One Night, One Baby

by Kate Hardy

  ‘Tall, dark and handsome,’ Charlie mused. ‘How handsome? Oh, and that’s question three.’

  ‘Very.’

  ‘Not specific enough,’ Charlie said. ‘Between one and ten, where is he on the scale of handsomeness?’

  Jane blew out a breath. ‘I’d say ten and a half.’

  ‘Where’s the photo?’ Charlie asked.

  Jane took her mobile phone from her bag and flicked through the photographs until she reached the one of Mitch. ‘Here.’

  Charlie whistled. ‘Definitely ten and a half.’

  ‘So are you seeing him again?’ Shelley asked.

  Jane shook her head. ‘It was just for one day.’

  ‘And night,’ Hannah pointed out.

  Charlie folded her arms. ‘So you’re telling us that you—the sensible one in the house—went off and had a one-night stand with a total stranger?’

  Jane groaned. ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake. Anyone would think I was one of Stella’s teenage daughters getting the third degree for coming home after midnight!’

  ‘You didn’t come home at all,’ Charlie said with a grin. ‘And your boss practically thinks of you as one of her kids, so consider us a substitute for Stella.’

  ‘She didn’t grill me this morning the way you’re grilling me now,’ Jane protested.

  Charlie adjusted the light. ‘Well, I happen to think this deserves interrogation.’

  ‘Because we’re worried about you. You don’t just stay out all night without telling one of us where you’re going,’ Shelley said.

  ‘Particularly,’ Hannah added, ‘when he’s a total stranger. You could’ve got into serious trouble.’

  Jane shook her head. ‘My instincts said not.’

  ‘Jane, honey, your instincts are sh—’ Shelley clapped her hand in front of her mouth. ‘Um. Let me rephrase that. You’re not street-savvy like our Charlie, so I wouldn’t rely on your instincts.’

  ‘Look, would an axe-murderer take me out to dinner to a seriously exclusive restaurant?’

  ‘Maybe. If he was rich. Or he could be a fraudster—he might have stolen someone’s identity and credit card details,’ Hannah said. ‘You might find he’s cloned your credit card and, wham, next bill, you’ll have thousands of pounds notched up to your account from somewhere in Asia.’

  Jane frowned. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

  ‘Cloning happens,’ Charlie said thoughtfully. ‘One of my friends got caught out at a petrol station. Luckily the credit-card company rang her when the third charge came through and asked if she’d lost her card or something.’

  ‘Look, he’s not a fraudster.’ Jane shook her head. ‘He was a perfect gentleman.’

  Charlie coughed. ‘Right. And perfect gentlemen have one-night stands.’

  ‘It was by mutual agreement. I’m not looking for a relationship. Well, not unless that Hollywood actor I love proposes to me,’ Jane added with a grin.

  ‘That’s not going to happen.’ Charlie smiled with a dismissive wave of her hand. ‘So. You had a one-night stand with a total stranger.’

  ‘All right,’ Jane said, spreading her hands. ‘How many times are you going to ask me?’

  Hannah grinned. ‘Was he good?’

  Jane couldn’t help laughing. ‘I am not telling you every single detail.’

  ‘Spoilsport.’ Charlie wrinkled her nose. ‘Seriously. We’ve been feeling really bad about yesterday, Jane. It didn’t occur to us you might think we’d forgotten your birthday. We were so sure you’d guess we were planning something—especially as I’d got up early all week to grab the post and hide your cards and parcels.’

  Charlie was most definitely not a morning person, so Jane knew that’d taken a real effort on her part.

  ‘And I hate to think you spent the day thinking nobody loved you,’ Charlie continued, ‘when we all do. To bits.’

  Jane’s heart melted. ‘I know that. I just…Look, I’m sorry I messed up your surprise. And I bought chocolates to apologise.’

  ‘No need for that,’ Hannah said softly. ‘As long as you’re OK, that’s all we care about.’

  ‘No, no, no, no, no,’ Shelley said, wagging her finger. ‘I had the day from hell. I’m not turning down chocolate. Though what Hannah said’s right,’ she added.

  Hannah flapped a hand at Charlie. ‘Turn that light off. Interrogation over.’ She smiled at Jane. ‘So did you have a good birthday?’

  Jane nodded.

  Charlie gave her a wicked smile. ‘He made you come, then.’

  ‘Interrogation over,’ Jane pointed out. ‘The light’s off. And are you going to continue torturing me with that cake or please can I have some now?’

  ‘Pudding before dinner? Tut-tut,’ Shelley said.

  ‘Considering you eat chocolate for breakfast, you’ve got room to talk. Not,’ Jane retorted. ‘I claim belated birthday rights. Cake first.’

  ‘All right, all right. Seeing as you bought chocolate as well.’ Hannah cut four generous slices.

  Jane took a bite. ‘Oh-h-h. This is wonderful. Hannah, tell your mum she makes the best chocolate cake in the world.’

  ‘The question is, is chocolate better than sex?’ Charlie asked.

  ‘That depends,’ Jane said. ‘I’m not telling. No more questions.’

  Hannah gave her a hug. ‘One last one. But this is important. If you’re going to have sex with a stranger,’ she said, ‘it’d better be worth it. And please tell me you were sensible.’

  Jane rolled her eyes. ‘Hannah, you’re a practice nurse who spends too much time with teenagers. You nag us all and make us carry condoms with us. So yes. Of course we used condoms.’ A lot of them. Some had been his, some hers.

  ‘Good.’ Shelley smiled at her. ‘Now, since you’re having cake before dinner—pressies, too?’

  Jane beamed. ‘I thought you’d never ask!’

  She was so lucky, she realised. Living in a house in Old Isleworth with three brilliant housemates—the warmth of the friendship between them made up for the fact that her room was tiny and furthest from the bathroom. They looked out for each other, shared the good times as well as the bad, and life couldn’t get any better than this.

  Well, unless Mitch Holland was around.

  But they’d already agreed that wasn’t going to happen, so she wasn’t going to let herself moon over him. She was just going to enjoy being twenty-five, free and single.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THREE weeks. It had been practically three weeks since they’d spent the night together, and Jane was still thinking about Mitch.

  Pa-a-a-thetic.

  If he’d wanted to see her again, he would’ve tried to track her down. And it wouldn’t have been that difficult: he already knew what she did for a living and that she’d worked on the pirate exhibition. A couple of phone calls would’ve netted him her contact details. The fact that he hadn’t even tried made it obvious that she really did have more chance of marrying her favourite film star than of seeing Mitch Holland again. So she really ought to get him out of her head.

  And maybe that prawn mayonnaise sandwich yesterday hadn’t been a good idea. She’d been feeling queasy all morning.

  She was still feeling rough, two days later. And when Jane picked at her toast that morning, Hannah took her to one side before she left for work.

  ‘You’re not OK—your face is practically green—so you can stop being brave about it,’ Hannah said gently. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘That prawn sandwich must have disagreed with me,’ Jane said.

  ‘Yesterday?’

  ‘Three days ago.’

  Hannah frowned. ‘Food poisoning’s usually over in a couple of days. Is there a stomach bug going round at work?’

  ‘Not as far as I know,’ Jane said.

  Hannah laid her hand on Jane’s forehead. ‘Not hot enough for me to get the thermometer. So what are your symptoms?’

  Typical Hannah: bringing her work home with her. Though it felt good to be fussed over. ‘I j
ust feel a bit sick. And kitchen smells make me queasy.’ Jane shrugged. ‘As I said, it was probably that prawn sandwich.’

  ‘Have you actually been sick?’

  ‘No.’

  Hannah looked thoughtful. ‘Have you found yourself weeing more often than usual?’

  Jane thought about it. ‘Yes, a bit,’ she admitted. ‘Why?’

  Hannah blew out a breath. ‘Have you considered the fact you might be pregnant?’

  Jane rolled her eyes. ‘Don’t be daft. Of course I’m not. We used condoms.’

  ‘But no contraception is a hundred per cent guaranteed—well, except abstinence,’ Hannah said. ‘There’s still a risk, even with a condom. They can tear, or spill while one of you removes it. These things happen. And it only takes one little sperm to fertilise an egg.’

  ‘Oh, my God.’ Jane clapped a hand to her mouth. ‘I can’t be pregnant.’

  ‘When was your last period?’

  Ice trickled down Jane’s spine as she counted mentally. ‘Five weeks ago. Oh, my God. I’m late.’

  ‘OK. You’re busy at work so it might be stress making you late. And it’s possible to skip a period for a number of reasons. But you need to get a test kit today so we can start ruling out the possibilities,’ Hannah said quietly.

  Jane bit her lip. ‘Hannah, can we keep this just between you and me for the moment, please?’

  ‘Sure.’

  Jane hugged her. ‘Thanks, I really appreciate what you’re doing for me.’

  ‘It’s probably a false alarm. But it’s better to know for sure,’ Hannah said.

  Jane could barely concentrate at work all morning. At lunchtime, she visited a chemist she didn’t normally go to, and picked up a pregnancy test. A test she couldn’t bring herself to do at work; it sat accusingly at the back of a drawer, wrapped in a plain paper bag, all afternoon.

  And then it was time to go home. Time to find out.

  Was she pregnant?

  When she walked into the kitchen, Hannah was doing a crossword at the table. She looked up. ‘Did you do it?’

  ‘Not yet. But here’s the test.’

  ‘Just to save you reading the instructions, they’re pretty standard. You just take the cap off and wee onto the end of the stick. A blue line in one window shows you the test has worked. If the other window stays blank, you’re not pregnant and it might be some kind of bug that’s making you feel rough.’

  Jane forced herself to ask the question. ‘And if it’s not a bug?’

  ‘Then you’ll see a blue line in the other window, too.’ Hannah paused. ‘It might be fainter than the first line, but that’ll still be a positive result.’

  Jane dragged in a breath. ‘Right.’

  ‘Stop fretting and just go and do it,’ Hannah said. ‘I’ll make you a mug of hot water with lemon—if it’s a bug, it’ll help your stomach, and if it’s not…well, it’ll help the nausea.’

  Three minutes later, Jane walked back into the kitchen, holding the little stick.

  ‘Well?’

  Numbly, Jane put the stick into her friend’s hand.

  Hannah looked at it. ‘Two lines.’ She stood up and gave Jane a hug. ‘That’s pretty conclusive, hon.’

  ‘I—I can’t be.’

  Hannah said nothing, but she didn’t have to. The two lines said it all.

  Jane was pregnant.

  With Mitch’s baby.

  ‘What the hell am I going to do?’ she whispered.

  ‘Come and sit down.’ Hannah shepherded her over to a chair, then gave her the hot drink. ‘This will help.’

  ‘Thanks, Hannah.’ Jane stared at the cup. ‘I can’t believe this. I just…’

  ‘Right now you’re in shock,’ Hannah said. ‘It’s a lot to take in, but you’re not the first to have an unplanned pregnancy and you won’t be the last.’ She paused. ‘You don’t have to make any decisions yet. It’s still early stages. But you do need to talk it over with your stormchaser. Do you have his number? His business card?’

  Jane shook her head. ‘It was only ever meant to be for one night. Just one single night. And no ties.’

  ‘Looks as if that one’s backfired a bit.’ Hannah squeezed her hand. ‘OK, so you probably can’t expect any support from that quarter. That’s not a problem—you’ve got your family and you’ve got us. And Charlie and Shelley and I will support you in whatever decision you make. But you do need to talk to him before you decide anything.’ Before Jane could protest, Hannah added softly, ‘I’ve seen enough women who fell pregnant accidentally, didn’t talk it over with the father before making a decision, and never got over the guilt. You need to talk it through with him. Find out how he feels about the situation.’

  ‘I don’t even know how to get in touch with him.’

  Hannah raised an eyebrow. ‘You help people trace their ancestors. Surely it’s easier to find someone who’s alive now than to find someone who lived years and years ago?’ She smiled. ‘Besides, we have a secret weapon. Charlie.’

  Right on cue, Charlie walked into the kitchen. ‘Are you talking about me?’

  ‘Not yet,’ Hannah said with a grin.

  Charlie peered into their mugs. ‘Hot water and lemon? Oh, revolting. Don’t tell me you’re on some kind of detox, Jane?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ Jane muttered.

  Charlie frowned. ‘What’s going on?’

  In answer, Jane handed her the test stick.

  Charlie’s eyes widened. ‘Oh, blimey. What are you going to do?’

  Jane wrapped her arms round herself. ‘Right now, I don’t know. I can’t quite take it in.’

  ‘You need to talk to him,’ Charlie said decisively.

  ‘That’s what Hannah says, too.’ Jane bit her lip. ‘But I don’t have any way of getting in contact with him.’

  ‘Yes, you do.’ Charlie ruffled her hair. ‘Don’t tell me preggy brain starts this early on, Hannah?’

  Hannah laughed. ‘No.’

  ‘Just think, when the hormones kick in you might become a normal person instead of Jane-Jane-Superbrain,’ Charlie teased.

  ‘I don’t feel very brainy right now,’ Jane said wryly.

  ‘This doesn’t have anything to do with your brain or hormones, hon. It’s panic. I’m going to get my lappie and we’ll sort this out.’ Charlie returned a couple of minutes later with her laptop, set it on the kitchen table where all three of them could see it, and switched it on. ‘Right. We’ll Google him.’

  Jane groaned. ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’

  ‘Because you’re still in shock,’ Hannah said.

  ‘So what’s his name?’ Charlie asked.

  ‘Mitch Holland.’

  Charlie tapped the name into the search engine, then stared at the results. ‘We need to narrow this down. Right. He’s a stormchaser, you said?’

  ‘And he takes photographs. He’s setting up some kind of exhibition,’ Jane confirmed.

  ‘Well, there you go. Find the exhibition and we find him. It’s in London?’

  Jane shook her head. ‘I don’t know, but his meeting was.’

  ‘OK. We’ll start with London, and expand the search out if we have to.’ She tapped a few more keys, then grinned. ‘Bingo. Found him. Pen? Paper?’

  Hannah grabbed the box of sticky notes and the pen from beside the kitchen phone, and passed them across to Charlie, who made a note of the art gallery name and the exhibition’s opening hours.

  ‘What’s this? Checking to see what’s on at the cinema tonight so we can have a girly night out?’ Shelley asked, coming in to find them huddled over the computer.

  Jane explained.

  ‘Oh, Janey.’ Shelley hugged her. ‘You definitely need to go and see him. We’ll go with you.’

  ‘Absolutely. And if he’s anything other than a hundred per cent nice about it, Shelley can lecture him, I can practise my martial arts on him, and Hannah can patch up his bruises afterwards,’ Charlie added.

  Jane smiled wryly at the picture. ‘It
’s hardly fair to unleash a posse on the poor guy. It isn’t his fault.’

  ‘It’s not exclusively yours, either,’ Hannah pointed out. ‘It takes two to make a baby.’

  ‘And you need moral support,’ Shelley added.

  ‘If it worries you that much, we’ll melt into the background when you see him, but we’re coming with you,’ Charlie informed her.

  ‘There’s no need. I’ll be fine,’ Jane said.

  ‘Don’t argue. You’re taking one of us, and that’s not negotiable.’ Charlie grabbed her handbag and took a coin from her purse. ‘Right. Hannah—heads or tails?’

  ‘Heads.’

  Charlie tossed the coin. ‘Tails—I win. Shelley?’

  ‘Tails.’

  A second toss of the coin. ‘Heads. I win again. So I’m coming with you, Jane.’

  ‘Are these his photographs?’ Shelley asked, looking at the samples on the screen. ‘They’re really good. I love that one of the lightning.’

  ‘And have you seen that one of the tornado? Incredible,’ Charlie said. ‘And it’s a bit scary that he got that close to the thing.’ And then she switched to another page on the website—one with a photograph of Mitch.

  Clearly he’d just finished chasing a storm, Jane thought, because he was dressed in a faded T-shirt, scruffy jeans and a leather jacket. He needed a shave. But he was smiling—just as he had when they’d made love. And he looked as sexy as hell. Her whole body tingled with the memories and she sucked in a breath. ‘How on earth am I going to tell him the news?’

  ‘Coolly, calmly and professionally. Just like you are at work when someone’s researching their family tree and finds something that upsets them—you know you’re good at that,’ Shelley said.

  ‘Stella’s always singing your praises about how brilliant you are with people,’ Hannah added.

  ‘We’ll go tomorrow,’ Charlie said. ‘It’s Saturday so that’s just about perfect. We’ll have lunch to fortify ourselves—’

  ‘Because no way will Charlie be up in time for breakfast on a Saturday,’ Shelley chipped in.

  Charlie just spread her hands. ‘I can get up if I have to. But lunch sounds good. And then we’ll go see your stormchaser. I’ll stay out of the way while you’re talking to him—but I’ll keep you in sight. All you have to do is raise your little finger if you’re in trouble, and I’ll be straight there to bail you out.’