“Ta-da. Yes, I’m pregnant.”
“Why didn’t you tell me before that you’re pregnant?”
“I wasn’t sure how you’d react.” And deep down, I’d thought that maybe he had already figured it out but didn’t feel the need to say anything.
He shoved his fingers through his hair, gaze still glued on my belly as if it were housing a baby fire-breathing dragon.
In all the scenarios that played in my head, in not one of them had he reacted this way. “Why don’t we go into the living room? You probably have questions.”
Like who the father is.
Dammit, what was I going to tell him?
I wasn’t ready yet to tell everyone the truth. Not until I’d fully come to terms with my new reality.
And not until I’d told Grayson.
Because if he wanted nothing to do with the baby, then I’d rather people believe the alternative story. The story involving Stephen’s sperm.
But this was Logan. I had never lied to him before.
Logan followed me, and I sat on the sofa. He chose to stay standing and started pacing.
Wow. I hadn’t expected him to respond this way to the news.
Stephen had died over a year ago. It wasn’t like I’d betrayed his memory by being with another man.
Stephen hadn’t wanted me to stay alone for the rest of my life. He’d wanted me to find love again. Sure, this wasn’t exactly how he had envisioned things (that made two of us), but he would’ve been fine with it as long as I was happy.
And I was.
“It’s Stephen’s baby,” I blurted when it was clear Logan planned to keep pacing.
Well, I guess that answered my question about what to say to him.
Maybe this blurting thing of late was a symptom of pregnancy brain.
Sounded like a logical explanation to me.
Logan stopped abruptly but still didn’t sit.
Oh, God. He’ll know I’m lying. He was once my friend, and he was Stephen’s best friend. He would see through the lie as easily as if it had been made from glass.
“What do you mean, it’s Stephen’s baby?”
That expression on his face?
Shock—as if Zeus had struck him with a lightning bolt (without singeing his hair).
But it wasn’t only shock; there was an odd air of relief about him.
I open my mouth to respond but didn’t get that far.
“The last I heard,” Logan powered on, “Stephen died over fifteen months ago. How can you possibly be pregnant with his child? What—did he come down from heaven and knock you up like in that Patrick Swayze movie?”
“Technically, Patrick Swayze didn’t knock up Demi Moore.” That would have been a little tough because he was acting through Whoopi Goldberg’s body.
And he was a ghost.
Logan leveled his steely blue eyes at me. The intensity in them caused a shiver to skim through me.
In a good way.
In a delicious, my-body-was-getting-riled-up way.
Now’s not the time, I reminded my hormones. One problem at a time, please.
“So you’re telling me that Stephen visited as a ghost and got you pregnant?” The tone of his voice implied he believed the opposite.
“Fortunately, modern technology doesn’t require ghost hauntings to get someone pregnant.” I toyed with a piece of lint on the couch. I couldn’t look Logan directly in the eyes. I couldn’t risk him seeing the lie gleaming back at him. “I got pregnant through artificial insemination. Stephen and I had tried to have a baby the old-fashioned way. It didn’t work, so we chose to go in vitro. A few months ago, I decided that I didn’t want to wait any longer to find a man who was right for me, fall in love, get married, and then begin a family. My biological clock was ticking.”
Well, that was partly true. It was ticking—but I had several more years before I had to worry about it.
Logan frowned and sat next to me on the sofa. “I didn’t realize you two were going through that.”
“And I didn’t realize men talked about their fertility woes.”
“We don’t, typically.”
Which was good news for me. It would have been a lot harder to pull off my lie if they had talked about these things like women did.
“So, there you have it,” I said. “The reason you didn’t know about his Popsicle sperm.”
I mentally fist-pumped the sky even though the guilt from the other day, when I told Hannah and Emma about the baby, returned in droves.
Like everyone else, Logan was oblivious to the truth.
“Well, I guess congratulations are in order.” Logan smiled at me, and my woman bits let out a dreamy sigh.
Damn his sexy smile.
Between that and my incredibly horny hormones—which hadn’t let up despite my request for a reprieve—I was in serious trouble.
I squirmed on the couch, aiming to dull my vamped-up sex drive.
It didn’t work.
And it definitely didn’t help when Logan leaned in to hug me. His scent—a combination of whatever antiperspirant or aftershave he used and his own smell—shifted my horniness into overdrive.
A breathy moan escaped me, and I closed my eyes.
There was something familiar about his scent, but I couldn’t identify what it was.
Logan released me, and my body silently whined at the loss.
His eyes were dark, his breath came in faster than before.
If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was as turned-on as I was.
But this was Logan. He didn’t feel that way about me—especially now that he thought I was knocked up with his best friend’s baby.
Clearly, my hormones were causing me to imagine things.
Great. As if being horny and single wasn’t enough.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
“Good. A little tired, but nothing I can’t handle.”
“How was your meeting with Emma the other day?”
I told him everything, including the incident with the fountain and why I’d been trying to avoid my physician.
“Stephen was your best friend,” I said, “so it only seemed right that you were first to find out about his baby.”
He smiled at me and nodded as if that made sense. “Let me know if you need any help around the place. When are you due?”
“Around September fifth.”
“So before hockey season officially begins.”
“That’s right. When’s Stacy due?”
“October sixth.”
“And you were crib shopping with her and Livi today?”
Stephen would have found the irony hilarious. It wasn’t every day you went shopping with your ex-wife to buy a cradle for the baby conceived from another man’s sperm (unless the man was a sperm donor).
“Not really. She and Livi were just checking them out. Stacy’s throwing Tony a surprise birthday party, and she wanted my help with it. She needed someone to help her carry anything heavy—”
“Because she’s pregnant,” I finish for him.
“That’s right.”
“Well, I think that’s really sweet of you.”
He grinned at me. “Glad you think so. So make sure you don’t forget that when you need help.”
“I won’t.”
“Do you have an appointment yet for an ultrasound?”
I told him the date. A twinge of disappointment twisted in my stomach at the knowledge that I would have to do that without Stephen.
Sure, plenty of women had prenatal ultrasounds without their partner and survived. But it was just one of those things that he and I had wanted to share together once I became pregnant.
But the reality was, Stephen wasn’t alive, nor was he the father.
“Who’s going with you?” Logan asked.
“I’m going on my own.” I could’ve asked my mom, but I was afraid she would discover I was lying about the baby’s father if I did that.
As it was, she had a
lready told me that she’d be more than happy to be there for me in the delivery room.
But I wasn’t sure I wanted that either. As much as I loved my mother, I had a feeling she would drive me bonkers while I was giving birth to her grandchild.
“I might be able to go with you,” Logan said. “To the ultrasound. It just depends if the Rock are in the playoffs, and as long as we aren’t away for a game.”
Okay, not what I was expecting.
“I’m honestly fine with going on my own. It’s an ultrasound. I’m not going under to get my wisdom teeth removed.”
“Stephen would have moved the world to be there. To see his baby for the first time.”
“True. But that doesn’t mean you have to take his place because he’s dead.” As sweet as the thought might be. “You were his best man at our wedding, but that doesn’t mean you have to do the things he would have just because he’s no longer here to do them.”
“I seem to remember I was also your friend in college. That counts for something, too.”
You know that look a puppy gets when he wants something?
I’m not saying that Logan was flashing me puppy eyes, the kind that melted your heart, but it was pretty damn close.
No mere mortal could resist.
“All right, if you really want to be there,” I said, smiling, relieved I wouldn’t be on my own at the clinic after all. “I’d be happy to have you join me. But just so you’re forewarned, I can guarantee I’ll tear up when I see the baby. Are you sure you want to be there for that?”
Truth? I cried at every Pixar movie I’d seen. Toy Story 4 pretty much did me in when the little girl got lost.
And don’t get me started about the movie Up.
So if I couldn’t handle those movies, it was a given I’d be more than tearing up at seeing Love Bug for the first time.
“I’ll bring the Kleenex.” Logan winked at me, and I laughed.
“I guess you’re a pro at going to prenatal ultrasounds. Or at least you’re a pro compared to me.”
He winced and shook his head. “Not exactly.”
“You must be. You went to Stacy’s when she was pregnant with Livi, right?”
“Like I told you before, I was a crappy husband and father. Stacy had scheduled it so I wouldn’t be away on a road trip, but I forgot about it and stood her up.”
Ouch.
So basically, what he was telling me was not to expect him to actually show up for the ultrasound. There was a good chance he’d forget, and I’d be there on my own after all.
“You can guarantee her husband won’t make that mistake,” Logan said.
“You like him, don’t you? Even though he’s the one married to the woman you were once in love with, you still like him.”
“Let’s just say when it came to husbands, she upgraded to a better model with husband number two.”
Smiling broadly, I gave him a gentle shove on the shoulder. “You might’ve been a crappy husband, but I seem to remember you were an awesome friend.”
And he was proving that he was still the same awesome friend.
It was me who was the crappy friend.
The friend who was lying. Lying because she was afraid of what people would think—of what Logan would think—if she admitted the truth.
19
Kiera
April
Two weeks after Logan learned I was pregnant—and the Rock made it into the Stanley Cup playoffs—I parked in my parents’ driveway for our weekly Sunday brunch.
The rain from last night had tapered off, and the late morning sun was doing its best to poke through the clouds. Nick Wasserman was kneeling on the ground next to one of his grandmother’s flowerbeds, digging in the dirt. Daffodils, crocuses, and tulips bloomed in a rainbow of colors, adding cheer to the small space.
“Looking for buried treasure, are yea?” I asked with a fake accent that would make a pirate cringe.
He turned to me and grinned. “I wouldn’t be surprised if ten-year-old me had buried treasure somewhere in the backyard.” He stood up and wiped his hands on his jeans, smearing dirt on his thighs. “Congratulations, by the way.” His gaze dropped to my obviously pregnant belly, no longer hidden under baggy clothing.
My floral maternity sundress brushed against my calves. Unlike the baggy clothing I’d worn before, this dress proclaimed I was pregnant and proud of it.
All right, the circumstances surrounding my pregnancy weren’t ideal, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t embrace that I was growing a little miracle inside me. Maybe the baby wasn’t quite the miracle everyone believed him or her to be, but that was okay.
I still loved my baby no matter who the father was.
“I’m sorry I didn’t realize you were pregnant when I asked you out for coffee,” he said.
“That’s okay. I wasn’t a hundred percent certain at the time, either.”
Had it stung that he hadn’t called me after he heard that I was expecting?
Not at all. It was better that way.
Dating someone while I was pregnant with another man’s baby wasn’t high on my priority list. On the other hand, I wouldn’t have minded having sex with a real flesh-and-blood man instead of with my vibrating buddy.
Don’t get me wrong, I adored my purple orgasm-maker. It made my horny hormones a little less frustrated. But every time I used it, my naughty thoughts conjured up Logan as the one giving me the orgasms.
And that was only when I wasn’t imagining Grayson as the creator of all things magnificent in the department of euphoria.
At the thought of both men, heat rushed between my legs, and I had the sudden urge to dry hump something. Anything.
Where’s Logan when you need him? my body asked on a sigh.
No, no, no, I can’t think of him that way. He’s just my friend, I reminded myself.
My hormones disagreed with me. Have you heard of friends-with-benefits? It’s all the rage.
Fortunately for me—not so much for my horny hormones—Mrs. Wasserman stepped outside.
“Oh, don’t you look lovely?” She smiled warmly at me. “Doesn’t she look lovely, Nick?”
“She does.”
I got the sense that she was going to say something Nick wouldn’t be interested in, so I begged a hasty escape. “I should get inside. My parents are expecting me for brunch. It was nice seeing you again, Nick, Mrs. Wasserman.”
I strode across the grass and entered my parents’ house. Voices came from the kitchen. I couldn’t make out who they belonged to, but it was clear my mom wasn’t the only female here.
Curious to see who she was talking to, I quickly removed my sandals and walked into the room.
Only to be brought up short.
Oh. Crap.
Standing next to the sink, in gray slacks and a yellow top, was the woman I hadn’t seen in over a year.
As she turned to me, her dyed-blonde bob swung against her shoulders, and her bright smile caused my stomach to drop like a twin-engine plane whose engines had stalled.
Judith Ashdown.
My mother-in-law.
Double crap.
“Kiera, sweetheart,” she exclaimed, rushing toward me. Tears glistened in her eyes, and she enveloped me in a huge embrace.
Well, as close to an embrace as she would get given my growing stomach.
“You can’t imagine how excited I was when your mother told me the great news.”
Triple crap with whipped cream on top.
I tried to say something, but all I could do was open and close my mouth.
I should have realized Mom would’ve contacted Judith even though I told her I would do it. Of course, I’d only said that so Mom didn’t bother. I’d had no intention of telling my mother-in-law I was pregnant.
“I called Judith and told her you have your ultrasound this week.” Mom beamed at me.
No, no, no. Please tell me they aren’t planning to go to the ultrasound clinic with me.
I might have though
t that, but I just nodded, still unable to speak.
“We had a wonderful idea,” Judith said. “Your mom and I decided to throw you a gender reveal party.”
I blinked. Twice.
This wasn’t happening.
Please tell me I’m hallucinating.
That was it. I was suffering from a pregnancy-associated hallucination.
Great. I went from horny to hallucinating, all in a matter of seconds.
“I hope that’s okay with you,” Mom said.
Both women wore the look of children hoping for chocolate ice cream for dinner.
“Aren’t those dangerous?” God knew enough raging wildfires had started, thanks to gender reveals gone wrong.
Judith smiled knowingly. “Don’t worry, we won’t be doing anything that involves pyrotechnics or anything else flammable. It will be safe and fun. Mostly just a way to celebrate the little miracle growing inside you. It’s something I’ve been dreaming of ever since you and Stephen announced your engagement.”
When she put it that way, I couldn’t say no.
Not when she looked so happy.
Breaking hearts just wasn’t my style.
And I couldn’t remember the last time Mom had been grinning like a girl who had just been nominated for prom queen.
“Sounds like fun.” That sounded optimistic, right?
When Stephen and I had gotten engaged, I had also envisioned us one day having a party to celebrate being pregnant. Granted, at the time, this vision also included the father of my baby being at the party, but hey, we couldn’t always get what we wanted.
Life was brilliant at throwing curveballs that way.
I glanced at my stomach.
Case in point.
“We thought we could have it on Sunday. We know that doesn’t leave a lot of time. But we’ve been brainstorming for the past two weeks, and you don’t have to do anything.”
“Other than show up because you’re the guest of honor,” Judith added.
The door to the backyard opened, and Stephen’s dad and my father stepped into the kitchen.
Joe’s face brightened. “And there she is. The mother of our grandchild.”
Before I had a chance to say anything (assuming I could find my tongue), he strolled over and gave me a hug to rival his wife’s. “You don’t know how ecstatic we were when your mom called to tell us the happy news.”
Decidedly with Luck (By The Bay Book 6) Page 12
