His Best Friend’s Sister

by Eve Gaddy

  He gave her a considering look. “Why do I get the feeling I’m not going to like this conversation?”

  She smiled ruefully. “Because you probably won’t.”

  He sat on the couch and looked at her. “I’m listening.”

  She stood by the window, across the room from him. Best to have some distance, she thought. “I can’t marry you.”

  “Ever?”

  “I…don’t know. But at least, not right now.”

  “I haven’t pressed you to get married immediately.”

  “I know you haven’t. But I thought you should know what I’ve been thinking. How I feel.”

  He got up and walked over to stand in front of her. “How do you feel, Laurel? Other than you don’t want to get married.”

  He wanted to know how she felt about him. She couldn’t blame him for that, but neither could she admit she was falling in love with him. Because if she did Zack would not understand at all why she couldn’t marry him.

  “I care about you, Zack.”

  He frowned. “That’s a cop-out. It’s just another way of saying you don’t love me.”

  “I don’t know what I feel.” Bullshit. You love him. You just can’t admit it. “If I didn’t care about you I’d never have gone to bed with you.”

  He gave her an incredulous look. “You’re forgetting the night you got drunk and were perfectly happy to hop into bed with me. Hell, you’d have gone off with Nathan if I hadn’t stepped in.”

  Shit. He might have a point. And she was also getting a glimpse of the temper she’d thought he didn’t have. “First of all, I wouldn’t have gone off with Nathan.” Would she have? God, she hoped not.

  “Oh really? You said you were going to have him take you home.”

  “I said that to annoy you. I’d have called a cab,” she said firmly. That was her story and she was sticking to it. “I went with you because I knew you and trusted you. I’ve admitted I drank too much—which I don’t normally do. And yes, I behaved badly and I apologized for that. I can’t take it back.”

  Zack made an impatient gesture. “So what happens now? You don’t want to get married. Okay, I can deal with that. But is this your way of saying you want to break up?”

  “No. Not unless you want to.” She might be confused but she knew she didn’t want to lose Zack.

  “I don’t.”

  “Good.”

  “Good.”

  They glared at each other, then they both began to smile. “We just had our first fight,” Zack said.

  “I guess we did.”

  “Now that we’ve established we’re not breaking up, why don’t we table any talk of marriage. At least for now.”

  “Okay. I wouldn’t have brought it up, but I thought you deserved to know what I’ve been thinking.”

  “C’mere,” he said, opening his arms.

  Laurel walked into them, wrapping her arms around his back and laying her head against his chest. It felt so good to hold him and have him hold her. Zack put his hand beneath her chin and tilted up her head to look at him. “Stop worrying so much. We’ll work this out.” He bent his head down to kiss her.

  When he raised his head she said, “The kids are asleep.”

  His eyes darkened and his mouth kicked up in a sexy smile. “Are you suggesting we take advantage of that?”

  “I am.”

  “I like the way you think.”

  Laurel smiled, took his hand and led him to her bedroom.

  *

  Zack looked around the OB’s exam room at all the accouterments proclaiming this as a very female domain. A plastic rendition of what he could only assume was a uterus sat on the counter. Gleaming chrome instruments were laid out on a blue cloth beside it. A chart with pictures of the sizes of a baby at each stage of pregnancy hung on the wall. Other things were all over the room—things he had no idea of the purpose they served and would be just as glad not to find out.

  Laurel thought she was eight weeks pregnant. She said the doctor would perform an ultrasound and they would probably be able to hear the heartbeat. And the doctor would also tell them for certain how far along she was.

  Damn, he felt out of place. He wondered if he’d feel differently if he and Laurel were married.

  Probably not.

  “Zack,” Laurel said. “Stop pacing. You’re making me nervous.” She sat on the exam table, watching him.

  “Sorry,” he said, but continued pacing.

  Laurel reached for his hand when he passed by, bringing him to a halt. “There’s really nothing to worry about. This is just the first checkup to confirm the pregnancy and figure out the due date. It will be over before you know it.”

  “I’m not worried,” he told her. Worried, no. Nervous, hell, yes.

  When the doctor entered, she said, “Hello, Laurel.” Offering Zack her hand, she said, “I’m Dr. Guilford.”

  “Zack Bannister.”

  The doctor went to the sink to wash up. “Have a seat, Zack, and we’ll get started in just a moment. Laurel, why don’t you lie down and get ready?”

  Zack took the chair beside the exam table as Laurel lay down and arranged her clothing to expose her stomach. The doctor finished washing up, then came to the table and moved the computer screen so they could all see it. Laurel had pointed out the parts of the ultrasound machine when they first came in and told him basically what would happen, so he wasn’t totally lost. Dr. Guilford squirted gel on Laurel’s stomach. Laurel slipped her hand into his. Undoubtedly more for his sake than hers. After all, she’d done this before.

  “Laurel tells me this is your first child.”

  “That’s right.” A fact that still blew his mind.

  “Congratulations.” She moved the wand around a bit before saying, “Let’s see if we can hear the heartbeat.” She moved the wand over Laurel’s stomach some more before settling on a spot. “Here we are.”

  “I don’t see anything,” Zack said.

  Laurel pointed to a black thing he assumed was the uterus. The doctor did something and they heard a swishing sound and a continuous thump. A fast thump.

  “That’s your baby’s heartbeat,” the doctor said.

  Fascinated, he listened. His baby’s heartbeat. His baby, growing inside Laurel. What a rush.

  “The heartbeat sounds like it’s echoing,” Laurel said.

  “Hmm,” Dr. Guilford said, moving the wand around and circling back, halted in roughly the same spot on Laurel’s stomach.

  “What’s that?” Laurel asked sharply.

  “Hmm,” Dr. Guilford said again.

  “Dr. Guilford, what’s that?” Laurel pointed to something on the screen.

  The doctor didn’t reply, but kept moving the wand into slightly different positions on Laurel’s stomach.

  Something was obviously going on but Zack didn’t have a clue what.

  “Here we go,” Dr. Guilford said. Finally, she froze the picture and magnified it.

  “Oh, my God,” Laurel said, squeezing his hand hard. “That looks like—It can’t be—Are there two of them?”

  Zack looked at the ultrasound again. Laurel was right. There were two blobs. At least, that’s what they looked like to him.

  “Congratulations. You’re having twins.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Neither of them spoke much on the way home. Zack was glad he hadn’t passed out at the news. It had been a close-run thing. Twins. Identical twins. What the hell was he supposed to do with that information?

  Zack sneaked a glance at Laurel. She was staring straight ahead with her hands clenched together in her lap. “Are you going back to work?” Zack asked her.

  “No, I took the afternoon off.”

  “Good. We should talk.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about. I’m pregnant. I’m having twins.” Her voice had a hollow ring to it. He couldn’t really blame her.

  “Which is exactly what we need to talk about.” He pulled into a parking space at Laurel’s apartme
nt complex.

  She didn’t say anything else, just got out of the car, took the stairs up to her apartment and let them in. She tossed her keys on the small table by the door and sat on the couch, still without speaking.

  “Can I get you some water?”

  Laurel hunched a shoulder, which he decided meant yes. Or at least, not no. He got both of them a glass of ice water and carried them into the den to sit beside her.

  He handed her the glass and said, “So, twins.”

  Laurel turned and looked at him with an aggravated stare. “Are you kidding me? That’s all you have to say?”

  “No, but I thought it would break the ice. Look, Laurel, I know very little about pregnancy and nothing at all about a twin pregnancy. Other than I’ve heard it can be risky.”

  “Anyone carrying multiples is considered high risk.”

  “And what, exactly, does high risk mean?”

  “There are all sorts of complications that can happen. You’re better off not knowing. Seriously.”

  “How am I supposed to help you if I don’t know what to expect?”

  “I think the best thing to do is treat it like a normal pregnancy unless, or until, I have a complication. I’m sure the doctor will talk to us about all this when I’m further along.”

  “Are you all right?” He was worried about her. She didn’t seem at all like her usual self. Of course, learning you were carrying twins as a single mother with two other children had to be mind-blowing. It was sure as hell blowing his mind.

  “No.” She turned and looked at him finally, her eyes filling with tears. “I’m scared.”

  He put his arms around her and hugged her. “Me too. But we’ll work this out.”

  “It’s not just the pregnancy. How am I supposed to raise four kids when I’m struggling right now?”

  “You’re not doing it alone. I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “You say that now. But you don’t know how you’ll react when reality sets in.”

  He drew back and looked at her, holding her upper arms. “I know I won’t desert you, your kids, and my kids. And you should know that too.” Yes, she’d been hurt and badly disillusioned, but didn’t she know him at all? What kind of man did she think he was? “Your ex sure did a number on you.”

  Their gazes met. “You don’t know the half of it,” she said, and looked away. She got up, walked to the window and stared out.

  The only thing you could see from her apartment window was a view of the “courtyard” in front of the apartment complex. There was a tiny bit of grass, about the size of a postage stamp and mostly weeds, surrounded by broken sidewalks. He knew Laurel’s brothers had been trying to get her into a better apartment from the time she moved into the Texan complex.

  As far as he knew, the Texan, at the edge of the Barrels, didn’t run drugs or prostitutes out of the complex. There was another apartment house in the heart of the Barrels that did just that if the reports in the paper were to be believed. No, the Texan was old, beat-up and in a poor section of town. And it was getting worse. Although Whiskey River didn’t have a lot of crime, most of what they had centered around the Barrels and its surroundings.

  Zack decided the first priority was to get Laurel and the kids into some decent housing. But how was he going to do that if she wouldn’t marry him?

  He could buy a house and ask her and the kids to move in without marrying him. That might work.

  “What are you thinking?” Laurel asked him.

  “Are you ever going to tell me what your ex did to you?”

  “You know what he did. He deserted us, leaving me with two kids and a mountain of debt. Then as soon as the divorce was final he disappeared so he wouldn’t have to pay child support.”

  “Yeah, I know all that. But there’s more to it, isn’t there, Laurel?”

  “Isn’t that enough?”

  “No, I don’t think so. But I can’t make you tell me. Just know I’m here to listen if you want to talk.”

  “How did we go from talking about my twin pregnancy to talking about my ex-husband? If I had to pick I’d rather talk about pregnancy.”

  “I know we said we wouldn’t talk about marriage but twins puts a whole new complexion on things.”

  “No, it doesn’t. We’re not getting married.”

  Damn, she was exasperating. “Will you at least think about it?”

  “Fine. I’ll think about it.”

  Maybe. But he’d bet anything she wouldn’t change her mind.

  *

  The next day, Laurel was still in shock. Pregnant with twins. Identical twins. Her third pregnancy. And considering her lack of height, she’d probably start showing before the first trimester was up. Oh, yay.

  But…babies. Two of them. Laurel loved babies. She’d loved it when her children were babies. Sweet and snuggly. So even though she was shocked and scared and didn’t know what to do, a part of her, a crazy part, was happy.

  At any rate, she would have to tell the family sooner or later so it might as well be sooner. She’d called her parents the day before, when she heard the news about having twins. She asked them not to tell her brothers, said that she would take care of that.

  Her dad had asked her if she was all right and if he needed to get out his shotgun, which she assumed was a reference to making sure Zack married her. She didn’t bother explaining to him that she was the reason they weren’t getting married. But she told her mom.

  “Let me get this straight,” Clara Sullivan said. “You’re pregnant. You’re having twins. Zack, who is the father of your babies, asked you to marry him. And you said no.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Do you love him?”

  She could admit it to her mother. This, anyway. “Yes.”

  “Does he love you?”

  “He says he does but he didn’t tell me that until he found out I was pregnant. I’m not marrying him simply because I’m pregnant.”

  “Then how about marrying him because you love each other?”

  “I just told you—”

  “Laurel, I’ve known Zack since he was a little boy. He doesn’t lie. If he says he loves you, then he does.”

  “You don’t understand. It’s taken me so long to be independent, to not need anyone to take care of me or my kids. I can’t just give up and lay it all on Zack. It wouldn’t be fair. Children deserve parents who love them. Parents who want them.”

  “Do you want these babies?”

  “Yes.” Even considering all the problems, she still wanted them.

  “And Zack does too, right?”

  “He says he does,” she admitted.

  Her mother was silent for a long moment. “I could kill Stan Lewis.”

  Laurel gave a short laugh. “You’d have to find him first.”

  “This is all his fault. You can’t let what he did ruin what you have with Zack.”

  “I’m not. I haven’t totally ruled out marriage. But I have to be sure.” Not only sure of Zack, but sure of her own judgment as well.

  Her parents didn’t know the whole story. No one knew it. Laurel had nearly told her mother about Stan’s addiction, but she’d decided it wouldn’t be fair to expect her mom to keep that secret. And God only knew what might have happened if her brothers and her father had found out the truth about Stan. No, that was a secret she wasn’t sharing with anyone.

  Before, when Stan was still around, she’d been petrified of what her brothers would do to him if they found out the extent of what he’d done. But Stan was long gone, so why was she so determined not to tell her family the truth?

  Because she was ashamed. Ashamed that she’d been so blind. And so naive as to believe Stan would get clean if she asked him to and stood by him. She’d wasted a lot of time and tears hoping against hope that Stan would do the right thing. He never did.

  Laurel asked Harlan and Savannah and Travis and Tobi to come over after dinner on Saturday. Tobi, Travis’s girlfriend who was a doctor a
t the Urgent Care clinic, said she had to work that day but she’d be off that evening. She suggested they meet at her house for pizza. Laurel agreed and asked one of her teenage neighbors to stay with the kids. This wasn’t a conversation she wanted to have in front of them and they’d never go to sleep at Tobi’s with all the people and activity.

  She’d told Zack of her plans last night. His only comment was to rub his jaw where Travis had hit him the morning he’d found them together at Zack’s in a compromising position.

  “Are you nervous?” she asked Zack on the way over to Tobi’s.

  “No, not at all,” he said cheerfully. “I’m sure I’ll enjoy being strung up and castrated by your brothers when they hear we aren’t getting married.”

  Laurel couldn’t help laughing. “They’re not that bad.”

  He shot her a sharp glance. “Wanna bet?”

  Castration was an exaggeration, but she could totally see Travis, at the least, punching Zack. Harlan would probably be more restrained. Probably. “I’ll explain it to them.”

  “No you won’t. I’ll take care of it. I don’t hide behind women.”

  Laurel argued with him but he was adamant that he could handle her brothers.

  The evening started off fine. Tobi and Travis had moved in together fairly recently but as far as Laurel knew, hadn’t made wedding plans. During dinner the talk centered around Savannah’s pregnancy. After dinner, once the leftover pizza was stowed away and Lucky, Tobi’s dog, had been let out of purgatory, Travis said, “Are you going to tell us why you called this meeting, Laurel?”

  She drew in a deep breath and reached for Zack’s hand. “Zack and I have something to tell you. I’m pregnant.”

  “That’s wonderful,” Savannah said and jumped up to hug her. Tobi did too. Then her brothers had to hug her and shake Zack’s hand.

  Zack said, “That’s not all. She’s having twins. Identical twins.”

  That of course caused even more commotion. Once everyone settled down Travis asked, “When’s the wedding?”

  “There isn’t going to be one,” Zack said.

  There was a stunned silence.

  “What the fuck?” Travis said.

  “Don’t get mad at Zack,” Laurel said. “It’s my choice not to get married.”