The Maverick's Thanksgiving Baby. Brenda Harlen

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      The last time they’d spoken on the phone, she’d told him that she’d been feeling unwell, fighting some kind of virus. He’d thought it was just the latest in a long line of excuses for why she’d chosen not to return to Rust Creek Falls. It seemed apparent now that there had been at least some truth in her explanation.

      He poured the boiling water into a mug, over a bag of peppermint tea. The day that she’d made him dinner, she’d told him it was her favorite flavor. And, sap that he was, he’d not only remembered but had bought a box so that he’d have it on hand when she came to visit.

      The box had sat, unopened, in his cupboard for almost four months. Now, finally, she was going to have a cup—and the other eleven bags would probably sit in the box in his cupboard for another four months before he finally tossed them in the trash.

      “Are you feeling okay?” he asked.

      She looked up, as if startled by the question.

      “You said that you’d been fighting some kind of virus,” he reminded her. “I just wondered if you’ve fully recovered from whatever it was you had.”

      She wrapped her hands around the warm mug. “I’m feeling much better, thanks.”

      “It must have been quite a bug, to have laid you up for so long,” he commented.

      “It wasn’t a bug.” She lifted her gaze to his. “It was—is—a baby.”

      Jesse stared at her for a long minute, certain he couldn’t have heard her correctly.

      “A baby?” he finally echoed.

      She nodded. “I’m pregnant.”

      He hated to ask, but he hadn’t seen her since July and he knew he’d be a fool if he didn’t. “Is it...mine?”

      He held his breath, waiting for her response, not sure if he wanted it to be yes or no. Not sure how he would feel either way.

      She winced at the question. “Yes, it’s yours.”

      “I’m sorry,” he said automatically.

      “That it’s yours?”

      “That I had to ask,” he clarified.

      But she shook her head. “I knew you would. If you were one of my clients, I’d insist that you get proof,” she admitted. “And if you want a DNA test, I’ll give it to you, but there isn’t any other possibility. I haven’t been with anyone else in more than two years.”

      “You’re pregnant with my child,” he said, as if repeating the words might somehow help them to make sense.

      His thoughts were as jumbled as his emotions. Joy warred with panic inside of him as he realized that he was going to be a father—a prospect that was as terrifying as it was exciting.

      “I’m not here because I want or expect anything from you,” she explained. “I just thought you should know about the baby.”

      Irritation bubbled to the surface. “I don’t know which part of that outrageous statement to deal with first.”

      “Excuse me?”

      “We made that baby together,” he reminded her. “So you should want and expect plenty.

      “As for letting me know—should I thank you for finally, in the fourth month of pregnancy, telling me that you’re going to have my child?”

      She winced at the harsh accusation in his tone. “It’s not as if I was deliberately keeping my pregnancy a secret.”

      “You were accidentally keeping it a secret?”

      “I didn’t know.”

      He stared at her in disbelief. “You didn’t know?”

      “I didn’t,” she insisted.

      “I’m sure you didn’t figure it out yesterday.”

      “No,” she admitted. “But for the first few weeks after I returned to LA, I was so busy with work that I thought the fatigue and nausea were symptoms of my erratic schedule and not sleeping well or eating properly. Even when I missed my first period—” her cheeks flushed, as if she was uncomfortable talking about her monthly cycle despite the intimacies they’d shared “—I didn’t think anything of it. I’ve skipped periods before, usually when I’m stressed.”

      He scowled but couldn’t dispute her claim. Instead he asked, “So when did you first suspect you might be pregnant?”

      “Mid-September. And even then, it was my mother who brought up the possibility. Which I didn’t think was a possibility, because we were careful both times.”

      Both times. He didn’t carry condoms in his wallet anymore, and she’d only had two in her makeup case. So they’d done all kinds of things to pleasure one another but they’d only made love twice.

      And both times had felt like heaven on earth—the merging of their bodies had been so perfect, so right—

      He severed the unwelcome memory.

      “So I took a home pregnancy test.” She continued her explanation. “And even when it showed a positive result, I wasn’t sure I believed it. The next day, my doctor confirmed the result.”

      “This was mid-September?” he prompted.

      She nodded again.

      “So you’ve known for six weeks, and you only decided to tell me now?”

      “I didn’t know how to tell you,” she admitted. “It wasn’t the kind of news I wanted to share over the phone, and my doctor advised me not to travel until the morning sickness was under control.”

      “Did you ever think to invite me to come out to LA to see you?”

      She blinked, confirming his suspicion that she had not. That the possibility of reaching out to him had not once entered her mind. “You never showed any interest in making a trip to California.”

      “If you’d asked, if you’d said that you needed to see me, I would have come.” And he would have been glad to do so, overjoyed by the prospect of seeing her again.

      “I’m sorry,” she said. “I never thought... And when I called to tell you that my planned visit to Rust Creek Falls was further delayed, you sounded as if you’d already written me off. And that’s okay,” she hastened to assure him. “I know neither of us expected that one night together would have such long-lasting repercussions.”

      “I didn’t think it was going to be only one night,” he told her.

      “I bet you didn’t think you’d end up having this conversation four months later, either,” she said.

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