Chapter Twenty-Three
P regnant.
Lucas stood on the pathway outside the pool house, his bathing suit drip - drip - dripping onto his bare feet. That’s what his mind registered, the sound of cold water plopping into the silence, as if each bead of moisture was part of a slicing division between before and after.
Before, when his life, for all his problems, was his own. No one to consider but himself.
And the vague fog of after, which began now.
He heard a door slam from the barn, and an answering whinny from a disturbed horse. Is this why Ted was acting weird around him? The kid had been a little awkward from the beginning, but Lucas supposed that when a stranger knocks up your mother, and then only returns for a booty call, it tends to color your attitude.
But this had not been only a booty call.
He grimaced. Is that what Bayleigh thought, too?
Their connection was physically incandescent, but more than that, their spirits, their souls were aligned in some way he couldn’t articulate.
Whatever their connection was, a baby now wasn’t going to help it. They were too new, with far too many unknowns.
Also, why had Bayleigh told him she couldn’t conceive? Surely this was as much of a shock to her as it was to him. How far along was she? How much time had she spent adjusting to it?
Then a darker thought occurred to him.
What if she wasn’t surprised?
He shook his head, but he had to follow the thought to its natural conclusion.
Was it possible that Bayleigh Sutherland had planned this? Had she chosen him as an unwitting sperm donor? Was she looking for someone to help pay to raise this child? Or was she intending to go it alone, cut him out of his child’s life entirely, forever?
Surely not. That wasn’t the woman he knew.
But their relationship had been a short burst of flame, and maybe his judgment was clouded by the passion she stirred in him. Maybe the woman he thought he knew didn’t even exist.
Ted stomped from the barn to the house without even glancing toward the pool house. He kicked his boots off on the front porch and let the screen door bang behind him when he went inside.
Lucas slipped his forearm into his crutch and followed Ted. Bayleigh told him to process, and he was processing. But he deserved more of an explanation. At the front door, he paused, then knocked firmly.
No answer.
He knocked again. “Bayleigh?” he called. “It’s Lucas.”
As if it could be anyone else.
The door flung open and Ted stood in the doorway, his face like thunder. “Haven’t you done enough? Leave her alone. She’s already in bed.”
“She won’t be sleeping, with the way you’re slamming around.”
“Well, she doesn’t need you upsetting her more.”
Lucas was ready to barge past him when a soft voice interrupted both of them.
“Teddy.” She stood in her bedroom doorway, her hair pulled up in a messy ponytail, her face washed clean, pale as milk beneath her tan. Lucas imagined she must have looked exactly like this when she’d been carrying Ted. She defied time.
“It’s okay, son.” Bayleigh’s voice had the crack of fatigue in it. “I’ll talk to Lucas.”
Ted shot him a loaded look, then turned his back. “Mom, you’re tired. He can talk to you tomorrow.”
Lucas watched them battle it out, wishing he knew what to do. Press his case or allow her privacy and rest? And what was his case anyway? Did he even want to be a father? Did that matter, at this point? She was having a baby—his baby.
Suddenly the floor beneath him seemed to lurch and he reached for the wall.
His baby.
“Go to bed, Ted. This is between me and Lucas.” She tipped her head. “Come on in.”
A lock of hair swept her cheek, reminding him of the Veiled Virgin statue he’d once watched a documentary about with his mom. Cold, hard marble rendered so transparent as to create the illusion of feather-light fabric over velvet skin.
She’d lied to him. Still, Lucas wanted to rush over, pull her into his arms, to carry her to the bedroom and rub her feet. But the strength that lay beneath that deceptive fragility was more than sufficient for his honesty, so he followed her into the kitchen and took a seat at the table, instead.
“You can’t drop a bomb like that and expect me to just sleep on it, Bayleigh.”
“Fair enough. I need some tea.”
“I can’t guarantee I won’t say something regrettable.”
“That’s unfortunate.”
She busied herself with the kettle and teabags, milk and sugar, preparing herself for whatever he said next.
“First,” he said, “why didn’t you tell me earlier? Did you think I’d try to convince you to terminate the pregnancy?”
“Would you have?”
“Of course not.” He knew her well enough, even after such a short time, to recognize that no one would convince Bayleigh to do something she didn’t want to do. “But I deserved to know.”
She adjusted the flame and then sat on a stool opposite him at the island.
“You did.” She inhaled, then slowly exhaled. “Maybe a bit more perspective will help you understand. I had an amazing week with an amazing man. The first time I’ve slept with someone since my husband died. I have one child, born nearly two decades ago. Since then, despite years of trying, I’ve never had another. We used protection. I’m over forty. There was no reason for me to suspect that I might be pregnant.”
“But then you found out you were.”
“I thought I was going into early menopause.” She gave a little laugh. “Me, pregnant? Now? I couldn’t believe it.”
Lucas felt his brows lift. “Nevertheless.”
“Nevertheless, it seemed to be true.” She nodded, her eyes downcast. “But I didn’t trust it. Ted was our miracle.”
When he didn’t respond, she clarified. “We waited a few years, after that first miscarriage, to try for Ted. It took us a long time, so we started trying for a second right away. That’s when I was told I had a ‘hostile uterus.’ I did conceive once more but it didn’t last. I miscarried .” Her lips twisted. “God, how I hate that word. Like I did something wrong, made a mistake, couldn’t manage this natural event. And why did I miscarry? Because I had an incompetent cervix.”
The world of women and blood and reproduction was outside his realm but he sensed that she was sharing something vitally important. “I may have lost the thread of this conversation.”
“I didn’t believe I was pregnant because the messages I’d received for so many years was that I couldn’t get pregnant, that I was incapable of carrying a child.” A faint smile played on her mouth. “Then the midwife told me that everything is fine. My uterus is welcoming. My clever cervix is doing exactly what it should. My baby is healthy and growing, just as it should.”
A tiny bud of relief came to life inside him. “Our baby, you mean.”
“If that’s what you want.”
“There’s no if , Bayleigh. It’s my kid, right?”
Instantly, he knew he’d said the wrong thing.
She stared at him for a long, hard moment. “I realize we don’t know each other very well, but if you’re asking whether I was sleeping with someone else at the same time we were involved, the answer is no.”
He shook his head, clenched and unclenched his fists. He was making a mess of this. “What I mean is, you’re pregnant. It’s my kid as well as yours. Therefore, I’d prefer if you used the term our baby, instead of my baby.”
“Then you understand my earlier point.”
He lifted his hands, palms out. “What point?”
“Language matters. You know what else my midwife told me? She said that maybe this pregnancy is going well because the earlier problems lay with my husband, not with me. But no one even tested Jeremy. Everyone—my male doctors, my husband, our families—assumed that it was always my problem, my fault. So, this pregnancy, this miracle, whether or not it lasted, was mine then too, Lucas.” She glared at him across the table. “What would have been the point of telling you if I was only going to go through another loss? When I wasn’t even sure what we were to each other? Why would I do that?”
Her voice shook but she wasn’t crying.
“Maybe,” he said, touching her arm hesitantly, “so I could help you through it? I’m here, Bayleigh. I don’t know what this means for us, exactly, but I won’t let you bear this burden alone.”
She gave an exasperated sigh. “Again with the language. This is not a burden. I want this baby and I don’t care if you or the rest of the world approves. If there’s any burden, it’s how fucking invested society is in keeping women in line. If you don’t have children, you’re selfish. If you have too many children, you’re irresponsible. Working mothers don’t love their children enough. Mothers who sacrifice their careers to raise kids are kicked off the corporate ladder. Women who can’t get pregnant are defective. Women who get pregnant easily are loose. Women who lose pregnancies have no one to talk to about it because it’s an embarrassment, a ‘female problem’ that they should have the decency not to talk about. Our culture is barely able to talk about ‘feminine hygiene products—’” she made air quotes with her fingers “—because menstruation is so embarrassing. I had to set one woman straight already about running my ranch as an unmarried woman. I’ll have no trouble running it as a single mother, if that’s what happens.”
His heart hardened. “So, you’re not going to give me a chance?”
“I’ll have plenty of support. There are far more accepting, loving, open-minded people here than there are sexist bigots. Even the town priest said as much.”
“Really? You talked about this with him? Who else knows you’re pregnant? How many people have you told before me, Bayleigh?”
“Nobody,” she snapped. “I used a hypothetical situation.”
Something a priest would see right through. But at least she’d had someone to talk to. Even if it wasn’t him.
The teakettle whistled. Bayleigh began to get up, but Lucas beat her to it.
“Sit,” he said. He found a jug of milk in the refrigerator, added a generous slug to her cup, then stirred in a spoonful of sugar and set it in front of her, grateful for the opportunity to collect himself.
“Sorry,” she said in a low voice. “I didn’t mean to go on a rant.”
“You’ve given me a lot to think about,” he replied, returning to his seat. “But here’s the thing. This isn’t hypothetical. And I need to know what it means for me.”
She lifted her gaze. “What do you want it to mean?”
Resolve met him, like a brick wall.
To think that an hour ago, they were lost in each other’s arms, and now there was this invisible barrier between them that might as well have been concrete.
“After the feminist manifesto you just shared, I can’t help feeling that everything I say now is going to be wrong. I’m a man, Bayleigh, not the enemy. And this pregnancy is not a problem. It does, however, change things between us.” He leaned forward, determined to speak directly to her. “You led me to believe that it couldn’t happen. Now that it has, it affects us both.”
The idea of children had always been in the distant future, a vague, unlikely scenario that depended on finding a partner who wasn’t scared off by his lifestyle or his CP.
Now, though?
“I don’t need you, Lucas,” Bayleigh said quietly. “I want this baby. I know this isn’t what you intended for your life right now, or maybe ever. It’s a big deal—I recognize that. But I can handle it. I’ve been a single mother for almost three years now, after all.”
“Quit making assumptions!” he retorted. “I won’t be a deadbeat dad. If this happens, I will do my part.”
“Fine,” she said.
“Fine.”
The small expanse between them might as well have been the Great Wall of China. Her eyes were stony, her fingers white on her cup.
She didn’t trust him. She didn’t need him. She didn’t want him.
“Thank you for making the tea,” she said, sliding off her stool. “I’m exhausted. We can talk about this more in the morning.”
“Sure,” he said.
Then he went to his cabin, packed the Tacoma, and left.