“We should go get an X-ray just to make sure.”
Skyler knew what Chloe was doing, giving Skyler a reason to go to the hospital without revealing the real reason they needed to check her out without Logan towering over them.
“Elissa, go on back to the party,” Skyler said. “No sense in both of India’s bridesmaids pulling a disappearing act.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. I’ll go with Chloe, and I’ll be back before you know it.” She had to believe nothing was wrong, that she hadn’t let her need to get away from Logan and her attraction to him endanger her baby. At first she hadn’t been sure about even having it, but now she dared anyone or anything to pose even the slightest hint of harm toward her child.
“Can you stand?” Chloe asked.
Before she could answer, Logan was there beside her, wrapping his strong arm around her back and helping her to her feet. Something warm stirred inside Skyler at the look of genuine concern on his face. It was so unlike the normal happy-go-lucky flirt that she wondered how often it made an appearance.
When she was standing, Logan didn’t let go, as if he feared she might topple over again.
“Thank you,” Chloe said. “I’ll take it from here.”
“I can drive you to the hospital.”
“No need,” Skyler said. “Go back and enjoy the party. I hear they have a surprise coming up.”
Skyler hated that she was going to miss the heart-shaped fireworks she and Elissa had planned. But she knew she wouldn’t be able to calm down until she was certain the baby was okay. It might not look like a baby yet, but that’s how she thought of it, as if he or she was already a wee little human. One she was supposed to protect.
As Chloe led her toward the parking lot, Skyler glanced back toward Logan. He still stood on the walkway watching her. She had the oddest sensation that he might feel as alone as he looked. It was almost enough to make her go back and tell him the truth. Almost, but not quite.
* * *
“YOU’RE CERTAIN NOTHING’S wrong?” Skyler asked an hour later once Chloe had done a thorough examination and pronounced Skyler and baby perfectly healthy save a small bruise on Skyler’s arm.
“Positive. I think the fall scared you more than anything.”
“Thank you, for everything.” She put a lot of unspoken meaning into those words.
Chloe caught her gaze. “Logan’s the father?”
Skyler nodded. “But he doesn’t know.”
“I figured from the panicked look on your face.”
“You won’t say anything, will you?”
“I can’t. You’re my patient. But as your friend, do you mind me asking why you haven’t told him?”
“I just don’t think it’s a good idea.” She could have confessed to Chloe and felt secure in it going no further than this examination room, but Skyler suddenly felt too tired to explain. And some little sliver of herself was whispering that her reasons didn’t hold water.
But she couldn’t depend on her wishy-washy emotions when it came to something this important. Good solid common sense had to be the decider here. And common sense was saying that this child would be better off with one stable parent than the classic two-parent scenario where one parent could never be depended on to be there. A parent needed to be around for not just the big things like birthdays and graduations but also the little ones like scuffed knees, games of tag and Saturday-morning pancakes and cartoons. Hard to be there for those boo-boos when you were off riding some ornery bull in Wyoming or Oklahoma.
“Okay.” Chloe didn’t say anything other than that one word, but she didn’t have to. Her tone said it all.
“You think I’m making a mistake.”
Chloe leaned against a supply closet. “Only you can make that decision. All I’ll say is I’m not the only one who knows how hard it is to raise a kid alone. People do it all the time, and successfully, but it’s not easy.” By the sadness in Chloe’s eyes, Skyler knew she was thinking about her mother. She’d died in a car wreck when they’d been in elementary school, leaving Chloe’s father to raise her and her two brothers alone.
“This is different. I barely know Logan.”
“You’ve got more than seven months to get to know each other before the baby arrives.”
“Hard to do if he’s not here. His life is on the road.”
“Maybe, but he’s here now and seemed genuinely concerned about you.” Chloe smiled. “And don’t think I didn’t see that kiss earlier. There’s still an attraction there, on both your parts. Who’s to say it might not lead to more?”
Skyler rubbed her forehead, trying to stave off a building headache. “I just don’t know. All the uncertainty scares me.”
“Sorry to tell you this, but life is full of uncertainty. Sometimes it leads to bad things, but sometimes it doesn’t. You never know until you open the door and see what’s on the other side.”
Skyler met her friend’s gaze. “I’m not sure you went into the right field. You’d make a good therapist.”
Chloe laughed a little. “My brothers would argue I’m just annoying and should mind my own business.” She pushed away from the cabinet. “I have faith you’ll make the right decision, for you and your baby.”
Chloe left the room so Skyler could get dressed. Skyler’s fear about telling Logan the truth didn’t go away, but she wondered if it was blinding her to what was the right thing to do. Just because Logan was still little more than a stranger didn’t mean he didn’t deserve to know he was going to be a father. If she told him, nothing had to change. He would most likely still leave, and she’d be a single parent.
Was that fair to her child when Skyler knew how heartbreaking it was to not mean enough for your father to stick around? But could she be so cold as to hide the truth from Logan for his entire life just so she could avoid her fears? And what if something happened to her? Grace Teague had come back to town to tell Nathan he was a father to a little boy because of that same fear, and things had worked out well for them. Not that she thought she and Logan would fall in love and live happily ever after, but he was the only family her child would have if she died.
Pushing the decision away for the moment, she slid off the table and changed out of the hospital gown into her clothes. When she reached the waiting area, she was surprised to see not only Elissa and Chloe but also India and Liam.
“What are you two doing here?”
“Checking on you, silly. We just found out about your fall a few minutes ago.”
“I didn’t want to ruin your celebration.”
“You didn’t ruin anything. The party was beginning to break up, anyway.”
“Still, the E.R. is not where you should spend your wedding night.”
“Don’t worry,” Liam said. “There’s plenty of night left.”
India swatted him on the stomach but gave him a look that said she’d make it up to him later. That unwanted pang of longing hit Skyler again.
“Are you okay?” Elissa asked.
“Yeah, everything’s fine.”
“Thank goodness. You scared the living daylights out of me.”
Skyler glanced toward India and Liam.
“I’m sorry, I had to tell him,” India said.
Skyler smiled at her, then Liam. “It’s okay. He would have found out soon enough, anyway. But I still don’t want it to go any further for now. I keep hoping I’ll come up with the perfect way to let the cat out of the bag besides a big Ta-da, I’m Preggers. For now all I want to do is go home and curl up in my bed.”
“Um, Sky, before we go, you need to know Logan’s sitting outside.” India nodded toward the exit.
“What?” She looked through the window and, sure enough, Logan was sitting on the bench in the little courtyard just outside the E.R. entr
ance. He was nothing if not persistent.
“He was here before any of us,” Elissa said. “He was pacing a trench in the floor in here when I got here.”
“I know you don’t want to tell him about the baby,” India said. “But he looked really worried.”
Skyler thought she’d have more time to decide for certain what she wanted to do, but that didn’t seem to be in Fate’s grand plan. Either she told him now and got it over with, or she hid it from him forever. As she stared at him through the window, her heart and her fear duked it out inside her.
“I’ll go talk to him.” Even if she decided to keep the baby a secret, she could be friendly to him, thank him for his concern. But as she walked outside and saw him turn toward her with that same unexpected fear in his eyes, her heart beat even faster.
Despite the fact that she was tired, achy and not firing on all cylinders, she knew she couldn’t hide the truth from him any longer. Even though her fear and anxiety were doing their best to change her mind, some innate sense of right and wrong paired up with Chloe’s words to trump them.
“I’m pretty sure this is probably the most boring Saturday night you’ve ever had,” she said.
“No, that would have been the time I got snowed in at a dump of a motel somewhere in the middle-of-nowhere, Montana. The TV only got one little local station, and that went bye-bye at 10 p.m. I think I resorted to counting the stains in the carpet just to have something to do.”
“Wow, that does sound like a hot Saturday night.”
Quiet settled between them for a few seconds, and she clasped her hands together to keep them from shaking.
“By the lack of a cast, I’m guessing you didn’t break anything.”
“No, guess I freaked out for no reason. Just a bruise.”
“I’m sorry I caused you to fall. I should have just left you alone. I’m not so good with giving up the pursuit, I guess.”
Skyler shook her head. “Why are you pursuing me, anyway? There have got to be easier catches, women who don’t have personalities like a porcupine.”
“You mean other than the fact that you’re so gorgeous you could cause a twenty-car pileup?”
Skyler laughed, something she wouldn’t have thought possible an hour ago, even moments ago. “You are the king of exaggeration.”
“I may lay it on thick sometimes, but right now I’m telling the God’s honest truth.”
This once, she believed him that he wasn’t just feeding her a line. A soft warmth bloomed within her, one that tempted her to believe in him. But just because he was being kind didn’t mean he would be good father material. Still, he was her baby’s father, and he deserved to know that and to have the opportunity to prove himself one way or the other.
Skyler shifted her gaze to the ground and took a deep breath. “Logan, I... There’s a reason I freaked out when I fell earlier.” She hesitated, teetering on the edge of no return. “I’m pregnant.”
When he didn’t say anything, she forced herself to meet his gaze.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were with someone else. I don’t make a habit of hitting on other guys’ girls.”
His response surprised her and made her a little angry. But she tamped the anger down. After all, he didn’t know her any better than she knew him. She swallowed against the dryness in her throat.
“I haven’t been with anyone recently but you. The baby’s yours.”
Logan’s forehead scrunched up. “That’s impossible. We used protection. That’s one thing I’m not careless about.”
“Obviously, it failed.”
Logan stood and took a couple of steps away. He took a deep breath before he turned back toward her. “What about you? Weren’t you on the Pill?”
“No.”
“Why the hell not?”
She jerked at his question, and then she released the hold she had on her anger. It wasn’t as if she’d planned this to trap him. “Medical reasons.”
“God, I can’t believe this.”
“You know, it wasn’t exactly in my life plan either. Not like this, anyway.”
He glanced toward the hospital, where her friends were no doubt watching every move she and Logan made. “You weren’t going to tell me, were you?”
“No, I wasn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re not the staying-in-one-place type. But don’t worry, I don’t expect you to.” She tried not to remember Chloe’s reminder of how hard it would be to raise a child on her own.
“You don’t know me anywhere near as well as you think you do.”
“I know you well enough, Logan.” She stopped, took a slow breath to calm herself. Nothing good would come from them arguing out here where anyone could hear and see them. Besides, how had she expected him to act? She hadn’t exactly reacted with smiles and hurrahs when she’d found out. “My father was a lot like you. Maybe you have the best of intentions of doing the right thing, but the call of something new and exciting will always take you away. And I can tell you from experience that’s a pretty rotten way to grow up, never knowing when and if you’ll ever see your father again.” She took a deep breath. “I don’t think you’re a bad person, but your idea of how to live life is different than mine. Just because I told you about the baby doesn’t mean I expect anything from you.”
“That makes me sound lousy.”
“That’s not what I meant. This just isn’t your responsibility. You didn’t ask for it.”
“Neither did you.”
“No, but I’ve accepted it. I can love this child enough for two parents. I know how because I watched my mother do it every day until she died.”
“That’s not fair to you.”
“I’m not really a believer in life being fair. It’s only what we make it. And I intend to make life as happy and safe for this child as I possibly can.”
And hopefully neither she nor her child would ache with loneliness and for something that could never be.
Chapter Ten
Logan had no doubt Skyler would do everything she said, but anger simmered in him that she’d made all these decisions without him as if his opinion didn’t matter. Even though she’d changed her mind about telling him about the baby, he might have gone through the rest of his life never knowing about his son or daughter.
“It’s not just your child, Skyler.”
“Not biologically, no. But a child’s future should be shaped by the parent who is there on a daily basis. Are you willing to commit to that, Logan? Staying in one place, changing diapers, helping with homework, going to parent-teacher conferences, listening when her heart is broken by the first boy who loves her?”
He wanted to say yes, even opened his mouth to do so, but nothing came out. Instead, it felt as if chains started wrapping themselves around his legs, tying him down, trapping him in a world not of his choosing.
The look of disappointment on Skyler’s face punched him in the gut, but he still didn’t speak.
“I’m not angry, Logan. I’m simply making the best of an unexpected situation.” She took a deep breath. “I just thought you should know.” She hesitated a moment longer, as if waiting for him to say something, before she glanced toward the hospital, then headed toward the parking lot.
No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t find the words to stop her. Probably there weren’t any, because she was right. The idea of settling down and being a dad freaked him out. He wasn’t cut out to be a parent. Maybe Skyler had been right to keep him in the dark. If he couldn’t be there for her and the child all the time, did he even have the right to call himself the kid’s father?
And what did he know about being a father, anyway? The only example he’d had was a man who had no desire to see any part of the world outside of his little sphere, a man who
was satisfied to get by, to exist day to day in a life that would drive Logan mad. On the opposite end of the spectrum, he couldn’t imagine Skyler allowing him to expose the child to half of the things he’d done. There was probably a middle ground between his and his father’s life experiences, but he had no idea how to find it.
When Skyler’s friends followed in her wake, he caught Elissa’s gaze. The look in her eyes was one part curiosity, one part warning. India, on the other hand, appeared sympathetic, as if she understood the turmoil he was feeling. Liam didn’t make eye contact, no doubt as uncomfortable as Logan was.
After they all left, Logan sank onto the bench outside the E.R. and sat there for probably half an hour with his thoughts racing.
Finally, he eyed his own truck. Feeling as if he’d been hit half a dozen times with a stun gun, he shook his head and walked toward the parking area. Instead of calling Jesse again, he just drove out to his cousin’s house. The light was on in the front room, so he parked beside Jesse’s truck, grabbed his bag and headed for the side door. But when he banged on the door, he got no response.
“Hey, Jess, it’s Logan.”
He was beginning to think Jesse was dead asleep when the door that led into his cousin’s kitchen opened. Jesse stood there with no shirt and his belt unbuckled and hanging loose from his belt loops.
“Dude, so not a good time.”
Logan’s head was trapped in such a fog that it took him a moment to pick up on what was going on. “Sorry, man. Didn’t know you were occupied.”
“Call next time.”
“I did. You didn’t answer.”
“Again, busy.”
Suddenly bone weary, Logan asked, “When do you think you’ll be done being busy? I’d like to bum your couch for a few days.” While he figured out how to deal with the news that he was going to be a dad.
Jesse didn’t answer at first and shifted uncomfortably on his bare feet. “Sorry, but I’m not living alone anymore.”
“Oh.”
Jesse cocked his head slightly to the side and leaned his forearm against the doorframe. “You all right?”
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