“Flu?” Gavin guessed. “There’s always something going around this time of year, isn’t there?” he grumbled. “At least you’re not pregnant. That would be—”
He cut himself off as she shot him a panicked look, the word hitting her like a bullet.
“Are you kidding?” he muttered under his breath, dipping his head, thick brows going flat and heavy with gravity.
She couldn’t be. Could she? She was vaguely aware she was staring at him, but kind of saw right through him to Marietta and a man gilded in firelight.
Snatching up her mobile, she opened her period app. She was way overdue. Like totally missed one and was due for another.
It had to be wrong. Please let it be wrong. Except she knew deep down that it wasn’t the app that had gone wrong.
He’d used a condom!
Mostly. They’d been a bit sleepy and sexy that last time, putting off when he’d put it on, but…
She swore. Slapped the phone down and dumped her forehead into her hand, elbow braced on her desktop. A whimper lodged itself in her throat.
This was something that happened to high school kids. Not her. They hadn’t been that careless. It had just been a bit of teasing and fooling around.
“Seriously?” Gavin asked.
“No! I mean… No,” she insisted, because it was too much to take in. But it was possible. Improbable, but possible. And what other reason did a woman have for being this late with her cycle? She was not about to wish something awful on herself like cancer.
But a baby? She was so not prepared for this.
A knock at the door had her jerking her head up. One of the interns leaned in. “You’re on in five with your Look Ahead.” She glanced between her and Gavin. “Trouble?”
They all knew what kind of precautions Meg had been living under until a month and a half ago. The intern’s face fell into sympathetic lines.
Meg wasn’t about to explain she was white and near tears because a lot more than news about her stalker had arrived. A baby? How on earth would she manage all those restrictions pregnant? With an infant? If she took time off, would the station still pay for guards? She couldn’t even think about how terrifying it would be to have a baby’s safety to worry about along with her own.
In silence, she rose and wound her way to the news desk, probably looking and sounding like a zombie as she said her piece on camera. She didn’t even know what she read. Twenty minutes later, she re-entered her office, still in a state of shock.
Gavin was waiting, but he was wearing his jacket now. He said nothing, only held up a white paper bag with a drug store logo on it.
“What is it?” she asked, but already knew. Taking the bag, she peeked inside to see the pregnancy test.
“Let’s be sure we know what we’re dealing with before we figure out how to deal with the other.” He sounded so kind. He was only about ten years older than her, but had kids in high school and had been acting like a dad to her since the first worrisome emails had come in from her ‘fan.’
She nodded and went to the bathroom.
A few minutes later, denial and disbelief became shock and fear and, way back in her awareness: awe.
She was pregnant.
Having a baby had always been a ‘someday’ thing for her. Something she would plan for and maybe struggle to attain after the right man came along. There would be no unplanned pregnancy for her. She wasn’t going to be like her birth mother and wind up making a brutal decision because she wasn’t prepared. If she made a baby, she was going to do it right.
Yes, she was that arrogant and perfect, she thought with a jab of emotion.
At the same time, what she’d always held in the back of her mind was the thought that if she did somehow wind up with an unplanned pregnancy, she would take her fertile self home to Montana, where Blake would help her because he already knew how to be a parent. He had been her fall back plan for more than a failed career.
She didn’t have that anymore. Oh, he’d help her, but she could hardly show up pregnant and jobless and expect him to take her in, not when his family had just doubled and he had his own baby on the way.
But as she made her way back to her office, feeling drunk and out of it because her mind was turned so far in on itself, she knew one thing: She couldn’t raise a baby here, alone, with some overly enthused admirer hunting her.
“Let’s take this down the hall,” she said faintly when she got back to Gavin. He was on his feet, hands in his pockets, expression somber.
He nodded and paced her to the Station Manager’s door.
“Elliott,” she said with a shaken knock on his open door. “I have to put in my notice.”