Last Resort (Hartwood Creek Romance #2)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Nellie

A piece of plastic had never been more intimidating.

I stared at those two little pink lines, feeling the very trajectory of my life come to a screeching halt.

The blood rushed to my head, and I felt faint.

It was a good thing I was still sitting on the toilet.

If I’d been standing, I likely would have keeled over.

“What does it say?”

The disembodied voice from the speaker of my phone roused me. I opened and closed my mouth, trying and failing to form words. It was as if my voice had been snatched by Ursula herself.

“Nellie?”

I squeaked. It was the only sound I could make. My free hand went to my mouth, covering it, as tears rushed to my eyes.

“Nellie!” my best friend, Sage, practically shouted.

“I’m—” I still couldn’t say the words. “It’s positive.”

“Oh.”

Whatever Sage had been expecting, it clearly wasn’t this. Me neither.

After being diagnosed with endometriosis in my early twenties, this was a moment I never expected to happen.

I’d been told by my gynecologist, endocrinologist, and family doctor that I’d have difficulty conceiving.

I’d been warned that if I ever wanted to pursue a pregnancy, the likelihood of me needing fertility treatments was extremely high.

I’d never even had so much as a scare before.

But I knew my body well, and I’d known something was up when my period was late.

It was never late, much to my chagrin. Most women with endometriosis experience irregular periods, but not me.

The damn thing was more predictable than Halley’s comet.

It came with vengeance every thirty days, and it often knocked me on my ass for a week straight.

My flows were heavy and brutal, and when Aunt Flo hadn’t come pounding on my door eleven days ago, I knew something was up.

I just didn’t expect it to be this. I thought I was finally sliding into the irregular period camp of endometriosis.

“Okay, well, this is good…right? I mean, you always thought you weren’t going to be able to have kids…”

“Good? How is this good? I am so not prepared for this! I work at a café, Sage. I have a roommate—who hates kids, as you know. Not that there’s even space in this place for a kid.

” I was panicking. My voice was all screechy and high pitched, and the tears kept flowing no matter how much I wiped at my eyes with the back of my hand.

Sage knew my roommate, Angela, from when she used to live in Guelph and from her brief stay on my couch with her daughter, Daphne.

Angela hadn’t been thrilled with that situation, and despite me wanting to help my bestie in her time of need, I had to respect my roommate’s wishes and cut Sage’s stay short, forcing her to seek refuge at her mother’s house.

“You have a job, though. Which is good for when you apply for maternity. As for the apartment situation, we could find you a new place.”

“I can’t afford a new place, Sage,” I sighed, standing up on shaking limbs. I faced the mirror, taking in my splotchy face and the panicked flush. “Especially not on my own.”

“Do you…do you know who the father is?”

Sage’s question wasn’t meant to sting, but it kind of did. Not that I blamed her. I wasn’t exactly known for monogamous relationships.

I didn’t do serious. I was afraid to trust, afraid to let myself care about people that would inevitably leave once they’d had their fill of me.

The only exception to that had been Sage and her beautiful daughter, and I think I’d been able to let her in because of how desperately she’d needed me, too.

It was easier to keep things light and carefree, that way the disappointment couldn’t reach me.

But Sage’s question also stung because…well, I didn’t know. “I’ve narrowed it down to a few contenders.”

“Is one of them Noah, by chance?”

Sage’s follow-up question made a swarm of butterflies take flight in my stomach. Or was that nausea?

One of the contenders was, indeed, Noah Wood, a friend of Sage’s boyfriend from Hartwood Creek.

I’d met him at the Witches’ Ball. He’d dressed as The Witcher—my kryptonite.

I know I went back to his place with him that night, but I couldn’t for the life of me remember if we’d used a condom when we’d hooked up.

I didn’t remember a lot about that night. Other than how amazing he felt, but for all I knew, that could have been the booze talking. I’d had a lot to drink that night, and so had he. The evening was a blur—a fun, magical blur, but a blur, nonetheless.

“Maybe. I don’t know for sure. Regardless, I’m obviously not in a relationship with any of the contenders. One of them waved every red flag known to mankind and couldn’t even get me off, and the other one, well, I don’t even know him.”

A week or so after hooking up with Noah, I’d slept with a guy I’d been chatting with on Tinder for several months.

After spending way too much time thinking about Noah Wood, I’d figured the best course of action would be to sleep with someone else, and prove to myself that the night we’d shared in Hartwood Creek was a night like any other.

The only thing I’d succeeded in proving was that even if I couldn’t remember every single detail of the night I shared with Noah, I still knew I had a better experience than the night I’d shared with Tinder Guy.

As soon as we hooked up—the one and only time—and red flags popped up like daisies. I’d ended up blocking him on Tinder.

Thankfully, I knew I’d definitely used a condom with Tinder Guy. But condoms weren’t infallible.

“What if you moved here?”

“To Hartwood Creek? Why?!” I exclaimed. “I just told you, I don’t even know if Noah is the father.”

“Even if he isn’t,” Sage insisted. “I’m here, I could help you. It’s cheaper to live here. You could easily find a job in town, and maybe Nix could give up the bachelor apartment and you could rent it. He’s hardly ever there these days. It’d come fully furnished!”

“I…” I paused, blinking at myself in the mirror. I mean, it wasn’t a terrible idea. It wasn’t like I had family in Guelph, or a support system for that matter. For all intents and purposes, Sage was the closest thing to family I had. “I can’t just uproot my entire life.”

I didn’t say the other thing I was thinking; that I didn’t even know if this pregnancy would stick. I’d never been at the family planning stage of my life, but from what I’d read in my spare time about my condition, studies showed that endometriosis could increase the risk of miscarriage.

“But…” Sage said, and I could practically hear the wheels turning in her head.

“Just spill,” I sighed heavily, knowing she was thinking a mile a minute.

“Are you honestly happy there? Working for Sal, living in that cramped basement apartment with Angry Angela?”

Sage’s question posed a valid point. I wasn’t happy here, and hadn’t been for some time.

I used to like my life, back when I was young and hopeful. Freshly graduated from college after taking the Recreation Therapy program, I’d gotten a full-time position at the café I’d worked at throughout school, until something came up in my field.

Only, nothing ever did seem to come up in my field. Although Sal had hired me on as a barista, my job details and responsibilities seemed to grow daily, pushing me more into the management position—without the pay, I might add.

But rents were high, and apparently recreational therapists were a dime a dozen. I didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell at affording my own apartment, so I was stuck with Angry Angela.

All of that would have been bearable if Sage was still around.

We’d worked together at the café, and she’d included me in her little traditions with her daughter Daphne.

For the first time, I’d felt like I had a true family.

A sister, a niece. People who cared about me, and people who I cared about.

Sage had moved several hours away to the small town of Hartwood Creek after discovering her then-fiancé was cheating on her with his secretary.

I didn’t blame her, but I missed her and Daphne every day.

Life seemed lonelier and greyer without them, like they’d taken some of the colour with them when they left.

“No, I’m not,” I sighed again, pushing my hair out of my face.

“But I really can’t just uproot my life on a whim.

” Even to me, my argument sounded weak. I did most things on a whim.

If I got an inclination for something, I flowed toward it eagerly.

Case in point: going home with the handsome stranger I’d met at a costume ball.

“Why the heck not? I did.” Sage giggled.

I smiled, although she couldn’t see it. “Yeah, but you have family in Hartwood Creek.”

“So do you,” Sage said firmly, her tone brooking no argument. A sense of longing filled me, longing to be closer to the people I cared for most.

It’s not that I didn’t have family, it’s just that my parents weren’t the greatest. They’d had me later in life, and although they’d never neglected me in the financial sense, they had never planned on being parents, and their emotional support was severely lacking.

My parents provided for me, made sure that I attended the most prestigious school in the area, and always ensured I had money for the extracurricular activities I did. But they never emotionally connected with me. I’d often felt more like an expensive house plant than a daughter growing up.

Now, they spent most of the year down south in Florida, at their beautiful beach house on Miramar Beach, overlooking the white sand beaches of the gorgeous gulf.

I couldn’t blame them for skipping out on the cold Canadian climate for half the year.

I just missed them, or the version of them I never really had.