Forever Christmas Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1: Corabelle

  Chapter 2: Gavin

  Chapter 3: Corabelle

  Chapter 4: Gavin

  Chapter 5: Corabelle

  Chapter 6: Gavin

  Chapter 7: Corabelle

  Chapter 8: Gavin

  Chapter 9: Corabelle

  Chapter 10: Gavin

  Chapter 11: Corabelle

  Chapter 12: Gavin

  Chapter 13: Corabelle

  Chapter 14: Gavin

  Chapter 15: Corabelle

  Chapter 16: Gavin

  Chapter 17: Corabelle

  Chapter 18: Gavin

  Chapter 19: Corabelle

  Chapter 20: Gavin

  Chapter 21: Corabelle

  Chapter 22: Gavin

  Chapter 23: Corabelle

  Chapter 24: Gavin

  Chapter 25: Corabelle

  Chapter 26: Gavin

  Chapter 27: Corabelle

  Chapter 28: Gavin

  Chapter 29: Corabelle

  Epilogue: Gavin

  About Deanna Roy

  Rainbow Baby Dedications

  Forever Christmas

  Author

  www.deannaroy.com

  Join her mailing list for new releases and freebies at

  Deanna’s List

  Other books in the series

  Forever Innocent (Corabelle and Gavin’s story)

  Forever Loved (Corabelle and Gavin’s story, continued)

  Forever Sheltered (Tina and Dr. Darion’s story)

  Forever Bound (Jenny and Chance’s story)

  Forever Family (Corabelle, Tina, Jenny)

  Copyright © 2017 by Deanna Roy. All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously.

  Casey Shay Press

  PO Box 160116

  Austin, TX 78716

  www.caseyshaypress.com

  E-ISBN: 978938150715

  Also available in paperback: ISBN: 978938150739

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2017957037

  v1

  For my first rainbow baby

  Emily

  And my second

  Elizabeth

  And our new adopted rainbow

  Little Dude

  Go see all the Rainbow Baby Dedications from my fans

  •*´`*•♥•*´`*•

  Keep Hope in Your House

  Chapter 1: Corabelle

  It seems like every day lately is the first day of the rest of my life.

  College. Graduation. Grad school. My first teaching assistant position.

  But this one is just as big.

  A nurse leads Gavin down the hall to an exam room. I follow, a little slowly, looking at the giant quotes painted directly on the walls.

  If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.

  Instead of IMpossible, believe that I’M possible.

  I hope it’s all true.

  We enter a room. A frigid blast of air-conditioning makes me shiver.

  “Why is it always so cold here?” I whisper to Gavin.

  “Maybe they want our balls to shrivel before they get all up in them,” he says.

  “Gavin!”

  He laughs, and I’m glad he can be happy right now. I’m trying not to completely and utterly freak out.

  All around us, wall-sized cork boards are lined edge to edge with photographs of babies. Some of them have just been born, a happy father in paper scrubs holding up the red-faced infant. Others simply show the babies, cherubic and precious on their fancy birth announcements. A few depict the whole family.

  But mostly, the focus is on the fathers.

  Fathers who had their fertility restored after reversing their vasectomies.

  Fathers like Gavin.

  Of course there are no pictures of the men who aren’t successful. The ones who won’t be holding a squalling baby. Who regret their choices. Whose marriages may be strained. Who may argue over adoption and donor sperm and the legalities of all the other options.

  Or who choose to be childless.

  That might be us.

  Today we find out.

  “We’re surrounded,” Gavin jokes as he hops up on the exam table. His voice isn’t quite as jovial now. I think he’s a little unnerved by the pictures too. The last room didn’t have them. I wonder if it’s a sign. They put you in the baby room if the reversal worked, a plain one if it didn’t.

  “I’m just going to take your vitals,” the nurse says to Gavin, her voice curt and to the point. She has all the bedside manner of a billy goat.

  I watch her strap a little device to Gavin’s wrist. She cocks her hip in the pale green scrubs like this is all too much trouble. She’s slight, small boned, pale skinned, fair haired. Her attitude makes up for her tiny size.

  The little box beeps and she takes it off him.

  “Am I dead?” Gavin asks.

  She is not amused. “Vitals are fine,” she says as she turns away. “The doc will be here in a second.”

  The door closes behind her.

  “She can’t thaw out,” Gavin says. “It’s the refrigerated rooms.”

  This makes me smile. “Maybe it’s to control the man meat.”

  “I knew I was nothing more to you than a hot lay.” He returns the smile, and I start to feel a little better. No matter what happens today, we’re in this together.

  “It makes up for your terrible fashion sense,” I tell him.

  He kicks his legs out, examining his work boots. There are oil smudges on his shirt, right under the little patch that reads “Gavin.”

  “It’s weird for me to be the one on the table,” he says.

  “Hopefully it will be me next,” I say, looking around at all the pictures.

  “I thought we were going to wait,” he says. “Until you’re through grad school.”

  “I know.” My eyes fall on one baby face, then another. That IS what we decided. To do the reversal surgery now, while we had the money, gifted to us from Tina’s artist friend in his will. And while Gavin was still young. By the time we could afford a child, his chance of a successful reversal would be lower.

  Money is an issue. We are behind on everything. I finished my undergraduate degree without scholarship help and am up to my eyeballs in student loans. And I’m only halfway through my master’s degree. Gavin has to take classes slowly since he puts in so many hours at the garage.

  I do have a teaching assistant position, which will help me achieve my dream of teaching college later on. But it doesn’t pay much. We’ll continue to get behind. Life is hard, but headed the right direction.

  And now this.

  Two swift knocks on the door are followed by the doctor peering in. He’s the polar opposite of his nurse, all smiles and friendly handshakes. He is tall and lean, casual in jeans and a pale blue button-down beneath his open white lab coat.

  “Gavin,” he says. “Good to see you. Sounds like your recovery went fine.”

  “Used an ice pack or two, but things seem to be in working order.” Gavin flashes a glance at me and even though I’m his wife, my face heats up.

  “Good, good,” the doctor says. My mind is blanking on his name. It doesn’t matter. What he says is more important than who he is right now.

  He pulls up a stool. “Let’s talk a
bout the results of the sample you gave us last week.”

  My face flames again. There are few things as awkward as helping your husband generate a sperm sample for a cup.

  “We’re three months out, so we should start seeing swimmers in there,” the doctor says.

  I’m bracing myself for the next part, where he says there aren’t any. I’m so sure he will say this that I actually hear it, so when the doctor goes on, I’m momentarily disoriented when his words don’t match my head.

  “We are seeing activity now, which is good, really good.” He nods at both of us. “But the count is low. Right on the cusp of what could reliably create a conception.”

  Gavin lets out a long stream of air. “So what’s next?”

  “We’ll retest in another three months,” he says. “Are you planning to conceive right away?”

  “No,” Gavin says, then turns to me for confirmation. I nod. “Is there anything we can do to help it?”

  “Not necessarily for the count, but if it stays low, certainly we can wash the sperm, get the concentration up, and then do an insertion. It’s not unusual to need this after a reversal.”

  Gavin’s eyes look like they are going to pop out of his head. “Who would insert it?”

  The doctor chuckles. “Your wife’s obstetrician,” he says. “It’s a fairly simple procedure.”

  “And expensive,” Gavin grumbles.

  “Altering the path you chose early on isn’t easy,” the doctor says. “I’m glad to see that we’ve made progress, though.” He stands and pats Gavin’s shoulder. “You two are young. You’ll get there.”

  “Thank you,” I say.

  He does another round of handshakes, then he’s out the door.

  Gavin jumps off the table. “Not bad news,” he says.

  “No, not the worst.”

  He extends his hand, and I take it. It’s warm and strong and just holding it makes me feel better. This is Gavin, the boy I’ve known since I was a baby. Who crossed the alley behind our houses and slipped inside my fence from the time he could walk.

  We’re on the path to undoing the damage he did when he was eighteen and angry at the world, screwing over fatherhood because it had screwed him.

  We walk back down the hall, past the nurses’ station, to the checkout. While he makes his next appointment, I spot one more quote on the wall by the door.

  Keep your face to the sunshine, and the shadows will fall behind you.

  Chapter 2: Gavin

  Despite the decent news, Corabelle definitely doesn’t seem to be doing too well after the doc visit.

  “I don’t have to go back to Bud’s,” I tell her. “Why don’t we do something together today?” We approach my motorcycle and I unlock our helmets. “There’s a rock in the desert with our name on it.”

  Corabelle peers up at the sun. Summer is approaching, and the morning coolness has mostly burned off. San Diego isn’t one for blazing temperatures, although the desert will certainly be warm.

  “I’m not sure I’m dressed for a desert rock,” she says, gesturing to her jeans and long-sleeved shirt.

  “Where we’re going, we don’t need clothes,” I say with a wink.

  This gets her attention. Her eyebrows lift. “We should make a snack stop on the way. At least for water.”

  She’s on board.

  “Ever practical,” I say, slinging a leg over the bike and waiting for her to settle in behind me. I hide my relief, as if I knew all along that she would come. “I could stand to melt some chocolate on your belly, though.”

  This gets a small laugh. “Sounds messy,” she says.

  “All the better to lick you.”

  Now the bigger laugh.

  This is working.

  I fire up the bike and we take off like a jet from the parking lot, the gloomy building, and the freeze-dried nurse.

  I’m more conscious than usual, though, of my crotch, the vibrations of the motor. Did this help or hurt my sperm count? I should have asked. I didn’t really ask any questions at all.

  Pictures of my insides fill my head. Cartoon squigglies with long pointy tails, bumping around and popping like balloons until only a few remain.

  I wash cold with the idea. Damn, I need to ditch that image.

  I focus on the city passing by in a blur. Buildings. Trees. We get on the highway and zip alongside cars. Gradually, my buzzing head starts to get quiet. I can see the mountains in the distance, the red-brown of the desert hills before it.

  The landscape gets quieter, the streets fewer and farther apart. We approach a gas station and Corabelle taps my arm. I pull in.

  “I’ll go,” she says. “You stay with the bike.”

  She’s always worried about losing the few things we have. I want to keep things easy today. Corabelle’s way, no questions asked.

  She’s only inside a minute, coming out with bottles of water and a bag of trail mix. She holds up a bar of chocolate. That’s my girl. She unzips the cargo bag attached to the back of the seat and sticks everything inside.

  Then we’re off again, into the desert, the air drying out. Traffic all but disappears, midmorning on a workday, and it feels like the entire world is ours.

  I know where I want to take her. It’s a spot we went to early on, when we first found each other again in astronomy class.

  My gut tightens, just thinking about how close we came to spending our entire lives apart.

  Our history is long, going back to childhood, my parents’ house across the back alley. Corabelle was my first love, my only love, and we were inseparable even as toddlers. She saved me from my father. He wouldn’t lay a hand on me in front of her. So I practically lived at her house.

  Then high school came and she got pregnant. The town helped us out with a place to live. We had plans to do college part-time with her parents’ help watching the baby.

  Then Finn arrived two months early and with a heart condition. He lived seven days in the NICU.

  My actions after that are not something I’m proud of. I blew up at Finn’s funeral and ended up walking out. At the time I was nothing but anger, frustration, and guilt. I got it in my head that the world had decided I should never be a father. So I drove my car to Mexico and tracked down a clinic willing to do the vasectomy no questions asked, happy for the cash in US dollars.

  That’s what got me where we are now, trying to right the wrong, change our fate. I never thought I’d see Corabelle again, much less become her husband.

  I aim to deserve her.

  The reversal was a first step. There is nothing I won’t do to make her happy.

  We ride out, surrounded by nothing but dirt and rock and the occasional scrub brush. The highway cuts through like a streak of silver, the center stripe worn down by dust and time.

  We pass Alpine, and I turn off the highway to cut down a dirt road. The terrain is rough and Corabelle holds on more tightly as we bump over ruts and ridges.

  “I remember this part!” she yells next to my ear.

  It’s not far to the turn that leads to the plateau we visited before. It’s been two years since the night we came here to do an astronomy project. It was a key night, part of our reconnection after Corabelle transferred to San Diego to finish her degree.

  She hadn’t known I was here, even though we’d both applied our senior year of high school, before she got pregnant. The plan changed with Finn and we chose New Mexico to be near her folks.

  After Finn, Corabelle had stayed on in New Mexico. I’d burned that bridge by leaving, so I took up at the only other school to accept me.

  I never dreamed we’d meet up again, and even though Corabelle had wanted nothing to do with me at first, I’d gradually convinced her to give me another chance.

  The night on the rock had been part of that, and I hoped today would be another great memory.

  We ride to the walking path, the motor revving to take on the incline. We’re in the foothills now, a wind tunnel shaping the land into its own brand of art
, statues made of dust and rock.

  Brush has overgrown the path more than the last time we were here, so I have to stop the bike sooner. I kill the motor and Corabelle sighs, stretching as she dismounts. “I’m not sure I’m in any better motorcycle shape than the last time we came here,” she says.

  It’s true we only take short jaunts on the bike these days, preferring her car for anything more than a quick ride. But it makes my commute cheaper and the insurance break helps.

  “Full body massage coming up,” I say.

  She shakes her head as she unloads the snacks, but I know that smile. She’s with me. It’s going to be a good afternoon.

  The sun is bright white overhead. The mountains are pearl gray on the horizon, the sandblasted world around us a burnished red in the searing light.

  “About as hot as I expected,” I say and unlatch the rolled-up blanket from the side of the bike. We tramp around the brush, jumping on rocks and picking our way back to the path. I see the plateau ahead, a wide flat space among the hills and valleys.

  I scramble up the embankment, then turn to help Corabelle. It feels like the last time, all nerves and anticipation. But right. We’re together. No matter what else happens, we have that.

  And this time she’s my wife.

  We straighten the blanket and lie back, closing our eyes to the blazing sky.

  “Remember what happened last time we were here?” she asks.

  “Why do you think I brought you?” I joke. “I’m aiming for a repeat.”

  Her arm flings out to bop my chest. “We’ll get to that,” she says. “We talked about Finn. The stars were out. They always reminded us of him.”

  “Still do,” I say.

  “True. I think this wide open space does it, though. Even without the stars.”

  I turn on my side to look at her. Beyond her the mountains and rock and wild brush spread out as far as you can see. We could be the only two people in the world. “You doing okay with the news this morning?” I ask.