sorry about telling you this way. I just found out for sure yesterday…”
“You’ve been to the doctor?”
She nodded. “I did a home pregnancy test Saturday and called the doctor Monday morning. They got me in right away.”
“So you’ve known this since Saturday and didn’t tell me until now?”
She gritted her teeth. “I didn’t know for sure until yesterday, and if it turned out to be a false positive, there was no point in getting you all riled up.”
“I’m not ‘all riled up’!”
She quirked an infuriating eyebrow.
“How can you sit there so calmly? We’re going to have a child.” He poured another glass of wine and took a swig, his brain lurching from one extreme to the other, from excitement to anxiety…from joy to trepidation. The responsibility she’d just placed in his hands was mind-blowing. “You’re going to need prenatal care, healthy food…” He looked around the kitchen wondering if she had enough to eat in the cabinets. “Doctor’s appointments. Furniture. Clothes.”
He tried to estimate the cost in his mind. Would he need to cancel the contractor working on the house?
“Don’t worry. I’ll manage.”
She obviously hadn’t thought this through, and her complacency irritated him. “How are you going to take care of all that and yourself and the baby? You don’t even have a job to speak of. Taking Christmas shots of pets? What kind of half-assed job is that?”
Her breath stuttered. A tear slid from the corner of her eye, but she swiped it away, hurt quickly replaced by an angry glare.
“I’m sorry to be so blunt, Kyn, but you know it’s the truth, and one of us has to be logical about this.”
Logic was all he had to hang on to at the moment because it felt like the floor had dropped out from under him. His career in politics…his future judgeship. Everything suddenly slipped out of focus and all he could think about was the baby. Shared custody? Passing the child back and forth and somehow making it all jive with his work schedule? He didn’t want to be a part-time dad. He wanted the baby in his life at all times. Being in a constant state of worry about where Kyndal and the child were and if they were safe…he couldn’t stand the thought.
“There’s only one way for us to be certain the baby’s taken care of the way it should be.” He used his closing arguments’ voice. “We have to get married.”
* * *
IT WASN’T SUPPOSED to be this way.
Chance’s wording set off warning sirens in Kyndal’s head. It was the same phrase her mom always used to rationalize Mason Rawlings’s disappearance from their lives. “Your dad and I had to get married. He just wasn’t ready to settle down yet.”
Chance’s admission in the cave screeched into her brain. He’d felt the same way…not ready to settle down…smothered by their relationship…unable to breathe. Trapped.
And at his house that day before they went to the cave, he’d talked about having a family someday, but had reacted with horror at the idea of now. By his own admission, he wasn’t ready.
Kyndal remembered what it felt like to be trapped, constantly searching for the way out.
And there was a way out. Mason Rawlings had taken it. All of her stepdads had taken it. Even Chance had taken it years ago.
They had to get married? No talk of love. No talk of commitment. All he wanted was a way to get everything taken
care of.
Hell, he had one foot out the door already.
“Marriage is out of the question.” She kept her face and tone carefully neutral lest he think she was being overly emotional.
“Out of the question? I don’t think I posed it as a question.”
“Regardless of how you posed it, I don’t want to marry you. I won’t marry you. Not for the baby and certainly not for the convenience.” She took a relieved sip of her drink when he showed no awareness of her slip of the tongue.
Since Saturday, all kinds of scenarios of telling him about the baby filled her dreams.
In her favorite one, Chance was ecstatic at her news. He swept her into his arms and twirled her around. He swore his love and undying devotion before dropping to his knee and proposing. She saw the conviction in his eyes when he swore he’d never, ever leave her again, and she knew he was telling the truth.
In the worst one, he turned around and walked out the door without a word or a look back.