The Sheriff's Nine-Month Surprise

by Brenda Harlen

  “Resolved?” she echoed warily.

  “To do the right thing.”

  She shook her head. “We can’t get married, Reid—we hardly know each other.”

  “Living together as husband and wife will change that quickly enough,” he told her.

  She huffed out a breath. “I told you about the baby because I thought you had a right to know, but I don’t want anything from you. As far as I’m concerned, no one else ever needs to know you’re the father.”

  “Which proves your point that we don’t know each other,” he said. “Because if you knew me, you’d know that I’m not going to walk away from my child—or the child’s mother.”

  * * *

  Kate lowered herself into Beth’s chair and pressed her fingers to her temples, as if that might alleviate the pounding inside her head. She hadn’t expected that it would be easy to tell Reid about her pregnancy. She’d been prepared for him to question the paternity of her baby, and she’d expected that he’d need some time to accept the truth of what she was saying. She hadn’t been prepared for him to jump from questioning to acceptance in the blink of an eye—and she hadn’t expected him to jump from acceptance to marriage at all.

  She felt his hands come down on her shoulders, and she jumped.

  “Relax, Katelyn,” he said, and began to massage gently.

  It was easy for him to say—not so easy for her to do. He’d called her skittish the night before, and she couldn’t disagree. She was certainly excitable whenever he was near.

  And when he touched her, as he was touching her now, she melted. Which was precisely why she shouldn’t let him touch her.

  But she couldn’t bring herself to ask him to stop. She didn’t want him to stop. She wanted—

  She abruptly severed the thought, unwilling to acknowledge her latent erotic desires.

  “I know this isn’t what either of us planned, but we’re in it together now,” he said, as he continued to loosen her muscles.

  She wanted to believe it was true. Since the doctor confirmed her pregnancy, she’d felt alone and overwhelmed.

  But it wasn’t just her baby, it was his baby, too. And if he really wanted to be a we, there was part of her that couldn’t help but think it would be easier than me.

  But co-parenting suggested a level of relationship she wasn’t ready for, and marriage was several levels beyond that.

  “Why aren’t you running away as far and fast as you can?” she wondered aloud.

  “Because I don’t shirk my responsibilities.”

  She turned the chair so that she was facing him, forcing his hands to drop away. “If you were one of my clients, I’d tell you to demand a paternity test.”

  “Why would I do that when you told me there’s zero chance anyone else could be the father?” he asked.

  “Because you shouldn’t take my word for it,” she protested. “I could be manipulating you for financial gain—or attempting to finagle a marriage proposal.”

  “I do have some savings and investments, which I’d willingly give to support our child, and I’ve already suggested marriage, but you’re resistant to the idea.”

  She shook her head. “Do you have no sense of self-preservation?”

  “Maybe I haven’t known you very long,” he acknowledged. “And there are undoubtedly a lot of things I don’t know about you, but I know you’re not lying about the paternity of the baby you’re carrying.”

  “You seem to be handling the news a lot better than I did,” she admitted.

  “Believe me, I’m in full-scale panic mode on the inside,” he told her.

  “I’m familiar with panic. Although when I realized I was late, my initial reaction was denial. Because there are a lot of different things that can mess up a woman’s cycle, and whatever had messed up mine, it couldn’t possibly be a baby.

  “But then a few days turned into a week, then two weeks. So when I was in Elko for a custody hearing, I went to a pharmacy to buy a home pregnancy test.”

  “It was positive?” he guessed.

  She nodded. “But I still didn’t believe it. I was sure that the test must have been faulty, or I’d somehow done it wrong.”

  “There’s a wrong way to pee on a stick?”

  She managed a smile. “It was easier to believe that than trust the result. So I bought a second test, but it was faulty, too.”

  “I’m sensing a pattern.”

  “I just couldn’t wrap my head around the possibility that there was a tiny life growing inside of me,” she admitted. “Maybe I’d always thought I’d be a mother someday, but someday was supposed to be a lot of years down the road.”

  “Then you bought a third test?”

  “From a different pharmacy, because clearly the entire shipment at the first store was defective. When that test gave me the same result, I finally went to see Dr. Amaro.”

  “Have you told anyone else?”

  She shook her head. “My sister knows, but I didn’t tell her. In fact, it was your mention of marriage that tipped her off.”

  “I was thinking out loud,” he admitted.

  “Believe me, I know what a shock it is to discover that, after a casual hookup, you’re going to be a parent.”

  “I never would have said, ‘Hey, let’s have unprotected sex and see what happens,’” he acknowledged, “but the reality of a baby changes everything.”

  She instinctively touched a hand to her belly. “The reality is only about the size of a lentil right now.”

  “A lentil? Is that like a bean?”

  “Close enough,” she said.

  “That’s pretty small.”

  She nodded. “But he or she will do a lot of growing over the next seven months.”

  “Still, a little bean would benefit from having both a mom and a dad looking out for him or her, don’t you think?”

  Chapter Eight

  Kate had never understood why expectant parents referred to an unborn child by cute nicknames, but she couldn’t deny there was something about the way Reid said little bean that was endearing. She also appreciated that he’d used both gender pronouns rather than defaulting to the masculine as so many people—especially men—tended to do.

  Except that, despite his warm tone and conciliatory demeanor, he was doing exactly what Sky had warned her he would do—trying to push her toward marriage so that he could feel better about doing “the right thing.”

  Thankfully, she knew how to push back.

  “Reid, I only found out about the baby a few days before you did, and I’m not ready to think about all the ways my life is going to change. I know it’s going to change,” she acknowledged, “but getting married is definitely not a change that ever crossed my mind.”

  “Think about it now,” he suggested.

  She sighed. “Don’t you already have one divorce behind you?”

  “Yeah,” he admitted.

  “So why would you want to rush into another marriage, especially one that would be doomed from the start?”

  “Why do you think our marriage would be doomed?”

  “Because we’d only be getting married for the sake of our baby,” she pointed out to him.

  “I can’t think of a better reason.”

  “What about love?” she challenged.

  “Is that what you’re holding out for?”

  “I’m not holding out for anything,” she denied. “But whenever I thought about getting married, I assumed it would happen because I was in love with the man I was planning to spend my life with.”

  “I’m sorry this situation is forcing you to deviate from your plan,” he said. “But I’m not going to pretend to be in love with you so you can feel better about marrying me.”

  “I don’t want you to pretend anything, and I don’t want to marry you,” sh
e told him.

  Except that she did want to give her baby a real family—the kind that she’d known for the first twelve years of her life. Since the death of her mother, a crucial piece of their family had been missing, and Kate couldn’t help but worry that her child might feel the same emptiness growing up without a full-time father.

  “But I appreciate your willingness to do the right thing,” she said to Reid now. “Even if we’re not in agreement as to what that is.”

  “Your pregnancy is one of those curveballs life likes to throw at us to see how we’ll respond,” he told her. “I’m ready to step up to the plate and hit that ball out of the park.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I’m guessing you’re a baseball fan.”

  “My Rangers tickets were the only thing I was sorry to leave in Texas,” he admitted.

  “Just one more thing I didn’t know about you—because I don’t know you,” she said again.

  “Just one of the many things we have yet to discover about one another,” he countered, putting a different spin on the point.

  “Well, there’s something you should know about me,” she told him. “I hate the Rangers.”

  He winced. “Despite that blasphemous statement, I’m willing to trust that your failure to appreciate America’s pastime isn’t indicative of greater character flaws.”

  “I don’t hate baseball,” she said, eager to clarify her previous statement. “I hate the Rangers because I’m an Angels fan.”

  “Now that might be indicative of greater character flaws,” he said, shaking his head sadly.

  “You won’t find many Rangers fans in Nevada, and in this part of the state, they’re mostly Dodgers or Athletics fans with a handful of Angels and Giants supporters in the mix.”

  “How’d you end up cheering for the Angels?”

  “Three years at UCLA,” she reminded him.

  “Okay, let’s put aside our differences with respect to baseball for the moment and focus on what’s best for our baby.”

  Our baby.

  The words spilled out of his mouth easily, as if they didn’t twist his stomach into painful knots. And maybe they didn’t. Maybe he’d accepted the reality of their situation a lot more easily than Kate had done, because as much as she loved her unborn child already, there were moments when her doubts and fears seemed stronger than anything else.

  Her biggest concerns were based on not knowing how she would manage to juggle her career and the demands of a child. And, of course, long before the baby was born, she was going to have to tell her father about her pregnancy.

  He’d be supportive, but he’d also be disappointed to learn she would be a mother before she was a wife. And he’d probably wonder if the death of her own mother so many years earlier had somehow caused her to fall into bed with a man she barely knew.

  A ring on her finger would reassure her father that, although she’d made a mistake, she’d be taken care of. Because while David Gilmore was open-minded enough to encourage his daughters to be anything they wanted to be, he was also old-fashioned enough to believe a woman needed a man to take care of her.

  Yes, as difficult as it would be to tell him she was pregnant, she knew he’d accept the news more easily if it was followed by and I’m going to marry the father of my baby.

  But she wasn’t going to take what looked like the easy path now, because it would only be that much harder later on when the relationship fell apart and their child was caught in the middle of a messy divorce.

  “Can we please just take some time before making any life-altering decisions?” she asked him now.

  “How much time do you think you need?”

  “Eight months?” she suggested, aware that their baby would be born before that period of time had passed.

  He folded his arms over his chest and looked at her as if she was a recalcitrant child. Maybe he was practicing his stern father facade and, if so, he was doing a good job—which made her want to both laugh and cry, because her emotions were a complete mess.

  “More than a day,” she told him.

  “Okay,” he relented.

  “And, in the meantime, can we keep this...news...between us?”

  “I’m already an outsider—and not in any hurry to face the judgment that will follow when people find out I got Katelyn Gilmore pregnant.”

  “I’m willing to keep the paternity of my baby a secret,” she reminded him.

  But Reid shook his head stubbornly. “I’m not.”

  * * *

  He gave her a week.

  And every day that passed during that week, he waited for his phone to ring or for Katelyn to show up at his office. But it never happened, and Reid was beginning to suspect that it never would.

  So he took the initiative—and a pizza—and crossed his fingers that she wouldn’t toss the box back in his face when he showed up at her door.

  After buzzing him in, she eyed him with suspicion—and the pizza box with interest. “What are you doing here, Reid?”

  “Well, you made dinner for me last week, so I figured it was my turn,” he explained. “But I’m not much of a cook, so this seemed like a safer option.”

  “What’s on the pizza?”

  “Pepperoni, black olives and hot peppers.”

  “Since it would be too much of a coincidence to discover that those are your favorite toppings, I’m guessing you asked my sister what I like.”

  “Guilty.”

  With a sigh of resignation, she stepped away from the door so he could enter.

  He could tell she was wary, so he deliberately kept the conversation focused on neutral topics while they ate, and they chatted about local news, current events and baseball scores of their rival teams. They didn’t discuss Aiden Hampton, although Reid knew that she’d talked to the ADA about a local diversion program that would allow Aiden to take responsibility for his actions and perform community service in exchange for a withdrawal of the charges.

  “Let’s go to a movie,” he suggested, when the pizza box was empty.

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s Friday night and there’s nothing good on TV.”

  “I have a brief to research and write.”

  “Come on, Katelyn—it’s Friday night. Play hooky with me.”

  She bent down to scoop up a napkin that had fallen onto the floor. “There are only two screens at the local theater—it’s quite possible there’s nothing good at the movies, either.”

  “You can choose between the latest Marvel movie and some artsy-sounding film that I’ve never heard of,” he told her, making it clear what his choice would be.

  She grinned. “Who doesn’t love superheroes in spandex?”

  * * *

  They found seats inside the theater, then Reid went to get snacks while Katelyn thumbed through the messages on her phone, just so that she had something to focus her eyes on while her mind wandered. She wished she’d had the opportunity to get to know Reid better without the specter of her pregnancy hanging over them. But, of course, the tiny life growing inside her changed everything. Even if no one else knew about the baby right now, there would be speculation about the relationship—and more so when her condition became evident.

  Reid came back carrying a tray with two soft drinks, a big bag of popcorn, a package of licorice and box of Milk Duds.

  “If I didn’t know otherwise, I’d think you’d skipped dinner,” she commented.

  “Those aren’t for me.” He put the drinks in their respective cup holders, then set the tray of snacks in her lap. “They’re for you.”

  “For me?”

  “I didn’t know what you liked.”

  “I like everything,” she admitted, keeping her voice quiet to ensure that no one seated around them would overhear their conversation. “But I’m not actually eating for two, you k
now.”

  “Then you could share with me,” he suggested.

  “Hmm...that was your plan all along, wasn’t it?”

  He winked as he settled into the seat beside her. “Maybe.”

  It was almost like a real date, and it made Kate wonder how things might have played out if a condom hadn’t failed. How would she have responded to discovering that he was the new sheriff of Haven?

  She would have been pleased to see him. Because even before she’d begun to suspect that there were consequences of her trip to Boulder City, she hadn’t stopped thinking about those two blissful nights. But she also would have been wary of any kind of personal relationship, because he was now wearing a badge in the town where she was building her law practice. It wasn’t a direct conflict of interest, but Kate would have wanted to steer clear of the slightest appearance of impropriety.

  Of course, being pregnant with the new sheriff’s baby took away that option. And even if no one else knew the truth about their relationship, being seen with him at the local movie theater would generate a fair amount of talk. And maybe, since Reid was prepared to acknowledge paternity of the baby, she was subconsciously hoping that people wouldn’t later count the number of weeks between his arrival in town and the arrival of her baby and realize she was pregnant before he showed up in Haven.

  The lights in the theater dimmed, and she settled deeper into her seat to focus on the coming attractions. But if she’d hoped the movie might provide a distraction from thinking about her pregnancy, she hadn’t anticipated that sitting beside Reid in the dark theater distracted her from everything else. Everything but her awareness of the man.

  An awareness that intensified with every brush of his leg and every bump of his arm. And when he leaned close to whisper in her ear, the scent of him—clean, simple and masculine—tempted her more than the buttery popcorn.

  Determined to ignore the hunger stirring in her veins, she tore open the box of Milk Duds and popped a chocolate-coated caramel into her mouth, letting it sit on her tongue until it began to melt. And she continued to pop candy into her mouth, one at a time, until the box was empty.