On the last day of January Dave fired up the Chevy and headed eastward again.

Once again, there was little reason for him to do it for the sake of Dunlap and Fyre. There were a couple things that would go smoother face to face but nothing that couldn't have been done by phone if absolutely necessary. In practice, though, Dave felt as if his prediction back in September was correct -- he was getting out of touch with the office politics and feeling the lack of networking he had once experienced. From time to time, he'd talked with some other editors, and they mostly reported the same kind of thing, so he wasn't alone. However, Dave was beginning to think this wasn't a long range issue with him; he just wanted to get his work done and free up his time for other things.

He probably would have found some reason to beg off the trip if it weren't for Shae. It was now almost a full month since he'd seen her, although they talked every day, both with and without the boys in the conversation. Still, talking to her on the phone wasn't the same as being with her. If it weren't for the fact it was too long of a trip to expect the boys to ride for such a short stay, he'd have been tempted to take them with him, even though it would put a real crimp into the adult bedtime activities he'd come to enjoy the last couple times he'd gotten together with Shae. So, with no small amount of eagerness he dropped the boys off at school and got out on Interstate 80.

As usual, the trip was long and boring. He spent some time trying to think about where the book was going, but it couldn't hold his interest, because his mind was really more on Shae than anything else.

So far, they'd pretty well managed to keep their romance from the boys, mostly because the kids weren't old enough to be tuned in on it, but even that subterfuge was getting more difficult. Emily had asked a couple of rather pointed questions that he'd had some trouble evading, too. While his mother knew about it and had promised to keep the secret, Dave could tell she was just about busting with the desire to tell someone, and suspected that Hazel, at least, knew about it too.

Clearly it was near time to come clean with the boys, and then with everyone else. The boys had been handed a tough truth last fall, and all in all they'd taken it pretty well, mostly better than he had, and at least partly because everyone had worked so hard to soften the blow for them. Their youth played into it -- it might not have gone anywhere as well if they were a little older. But still, he had trouble figuring out how to drop this happy news on them, and he planned to talk it over with Shae this trip, with the idea of telling the boys the next time she came to Bradford. That meant they had to do some planning and timetable setting, and had to make a few decisions. With that thought in mind Dave drove eastward with the feeling this trip was going to bring some changes to his life, since this time it was likely the topic of marriage would come up, as uncomfortable as it might be considering his issues with being loyal to Julie.

Having to drop the boys off caused him to leave a little late, and traffic hassles caused the trip to go slowly. It was well after dark when he arrived at Shae's apartment, where she was waiting for him. Since he'd called ahead on his cell phone and let her know he was running late, she'd held dinner for him, but it was ready within a few minutes of walking in her door and being greeted with a tremendous hug and kiss. He would have liked to have started right into discussing his thoughts of the drive over, but decided it wasn't a good time right then, since it was late and both of them were tired -- tired enough that they kept their lovemaking session down to about an hour before they fell asleep in what had become their favorite position, in each other's arms.

They knew they didn't have any time to mess around when the alarm went off the next morning, since Dave had an early appointment with Larissa Hamilton about Wings of Tregedar, which she'd been sending to him in sections. Her book was really going well, and what he'd seen was much better than the marginal Swordsman of Atlantis, which they'd decided not to publish. Wings was still a ways from being done and still needed some work, but it was coming along nicely. Dave's mind was really more on it than anything else as he showered by himself -- it would have taken much longer for the two of them to shower together because they would have gotten diverted into other things.

He stepped out of the shower to find Shae on her knees in front of the toilet, looking rather pale and peaked. "You OK?" he asked.

"I think so," she told him. "I was brushing my teeth and all of a sudden I gagged so bad I thought I was going to barf. It's happened a couple times here recently. My stomach has been feeling a little rocky sometimes. I think I've got a little touch of flu or something, not very bad though. I'll be OK."

Dave simply forgot about the incident, as his mind was still on Larissa and her book. They had a light breakfast, then got on their separate ways.

Dave's meeting with Larissa went very well; she'd picked up a lot of what he'd told her and improved on it. It really was more of a face-to-face to touch base with each other than for anything substantive. He finally managed to have his long-delayed meeting with Rob, although there were other items of interest to cover, and about all they managed on the online books was to agree they needed to talk about it sometime. Clearly, it was far down Rob's priority list, and Dave finally decided he was going to write up a memo of what he'd come up with, send it to Rob, and quit spending time on it until Rob approached him on the subject. Even with having lunch with Dick and Michelle, he had everything pretty well wrapped up by two PM, so he headed for Aaron Tietelbaum's office, still a little piqued at the lack of communication he was experiencing from being out of the office. He was not concerned about it much since it seemed likely Dunlap and Fyre was quickly becoming past tense.

The meeting with Tietelbaum went well. Because he and Julie had been filing their income tax separately, and the amount of money to be transferred was large, it was taking a while to iron everything out. Basically Dave had known since near the beginning there was going to be a tax hit, but after months of work Aaron had cut it down considerably. The returns still weren't quite ready and a couple issues were up in the air, but Aaron promised him everything would be done in another month, and in another year his taxes were going to be far simpler.

Whatever problems Shae may have had in the morning, she seemed to be over them after work. They went to a nice German restaurant for dinner, and then wound up at a smoky club with dancing and a good blues band before heading back to the apartment to do a little horizontal dancing in bed. Since they didn't have much on the schedule for Saturday, they slept in a bit. They cuddled for a while after waking up, which morphed, as it had before, into a nice bout of oral sex.

Shae was enjoying what she was doing and he was enjoying it, too. That came to a screeching halt as she got a greenish look on her face, vaulted out of bed, and raced for the bathroom, barely in time to make it to the toilet to blow her guts.

Well, he thought, that sort of takes the fun out of that. He waited several minutes, but when she didn't return, he decided he'd better check on her, so got up and headed for the bathroom himself to find her on her knees in front of the toilet again. "Shae, are you all right?" he asked.

"Yeah, I think so, now," she replied. "I don't know what this bug I have is, but I wish I'd get over it."

"You said you thought you had a touch of the flu or something."

"It feels sorta like it, but not really," she shrugged. "I can't seem to shake it, whatever it is." She stood up, apparently done with the toilet. "I feel better now."

With the mood for sex pretty well shot, they decided to get dressed. "Tell you what," Dave said. "I'll run ahead of you while you go get some coffee going."

"Let's not," she said. "I really haven't been able to put up with coffee recently, at least in the morning. Tea would be fine, though. Why don't I put a kettle on? I can have some of that."

"OK, fine with me," Dave frowned, a little suspicion beginning to tickle his mind. Some of this was starting to sound familiar.

He turned to the shower, to get a quick one, his mind running hard. Could it be? If so, it was going to put a real twist in things.

A few minutes later he was in the kitchen, with Shae now running well behind him. He found some tea bags and coffee singles and made himself one of the latter, planning on drinking it quickly. It tasted lousy, better than instant, but not by much, and nothing like the rich convenience store flavor of the coffee at the Spee-D-Mart. What was he going to do for his morning coffee after it closed? Make his own? He was going to miss the daily gossip session with Janine or Emily, he thought, digressing almost intentionally from what was on his mind. Was he making a mountain out of a molehill?

Eventually, Shae emerged wearing a pair of jeans that were way too short, almost pedal pushers, and somewhat incongruously, a flannel shirt. "Sorry about taking so long, Dave," she said. "I've been a little constipated lately, along with everything else."

Dave couldn't help himself. "I never said you were full of shit."

She giggled and blushed a little. "Well, you know what I mean," she laughed, and went to the kettle to make herself some tea.

"Yeah, I guess," he snickered. Oh, hell, might as well press on, he thought. If I'm wrong I at least get some points for caring. "However it ended, it felt good to sleep in," he commented divertingly.

"Yeah, it did," she yawned. "I've been tired a lot lately, and sometimes it's so bad I get headaches from it. It sure felt good to get some extra Z's."

Well, it fit, Dave said, not really wanting to examine how he felt. He turned to Shae and looked seriously at her. "Shae," he said. "I know this is kind of personal, but when was your last period?"

"Right after you left last month," she answered right off.

Dave frowned -- that didn't fit the picture forming in his mind. "Was there anything abnormal about it?" he asked.

"Dave," she frowned. "Are you my doctor or something?"

"Your 'or something' for now," he smiled. "I'm leading up to a point. Was there anything abnormal about it?"

"Well, yeah," she said, the confusion evident on her face. "It was a little early, even though I'm on the pill. And it was real light."

"When's your next one due?"

Shae shook her head. "I don't see what you're getting at, but I go to the placebo pills Monday, and it usually kicks right off then."

Dave glanced at the calendar hanging on the wall. "So your last one should have started around the seventh but started around the third or so, right? And the one before that about December 10."

"Yeah, so what?"

"So, you showed up at Bradford on the twenty-fourth, which as you'll recall, we spent the night trying to knock the bed down."

"I needed it, too," she replied. "Damn, you lit some fires in me I forgot I had. And you were into me every night for a week. It really was fun to sneak those past the boys."

"It was," he grinned at the memory. "Shae, I could be wrong, but looking at the calendar your fertile period should have been right about then."

Shae frowned, then got an odd look on her face. "Dave, are you saying what I think you're saying?"

"I could easily be wrong," he said slowly, "But there are a lot of signs indicating you could be pregnant."

"But Dave!" she protested. "I can't be pregnant. I'm on the pill, and I had a period last month."

"Doesn't have to mean anything," he said. "The pill has never been perfect pregnancy protection. Even under the best conditions, the failure rate is around one percent. Some pills have a failure rate of ten percent or higher. It depends on the pill and the person. I don't know the details, but they can be looked up on the Internet. As far as the period, some women have what they call 'implant bleeds' six to ten days after impregnation. They can fool you into thinking you're having a normal period."

"Dave," she said a little firmly, "How do you know all this shit?"

"Don't forget, Shae," he smiled. "I've been through this from the man's side before. Twice in fact. In Julie's case, well, we were trying to get pregnant. She had implant bleeds both times and both times we were disappointed until we realized later she'd caught after all. All the other stuff, well, I was interested, and Julie was the kind of person who wanted to let me know every detail. That's what makes me think you're showing all the signs."

"Wow," she replied in a soft voice. "I never even thought about that. I mean, the pills, the period . . ."

"I can tell you from experience that, even if you hope it's coming, the realization is a big experience," he said with a smile.

"Yeah, no shit," she said absently. "Damn, Dave. Pregnant! I mean, I was kind of looking forward to it in a year or so, but . . . well, damn."

"I wouldn't go just on my word," he told her. "After all, I'm not a doctor; I'm just going on experience, and I could easily be wrong. But I think it would be a good idea to go out and buy a pregnancy test kit. If it comes up positive, then if I were you I think I'd see a doctor to be sure."

"Well, yeah, sure . . ." she said slowly. "Damn it, now you've got me excited about it. I don't know whether to hope it's true or hope it's not. What do you say we go find a drug store?"

"I think it would be a good idea," he nodded, just beginning to absorb the reality of it himself. This was going to change things . . . maybe a lot, maybe not as much as he might suspect, but change them for sure. The conversation he'd wanted to have had just become a lot more imperative. He got up, walked around the table, and put his hands of Shae's shoulders. "Shae, while we're out, we could always stop off someplace and buy you a nice engagement ring. As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't matter whether you're pregnant or not."

"Dave, is that a proposal?" she said. "Aren't you supposed to be down on one knee or something?"

"I'm also supposed to run it by your father, but he's far away, and I haven't seen him for years. Come on, Shae, I don't stand much on tradition. We've been working our way up to this for months, and it just puts the icing on the cake either way. I know we agreed to try and keep this from the boys until we work out what's going to happen, and it's just getting harder and harder. I think it's time we make things a little more formal and let them in on the secret."

"Dave . . . oh, Christ, Dave, this is a hell of a lot to drop on me before I've even had a sip of tea, much less coffee. I mean, yeah, I've thought about what it would be like to be married to you. I figured we'd do it sooner or later, and I've even been hoping it would be sooner if all this Avalon shit can get ironed out. Now, here it is, and I wasn't expecting it to happen like this."

"It is a hell of a lot to comprehend," he agreed, softly kneading her shoulders. "Believe me; I've thought about it a lot. Maybe having been there once gives me a little perspective on it. I've come to the realization I'm looking forward to being with you on a permanent basis. I think it would work out well, and I think it would work out well with the boys. They're a huge concern of mine, and I think the four of us, maybe five of us, would make a pretty good family."

"My God, Dave!" she said. "It's . . . well, it's something I never quite expected to happen like this. Do you have any idea how long I've looked for a man I could love as well as respect? It's been a long damn time, Dave, clear back into high school, and I never really got close. I've so looked forward to having a family of my own . . . did I tell you I'd thought about trying out being a single mom after Avalon ran out?"

"You told me a long time ago," he said softly. "Shae, I'm doing the single-dad routine right now, and it's not fun. Don't get me wrong; the boys are the light of my life, and I'd sacrifice anything for them, but they need someone to fill in as a mom, too. I'm the child of a single parent, remember. A person can grow up that way and in fact, grow up pretty decently, but it takes both parents to keep things well balanced. Fortunately Mom had a brother who could fill the dad role for me a little, but it wasn't the same thing. While I'm willing to put up with it for a while, in the long run, I don't want any child of mine to grow up as the child of a single parent." He squeezed her shoulders and paused for a moment to make his point, before he continued, "And it includes future children as well as present."

"Dave, you don't have to talk me into it," she said, swinging around on the chair so she could look directly up at him. "It's everything I ever wanted; it's just that it's so sudden; I don't know how to get my mind around it. Tell you what. Let's go out and get some breakfast, then we can shop for a pregnancy test kit and a ring."

Three hours later and with a diamond ring on her finger, Shae and Dave closely inspected the results of the pregnancy test kit they'd bought a little while before. "Well, Daddy," Shae smiled at him. "I guess you knew what you were talking about."

"I was pretty sure," he said. "But it is nice to know."

"Well, this certainly changes things," she replied. "I'm glad you've done this before. You'll be able to help with a lot of things."

"It's still pretty much the woman's show," Dave smiled. "But yeah, I've been around the block; I might be able to point out a few things."

"So, what do you think? Boy or girl?"

Dave shrugged. "I don't care," he replied. "I'll settle for a baby."

"Looks like you're going to have to," she laughed. "But which variety would you like? Come on, help my imagination."

"Given a choice, I'd prefer a girl," he smiled. "But it's because I already have two boys; it would be nice to go the other way for once. But I don't really care."

"I guess me either," she replied thoughtfully. "Actually, given a choice, I think I'd prefer a boy. Given your height and mine, the kid is probably not going to be short, and it's a little easier for a boy to be real tall."

"Yeah, but if it's a tall girl, she's going to have a real good role model," Dave said. "I can't see a girl of yours walking around in middle school crouching over to hide the fact she's taller than the boys."

"Not if she knows what's good for her," Shae snorted. "But I guess we take what we get, like it or not."

"Yeah, that's how it works," Dave agreed and changed the subject. "Anyway, now that we've settled the whether-we-get-married question, we ought to think about the when. I've got some thoughts but I want to hear yours first."

"This has all come on so quickly I haven't had a chance to think about it. On one hand, I think they have no waiting period in Maryland, but I'd have to check on the net to be sure. On the other hand, I think it might be better if we were to wait until we can live together before we do it. It'd make things a little easier to explain to the boys, if nothing else."

"That's pretty close to my ideas," he replied. "When I was thinking about it on the drive here Thursday, I was thinking that given a choice, I'd like to put it off until the tail end of September, or October."

"That year-waiting-period thing for Julie, huh?" Shae said, apparently understanding perfectly; after all, there had been discussion along those lines before.

"Right," Dave told her. "But now, I don't know if it may have changed a bit. Three months ago I would have said it was too soon. Now, it doesn't seem to matter quite as much. I still would like to wait that long, if for no more reason than to keep Stan and Deborah from being too upset with me. On the other hand, I don't know that it matters. They never really liked me much, and I always pretty much felt the same way about them."

"Maybe you ought to run it by them," Shae suggested. "You don't have to agree with what they suggest, but at least it would be courteous to ask their opinion."

"Yeah, that's true," he said. "But I want to let the word get out about it happening before I approach that question, so it's clear it's not 'whether' but 'when'. They're probably going to be pissed with me, but then they're pissed with me anyway, so what's new? On the third hand, is it going to piss them off less if we wait till October? Or does it matter?"

"I can wait until October," Shae smiled. "If you want to have a baby in arms at the wedding."

"Yeah, but do we want to, again for the sake of setting an example for the boys?" Dave replied.

"I can't answer that," Shae said. "And I think maybe we want to let them know what's coming down in either case. I'd be more interested in their input than I would in your former in-laws, anyway. In any case, we probably won't be able to do it until spring or early summer, at the earliest."

"Why do you figure that?"

"Avalon," Shae told him. "If they cancel it, that's one thing. If they don't cancel it, then it means I'm going to have to stay with it."

"Yeah, I'd thought that out," Dave replied. "And I can't do much about it until school gets out. If it keeps going, then it means the boys and I will have to move back here, to the apartment, at least temporarily. If we decide we're going to stay here we can look for some place a little more permanent."

"Dave," she brightened up. "Here's one of those questions that calls on your experience. How long before I start to show?"

"Again, I'm going to have to base my answer on Julie. We could tell a difference at about four months, but she could pretty much hide it for another month or so. By the time she hit five months it was pretty clear. As big as you are, though, it might be a little different. You might be able to stretch it out a little more, I don't know. You're thinking Avalon, right?"

"Right," she said. "You're saying by about the first of June I'm going to be showing too much to play Shaella Sunrise, right?"

"I'd say that's a pretty fair statement," he replied. "And you're probably going to be out of action until maybe a month after the birth."

"Oh, boy," she shook her head. "That may settle a lot right there. I don't really know anything, but all the rumors and all the stuff I've seen says the network is on the bubble about whether they're going to cancel Avalon or what. I don't want to say I'm the star of their little show, but most of it is built around me. If we can't shoot my scenes for four or five months, it may kill it anyway."

"Maybe they can film ahead and work around it," Dave suggested.

"I doubt if they'd want to go to the trouble," she shook her head. "Dave, you know I'm pretty damn tired of the show and of Shaella Sunrise anyway. If it weren't for the fact I feel at least a little responsible for some of the other people in the show, I don't think I'd renew a contract anyway, especially considering what's happened today. But I'd hate to be the one to torpedo it."

"Whatever happens, it's out of your hands, now," Dave told her. "It's not as if it was going to last forever, otherwise. Hell, it may be dead, already."

"Yeah, and that makes me a little sad, too," she said. "It really is a pretty good kid's show, and at least I can be pretty sure little what's their name is going to be able to watch Mommy act like a little kid." She shook her head, shrugged, and looked a little sad. "I guess that's the downside of moving to Bradford. If I stay here, I can maybe keep a little busy with a few things. Do the odd game for WSN, do a little modeling or some commercials or something, even though I've always been a specialty model, and I'm starting to get a little old for it. In Bradford, about all I can be is a mommy. Hell, if I get bored, I suppose I could always get a job running a fork truck out at General."

"I think we can manage to avoid you having to do it somehow," Dave smiled. "I mean, unless you really want to run a fork truck."

"I'd really rather not," she laughed. "Do you have something in mind?"

"No, not really," he said. "But there might be something if we use our imagination. Maybe you can go out and do your storytelling show with Dayna and Sandy. I mean, I'd prefer you didn't sleep with them, but . . ."

"I know what you mean, and I'm not wired that way," she laughed. "Hell, you of all people should know that. But yeah, it was fun. It wouldn't be a fulltime gig, but I don't want a fulltime gig for the time being, anyway."

"You know . . ." Dave started, and inspiration hit him. He stopped for a moment to examine it; it sounded like a good idea to just throw out. "I don't know if this has any merit, but how about if you were to work up a few of your better stories and put them on DVD? I mean, just storytelling, maybe even no costume . . . " his mind faded for a second as another idea hit him. "Then, when you get it all set up, closed caption it. That way, when it's played for kids they can see the words along with hearing them. There's not a lot of people who can tell stories the way you do, and I'm of the opinion people don't read enough to kids, anyway."

"It would be a neat idea," she agreed. "But Dave, how would we sell it? I don't know enough about record companies, but it seems like it'd be as hard to break into the distribution network as it is for a new author to break into books."

"I don't know but I suppose you're right," Dave said. "But why not do the marketing ourselves, over the Internet?"

"Is that going to work?"

"One way to find out," Dave said. "And it won't cost us much to find out, maybe a few ads in print media, we'll have to see. Look, I've told you a little bit about this, but Rob has had me working on how to sell e-books from new authors online, mostly as a way to figure out how saleable they are. From what he told me yesterday, well, reading between the lines he isn't thinking about it much anymore. I think my thinking is valid, and a lot of it applies to what we've just been talking about. Hell, you were there when we were talking with Dayna and Sandy about how they sell CDs. It's the same thing, the exact same thing."

"You could be right," Shae nodded. "It's certainly something to think about. I think I'll have to chew on it a bit. You're talking doing the shooting and editing ourselves?"

"No, no way," he said. "Get pros to do it, shoot it on site or in a studio. It might take a few days, but I'll bet it's something else that can be done more cheaply outside of New York, too."

"I suppose," she said. "I can think of several angles right off the top of my head, and who knows? There might be something else come up if we think about it a little. But, you know, I just had another idea."

"Something else to do in Bradford?"

"Well, there too," she smirked. "You know, it just struck me. One of the neat things about being pregnant is I don't have to worry about getting pregnant."

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