His professional mask slipped, and it wasn’t Dr. Bennett asking her but her big brother’s friend—her old friend. Très awkward.
“I did, as a matter of fact.”
“Right.” He dragged a cupped palm down his mouth and chin. “And did you, um, sleep with this man?”
“You mean did I have sexual intercourse—unprotected sexual intercourse—with this man?”
A deeper rose pink stained his cheeks, but he kept his gaze steady on hers. “Yeah.”
“Yes, I had sex with someone in Raro,” she said. “No, I’m not stupid. We used condoms.” Pretty sure it was every time. Almost a hundred percent sure it was every time…
“You want stats on how effective condoms are in preventing unwanted pregnancies?”
She shot him a look which should’ve burned his reddened skin to a crisp and rose to her feet. “Give me the damn container, O.”
He dropped it into her palm, and she stalked into the bathroom without a backward glance. Somehow amid a churning stomach of pits—pits now the size of tennis balls—she managed to pee, wash her hands, and deliver the jar without a freaking-out meltdown.
Tui sat back down on the couch, and Owen dipped a test strip into her pee, which was just…ugh. Although, now she wanted to know. If knowing meant proving him wrong.
She couldn’t possibly be pregnant with Kyle Griffin’s baby. Head in hands, eyes squeezed closed, she waited, relying on her ears to prepare herself for the outcome.
A rustle of Owen’s pants on the wood surface. A scrape of him picking up the jar. A sharp inhale taken through his nose. A rough clearing of his throat.
“Tui?”
She kept her face buried in her hands, every muscle in her body braced for what came next. “Just tell me,” she whispered. “Get it over with.”
“It’s a positive result. I suspect that’s not what you wanted to hear.”
Oh. God. No. She dropped her hands and glanced up at him, his familiar face creased with concern. Maybe even a little pity.
The only things she’s got going for her, poor thing, are her looks and her child-bearing hips. She’ll end up pregnant by the time she’s sixteen and another single mum statistic bludging off the government. You know what these girls are like around here.
Words Tui had overheard one of her aunty’s friends saying to her husband at her fourteenth birthday party.
Like hell would she become a statistic, she’d told herself that day, furiously splashing cold water on her tear-streaked face. Like hell would she fulfil some old bag’s prediction of a teenage pregnancy. And the subtle undertone of racism that these girls around here were dumbly promiscuous—meaning Māori girls—made her want to punch a fist through the bathroom mirror.
“Are you sure?” Tui asked.
He tipped his head toward the container. “I used another test strip to be sure the first wasn’t faulty. Both were positive.”
She inhaled and blew out a shaky breath, staring at the two test strips smugly resting inside the container. “Crap.”
“Yeah.”
He’d known her long enough to have heard her views on relationships and motherhood, and how in her mind the two of them didn’t necessarily work together in a woman’s favor. She was happily childless, hadn’t invested in any relationship where there could be a possibility of either of them wanting more. It wasn’t that she didn’t like kids…
“You have options,” Owen said. “But I’ll leave that up to your doctor to discuss them with you.”
“Options,” she parroted. She couldn’t even begin to think of options with this whirlwind of emotion battering her brain.
Pregnant.
“You should make an appointment as soon as possible.”
With Kyle’s baby.
“Uh-huh.”
“You’re pale.” Owen’s voice gentled. “Is there someone you want me to call for you?”
From a one-night hookup.
“Tui?” he asked again.
She jerked, blinked, and processed what he’d said. “No! You can’t tell anyone about this.” A vision of her parents’ stunned reaction, of her brothers kicking down Kyle’s front door, popped into her head. “Patient confidentiality,” she blurted. Even though technically she wasn’t his patient.
“Easy, Tu. Easy.” He got up from the coffee table and came to sit beside her, dropping a familiar arm around her shoulders. “You know me, I’m a locked vault. I meant do you want me to call Vee or one of your other friends?”
“No. I’m fine.” She sat stiffly beside him for a few moments longer before she caved, needing for a few precious seconds to let someone else be strong. She leaned into him, resting her head on his shoulder.
“What am I going to do?”
“You’ll figure it out.”
She listened to the steady rise and fall of his breath and reminded herself to continue breathing also.
“You won’t tell Sam when he asks if I’m okay?”
“Nope. That’s not in my job description either as a doctor or as your friend. I’ll stick to the stomach virus scenario.”
“Thanks.”
They sat in companionable silence.
He rubbed her arm. “Asking as your friend and not a doctor…is the father still in the picture?”
Even trusting Owen as much as she did, she couldn’t bring herself to answer honestly when she couldn’t come to grips with Kyle’s part in this unexpected plot twist.
“No. This is my picture and I’ve got to decide what to do about it.”
“Fair enough.” He gave her ponytail a teasing tug and slid his arm from around her. He stood. “I’ll head off and catch Sam down at the main house before he starts imagining all sorts of dire possibilities.”
“Thanks again.” She rose, too, and trailed after him to the door, lifting a hand as he drove away. Back inside she flopped onto the couch and stared up at the ceiling.
Pregnant. With Kyle’s baby. From a one-night hookup.
Of all the dire possibilities, being knocked up by a Griffin was near the top of the list.
Tui’s first thought on waking to a persistent banging on her front door was: Police raid!
She rolled onto her side and found herself staring at Vee’s face smushed against the bedroom window, watching her.
“She’s alive, girls!” Vee hollered to whomever was at the door. Her nose left a smear on the glass.
Tui groaned and flopped back onto her back. She’d rather have a police raid than her friends showing up this morning, of all mornings.
A police raid would be less invasive.
Tapping on the glass. “Where’s the spare key, Tu?”
Tui glared at the ceiling tiles. “Same place it’s always been. Under the welcome mat.” Shouting made her head hurt, but at least she could hear footsteps tromping away from her bedroom window.
She laid a tentative palm on her lower stomach. According to the plethora of pregnancy websites she’d skipped around last night, the embryo was about the size of a jellybean. For something so tiny, it sure made her feel like crap served on cold toast.
She rolled her head toward her open bedroom door and the sounds of footsteps and female voices as they crowded into her living room. Vee had brought backup, and that backup had little respect for personal boundaries since all four of her friends and her nephew snoozing in his car seat crowded into her bedroom.
Petra stood at the right side of her bed, arms folded, looking down at Tui with a crinkled nose. “You look like sranje.”
Natalie set her sleeping son down in the corner of the room and came to sit beside her on the bed. “You really do, hon. Sorry.”
Like Kyle’s mother, she placed a cool palm on Tui’s forehead, pulling a thoughtful, mum-thermometer expression. “You don’t feel like you’re running a fever.”
Would Tui somehow develop some of the mystical mum traits if she kept this baby? Estimating a temperature by touch, knowing when a kid was lying, invisible nose plugs that’
d allow her to clean up all sorts of gross bodily fluids without puking herself…
Her stomach lurched and she rolled onto her side. “Container!”
Allison, who was closest to the plastic ice cream tub—yes, Tui had polished off the remaining half last night so she’d have something portable to puke in—snatched it off the nightstand and tossed it to Natalie who positioned it under Tui’s chin.
Tui squeeze her eyes tight and retched, but nothing came up. Tears slipped from beneath her lashes and she lay back down, breathing like a racehorse.
“God. Sam wasn’t wrong. You’re really sick.” Vee took a step back from the bed. “The pregnant lady is gonna make you a cup of weak ginger and lemon tea so she doesn’t catch your germs.”
“Lucky we decided to check up on you.” Allison took Vee’s place and sat at the foot of the bed, rubbing Tui’s ankles.
“Yeah,” Tui muttered. “Lucky.”
“What did Owen say?” Natalie also stood and moved a short distance from the bed—understandable since she was breastfeeding. “Sam mentioned he’d sent him around. Is it a virus? Or something you ate?”
More like something she did. Or someone she did. A number of times.
“Not sure,” Tui whispered.
“Can’t be something she ate,” Petra said. “Tui’s got a cast-iron stomach. Remember that time we all got sick from that shrimp cocktail except Tui? Now that was food poisoning. I Technicolor-yawned all over the ladies’ bathroom floor because Allison was hogging the only stall. Nearly had to call my partner in with our rig, and wouldn’t that’ve been humiliating? Petra the paramedic having to be scraped off the floor in a pool of vomit. I’d never have heard the end of it from the guys.”
“Really?” Allison huffed out a sigh. “You think it’s wise to talk about vomiting in front of someone who’s got a nasty virus?”
“Sheesh, I was just saying. And anyway, there’s nothing about vomiting that freaks her out”—Petra pointed at Tui and chuckled—“not unless Nat and Vee are talking morning sickness again, right, Tu?”
Oh. God. Morning sickness. First trimester. Folic acid and fontanelles and forceps and first-degree tears.
Tui rolled over again, and this time she used the empty plastic container. With her eyes closed, she heard Petra mutter an apology and felt the weight of her friend as she knelt behind her and kept her hair away from her face. She wiped her mouth with the tissue Allison shoved into her hand and shakily lowered herself down onto the mattress.
Petra patted her shoulder and got off the bed, holding her hand out for the container. “I’ll deal with this. I know how squeamish you are, Alli, and God knows we don’t want any sympathy puking.”
Petra left the room and Allison fussed with the pillows under Tui’s head.
“Feel better?” she asked. “I could make you some toast to go with the ginger tea if you think you could keep it down.”
Dry toast or crackers before rising was one of the top tips on the websites Tui’d cruised around. Though cruised sounded more pleasurable than the frantic and bewildering journey she’d taken into the alien territory of pregnancy and childbirth. She gave Allison a weak smile and a thumbs-up. “I’m game to try.”
“Brilliant. Don’t you move, I’ll be right back.”
Happy to have something practical to do to help, Allison bustled out of the room, yelling for Vee to put a couple of bread slices into the toaster.
“Already on,” Vee hollered back.
As soon as she left, Nat reclaimed her spot on the bed, a knowing expression on her face that sent ripples of unease down Tui’s spine. She flicked a hand at her sister-in-law—who was far too sweet and observant for her own good—and made shooing noises. “Isaac’ll kill me if you catch any of my germs.”
“I don’t think what you have is infectious.” Nat lifted an eyebrow as she slid her hand under Tui’s and gave it a gentle squeeze. “And I don’t think a virus explains why your eyes are all puffy and red from crying, and why I’ve noticed you rubbing your boobs on the sly for the past couple of weeks, as if they’re tender.”
Tui’s mind went blank. “Oh, okay” was the best she could manage before her chin started to tremble.
“Something you want to tell us, hon?” Nat gave her hand another squeeze. “We’re whānau, and this is a non-judgy safe space. We’ve got your back.”
At that moment, Vee came back into the bedroom with a fragrant steaming mug of tea. Petra and a disinfectant-smelling container came next, then Allison with toast on a plate.
Tui took one look at their sweetly concerned faces and burst into tears. Noisy, wet, blubbery tears that were so unlike her that her four friends’ eyebrows nearly disappeared into their hairlines.
Allison, who was last into the room and missed the tail end of the conversation, shot Nat a furiously protective glare. “What on earth did you say to her?”
Tui hiccupped and cried harder, wriggling her fingers in the direction of the tissue box on the nightstand. Petra dropped the plastic container and snatched out a handful of tissues, passing them to Tui with a wary glance, as if tears, in fact, were catching.
Tough-as-nails Petra didn’t do tears either.
Tui blew her nose, wiped, dabbed at her streaming eyes, and wriggled into a sitting position. “Nat didn’t say anything.” Her throat thick with tears, and her ears still ringing a little bit because she’d blown her nose too hard, she met each of her friends’ gazes. “I’m pregnant.”
Mouths sagged, eyebrows shot ceilingward again, and stunned gasps were the only sounds in the room.
“Sranje! You’re kidding.” Petra was the first to speak. “No way. You’re pregnant?” Said in the tone of a woman witnessing the Immaculate Conception.
Tui nodded.
Natalie smiled at her and snuck an adoring glance down at her son. “Congratulations.”
Tui couldn’t dredge up an appropriately polite response to that, so she remained silent.
Vee, her childhood bestie who’d known her the longest, shut her sagging mouth with a snap. Her eyes bored into Tui, hot with suppressed emotion. Vee’d been the one who’d found her crying in the bathroom on her fourteenth birthday, had heard her swear that she was never, ever going to be one of those girls.
Allison, book smart and with a brain that never slowed down, dropped the hand that was clamped over her mouth. “Is Rarotonga guy the father?” she blurted.
“Rarotonga guy?” Vee, Nat, and Petra said in perfect, confused unison, switching curious stares back to Tui.
“You nailed a Rarotongan guy after we’d left the resort?” Petra flicked her fingers open in an explosive gesture by her head. “Damn. Mind blown, girl.”
Vee tsked and stood hipshot at the end of the bed, pinning Tui to the spot with an accusing gaze. “Spill. From the beginning.”
So in between bites of toast—which, yeah, did make her feel less likely to projectile puke into the ice cream container again—Tui gave them the Reader’s Digest version of her holiday fling. She also taxed every pronoun in her vocabulary to avoid mentioning Kyle’s name and omitted the fact the baby daddy was actually only a stone’s throw from where she lazed in bed.
“Huh,” Vee said after Tui had run out of steam and reached for another sip of tea. “Let me recap for Nat.” Who’d just returned from nursing Pet in the living room. “You met the guy, slept with the guy—no judgment there, by the way—and you’re in shock just having found out you’re preggers.” Vee cocked her head at Tui’s nod. “The one thing you haven’t told us is who this guy is. We know you well enough to know you’d never screw a guy without a good idea of what kind of man he is.”
Tui winced and shrank down into the bed, wriggling under the covers. The toast sat like chunks of rock in her stomach as each of her friends watched her squirm. It wasn’t because she didn’t trust these women that she hadn’t told them Kyle’s name. It was because saying it out loud would make it real—his name a reminder that there were two people involved in b
aby-making.
“Aha,” said Nat, ducking to kiss her son’s downy head. “Does this mean Aunty Tui’s mystery guy is still in the picture?”
Tui could already imagine the happy-ever-after wheels starting to crank in Nat’s brain. Married to her soulmate with a gorgeous mini-Isaac in her arms, Nat wanted everything she had for her friends and family.
“Sort of,” she admitted.
Petra flopped onto the bed next to her, lacing her hands beneath her neck. “I’m no Detective Eve Dallas, but my guess is we know this mystery guy. It explains why she’s being so tight-lipped about his name.” She rolled her head toward Tui. “Am I right?” Before Tui could even open her mouth, her eyes flew wide open. “Oh my God. Is it someone famous? Did you bag yourself one of the Hemsworth brothers, you lucky cow?”
“No!”
But Petra had made her laugh, easing some of the stranglehold of tension in her shoulders. She could trust these women, and there was no point in shoving her head in the sand like a dumb bird. She’d face this, figure out what to do, and have these women supporting her no matter what.
“He’s not famous,” she said. “He’s an Auckland architect and his name’s Kyle Griffin.”
Allison and Petra wore identical neutral expressions at the information. Nat’s forehead crumpled and her gaze shot to Vee—who stared at Tui with her mouth agape.
“Griffin?” Vee asked. “As in…”
“Yeah. As in.”
“Well, sranje!” Vee’s mouth snapped shut and she clamped her hand over it to keep it that way. Thirty-one years of shared history zapped between them. Her oldest friend knew exactly what disaster Tui had walked herself into.
Allison’s gaze danced between Tui and Vee, then landed on Tui. “What’s going on? Who is this Kyle Griffin and why are Vee and Nat reacting to his name like he’s the spawn of Satan?”
“Because he is,” Vee muttered, stalking around the bed to sit on Tui’s other side.
Petra automatically crossed herself. “Tui wouldn’t sleep with the devil.”
“Tui didn’t know he was the devil at the time,” Tui said with a sigh. “I bumped into Kyle with his brother in town not long after I got back to Bounty Bay, and Kyle cooked up an idea of our families working together on a horse-trekking tour.”
Tame Your Heart: A Small Town Romance (Bounty Bay Book 6) Page 14