“I’m ready to check out,” B.J. growled, glowering as she plopped her checkbook on the counter.
“What’s the co-pay?”
Lara fumbled for a minute, glancing at her with wide, curious eyes every few seconds as she looked up the amount.
Yes, it’s a goddamned supernatural
phenomenon. Someone knocked up B.J. Gilmore.
What a freaking wonder. The world must be coming to an end.
But B.J. kept her trap shut and settled for a healthy glare. Lara, thank God, didn’t pry for more details, though she did try to talk about the weather as they hashed out a date for B.J.’s next
appointment. Not in the mood for any kind of chitchat, B.J. merely booked it out of there as soon at Lara handed her a card bearing the date of her check up.
She walked to her truck in a trance.
Pregnant.
It didn’t seem real. What in the hell was she going to do with a baby? It was like Santa Claus moving to the Bahamas, Nashville turning rock and roll, the White House hosting the worldwide mud wrestling competition. It just didn’t happen.
B.J. didn’t know anything about kids. She’d
been one a long time ago, but that had sucked, end of story. She saw her brother’s daughter every couple of weeks, but his girl was the spitting image of her mother, begging and whining all the time until her parents gave her what she wanted.
Shuddering in horror, B.J. hoped like hell she didn’t have a kid like Buck’s brat. She closed her eyes and rested her head against the steering wheel, trying to picture a little brown-eyed girl with her 95
hair and Grady’s—
An image of Grady flashed through her mind.
Grady. Oh, God. Grady.
Remembering him, she sat up straight, her eyes flying wide open. “Holy shit.”
This was his kid too. Grady was going to be a daddy...again. Suddenly, she felt like curling into a ball and weeping—yet another sign of how pregnant she really was. Her hormones were already whacked out of control.
But, damn it, how was this going to affect
Grady? He’d be devastated. He’d already lost two children before they’d ever been born. Amy had miscarried halfway through one pregnancy before she’d died in the delivery room with her second.
Amy had wanted a baby so bad. Even B.J.’d
heard about all the trips to the fertility doctor she’d taken to get pregnant. And then she hadn’t been able to stay that way without having problems.
Grady and Amy’s attempt to start a family had been a long, tortuous battle, ending in tragedy.
The fact that his one act of indiscretion with another woman had ended with a conception was going to be a bitter pill for him to swallow. He probably already felt like he’d committed adultery on Amy, and now the ultimate horror had happened. He was going to have a baby with another woman. God, why didn’t B.J. just go and spit on Amy’s grave while she was at it?
She didn’t want to be the one to tell him. She wasn’t a coward by any means. In fact, she never backed away from a good confrontation. But she did not want to see his face when he found out. It might send him over the edge. She feared he was already having a hard enough time dealing with the fact he’d had sex with someone who wasn’t his wife. She didn’t want to pile a kid on him as well.
It wasn’t fair. Everything was wrong. Amy
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The Trouble with Tomboys
should still be alive. She should be the happy mother of a whole brood by now. And Grady should be with her, not shackled to B.J., of all people, because she’d pressured him into one hot, unforgettable encounter.
Biting the inside of her lip, she tried to think up a way to escape this. Maybe she could flee the country and go live on a beach in Cancun. Yeah, she and her baby could be surfer bums. They could open a bar in the sand—like in the movie Cocktail—and drink margaritas every night of the week. Right.
Except the whole baby and bar mix was taboo. Shit.
Or...or…hey, she could convince Grady it wasn’t his. Now, there was an idea. Since Ralphie had been spouting off about skinny dipping, Grady probably already thought she had a pretty active sex life. She could say she’d been seeing some other guy in the next county over.
She’d have to lie about the date of conception as well and claim it was undercooked when it came out early. Or maybe she could make up an affair before their time together, which would make the kid overcooked. Either way, it didn’t matter. The lie would be totally worth it to keep him from this kind of trauma. He’d buy her story because he’d want to.
He wouldn’t want to worry about raising a child who wasn’t Amy’s.
On the other hand, she’d be keeping him from his baby if she did that. And Grady Rawlings was one responsible fellow. He’d want the truth, and he’d insist on doing something about it. If he made a mistake, he lived up to it. He’d have to be a part of the baby’s life and would want at least partial custody.