The Trouble With Tomboys(38)

That finally evoked the response he’d expected.

Her face drained of color and she dropped her bag of popcorn, spilling kernels around her bare feet.

“Who told you that?”

Grady folded his arms and stared hard. “I

overheard Gabe Watson telling Ulrick Pullson about it at Herb’s Quick Stop. Both of them already knew.”

“Who?” she demanded, and then she shook her head furiously. “Oh my God, I can’t believe this. How 106



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could anyone know? I just found out myself Tuesday when I went to Dr. Carl’s office and got the damn test taken. I mean, okay, so Pop suspected, but there’s no way my own father would start a rumor...”

“Dr. Carl’s office?” Grady repeated, his lungs constricting.

Dr. Carl had been Amy’s doctor too. Just

knowing B.J. was going to go to the same man who’d been standing over his wife when she died made him break out in a cold sweat.

Then reality intruded, and he frowned. “Doesn’t Lara Alberts work in Dr. Carl’s office?”

B.J. gasped. “That bitch! I ought to get her fired for breaking doctor patient privileges.”

“I don’t know,” he murmured. “I’m kind of glad she’s the queen of gossip, since that was obviously the only way I was going to find out about

this...because you sure as hell weren’t going to tell me. Were you?”

B.J. suddenly looked like a little kid who’d been found painting the bathroom walls with toothpaste as she braced herself for the angry lecture she probably thought would follow. Her face was pale and her eyes scared, nothing like the confident, no-cares-in-the-world B.J. Gilmore he’d always thought she was.

“I...I just wasn’t sure how to say it,” she answered quietly. “I mean, was there any way to break it to you easily?”

Grady opened his mouth, but B.J. hurried to

add, “One thing was sure, I definitely wasn’t going to tell anyone else until you knew.”

She stopped suddenly as if just realizing

something. Then she scowled and pressed her hands to her hips, snapping, “Wait a second. What even makes you think this is your kid?”

She’d already given it away, but his answer was a quiet, heartfelt, “Because I’m not that lucky.”

107







B.J. looked like she was going to cry, and he felt like a heel for saying such a thing. He wasn’t typically a rude man. But B.J. wasn’t the type to break down and bawl when her feelings were hurt either. So why did the two of them together seem to bring out the worst in each other?

God, he wanted to scrub his face with his hands and mutter, “What a disaster,” but he didn’t want to hurt her any further. She already looked like she was on the edge and might crumble any second. He sighed then and really did scrub his face with his hands.

“I guess we’ll need to get married,” he

announced, sounding none too pleased.

“What?” she yelped. “Oh, no. Hell, no. I’m not getting married. I’m not marrying anyone.”

Again, Grady sighed. “B.J., there’s a child to consider.”

“So?” she retorted, taking a good three steps in reverse and holding up her hands to ward him off.

“Single parents raise kids all the time. It’s not a big deal.”

“Well, I want my child to have two parents,” he said slowly, holding back his impatience. “Living in one house.”

“Hey, you can want all you like in one hand and shit in the other. See which one fills up faster, okay, Slim, because I’m not getting married.”

“Will you just be reasonable?”

“Reasonable?” she shouted. “You’re the one

losing it. Do you know how freaking disastrous it would be for us to get freaking married? God, Grady.

Do I look like June Cleaver to you? I’m telling you, it would not work.”

Grady studied her for a moment before he spoke with complete assuredness in his voice. “We’re getting married.”



****

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B.J. couldn’t believe her ears. The man had lost his mind. He’d gone insane.

But marriage?

Could he mention anything crazier? Probably, but marriage was as far as her imagination could span at the moment. She was just too...befuddled to think much of anything. Befuddled and maybe a little scared, because the notion of tying herself to Grady Rawlings for the rest of eternity was...well, she couldn’t even allow her brain to go there. But the idea made her shiver from the inside out—and not because she was cold...or disgusted.

“I came over here,” he was saying, “prepared to cuss you up one wall and down the other—”