“You should be involved in the decision. But reality is, this is her body. What if you were trying to insist she have the baby and keep it? Would that be right for you to force that choice on her?”
“I wouldn’t!”
“Are she and her mother churchgoers? Abortion might be a choice that would be morally repugnant to them.”
“Wow.” Elbows planted on the table, Trev buried his head in his hands. He was rocking, Richard saw, and yanking at his hair so hard it had to be painful. “I keep thinking I’ll wake up.”
Richard felt compassion, sure, but this was one of those moments he realized how mad he was, too. No condom. God help them all.
“I don’t know if they go to church,” his smart/stupid kid mumbled. “How should I know?”
How should I know? He’d gotten the girl pregnant, and he didn’t know whether she believed in God. Oh, face it; what boy his age would care? All that mattered was would she or wouldn’t she.
That probably wasn’t any fairer to Trevor, Richard realized, than his earlier thoughts had been to his father. So what. I don’t have to be fair. Serenity wasn’t a by-product of parenthood. More like an antonym.
“Let’s take the rest of the pizza home,” Richard decided, and went to get a box.
CHAPTER SIX
AT THE SOUND OF THE BELL over the door ringing, Molly swiveled in her seat. She was ridiculously nervous. The new arrival was Richard Ward himself, tall, imposingly handsome, glancing around the sandwich shop until he spotted her at the table in the back corner. And, damn it, there was that loose-hipped walk that always stirred something in her.
She’d been the one to suggest they meet for lunch, completely separate from their kids. He hadn’t argued, hadn’t asked why.
She half rose when he reached the table, then sank back down. She wasn’t in the office. “The waitress left you a menu,” she said inanely.
He nodded and pulled out a chair next to her, not the one across the table. Their knees might bump. They would bump. He took up way more than his fair share of space, and that, too, unsettled Molly. She was a big enough woman; she was taller than most men with whom she dealt.
Oh, get a grip! You’re not an adolescent. But she was feeling a lot like one right now.
“Mr. Ward, thank you for coming,” she said with more composure. This is Trevor’s father. Trevor’s father, Trevor’s father. She’d chant it as many times as she had to. This was not a date.
A faint smile touched his mouth. “Don’t you think we’re past Mister and Missus?”
“Richard,” she amended.
He chose quickly from the menu and they both gave their orders. Then he regarded her gravely. “Has Caitlyn—no, Trevor says she prefers Cait—has she made a decision? Or are you wanting to tell me to butt out?”
“I’d have suggested coffee instead of lunch if I were going to do that.”
Now he outright grinned, and her heart damn near stopped. “Not option B, then.”
“Or A.” Molly looked down at her place setting. “Partly I’m back to apologizing—”
“No. Let’s not get mired there.”
He was being more generous than she deserved. She swallowed and met those dark eyes again. “Okay. Thanks. Really I only wanted to talk. Listen to you, since I didn’t the other night.”
“Have you told anyone else?”
Molly shook her head. “Cait and I agreed not to for now. She swears she won’t tell even her best friend. If she decides to get an abortion, she could move on more easily if no one knows but you, me and Trevor.” She paused. “Assuming Trevor will keep it quiet?”
“I think I can vouch for him.” He studied her for a moment. “He says now Cait won’t talk to him.”
She made a helpless gesture. “She’s hurt, scared, confused.... Do you blame her?”
“No. Neither does he. He said he guessed it was justice, after the way he dodged her.”
“Really?” she said, surprised. “That sounds…”
“Almost mature?”
Molly laughed. “I was trying to think of a really tactful way to say it.”
He smiled, too, mouth and eyes both. “Surely as a high school administrator, you must have a thesaurus worth of euphemisms at the tip of your tongue.”
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you.”
Their drinks came. Richard waited until the waitress was out of earshot. “Will you tell me about you and Cait? I asked Trevor if you were churchgoers, for example, and he had no idea. Is Cait’s father in the picture? Trevor