I don’t answer, not needing to, and end the call, leaning back in my seat with a weary sigh.
At this rate I won’t have dove back in my bed where she belongs before the New Year. That thought rekindles my conviction, only to leave me flailing when I think of that hurt look in her eyes when she’d all but accused me of having an affair with that model.
I admit I’d purposely gone out and been photographed with the woman in the hopes that she’d see the pictures—my pride’s reaction to hearing that she’d spent almost twenty minutes with Preston Blake.
When I’d seen the photos and the time stamps, the way he’d been smiling down at my dove…I’d gone a little crazy, I admit, and done the first thing I could think of.
Getting laid and rubbing it in her face.
I should have realized the minute those pictures had crossed my desk that it was a set-up, that Preston was using, or trying to use, dove against me. I know now, and despite the determination, hurt, and pure anger I’d seen in her eyes, I will not allow this to be the end.
She’s made my world a bright place again, and I refuse to give that up just because her girly feelings have been hurt.
Yes, I have every intention of flying down to Texas and bringing her back home. I just have to ensure that her home is completely safe and Eric free before I can do that.
Dove doesn’t know it yet, but I have no intention of ever letting her go. Not in six months, not ever.
***
Another wave of nausea hits me, and I lunge for the toilet, groaning through an intense series of dry heaves that leave me spent and unable to do anything but flop back to the bathroom mat and lie there in misery.
It’s two in the morning, thank God, or I’d be so busted already, and I’ve been dry heaving for the last fifteen minutes despite the fact that my stomach is bone dry and devoid of so much as a drop of food.
I can’t deny it anymore, no matter how much I want to. I’m either suffering terrible food poisoning—please, Jesus, let it be food poisoning—from the nachos I’d inhaled yesterday at lunch, or I’m knocked up.
“Oh God, please don’t let it be true,” I whisper into the darkened bathroom, flinging an arm over my stinging eyes.
I’ve been back in Texas for just a little over two weeks now, and I’ve been iffy the entire time. Mama’s starting to give me funny looks, and it’s all I can do not to puke all over the place just from nerves.
“Shit, Sis, you’re gonna need to sneak out and get to the doc’s—”
But no, if I go to old Doc Bear’s the whole damned town will know before lunch, and that I don’t need. Not now. My bruises have finally started fading to that light, sickly yellow, and I feel almost well enough that Mama has let me off the chain a little.
If she finds out I’m preggers, I can guarantee the evil woman will have me on bed rest and make me go in a bed pan. She’s been way too weird lately.
Drug store.
With my mind made up and resolute, I heave myself to my feet and grab onto the bathroom counter, breathing deeply as I catch my breath and try to shake the woozy feeling in my head.
If that test is positive, I think I might just kill Vincent Blake. Leave it to that arrogant ass to have super sperm that can bypass protection.
Flopping onto the bed, I roll over and stare at the ceiling, feeling lonely and so needy for his warmth and the strength of his arms, I can barely stand it.
Being angry and fooling myself into thinking I don’t want him isn’t working, not when I look at Mama’s sunflowers and think of him. Or when Mama had used fresh mint leaves in one of her flower arrangements. I should have realized then, when I’d teared up at the sight of those stupid leaves, that something was wrong.
Damned pregnancy hormones.
If I am pregnant.
Chapter Seventeen
Two pink lines scream back at me the next day as I plop my ass onto the toilet seat in the Lazy Eight diner’s bathroom. I’d managed to give Mama the slip this morning and bribed Toby, a relatively new ranch hand, into giving me a ride into town.
The drugstore had been empty, thank God, and I’d purchased the test, along with some tampons—my heart had been hopeful on that score—and paid the cashier, giving her an extra fifty if she swore not to tell a soul what I’d bought.
She’d eyed the test and tampons with a knowing smirk that had made me breathe out a sigh of relief.
“I can’t believe I’m saying this to another woman, but I really hope you need them tampons, sugar.”
“Me too.”
Turns out the tampons are now totally redundant.
Crap.
“Cecelia Bennet! Get your ass out here right this minute, little girl!”