Chapter Twenty-Two
O n the way home from her visit with the midwife in Forsyth, Bayleigh wanted nothing more than to go to bed. Her limbs felt like sandbags, her feet ached, and she could hardly put her thoughts in order. But her heart was light, despite that. To her endless relief, she’d been informed that she was in excellent health and the ultrasound confirmed that everything was progressing as expected. When she’d first heard the whispery heartbeat of the little life she carried within her, she’d cried.
But a day out, the driving, the worry that her news would be found out before she was ready to share it, had been exhausting. Dealing with Ted was exhausting on another front. She hadn’t spoken to him about the pregnancy since that first conversation, but he kept throwing her pointed looks whenever Lucas was around.
Tonight. She’d tell him tonight. For better or worse, she had to. She wanted him to be the fantasy man she’d fallen in love with; she wanted him to fall just as in love with her and the baby. She wanted them to be a family.
Fantasy, all right. She didn’t know the real Lucas Landry.
She—of all people—ought to know better. For years, she’d sat across from people in bad relationships, people who were determined to ignore what all good sense and evidence told them, desperate to keep their unlikely and sometimes dangerous fantasies alive as long as possible. Knowledge of the mind rarely won over passion of the heart.
Lucas was skittish about love, determined to remain free and, she suspected, uncertain about his own value, as if he believed his physical defect rendered him undeserving of romantic partnership. Seeking a closer connection to him before he’d recognized these aspects of himself would only increase the cognitive dissonance within him, pushing him even farther away from her.
God. She sounded pedantic, even in her own thoughts.
Break it down, BS.
Girl wants boy.
Boy not sure about girl.
Girl ends up raising child on her own.
Oh well.
She drove down the Belle Vista lane, grateful there were no more interviews scheduled for today. She didn’t have it in her to be sociable, even virtually.
But before she could get the garage door closed, she saw Lucas outside, beckoning to her. She took a deep breath, got out of the car, and pasted a smile on her face.
“Lucas,” she said, walking up to him. “How are you? Any progress on finding your birth father?”
“No,” he said. “Though I’ve spent more time going through dusty hospital archives than any person ever should.” He looked over at the pool house. “Hey, would you like to have a hot tub with me? My leg could use a soak and I thought we might catch up a bit.”
He looked away as if it was nothing more than a casual question, but Bayleigh sensed there was more behind it. Or was that simply wishful thinking? What if he just wanted to sleep with her again? A convenient comfort while in town. Friends with benefits, as they said.
So what?
Would that be so wrong?
Butterflies rippled through her at the thought. She’d never stopped wanting him. In fact, now that she knew the baby was safe, she wanted him even more.
“A hot soak sounds fabulous,” she heard herself say. “Meet you there in five minutes.”
Counselor, counsel thyself.
Tell him. He needs to know.
Don’t tell him. He’ll run.
Maybe he’ll feel obligated to support you, stick by you. Maybe, in time, obligation would become something more.
Or maybe he’ll question the paternity of the child, a cut so deep it would taint all future interactions with mistrust and destroy any hope of a relationship.
“Enough BS,” she muttered, changing into her bathing suit. She grabbed a white cotton cover-up, slipped her feet into flip-flops, and headed to the pool house.
Tomorrow was soon enough for professional psychoanalysis.
Today, she was simply a woman, hoping for a good outcome but preparing for anything.
*
Lucas slid into the water with a groan, his tight leg strung up like piano wire. He hoped the jets would do their work quickly because he wanted to be able to focus on Bayleigh this evening.
She’d been busy—he knew that. But too busy for a glass of wine?
No. She was avoiding him. Sober second thought, probably.
Well, nothing like a hot tub to break down barriers.
He sloshed water over his arms, then immersed himself up to his chest and lay back to stretch out as fully as he could.
The light outside the small building was much as it was the first time they’d been here together. What else would be similar? Would they talk and talk? Would he feel that same seductive sense of safety, of welcome and acceptance? Did Bayleigh still accept him? Would she invite him back to her house after this?
Or had she changed her mind about him?
He sat up at the sound of the door opening.
She was lovely, framed in the steamy windows, backlit by the crimson sky.
“Nice?” She entered and tossed her robe onto a chair.
“Very,” he replied.
She stepped into the water, then suddenly stopped.
“What?” he said.
She hesitated, then sat down on the concrete stairs leading into the pool. “It’s a little hot for me. I’ll just sit here for a minute.”
Strange. She’d enjoyed the heat last time. He recalled her flushed skin vividly, how it had burned against his own. Was this her way of indicating her lack of interest? Then why had she agreed to meet him here at all?
“I hear you met your birth mother.” She slid her body down another step. “Sawyer said Leila couldn’t stop talking about her.”
Lucas gave a little laugh. “Leila’s predisposed to love everyone she meets, I think.”
“Not a bad way to live.”
“A good way to get hurt a lot, though. We’ve just uncovered the tip of the iceberg of our collective pasts. Heather was pretty messed up by that time in her life. She didn’t want to revisit it but we forced the issue. It was never going to be a big happy family reunion.”
What was it about Bayleigh that had him saying things he didn’t mean to say? She triggered honesty in him. That’s probably what made her a good therapist, but right now, it made him feel like she’d put a spell on him and he didn’t like it.
“What do you see as the outcome?” Bayleigh asked.
He flipped onto his stomach, resting his folded arms on the edge of the pool and letting his legs stretch out behind him.
She sat huddled on the edge of the pool and suddenly it annoyed the hell out of him.
“You’re obviously cold. Why don’t you come in? Are you that afraid of being near me again?”
She frowned. “Afraid? No, of course not.”
“Then what’s wrong? You’ve been avoiding me the whole time I’ve been here this time. Don’t deny it. And don’t try to tell me the connection is gone. I see you watching me, Bayleigh. What’s going on?”
To his horror, tears filled her eyes. “I’m sorry, Lucas.”
He waited while she collected herself. She seemed to be engaged in an internal battle about what to say to him, perhaps the right way to tell him their week together had been a mistake.
“I’ve got a lot going on right now,” she said, finally.
“Something wrong with the business? With Ted?”
“Everything’s fine. I’ve just been busy and... preoccupied.”
About him?
Her expression didn’t invite him closer but neither did it give off stay-away vibes. Well, if she couldn’t decide, he knew what he felt. With a whoosh of water, he slid over to her, positioning himself so he was directly in front of her. He braced his hands on either side of her thighs, forcing her to look at him.
“Bayleigh, is there something wrong? You’re so different this time. I know we agreed to let our relationship go. But I think we have something here. Can’t we explore that?”
There. He’d said it. He’d put it on the table between them, his heart, like a living fish, flopping, gasping for salvation.
She reached out and stroked his face, sending his pulse skyrocketing.
“Oh, Lucas,” she whispered. “I want that, too. But we were so... impulsive. Can we take things slower? Is that okay?”
Was it a lifeline? Or was she giving him just enough rope to hang himself?
He crawled up the pool steps until his face hovered just above hers. “Slower?” he whispered. “How much slower?”
Her eyes were deep dark pools, endless and unfathomable. Was that happiness he glimpsed? Hope? Misery? A mix of all three?
He kissed her cheek. Then he sat beside her and pulled her onto his lap, letting her feel the full evidence of her effect on him. She wrapped her arms around him and lowered her mouth to his, sucking gently on his lower lip, stroking with her tongue.
“Oh, God, Bayleigh,” he said with a groan. “I’ve missed you so much.”
“I’ve missed you, too,” she whispered back.
He bent his head to her neck, gorging on her silky skin, feeling the pulse beneath his tongue. He gripped one firm warm breast, then lowered his head to kiss the soft, sweet flesh, following the path of faint blue veins he didn’t remember from before.
“Lucas,” she gasped, squirming. “We can’t.”
He stopped, forcing himself to remain motionless.
“Do you really not want this, Bayleigh?” he said, his voice a jagged scratch of sound.
He felt her shaking and when she didn’t reply, he slipped a finger beneath the elastic of her suit, traveled until he felt the slick swollen heat of her center.
“Your body tells me you want this every bit as much as I do.”
In less than a minute, she was writhing and crying out and when he shifted the thin fabric for better access, she yanked her own suit so hard they heard seams pop.
She lowered herself onto him and closed her eyes. “Oh, Lucas,” she murmured. “I swore I wasn’t going to do this.”
“Thank God you changed your mind,” he managed to say.
Her inferno had them both gasping moments later.
“I had hopes,” Lucas said, holding her tightly. “But this exceeded everything.”
Bayleigh gave a little laugh against his chest. “I don’t know what came over me.”
“Whatever it was, let’s bottle it. We’ll make a fortune.”
He lay back in the water, tugging her onto him and for a moment, she allowed it. Then, as if waking suddenly from a dream, she shook her head and detangled herself from him.
“I’ve got something to tell you,” she said.
Lucas looked up, startled at the change in her demeanor. “Okay.”
She hesitated, then stepped out of the water and pulled a towel over her shoulders, covering her chest. The sudden seriousness was like a bucket of cold water.
“Bayleigh, what’s going on? Are you sick? That’s it, isn’t it? God, I knew it.” He recalled her pallor in the barn, his concern, her distance. Was whatever they had between them enough for her to trust him with a personal crisis?
He hoped so.
She winced. “I’m fine, Lucas.”
She tiptoed across the tiles, water sluicing off her gleaming skin, and wrapped herself in the white robe. Then she turned back, tugged a chair closer to the pool and perched on the edge of it.
“The hell you are,” he shot back. “Just tell me, okay?”
“I’m not sick.” She swallowed, then tilted her head and smiled that glorious smile at him. “I know this is going to come as a shock. It certainly did to me. But it turns out that our week together had an unexpected consequence. I emphasize that this was not expected, okay? It’s important that you know this. But that doesn’t mean it’s unwelcome.”
The words filtered into his consciousness like drops from a faulty faucet, but not so slowly that he didn’t know what she was going to say before she said it.
“You’re . . . pregnant.”
“Yeah. I am.”
He leaned back into the water, staring out the glass doors into the starlit night beyond them. He was suddenly aware that whatever he said right now could be enormously important and that the chances of getting it right were infinitesimally small. Weren’t Tanya Schneider and Heather Malone enough for him to deal with? Now he was going to be a baby daddy, too? And him possibly about to lose his business, and totally uncertain about where he stood with Bayleigh.
She forced a little laugh. “I meant to tell you before—” She gestured to the hot tub. “But my self-control is a little compromised around you, I guess.”
He should ask some questions. Get more details. But what did he know about pregnancy? He had no nieces or nephews, no friends with kids. He’d barely thought about whether he even wanted to be a father.
“Um,” he said. “So you’re healthy? And the... baby?”
This time her smile was genuine. “Yes, other than fatigue and morning sickness—that’s what you witnessed in the barn—I’m fine. The midwife says the baby is doing great, too. I saw the heartbeat, Lucas.”
Her eyes were shining.
“You’re . . . happy about this, then?”
Her smile faded. “I am. Of course, I’ve had a bit of time to adjust.”
A bit of time. “How long have you known?”
“Only about a month. I actually thought I was sick for a few weeks. Sick or menopausal. So, this was a relief as well as a surprise. I’m thirteen weeks along.”
Thirteen weeks. He scanned back in the calendar mentally. Yep, that checked out.
She got to her feet, her expression impassive. “You need time to process this. Lucas, you should know that I have no expectations.” At the door, she paused. “If your truck is gone in the morning and I never hear from you again, I won’t judge you. We can talk more tomorrow. Or not, your choice.”
“Bayleigh—”
“No. Let’s stop before we both say things we might regret.” A flicker of something slid over her eyes, then disappeared. “I am sorry I didn’t tell you before we... before. That was unfair.”
Then, before he could pull his thoughts together, she was gone.
A sudden spasm gripped his thigh. He leaned back into the water and manipulated his bad leg against the jets until the muscles began to ease. An hour ago, he’d been full of anticipation, ready to explore where this thing with Bayleigh might go. Now, they were having a baby together?
No. She’d made it clear that she was having a baby. His participation going forward was optional. Maybe superfluous. Unwelcome?
She was right—he needed to process this, collect his thoughts. But damn it, this was a hell of a lot to process.