Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 64765 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 324(@200wpm)___ 259(@250wpm)___ 216(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64765 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 324(@200wpm)___ 259(@250wpm)___ 216(@300wpm)
“This is important, Thoreau.”
“So is what I’m doing right now.”
“It’s about Fiona…”
He frowned. “What about her?”
“Well, I was helping Jake access something on his phone last night and saw some texts between him and Fiona—”
“Nope. Uh-uh. Stop right there, Shelley. That’s an invasion of their privacy and I want no part of it.”
“But you deserve to know—”
“If it’s something she wants me to know, she’ll tell me.”
“But—”
“Keep pushing and I’ll tell, Mama. Thanks for calling.” He disconnected with a disgruntled sigh. She’d always been nosy, but this was taking it to the extreme.
A second later, his phone chirped with a text.
Shelly: Fiona’s pregnant.
What the—
He called her right back. “The hell you say!”
“I thought you should know, that’s all. It’s, well, not yours. At least, according to what I read.”
Stunned, Thoreau slumped back against the dryer. It all made sense now—her exhaustion all the time. Her turning down beer. Her breasts.
“Thoreau, are you okay?”
“No. And if you don’t come clean with Jake, I will.” He couldn’t even think of anything else to say, so he disconnected the call and tossed his phone onto the dryer as all the progress he thought they’d made with her last night crumbled into dust.
He scrubbed his hands over his face. So much for trust. They were back at square one. Hell, even farther back than that, farther than he’d ever suspected they could go.
“Emergency meeting at my place.” Wyatt walked in, slipping his shirt over his head, already wearing his jeans and sneakers. His expression was inscrutable. “Tanaka said it’s about Noah.”
“We’ll come with you,” Fiona said as she came in behind him. “Give me five minutes and—”
“No.”
Even Thoreau winced at the harsh denial, and Fiona went so pale he worried she might pass out again. And she actually might, because she was pregnant.
“Wyatt,” he warned.
“No,” Wyatt repeated, softer now. “Noah needs me. I need to deal with this on my own. I’ll come back later.”
He looked at Fiona bent head as if he wanted to stay more, then shook his head. “I’ll be back. I’ll even take your car, if that’s okay—you’re parked behind me, aren’t you?”
“Of course. You know where the keys are.”
After he left, they looked at each other for a long moment. Thoreau wanted to throw something. Break something. Do something. Everything had fallen apart so fast....
“Are you all right?” she finally asked.
No point in beating around the bush. “Are you pregnant? And please don’t lie to me this time.”
She looked like he’d slapped her, and for a moment he had hope that Shelly had been wrong.
Deny it. Please.
But then she nodded slowly. “How did you find out?”
Shit, this was going to kill Wyatt.
“Does it matter?”
“I suppose not.” She sighed, crossing her arms across her waist. “God, I’m sorry you found out this way. I should have told you sooner. I was going to tell you. Tell Wyatt…”
“Before or after you went back to California?”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Isn’t that where the baby’s biological parents are?”
“I told you, I didn’t go through with that.” She was shaking visibly. “I couldn’t go through with it, because I was already pregnant when I got there. With Wyatt’s baby.”
“Are you sure?” he said. “Because right now I’m wondering if anything about you is true.”
She gasped. “I wouldn’t lie about something like this, and you know it.”
“Then why doesn’t the father know?”
“Because I wasn’t ready, okay!” she cried, her eyes brimming with tears. “I was trying to tell him before he left, even though I still have no idea what I’m going to do. And you’re not helping by treating me like a criminal.”
“What you’re going to do. God.” He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. “Doesn’t Wyatt get any say in it? Does he even matter to you at all? Do I?”
The answer he was waiting for never came, and he opened his eyes to find her staring at him with an expression he couldn’t define.
“Why did you come back here?” he asked numbly. “Did you just want to play Florence Nightingale for a while, maybe have that threesome you always dreamed of, before you flew away again?”
Tears streaked down her cheeks, and she opened her mouth, but no sound emerged before she closed it again.
Well, guess he had his answer after all.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
“Yeah, me too.”
“I’ll go.”
He pressed his palms to his eyes again. The deep well of hurt inside him wanted to hit back and say, Yes, go, Fiona, and this time don’t come back.
But he loved her. Hurting her was never something he wanted to do. “No, don’t go. Neither one of us had enough sleep last night, and we’re both too upset to think straight right now. We need to cool off before we decide where to go from here, okay?”
Her “okay” was so thick, he could hardly make it out.