They would definitely expect him to do the right thing by his child—which meant marrying the child’s mother. Surprisingly, the prospect of marriage didn’t scare him half as much as impending fatherhood. But he knew Kayla was scared, too, and he realized that it really didn’t matter who had said or done what on the Fourth of July or even in the time that had passed since then. What mattered was what they were going to do now—and they needed to figure that out together.
Now that he’d had a little bit of time to get his heart rate down to something approximating normal, he could acknowledge how difficult it must have been for her to face him and tell him that their impulsive actions that night had resulted in a pregnancy. Especially after he’d told her that he wasn’t eager to be a father.
But was it really fair for her to judge him on a response he’d given when he’d assumed she was speaking hypothetically? Because the idea of a baby, without any context, would probably scare the hell out of any guy. Not that a real child was any less terrifying than a hypothetical one, but the idea of having a child with the woman he loved—because over the past couple of weeks, he’d gradually come to accept that he did love Kayla—was almost as exciting as it was terrifying.
Maybe he’d been a little high-handed in his assertion that they needed to get married, but he did want to marry her. He wanted to be a father to their child.
Okay—there. He didn’t feel like the vise around his chest was tightening. In fact, he could almost breathe again.
His first glimpse of that subtle curve beneath her sweater had thrown him for a loop, but the ability of the female body to grow and nurture another human being was amazing. And the realization that Kayla was carrying his baby was both awesome and humbling.
He wondered how big the baby was now, whether she could feel it moving. Would he be able to feel it kicking inside her? Suddenly, he wanted to.
He thought about his friend, Shane, how excited he was about his baby and how he was always touching his wife’s swollen belly. Trey had been happy because his friend was happy, but he didn’t really get it. Now—barely an hour after he’d learned that he was going to be a father—he finally did.
Gianna was due to give birth in early February which—Trey did a quick count on his fingers—was only a few months before what he estimated was Kayla’s due date. It would be kind of cool for their kids to grow up together—except that might not happen if he wasn’t able to convince Kayla to marry him.
Obviously, they still had a lot of details to work out. She had a home and a job in Rust Creek Falls, and he lived and worked in Thunder Canyon. If they were going to raise this child together—and he refused to consider any other possibility—they needed to be together.
The light snow that had been falling when he left the bed-and-breakfast had changed—the flakes were coming heavier and faster now, but he wasn’t concerned. He had all-wheel drive and snow tires on his truck. What he didn’t have was any particular destination in mind, so when he turned onto a street filled with shops, he decided to park and walk for a while.
He tucked his chin in the collar of his jacket and walked with his head down. The wind was sharp and cold but he didn’t really notice—everything inside him felt numb. At the end of the block, he found himself standing outside a jewelry store, the front window display highlighting a selection of engagement rings.
He impulsively opened the door and stepped inside.
Apparently he wasn’t the only one who had decided to ignore the inclement weather. There was a man about his own age looking at bangle-style bracelets, a woman browsing a selection of watches and an older gentleman perusing engagement rings with a much younger woman.
He found what he was looking for almost immediately. The vintage-style was similar to the earrings she’d been wearing the night of the wedding, and he knew the delicate design crusted with diamonds would suit her. The clerk, visibly pleased with the quick sale, wished him a Merry Christmas and happy engagement—Trey wasn’t counting on either but he was going to give both his best effort.
The weight of the ring was heavy in his pocket as he considered how and when to propose to her again. He thought she would appreciate a traditional proposal, despite the fact—or maybe because—nothing else about their relationship had been traditional. From their first kiss at Braden and Jennifer’s wedding, they’d followed their own timetable. They’d fallen into bed together before they’d even gone out on a date, and now she was pregnant and showed no indication of wanting to marry him. But he was determined to change her mind on that account.
He had to brush a couple of inches of snow off his windshield before he could pull out onto the road, which was also covered with snow. The driving wasn’t difficult but it was slow, and he was eager to get back to the inn, back to Kayla.
He was ready to talk to her now, eager to tell her that he was happy about their baby. He was still scared, but he was excited, too, and he wanted to share all of his thoughts and feelings with her.
But when he got back to the bed-and-breakfast, she wasn’t there.
He tried calling her cell, but there was no answer. He didn’t know where she could have gone—she didn’t have a vehicle. And he couldn’t imagine that she would have ventured outside to go for a walk in this weather. He went back downstairs, to check with Jack and Eden Caffrey, the owners of the inn. It was then that he found their note.
Kayla had a little bit of a fainting spell, so we took her to the hospital to be checked out.
Now his heart was racing for a completely different reason.
* * *
“I really am fine,” Kayla told Eden, who had been hovering over her since she found her guest sprawled on the floor of her third-floor guest room.
She’d tried to resist the woman’s efforts to get her to go to the hospital, because she really did feel fine, but in the end, worry about her baby won out. Jack had driven the car while Eden sat in the back with Kayla, just to be sure everything was okay. And except for a few minutes while the doctor performed his exam and then to get Kayla a snack from the cafeteria, Eden had not left her side. Jack was there, too, but he was tucked into a chair in the corner, working in a crossword puzzle book he’d brought in from the car.
She glanced from Eden’s worried face to the doctor’s calm facade. “Please, Dr. Gaynor, tell them that I’m fine.”
“She’s fine.” Her ob-gyn—who had conveniently been making rounds when Kayla was brought in to the hospital—echoed the words dutifully.
“And she can go home now,” Kayla prompted hopefully.
The doctor smiled as she shook her head. “I’d prefer to keep an eye on you a little bit longer, just to ensure the slight cramping you experienced earlier has truly subsided.”
She sighed as she turned her attention back to Eden. “I know you must be anxious to get back. Please don’t feel as if you have to stay here with me. I can catch a cab back to the inn when the doctor finally okays it.”
“We run a bed-and-breakfast,” Eden reminded her. “And there are a lot of hours until breakfast.”
“I’ll be back to check on you in a little while,” Dr. Gaynor said.
Trey entered the room as she was leaving.
Jack set his book and pencil aside and rose to his feet, offering his hand to the other man. “I see you got our note.”
“I did,” Trey confirmed. “Thank you for taking care of Kayla.”
“Of course.”
Kayla eyed Trey warily as he moved closer to the bed. He’d been so angry when he left, but she didn’t hear any evidence of that in his voice now.
He touched his lips to her forehead, and the sweetness of the gesture made her throat tighten.
“How are you?”
She swallowed. “I’m okay.”
“I’m so sorry I wasn’t there.”
“It�
��s okay,” she said, but she couldn’t look at him when she said it. She understood why he’d been angry and upset, but she was still hurt by his abandonment of her. Reasonable or not, his walking away had felt like a rejection of not only her news but of herself and their child, too.
He turned to Eden and Jack again. “I’m so grateful you were there, and that you brought Kayla here.”
“It’s lucky that she knocked the lamp off the table when she fell, or we might not have known that she fainted.”
“I’m not sure I really fainted,” Kayla said. “I just felt dizzy for a minute.”
“And didn’t remember what had happened when I found you,” Eden said. “Because you fainted.”
“But I’m fine now,” she insisted.
“The doctor wants to keep her a little longer, for observation,” Eden told Trey, contradicting Kayla’s statement.
“I’ll stay with her,” he told the couple.
“Then we’ll get out of your way,” Jack said.
“Any special requests for breakfast?” Eden asked Kayla.
She shook her head. “I’m sure whatever you have planned will be perfect.”
“Drive safely,” Trey said to Jack. “The snow is really blowing out there.”
“My honey does everything slow and steady,” Eden assured him, adding a saucy wink to punctuate her statement.
Jack shook his head. “We’ll see you both in the morning,” he said, putting his hand on his wife’s back to guide her toward the door, quietly chiding her for “embarrassing the poor fellow.”
“She did embarrass you, didn’t she?” Kayla asked. “Your cheeks are actually red.”
“It’s cold and windy outside,” he told her.
“They weren’t that red when you walked in a few minutes ago.”
“Okay,” he acknowledged. “Now let’s talk about you. Are you really okay?”
“How many times do I have to say it before people start believing it?”
“Maybe a hundred more.”
She eyed him warily. “How are you?”
“I’m okay.”
She lifted her brows; he smiled.
“What about...is the baby...okay?”
“The baby’s fine. Apparently, he’s well-cushioned in there.”
“He?”
She shrugged. “Or she.”
“You don’t know?”
“I didn’t want to know.” She played with the plastic hospital bracelet on her wrist. “Do you want to know?”
“I don’t mind being surprised.”
Chapter Twelve
Kayla eyed him skeptically. “Really?”
“Okay—I know that’s not what I was saying earlier,” Trey acknowledged. “But I’m not sure I’ve ever been hit with a surprise of quite that magnitude before.”
“I would hope not,” she admitted, managing a small smile.
He reached for her hand, linked their fingers together. “I’m sorry.”
She swallowed. “Sorry that I’m pregnant?”
“No.” He squeezed her fingers. “I’m not sorry about the baby—I’m sorry that I was such an ass when you told me about the baby.”
“And I’m sorry I waited so long to tell you.”
“Why did you?”
“I was scared.”
“Of me?”
She shook her head. “Of how you’d react.”
“How did you think I’d react? Did you expect me to get mad and walk out?”
“That was one possible scenario—after you rejected the possibility that it was your baby.”
He winced. “It was knee-jerk.”
“I get that. But you should know that there wasn’t any other possibility. What happened between us that night—I don’t do things like that.”
“I know.”
Now it was her turn to wince. “I’m not sure if I should feel reassured or insulted.”
He chuckled. “Rust Creek Falls is a small town,” he reminded her. “You have a reputation for flying under the radar.”
“Obviously, no one saw me do the walk of shame out of the boarding house the morning after Braden and Jennifer’s wedding.”
“Walk of shame? Because you spent the night with me?”
“Because I don’t do things like that,” she said again.
“I kind of hoped we’d do it again sometime.”
“Like maybe this weekend?”
“Like maybe this weekend,” he acknowledged. “But that isn’t why I brought you here. I really did just want to spend some time with you away from all of the demands and distractions of our families.”
“It was a sweet gesture.”
He winced. “Sweet?”
She chuckled softly then sighed. “I really wanted to tell you,” she insisted. “But every time I tried to lead into the conversation, something else came up.”
“Nothing that was more important than what you weren’t telling me,” he pointed out.
She nodded, silently acknowledging his point. “The first time was the day we had lunch—when Claire called and asked you to pick up diapers.”
He did remember that his cousin’s call had interrupted something Kayla started to say, and he winced when he remembered some of the things he’d said when he’d explained the errand request to Kayla. “Okay, I guess that one’s on me.”
“And then there was the night we were wrapping Presents for Patriots and you told me we had time to figure out everything we needed to know about one another.”
“Only because I didn’t know then that our time would be limited by the arrival of a bundle of joy.”
“And then when we ran into Shane and Gianna after the Candlelight Walk.”
“When I said that I wasn’t looking to be a father anytime soon,” he realized.
She nodded.
“You really should have just blurted out the news before I had a chance to make such an ass of myself.”
“I’ll keep that in mind if I ever find myself in this predicament again.”
“You won’t,” he told her. “Our next baby—”
Whatever else he was going to say was interrupted by a knock at the door.
Kayla let out a breath—a sigh that was part relief and part frustration—when a technician pushed a trolley cart into the room.
“I’m Judy,” she said. “Dr. Gaynor asked me to stop by so we could take a look at your baby.”
Kayla’s hand tightened on his. “Is something wrong?”
“There’s no reason to think so,” the technician assured her. “The doctor just wants to double-check before she releases you.”
“Okay.” But she didn’t relinquish her viselike grip of Trey’s hand.
Judy lifted the hem of Kayla’s shirt and pushed down the top of her pants to expose the curve of her belly. She squirted the warm gel onto her tummy then spread it over her skin with the wand attached to the portable ultrasound machine.
A soft whooshing sounded, and the screen came to life, but Kayla found herself watching Trey, whose attention was riveted by the image that appeared.
“Is that...our baby?”
“That’s our baby,” she confirmed.
“It’s...wow.”
She understood exactly what he was feeling: the complete array of emotions that filled his heart. Awe. Joy. Fear.
She understood because it was the way she’d felt the first time she’d seen tangible evidence of the life growing inside her, not just the outline of the baby’s head and torso or the little limbs flailing around, but the tiny heart inside her baby’s chest that seemed to beat in tandem with her own.
“Everything looks great,” Judy said. “Your baby is measuring right on target for
twenty-four weeks.”
“What does that mean?” Trey asked. “How big is he? Or she?” he hastened to add.
“Approximately eleven and a half inches long, probably weighing in at just under a pound—about the size of an ear of corn.”
“Less than a pound?” Kayla wasn’t happy. “I’ve gained more than ten, and you’re telling me that less than one of that is my baby?”
The technician chuckled. “But all of it is necessary—there’s also the placenta, amniotic fluid and various other factors that contribute to mother’s weight gain during pregnancy.”
“So it’s not the hot chocolate with extra whipped cream?”
“It’s not the hot chocolate,” Judy promised. “Even with extra whipped cream.” She continued to move the transducer over Kayla’s belly. “You said ‘he—or she’...did you want to know your baby’s sex?”
Kayla looked at Trey. “Do you?”
“Do you?”
“I am a little curious,” she admitted. “Especially because my sister seems convinced—on the basis of no scientific evidence whatsoever—that it’s a boy.”
Trey frowned at that but didn’t comment, and Kayla realized he was probably unhappy to discover that her sister had known about the pregnancy before he did. But she wasn’t going to explain or apologize—not in front of the ultrasound tech—and she was grateful that all he said to Judy was, “We’d like to know.”
“The aunt-to-be is right,” Judy told her. “It’s a boy.”
* * *
When Dr. Gaynor finally returned and approved Kayla’s release, Trey insisted on bringing his truck right up to the exit doors of the hospital so that she didn’t have to walk across the snowy ground to the parking lot. She appreciated his solicitousness, but she also knew his apparent acceptance of her pregnancy didn’t mean anything was settled between them.
The earlier blizzard-like conditions had passed and the plows had already been out to clear the main roads, so the drive back to the bed-and-breakfast was quick and uneventful.
Merry Christmas, Baby Maverick! Page 15