It Started With A Pregnancy. Christy Jeffries

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       Chapter Two

      Rebekah bit her lip, trying to resist the urge to hide the bottle behind her back. She’d already flung herself on the ground in front of him as though she were a combat soldier jumping onto a live grenade. At this point, there was no way to pretend the emotional explosion hadn’t already detonated around them.

      Still.

      How had he read the label so quickly?

      She didn’t realize she’d spoken the question out loud until Grant replied, “I won the national speed-reading championships for my high school four years in a row.”

      “You’re a speed reader?” she asked as she rose to her feet, seizing on the opportunity to redirect the conversation.

      “I was also the Duval County Spelling Bee champion in eighth grade,” he added. “But I don’t especially feel a need to discuss my academic accomplishments right this second. Is there something you want to tell me, Rebekah?”

      She watched his soft lips move, yet his question sounded so formal, as did the way he said her name. Her parents were the only ones who called her Dimples, and she hated it when people used the common nicknames Becky or Bekah, or even Beck. So it wasn’t as though Grant should be calling her anything other than Rebekah. Still, his question felt like a chastisement all the same.

      Straightening her spine, she forced herself to look him directly in those ocean-blue eyes and said, “I might be pregnant.”

      “Whoa.” He sank into the paisley upholstered chair right in front of her, swiping the sun-bleached blond hair off his forehead. “I mean...whoa.”

      Yep, that was the response she’d been anticipating.

      And now that he was acting as she’d initially expected, Rebekah felt her own role fall back into place as she took charge of the situation. “I took a test this morning, but I’m waiting for the doctor to confirm it.”

      “How...” he started, then scrubbed a hand over the golden stubble on his jaw. “I mean...”

      “How did this happen?” she offered. “I’m sure the usual way.”

      “I was actually going to ask how far along you are.” He used his tan forearms to push himself up a little straighter and Rebekah wondered if he was already calculating the date in his mind.

      “I’m four weeks late, so that would put me at eight weeks.” She held up a warning finger. “If I am, in fact, pregnant. Like I said, there’s no need to get all worked up over a store-bought test.”

      Or two tests, if anyone was counting.

      Grant sucked in a deep breath, his nostrils flaring slightly as he exhaled. “So when do we go to the doctor to confirm it?”

      We. The skin on the back of her neck tingled. “Well, I have an appointment next week. If you want, I can send you a text afterward and let you know if there’s any news.”

      There was no point in mentioning that she’d need to ask for his cell phone number again.

      “A text? If there’s any news?” When his eyes finally focused on hers, Rebekah swallowed a tiny lump of guilt. There was accusation practically shooting from their blue depths. “Were you even planning to tell me?”

      “Of course I planned to tell you.” Eventually. After she’d figured out what she was going to do. She twisted her lower lip between her teeth.

      She waited for the next question to come—the one about whether the baby was his—but he only studied her intently before slowly nodding.

      Grant slid his smartphone out of his pocket and she remembered when the device had been sitting out on the table that evening while they were closing down happy hour. She’d commented on the battered cover and the cracked screen and he’d told her the story of how he’d been testing out one of his company’s waterproof cases when he’d wiped out near a coral reef and cracked his surfboard in half. The still-functional phone was one of his biggest marketing tools when it came to selling his company’s tech products. Not that she had a very clear picture of exactly what it was he did for the company.

      This wasn’t good, she thought, giving her head a quick shake to clear it. She might be having this man’s baby, yet she didn’t even know what he did for a living.

      “What day is the appointment?” he asked as he swiped at an app on his phone. It was the same online calendar she’d unsuccessfully tried to get her parents to use.

      “Um...” Rebekah tilted her head, unsure if she wanted him to know. Unfortunately, he’d practically accused her of keeping the pregnancy from him already and she didn’t want to give him any reason to think that she had something to hide. Besides, it wasn’t like he’d actually stay in town long enough to go with her. Or that he’d even want to go. “It’s next Thursday.”

      “Uh-huh,” he said as he tapped something else. “What time?”

      “Grant, you aren’t actually planning to go to the doctor’s office with me, are you?”

      At this, he lifted his eyes to hers again and she could see that the full force of his earlier suspicion had returned. “Of course I’m planning to be there. You didn’t think I’d leave you to go through this alone, did you?”

      There was no polite way to answer that question. Frankly, there wasn’t even an honest way of answering without admitting that not only had she been thinking that exact thing, she was hoping for it. Instead, she opted to remind him of the logistics involved. “But don’t you have to be back in Jacksonville for work or...something?”

      His fingers flew over his cracked phone screen, typing as he spoke. “Actually, I’m flying to a digital marketing conference in San Francisco tonight after I check in on my aunts. I’ll just change my return flight so I can swing by here on the way home next week.”

      Rebekah heard him speaking, but the only word her brain seized on was aunts. A rush of unease shot to her stomach. “You can’t tell your aunts about this.”

      “About what?” he asked, his attention seemingly focused fully on the electronic device in his hands and—luckily—not on the beads of sweat breaking out across Rebekah’s forehead. She resisted the urge to grab one of the vet reports off her desk and fan her heated face.

      “About me. About us.” Her finger pointed back and forth at each of them, before her hand dropped to her still-flat belly. “And especially not about the baby.”

      He lifted his head finally, his eyes zeroing in on her. Not in the suspicious way that she was accustomed to from him, but in a sexy, hungry sort of way. All that tension in her tummy doubled and a sudden warmth spread under her skin.

      Lord help her, but even as she СКАЧАТЬ