“Careful,” he said.
She waited until he went first, and he offered his hand to her for balance.
But when she went to take it, her foot slipped.
As she went down, all she could think was, My baby…
Chet grabbed for her, barely getting hold of her arm. She slid partway into the water anyway, dousing her bottom half.
She sat there in the shallow water, realizing that she wasn’t hurt. Just…embarrassed.
“Are you all right?” he asked, helping her out of the water and to a stand.
Everything was steeped: her boots, her skirt, the bottom part of her T-shirt. Dripping wet.
She was only starting to comprehend how thoroughly her clothing was leeched to her when Chet ran a gaze down her body.
Too late, she laid an arm over her tummy.
Her T-shirt-plastered tummy, which wasn’t showing a pregnancy as much as…
Well, as much as it just felt pregnant with him standing here looking at her.
This was like the day in the Paradise Room, when she’d instinctively thought to hide her secret from him, no matter how her belly looked.
She started back to shore, treading through the shallow water, praying that he hadn’t noticed anything strange about her reaction, hoping against hope.
“Great,” she said, trying to divert his attention. “I really liked these boots, too.”
“You sure you’re okay?”
“Definitely,” she answered, “but I’m not hanging around here looking like a drowned rat.”
If he noticed her babbling, he didn’t remark on it, and she left as quickly as she could, wondering just how much longer her secret was going to hold up.
Chapter Eight
During the rehearsal dinner at a lively Mexican restaurant in nearby Duarte Hill, Chet leaned against a planked wall, watching Mina talking with Ally and Zoe across the room.
Right now, she was wearing one of those full skirts she liked—this one white, with a pink shawl dipping down over her shoulders and to her hips.
But this morning…
This morning she’d been a little more exposed, when she’d slipped into the water and her T-shirt had stuck to her skin.
The way she’d acted, hugging an arm over her lower stomach… It’d been a repeat of her reaction that day he’d come upon her at the resort, in the Paradise Room, when she’d been wearing a bathing suit. He hadn’t noted anything out of the ordinary that day, but now that she’d repeated the gesture so obviously, his mind started spinning a reason for it. It was almost as if she was deliberately covering something up.
As if she were…
Pregnant?
He’d seen pregnant women touch their stomachs just as Mina had, back in Montana, wives of friends, but in Mina’s case the notion was absolutely ridiculous, and as soon as he’d even thought it, he’d pushed it away. Hell, if she was with child, it would’ve happened months ago, when they’d first been together, and he’d worn a condom, for heaven’s sake.
But that wasn’t the biggest reason he’d dismissed the temporary suspicion so quickly. Condoms could fail, but he’d come to believe that Mina, out of anyone in this world, would never ever pull the wool over his eyes, keeping that big of a secret from him. She wasn’t like his mother, who’d once lied to his dad about the affair with Eli. She’d done the same to Chet, as well, until Abe had come clean with the truth. No, if anyone could be trusted with anything, it was Mina, he told himself for what seemed like the millionth time.
Nonetheless, Chet’s insides were scrambled. See what his problems did? They tainted more than just him. They carried over to the people who didn’t deserve to be judged or under suspicion.
He looked across the room again, past the red, yellow, blue and green lanterns hanging from the ceiling, casting rainbow shadows over the distressed hardwood floor and rustic tables.
Mina.
He thought about what he would’ve done if she had gotten pregnant that night, or the second one, and…
The image of a little redheaded baby floated over his mind’s eye, and Chet smiled.
It disappeared quickly enough, though. It was a good thing that she wasn’t pregnant. As if they needed more complications…
While she solidified in his sight again, part of Chet wanted to apologize to her for all he’d put her through and for thinking even for a second that she would lie. The other part told him that there was no harm done, that he should just continue to stand in his corner and listen to the mariachi band as they sauntered around the room with their guitars, trumpets and violins, serenading the crowd now that the dinner had ended.
A voice brought him out of his musings. Jeremiah, who slung an arm around Chet.