Totally absorbed in both the books and my own dark sense of humor, I hadn’t heard anyone come into the store, let alone make his way to the aisle just behind me. I’d been rolling my sore shoulders and lifting the heavy curtain of my hair off my neck for a minute when he spoke.
“Leah?”
I’d known his voice right away. Hell, I’d heard it in my dreams for the last six months. I probably would’ve been able to pick it out of a crowd of people screaming. For a moment, I wondered if I were dreaming again. It had been known to happen, after all; sometimes I got so tired that I laid my head down on the counter up front and caught a little snooze. Was all of this in my head? Was I actually drooling over my inventory sheets?
But no. When I turned my head, there he was, the same Kade Braggs of the short blond hair, deep hazel eyes and . . . yeah, there was the dimple. My heart began to pound a faster rhythm, sweat broke out in fun places like under my arms, between my legs and under my distended belly. And the baby, probably getting a big old dose of adrenaline from Mom, began to squirm within me.
Everyone I knew assured me that from the back, it was impossible to tell that I was pregnant. Kade was far enough from me and standing at such an angle that I figured he couldn’t see how my black shirt stretched over the bump. Maybe I could keep it that way. Maybe I could play it cool, have a conversation with him over my shoulder, and then he’d walk away, thinking, wow, that friend of Cassie’s really was a bitch after all. She couldn’t even bother to turn around to say hello to me.
I wasn’t ready to be honest with myself about why I didn’t want to face Kade and do the big reveal. It might have been that by now, I’d finally come to a place of acceptance, where I realized that I was on my own here. Maybe it was because I knew that even if Kade was pleasantly surprised about this development, he was still going to have questions that I wasn’t sure I was ready to answer.
So I kept my back to him and made my answers short and terse. I’d listened to his explanation about why he was here at Fort Davis and his asshole roommate. I’d tried to close the conversation with my standard exit line, “Good to see you.” But Kade had other ideas.
He’d invited me to join him for coffee, and I wanted to cry. I’d been missing coffee like crazy. I’d cut back on the caffeine at my doctor’s recommendation, but the truth was that the taste of it made me ill nowadays. I missed it in theory, but I couldn’t stomach it in practice.
It wasn’t the idea of coffee, though, that made me realize I’d boxed myself into a corner. It was Kade’s casual mention of the books he planned to buy, books that I would have to ring up for him up front at the cash registered. Shit. Holy fucking shitballs.
I’d answered him with resignation in my tone that I’d meet him up front. There was still a slim chance that if he walked ahead of me, I could stay out of his sight long enough to duck behind the counter and hope that he wasn’t observant enough to notice.
He’d evinced surprise that I worked here, at a bookstore, adding, “You didn’t used to work in a bookstore, did you? I thought you were in law school and had a job at some big firm. What happened?”
Now that was the million-dollar question, and since he’d asked me directly, I knew I couldn’t go on deceiving him. The time had come to pay the piper or whatever that saying was. I’d turned around, making the most of the big reveal, hoping that he noticed how good my boobs looked in this shirt before he saw the huge lump of belly below them.
The expression on Kade’s face was not unlike the ones I’d imagined all these months. Shock . . . yup, there it was. His eyes were huge and filled with a mix of surprise and disbelief. His mouth had dropped open a little, and I resisted the urge to tap his chin with my finger and tell him he needed to close it before he caught flies. His neck had actually snapped back a little, as though I’d jarred his entire world simply by turning around.
“Uh . . . Leah. Wow.” He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Oh, my God. You’re, uh . . .”
“The medical term is pregnant. But you can always go with the genteel expecting or with child or in a family way. There’s also the less polite but often popular knocked up or bun in the oven.” I braced one hand against my lower back. “So, I guess we’d better talk. I still have another hour here before I can close up, which means we can either have the conversation up front, or we can meet later this week.” It all sounded so controlled and civilized when I made that offer, as though we were going to discuss points of law.
Kade was still staring at my middle, but at my words, his eyes jerked up to meet mine. “Talk . . . so . . . Christ, the baby is mine? I’m the . . . the . . .”
Resentment burned in my throat. “I think the word you’re looking for is father, although in this case, if you’d prefer the less-involved sperm donor, that’s your prerogative. But yes, Kade, this baby is yours.”
Now something more akin to betrayal and temper flashed in those eyes. “You didn’t tell me. Fuck, Leah, how could you not tell me something like this? If I hadn’t happened to come up here for TDY and run into you here tonight, would you have ever told me? Or would my kid have gone through life thinking his father didn’t care about him, when the truth was that I didn’t even know he existed?”
Suddenly, all the weight of the day landed on my shoulders in a crushing swoop, and I could barely stand. “Look, I’ll try to explain, but can we please go up front? I have a chair there, and I really need to sit down.” I massaged my lower back, moving my fingers up and down.
Instantly, Kade downshifted from anger into concern. “Shit, I’m sorry. Are you okay? Come on, let’s get you sitting. By the register, you said?”
“Yeah.” I led the way, conscious of Kade’s gaze on me with every step. I hoped my ass looked decent in these jeans . . . and then beat myself up for caring what he might think. I had to play this cool, at all costs.
When we reached the front of the store, I opened the swinging gate that blocked the behind-the-counter area, holding it for Kade to follow into the inner sanctum. “There’s a folding chair over there.” I pointed to a pile of boxes on the other side of the cash register. My own chair was padded and supportive and included several small pillows I’d brought from home. Settling down, I slid one of the pillows into place against my back and nearly moaned with how good it felt.
Kade shook the folding chair until it fell into place. Spinning it, he sat backwards, straddling the seat with his hands on the back support. He watched me without speaking for a few moments, and then he inclined his head.
“Okay. I want to know everything. Start at the beginning and don’t leave anything out.” His words were clipped and direct.
Because I was a little bit of a smartass, I couldn’t help playing. “Well, I roomed with a girl named Cassie during my first two years of college, and it turned out that you knew her, too. When she blew us both off, I invited you to come home with me so I could cook dinner for you. Then while I was making the pasta, you came up behind me and wrapped your arms—”
“I know that part. I remember.” Kade’s lips thinned. “When did you know you were pregnant?”
I thought of those painful days. “About eight weeks later. I was so crazy busy with school and work that it took two missed cycles before I realized something was weird. By then there were other signs.”
“Which were . . .?”
A flare of annoyance made me flippant. “None of your damn business. My body, my signs, my—”
“My child.” He nearly whispered the word, and I flinched.
“Yes, right, but why do you need to know that? It doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter,” Kade insisted. “Every part of this matters. I already missed so much. I want to know what exactly I wasn’t there to experience.”
“My boobs hurt.” I blurted it out. “I couldn’t take off my bra without them just aching. And I could see all these blue veins in them. I was so tired all the time, too. I kept falling asleep when I was trying to study.”
&n
bsp; “Okay.” Kade nodded. “Thank you. So, then you went to the doctor?”
I shook my head. “No, I bought six pregnancy tests at the drug store and I took them all. Every single one was positive.”
He shifted in the chair. “And once you knew—once you were sure—did you . . . consider any options?”
“You mean like abortion?” I wasn’t afraid of the word. “Of course, I did. Any woman in my position who’d tell you that she didn’t think about it, even if it was just a fleeting thought, is a liar.”
“But you didn’t do it.” Kade cocked his head. “How come?”
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I believe in a woman’s right to choose. But I knew it wasn’t my choice.”
“All right.” Did he seem relieved, or was that just my imagination? “So, you decided to keep the pregnancy. What other plans have you made? Are you considering adoption?”
“No.” I kept my eyes lowered, staring at a spot on the floor. “I know it probably sounds crazy to you, but I can’t do that. I’m, uh . . .” I caught the corner of my lip between my teeth. “I don’t know if you remember us talking about it that night, but I was a foster child. I was raised in the foster care system. I didn’t have a stable family. I don’t remember my mother at all, and I don’t think I ever knew my father. I won’t take the chance that my baby would end up in that kind of life. I won’t do it.”
“There’s always private adoption. He’d be placed with a couple you—we—chose.” He was keeping his voice neutral.
“No. I’m not saying that it’s a bad idea, but it’s not what I want. It’s not right for me.” I circled one arm around my belly protectively. “This is my child, my own flesh and blood. I’m going to do anything and everything to make sure I do whatever I can to be the best mother in the world.”
“I understand.” Kade leaned forward and lay a hand on my knee. I could feel the heat of his touch through my jeans, and my heart skipped a beat. “Okay, let’s back track a little. You found out you were pregnant, and you knew I was the father. Did you try to contact me? Did you think about calling me?”
“I didn’t have your number.” It was true. When he’d left me that morning, Kade and I had agreed that there would be no strings attached, and we hadn’t exchanged contact info. We’d had a good time, but neither of us had been looking for commitment. Unfortunately, it seemed to have found us anyway.
“But you could’ve asked Cassie.” Kade raised his eyebrows, challenging me.
“You’re right, I could have. And I actually did come up with a plausible story for why I might need to get in touch with you, just in case she was suspicious. I was going to tell her that you’d mentioned a soldier with a legal problem, and I had information for you about good inexpensive counsel around Fort Lee.”
One side of his lips quirked up. “Impressive story spinning. But you didn’t actually end up doing it. Or did you get my contact info and just not use it?”
“No.” I shook my head. “I didn’t end up getting it at all. I did look you up on social media, just in case I could find you there and avoid talking to Cass. But I couldn’t find you at all.”
“Yeah. I’m not much for all that shit. It can get messy with the soldiers, you know? And I like to keep my private life to myself.”
“I understand.” I cleared my throat. “Anyway, I was just about to bite the bullet and text Cassie to get your number when I started getting sick.”
His forehead drew together. “What do you mean? Like morning sickness?”
I laughed without much humor. “That’s what they call it, but it was more complicated than that for me. The medical term for what I had was hyperemesis gravidarum, and it was hell. I started throwing up as soon as my eyes opened in the morning, and sometimes it didn’t stop until after midnight, when I’d finally just drop from exhaustion. I couldn’t keep anything down, and I lost weight—a lot of weight, actually, and fast.” Even thinking about those horrendous days made me feel slightly nauseated now. “It got so bad that I became dehydrated and had to be hospitalized.”
“Oh, God.” Kade looked slightly green himself. “What did they do for you?”
“They gave me IV hydration and nutrients while I was admitted, and some anti-nausea meds, too. I ended up having to have a pump at home for a while, too, so that it didn’t get ahead of me again.” I shuddered a little, remembering. “The whole thing was kind of a nightmare.”
“Leah.” Kade frowned, straightening in his chair and shifting his weight. “If you had let me know, I could’ve helped you. I would have come up and . . . shit, I don’t know. Held your hand? Made you soup? Anything. Did you go through that whole thing on your own?”
I shrugged. “Yeah. There wasn’t anyone else. I work too hard—or I used to, anyway—to have friends close enough to do anything to help. But it’s okay. I managed.”
“You didn’t have to be alone.” His hand returned to my knee, and he squeezed it slightly. “And you aren’t anymore. But we can revisit that in a little bit. How did you end up here, working at a bookstore?”
This was the part where I was probably most at risk for losing my composure. Making the decision I had might have been even more painful and distressing than the extreme morning sickness. “I was in the hospital for ten days before the doctors got the vomiting and nausea under control. And even when I was released, I wasn’t strong enough to handle going to work or going back to class. We didn’t know how long it was going to last, either.” I took a deep breath. “So, I talked to my advisor at law school, and to the head of the paralegal internship program at the firm in Richmond. Both of them told me the same thing: I might be able to manage to eek through classes while I was sick, and maybe, if everything miraculously went away within a few weeks, I’d be able to hold onto the internship position. Maybe. But they were very skeptical about my ability to keep going to school and working once the baby came, and they also felt that the time I’d have to miss just because of the delivery would put me too far behind. Both of them recommended that I withdraw from the program, at least for the time being.”
“No way.” The thunderous expression on Kade’s face warmed my heart, since it echoed what I’d felt at the time, too. “What the fuck? It’s against the law to discriminate against a woman just because she’s pregnant, isn’t it?”
I smiled, again without any real humor. “By the letter of the law, yes. But practically . . . what they said couldn’t be denied. Both of them were women, and both were sympathetic—to a certain point. If I’d told them I was giving up the baby, the story might have been different. But since I was adamant that I’m keeping her—”
“Her?” Kade leaned forward, his eyes lighting up. “Are you just using a random pronoun, or do you know?”
The lump that rose in my throat and the moisture that sprang to my eyes were both unexpected and unwanted. I couldn’t afford to show weakness just now. “I know. I’m having a girl.” I looked down at my shoes, unable to risk the look I might see on Kade’s face. Would he be disappointed the baby wasn’t a boy? Didn’t most guys, especially macho military types, want sons? “When I was so sick, they were worried about the baby, and so they’ve been doing high-level ultrasounds all along. We could tell the sex, and I wanted to know. I don’t really like surprises.” I snorted at the irony of that statement, glancing up to see if Kade was laughing along with me.
Bad move. I was unprepared for what I saw there: his eyes were swimming with tears and his lips were slightly parted. “A girl,” he whispered. “A . . . a daughter. No shit?”
I smiled, and this time it was genuine. “No shit. And she’s really healthy, despite what she put us both through in the beginning.”
Kade lifted his hand from my knee, letting it hover a few inches from my bump. “Can I . . . could I touch her?”
My heart raced, and I sank my teeth into my bottom lip. “Not for another three months or so.” At his crestfallen face, I quickly added, “But you can touch my stomach and
feel her. She’s been pretty active tonight, but since we’ve been talking, she’s quieted down. She likes the sound of my voice.”
It was one of the wonders of my entire life and definitely a miracle of this new life: the heady knowledge that the baby within me already recognized my voice and responded to it. The first time I’d seen evidence of it happening during an ultrasound, I’d actually begun to cry. The technician, who’d become a sort of friend over the course of my many visits, had been laughing with me at the way the baby would pause in her movements whenever I spoke, but when she spotted the tears running down my cheeks, she too had gotten choked up.
Now Kade leaned closer to me and with the gentlest of touches, he laid his hand reverently over my swollen belly, frowning in concentration, as though he could will the baby into moving or kicking.
“She doesn’t exactly perform on demand, of course.” I didn’t want him to be disappointed if he couldn’t feel her. “Oh, but hold on.” I reached behind me for the bottle of water on the counter. “Sometimes this helps.” I unscrewed the cap and chugged some of the liquid, feeling the cold trickle down my throat. “It’s more effective with sugary drinks or food, but I try to avoid them, since I—oh! Did you feel that?”
It was really a ridiculous question, because before the words were out of my mouth, Kade had leaped to his feet, the chair falling to the floor. His mouth dropped the rest of the way open, and his eyes went even wider.
“Oh, my God, Leah. I felt her. She, like—she pushed against my hand. Was that a—her foot? Or her hand?” He dropped to his knees in front of me, both hands now resting on my stomach. I had a sudden flash of memory: Kade, kneeling in front of me while I sat on my sofa. Both of us were naked, and his eyes were molten as he pushed my knees apart and lowered his mouth to—
“Ummm . . .” I took a shaky breath, trying to ignore that image, and pushed on the other side of my stomach, squinting as though that might help me picture the baby’s position. “Okay, well, here’s her head. So that’s probably a hand you feel. Her feet are down farther, dancing on my bladder, usually.” My face went red, and I winced. “Sorry. TMI. Pregnancy makes you that way, I think.”
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