What Goes Around

One Detective Olivia Newhouse

One

Detective Olivia Newhouse

Nashville

Positive.

I stare at the pregnancy test stick. My hands shaking, my heart pounding.

Impossible.

Then I look at the other three lined up in a neat row on the marble counter with its double sinks and polished brass hardware.

I am pregnant. My eyes close and I move my head from side to side in silent, frantic denial.

How could forgetting my pill that one time have culminated in this catastrophic event?

In ten years of using birth control products, I have been nothing less than diligent.

But after my father’s unexpected death, I was a wreck for a few weeks. Then there was the move . . .

The excuses tumble through my brain, all of them irrelevant. None of them change the reality. I’m pregnant.

Only a little, probably. I had a period last month . . . It was light, shorter than usual, but I had one. Does that count? So how pregnant can I be? What the hell am I thinking? You can’t be just a little pregnant. You’re either pregnant or you’re not.

I. Am. Pregnant. The words echo through me like shotgun blasts.

“What the hell have I done?” I mutter to myself as the panic builds.

My cell shudders against my waist before I can start answering myself. A call this early likely means there’s no more time to worry about this unexpected development.

“Newhouse,” I answer without checking the screen as I reach to gather the test sticks. Can’t throw them in the trash. At least, not in the house.

“Hey, Liv.”

Walt Duncan, my partner. The gruff sound of his voice makes me smile. He is the one thing in my life at the moment that feels normal, steady.

“Morning. You headed my way already?”

“I am,” he says. “We got a call. Over on Twenty-Second. Might be just a missing person, but there’s a lot of blood, according to the uniforms on the scene.”

I slip the test sticks into the pocket of my khaki jacket as I consider the location, Osage / North Fisk neighborhood. Not exactly the best area when it comes to crime stats. “I’ll be waiting on the porch.”

“Be there in ten,” Walt assures me, then ends the call.

As I tuck my cell away, a knock on the bathroom door jerks my head up.

“Liv, are you going to be a while in there?”

I suck in a sharp breath, then remind myself to stay calm. “Almost done.”

I pick up my holstered service weapon and slide it onto my belt, followed by my badge, then check my reflection.

Hair in a ponytail, I smooth my hand over a few stray strands.

Eyes are clear. No sign of the tears I shed last night.

I hate crying. It makes me feel weak. Cheeks are a little pale, but that goes with the territory of being a blue-eyed blonde.

Good enough, I decide and turn away from the telltale mirror.

Cool, calm, and collected. I cannot deal with another fight this morning. Last night’s was bad enough. I haven’t had nearly enough sleep or coffee to function properly, much less remind him that there are four other bathrooms in this big-ass house.

Another deep breath. I open the door and brush past him, lips fixed in a fake smile. “It’s all yours.”

I feel his gaze burning a hole in my back as I hurry across the bedroom and out the door.

It’s barely six o’clock. Early for him. The man I’m supposed to marry in November is the president of Brentwood’s Neighborhood Bank, one of four local banks his family owns.

I don’t have to look back to know he’s still wearing his Ralph Lauren pajama bottoms, that his dark hair is mussed and his green eyes are bleary with sleep.

I also know from experience that he’ll wait until I’m halfway down the stairs before he decides on an appropriate way to respond to my less-than-cheery disposition.

Everything about him used to make me happy. I have no idea when that changed. Or why. But everything feels different, off somehow. Maybe it’s only me who’s changed.

“Good morning to you, too!” he calls loudly. Not quite a shout, mind you. Prestons don’t shout. They speak firmly, knowledgeably. They stand their ground.

“Morning,” I grumble, not caring whether or not he hears me.

He doesn’t have to hear me to know that I’ve responded.

He has watched my morning rituals daily for nearly a month now, and two or three times a week for about six months before that.

He understands I’m inevitably running behind and that I mutter when I’m annoyed.

He recognizes that I am always as tired when I get up as I was when I went to bed because I never, ever manage to get enough sleep.

I’m a cop—a homicide detective. I eat, drink, and breathe my work.

And sometimes I manage to sleep with the monsters stuck in my head, but not nearly often enough.

And now I’m pregnant.

Charles David Preston II, fondly called David to prevent any confusion with his father, Charles, was well aware of these facts before he pushed me to move in with him.

Before he insisted it was time we progressed to the next level in our relationship and became engaged.

I agreed to all his demands, however grudgingly, for no other reason than to make him happy—not because I don’t want to be with him or I don’t love him, and not even that I’m anything less than as committed as he is.

The truth is, I’m not good with change. But I took the plunge into all-out rapid-fire commitment .

. . for him. Because he wanted to move up the timeline.

Because loving him terrifies me on every single level of my being.

And because some part of me has suddenly become convinced that I don’t deserve him, and I despise the idea that he makes me feel so fragile in that regard.

He dragged me to this new level with his eyes wide open. I am not a morning person. I’m an even worse housemate. I might very well be terrible wife material—I’m certain his parents are still in shock over the announcement.

And I am most assuredly not mother material.

I exhale a ragged breath as I shuffle across the kitchen, with its gleaming white cabinets and shiny black-and-white diamond-patterned floor tiles.

From the soaring ceilings to the polished wood floors filling most of the luxurious rooms, this classic two-story is every inch the epitome of his mother’s design style.

The furnishings alone likely cost more than I make in three or four years of hard work as a detective.

Not to mention his top-of-the-line Mercedes parked in the triple-car garage.

This is not my life—it’s his, and I am not certain I fit into it. How did I not notice this before now?

I grab a mug and pour coffee into it, then head for the door. Somewhere in the back of my mind, the idea that caffeine is not a good thing while pregnant flits around.

David pauses at the bottom of the stairs, that caught you expression on his face. A sigh drains out of me. This—being here, being us—is suddenly, utterly exhausting.

“So you’re leaving? Now? No breakfast? Not even a minute or two for quality time with me? I feel like we need to talk about last night.”

I am leaving and I cannot eat for fear of vomiting. If I mention the latter, there will only be more questions. “Got a call. I have to go. I don’t have a nine-to-five job, David. You know this. I don’t understand why my work is suddenly such a sticking point for you, but this is what I do.”

His lips compress for a second, then two, while he searches for a different strategy. Christ, I know him so well.

I love so many things about him. Why has everything abruptly changed? Why all at once are we both so determined to torture each other?

Or maybe it’s just me. That whole I’m Not Good Enough syndrome.

“What about all these boxes, Liv?” He gestures to the pile a few feet away. “Are you ever going to unpack and actually start living here, or is this nothing more than the new place where you shower and sleep?”

I consider the stack of boxes I reluctantly packed and moved from the farm where I grew up to his stately foyer right here in Belle Meade, where so many of Nashville’s rich and famous reside.

The boxes do sort of block the view into the dining room.

The drab brown color certainly clashes with the elegant decor. I’m sure it drives him crazy.

This morning, however, the boxes are merely something to use as fuel for more unpleasant discourse. He can’t really yell at me for doing my job.

Not fair, Liv. You aren’t exactly making any of this easy.

I look into his green eyes—the eyes that charmed the pants right off me the first night we met—and remind myself that I love this man. I plan to spend the rest of my life with him. Evidently, I will be bearing his child.

Guilt straddles my shoulders, so I walk over to him, go up on tiptoe, and give him a peck on the cheek. “I’ll make it up to you, I promise. And I will unpack the boxes. Soon. See you later. Gotta go.”

Then I walk out the door.

He says nothing. He’s not happy.

But I’m the one who’s pregnant.

A couple minutes later, Walt’s Tahoe enters the U-shaped drive and stops in front of the house.

I hustle down the steps, leaving my mug on the porch.

I have no desire to go back inside and continue the fight that actually started last night—which is exactly what would happen.

The issue is that I want to delay the wedding from the day after Thanksgiving until April of next year. I told him I needed more time.