Seated in the examination room of the doctor’s office, I was beyond glad that I’d been able to get in for an appointment—last night I had a wave of nausea hit me while Bryce and I were watching a movie, and though I felt better now, I was glad to get checked out to make sure it wasn’t anything to worry about.

So there I sat on the crinkly paper in the examination room, listening to the droning of the air conditioner as I waited for the doctor or the nurse to come speak to me. I’d always hated doctor’s offices, and this experience wasn’t doing anything to change this opinion.

Finally, the door opened, and a short, stocky nurse stepped in. She was middle-aged, with curly blonde hair and twinkling eyes fanned with light wrinkles.

“Morning, Ms. Lane,” she said with a friendly smile, shutting the door behind her. “My name’s Nurse Stafford. Pleased to meet you.”

“Morning,” I said, a tinge of nausea running through me.

“So,” she said, looking over the clipboard in her hands. “Let’s talk about what’s been going on with you.”

The symptoms had been all over the place and I didn’t know quite where to begin.

“I’ve just been feeling strange,” I said. “I don’t know how else to put it.”

“Strange how?” she asked, sitting down on the folding chair across from the examination table.

“All kinds of symptoms that I can’t really figure are any one thing. I’ve been tired, then energetic, then nauseated, then hungry, then not hungry, and when I’m hungry, I’m craving the weirdest things. Like last night my fiancé and I were watching a movie and having popcorn, and all I could think about was getting a jar of pickles from the fridge and dumping all the juice over the popcorn and getting them all soggy.”

Nurse Stafford chuckled good-naturedly. “And did you do it?” she asked.

“Of course I did,” I said. “But my fiancé made me put half of the popcorn in a separate bowl. The look on his face when I dumped all the pickle juice onto my popcorn—priceless.”

Another chuckle, and Nurse Stafford went on. “I’m going to ask you a few basic questions,” she said. “Just to see where we’re at.”

“Sure,” I said.

She went through the usual stuff—medical history, if I was sexually active, that sort of thing. After she took my vitals, I plopped back onto the examination table.

Then she asked me a question that sent me reeling.

“And are you using any sort of birth control?”

“The pill,” I said.

She nodded, her expression turning a shade more serious than it had been.

“Why do you ask?”

“Just getting a clear picture,” she said. “And have you been making sure to take it every single day?”

“Yes,” I said without hesitation.

But then I thought the matter over a little more.

“I mean, I’m ninety percent positive I have been. More than that—ninety-five percent positive.”

Nurse Stafford’s face remained extremely composed considering what I was saying.

“Now,” she said after I was done, “I’m guessing I don’t need to tell you that for the pill to be effective you have to—”

“Take it every day, I know,” I said. “I’ve just been so freaking busy with work that it’s been taking all I have just to keep my head above water. All the other details have been falling by the wayside.”

I felt silly right away at how I’d referred to possibly getting pregnant as a “detail.” My heart began to thud in my chest.

Nurse Stafford placed her hand on my knee, her touch calming me instantly.

“Let’s not get too carried away with maybes,” she said. “I’m going to let the doctor know what’s going on, and he’ll take it from there. Sound good?”

“Sure,” I said, suddenly feeling short of breath.

She nodded and left the room. Almost as soon as she shut the door behind her, a doctor entered. He looked to be in his sixties, with a wide forehead, short dark hair, and a wiry build. He went over all of the information I’d given Nurse Stafford, confirming that it was all accurate. Then he let me know that we’d need to do a blood test to confirm whether or not I was pregnant.

“Sure, sure,” I said, now desperate to know one way or another.

The doctor left, and Nurse Stafford returned, now with the necessary tools to draw some blood. She pricked my arm with the needle and filled a syringe with thick, crimson liquid. When she was done, she dabbed the spot where she’d stuck the needle and placed a small Band-Aid on it.

“OK,” I said, “so how long until I know if I’m pregnant? The test with where you pee on the stick takes twenty minutes or something, right?”

Nurse Stafford chuckled.

“Blood tests are a little more complicated than that. We have to do some lab work, which normally takes a day or two. But it’s the weekend, so we’re looking at an extra day on top of that.”

“I won’t know until Tuesday?” I asked.

“At the latest,” she said. “Sorry to keep you waiting, but that’s how it goes.”

“I could take the pee-stick test, though, right?”

“You could, but those are known to have false positives and negatives. I’d recommend waiting, that way you know one hundred percent one way or another.”

“Thanks, Nurse Stafford,” I said, resigning myself to the fact that I’d be spending the weekend stressing out.

“Try and relax if you can—after all, you’re getting married! And you might be a mother too! This is a joyous occasion.”

It didn’t feel that way.

I spent the walk back trying to talk myself out of going crazy with worry, to no avail. I’d been unbelievably careless. But then again, so had Bryce. We’d been pretty good about using protection recently, but a few of those first times were so intense and passion-driven that fumbling around for a condom hadn’t even been on my mind.

I entered the apartment to see Bryce seated at the dining room table in front of the tall glass windows that looked out onto the city. A cup of steaming coffee was in front of him, the newspaper in his hand. His eyes latched onto me as soon as I entered.

“Hey,” he said, getting up and hurrying over to me. “How was it? What did they tell you?”

I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I should tell him right then and there what I’d learned. That way he and I could figure out what to do next together, as a team, as a couple.

But I just couldn’t do it. I needed time to process it all, and more than that, I needed to know for sure. So, instead, like an idiot, I lied.

“Stress,” I said. “Simple as that.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“Really?” he asked. “The nausea, the weird cravings—all that’s stress?”

“Yep,” I said. “Apparently it can do some weird things to you.”

“Good,” he said. “Things ought to be a little less crazy for you now that the demolition’s underway. You ought to spend the next week relaxing and getting your bearings.”

Then he looked away, and I knew he had something to say.

“But there’s something I need you to do this weekend.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

He opened his mouth to speak, but instead of saying anything, he led me over to the couch. Once we were seated, an expression of concentration took hold of his handsome features, as though he was looking for the exact right way to say what he had in mind.

“It’s my parents. My dad, specifically.”

Whoa—this was huge. Up to this very moment, Bryce hadn’t talked very much about his parents. I knew the basics, of course, but he kept his family life very private.

“Go on,” I said.

“I know I mentioned my adoptive parents, Steve and Barbara?”

I nodded, encouraging him to go on, and I listened intently as he shared.

“As far as I’m concerned, they’re my biological parents. Wherever my birth parents are, whatever they’re doing, I couldn’t care less. Barbara and Steve, they’re the ones who were there for me when no one else was.” He shook his head slowly, as if trying to put himself back on track. “Anyway, my mom called me a little while ago letting me know that my dad had a small stroke.”

“Oh my god,” I said. “Is he OK?”

Bryce nodded.

“He’s fine—my mom said it was a small one, and he’s already back on his feet. But when we talked, I realized how long it had been since I’d gone to visit them. And his stroke made me realize that I don’t have all the time I thought I did.”

“So you want to go up there for the weekend.”

“I know it’s a little much, especially considering everything that’s going on between us, not to mention with you feeling under the weather. But it would mean a lot to me.”

I took his hands into mine, his skin warm and rough, just how I liked.

“Of course,” I said.

A small smiled curled the side of his mouth. “Great,” he said. “Thank you.”

“When do you want to go?”

“As soon as we can. White Roads is about an hour out of Portland, and we can take my private plane. If all goes well, we can be there tonight. We’ll spend the weekend there, be back in time to start work on Monday. Sound good?”

“Sounds good.”

“Then let’s get packed and ready to go—we can have dinner on the plane.”

I headed to the spare bedroom and began gathering my things, contemplating what I was in for. It was strange and thrilling—Bryce had been so secretive about where he was from, what his history was like, and now here he was letting me in on a part of him he didn’t seem to share with anyone.

It was enough to make me forget about everything going on with my potential pregnancy—for a little while, at least.

I quickly packed a small weekend bag and met Bryce in the living room. Ten minutes later, the two of us were in his red Mercedes convertible, driving out of the city and to a private airfield. Once there, we parked and made our way to a sleek, white private plane, a large set of stairs leading up to the craft’s door.

Bryce helped me up the stairs, and soon we were in, the door shutting solidly behind us. The interior was just what I would’ve expected from knowing Bryce—it was clean and modern and stylish. There was a full bar, and plenty of room to relax.

“Get comfy,” he said. “The flight’s only about an hour, so we won’t be airborne for long.”

We buckled up, and about thirty minutes later we were in the air, the sprawl of San Francisco disappearing into the distance.

“Flying always makes me want to drink,” he said, unbuckling his belt and getting up. “How about you?”

God, did I want a glass of something sparkling and sweet. Hell, even a beer sounded amazing. But I kept in mind that there was a very good chance a kid was inside me, and I didn’t want to risk it.

“I’ll pass,” I said. “The doctor told me to lay off the booze for a few days.”

Lies, lies, lies. How many was I going to have to tell before this was all over and done with?

Bryce poured himself a small whiskey and sat down next to me.

“I want to tell you something before we land,” he said.

“Sure. What’s up?”

“White Roads… It’s not San Francisco. When the Carvers adopted me, I learned very quickly that while they had plenty of love to give, they didn’t have much in the way of money. They made a steady income and had plenty of good references in the community, but you know. We didn’t have anything fancy.”

“So you’re saying they’re poor?”

“They were,” he said. “I’ve been able to take care of them as much as I can, but my father’s not exactly the type to accept help easily. My mom did manage to get him to let me pay off their house and throw in some money for improvements.” He sipped his drink. “But the rest of the town is one of those places that seems like it’s been left behind. I try to get them to leave, but they’ve made it clear they’re going to be in White Roads until the end.”

“And you think that I’ll, what, be weirded out by all this?”

“Just letting you know what to expect. I remember the first time I brought Felicity to White Roads she looked like she’d seen a ghost. When you grow up in Kensington and move to the Hollywood Hills after that, rural America can be something of a shock, I suppose.”

“Well, I’m not Felicity,” I said. “And I didn’t grow up poor, but I was hardly rich.”

Another sip. “Thank you for doing this, again. It means a lot to me.” He took my hands into his and gave me a soft kiss on the lips, one that set my skin on fire.

“My pleasure,” I said. “Thank you for sharing this with me.”

The flight was over so quickly I barely had time to finish my dinner. We landed at a private airport near Portland where a rental car awaited us. Bryce took the wheel, and we were off.

The area around the airport was standard suburbs, but the more we drove, the more desolate things became. Signs of civilization were few and far between.

And so we drove on.