“You know it’s yours, right? You’re not sitting there trying to figure out how to pass the blame or anything, are you?”
His vision focused again, and he saw her staring up at him from where her head rested on her arm. “Of course not. I mean, yes. I know it’s mine.”
He did. Right down to his soul. He knew about her dating life from watching her for months and more recently from the investigator’s report. But mostly he just knew she wouldn’t say a baby was his if it wasn’t. There was so much distrust and hurt between them, but he knew.
She visibly exhaled. “I thought you were doing that guy thing.”
“Do I want to know what that means?”
“Insisting I’m a slut and it can’t be yours.”
The words sliced through him, not because he worried they might be true but because she thought even for a moment he would doubt her about this. “What kind of men do you know?”
“The usual kind.”
“Well, what kind of man do you think I am?” Then he remembered how he threw her out of the office. No wonder she viewed men as jackasses. He’d certainly done everything to make sure he landed on that list.
Slow and only by inches, she lifted her head. Once or twice her eyes slammed shut but after a few deep breaths, she sat up straight. “Well, I apologize for thinking the worst of you.”
“I likely deserve some of it.” But he didn’t matter right now. She did. Her and the baby. He reached out to put a hand on her thigh but stopped. She probably didn’t want him close to her. After all, look what happened last time. “How are you feeling?”
“I vomit every ten seconds.”
“Thea, I’m—”
“Don’t apologize.” This time she reached for him. Her palm slid over his knee. The touch was soothing, not sexual. “It’s normal.”
“You’re okay? The baby’s okay? I don’t know anything about how big it is, but is the sick stuff normal this soon…or should it be over? I really don’t know.” He was babbling. He never babbled.
“You okay over there?”
He got pissed off in meetings when people rattled on about nothing instead of answering simple questions and providing information, yet here he was. “I mean, you’ve been going to the doctor and all that, right?”
“Yes.”
“Should we go now?”
“Linc.” She squeezed his knee.
“What?”
“Breathe.”
The baby. Her touch. Being next to her. It all backed up on him. “Having some trouble with that right now.”
“I know it’s a shock. Believe me, I’m still adjusting to what it means for my life and my future.”
Future. He’d traveled up here to settle their past. A baby meant a future.
He had trouble taking it all in. And his mind kept zipping to one key point. “How long have you known?”
“For about five weeks.” Her hand slid off his leg. “My periods have always been regular. No trouble, never late. It’s part of the reason I wasn’t on the pill when we were together.”
“I remember us agreeing condoms were mandatory.” They’d talked about it. Been responsible adults and had a conversation. Sure, in the moment the talk consisted of half sentences and him saying condom over and over, but they hadn’t ignored the realities.
Look where that got them.
“I hadn’t been dating anyone and the cramps always were manageable for me. Not to pile on a lot of personal information here—”
“We might want to since we’re about to be parents.”
“—but the pill makes me bloaty and uncomfortable. If there’s no need, I don’t want to be on it.”
“I used a condom.” He needed her to believe him. “I swear, Thea, I would never put you at risk like that.”
“I know.”
“It must have ripped or had a tear.” Damn things.
“Or you have determined little dudes who can get around latex.”
Now there was a terrible thought. Last thing he needed was condom-proof sperm. If he was going to win a lottery, he sure as hell didn’t want it to be that one.
“I’m not sure how you can joke about this.” He could barely put a sentence together.
“It’s laugh or cry, take your pick.”
If she cried, he was done. He’d already experienced her pain, sadness and sickness, and the trifecta sucked all the toughness right out of him. He liked to fix things, and he had no idea how to make anything better for her. Add in a baby and potential female crying, and his babbling would come back in full force.
The strangeness of the moment finally settled in. He heard a soft hum of the lights above them and a hint of a melody from the radio playing in the other room. Not exactly the most memorable place to share life-changing news.
“Let’s get you off the floor.” He stood up, relieved when his legs held him, and reached down to help her up.
When her feet hit the tile he should have let go. Should have backed away. Instead, he kept his hands on her slim waist and marveled at the thought of a little person growing in there.
Yeah, no doubt about it. It would be a long time before he got used to that idea.
Her hands never left his forearms. “I need you to know I don’t expect anything. Money or—”
“Stop.” The thought of not financially and emotionally taking care of his kid blurred his vision with a red-hot rage.
“Linc, I’m serious.” She looked up and their glances met head on. “Trust is at a low ebb between us right now, but this wasn’t some attempt to trap you.”
Now she was pissing him off. “Really, Thea. Shut up.”
“Excuse me?” Which sounded a lot like watch it, asshole.
“We did this. Not you. I know this wasn’t a scheme. Trust me, I was an active and willing participant that night.”
“True.”
“You’re the mother of my child… Damn, that’s weird to say.” The words sounded so odd once they were out. He rolled them on his tongue a few times and the oddness only increased. “Man, if you knew about my past, you would not be this calm about dipping in my gene pool.”
“I do.”
He shook his head. “Not all of it. Not the worst of it.”
“I know you.”
“My dad.” Damn, Linc didn’t even know what to say next or how to explain.
“Isn’t you.”
Linc never talked about it. Nick knew pieces, including some of the really shitty stuff. His sister had lived through it. But Linc didn’t feel the need to share. Until now. A woman deserved to know what she’d waded into. Though he should have warned her nine weeks ago when she still had a choice to jump out.
“He was a shit.” Still was, but Linc always talked about his dad in the past tense because the relationship was long dead and the last time they were together closed the door on any future father-son bonding for them. “Nothing his kids did was right or good enough. He wrote me off before I was twelve. He decided my sister would be a whore before she learned how to ride a bike.”
“How old were you when your mom died?”
The question threw him for a second until he remembered the heart attack and all those calls Thea shared with Chelsea. They were close in age. His baby sister had needed to talk and Thea listened better than any person he knew.
He found so many things about her sexy and unforgettable. How Thea acted with other people, especially Chelsea, neared the top of the list.
“Chelsea was four. I was eleven.” And with the only love in the house and the buffer against their father gone, the days churned in a slow progression of shittiness.
The tension around Thea’s eyes eased. “I spend more time in the bathroom than I want to right now. Let’s go into the family room.”
With a hand in hers, he followed. Just as she was about to sit on the couch, he tugged on her arm to get her to turn around again. The question was there in her raised eyebrows.
He didn’t hesitate because it would
eat at him until he knew. “Were you ever going to tell me about the baby?”
“Of course.”
Since her gaze bounced away from his, Linc wasn’t sure he believed it. Not that he could fully blame her. “I mean, after all that happened I could see you wanting to forget me.”
“Oh, Linc.” She put her hands on his chest and brought her body close to his. “I was trying to get through week twelve. You were so angry and I was so hurt. It just felt broken and I wanted the high risk over before we talked it through.”
“High risk?” The words echoed in his brain until they bored a hole right through his skin.
“Yes, but—”
“That’s it, we’re going to the hospital.” He walked around the room half in a trance. He didn’t know anything about the area. But he could drive. He’d drive fast and far and do whatever needed to be done, but he needed something first. Something he couldn’t remember.
She grabbed onto his arm and pulled him around to face her again. “Linc, listen to me.”
Clothes, wallet… “Where the hell are my keys?”
She had both of his arms now. “Hey, sit down.”
“We need—”
She pressed her palms against his cheeks. “The baby is fine.”
The phrase stopped the roaring in his ears. Every part of him threatened to shut down and his shoulders slumped. “You’re sure?”
“Absolutely. I’ve been to the doctor and have one in Syracuse. We have a long way to go and the nausea is normal, unfortunately.”
“Has it been bad?”
She shrugged. “It hasn’t been fun.”
Man, he hated throwing up. He’d make a deal with the devil or lie still, whatever it took to keep from running to the toilet for that. It was part of the reason he worked out and generally took care of himself. Healthy body meant no downtime being sick and no throwing up.
Then there was the problem where he was a sympathy barfer. He heard someone throw up, even if it was in a movie, and he gagged. The only thing that had saved him tonight was getting into the bathroom after she was done.
“I’m sorry. I wish—” He would not offer to vomit for her or be pregnant in her place. Men said that kind of shit all the time and it was a damn lie.
“It took two of us to get me pregnant.” She brushed her hand over his chest. Back and forth. “We’re both responsible and nothing that’s happening now is abnormal.”
The touching sparked something inside him. She mentioned being pregnant with his kid, and once the initial wave of panic stopped crashing over him, a new emotion took its place. A wild attraction. The kind that had him wanting to strip the clothes off her and drop his pants.
Since he wasn’t fucking animal, he hid the growing erection and everything else under a pile of terror. That emotion wasn’t all that hard to call up either.
But the need came slamming back. He wanted her and wanted them together. “Except where we live apart.”
Like that she shut down. The openness vanished and the smile took a hike. “That’s a separate thing. Being pregnant doesn’t magically mean we’re fine.”
He’d never been lucky enough to have things work so easily for him. “I get that.”
“Do you?” Her hand slid down his chest to land on his stomach. “You have a tendency to set a plan in your head and then shove your way through until you get what you want.”
If that hand moved any lower and all his common sense would flee. “I just want you and the baby with me.”
“Maybe that’s a conversation we should have after you’ve had more than ten minutes to process your upcoming parenthood.”
As if time would change anything. He’d bet he’d become more entrenched as the days ticked by. The furniture in his condo would have to change. He needed Thea comfortable and a space for a baby’s room. Maybe a new house was the answer. Something they found together.
“I can almost see you thinking.” She shook her head. “Are you planning our future in your mind right now without even bothering to talk to me first?”
A surge of heat coursed through him. “Okay, guilty. But, you can’t do this on your own.”
“Many women do.”
He wanted to argue this point until she agreed never to suggest that again. Wanted to but didn’t. She needed some space, and they still had miles of emotional baggage between them to unload. “You don’t have to.”
“We haven’t spoken in nine weeks.”
They could go without talking for months and his position would not change. “So?”
She dropped her hands from his body and sat on the couch’s armrest. “Forgetting everything that’s happened is not a simple thing, especially since we’re still at an impasse on the stealing issue.”
It was what she didn’t say that brought the hollowed-out sensation to his stomach. “But that’s not your biggest issue.”
“It’s not?”
“Admittedly, I have no idea how I’ll be as a father, but I have to think I can raise the bar a bit from how I was raised.”
“You’re rock solid.”
She sounded like she believed it but her actions said something else. “Which is why you’ve been going through this without me. Because I’m just so perfect.”
“I told you why I waited to say anything.” She took his hand in both of hers. “No one but me and my doctors, and now you, know.”
The truth of the comment filtered through his clouded brain. She’d told him first. Not Becky. Not Tim. A mix of pride and satisfaction poured through Linc.
“I am terrified of carrying this baby, giving birth to this baby and raising this baby. The only thing I did right was picking a good man to be the little sweetie’s father.” She raised their joint hands to her lips and kissed the back of his.
The soft touch spun through him, revving up every cell even as his doubts took hold. “How can you say that? Hell, I don’t even think I’ve ever held a baby.”
“You will love our sweetie and protect it. And despite whatever I say about support, I know you will make sure this baby has everything it needs.”
At least they had an understanding about that much. “Damn right I will.”
She smiled. “Then you’re perfect.”
Chapter Eleven
It had taken hours before the house settled down and she turned in for the night. After all that talk about being hungry, Linc barely touched his dinner and insisted on doing the dishes.
For the rest of the night they sat in comfortable silence with him at the table and her on the couch. They didn’t talk about whatever he planned to talk about because the baby news clearly weighed on his mind and had him staring into space.
Thea let him stay because it seemed wrong to drop news that a guy was about to be a dad then put him in a car and send him away. The poor man still looked shell-shocked when she’d found him a blanket and pillow and shuffled off to bed.
She totally understood. She still woke up every morning and stared in the bathroom mirror, convinced the whole pregnancy had been a weird stress dream. Then the bile rushed up her throat and the retching started as reality smacked her in the face. She’d bet that would happen again tomorrow.
Now she had another need. It was after one when she shuffled out to the kitchen for a drink of water. The light above the sink was on. It barely cast any light, but she made out Linc’s outline at the table. He sat in a T-shirt and jeans with his sneakers on the floor beside him. But that’s not what grabbed her attention. Seeing him unmoving with his head in his hands did.
She debated disturbing him. She’d thrown news at him in the heat of the moment that some men couldn’t accept even with the best delivery. Without trying, she may have broken the strongest man she’d ever known.
With quiet steps she walked toward the table and came within touching distance. “Are you okay?”
He didn’t lift his head. “No.”
The husky sound of his voice had a tight fist squeezing around her heart. Doubt and de
nial—she didn’t expect either from him. Still, the idea of him balking sent her temper spiking. “You know I’m not making demands, right? You don’t have to—”
His head shot up and he pinned her with his intense gaze. “Don’t tell me I don’t have to be in my child’s life. Just don’t.”
The ravaged look on his face tore at her. His hair wore the tracks from his fingers and his cheeks were drawn. The flat line of his mouth matched the worry pounding off of him. She could almost smell it.
Maybe she’d misread his comment. He sounded more stunned than like a man who was looking for a way out. “Linc, it’s going to be okay.”
“I could suck at this. Like, fuck this kid up and then you’d both hate me.” He shook his head. “That’s the most probable outcome here and I…”
When he didn’t finish, she filled in the rest for him. “You’re panicked and battling doubts.”
“Damn right I am.”
The last of her anger whooshed right out of her. This wasn’t about not wanting the baby or blaming her. This was about his insecurities. Not that she could blame him with his history. She only knew pieces from his sister and from the brief conversations with their dad where he’d referred to Linc as a loser.
The childhood sounded pretty crappy. Something Thea didn’t understand at all. She’d been blessed with great parents and a completely functional upbringing. When she’d lost them, the world went dark and everything seemed so bleak. She couldn’t imagine spending every day of her younger years wallowing in that despair.
“Listen to me.” She put a hand on his shoulder.
Before she could say anything else, he shifted. His arms wrapped around her waist, and he brought her body tight against him. His face rubbed against her stomach but he didn’t say anything. Didn’t make a noise as he fought those demons inside him.
The silence had a desperate energy that almost made her wish he’d burst into tears. It would kill her to see those broad shoulders shake, but that couldn’t be worse than the ache rolling off of him now.
She stood there, letting his warmth wrap around her and his body melt into hers. She craved the intimacy even though it carried with it an acute sense of loss.
Baby, It's Cold Outside: Men at Work, Book 1 Page 9