“How can you leave? That support system you were talking about? They’re all here. Even if you don’t need me, you need them.”
She pushed his hands away. “See, this is what I don’t want—you trying to make decisions for me. It’s still my life. I have plenty of support there too.”
He stepped back, seething, feeling his heart wrench in his chest. “If you don’t want my input or my help, then what the f**k did you tell me for? One last kick to the nuts before you blow out of town with my baby?”
“Because I figured it would get back to you anyway, since you work with my brother. I didn’t want you finding out that way.”
“So it’s like, ‘Hey, by the way, I’m knocked up. Have a nice life’?”
“No. I don’t want to shut you out, Ian, I just don’t want…” She trailed off, and he noticed the way her hand strayed to her still-flat belly. “We didn’t expect this, obviously. I don’t want it to disrupt your life any more than it has to. It might not be right, it might not make sense, but I feel a little bit of guilt about it.”
“What about your life? It’s gonna get pretty damn disrupted. It’s only fair mine does too. You didn’t do this by yourself.”
“I know that. But what do you want? To move back to Dallas with me? To throw away that fresh start you wanted?” She paused for a moment to take a couple of breaths. “The morning we parted ways, I thought about what I hoped you would find in life. It wasn’t me. More like that cute blonde out there who was apparently slipping you her number.”
As far as his moving back to Dallas, she was right. He liked it here; he liked the quiet; he loved the people he worked with. But the news she’d dropped on him a couple of minutes ago…it changed everything.
Everything. The girl out front was a non-issue.
“You’ve got me all figured out, huh?”
“No! I really don’t. I really don’t know anything about you.” She gave a crooked smile. “Except how you are in bed, which is what got us into trouble.”
“I’ll clue you in a little.” He drew a deep breath that burned his lungs. “I had a shitty childhood. I never knew my real dad much, and my stepdad once cracked a beer bottle on my head.” Her eyes widened as he traced the scar through his eyebrow. “I always vowed any kid of mine would never grow up in a situation like that. I can know with you as a mom, he or she won’t. My mom…she loved me, but she was as scared of him as I was. You…I know as much about you as you do about me, but I can already tell you’re fearless. You wouldn’t stand for something like that. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to be involved. It doesn’t mean I can walk away, wash my hands of the situation. I want to be around.”
“You can,” she said. “You can be around. God, Ian. I’m sorry.”
“I didn’t tell you that so you could pity me. I told you so you could understand.” He didn’t know why it happened at that particular moment, but her beauty stole his breath. Her skin seemed lit from within; the harsh overhead lights cast a halo on her silky hair. Imagining her in a few months, her belly round with his baby… His heart gave an aching leap. He wanted more than to be around. He wanted to be there. Always there, at her side, taking this journey with her. If he told her that, though, she would run.
She held his gaze for a seemingly endless moment while neither of them spoke. At last, she looked down.
“Give me your phone number, and we’ll talk more about it later,” he said, his voice tight. She recited it as he entered it into his contacts. “I’ll call you.”
“Okay. Now I’m really going to check on Candace.”
As she left without another word, he stayed and shoved his thumb and forefinger into his closed eyes until he saw multicolored starbursts. His head pounded in rhythm with his heart, where disbelief still warred with outright panic.
He’d gotten his boss’s sister pregnant.
Jesus. What a f**king day.
Chapter Ten
Gabby’s hands were shaking. She felt like she was going to throw up. Walking in Brian’s office, though, she saw two more people who looked as if they felt the same way.
Candace sat at his desk, her head in both hands and her hair sticking crazily through her fingers. Her damp eyes stared straight ahead, not acknowledging Gabby’s presence. Brian stood against the wall, inked arms crossed, looking as if he were gnawing the inside of his cheek.
“How are we doing in here?” Gabby asked, trying to sound as if she hadn’t just gone through an emotional trauma of her own.
“We’re okay,” Candace said dully.
“Dizziness? Nausea? Pain?”
“Nausea. That’s about it.” Join the club, honey. “Macy left to go get me a pregnancy test. She said she couldn’t stand it. She has to know.”
Gabby had an extra they could’ve used, but she figured that might raise some eyebrows. “I take it you don’t want to?” She chuckled. “Hey, at least you might rule it out.”
“You don’t think I will, though, do you?”
She wanted to laugh and say something like we Rosses are extremely fertile and potent creatures, but that might make them wonder.
“I don’t know, hon. Anything’s possible.”
“I keep telling her she should be happy about this,” Brian said, speaking up for the first time. “Whatever happens, it’s gonna be okay.”
That was surprising, coming from him. Especially now when he looked a little green. “He’s right, you know,” she said to Candace.
“I know. It’s just not ideal timing.”
“Well, they say if you wait for the ideal time, you’ll never do it.” It was the same thing she’d been telling herself since seeing that plus sign. Sure, she’d dreamed about it, but realistically, when would she ever have planned to have kids? After med school? Then she’d be a doctor with a crazy schedule. Married to another doctor with a crazy schedule, if she and Mark had worked out.
Plans. There was no place for them in her life anymore, it seemed. They never panned out, and the best things happened to her when she allowed herself to deviate from them. She hadn’t planned to spend a night of ecstasy with Ian when she first met him. Now he’d made her a mother.
Holy shit, a mother. There had been times when she treated sweet little babies in the nursery and positively ached to have one of her own to hold and smell and cuddle. Maybe she was hormonal, but she wanted to burst into tears with knowing that was soon to come for her, and maybe even for Candace. She’d have someone to go through this craziness with her.
Ian wanted to go through it with her too. That was…unexpected. But nice. She wondered what he would think if he knew the main thing that had been running through her mind while she faced him was that she wanted to maul him where he stood. Despite the high emotions, despite his story—or maybe because of it—she’d wanted him again with an intensity that shocked her. She wanted to take that pain he’d tried so valiantly to hide and eradicate it completely. Shower him with…love.
Jesus, she couldn’t go there. Not yet. But she wondered what he was doing right now, what he was thinking—
Macy rushed into the room with her boyfriend at her heels, rattling a white plastic drug store bag. “Got it! Or them. I got several.”
“The staff at Walgreens is thinking I’m the stud of the world,” Ghost said.
“Yeah, tell them about your winking and flirting with the girl at the counter while I’m paying for a bunch of pregnancy tests,” Macy said, rolling her eyes. “Can’t take you anywhere.”
“It was a joke! I couldn’t resist. Damn, she looked at me like I was a cretin. Y’all should have seen it.”
“Oh, I know. It was freaking hilarious. Just wait until it’s our turn. We’ll see how funny you are then.” She smacked Ghost on the arm and looked at her friend. “Ready to pee on a stick?”
“No.”
“Am I going to have to make you?”
“This I’d like to see,” Ghost said. “Wait, no…not that. I don’t wanna see that.”
“Candace,” Gabby scolded gently. “Go get it over with.”
Candace stood and rounded the desk, taking the bag from Macy on her way to the door.
“Do it and come back out,” Macy said, following her while practically bouncing on her toes. “We’ll wait on the results with you.”
Brian shot forward then, putting himself between Candace and her friend. “I’ll wait with her. You guys go back up front.”
Macy planted her hands on her hips. “Excuse me—”
“Come on, babe,” Ghost said, putting his arm around Macy’s shoulders and steering her toward the door. “This is between them.”
“But—”
“Sorry, Macy,” Candace said. “I just want to be with him. I’ll let you know in a few minutes.”
Macy looked crestfallen but allowed Ghost to guide her out without comment. Gabby followed them, glancing back to see Brian kiss Candace’s forehead before she went into the bathroom and shut the door. Once Brian was alone, though, leaning against the wall in pretty much the same position he’d taken in his office, she went back to him. He glanced up at her as she approached.
“This is scary as hell,” he said.
Didn’t she know it. “You said it, though, little brother. It’s going to be okay.”
“What happened to ‘little shit’?”
“It’s on hold temporarily.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, I know it’s gonna be okay.”
“Imagine how happy Mom will be.”
“Oh, she’ll be over the fuckin’ moon.”
She’ll be over Pluto. Little do you know she’ll have two babies to snuggle at roughly the same time.
“Imagine how unhappy Candace’s mom will be,” he said.
Gabby waved her hand dismissively. “Come on. This is almost worth it for that alone.”
That got a laugh out of him. “Right? Do you know how many lectures I’ve sat through about not knocking her up?”
“Tell her you can’t help it, you’re just that potent. That’ll shut her up.”
“Yeah. I’d love to see the look on her face.”
“Did you even take precautions?”
He shrugged. “She was on the pill. But she came down with strep throat a few weeks back and took antibiotics. I remember her saying something about us needing to be more careful, but I guess we weren’t. Looks like it may have caught up with us.”
“Yeah. That probably did it.”
The bathroom door opened, and Candace emerged, holding the little white stick in her hand. She stopped short when she saw Gabby. “I’ll go back up front,” Gabby said quickly, taking a step away.
“No, you can stay,” Candace said. The corner of her mouth lifted in a crooked smile. “The directions said we should wait five minutes, but I don’t think we need them. Unless this second pink line might go away in five minutes.” She held the little display up to Brian. “We’re pregnant.”