Baby Be Mine (Spinsters & Casanovas Series Book 1) (2 page)

Hunter didn’t look like he was interested.
His eyes were roaming elsewhere, and Clarice just happened to be
their target.

Gosh, get a room, you two!
Clarice
wanted to yell at them for being this intimate in broad daylight.
And why am I still here anyway?
Her job was done. She should
get going. But somehow, though, she wanted to get even with this
blasted Hunter, who was still grinning at her flirtatiously.

As if on cue, the blonde turned to her,
giving her an evil glare. She said, “Why are you still here? Who
are you and what are you doing here,
kid
?”

KID?
All right, that did it. Clarice
snapped. Who was this chick calling her a kid like she’d just been
born yesterday? She was almost thirty, for God’s sake. This bimbo
was clearly her junior by almost a decade and had no right
whatsoever to insult her. After all, she was very sensitive about
her age, and her pride just couldn’t take it when someone called
attention to it.

Clarice wanted to growl. This younger
generation, they just didn’t show respect to their elders. She
really needed to set the record straight.

With that thought in mind, she clenched her
fists tight in self-determination, lifted her head to meet their
eyes, and said, “I’m here—”

“To give me roses for Valentine’s Day.”
Hunter grinned.

That did it.

“You bitch!” the blonde screeched, like an
angry cat running its claws across a chalkboard, grating her
eardrums. If Clarice were to stay around listening to this bimbo
for another second, she could guarantee she’d lose her auditory
senses.

What to do?
she thought. That was
when she saw Hunter’s eyes again. There was that wicked gleam. That
was when it came to her. She knew why he’d said all that stuff
before about the roses and Valentine’s Day. This blasted man wasn’t
this bimbo’s husband. They were merely playmates. Oh, what was she
saying? Why use euphemism? They’d practically just had sex moments
before she knocked on the door, and now, if she suspected right,
Hunter wanted to break up with the blonde and he was using Clarice
as his outlet.

Not so fast, you handsome beast. You’re
not getting away this easy.
Before the blonde could do further
damage to her eardrums and before her hot temper exploded like a
boiling kettle, she threw the bouquet in Hunter’s face, grabbed
both their towels, one in each hand, and yanked them off their
bodies, exposing his and her anatomies to the black cat sitting on
the fence, birds in the trees, the bees sucking nectar from flowers
on the porch, and whoever happened to glimpse them at that
moment.

The blonde screamed, the man growled, and
Clarice twisted on her heel and ran for her life, sprinting like
the devil had taken chase. Of course, she knew the devil would
never come chasing after her in his naked state. But she did stop
to catch her breath when she was halfway down the block because her
limbs refused to take another step for fear of her lungs
collapsing.

Wow!
Clarice couldn’t believe she’d
just done that, yanking off their towels like that. Then she began
to laugh—so hard her stomach hurt. Once she managed to calm down,
she thought it was a shame she’d been too busy making her escape to
clearly see his male glory.

Stop thinking stupid thoughts this
instant!

What was with her and her sudden fascination
with the male anatomy anyway? Was it because her biological clock
was ticking, telling her it was almost time for her to start
thinking about producing some babies? Good Lord, she wasn’t looking
forward to her big three-zero.

How was she supposed to make babies if her
forbidden door downstairs had yet to be unlocked? And worse yet,
where was she supposed to find the right key for her door? A
naughty thought ran through her head.
Maybe Hunter had a secret
key to unlock my door.
Then her heart did a little
somersault.

Ah!
She messed up her hair in her
thought process.
Calm down, my dear heart.
She placed her
hand upon her chest to stop the thrashing beat of her heart.
Otherwise, she might have gone into cardiac arrest, and there was
definitely no hospital near this part of town.

Once her heart settled again, her thoughts
returned to the blond-haired, azure-blue-eyed Hunter. What was she
thinking that he might have the right key for her door? That beast
was a playboy, a Casanova, who saw women as nothing above a piece
of bacon. That shaggy dog man-beast, eyeing her like a steak,
wanting a piece of her. Well, he wasn’t getting a piece, even if
this steak was getting old—like tough leather old.

Clarice sighed in defeat. There was no point
in sulking over matters like this now. She must call Elise tonight
to apologize for the turn of events. Elise might lose one VIP
client, but it was better for her staff not to be harassed or taken
advantage of by that Casanova Hunter.

Shelving the thought for later use, Clarice
turned to walk back to her car, her shoulders slumping, mentally
counting down the days until she would meet her doomsday.

But that particular day came faster than she
expected.

Clarice wanted to cry. Right in front of her
was a cake, a beautiful, delicious white chocolate and strawberry
cake, topped with thirty candles—no more, no less—just thirty
straight candles illuminating the entire room that was once
shrouded in darkness.

The sound of her family and two best
friends, Elise and Whitney, singing that birthday song should have
turned those tears into streams of joy, yet the one that came
trickling out of her eye right now was of sadness, of a sense of
failure, as her entire thirty years of life was reflected right
before her eyes, like an open storybook.

*

“Clarice, darling. Let go of your mother’s
skirt and come over here.” Her father called her over to him,
speaking to her in fluent Khmer, her mother tongue. But she didn’t
budge from her spot, her little fingers still clinging to her
mother’s skirt for dear life, too afraid to look at all the
strangers’ faces staring at her.

Who are these people?
she thought,
eyeing the many strangers through her small spectacles perched upon
her nose. They came to welcome her when she got off the plane. They
looked just like papa, with blond hair and blue eyes, the likes of
which she had never seen before in the Cambodian refugee camp in
Thailand.

“Welcome to New Zealand, my dear.” One lady
leaned in, smiling.

Then another one came and crouched in front
of her and asked her with a pretty smile, “How old are you, little
missy?”

Clarice didn’t know what to do. They were
talking to her, but she couldn’t understand them.

Her father came over and translated in
Khmer. She held out both of her hands and made the number six to
the strangers.

“Does she not know English?” the old lady
asked her father.

“It’s my fault. I only taught her basic
greetings. We conversed in Khmer all the time in the camp,” her
father said.

“Well, I’m sure she’ll adjust and come to
fit in school just fine with all the other children,” the young
lady said.

School!
Now that word she knew. Papa
had taught her that word in the camp.

*

“Go back to your own country, you four-eyed
monster.”

“Yeah, pancake face. Go back to where you
came from.”

“We don’t want you here. Go away.”

Clarice cried when the others at school
wouldn’t stop their bullying. She couldn’t understand what they
meant, but the physical abuse they bestowed upon her, pushing her
and pulling her pigtails, sure hurt her little wee heart. That
night she cried on her mother’s lap.

“Chantee, my dear, don’t cry.” Her mother
smoothed her hair while she cried her eyes out. “You have to be
brave and strong.”

“But they pulled my hair on the first day of
school,” she complained. “I hate those people. Why can’t they be
nice? I don’t like this place. I want to go back to the camp.”

“Chantee, I know you’ll meet nice people
soon. And who knows? You might even be friends with them for life.
There are many great people here in New Zealand. And when you meet
them, you’ll know how lovely this country is.”

Clarice’s mother was right, because the very
next day at school, when she was in the middle of being bullied
again, a girl appeared, jumping off the monkey bars and announcing
to the whole school that from now on, this little Asian-Caucasian
girl would be under her protection. The girl who saved her was
named Whitney, a boisterous girl that was like a hot air
balloon.

Clarice’s first real friend was a sight to
behold, dressed all in black, with the palest skin, like a sheet of
paper. She was a little witch, casting deathly spells on anyone who
dared hurt her and her little friend. And now that Whitney had
taken her under her wing, Clarice was no longer afraid of
anyone.

*

“I’m afraid I can’t let you participate in
today’s sport, Clarice.”

Clarice wasn’t happy. She’d been looking
forward to this day for ages and now that it had finally arrived,
she wasn’t allowed to participate because of her shoes.

What could she do? It wasn’t her fault her
shoes had more holes than the number of craters on the moon. Her PE
teacher said it was unfit for sport. Simply speaking, it may cause
her injury.

“You can use my spare pair,” a quiet little
blonde said beside her.

Clarice turned and smiled.

This little girl, who was three years
younger than her, was called Elise. She was a quiet, methodical
girl who hardly spoke but had a heart the size of an ocean. She was
a charming, innocent, and pure-hearted girl, much like a cherry
blossom on a nice spring morning.

With Elise’s spare shoes, Clarice was able
to participate in school activities along with Whitney. From that
point on, the three girls were now like the three musketeers,
sticking together like glue.

*

“Honey, I’ve been made redundant.” Clarice
heard her father speak to her mother in their bedroom.

“Oh no, Michael. What will happen to
us?”

“Don’t worry, Montha. I’ll make sure you
won’t starve.”

That night, Clarice sat forking her rice and
tuna. Yes, she was starving. That small portion wasn’t enough to
supply the fuel for her growing teenage body, but she didn’t say
anything. She told her parents she was full and went off to
bed.

At that point, Clarice made a life-changing
decision. She would never go hungry again. She would do anything to
support herself and her family.

“Don’t worry, Papa. I’m going to get a job.
You don’t have to pay for my education anymore,” Clarice vowed to
herself.

The next day she applied for the paper run.
She got accepted on the spot because she was good at running. From
that point on, she saved her money like her life depended on it,
which to her it did, because she knew she wasn’t born with a silver
spoon in her mouth. And if she wanted to get into University, then
she would have to work hard.

*

It was on Clarice’s thirteenth birthday that
she was able to attend high school, along with her two best
friends. That night while her friends were sleeping, preparing for
their new adventure ahead, she was still slaving over the iron,
trying to press the secondhand uniform she had bought with her own
money.

Clarice knew her friends would arrive with
newly pressed uniforms that had been serviced by professional
launderers because her friends’ families were far better off than
hers, but she’d never complained about her station and worked hard
to achieve a level of comfort for her parents and herself. In order
to achieve her goal, she must be frugal and mindful towards
everything.

*

“Mum, I want to go to Cambodia to help out
the children and adults,” Clarice said to her mother one day after
she turned sixteen. She was watching the documentary about
Cambodian kids not having enough dental care, leading to poor oral
health and losing their teeth at such a young age.

At that moment, Clarice had made a lifelong
decision. She was going to become a dentist so she could help
provide dental care in her mother’s homeland, Cambodia. It wasn’t
until ten years later that she and her team of dental professionals
accomplished that goal, setting up a practice in the heart of
Battambang Province, donating free dental care for all who would
utilize their service. She usually frequented Cambodia on her
holiday at least once a year to check on the progress of the
children there.

On her twenty-fifth birthday, Clarice went
into the world of periodontology, wanting to further study the
subject of gum disease, so she could provide more service to the
community. And she did that within three years.

*

Clarice stared at the flickering candles,
her mind flitting back to reality. All the goals she had planned
she’d accomplished. Everything she had wanted she’d received.

But now Clarice, aged thirty, was lost.

She bit her lip and stared at the
candlelight dancing in front of her, those flames providing just
enough light to illuminate the many smiling faces that now stared
back at her—the faces of her many nephews, eyeing her weirdly, not
understanding why their aunt would be fabricating mass saltwater
production down her cheeks; her cousins and their husbands, holding
each other’s hands, eyeing her with mixed feelings of sadness
because they seemed to know what she was going through, since they
were of similar age; and then her mother and father, hugging each
other at their ripe old age, looking at her worriedly.