Chapter 28

“You have to tell him.” Lauren’s voice was firm on the phone an hour later.

“I know. I will. I know. But I can’t even think straight right now, Lauren. How? How could this happen?”

“Well, how careful were you?”

“I’m on the Pill!”

“Emma?” Lauren’s voice went quiet. “Weren’t you on antibiotics when you left Florida?”

Oh. Holy. Mother. Of God.

Emma put her hand to her forehead. “How could I have been so stupid?”

“Not stupid. Maybe not thinking on all cylinders, but definitely not stupid.”

“What am I going to do?”

“Well? Have a baby, for one.”

“That’s not funny.” Emma envisioned her tiny condo in Florida, then tried to imagine it full of baby gear.

“Emma? You’re not—you wouldn’t—”

“God, no.” She put a protective hand on her stomach. “Never.”

“Does Galway have a San Diego branch? Because you could always move out here. I can help you.”

Emma sighed. “Thank you. I appreciate that. But I think—I think I need to figure it out myself. I got myself into this.”

“Well, you had a little help. Just saying.”

“Yes, but that help went AWOL the morning after. Just saying.” Emma’s hands started shaking. “Can’t imagine how far this news might send him. Orbit, maybe.”

“Have you considered not telling him?”

“Yes.”

She had. She wasn’t proud of that, but she had.

But it was for legitimate reasons, not because she wanted to flee with his baby and rob him of the chance to play daddy. If the man wasn’t even ready for a relationship with someone, then he damn well wasn’t ready to get a big bunch of blue balloons and a Surprise! card.

She thought she might throw up again.

“And?” Lauren prompted.

“And I will tell him. I will. But maybe after I’ve let it settle in for a few hours, okay?”

“You know, I might be out of line suggesting this, but have you considered the possibility that he might be happy about it?”

“Did you take too much cough medicine? Are you nuts?”

“No to both. But really, maybe just allow that possibility into your calculations before you convince yourself you’d better run to the nearest nunnery and live out your pregnancy in solitude.”

“No nunneries here.”

“If he’s the guy you’ve been saying he is, then I think he’s going to do the right thing here, Emma. I really think he is.”

“Honestly, Lauren, that’s my worst fear right now.”

“Explain. Because that makes zero sense.”

Emma sighed, looking out the window at the darkening sky. “He’s a good guy. He’s a ridiculously good guy. He will want to do the right thing.”

“And that’s a problem how?”

“That’s a problem because I’ll never know if he did it because he wanted to, or because he wouldn’t dream of making another choice.”

“Okay…I get that.”

“And also, we live a thousand freaking miles apart. Little bit of an issue, yes?”

“Definitely.”

Emma started pacing, feeling the walls close in. “Can I come visit you?”

“Um, of course! When?”

“Tomorrow?”

“Emma, you can’t run from this. From him.”

“I can, too. Just temporarily. I just need a few days to get my head on straight.”

“And you pick a house with four children, two dogs, ten gerbils, and a lizard?”

Emma smiled, picturing the scene. “Maybe I need some noise.”

“Well, we have that, in spades. Come on down.”

“Thank you, Lauren.” Emma felt tears leak out the corners of her eyes as she pictured her sister sitting amidst piles of laundry and utter chaos. “I’ll send you my itinerary as soon as I book it.”

“Hey, sweetie?”

“Yes?” Emma sniffed. She was pegging the pathetic-meter here, but come on. She supposed she’d kind of earned it.

“First—it’s going to be okay. It is. You have to believe that. And second—maybe…maybe this is meant to be, you know? Maybe you’re getting a second chance here.”

“Hey, Jasper.” Daniel came through the door of the café two days later, after the church crowd had filtered out to their respective morning services.

“Morning. What brings you in here on a Sunday morning?”

“The need for hot, strong coffee.”

“Too many females in your house?”

“Good God, yes. I need a dog. A big, male husky or something, just to balance out the estrogen.”

Jasper laughed as he slid a mug of coffee across the bar. “Well, all I’ve got to offer is a basket of kittens that some shmuck foisted on me. Can’t help you there.”

“Sorry.” Daniel spun his cup slowly around, not meeting Jasper’s eyes. “How’s Emma feeling?”

He asked the question innocently enough, but Jasper felt an undertone humming along with his words.

“I think she’s on the mend. Kyla was in earlier and said she’s doing all right. She hasn’t gone back to work yet, though. Katrina’s been holding down the fort up at the nursing home.”

“Huh.” Daniel nodded, then sighed. “I so suck at this.”

“At what?”

“Did Emma seem like she had—you know—the flu? Or…maybe something else?”

“The flu. Same as everybody else.” Jasper narrowed his eyes. “Why?”

“I don’t know.” Daniel drank a gulp of his coffee. “I might have happened upon the girls talking last night out at the ranch, and I might have overheard things I shouldn’t have, and I might not have been able to get confirmation without fessing up that I was eavesdropping, but I couldn’t help it.”

“Speak. English.”

“I think Emma might be pregnant.”

Jasper froze.

“What?”

Daniel took an awkward breath, shaking his head. “Could be wrong. Totally could be wrong.” He cringed as he met Jasper’s eyes. “I don’t think I’m wrong.”

Jasper felt breath whoosh out of his lungs as his head spun in circles. He blinked hard, shaking his head.

“Not possible.”

“Sounds like that’s what Emma kept saying, too.”

“No. Seriously. Not—no.”

“That, too.”

“Son of a—how?” He closed his eyes, feeling for the stool he kept behind the counter.

“You gonna faint now, too?”

“Shut up.” He opened his eyes again. “Jesus, Daniel.”

“Yeah.”

“I—wow—I need to go.” He stood up, then sat back down. “I need to talk to her.”

Daniel reached out and clamped a hand on his arm. Then he shook his head but didn’t speak.

“What do you mean—no?”

“She’s gone.”

Jasper stood up, and the stool went clattering to the floor. “Gone? Where? Gone, how? Gone, when?”

“She left this morning. Flew to her sister’s in San Diego.”

Jasper shook his head, an old panic creeping into his chest. “Is she coming back?”

“I—don’t know.”

“Son of a— Are you kidding?” Jasper paced the length of the bar, then back again, hearing the raw pain in his own voice but not knowing how to erase it. “And no one thought to tell me until now?”

“It’s not the same, Jasper.” Daniel shook his head firmly. “Not the same as before.”

“How? How is it not the same? She is carrying my baby, she didn’t tell me, and now she’s gone. Tell me how that’s different.”

He froze again, the word baby hanging in the air between them.

Daniel’s eyes were wide. “Bridget was pregnant?”

“Sixteen weeks.” Jasper nodded miserably, taking a deep, shaky breath. “And she hadn’t even told me.”