Maddie stared at the paraphernalia scattered around her bathroom. She’d left work at lunch and bought pregnancy tests at a drugstore. Boxes and papers were spread all over, nearly as scattered as her thoughts. But her main focus was the three stick-like objects by the sink. One by one she examined them.
A plus sign, two lines and finally the word PREGNANT confirmed what she’d suspected for days.
She was going to have a baby.
Her baby.
Jack’s baby.
At some point she’d fallen in love with Jack. She couldn’t believe it had happened. Was it when he’d agreed to debase himself with a magazine and a plastic specimen cup? When he put on a suit and tie and said “I do” to save the job she cared so much about? Or was it when he insisted she enjoy the sex?
When he put on a public performance at the Fire and Ice ball to prove they were happily wed, her world had shifted as well as her view of the man. And the kiss—that kiss was not just a show for everyone around them. It was the real thing, and she had kissed right back, just as real, just as filled with passion.
How would he feel now that sperm and egg had collided and in nine months she’d have a baby? Would the baby look like him and be a reminder? She’d promised him that there was no expectation on her part, but if he saw a baby boy who had his same blue eyes and dimples, would he decide the promise was null and void?
She had become used to life alone after Alex died. She’d made the initial pregnancy decision alone and had been perfectly content to raise a child alone. After all, living in a loving, single-parent family would be far better than living in the hell she had.
But now she was used to life with Jack. She was used to the sound of his voice around the house, the sight of him lounging on the sofa, the smell of his aftershave when he was close to her. And she’d gotten very used to being in his bed. Could she go back to the aloneness again?
If it meant not having to worry about her child being used as the rope in a parental tug of war, then yes.
But could she kick Jack out of her heart?
She would have to.
Living with one heartbreak would be easier than living with three hundred sixty-five heartbreaks a year if she stayed with a man who didn’t love her. It would be a daily reminder of being with a parent who didn’t love her either.
She scooped the test sticks and packaging off the counter and into the wastebasket. Then, as an afterthought, she pulled one back out thinking she should save it as a souvenir for the baby book. She glanced down to see which one she’d grabbed. The word PREGNANT greeted her again.
Pregnant with Jack’s baby. Pregnant by a man who wasn’t a commitment kind of guy. How had she let herself fall in love with him, and why did she want him now?
She stuffed the test stick into the nightstand drawer and then sat on the edge of the bed, pressing her hand to her abdomen. A new, fragile life rested there. A life created by a man who had made her feel alive again after so many months of living in the dark. He’d also awakened her sexually and she was sure the memories of their nights together were driving her emotions now.
She wanted him, but she knew what she wanted wasn’t necessarily what was best. And what was best right now was to put Jack at a distance so she could think rationally and devise a plan of action.
Maddie pulled the phone from the nightstand and began to dial Tess’s number. Perhaps she could stay with her friend until she figured out how to extricate Jack from her life. She hesitated, though, knowing Tess’s apartment would be the first place Jack looked if he came home and found her gone.
Calling Millie was out of the question, too. She and Jack were as thick as thieves, and Millie wouldn’t keep her secret. Her only option was to get out of Atlanta for a while until she decided what course of action to take. Then she could call Tess and see what kind of legal magic the two of them could work.
When they’d signed their prenuptial agreement and shook hands on their parental agreement prior to the wedding, Maddie hadn’t worried that Jack might renege. She may have lost her heart, but she had no indication the feelings were mutual. He’d made love to her with incredible passion and caring, but was it any more than pure pleasure for him? Once the two a.m. feedings and dirty diapers came along, he would decide it was time to call it quits just as they’d agreed.
We’ll know when the time is right, he’d said. And it was right at this moment. She had her own money, a good job and the means to support herself and a child more than comfortably.
She just had to figure out how to stop leaning on Jack for emotional support. If she could do that—when she did that, she corrected—life would go back to her original plan.
She pulled a suitcase from the closet and filled it with clothing to last a few days. She’d just get in the car and drive north until...
Until she reached the road that led to Pleasant Junction, Cedar Gap and Jack’s cabin. He would never think to look for her there. She’d have to get a key from Charlotte Tanner since she had no clue if Jack had one downstairs. During the drive she could concoct some story to convince Mrs. Tanner that her visit was purely innocuous and not that she was on the lam.
Charlotte was special to Jack, though Maddie didn’t know why. The last thing she wanted was to damage their friendship with her personal situation.
She locked the house and tossed the suitcase in the trunk. Once he knew the situation, Jack would understand. He would forgive her the deception and stealthy escape. She just had to forgive herself for falling in love with him.
* * *
“Maddie?” Jack stepped into her bedroom and called to her. The empty bay in the garage had puzzled him, but he knew she and Tess sometimes went shopping or to dinner after work. The dark house was easily explainable as well, though she usually left a note. There was none unless he’d just missed it.
When he saw the half-opened drawer on her dresser and the clothes she’d worn to work in a heap on her bed, panic began to rise in his throat. Maddie was neat to a fault—a place for everything and everything in its place. No way she’d leave dirty clothes lying around unless there was an emergency of some sort.
But what was the emergency? She was estranged from her parents, but he doubted she’d be so callous to ignore a real crisis involving one of them.
He tried her cell phone and left a message on her voice mail then made his way to her bathroom, which was uncharacteristically messy. A damp towel lay wadded in a corner and the wastebasket sat on the counter. Without thinking he picked up the towel and hung it neatly across the metal rod. Then he grabbed the wastebasket and leaned to put it back in place.
A brightly colored box in the bottom of the container captured his attention and he fished it out. Underneath it were two other boxes, each labeled Pregnancy Test.
He’d lost track of the days after they’d begun sleeping together every night and making love into the wee hours. He mentally calculated and his gut clenched. Had she used a series of pregnancy tests and received the same repeated negative result? No wonder she wasn’t home. She’d probably run to Tess’s for comfort, though he wondered why she wouldn’t come to him. They’d shared so much over the last weeks. Surely she knew he would understand.
Truth be told, he would be disappointed, too. Somewhere along the way, his promise had turned into something a whole lot more. More than mere obligation and a hell of a lot more than saving her job.
She’d crawled under his skin and into his heart, and he wanted to be there for her to share the disappointment of this most recent failed pregnancy attempt.
He poured the contents of the can onto the counter to see just how many times she had tried to make the result change from negative to positive, from bad to good, and he found two test sticks. He picked one up and glanced at the result window, then checked the instructions on the packaging.
His jaw clenched when he saw a plus sign, and then he turned the second stick over and saw another positive result. He rummaged through the trash on the counter. The third test stick wasn’t there, but he’d bet everything he owned it was positive, too.
Maddie was pregnant. The plan had worked—the nights together in his bed, the long shower they’d taken together, the afternoon she’d stopped by his office and they’d used the drafting table for something it had never been designed for. One of those times they’d made love had succeeded.
Seeing the positive results, he knew it meant “yes” for a baby. But something in his heart cracked and he realized he’d broken his own rule and fallen in love with this disarming woman. He’d fallen hard and what had started as a safe, convenient marriage with them merely coexisting under the same roof had turned into a lot more. He’d never expected anything from their marriage or from her, and he knew she shared the sentiment.
She was probably as scared over a positive result as she would have been disappointed over a negative one. But why leave? Why not stay and let him assure her that everything would work out? Hell, he knew the answer. She didn’t feel the same way he did. She had her baby and now his role was over.
But he still needed to protect her until he was sure her pregnancy was a healthy one. Or maybe until the baby was safely born. Or he could stay until the baby slept through the night, or why not just stay until it left for college and he had her all to himself again. Because Jack wasn’t going to be satisfied with anything less than happily ever after with his wife—his wife in every legal and emotional sense of the word.
He kept out one of the test sticks and brushed the remaining trash back into the wastebasket. Pulling his cell phone from the holder on his belt, he dialed Tess then paused before he hit the call button.
He’d confront Maddie at Tess’s house and convince her to come back home. He’d tell her how excited he was that Plan B had worked. And once she was convinced of that, he’d convince her to stay with him for the rest of his life.
* * *
“I don’t know where she is, Jack,” Tess insisted, peering around her barely open front door. “And if you don’t mind, I have company and I’d like to get back to them.”
Jack braced one hand against the door frame and shoved the door with the other. “I want to see her, Tess. I know what’s going on so don’t keep me from her.”
The door swung wide and Jack saw a man stretched out on the sofa, his arm thrown across his eyes.
“Satisfied?” Tess stepped into the open walkway outside her apartment and pulled the door shut behind her. “She isn’t here, but you’re beginning to scare me. What is it you know that would make you think she’d come over here?”
Jack pulled the test stick from his pocket and held it out toward her. “She’s pregnant. Pregnant with my baby and I’ll be damned if I let her run away and leave another fatherless child in the wake.”
“Is that the only reason?” Tess sent him a piercing look and he backed up a step. “Are you merely wanting to keep her baby from being labeled as illegitimate, because I can assure you it’s not a stigma anymore. Lots of single women have babies every day for one reason or another and society doesn’t point a finger like it once did.”
“I don’t care about society. I know what it’s like to have those fingers pointing at you and dammit, the woman I love isn’t going to put my child through that.”
Tess crossed her arms across her chest and leaned against the door. “I thought as much,” she said. “You care about what people think about the baby, but more importantly, you love the baby’s mother. Have you told her?”
“Oh, God.” His face blanched. “Why didn’t I tell her before I put her in a position to wonder about it, and obviously decide I didn’t care?” He slapped a hand against the brick wall in frustration. “You have to help me find her. Are you sure she didn’t leave you a message or something and let you know where she was going?”
“I’m sure,” Tess said. “But you’ve been living with her for a while. Think. If you were upset about something and needed to escape, where would you go?”