The room suddenly felt small and sweltering. She eased her plate away, because the buttery, cinnamon-y smell of the pie was starting to turn her stomach, and searched for some pat answer that would get her sister to back off. What spilled out instead was, “I do.”
She clapped her hands over her mouth, but it was too late. The words rang with truth, and she couldn’t take them back even if she wanted to.
“You love him,” Savannah repeated. “There now. That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
Slowly, she lowered her hands. “Oh, God, I do. Not just old, unresolved parts of my heart, but the whole enchilada, and…what the heck are you doing?”
Savannah turned away, but the move did nothing to hide a very audible sniffle. “Don’t mind me. It’s the hormones. I tear up at the drop of a hat. I can’t help myself. Anyway”—she wiped her eyes and looked at Sinclair—“that’s wonderful. I’m happy for you. What did Shane say?”
“Uh…”
“Wait. Have you told him you love him?”
“Hell, no.”
“Why not?” Frustration had her picking up her fork again and stabbing it toward Sinclair. “You just told me you trust him, and everything’s going well—”
“It scares the crap out of me, okay?”
“For heaven’s sake, why?”
“It’s almost too easy this time around. I keep waiting for fate to lob a grenade and blow us up. Again.”
“Wow. Welcome to the Beau Montgomery School of Emotional Risk Aversion. You know what finally got Beau over the dread?”
Under the table, she pressed a hand to her stomach. “What?” She really did need to know, because something was seriously wrong with her if she couldn’t even talk about being happy without giving herself indigestion.
“He realized even if it all turned to shit tomorrow, he wouldn’t have wanted to miss out on us. Everything we already had, everything we’d already experienced, made all the uncertainty worth the risk.”
Was she there? After everything had turned to shit the first time, she’d spent plenty of time wishing she’d never met Shane. Wishing she could remove him like shrapnel from her fractured heart and move on. But she couldn’t. She’d gathered up the pieces and put herself back together, but he’d left scars that had never faded. Not fully. Maybe because she’d always secretly hoped they’d get a second chance, or maybe she was just a masochist, but if things went wrong for them now, there wouldn’t be a third chance. And that made the stakes feel dizzyingly high. If her heart broke again, would she be able to put it back together? A wave of nausea washed over her, leaving her sweaty and shaking.
“Are you okay?” Savannah stared at her, a frown creasing her brows.
“I don’t feel so good.”
“You don’t look so good.”
“I’ll be okay.” The nausea subsided a little, and she mustered up what she hoped was a smile. “For some reason, the pie turned on me tonight.”
“Here, try this”—Savannah got up and returned with a large glass of something cloudy—“it’s lemon-ginger water.”
She raised the glass and gave the concoction a sniff. The citrusy scent didn’t turn her stomach, so she took a sip. Then another.
“I hope you’re not coming down with something. Maybe you should skip New York and take it easy for a few days instead?”
Sinclair shook her head. “I can’t skip the expo. I’ve already paid, scheduled appointments, meetings… I’m hand delivering a bunch of orders. I’ll be fine. I’m probably just dehydrated. Spent all day setting up my booth, manning it, breaking it down, and didn’t drink enough water.”
Savannah returned to her seat and laughed. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were pregnant. That’s my cure for morning sickness you’re sucking down.”
“Ha. Ha. We both know that’s not possible.” Not without an in vitro specialist involved. But as she took another drink—the darn stuff was actually calming her queasies—she consulted her mental calendar and choked a little on her swallow. She was late, and she was never late.
“Yeah, yeah. I know what they told you. But be warned.” She pointed to her own belly. “Mother Nature loves surprises.”
“I know. She already surprised me once. Based on how that turned out, it would take more than a surprise now. It would take a miracle.”
Did she want a miracle? Did Shane? Does it even matter? She tossed the question at the expanding balloon in her chest that felt a lot like hope. If you have somehow managed to conceive, you’re virtually guaranteed another ectopic pregnancy.
She took a more careful sip, ran the math again in her head, and came up with the same answer. Miracle or not, if she didn’t get her period by tomorrow, she’d be making a stop at the drugstore on her drive home.
…
“Light a fire under the civil engineer, Haggerty. They told you they’d expedite the surveys, and it’s been over a month since I requested the report—”
“And expedite means, ‘within six weeks,’ Shane, which they are. Nonetheless, I followed up earlier today when I got your email. Raj had a family emergency and had to fly home to India. He’s due back in a few days and will complete and send the report first thing.”
Shane paced the hotel room. “They don’t have wifi in India? He can’t finalize and transmit a report from there?”
Yes, he was being a hard-ass, and no, it had nothing to do with work timelines. It had to do with his whole fucking life being on hold while he waited for a report. He wanted to tell Sinclair he loved her, but this time around he needed to back the words up with actions. He’d promised to protect her home, and he had a decent plan for doing it, but all his discussions with the structural engineer and the architect were purely hypothetical until he had the water displacement information in the report…and knew what the city planned to do about it. They could deny the permit, but he wasn’t holding his breath. On the other hand, the barn could only be raised so far, and there was no point going to the expense if it didn’t sufficiently reduce the risk.
“I think the problem is personal, not technological.”
“I don’t have a personal problem,” Shane replied, automatically on the defensive.
“Not you. Raj. He’s a tad busy right now with his father’s funeral. I guess he could balance his laptop on the casket…”
Fuck. “All right. Fine.” He ran a hand through his hair and stared out the window of his hotel room at the magnolias lining the town square. “Sorry for his loss.”
“We’re sending flowers. Why the panic? I thought you said everything was going smoothly?”
“It is.” Tight muscles at the back of his neck ached as he tipped his head toward his left shoulder, and then the right. “I’m not panicked. I’m annoyed. Everything’s on track, but the city planning commission is holding off on making a decision about the resort’s golf course until they get the report. We’ve got a meeting tomorrow morning, and I wanted to put something in front of them.”
“One more week, tops. Is Pinkerton getting fidgety?”
“No more so than usual.” Less so, actually, and that was also a problem. The last couple times he’d seen Ricky, instead of hammering at him for an update, the guy had given him a shit-eating smirk. The little prick was up to something. Shane didn’t like it. “Even if he is, he’ll just have to jack himself off a little longer. It is what it is. I’ll explain the situation at the meeting tomorrow. One more week won’t kill him.”
“Make sure the same is true of you,” Haggerty said drily. “Don’t go off on this guy during the meeting if shit goes sideways.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “Credit me with a little self-control.”
“I credit you with plenty of self-control, but when you call me ready to tear some engineer a new one when he’s still within the timeline, I sense you’re wound tight. No surprise. This one’s more than just a job to you. You’re back on your home turf, and your ego’s involved. You know as well as I do, most politicians just want
to check the box that shows they did a passable amount of due diligence on stuff like this and then approve whatever garners them the most votes. Piled on that, the same whiny asshole responsible for your inglorious departure ten years ago is on the other side of the table, and he’s an even bigger asshole now. You can bet your left nut he’s going to try and put you in his crosshairs. So, yeah, I’m cautioning you, because one thing I know about assholes, Maguire, is they’re full of shit.”
“Acknowledged, but it’s a nonissue. In a week, I’ll have the report, and the city can make an informed decision. In the meantime, I’m not going to give him the opportunity to take any shots at me.”
“As it happens, I have a plan to guarantee he can’t take any shots.”
Shane turned away from the window and crossed to the desk. “What’s your plan?”
“Take you out of his line of fire for a few days.”
“How’re you going to do that?” But he already knew. Not the specifics, but the general concept. Some client was in need, but for the first time in his career, he wanted to tell Haggerty to send someone else.
“There’s an off-season storm gathering steam in the Pacific. If you can believe the weather forecasts—and you can’t, half the time, but that’s another issue—it’s going to hit the islands later this week.”
Shane leaned over the desk and tapped his laptop to bring up the latest radar. Then he took another second to squint at the screen. “I don’t know. Looks like a big, disorganized swirl right now. I don’t see how anyone’s extrapolating a path from this.”
“You have talents I respect, but predicting the weather isn’t one of them. Even if it was, we have a world-class hotel chain entrusting us with their emergency planning, and they’ve got a brand-new, five-star property on the tip of Kauai bracing for the first real test of their disaster readiness. As the architect of those plans, they want you there. This is where we put skin in the game, Shane. I can’t tell them we think the forecasts are bullshit. That’s not going to fly.”
No, he was. And that had to change. He wanted to build a home, a life, and most importantly, a future with Sinclair. He wanted predictability in his schedule, and he couldn’t get it while being the first guy on speed dial whenever a client needed a hand to hold. That wasn’t going to work for him anymore. And the Seattle project still loomed in his future. He had to have a conversation with Haggerty…just as soon as he carried this project over the finish line. “I’ve got the meeting tomorrow. I can’t leave until Friday, at the earliest.” Sinclair flew out Sunday for New York. If he was right about the weather, he’d be back by the time she returned from her convention.
“That works. I’ll let the resort know. Expect a text from Barb with the flight details. As long as the forecast holds, plan on a weekend in Hawaii.”
Chapter Sixteen
Sinclair stared at the small pink plus sign for a full sixty seconds. Then she scrambled for the box sitting on the bathroom counter, accidentally knocking it into the sink in her haste to reach it. When finally got her hands on it, she didn’t need to bother digging for the instructional insert. The picture on the front of the packaging couldn’t be clearer, just in case anything had changed since the last time she’d taken one of these tests. Plus meant pregnant. She glanced back at the result window on the wand. Definitely plus. She shook it—why, she didn’t know—and looked again. Still plus.
Holy crap. Miracles did happen. The room spun a little as she got swept up onto a carousel of emotions. A dizzying and completely ludicrous whirl of joy took her first, followed immediately by panic. Would Shane think it was a miracle? Did his version of a second chance include a kid? Now?
Then all the questions careening around her head slammed up against a cold, hard wall of reality. Was this pregnancy even viable? Maybe a fragile little bundle of cells sat lodged in her tube, just like last time. The box and the wand clattered onto the counter as she covered her stomach with her shaking hands.
After a moment, she raised her gaze to come face-to-face with her reflection in the bathroom mirror and saw the vestiges of an overwhelmed sixteen-year-old in her eyes.
“Hey, kiddo. Everything okay?”
She turned to find her father hovering in the doorway and rushed to retrieve the pregnancy test and box from where they sat in plain view by the sink. “Oh my God, Dad.” Shoving the wand into the box, she faced him.
“Sorry.” The stiffness in his voice told her she hadn’t moved fast enough. “I stopped to drop off some mail that came to the house. I, uh, saw your car in the drive. I knocked, and I called out, but when you didn’t answer, I got worried, so I came in.” His gaze dropped to her hands and then bounced up to her face. “Anything you want to tell me?”
So much for hiding the evidence. Hey, Dad. I’m knocked up. Again. It had taken so long to restore their relationship last time. She didn’t think she could handle him putting that wall of anger and disappointment between them again. A salty burn stung her eyes at the thought, but she shrugged and tried for levity. “Um…no?”
One corner of his mouth lifted a notch. “Oh, come on, kiddo. Let’s both try to do better this time around. Start by confiding in me, all right?” He leaned against the doorframe, a Land’s End–catalogue shot of casual, no-pressure Dad in his untucked chambray shirt and khakis—but the little smile disappeared. “I know I let you down before, and I’m probably not the first person you’d choose to open up to now, but I’m here. And I love you.”
The burning eyes came back with a vengeance. “I love you, too, Daddy.” She put the test kit on the counter and walked over to hug her father. Her throat tightened when his arms enfolded her and pulled her close. With her face buried in his shirt, inhaling the reassuringly familiar scents of dryer sheets and Zest soap, she said, “You didn’t let me down. You’ve got it turned around, actually. I let you down.” A painfully hard sob accompanied the admission, followed by scorching tears.
He drew back and gave her shoulders a squeeze. “How about this? Let’s go downstairs, have some coffee—er, scratch that—some orange juice, and get things straight.”
She let him guide her downstairs while she swiped at her watering eyes and running nose. Stop crying, for Christ’s sake. No matter what nickname your dad calls you, you’re not a kid anymore. Dredge up some dignity. Sound advice, but her tear ducts disagreed.
Her dad deposited her in a kitchen chair. She used the sleeve of her oversize black sweater to wipe her face while he puttered around her kitchen—finding glasses, digging in the fridge, pouring OJ. He placed one in front of her and then sat down in the adjacent chair with his own glass.
She took an unsteady breath and then sobbed out, “I’m s-sorry.”
“That’s my line. You’ve never let me down, Sinclair. Never. And I’m sorry if I’ve made you feel like you did. Ten years ago, you needed support, and understanding, but I was so determined to do what I thought was my duty—and would assuage my anger at some unknown boy who I felt deserved to suffer some consequences—I put us at odds. I yelled at you, and threatened you, and instead of getting the information I demanded, all I managed to do was push you away when you needed me most. What I should have told you a while ago is, in retrospect, I admired your strength for not caving in and giving me the scapegoat I wanted. Then again, I’ve always been in awe of your strength.”
“Well, you know”—she sniffed loudly and hiccupped over another sob—“nothing shakes my steely resolve.”
Her father’s chuckle told him the incongruence of the moment wasn’t lost on him. “You can handle anything life throws your way. I know this, because I’ve seen you do it. You might think Savannah is more like your mother, but when it comes to steely resolve and utter fearlessness, trust me, Sinclair, you are your mother’s daughter. Take that as a compliment, because I mean it as one.” He drew in a deep breath before continuing. “You want me to call her? I won’t take offense if she’s the one you prefer to talk to about the rest of it.”
&n
bsp; He wouldn’t take offense, but he would never be sure he’d said the right thing. And he had. She’d needed a reminder that she’d handled a lot worse, with a lot less life experience behind her. “No.” The pressure of fresh sobs building in her chest subsided. Her tears slowed. “No. Actually Dad, you’re exactly who I need.” She wiped her face and then looked him in the eye, so hopefully he’d know she meant that.
He put down his OJ and rested his forearms on his knees. “So…you’re pregnant?”
“Preliminary results say so.”
“I didn’t think that could happen, without, you know…some science and whatnot.”
“Me, neither.”
“Shane?”
She nodded, because she didn’t quite trust herself to speak.
“History repeating itself, huh?” he asked softly.
“Mom told you?”
“No. I figured it out on my own. The first time he came over to the house for dinner, the lightbulb went off.”
She rushed to explain. “He never knew…before. I don’t want you to judge him. I didn’t tell him until just recently.”
“I got that, too. Nobody’s that good an actor. He didn’t have a clue. Don’t worry, Sinclair. I’m not going to reach for my shotgun over something that happened a decade ago. Let’s focus on what’s happening now. When are you going to tell him the results are positive?”
She let her gaze drop to the table and traced the worn edge with her fingertip. “I don’t know. I thought I would confirm things with the doctor first. Even if I am pregnant, it might not be…um…sustainable.”
Her dad stilled her restless hand with his. “He doesn’t know?”
“Uh-uh.”
He nudged his chair back from the table and aimed a stern gaze at her. “He’s not an eighteen-year-old kid this time around, Sinclair. He doesn’t need protecting, and he deserves to know what’s happening. You both have a stake in this, no matter how it plays out.”
“You’re right.” She rubbed her chest, where an ache centered. “You’re right. I need to tell him.”
Emergency Attraction (Love Emergency) Page 17