Titus: Book Two of the Cantrell Brothers Series

Chapter Thirty-Two

It was smoother sailing after that. She and Titus had established a healthy routine that brought them and the baby all closer together. He woke up at five every morning, and she woke up at seven before eating a healthy breakfast and going to school. After school, she went to the either the humane society or the gym to go on the stair climber or attend one of her spinning classes before coming home.

She made dinner and sometimes breakfast that could be reheated, and they ate together every night, planning ahead and focusing on the future as she pretended she didn't know anything about his Christmas present. Then it was off to bed – in which Titus went to bed and she stayed up working on his gift – with the both of them, and Anna more times than not fell asleep pretty well just as long as she didn't think about how much better sleep she could be getting upstairs in Titus's arms.

The weekends were very much the same, besides the fact that she had officially deemed them as her cleaning weekends in which – if she and Titus weren't busy with one of her ob gyn appointments – she cleaned the house while Titus worked.

Every time he talked with her over dinner or took her somewhere into town, Titus was always happy. There was always a smile on his face and an enthusiastic gleam to those blue eyes with everything that they did together.

He even continued going with her to all of the appointments, always asking what the gender was going to be and if they could listen to the heartbeat just one more time. They even held hands all throughout the appointment, hers squeezing his every time Dr. Cliveston came in and did the tests.

She could always tell by the way Titus's jaw clenched and his hand tightened around hers that he still didn't like her obstetrician gynecologist all that much, but as the weeks went by, he seemed to be more accepting of it. By the warm, trusting smile that had been on his face and his relaxed posture, she had been able to tell at her appointment for her beginning of her second trimester on December eleventh that he was finally fully behind and supporting her male doctor.

They would be attending another appointment a little more than two weeks from now, on January tenth, which would have her at sixteen weeks pregnant and where they would finally find out the gender of the baby. It was so close around the corner, but yet so far away, and, she reminded herself, she had so much left to do. It was already the twenty-second of December, and the Christmas tree was still standing naked and exposed in the living room, no presents underneath it.

Along with Evan and possibly Kalie's family, her parents and Titus's were coming over on Christmas Eve and staying the night into Christmas Day. So far she had the spare rooms made up, the lights up and glowing, and the house neat and clean, but there would still be enough work to keep her busy until they came over on the eve of Christmas.

Picking up the box that was labeled Christmas decorations, Anna continued with her preparation, closed the attic's heavy door, and made her way downstairs, happily inhaling the scent of the vanilla and cinnamon candles that were on the kitchen table. She hummed lightly to herself, hanging up bright colored ornaments made of plastic and glass.

She put the Christmas lights on next and stepped back to admire her work. Decorated with pink, blue, orange, and green lights, along with the ornaments she had just hung up, the fake Christmas tree finally looked how holiday trees were supposed to. Even with the sun setting and casting light into the room, the tree still lit up the entire room and just brought that familiar feel of the holidays into the ranch house.

There was only problem. The decorative red rug underneath the tree was barren and practically crying for some form of a present to grace its velvety expanse. Telling the thing to just have some patience, Anna went back into her room where she pulled out all the works that were going to be put into Titus's present.