in defeat. “I give up!”

Hale chuckled and crawled across the carpet to me, shoving the gift away. “The magic of Christmas is coming down the stairs and finding everything done, baby. Let me take care of all of this for you.”

My body slid down the sofa until my back was on the floor. I needed a hug, yet I was being as approachable as a cactus. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. Holidays are stressful.”

“But I don’t want them to be. Christmas is supposed to be fun. ”

“And it will be.”

“Gah! You have an answer for everything.”

“And you talk too much.” He leaned over my swollen body and kissed me.

“Mmm, you taste like merlot.” I missed wine. Especially when wrapping presents. Maybe that was what was wrong with this picture.

“You should take another sip.” He lowered his mouth to mine, making slow, sensual dips with his tongue and teasing a laugh out of me.

“Flirt.” I arched my back and it pinched. “Ah!”

“You okay?”

“Yeah—” I coughed as acid rushed up my esophagus. “Wait.” I pushed his mouth away and rolled to my side with the grace of a beached whale. “I can’t do this on the floor.”

Hale sat up and pulled me with him. I was like one of those untippable punching bags that wobbled into position. “Couch?”

I scrunched my nose. “I think bed.”

He looked disappointed. Probably because every time we went to bed all I wanted to do was sleep. But he pulled me to my feet anyway.

“Ah! Leg cramp!”

Hale looked at me with concern. “What do you need?”

“I need to not be pregnant anymore!” Cradling my back, I wobbled to the stairs. “Can you clean that up so Elara doesn’t see it?”

“I…I thought…” He glanced back at the unwrapped presents and wrapping paper and sighed. “Sure.”

“Thanks, babe.”

I was conked out when Hale came to bed. I vaguely recalled him kissing my temple and trying to cop a feel, but he gave up when it felt like necrophilia.

The following day, he had to fly to Chicago. I finished my fall semester, and with no current employment, my schedule was wide open.

We kept Andrew on full-time because I was exhausted, and we didn’t want to lose him, but he mostly hung out in the guest house until I called him in to take over.

As Christmas approached, my emotions gained on me. Why couldn’t Remington just apologize? Miles and Marta both told me he was miserable since I’d quit. I missed my job. I missed him—the stubborn butt face. And I missed having an outside purpose. But Hale was right. I needed to stick to my boundaries, and Remington had crossed a line.

It wasn’t just about him trusting me. It was about him respecting my life and my personal time the same way I respected his. It was difficult standing up to him. But the hardest part of all of this seemed to be my pregnancy. Remington was like a father to me. Pregnancy was a major milestone and I wanted him to be a part of the process. Every time I thought of something I wanted to tell him or ask him, I was reminded that he wasn’t there and it was hard not to cry.

“Let’s check the advent calendar, Peanut.”

When I was little, my mom always bought me one of those paper calendars that hid a piece of chocolate behind a tiny paper door. The candy was never good, but that wasn’t the point. It was the tradition of opening it each morning and counting down the days until Christmas with my mom.

“Let’s count. How many more days?” I pointed and Elara repeated my words. “One, two, three, four, five.” I helped her pull open the door.

Of course, Elara’s advent calendar wasn’t made of paper. When I explained the tradition to Hale, he had a local woodworker custom-build a Victorian dollhouse for his daughter. It had shutters, interior lighting, and even a mechanism that made the chimney puff when a button was pressed. And there was no crappy chocolate in hers. He had every little box stuffed with a small prize.

“What is it?”

She popped open the small door and pulled a small, plush dog from the box and held it out to me. “Doggy.”

“Ooh! What’s the doggy say?”

“ Woof-woof! ” she barked, racing into Hale’s empty office to show her father what she found. “Daddy?”

I wobbled after her. “Daddy’s not here, Peanut.”

“Daddy gone?”

“Daddy’s gone. He’ll be back tomorrow.” My hand cradled my back, and I frowned. The kink in my back returned and I massaged the area.

The doorbell rang, and I sighed, pulling the door to Hale’s office shut. “Come on.” I corralled Elara to the front door. When I opened it, there was another pile of boxes, and the brown delivery truck was driving away. “Hey! Wait!”

“Wait!” my mini-me echoed.

“Damn it.”

“Damn it.”

I looked at her sharply, but she only flashed me a cheeky smile.

With a sigh, I checked the labels. As expected, they were all from Remington. “Your grandfather’s a coward.”

I spent the next hour stewing on the couch. Elara played with her doggy while The Backyardigans sang on the television. The longer I sat there, the angrier I became, until I finally texted Andrew, requesting him to come watch Elara.

I backed my Jeep up to the front porch and loaded all the boxes into the back.

“Rayne, should you be lifting them?”

“They’re not that heavy.”

Andrew rushed to pick up the last few and loaded them into the Jeep. “What are they?”

“Gifts from Remington. I’m taking them back.” I wiped the sweat off my brow and tried to remember where I put my keys. They were still in the ignition.

When I reached Remington’ s house, I burst in without knocking and dumped three boxes onto the foyer floor.

Marta appeared in a rush with a dust rag in her hands. “Ni?a, what are you doing?”

“Is he here?”

“Mr. Davenport is in the den.”

“Good.” I walked back out to the car and grabbed another armful of packages.

“Meyers, what the hell is this?” Remington barked when I dumped the next armful onto his floor.

“Stop sending presents to our house, Remington.”

“Those aren’t for you. They’re for Elara.”

“If you want to give your granddaughter gifts, have the decency to deliver them in person. You live one mile from her.”

“God damn it, Meyers, this can’t be good for you.” He followed me out to the Jeep where I proceeded to gather more packages. “You’re as stubborn as a goat. Put them down!” He followed me back inside, and I let the boxes fall.

“You’re as stubborn as a coward.”

Miles appeared, and Marta quickly tidied the boxes into piles so they weren’t all over the foyer.

I shook off a dizzy spell as I bent over to drop another box onto the floor. “You can’t even bring yourself to apologize or admit when you’re wrong. Well, guess what? We’re a package deal. You can’t buy her off! If you want to be in her life, you need to treat her parents right—including your son. I’m sick and tired of this petty rivalry between you two. There are other people impacted by your childishness, and some people just want to live a normal life with normal—” I sucked in a sharp breath.

Remington stilled. “What is it?” He yelled for the housekeeper, “Marta!”

Marta appeared as Remington ushered me to a bench.

“I’m fine.” I massaged the pinched nerve in my back. Tightness stitched across my abdomen, and I winced.

“She’s not fine. Something’s wrong. Where’s Hale?”

“He’s in Chicago.” My face tensed as another cramp contracted around my abdomen. Something wasn’t right. I looked up at Remington, too afraid to be angry anymore. “Call a doctor.”

He flew into action. The next thing I knew, I was sitting in the emergency room getting a lecture about something called prodromal labor, similar to Braxton Hicks, but more painful.

“It’s all that damn spicy food you’ve been eating.”

“Actually,” the doctor corrected Remington, “Prodromal labor isn’t caused by diet. It can, however, be triggered by stress or anxiety.”

I glared at my father-in-law. “Are you happy now?”

“I haven’t seen you in a month!”

“And look what’s happened!”

My phone buzzed, and I looked at the doctor apologetically. Hale was going to implode if I didn’t answer. “Go ahead,” she said.

“Hale?” I brought the phone to my ear. “I’m on my way. Have you talked to the doctor? Did they find anything?—”

“Hale, Hale, calm down. I’m fine. The baby’s fine. It was false labor.” I quickly informed him of everything I’d been told over the last hour, but he insisted on coming home anyway.

Unfortunately, prodromal labor could last several days. The doctor recommended reducing stress and distracting myself with music, television, or a warm bath if the contractions started again .

When Hale returned home, he was a mess. I was certain he spent the entire flight home researching false labor. He kept stuffing pillows around me like I might break, and he made me drink copious amounts of water to stay hydrated.

“Why were you at my dad’s?” he finally asked.

“I was returning his packages.”

He held back his words because he didn’t want to stress me out, but I knew he had plenty to say by the twitch in his jaw.

“It’s not your father’s fault, Hale. It was mine. I shouldn’t have gotten myself all worked up. And I shouldn’t have lifted so many boxes.”

His expression could have been carved from stone. “Quitting was supposed to lower your stress.”

“Well, what can I say? I work best under pressure.”

“This isn’t funny, Rayne. What if you went into actual labor? You’re only in your sixth month.”

“Prodromal labor doesn’t lead to real labor.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Then what is the point?”

“You shouldn’t have been over there.”

“Avoiding him forever is not the solution, Hale. Your dad?—”

“My dad is a chronic source of stress in our life!”

I sighed. It frustrated Hale to no end that, after everything, I still defended Remington. “Hale, we can’t stay mad at your father for the rest of his life. I miss him. Elara needs a grandfather. And I want things to go back to normal.”

“Normal.” He scoffed. “That word doesn’t exist in this family.”

“Well, it does in mine. We Meyers might be weird and quirky and a little scatter-brained at times, but at our core we’re just boring, normal people. Christmas is next week, and I want us all together at one table. No strangers. No business colleagues. Just family—and that includes Marta, Raoul, and Alphonse.”

“Rayne, the staff?—”

“The staff is family, Hale. We did Thanksgiving the Davenport way, but I’m claiming Christmas. I want cranberries from a can and green beans with those crispy fried onions and a basic bitch honey-baked ham. The. End.” I shoved myself off the couch because I had to pee.

“I’m fine with that. But I can’t guarantee the guestlist.”

I shot him a threatening look. “Then figure out a way to fix it. I’m off stress. This has officially become your problem—doctor’s orders.” I waddled to the bathroom.