The Devil's Luck Page 4

  “You’ll be beautiful,” he said. “But I mean it. We don’t have to do this.”

  She smiled at him and pulled him to her, counting off the months in her head and realizing she’d most likely be in labor instead of at the parades when Carnival season was ending the next year. “Fuck it. Happy Mardi Gras, Daddy.”

  “Seriously?” he asked, his smile broadening.

  “Seriously,” she said. “You have to be the maternal one, though. I don’t think I have it in me. What if it hates me?”

  “It won’t,” he replied.

  “How do you know?” she asked, really wanting to know.

  “I’m its father, so I know it’s going to love you as much as I do, maybe even more.”

  She closed one eye and regarded him skeptically. “And how much is that?”

  “More than anything.”

  “Prove it.”

  Ben grinned and threaded his fingers through her hands. “It’s going to be ok, darlin’.”

  She silently nodded and hoped that he was right.

  Chapter 3

  Careful What You Wish For

  Q glared at the row of prescription bottles on her nightstand.

  Me and my bright ideas.

  The doctor had confirmed that, as Q had insisted, the majority of her symptoms were normal for a seven-week pregnancy. Almost immediately, Q began counting the days to the end of the first trimester and the promised end to constant vomiting. T-minus sixteen days, today, if her math and the law of averages were correct. She opened her anti-nausea prescription and took her morning pill.

  The ache in her side was caused by a hemorrhagic cyst on her ovary, uncommon, but not unusual. The doctor was also confident that it would go away on its own within a few weeks. Q had been given low-dose Percocet to make it through the more painful days. She grimaced around the stabbing pain and popped a pill in her mouth.

  The headaches and ramped dizziness, however, were not normal. Q’s blood pressure had been high enough for the doctor to insist that she immediately start taking a hypertension prescription. Q was usually leery of doctors, but when a medical professional informed her that she could have stroked out in the waiting room, she was inclined to listen. She diligently took her hypertension meds and picked up the blood pressure cuff Ben had insisted on buying.

  This morning’s reading was 162/93, so no coffee for her. Q let out a disappointed sigh as her phone rang. When she saw Sanger’s name on the caller ID, she eagerly picked up, hoping to find some form of distraction on the other end.

  “How’s the little mother this morning?” Sanger asked.

  “The little mother is going to cut your fucking nuts off if you call her ‘little mother’ again,” Q said intently.

  Sanger laughed. “So, about the same, I’m guessing.”

  She replied sarcastically, “My lord, you are an amazing detective.”

  “Yes. Yes, I am,” he agreed. “I’m actually calling on official business. We finally got the toxicology reports back on the Ackerman case and there’s something off. I’m hoping that you can point me in the right direction.”

  “I’ll try, but I don’t see how.”

  “You knew him. You know the same people he knew. I could just use some fresh eyes here. You’d be helping me out,” Sanger replied.

  She seriously doubted that he needed her assistance in any way. For the last three weeks, anyone who knew the root cause of her illness had been calling her with some excuse to get her out of the house and her mind off things. Tom had suddenly needed her input on a new necklace for his wife. Charlie had come over to work out a new arrangement for a song he’d always professed to hate, but that Q loved. Emmy had asked her to come to the zoo with her and her daughter, Abigail; insisting that Abigail wouldn’t go without her Auntie Q. The fact that Abigail wasn’t yet two and screamed whenever Q got near her, didn’t seem to factor into Emmy’s logic. Sanger’s was the most appealing offer she’d had so far, and she gratefully accepted it.

  They agreed to meet at his favorite Uptown lunch spot and Q walked to the closet to get dressed after she’d hung up. She stripped off the t-shirt of Ben’s she’d worn to bed and stood naked in front of the mirror. While she’d lost almost twelve pounds in the last three weeks because of her stomach’s inability to digest solid food, the message had only been sent to her face and her limbs. Slipping into a comfortable pair of white linen shorts and a Cannibal Corpse t-shirt, she was horrified to find how the faded red brought out the green in her pallid complexion.

  Definitely need make-up. Lots and lots of make-up.

  After reducing the more zombie-like aspects of her pale face to make today’s t-shirt only slightly less ironic, she went downstairs to find Ben. He was sitting at the kitchen table, staring out the window and into the sweet olive branches outside. When she entered, he looked up at her, concern making his eyebrows into a straight line.

  “How it is this morning?” he asked. It was the same question he’d asked for the last eighteen days.

  “130/78,” she lied.

  “What is it really?” he asked again.

  “162/93,” she said, with a frown. “No coffee.”

  He pulled her to his lap and wrapped his arms around her. “I’ve been thinking, darlin’. Maybe this isn’t a good idea.”

  She turned to look at him. “What isn’t a good idea?”

  Ben placed his hand gently on her stomach.

  “This,” he replied softly. He quickly continued, “You’re so sick. All the time.”

  “The new meds seem to be working.…”

  “Q, we’ve been to the ER twice in the last ten days.” He held up her left arm that still bore the bruises from the last hospital visit. “They had to give you an IV; you can barely keep water down. And your blood pressure…”

  “Is better,” Q finished.

  “Not by much,” he argued. “It was 196/110 when we went to the doctor the last time. You could have had a stroke.”

  “But I didn’t, and the medicine is helping. The doctor said it could take a couple weeks. And I can always take something stronger,” she said, trying to placate his worries.

  “I don’t want to lose you to this,” he said. “There’s a twelve-week cut-off. If we’re going to do something, we’d need to do it soon.”

  Q pulled away and stood up. “A twelve-week cut-off for what?”

  “An abortion in the great state of Louisiana. Grace got pregnant a few years back. I took her to the clinic,” he explained. “I remember she was freaking out because she couldn’t get in for an appointment right away and she’d already taken a few weeks to figure out what she wanted to do. She only had two weeks left to get in before she’d have to go someplace else.”

  “That’s fucking horrible,” Q replied. “How could they make a rule like that?”

  Ben shrugged. “I don’t know, darlin’. But we’re bumping into the same wall. I mean, we could fly to another state if we had to later, but…”

  His voice trailed off and he looked down. When he turned back to her, he said resolutely, “I don’t want to stand by and watch you get sicker by the day. I can’t, not without other options on the table. You don’t have to do this. Not for me.”

  Q considered his words and her own health. The nausea, fatigue, and pain had sucked the energy from her body, and her blood pressure wildly fluctuation from moderately high to brain bursting high wasn’t helping to settle her fears about motherhood.

  She put her hands over her abdomen and asked herself the question she’d refused to put into words.

  Do I really want this?

  Still contemplating her own question, she said, “This is the second time you’ve brought up having an abortion, Ben, what gives?”

  “I have five sisters, six aunts, and dozens of female cousins, Q. Believe me, when I tell you that this is your choice. Before, it was your career, so I left it to you. But it’s your health now, so I think I should get a say. And if I’m going to pick, I’m picking you.
”

  Well, I’m picking you, little one.

  She grinned to herself at the first surge of maternal affection she’d felt since that night in Florida. Leaving her hand on her stomach, she said, “I want this, Ben.”

  He folded his arms. “You said it was a bad idea. You said you didn’t want to be a mother.”

  “That was the surprise and the fear talking. I don’t think it’s a bad idea. I think it’s a great one. Even if it means I have to break the contract with Derek. It’s just a gig. There will be others.”

  “Even if it means you lose an ovary and have a stroke?” he asked.

  “I’m not going to have a stroke. I’ll start resting in the afternoon, like I’m supposed to.”

  “What if that cyst bursts?” he asked. “You couldn’t stand up without screaming last week.”

  “It’s not like I don’t have another ovary,” she joked. It fell flat. “That’s not going to happen either. It’ll go away. Just like the doctor said it would. Maybe it already is. It’s hurting way less this morning.”

  Ben reached out his hand and she returned to curl into his lap. He held her tightly too him. “Are you sure?”

  “Sure that I want to see this through? Yes,” she said. “Sure that it’s the smartest decision I’ve ever made? Not so much.”

  “And if you get worse?” he asked, worry creeping back into his voice.

  “We can always escape to another state if we have to,” she capitulated. “But I’d rather wait to see if we actually have to. Better living through chemistry might do the trick. Let’s give it another few weeks and see if I get better. Don’t give up on Junior just yet. My money’s on a pre-disposition towards stubbornness willing out.”

  Ben laughed, and she put his hand on her stomach, letting herself be happy for the first time in weeks. She rested back against him and closed her eyes, relaxing into the warmth of him surrounding her.

  “Well, in that case, I’ve been thinking about something else,” he said. “And I think I’ve figured out a way where everything will work.”

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “This real estate firm has been putting out feelers to buy the Cove. I’m taking the meeting.”

  Ben had spent the better part of his adult life building a successful Uptown hotspot called Lafitte’s Cove. Q was stunned into silence.

  She finally whispered, “Why would you do that?”

  “One, it’s a lot of money. More than enough to pay off the house and then some. Two, you can keep working, touring. I can stay home with the baby.”

  “But you love the Cove,” she said.

  “I told you, I didn’t marry you to make you a housewife. I love you more.”

  “And I didn’t marry you to make you sell your business,” she stated.

  He studied his hand on her stomach and his fingers tightened their grasp. “This is something I’ve wanted my entire life. A family of my own. Late nights running a club aren’t going to be good for that. Any way you look at it, one of us has to make a change. It’s time, Q. We can buy a stake in Club Sin Sin, so the Burlesque has a permanent home. Josh can help manage it. Once we’re done having kids and they’re in school, I’ll start another business or be more hands-on with yours, but until then, I’m staying put and watching my kids grow up. It’s what I want.”

  She glared at him. “Kids? As in more than one? Just how many times are you expecting me to do this to myself?”

  He grinned at her. “Well, I think I may have had a little something to do with it.”

  “You know what I mean, Ben. Answer the question.”

  “Four seems like a good number to me.”

  “You want me to be nauseous for four years.” She pulled him to her. “Can we see how this one goes first?”

  “Three?”

  “Stop negotiating,” she scolded.

  “I’m supposed to go to Mandeville this morning to meet up with the investors. Can I trust you to rest today?” he finally asked.

  “Yes, but later,” she promised. “I have a lunch date with Aaron. He’s got some questions about Mike.”

  “Don’t suppose I could convince you to have him come here so you could take it easy,” he tried.

  “Not a chance in hell. The only thing I have to look forward to today is throwing up my breakfast and an afternoon Percocet if this fucking cyst decides to stop playing nice. A lunch out, playing pretend investigator, trying to convince our fearless detective to give your little sister another turn on his dance card, is the best thing I’ve got going for me,” she replied with a resolute sigh.

  “Not the best thing, I hope.” He kissed her neck and a hormonal surge made her body suddenly flood with urgent desire.

  She breathlessly moaned, “Definitely not.”

  Ben continued to kiss the intersection of her neck and her collarbone. As muscle memory reminded her how good Ben Bordelon could make her feel, her body quickly responded in the affirmative. She turned to straddle him, hungrily kissing his neck and unbuttoning his jeans. For the last two weeks, the pain in her side had prevented her from allowing Ben to touch her, let alone anything else.

  Thank god, for narcotics.

  He wrapped his arms around her and slid his hands to her hips, groaning as his erection made contact with the bare skin on her legs.

  “You sure this is okay?” he gasped.

  Q stood up and pulled down her shorts, straddling him again and sliding him inside her.

  “For god’s sake, don’t jinx it, Bordelon,” she admonished, sighing as she moved against him. “Oh, god, I’ve missed you.”

  Her mouth found his and they moved together to a mutual release. When her orgasm came, Q arched her back, balancing herself on his knees. She rocked her hips with more force until Ben cried out and she felt his body shudder inside of her.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck and smiled at him. “We’re going to have a baby, Ben.”

  Ben grinned back at her. “We’re going to have a baby, darlin’. And it’s going to be the luckiest baby in the world.”

  “Because its mama is rich, and its daddy is good lookin’?” she teased.

  Ben laughed out loud. “Yes, ma’am.”

  ◆◆◆

  Q stepped off the streetcar, massaging her aching abdomen. She’d begun to cramp slightly after this morning’s adventure in kitchen sex with Ben. A quick Google search on her phone confirmed that it was normal. Yet another unfortunate consequence of growing one human being inside another. As she walked down St. Charles towards her lunch date with Sanger, she spontaneously decided to stop into the drug store on the corner to buy him a gag gift, something to break the ice and get him to finally take Ben’s sister on another date.

  After losing a woman he loved, he’d retreated into himself despite Q and Ben’s best efforts to keep their friend in the living world. Q was determined to put an end to it once and for all. The fact that her sister-in-law found new and creative ways to bring up Sanger’s name in nearly every discussion she had with Ben or Q was wearing on Q’s patience. She didn’t know if she could handle pregnancy, Sanger’s sullenness, and Yvie’s unrequited crush all at the same time, seeing it as the perfect trinity of tribulations.

  Gift bag in hand, she strolled down the block to Picorelli’s, a small Uptown grocery store that created Sanger’s favorite plate lunch specials. The chalkboard outside advertised smothered pork chops and okra as today’s special. Q’s stomach unexpectedly growled instead of turning itself inside out as the peppery aroma tickled her nose. She internally pled with her body to both ingest and digest some sustenance without equivocation.

  Walking beneath the small green awning and through the dimly lit grocery aisles to the small sit-down deli in the back, she found Sanger already seated with two Styrofoam containers and matching cups stacked in front of him.

  “Jesus,” Sanger said, standing up to greet her. “You look like shit.”

  Q frowned at him and sat down at the other side of the tabl
e. “Just for that, you’re going out with Yvonne. No excuses. Shabbat dinner, my house, Friday.”

  “What the fuck, Clementine?” he exclaimed, sitting back down hard. “Would you just drop it already?”

  “No, I will not. You’re supposed to tell a pregnant woman she’s glowing, dumbass. This is your punishment.”

  He handed her one of the closed containers, a cup, and a plastic tableware set wrapped in a napkin.

  “Well, then glow, for fuck’s sake. You look like you slept with a vampire or Derek Sharp last night,” he chided.