When she got her helmet out, her crew chief put his hands on the back of her head and shook her around a little. “Damn, girl, being a bride done you good!”
She laughed, a sweaty strand of hair escaping her ponytail and sticking to her cheek. Swiping at it, she gave high fives to each of the guys on her team and gratefully accepted a bottle of water.
This was possibly the most absolutely perfect week of her life.
Even more so when her father called twenty minutes later.
“Hello?” Kendall stepped away from the noise of the track.
“Congratulations, baby, we’re all very proud of you.”
Those words meant more to her than he could imagine. “Thanks, Dad, I appreciate it.”
“When you and your husband get home, we’ll celebrate.”
“Sounds good!” Kendall was having a hard time hearing him, so she told him she would call him back later when she was in the RV.
When she hung up, her crew showered her with beer. Laughing, Kendall grabbed a bottle from her jackman and took a swig. After a head rubbing from Jim, Kendall pushed him away, flushed and as proud as she had ever been. “Get off me, you big lug.”
“Have you seen Evan?” she asked.
“No.”
“I’ll be back in five.”
She wanted to find her husband.
What she didn’t want to find was her husband standing outside their motor home with a blonde. Her excitement instantly deflated as she wondered just who in the hell that woman was.
As Kendall approached them, she saw that Evan looked more nauseous than flirty, but nonetheless, she wasn’t liking some other woman cornering her husband. Especially given the expression on his face. He looked . . . upset.
And Eve was there, too, her shoulders tense, gesturing towards the motor home like she wanted them to take this conversation inside.
Evan looked up and spotted her. “Kendall! Sweetheart.” His voice was panicked, guilty.
Guilty of what?
The blonde swung around to face her, tears streaking her pretty face. She was cute and buxom, and very thin . . . except for the perky pregnant belly tucked into a clinging T-shirt.
Feeling a sour taste building up inside her mouth, Kendall sped up her footsteps. “What’s going on?” Her voice sounded shrill even to her own ears.
Evan reached to take her hand, but Kendall avoided his touch. She had a really goddamn bad feeling about this.
“This is Sara, Nikki Strickland’s friend.” Evan jerked his thumb in the girl’s direction. “Sara, this is my wife, Kendall Holbrook.”
They both stared at each other. If Evan thought they were going to do some bullshit nice-to-meet-you exchange, he was an idiot.
“I’ll be in in a minute,” he told her. “Just give me two seconds and I’ll be right inside. Why don’t you and Eve go on and crack open a bottle of champagne to celebrate your finish.”
The hell with that. “I’ll go in after you explain to me what is going on here.”
“Can we not do this here?” Eve whispered urgently. “Seriously.”
Everyone ignored her.
“I’m pregnant,” Sara told her, nose in the air, sniffling primly.
“I can see that. Congratulations.” Yes, that was sarcasm, because without a doubt Kendall knew what was coming next.
“Sara says there is a possibility that I may be the father.”
Yep. That was it. The little bomb that exploded in Kendall’s face. “Really? Is it a possibility?”
“You are the father!” Sara rounded on Evan. “You’re the only guy I had sex with that whole month and the only guy in the last year I didn’t use a condom with.”
Judging from the expression on Evan’s face, she was telling the truth about not using a condom.
Jesus. “Screw champagne. I think I’ll have some whiskey now.”
“Kendall, wait . . .”
Without another word, she went into the motor home, letting the door slam behind her.
Eve followed her. “Kendall, I don’t know what to say . . . guys do stupid things. Hell, women do, too. I think all of us have had lapsed judgment when it comes to birth control at one point or another.”
Yanking open the fridge, Kendall stared in, the contents blurring as her eyes filled with tears. “I don’t want to talk about this right now.”
In fact, what she wanted to do was listen. Slamming the fridge shut again, she went back to the main room of the motor home and stood by the door. The windows were open, and even though their words were muffled slightly, she could still hear Evan and Sara talking.
“Why didn’t you say something sooner?” he asked.
“Because at first I wasn’t sure I was even going to keep it. Then I realized I couldn’t just . . . you know. I decided I want this baby. I texted you and you blew me off and that was the only way I had to get ahold of you.”
“I didn’t know you needed to talk to me about something important. I just thought you wanted to flirt, and my heart just wasn’t in it. I didn’t want to lead you on by sleeping with you again. Then a month ago, I started seeing my wife again.”
His wife. Kendall grabbed a throw pillow off the couch and hugged it.
“I don’t think you should listen to this,” Eve told her, an open beer in each of her hands.
Kendall gratefully took the beer and drank deeply. “I have to. You would, too, you know.”
“I know.”
“I didn’t think it was cool to tell you you’re going to be a father in a text message. That’s just not fair to unload something so major like that in such an impersonal way.”
The girl looked barely out of high school, but so far she seemed to have a reasonable head on her shoulders.
“But when you said you couldn’t talk, I didn’t have a choice. I mean, what was I going to do, like stalk you or something?”
Kendall squeezed the pillow tighter, clutching it with the beer bottle tucked into it, waiting for Evan’s response.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know, Sara. I’m sorry that I was so irresponsible and didn’t use protection. And I’m sorry that you’ve had to go it alone so far. What can I do to help you?”
There it was. Her husband’s acceptance of his guilt and responsibility. Kendall jammed her eyes closed and sighed. Good Lord . . . another woman was going to give birth to her husband’s child.
“I just need some help with my doctor’s bills, that’s all. I’m not stupid, I don’t expect you to be super involved or anything. Okay, I admit, I was kind of hoping we could like date or whatever, but then I heard about your marriage from Nikki and I knew that was a big forget it.”