by Tina Beckett
He squatted down beside her. “You need to take the rest of the day off.”
“It’s already my day off, thank goodness.” Which was why she’d chosen today to do this. Not because she’d just wanted to get it over with.
Which she had.
He glanced at his watch. “It’s almost time for me to get off as well.”
Thirty minutes later they’d made it to her apartment without any other ‘incident,’ as she was now referring to it. When she tried to climb out of the car, she swayed a time or two. And then Rafe was there beside her, swinging her into his arms and carrying her up the stairs. Then they were through the door and Rafe was slamming it shut behind him.
CHAPTER SEVEN
HE SLID OFF the sofa with a groan. This was quite a change from the last two times he’d spent the night with her. But he’d been so shocked by her appearance at his office that he hadn’t wanted to leave her alone, even though it meant that he was forced to relive every word that had passed between them.
Cassie was pregnant.
With his child, more than likely.
Dragging a hand through his hair, he wondered if he should just slide out of the door and leave or whether he should check on her. But when he stretched his back—several vertebrae popping in protest—he saw a note on the coffee table beside him with something green underneath it. A smile came to his face when he lifted it and saw the words, “Taxi fare... Oh, wait, wrong occasion. This is to help get my car back to my house. Oh, and there are towels in the bathroom if you want to shower. And thanks. For everything.”
Rafe stuck his hand in his pocket, and his smile widened. Another hair tie. The one he’d picked up from the floor of his office. How many did this make? Three? Maybe she should save her money to buy a few more packages if she went through them this fast.
A buzzing sound came from the dining-room table. Making his way over to it, he saw that it wasn’t his phone, it was Cassie’s.
The name “Darrin” appeared, along with an image of a large—and some might say good-looking—man. The picture was in the shape of a heart. That wiped the smile right off his face. It had to be her ex.
Calling about her pregnancy? Hadn’t Cassie said the man didn’t want anything to do with it? Had he changed his mind? Or did he just want to drive his point home all over again?
Rafe’s fingers curled into his palms.
But was he any better? He’d offered her financial help, but nothing more.
Which meant Cassie was basically facing this all by herself.
Not quite. He was here, wasn’t he?
Didn’t that make him better than Cassie’s ex?
Not really. She’d been in no condition to drive herself home.
The phone stopped ringing, probably putting the caller through to voice mail. Would she call the jerk back?
None of his business.
Going into the bathroom, he found the towels Cassie had talked about. He also noticed there was a door on the other side of the space leading...
To Cassie’s bedroom.
Where she was sleeping.
He looked away, switching on the shower and dialing the temperature a little cooler than he might normally have liked before he stepped inside the enclosure. Letting the lukewarm water sluice down his body, he quickly showered, his nose picking up the slight floral scent of her soap. The thought of wearing it on his own body...
A telltale pulsing at a point in his lower half told him he should not be sending thoughts in this direction. Especially now.
But it seemed that every image in his brain right now was centered on that one area of his body. Time to put a stop to it.
He switched off the water just as he heard the door on the other side of the room open.
He hadn’t locked it!
Grabbing a towel, he hurriedly wrapped it around his waist. Cassie appeared, wearing a short, silky nightgown. She was yawning and rubbing at her eyes. When she looked up, her gaze slammed against his and she drew in a breath.
“Rafe! Sorry.” She backed up a pace, reaching for the doorknob behind her. “I forgot you were here.”
“It’s okay. I’m done.” His glance slid down her body. “How are you feeling this morning? Any better?”
“Much, thank you.” The door behind her opened as she found the knob. “I’ll just let you get dressed before I...”
Before she went to the bathroom? Before she brushed her teeth? Before she trapped her hair in another black hair tie?
It didn’t matter. What did matter was that he get out of here as quickly as possible. Before she decided to return her ex’s phone call. Because that was one conversation he definitely didn’t want to stick around for.
* * *
Cassie lay on the table, waiting for Dr. Raven Davi to come in and tell her this was all some big mistake. She wasn’t pregnant. Wasn’t carrying a load of nerves over the Zika virus.
Darrin had left her a message asking her to call him. She couldn’t imagine why. They’d already made their feelings quite clear to each other.
Besides, he was the reason she was lying on this table right now. If he hadn’t cheated on her, they would still be engaged.
But would she have been happy being married to him in the long run?
Bonnie touched her shoulder. “You okay?”
She’d told her best friend the news that morning and Bonnie’s eyes had glittered with unshed tears. They had joked their way through a lot of different scenarios, but none like this one. For once there’d been no barbed comments. No snappy rejoinders. No laughter. Bonnie was the one constant in her life. The one person besides her parents that she knew would be there for her no matter what. If things went okay, she was going to ask her friend to be her birth coach.
“Ugh, I don’t know. At least I don’t feel sick today.”
“Are you positive you’re pregnant?”
“Eight home pregnancy tests are telling me I am.”
Bonnie scooted her chair around until she was sitting near the head of the bed. “It has to be that new man in your life. He’s got a lot of testosterone. I can tell.”
And the laughter was back. “Bonnie!”
She might be right about the testosterone part, but she was wrong about him being in her life. He wasn’t. He’d merely wandered across her path on his way to...
Well, wherever he was going.
“He was just a one-night stand, Bonn.”
“Really? I seem to remember your telling me there was a second night.”
“Okay, so two. But neither of them meant a thing.”
Her friend’s brows went up. “This from someone who is monogamous about everything, right down to her brand of toothpaste and ordering fettuccine Alfredo from the pasta joint down the street?”
“Yeah? Well, maybe that all changed when my fiancé decided he didn’t like the monogamous life. I can see his point. There’s something heady about a secret fling.”
“Oh, so we’ve moved from one-night stand into secret fling territory, have we?”
“What else would you call it?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe you’re falling in love with Rafe. That’s a thing, isn’t it? Falling in love with someone on the rebound.”
“I’m not falling in love. With anyone.” That was a thought that didn’t even bear exploring. What a disaster that would be. To fall in love with someone she barely knew.
Cassie tended toward being cautious. And Rafe was the antithesis of caution. He was dangerous to the max. To her psyche...and to her body, as evidenced by how easily she’d gotten pregnant, even using protection.
Bonnie held her hands up. “Okay, but if you wind up married to the dude someday, I am so going to sing about it at the wedding.” She then put on her best country tw
ang and belted out a few lines about finding love with a heartbreaker.
“Enough!” But at least her friend had her laughing again. “You are never to sing that song around me again. Ever.”
Maybe because it hit a little too close to home right now. Rafe couldn’t be the one. Could he? The tender way he’d helped her when she’d gotten sick had made tears come to her eyes. And then driving her home...spending the night on her sofa. She swallowed. Hormones. They could make you feel things that weren’t really there. Or were they?
All he’d offered, though, was financial help. Not to be involved in the baby’s life.
Was that what she wanted? For him to be involved? No. Not unless he could make it permanent. The last thing she wanted was for some father figure to flit in and out of her child’s life. She was going to give this baby what she hadn’t had as a child. Security. Love. And a permanent home. If she had to go it alone to make sure that happened, she would.
Dr. Davi swept into the room, shaking her hand. “Did I just hear someone singing?”
“No.” Bonnie and Cassie said the word at the same time, and then dissolved into giggles.
“Okay, then.” The OB/GYN sat on the rolling stool, pulling it closer to the bed. “Tell me what’s going on, Cassie.”
A long-time colleague, Dr. Davi was someone she trusted to keep her secret. And she’d asked Bonnie to be with her during the ultrasound so that the doctor didn’t need to call in an obstetrical nurse. The fewer people involved in this, the better. At least until she had a handle on what was going on.
“As you know, the urine sample showed elevated HGH.”
In other words, she was pregnant. She could have told her that. “I expected that. What I’m really looking for is a time frame.”
If the doctor was shocked, she didn’t show it, although her glance went to her hand. Her ring was long gone, even though she’d never officially announced the end of her engagement to anyone other than Bonnie and now Rafe. It was too humiliating. Especially the reasons for the failure of the relationship.
“Do you have any idea how far along you are?”
“A little, but my periods have always been erratic. It could be as recent as two weeks.”
“I see. We’re not going to see much on the ultrasound if it’s only two.”
She sighed. “I know.”
Dr. Davi stood, “Well, let’s get to it. We’ll do a trans-vaginal scan, since we can get a better picture.”
“There’s another thing.” Cassie swallowed. “I haven’t been feeling well for the last several weeks. I thought it was the flu but...”
“You think now it’s the pregnancy.” The doctor stood and went over to the counter where Bonnie had already set up the instruments.
“I’m hoping that’s what it was.”
She glanced quickly back at her. “I got the impression that you weren’t exactly expecting this pregnancy.”
Realizing she’d gotten the wrong idea, she shook her head. “I wasn’t. But with the Zika scare going around...”
This time Dr. Davi frowned. “You think you’ve been exposed?”
“I don’t know.”
The doctor came back over and sat down. “You need to fill me in on exactly why you think this.”
Trying to relay a shortened version of the events leading up to now did no good. Dr. Davi kept taking her back through the story, asking a thousand different questions.
When she’d finished, the OB/GYN said, “You have some of the symptoms, but not all of them. I understand your concerns, though. I’d be worried too. I think everyone who works in the health care sector needs to be aware of the risks. And with the patients we’ve had recently, I can see why it’s a scary prospect to be pregnant right now.” She scribbled something in Cassie’s chart. “We’ll do some tests and see if you show antibodies. Sometimes it’ll show up like a reaction to Dengue or something similar.”
Cassie knew all of this, but she was glad the obstetrician didn’t just wave away her concerns. She was going to take them seriously.
Just like Cassie was.
“Thank you,” she said.
Bonnie squeezed her shoulder. “Let me help the doctor finish getting the ultrasound machine ready and then I’ll come back to watch with you.”
She hadn’t told Rafe she was getting the sonogram today. And since she hadn’t called Darrin back, Bonnie—and now Dr. Davi—were the only ones who knew she was doing this. And Cassie meant to keep it that way. At least until she had some answers.
Once the ultrasound was pulled over to where everyone could see the images, Dr. Davi helped her put her feet in the stirrups and readied the probe.
Soon, pictures of her insides came into focus. The doctor checked her ovaries and then shifted to find her uterus. Pushing some buttons on the machine, she then searched the area for evidence of her pregnancy. Within seconds, they had their answer.
“There. You can see the placenta, and...” She bent closer to the screen and then changed the position of the transponder, the images whirling past.
Cassie’s mouth went dry, her heart beginning to race. “What’s wrong?”
Then the gestational sac came into view, and a tiny flicker of movement. A heartbeat!
“I don’t quite know how to tell you this.” Dr. Davi shifted the probe again and the sac appeared again.
Was she trying to get a better view? Were her trained eyes seeing some horrible defect that Cassie couldn’t make out? “You don’t know how to tell me what?”
She muttered something Cassie couldn’t make out about “cooperating.” “I’m trying to get them into the same frame.”
Bonnie, who was beside her, caught something she didn’t. “Did you say them?”
Just then Dr. Davi smiled and the screen came back into focus, revealing two black circles. “Yes. Them.”
Two gestational sacs. Two tiny embryos. Twins.
Good heavens. Black spots appeared before her eyes. “Are you sure?”
“See for yourself.” The doctor was marking things on the ultrasound with little Xs and then typed the letters A by one and B by the other. “They aren’t sharing a sac, but as you know that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re fraternal. The embryo could have split in two after being fertilized, each forming its own sac.”
She understood the words, but her brain was still fixated on the fact that there were two embryos. And two chances for something to go wrong.
What was she going to tell Rafe?
Wait. “So if you can see both of them, then that means I’m further along than just a couple of weeks.” She felt a moment of fear they could be Darrin’s.
“Yes. I would put you at seven weeks, possibly eight, but no more.”
The black spots grew. Seven or eight weeks would mean they were definitely Rafe’s babies.
Her breathing stopped for several seconds. She didn’t want to be pregnant at all. But if she was, why was she suddenly glad it was from a certain one-night stand that had turned into two?
Because the less contact she had with her cheating ex, the better. Hadn’t she learned during her childhood that nothing in life was permanent? Darrin had certainly validated that belief and stamped it with a big fat T for true.
One thing she did know, however, was that her babies were not going to grow up believing that. And if it took shutting their father—Rafe—out of their lives completely in order to do that, then she would. No matter how much it might hurt to do so.
* * *
Rafe shifted for the thousandth time as he sat in the waiting area where he’d been directed by one of the nurses. Perfect. His appearance at the hospital had come at just the wrong time. He’d been worried about Cassie ever since he’d crashed on her sofa two days ago. But when he’d finally given in and come over on his way h
ome from work, his lanyard had been spotted by a roving reporter there to interview the hospital administrator about the Zika virus. The reporter’s “Are you with the health department?” had taken him by surprise, so he’d answered in the affirmative.
The next thing he knew, she’d been throwing questions at him right and left about this hospital and others in the area. His repeated “No comment” had been brusque, hoping to stop her in her tracks. Unfortunately, it also made him appear as guilty as sin, like he was hiding something. And he was. His reasons for coming to the hospital, which were purely personal.
All he needed was for his superiors to see the news footage and start asking some pointed questions about how he’d handled the reporter.
Handled? He’d been trying to save his ass. And Cassie’s. He’d done a pretty poor job of doing either.
Just then, he caught sight of that very woman coming down the hallway, her ear glued to her cell phone. From the look on her face, it was not a happy conversation.
Getting to his feet, he couldn’t hear what Cassie was saying, but he didn’t like the way she clenched the phone. Her eyes widened as she spotted him. For a second she looked like she might head in the other direction. But then she stopped.
Suddenly her brows came together. “I already told you. You are not the father, and no one is going to support these...this baby except for me. Now, please don’t call me again.”
That had to be Darrin, and if...
Wait. Had she said ‘these?’
“The day just keeps getting better.” Cassie shoved the phone in her pocket. “What do you want?”
Holding his hands palms up, he allowed one side of his mouth to lift. “If I say a paternity test, are you going to take a swing at me?”
“Very funny.”
Well, at least she still had her sense of humor. “I’ll say one thing, Cassie. You sure can pick them.”
She lifted a brow and gave him a pointed stare. “Evidently I can.”
This time he laughed. “Remind me never to make you angry.”
“Sorry.” Her shoulders sagged. “It’s been a really long day, and I can’t seem to catch a break.”
