My Surprise Secret Baby (Romance Box Set)

by Lexi Wilson

“Look,” he said. “This PowerShot campaign is important. It’s a big one – for them and for us. And, no one wants anything to mess it up because of what the company has invested in it. Fortunately, since it’s just getting started, the guys running it think it’s not too late to make a little course correction.”

  “What kind of course correction?” I asked nervously.

  “If you’re not up to working with a woman on more or less equal footing, the guys think it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to cut out the female model, or keep women in the background and keep you up front where we know you’ll shine. The one who’s most important to the campaign is you. What do you think?”

  I could see the logic in what Quinn was saying. I could see the practical sense in what the PowerShot guys had decided. But, there was another side to this.

  I flashed on what I’d just seen and heard at the cheerleading practice. There seemed to be some kind of tension on the squad. It was definitely coming from Glenda, but I could totally see the girls on the squad starting to take sides in whatever it was, and I could totally see some of them ganging up on Bama. Because whatever you want to say about men being competitive, women can be just as bad or worse.

  I hated the thought of Bama having to take some of the other cheerleaders turning on her, and being cut from the PowerShot campaign at the same time. This opportunity had to mean a lot to her, especially the money and whatever else it might lead to. Whatever I felt about her shutting down on me after our time in bed, I didn’t think she deserved all this.

  “You want to cut Bama from the campaign?”

  “It’s not me. I like Bama. I’ve always liked Bama. But…”

  “So, it’s them. They want to cut her?”

  “Yeah, it’s them.”

  “Tell them not to do it,” I said, flat-out. “Get back in touch with the guys and tell them I said don’t do it. Tell ‘em they were right. Tell ‘em I was the one who was off his game in Denver. Tell ‘em I can do better – and I will.

  “But, tell ‘em I said Bama is a rookie at this and it’s not fair to cut her after just her first time out. I’m to blame. It was my bad performance; don’t hold it against her. Tell the guys I said to keep her. I’ll work with her and make it better.”

  “Seriously?”

  I nodded my head sharply, decisively. “Yeah, seriously.”

  Quinn smiled at me, a proud, fatherly kind of smile. “See, this is how you got to be quarterback and this is how you got us to the Super Bowl and the championship. This is how you got that ring on your finger. Barrett, that’s how a leader acts. Looking out for somebody else on the team, that’s what a leader does.” He reached across the table to shake my hand. “You’re a damn good man.”

  That made me feel better than I’d felt all day. I shook his hand and said, “Thanks. Thanks a lot.”

  I walked out of Quinn’s office, gym bag in hand, pleased with myself and pleased with what I’d done for Bama after all the weird feelings I’d had about her.

  Besides, keeping her in the campaign might give me a chance to figure out what was really going on with her. It was a win/win.

  Chapter 19

  Bama

  Lord, what a day, I thought. I seriously questioned how much more I could take, especially for the sake of the baby.

  The stress that I’d had to deal with today couldn’t have been any good for him or her. The physical activity was one thing; I should really be taking it much easier. There are exercises that are okay and healthy to do when you’re expecting a baby, but I seriously doubted that they included the kinds of things you do as a cheerleader. Things good to do when you’re pregnant are things like swimming, walking, maybe a little bit of indoor cycling – not jumping around the way you do at halftime in the NFL.

  For that reason alone, I knew it would soon be time to step down, not only from being head cheerleader for the Rangers, but from being a part of the squad at all. And, that would be just what Glenda wanted.

  Yes, I was pretty sure now that I had a name and a face for my main rival on the squad. Maybe there was a little clique of them who wanted me gone, but after that little heated confrontation today, there wasn’t much room for doubt that the one who resented me and wanted me out of there the most was Glenda.

  The aggressive blonde – who, not incidentally, was the same teammate that I’d seen trying to wrap herself around Barrett in the parking garage – was a few years older than I was, and to the best of my knowledge had never been the head of the squad and had never been considered for the position. I could see she was as bitter about me being promoted over her when I hadn’t been there for as long as she was. She was as resentful of me as she was probably bitter about Barrett not wanting to give her another tumble.

  Nothing would have made Glenda happier than to see me step down and disappear. Well, no, what would probably make her even more ecstatic would be to have me gone and to be back in Barrett’s bed.

  And wouldn’t Glenda have just loved to get her claws on the news that I was pregnant? I could just guess what she’d do with that little piece of information. She would take it right to Quinn, if not the owners of the team, and I’d be out of there faster than a flying pigskin. And, she’d love doing it.

  Well, sooner or later, Glenda would get her wish, even if it wasn’t from any actions of her own. Actually, make that sooner. My twelfth week would be coming up before much longer, and by that time everyone would be able to see that I was no longer Dallas Rangers Cheerleader material. I should probably leave the squad of my own volition before then.

  And before leaving the squad, I still really needed to tell Barrett why I was going.

  I couldn’t hold out on him much longer. He had to know, and the longer I waited, the worse it was liable to be.

  There was still so much undecided about my future. I looked online at the PowerShot Website, where they had posted all the pictures and videos of my publicity visit with Barrett to Colorado. They looked pretty good, I had to admit. If I say so myself, I looked pretty good in them. Maybe the best thing I could do for myself and for the baby would be to leverage my position with the Rangers while I still had it, and this PowerShot gig, and see if I could find myself an agent.

  What would that be like, trying to get someone to represent me for more modeling work? Well, you see, you’ll only be able to submit me for modeling work for a little while because I’ll be starting to show soon. Could you maybe get me some modeling work where I’ll only be photographed above the bust? Somehow it wasn’t looking very likely.

  I managed to get through the rest of practice with no bloodshed between Glenda and me – but a few dirty looks went back and forth just the same – and back to my apartment without getting nauseous. What I wanted now was to curl up in bed with some soup and crackers and maybe something nice on TV, and try at least for a little while to think about what a collection of uncertainties my life had become.

  That would have been a good idea, but life had other plans for me.

  The part about settling down on my bed with the soup and crackers went well enough. But before I could pick out something good to watch, there was my phone. My frustrated breath came out in a little raspberry noise as I checked the ID. To my surprise, it was my mother.

  “Mom? How are you?” If the TV couldn’t take my mind off my life for a while, perhaps hearing about someone else’s life would. The moment I heard her voice, I knew this conversation was going to be anything but soothing.

  “Brianna?” My parents, unlike most people, called me by my real name. “Brianna, honey, I just saw online about your spokesperson job in Denver. Oh, honey, you look so nice. All the neighbors saw it.”

  Her voice began to catch, to quiver and waver in a way that I knew so well, the way it did when she was most upset. “Oh, honey…,” she tried to go on, and couldn’t. Her voice was turning to sobs that she was trying to suppress.

  “What is it, Mom?” I asked, dreading what must be the answer.

  “I jus
t... I just had to talk to you,” she said, haltingly, trying not to cry and failing. “All I wanted to hear was...my baby’s voice… Oh, Brianna…”

  She wasn’t saying it, so I said it for her. “It’s Daddy, isn’t it?”

  My mother sobbed, “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I don’t mean to bother you with everything you’ve got going on.”

  I felt about as guilty as it was possible for me to feel at that. My poor mother didn’t know the half of everything I had going on.

  “You’re not a bother, Mom,” I said, now ignoring the tray of soup and crackers cooling on the bed next to me. “What happened? Was it another disagreement?”

  Sure enough, Mom related to me the story of the latest fight she and Daddy were having. It turned out she wasn’t calling me from back in Montgomery. After I made leader of the cheerleading squad, when it looked as if I’d be settling permanently in Dallas, my parents had bought themselves a little second home outside of town here, where they thought they might move once Daddy retired, and that was where she was calling from. Like everything else in their life, it seemed to have become something to argue about.

  “Mom, I’m so sorry you and Daddy are having troubles again,” I said. “You know what? I haven’t seen you two in such a long time. Since you’re here now, I’ll come right over, and we can have a good visit, how’s that?”

  “You don’t have to go to the trouble, Brianna,” she said, barely composing herself. “You must be so busy…”

  “For my Mom and Daddy? I am not too busy, and it’s been too long. Just sit tight; I’ll be right over.”

  I’d been planning to eat went into the fridge. If my mother knew my condition, she would scold me for not eating properly. But if I got really hungry, I could always get something over there. In fact, as soon as I got there Mom would insist on feeding me.

  Forgetting all about my rest and my snack, I went right back out.

  _______________

  I called it right. As soon as I got to my folks’ place in Richardson, she had food spread out on the kitchen table. My mother’s cooking was a real comfort. She had barbecued chicken and ribs, her specialty. Sitting down at the table with her, I had the feeling that at least one thing was right with the world.

  “Honey, I don’t know what I’m going to do with your father,” she said, looking so downcast that it broke my heart. “He’s just so restless. He sees retirement coming and doesn’t want to slow down. He seems like he wants to do everything at once. And whenever I try to talk him into taking it easier, he snaps at me. You know how I hate being snapped at. I end up just snapping right back. And, it goes on so much lately. Brianna, eat. Go ahead, eat.”

  As delicious as everything was, hearing that my parents were having trouble was the only thing I could really focus on. My mind was threatening to go to a place that I didn’t want it to go. Would my mother even tell me if Daddy were having an affair? Just the thought of such a thing stung my heart. I searched Mom’s face and listened intently to her voice for clues. I was picking up nothing but how frustrated she was.

  “What is it he wants to do?”

  “Everything, it seems like. Retirement is supposed to be the time when you get to rest. But instead, your father wants to move here. And, he wants to travel. And, he wants to fish and play golf. It’s as if he wants to do it all at once. Every time I try to convince him he ought to slow down and take it easier, it’s like he resents me for it. Half the time, I’m scared to say anything to him because of how he might take it.”

  “Oh, Mom, I’m sorry,” was all I could offer her. “Where is he now?”

  “He’s out just driving around, the way he does when he gets upset. I told him you were coming over. He said he’d be back before you left. Go ahead and eat, Brianna. Let me get you some more sweet tea…”

  She went to get the pitcher from the fridge while I dug into the ribs and the corn on the cob, and silently told whoever it was I had inside me that the pleasures of Gramma’s cooking were one of the things to look forward to.

  _______________

  After a while, I heard tires rolling up the driveway and knew Daddy was back. By then I was done with the ribs, chicken, and corn and had also made a nice dent in the peach cobbler, which was another comfort. Mom decided to stay in the kitchen while I went to see Daddy. I knew where he would be.

  He was sitting at his desk in the den, looking at a fishing website, when I walked in. At the sight of me, his face blossomed into the special smile that he’d always reserved for me. “Brianna!” he called, pushing out from behind the desk. “Baby, come to Daddy!” He held out his arms to me.

  I went to my father, as happy to see him as I was to see Mom. But, I felt a little bad, thinking how much better it would be if I were happy seeing them together, if they were as happy with each other as they were with me. They’d had a good marriage. They’d made themselves a good life.

  What was wrong between them now, after so many years? I wondered. Was their marriage like some old photograph that had gotten faded and cracked and wasn’t as pretty to them any more as it had been when it was first taken? There had to be something they could do to restore it. But it had to be something they did together. They were older than I was. Shouldn’t being older have made them wiser?

  Daddy and I got talking, and he told me about how he had made sure all his friends saw the coverage of my trip to Colorado. I pulled up a chair next to his desk as we talked. He laughed about how he’d bragged to them about what his beautiful daughter was doing.

  My feelings twisted up inside me from hearing how proud he was. I wondered how proud he would be if he knew the trouble I’d gotten myself into. I tried to push that aside by changing the subject to him and Mom.

  As gently as I could, I brought up to him what Mom and I had been talking about. Without sounding mad, I let him know what was on my mind about how sad and frustrated Mom seemed to be and how sad he seemed to be, even while he was so happy to see me. There are times when you can tell someone is happy on the outside but sad on the inside, and that was what I felt from Daddy now.

  He got a faraway look on his face and a kind of wistful sound in his voice. “Brianna, you’re just starting out in life right now, and these are things you might not understand. But when you’re starting out, you’ve got more years ahead than behind you, and you know what you want to fill up all those years with.

  “But, there are things that you’ve got to do to make your life. And those things, honey...those things eat up a lot of time. They eat up years. Years.

  “Then, a little at a time, you start to see that there’s now more years behind you than ahead of you – years where there are so many things you’ve done, but so many things you still haven’t. And, you start to wonder how many of those things you’ll still be able to do in the time you’ve got left. And whether you’ll stay healthy enough in the time you’ve got left to do them all.”

  “Aren’t you happy with your life?” I asked him. “Aren’t you happy with Mom?” Just voicing the question made me afraid of what the answer might be. “Daddy, after the whole life you and Mom have had, you’re not unhappy now. Please, tell me you’re not unhappy with her, with our family.”

  Sensing how worried I was, Daddy patted me on the hand and said, “Brianna, your mother has never made me unhappy a day in my life. Never. But, there just comes a time in a man’s life when he takes a good long, hard look at everything and has to ask if he’s happy with himself.

  “I’ve made a marriage and I’ve made a family. But who am I now, compared to who I thought I’d be when I was your age? That’s something a man has to think long and hard about.”

  He smiled a little, with a father’s special twinkle in his eye. “And maybe a woman, too. I’m glad you’re doing all the things you’re doing now. I never want you to get to a place where you’ve gone way on down the road but haven’t enjoyed the trip. It’s your life, baby. Enjoy the trip. Don’t worry about your mother and me. I’ve come this far with her.
I’m not looking to make the rest of the trip without her.”

  Well, that was what I wanted to hear. That was the reassurance that I needed. Daddy had made me believe he and Mom would get it all sorted out. We shared a great big hug, there in his den, and I looked back on all the father-daughter talks we’d had, and how good I’d felt at the end of them. This was one more.

  I decided to stay the night in the guest room there and go back home in the morning. My parents were as glad to have me there as I was to be there. Going to bed that night, I struggled with the pangs of guilt about how honest I wasn’t being with them after they’d been so honest with me. It wasn’t just their daughter they’d welcomed for the night. It was their grandchild – and they didn’t even know it.

  In bed, I also thought about what Daddy had told me about his life, and where he found himself now. An unexpected, unplanned pregnancy was one of the most life-changing things in the world. I realized I hadn’t thought that clearly about my own future beyond cheerleading. It made me understand more than ever that my future was a great unknown.

  And what about Barrett? I thought. The guy was a career horndog and there was no reason to believe he ever saw, or ever would see, his life in any other way. Assuming he would even want to assume responsibility for a child, what would that do to his life? Would Barrett one day see himself at the far end of his own road, wondering where the trip went?

  Well, Barrett and my father were two different people. And, Barrett was fantastically rich. He had choices and options in his life that other people didn’t. Still, when he found out about the baby, would fatherhood and raising a child be something he’d choose to take on? Or, would he decide it wasn’t a part of his game plan?

  It made me think seriously about what I expected from him. Would this incredibly rich, famous championship football player even want to try to make a life with me the way my father had made with my mother? Whatever problems they had, my parents had married for love – real, honest love. Did Barrett feel anything remotely like that for me? Could I even expect him to feel anything for me when I knew that what he loved most in the world was sex?