A Second Chance Ch. 02

"Your NEW Mr Wonderful wants to be her Daddy, and deprive my son of his rights, he should be p..."

"Rights? That's a good one Liz," Callie laughed, "So let me get this straight, you want ME to pay Ralph because he had unprotected sex with me, and changed a nappy once a day for nine weeks, that's hysterical!"

"I WAS being serious!"

"So was I Liz," she said standing up, "so was I. Look Ralph, if you'd like to see Emmie, ring me and we can arrange something."

"What about his money?" shouted his Mum, with real anger.

"What money?"

"The money you're going to be getting from living with your new boyfriend, he's taking over from my son, surely he should get... compensation!"

"Yeah," laughed Callie finally having heard enough, and slipping on my green hoodie, "I'll run that past Craig; if you haven't heard anything about it in... oh, I don't know, fifteen or twenty years, I'd forget about it."

"But what about his rights? S'only fair!"

"No one is stopping Ralph from seeing Emma," she said, "do you know, up until five minutes ago I was going to suggest that he forgot paying me the pittance of child support he can't afford. Now, well, seeing as you've made such a great thing about his rights, well, I'll expect the outstanding payments as soon as you get a full-time job Ralph," she patted his cheek, "See ya!"

She came home with just the strangest look on her face. Part fury, but also laughing about the 'compo' request. She sat on my lap and retold the discussion, which had both of us laughing in the end.

Our wedding was arranged for the following summer, and it was quite lovely. Callie was resplendent in a sleeveless, white lace dress, with an embroidered, fitted bodice that looked lovely AND sexy at the same time, given away by her Uncle Frank, Judy's brother.

Emmie looked more of a princess than any Disney girl, and altogether stole the show, and no one minded in the slightest. While Callie and I went to the Bahamas, Emmie went to France with Gran'ma Judy.

The strangest thing to come out of it was that three months later our photograph appeared in a 'Wedding Special' supplement in a weekend edition of the local paper, thanks to Callie's amazing body in her amazing dress, and the pleas of the young dress designer that it be included.

It went mad, and the designer had loads of requests for the same dress. It was so popular, another girl I knew bought one, two in fact.

I had an email from Anna.

"Dear Craig,

I was so pleased to see your picture with your bride, AND your new daughter in the Saturday edition of the paper. You look so happy and they both look so lovely. So lovely in fact I bought a couple of the same wedding dresses.

I'm still good, and still live in the old place, and you'll be surprised to know, so does Genevieve.

Long story short, we're in love and engaged to be married, and Gen saw your beautiful wife in that beautiful dress and told me that she'd found the only dress she wanted to get married in. She then showed me!

I let her know that I knew the groom and had to admit just how well I knew you. She didn't mind, in fact she dragged me upstairs, smacked my arse, and we spent the rest of the weekend there, bar the takeout deliveries.

She's almost as good in bed as you and getting better, but then that's only because it's so very different.

We're very much in love, just as you so very obviously are and, get this Craig Douglas, I'm pregnant!

Bought and paid for, and straight out of a test tube I might add, but we're both looking forward to arrival day, Gen is quite jealous, and I think once Baby is here, and my maternity leave is over it'll be her turn.

Mum and Dad were just as freaked about by the dress coincidence as I was, and they both send their love by the way; OK, I think they probably would have preferred to have a son-in-law to another daughter, but a grandchild is what they wanted most of all.

Another strange thing, Gen and I got drunk one evening and she came out to me that she was bi-sexual, adding 'like you'. Like me?

Turns out she'd seen the photo of Diana and I kissing the Dewi-dog and thought she was one of my ex-girlfriends!

One thing led to another and well... you know.

Hope this isn't too weird for you to read, but I had to tell you about the dresses!

I'm also so pleased to know that Diana's final wish has come true, and the big house will be full of your lovely Mum's grandchildren at last; and do have a few more with your beautiful Caroline. I wish you both much love and all the happiness in the world,

Anna."

So weird.

I showed Callie the message, and about how two dresses like hers had been bought on the back of 'that photograph'.

She instantly spotted another part of the message though,

"You promised your sister you'd have lots of children?" said my beautiful wife, now very much the lady of the house.

"Yeah," I said with a grin, I thought about her discussion with her Ex and his mother about me adopting Emmie. "So, you worked through Emmie's first year?"

"Lots of it, after my maternity leave, I went back to work full time, while Ralph worked on his masterpieces. Missed some of the good stuff, I must confess."

"OK," I said with a grin, "only fair you have a second go. Why don't we go upstairs and practice getting your pregnant again, we won't worry about all of that 'pill' nonsense for a while..." I kissed her.

"OK!" she grinned.

We went upstairs, got naked and did just that. A year later our son Robert was born. Callie stayed at home with him the whole time, only returning to work part-time after a year, in her words 'just to keep her hand in'. She was there for his first steps, his first words (Dad, of course) and all of the other cool stuff. It was first time round for me of course and I found the whole thing just totally the best, and told her so, admitting that I wouldn't be averse to doing it again.

I still work, the money still rolls in from Diana's houses and investments, and I actively look forward to the day when there will be enough income for us to both retire early.

I installed a second, then a third bathroom, I installed the swimming pool, I even bought two Labradors.

Life is fucking amazing.

Postscript

A watercolour of the big house was on the front cover of Judy's first ever five-heart best-seller, 'The Master and the Nurse' and the representation of the two main characters also have a striking resemblance.

The 'Master' rescues 'The nurse' from the slums. They get tipsy one evening and end up sleeping together. 'The nurse' cries out loudly and with great joy whenever 'the master' makes love to her, which is every night.

They fall in love of course, and he marries her, not before he fights off the gang of Dickensian Bill-Sykes-bad-guys, then she fights off the insane mother of the angry composer that still thinks about her.

Now who'd ever believe a story like that...