Brother, My Brother Ch. 03

'Well, I'm speechless, Aunt Liz!' Liam said, blowing out his cheeks and leaning back. 'I admit, I've often thought of starting my own business. Perhaps something to do with the internet, but this? I dunno!'

'As I understand this internet thing, all ye need is a telephone line and a computer?' Liam and I nodded. 'There ye are, then. It's something ye can do as well there as ye can here. And...' She leaned forward. 'And ye'll be living in a tolerably remote area, my dears. It'll do ye good to move away from here. Up there, ye'll have more freedom to do as ye choose.'

She said this with such a significant look that I felt my heart give a guilty lurch. From Liam's reaction he felt the same twinge. Aunt Liz watched us both and smiled a weary smile. 'Ye are the youngest members of my family, so it's only right that ye should take over my business.' She stifled a yawn then got to her feet. 'It's nothing to decide upon straight away. Talk it over, sleep on it, and let me know when ye reach a decision.' She paused by the door. 'And I'll not object if ye share your room from now on. Goodnight, now.'

So that was that. Aunt Liz returned to Scotland before New Year's Day, leaving Liam and me to talk things over. The more we talked, the better the prospect sounded of getting away to somewhere we could begin a new life together. Liz invited me to travel up in the new year to look the place over to see if I liked it, and she would show me what was involved in running the business. I booked a flight for Edinburgh a week in February.

Three weeks into the new year, and I woke up in Liam's arms feeling something wasn't quite right. In the pale light of dawn I looked down at his sweet sleeping face squashed against my left breast, a trickle of drool running from his lips into my cleavage, and tried to pin-point the problem. My stomach surged just then, making me slip away from his embrace and into the bathroom in a hurry.

Some time later I was wiping my mouth and staring at myself in the mirror over the basin. The toilet cistern was gurgling quietly as it refilled. It was barely audible; no wonder we'd not heard Aunt Liz on her nightly trips.

Liam stumbled into the bathroom and blinked at me. 'What's wrong?'

'Oh, just something I ate,' I mumbled.

He accepted this and went back to bed. I followed in a few moments, my heart pounding and a queasiness in my stomach that had nothing to do with nausea.

The next morning I sat on the toilet and held the wand of a pregnancy home-test kit in the flow of my first water of the day. I stuck the wand into the gadget and went to make some tea to calm my nerves. The hands on the clock moved so slowly! Even so, I forced myself to give it time, then checked the reading.

Liam came home from work that evening and I met him as he closed the door. He knew something was up as soon as he saw me. 'Christie..?'

'Liam...' I swallowed. 'You're going to be a father!'

To be continued...