her. He touched her knee. “Sweet Pea. What is going on?”
“I need your help, Uncle.”
He searched her face. “Of course. I’ve always told you that you could come to me for anything.”
She sniffled. “I know. That’s why I’m here. Because you’re the only person I can trust, and the only person who will really understand.”
Worry passed through his features, but he just knelt there, waiting.
The supporter he’d always been.
How many times had she sat in front of him as his patient? As a tiny girl, her daddy used to constantly rush her to the ER for any little scrape or bruise. Her daddy always so terrified to lose her. That this cruel world might steal her away from him.
Right then, Frankie Leigh fully understood.
“What’s going on, Frankie. You can tell me, trust me, with anything.”
A tear slipped free, and she frantically brushed at her cheek, that worry bottling in her chest and spinning her head and making her sick all over again. “I’m pregnant.”
She guessed that maybe he didn’t look all that shocked. She was eighteen and known to be wild and reckless and the first to experience every single thing in life.
What else would she be coming to him this way for? A freaking cough?
She knew he knew better than that.
But the thing was, he was also Evan’s father.
Even though she knew he was trying to hide it, she saw the distress that blazed through his expression.
She twisted her fingers so tight they were blanching white, cutting off circulation.
He exhaled a heavy sigh, contemplated, glancing to the wall before he looked back at her. His voice cracked. “Is it Evan’s?”
Her nod was jerky, and the tears started coming faster. She sniffed, reached up to try to wipe the moisture away. “Yes.”
She and Evan hadn’t told anyone about their relationship.
Maybe they’d been having too much fun sneaking around.
Loving the feel of something scandalous and secret and special even when them being together made perfect sense.
She wondered just how obvious they were.
If she was obvious then.
If anyone else would know.
“Oh, God, Frankie.” His brow pinched. “Are you okay?”
She choked out a disbelieving sound. Of course, he would think to ask her how she felt. Exude all his care. She gave a harsh shake of her head. “No, Uncle Kale, I don’t think that I am. I’m . . . I’m scared. I’m so scared and I don’t know how to keep this inside any longer.”
Evan had crammed it into her head thousands of times that he could never give her a family. That he could never take that chance. Told her to chase after something better. Told her to go after what he believed was a better life because there was a part of him that believed he was nothing but a sickness and disease.
But the thought of this child as something different than extraordinary broke her heart right in half.
“We were careful, Uncle.”
Except for the couple times that they weren’t.
When they’d been so caught up in the other that they didn’t have time to think about anything else.
Consequences or gifts.
Guilt seared through her flesh, cutting her open wide.
God, what had she done?
“I . . . I don’t know what to do,” she admitted, feeling her mouth tremble all over the place.
Her uncle’s brow pinched. “He doesn’t know?”
Her throat bobbed, and she tried to swallow around the mountain of jagged rocks that were gathered there, boulders pressing down on her chest.
The weight too much.
“No. Oh God, Uncle. He’s . . . he’s going to be so upset. He’s told me so many times that this can never happen.”
But it was already happening.
“He has a right to know, Frankie.”
“I know. I’m going to tell him. I will. I just . . . have to make a plan. Figure out what we’re going to do.”
His nod was one of reluctance. “Do you know when your last period was?”
She dropped her head, more of that shame streaking free, whispered toward her lap, “Almost four months ago.”
“God, Frankie.” That was the first amount of disappointment he’d shown.
But she’d ignored it for too long. Tried to will it away before she’d started to beg for it to stay.
He shook his head like he was trying to shake off any judgment. His voice softened. “What do you want to do, Frankie Leigh? Do you know?”
It was the one thing she did know in all this mess.
She ran her hand tenderly over her belly, a wistful smile breaking through the tears that kept streaming down her face. “I