She didn’t call her mother. Didn’t call anyone.
Life was what she made of it and she was going to make it.
* * *
JOSH DIDN’T ACTUALLY fly the balloon. Or even go up in it alone. But he learned how to fly it. And paid a guy extra to take him up without any other riders, to take him higher, farther, than the tour company would have taken him.
And then paid him again, to keep him up longer.
As long as he didn’t have to return to the ground, he’d be just fine.
* * *
THE KNOCK ON HER DOOR at just after seven that evening came as a relief. Hoping Jerome had laundry to do, or Lori was at loose ends again, or someone else needed her help with something, she practically tripped over Kari and Lindy Lu on her way to let her visitor in.
The cat litter box was cleaned. Her schedule for the week was made out. She’d cooked and frozen portions of bean soup, chicken-and-mushroom-soup casserole and a ham-and-mashed-potato mixture. Enough food to get her, Josh and anyone who stopped by through the week.
She was doing just fine until she pulled open the front door.
“Josh...” She should have looked through the peephole first.
He stepped by her without a word, but judging by the brief glimpse she had of his face, he was not doing well.
“We have to get some things straight,” he said, standing in the middle of her living room with Kari and Lindy Lu on his feet attempting to welcome him and get to L.G., who was tucked under his arm like a football again.
“Like the fact that this is my home and you are a guest here only as long as I allow you to remain?” What was she saying? “I’m so sorry,” she blurted next. “I’m... Please, sit down. Stay as long as you like. What did you want to get straight?”
She was babbling again. She wasn’t sure she knew who she was anymore. It was far too soon in her pregnancy for her to be snippy. Her pregnancy. Oh, God. Pregnant wasn’t her.
“No, you’re right,” Josh said, dropping to the edge of the couch, still holding his dog. “I have no right to barge in here and tell you how things are going to be. I just... It’s been a rough day.”
“You can put him down, you know,” she said.
“He hasn’t been out in a long time. I came home and grabbed him up and headed straight over here.”
He’d been gone somewhere. Was that why she hadn’t heard from him all day? Not even a text message? After he’d called last night to tell her they had to talk?
“Let’s put him out, then,” she said, taking the dog from him, scooping up Lindy Lu and carrying them both out back.
She took some deep breaths, trying to gather the bands of control back around herself. She could handle this. Because she was always the one who handled everything. It was just a matter of staying calm.
The door slid open behind her. “I helped myself to a glass of juice. And brought one for you.”
She’d squeezed the oranges fresh that morning. “Thank you,” she said, accepting a beverage she didn’t want.
“I don’t mean to be bossy or autocratic,” he said, leaning on a porch support while she stood staring out into the backyard.
“You’re fine.”
“How are you feeling?”
“Fine.”
“Not sick or anything?”
“Nope. If I get morning sickness, it won’t come until a little later.” Hopefully perfectly timed over Christmas break. Because she absolutely could not miss class and have her grades drop.
“Have you thought about school?”
What, he was a mind reader now? “What about it?”
“Are you going to take a semester off? You can’t very well go to class if you’re having a baby.”
He sounded pained by the idea.
“Of course I can. I have to.” Little Guy pranced around the yard as though he owned it. Lindy Lu was trotting right behind him, step for step.
“What do you mean, you have to?”
“If I drop out, not only do I lose the scholarship, but I have to pay back everything I’ve used so far. Tuition alone is more than I can cover. Add in the year’s rent I paid in advance and the living expenses, and there’s no way I can afford to quit school. And that’s aside from the fact that I’d then lose this chance to get an education at all.”
Her words came out stronger than she would have liked. Stronger than she was feeling them. But if she wasn’t strong, she was going to fall apart.
“Besides.” She softened her tone. “There’s no need for me to quit school. While having a baby is definitely going to complicate things, I can make the timing work. I’ll be due sometime in August. So my most uncomfortable time will be during the summer and I don’t have to take summer school to maintain the scholarship.”
“I hear that summers here are brutal. You’ll be at your most uncomfortable state in one hundred and fifteen degree temperature.”
If he was trying to make her feel better, he was failing. It wasn’t as if she had any say in the timing.
“But I don’t have to work and I don’t have to go out during the day at all, if I don’t want to. I can do my shopping in the evening when the sun goes down.” She’d already worked through this.
She’d be fine. Was lucky, really, that she had all of her living expenses covered for the next four years. And health insurance, too, at least for her. She’d have to check on the baby, but she had time to figure that out.
Time to figure out day care and...
“Classes start in August,” Josh said.
“But not until late August. I should be due at the beginning of the month. Besides, I can work with my instructors to make up the first week or two if I have to. Or take online classes in the fall. I looked this morning and there are at least six classes that I can use for my general business major that are offered online.”
She was going to have this baby. And be a fine mother. But if he thought she was going to quit school he’d best think again.
“You’re much better at this than I am,” Josh said.
“Better at what? Having a baby? I’m no more experienced at it than you are.”
“You’re better at finding a way to be positive about it.”
“I don’t have a choice, Josh. The baby is growing inside me and it’s going to come out whether I want it to or not.”
“But you aren’t falling apart.”
“What good would it do?” Her stomach felt like a million little ants were crawling inside it. Moving up to her rib cage. She willed them into stillness.
“I don’t have a choice, either.”
“No one’s saying you do.”
“I’m glad you agree.”
She’d told him he owed her nothing. That she’d do this on her own. He’d already told her he had nothing to offer. Whatever had happened to him in his past was still too fresh. Too raw.
“I’ve never given you reason to think differently,” she said slowly, keeping her gaze on the puppies as the sun dipped below the horizon, surrounding them in the rosy hue that came just before dusk.
Shivering, she wrapped her arms around her middle. She should have put on a sweater with her blouse and jeans.
“Actually, you have,” he said.
Dana swung around, ready to give it to him good, when he continued.
“You told me that you wouldn’t accept my help, Dana, but I have no choice but to give it to you. And as the father of that child, I have a right, too. By your own admission, you’re going to name me as the father. It’s the absolute right thing to do. And I would take you to court for DNA testing to prove the child was mine if you didn’t name me. I will not walk away from my child. Not now at the prebirth stage, and not later, either, after it’s born.”
Her ears were ri
nging. They felt plugged, as if she was in an airplane. Only worse. She’d spent the day preparing herself for her life ahead and he was messing it all up.
She wanted to argue with him. To tell him he had no right to do this to her.
But she couldn’t. He was right. He did have rights.
“The baby is a ‘he’ or a ‘she,’ not an ‘it.’”
She was nitpicking. Sounding stupid. But she couldn’t seem to stop herself. He’d been very clear about his rules. He was changing them on her now.
“I intend to be fully involved in every aspect of this child’s life,” he said, his tone unequivocal. “I want to be involved with the doctor, with the prenatal care, with the birth and after the birth, too.”
He was talking about her body. Her life. And his baby, too.
“I’ve only known you a couple of weeks.” The argument was weak, even to her ears.
“Since you’re the one who will be handling the physical aspect of the pregnancy, it’s only right that I pay for everything. I’m working and have insurance through my job, so I’ll provide the child’s health insurance, and since the child will be living with you—because I absolutely will not take him or her away from his or her mother, nor take your child away from you—I will pay all of the child’s expenses, not just state-mandated child support. I’m also planning to have a room for the child in my home and will expect to have visitation rights—”
“Stop!”
She couldn’t do this. Couldn’t take any more.
Turning, Dana walked back into the house, completely forgetting about the puppy she’d left behind.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
NOT AT ALL SURE what had just happened, Josh stayed outside for a few minutes, in case Dana planned to return. When he saw her in the kitchen, putting things in a bowl, he figured she wasn’t coming back out and picked up the puppies.
Hers fit in the palm of his hand. Amazing that something so small could actually survive.
“I’m sorry I upset you,” he said, closing the sliding-glass door behind him and joining her in the kitchen.
She didn’t turn around. Measuring flour and other things, she dumped the ingredients in a bowl. “It’s my life, too, Josh. You can’t just tell me what I am and am not going to do.”
“I was telling you what I was going to do.”
“But every single thing you said affects me, too.”
He supposed it did. Of course it did.
Breaking eggs into another bowl, she added sugar and started beating the mixture together by hand.
“Don’t you have a mixer for that?”
“Yes. I’m choosing not to use it.”
“What are you making?”
“Chocolate chip cookies.”
Dare he hope she’d share some with him? He knew better than to offer to buy some from her. Offering to pay her hadn’t gone over well when she’d been in a good mood.
She whipped the sugar and egg mixture until it was practically liquid, and then dumped the other bowl of stuff into it, beating that to a pulp, too. When he started to wonder if the cookies would become pudding instead, she added chocolate chips and handed him a spoon.
“What am I supposed to do with this?”
“Follow me to the table,” she said. Setting down the bowl, she reached into a cupboard and pulled out a long thin sheet like the one he’d found among his kitchen things.
He’d mastered the art of house cleaning. Knew all about laundry now. But he’d yet to tackle the whole cooking thing.
And now his nightly internet reading was going to be about babies. Pregnancy.
Cooking was going to have wait a while longer.
“Take dough on your spoon like this,” she said, filling her spoon with a glob of dough from the bowl. “And drop it on here. We’ll do five down and four across, spaced evenly.”
That was all she said. Doing as he was told, Josh spaced his dough blobs in line with hers. His were a little smaller than hers at first. And then a little bigger. She didn’t complain.
She didn’t speak, either, until two sheets of cookies were in the oven.
“We’ve got eight to ten minutes,” she said.
Dana brought over two more sheets and proceeded to fill those, as well.
“You told me that you couldn’t be relied upon,” she said as, with a quick flick, she dumped dough from spoon to pan.
“I...”
“After we had sex you were quite clear about the fact that we couldn’t have a relationship. That I couldn’t count on you. Not that I’d expected a relationship. And when you found out I wasn’t on the pill, you said that you couldn’t be a father. That you couldn’t take on—”
“I know what I said.” He wasn’t as proficient at the flicking, but he was getting his share of cookies down on the tray. “And I meant every word. I’m not suggesting that you and I have a relationship. I’m telling you that I can’t turn my back on my child.”
“How are you going to be a father to my child and not have some kind of a relationship with me?”
“Obviously we aren’t going to be strangers,” he said. “I don’t want to be. I consider you to be my closest friend in Shelter Valley.”
He hadn’t meant to say that. Shouldn’t have said that.
Dana’s spoon had stilled.
“You’re suggesting that we have a platonic relationship whereby we are friends having a baby, but other than sharing the baby, we have no commitment to each other.”
Maybe. He didn’t know what the hell he was suggesting. “Right.” He liked the no-commitment part. He could handle that.
She started flicking her dough again.
“What about if I meet someone I want to date?”
“While you’re pregnant? I mean, dating, well, going out is one thing, but you aren’t suggesting you’d have sex with someone else, not while you’ve got my child in there....”
He sounded like a two-year-old. Not like a man who controlled million-dollar deals in a boardroom filled with men twice his age.
“I agree. That’s a bit much,” she said. “So, since you’re so set on doing this fifty-fifty, I’d like your agreement that you will also be celibate during the nine months of my pregnancy.”
“I—”
“If you’re going to go to the doctor with me, you’re going to be seeing me in intimate situations. I can’t agree to allow you that access if you are also, simultaneously, seeing another woman in intimate situations.”
Cookies forgotten, he stared across at her. Was she as hot as she’d just made him?
Dana’s tall lanky frame was bent over her cookie bowl.
“Furthermore,” she continued, sounding like some kind of boardroom executive and turning him on even more in the process, “if you intend to accompany me to doctors appointments, then everyone in town is going to know that you’re the father of my child instead of just you knowing. Likewise, if you intend to be the baby’s father in practice in addition to on the birth certificate, then everyone in our lives is going to know that you fathered my baby. I can’t make that knowledge known if you’re stepping out on me while I’m carrying your child. That would be too humiliating and I am going to have enough to handle in the coming months without adding more strain. Afterward, we can have a mutual breakup, but I can’t allow myself to be humiliated and pregnant at the same time.”
She was talking so fast he could have been forgiven for hearing gibberish. But she made sense. Perfect sense.
“Fine,” he said. “I agree to your terms.”
He was hard as a rock and had just agreed to be celibate for nine long months.
* * *
THE COOKIES WERE DONE. Josh had consumed his share while they’d been cooling. She wrapped up Jerome’s intended share f
or Josh to take home with him. Jerome would never know that he missed out on a batch of cookies.
He had Little Guy under his arm and Dana was pretty certain she was going to get him out of her apartment before she fell apart again...until Josh left his plate of cookies sitting on the counter rather than picking them up.
“Did you want kids?” he asked her.
She’d already finished the dishes. Wiped the counters. There wasn’t much more to do to occupy her hands.
“Yes,” she said. “After I graduated, fell in love, got married...”
He cocked his head and quirked his eyebrow, and she tried her best not to respond. The man had just agreed to celibacy, rather than counter her platonic proposition by suggesting that they have sex with each other during the next nine months. There was absolutely no point in salivating over him.
It had been ten days since they’d had sex and not once during that time had he given her any indication that he wanted to repeat the experience.
He didn’t want her when she was thin and able—he sure as hell wouldn’t want her once she was fat and waddling to get from point A to point B.
“What if you fell in love before you graduated?”
“I don’t know,” she told him. “I take life as it comes. There’s enough to deal with every day without borrowing trouble.”
He stood there holding his dog. She wrapped her arms around herself.
“I used to figure I’d have kids someday, too.” His words dropped into the silence. She’d expected him to say more, but he picked up his cookies and left then, without making any definite plans to see her again, or discussing practical realities. He hadn’t asked about a doctor’s appointment, or the cost of vitamins, or if she was telling her parents about the baby.
Fair or not, right or not, she felt cheated when he walked out her door and left her standing there. She’d agreed to become a partner with him in the most magnanimous project she’d ever take on, to allow him to be by her side during the most miraculous and probably the most painful moments of her life, and then he’d just left.
She took a hot bath. Cried a little.
And told herself that Josh’s visit had been a good thing.
The Moment of Truth Page 18
