Free Deadly Expectations by Elizabeth Munro

idea how often my mother uses the words “nice woman” and “grandchildren” with Joshua and me.”
    After everyone had gotten dinner the two men went to the cabin Paul assigned them I cleaned up the kitchen while Joshua and Paul went to the common room.   Paul got out the scotch and two of the remaining cigars.
    While I unloaded the dishwashers I heard bits and pieces of their conversation.   Shop talk, their family.   A lot of laughter.   Joshua’s laugh was just as loud as Paul’s and I was quite certain I wouldn’t get much rest until Paul came to bed.   I wiped down the counters and the table I turned off the light and went to sit back down and watch the snow.
    “She’s gone upstairs?”   Joshua asked after a while.
    “Must have,” Paul answered.
    Joshua laughed.   “Lucky bastard, you told mom?”
    “That I’m a lucky bastard?”
    “No, that you finally found a nice woman with poor eyesight.”
    There was more laughter.   I laughed quietly; Paul wasn’t hard on the eyes at all.
    “ Hm … you know mom’s all but given up on you.   I get the grandchildren talk ten times worse than you do.   If you were a good big brother you’d tell her and get the heat off me for a while.”
    “I haven’t known her all that long.   I met her at one of the rallies in the summer, spent the night in her hotel.   My God Josh, she makes an old man like me wish he was ten years younger.
    “We spent a few nights together before I called it off.   She’s got so much ahead of her.   I didn’t think it was fair for her to have one one-night stand after another with a man who’d never be any more than a ghost in her life.”
    Paul hadn’t told me that.   Maybe that was part of it. The part he would tell his brother.
    “Then a couple of weeks ago she rides down here to find me.   Tells me she’s pregnant.   She thought I’d met someone else and only came down to open the door with the kid.   She never left.   I spent a month regretting saying good-bye.   Now I can’t imagine a day without her.   And I’m going to be a father.   Someone is smiling on me.”
    “Whoever it is send them my way.”   Joshua said.   “You let her in Paul … to this house.   Your life here.   You never did that with anyone else.   And she didn’t run the other way.”
    “No, she didn’t,” Paul laughed quietly.   “She said she loves me.”
    “Someone has to ask you before it goes too far.   Do you feel the same way or are you just trying to do the right thing ‘cause maybe you should have kept it in your pants?”
    There was silence for a few seconds.
    “I know what you’re saying Josh.   Even between the nights we spent together she was on my mind.   I stopped putting my line out.   Knowing I’d see her again was distracting.   I’m a better man for having her.
    “Yeah, I feel the same way.”
    Joshua didn’t say anything as I heard more scotch slosh into their glasses.   I closed my eyes and put my feet up on the window sill, crossing my arms and turning slightly in my chair so I could rest my head.   Paul’s house felt like home more than any place I’d known since losing my mother and hearing Paul tell someone else about me made me sure I belonged here with him.
    “She said when she got here that she’d quit work, wasn’t going back for a while.   I did the same.   I don’t want a night without her.   I can listen to her breathe, my bed’s warm when I get in at three in the morning.   I can fall asleep sober and know if the bad dreams come I won’t wake up alone … but I haven’t had any since she got here.”
    Paul paused.
    “Anna thinks it’s a girl.   I don’t think she cares where we are, as long as I’m there with her.”
    “You know when mom finds out she’ll be on the first flight here to help you pick out a ring and she’ll already have the tent booked for immediate family and five hundred of her closest friends for the reception.”
    “Yeah …” Paul