Her Baby's Hero. Karen Sandler

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      “I can carry it,” she said through gritted teeth.

      With his free hand, he loosened her grip. As she lost her purchase on the handle, she tried to hold on to her irritation, but his warm touch distracted her. His fingers enfolded hers and his thumb traced one slow circle on her palm. She felt his arm tense as if he intended to pull her closer.

      Then one of the horses called again and he dropped her hand. “Sorry.” Turning on his heel, he strode toward the paddocks. Her heart hammering, Ashley headed up the hill after him.

      Once he had the bucket open, she gathered up a handful of treats and walked along the line of horses. As the white pony neatly lifted a treat from her palm, the question that had been burning inside her worked its way out. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

      His dark gaze fixed on her. “Tell you what?”

      She wanted to pound her fists on his chest. “About your father.”

      Not a speck of emotion in his face. “What would it have mattered?”

      “We were friends.”

      “We were barely that.”

      It was true, wasn’t it? But it cut so deeply. Especially considering the life growing inside her. “But you just left without a word.”

      His gaze drifted to the trees beyond the paddocks. “You left first.” He said it matter-of-factly.

      “I left your bed that night,” she conceded. “But you left school.”

      He pinned her with his gaze, his expression opaque. “I had business to attend to.”

      “I had to find out in the newspapers that your father died.” Shock enough that he had left without a word, doubly painful that he hadn’t shared the reason. “If I’d known—”

      “What? You might have stayed until morning?”

      If she didn’t know better, she’d think it mattered to him. But she knew nothing scratched very deeply beneath Jason’s surface.

      Typical Jason to put her on the defensive. “I needed to think things through. We had one kind of relationship and then…” Their passion that night had completely knocked their casual friendship off its tracks. “I thought I’d have time to find you, to talk to you.”

      His jaw worked as he looked past her at the pines and cedars beyond the paddocks. “So did I.”

      When she’d fed the last horse his second share of treats, she brushed her hands off and started back toward the gate. She didn’t even bother trying to open and close it herself, just waited for Jason to do it for her. With so much unfinished business prickling between them, she didn’t want to add to the tension by fussing over the trivial.

      Despite his abrupt departure from school six months ago, she had only to glimpse the rigid determination in his face to realize Jason wouldn’t just vanish from her life today. Likely he’d want some kind of resolution in triplicate detailing every iota of his obligation.

      What had she expected? She’d called to invite him here, to inform him she was pregnant because she thought he ought to know. He was here, they’d hash out whatever details they had to hash, then he’d leave again. The sooner she got to it, the sooner he’d go.

      Ashley forced a smile. “Would you like something to drink?”

      “Are we going to talk about this?”

      “Of course.” Her jaw ached from clenching it.

      He returned the treats to the tack room as they passed, then continued on with her toward the house. He paused at the porch steps. “It looked octagonal from the front.”

      “It was, when Sara lived here.” She moved past him toward the front door. “Then her husband, Keith, added the back bedroom.”

      Ashley had originally planned to make that room the nursery, but after the doctor’s bombshell, she’d realized it would be too small. So she’d regretfully given up the larger bedroom, knowing that the nursery would need the bigger space.

      Jason followed her into the coolness of the house, his presence as imposing as she’d known it would be. As he took in the comfortable, well-worn sofa and recliner in the living room and the red vinyl chairs and Formica table in the breakfast nook, Ashley edged past him into the small kitchen.

      Digging in the refrigerator, she unearthed a can of cola from the back. When she turned to hand it to him, he was right behind her. Her arm brushed against him before she could take a step back.

      “Sorry,” he said, although he didn’t move. If she wanted some space, she’d have to make it herself. But his fingers grazed hers as he took the soda can, and she leaned toward him instead of away.

      The pop of the can tab jolted her out of her daze. Sidling past him, she headed for the living room, where she’d left the bottle of water she’d been sipping while she and Sara visited. Her throat felt dry as dust.

      Jason followed and stationed himself in the middle of the living room. Not sure what to do next, Ashley took a long swallow of water, then stood with the bottle chilling her hands.

      His gaze dropped to her belly. She couldn’t blame him. Its size astounded her, too, when she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Not exactly what she’d intended for her first year of teaching.

      He lifted his gaze to her face. “Six months, Ashley. Why so long?”

      “You disappeared. I couldn’t find you.”

      “You knew how to contact me.”

      She did. As the young CEO of high-flying Kerrigan Technology, Jason wasn’t exactly low profile. “When I found out…I wanted to wait a few weeks, to make sure.”

      “And then?”

      Then she saw the ultrasound. And for a week she could barely think at all. “You left, Jason. I wasn’t sure what that meant.”

      “It didn’t mean anything.”

      “And neither did we, is that it?”

      “The reason I left had nothing to do with you and me.”

      “There was no you and me.” She felt faintly ill, but it had nothing to do with morning sickness. “We both know that.”

      He just stared, jaw taut. “I had to handle my father’s estate. Things were complicated.”

      She waited for more, but it seemed that was all he was willing to reveal. “So where do we go from here?”

      He took a drink of his soda. “How long will it take you to pack?”

      Of all the questions she might have expected, that wasn’t one of them. “Pack?”

      “You’ll only need enough to tide you over for a week or so. I can send movers to pick up the rest.”

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