For a Baby. C.J. Carmichael
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was in its usual state of disarray, and the lower portion of his tanned face was covered in a light beard. He had on sunglasses, so she couldn’t tell for sure, but he seemed to be watching her approach. She swallowed and forced her chin up an inch. At that moment she realized she’d been clinging to a hope that he wouldn’t show up.
She glanced at her watch. Despite all the interruptions, she was here on time.
“Hot, isn’t it?” She sat about three feet from him, wishing she’d thought to pack a blanket. The grass half tickled, half scratched her bare legs.
T.J. removed his sunglasses. For a second their glances snagged against each other. Then he pulled off his white T-shirt and spread it over the grass a little closer to himself. “Sit here. You’ll be more comfortable.”
She couldn’t really say no, even though she’d have been more at ease if he had kept his shirt on. Not that long ago she’d rested her head on his muscular chest. Now, she deliberately averted her gaze from it.
“I brought food.” Settled on his T-shirt—was it her imagination, or could she feel his heat burning right through to her skin?—she unzipped the insulated bag in which she’d packed their lunch. She pulled out two sandwiches, slices of cheese, a container of strawberries. She unwrapped the first tuna on sourdough and passed it to T.J.
He caught her hand rather than the sandwich. “Your fingers are trembling.”
She lowered her head. Couldn’t he have just let it pass without comment? But T.J. had never been one to let anything go. Throughout their school years he’d teased her mercilessly about her red hair and freckles. And she’d never made a secret about the fact that she despised him for it.
That didn’t stop them from having slept together, though. The first time happened just after they graduated high school. Russ, two years older, had already left for fall term at university and there’d been no promises binding her—much as she’d wished otherwise.
The second time she and T.J. got together was in Saskatoon, where she’d been taking a break from working on her education degree to have Russ’s baby. And then there’d been this April…
No denying the sexual pull between them, much as she wanted to. Even now she felt it, despite the other, weightier, issue on her mind.
“You’re probably wondering why I asked you to meet me here.”
T.J. didn’t say anything. Somehow, that made it even harder. She’d had a whole speech planned out. But in the end, she only managed two short sentences.
“I’m pregnant, T.J. Just thought you should know.”
CHAPTER THREE
T.J. TENDED TO REACT to shocking news with silence. When his ex-wife, Lynn, had told him she was leaving, that she’d found someone new, someone who loved her, someone who didn’t work seven days a week, twelve hours a day, he’d just sat in his armchair and stared at her.
The way he was now staring at Heather. He noticed small things about her. The pattern of freckles across her nose. The way the sun turned her hair to liquid copper. The slight wobble of her lips as she waited for him to speak.
He didn’t know what to say. Didn’t even know what he was feeling. But it was something, all right. His stomach was so tight he didn’t think he could swallow a mouthful of water. The sensation felt very strange and unfamiliar.
T.J. wasn’t used to feeling. For the past few years since he’d left his legal practice in the city and come home to Chatsworth to look after his father’s hardware business, he’d existed in a perpetual state of numbness. But apparently no longer.
In the distance he heard the happy cries of children playing, the buzz from the motor boat pulling a waterskier. Closer, he could hear the heavy sound of Heather breathing.
He had to say something. Had to react. But she couldn’t be pregnant.
“You weren’t on the pill?” He had relived their evening together about a dozen times. In his mind he always glossed over the part where he’d told her he didn’t have any condoms. He couldn’t remember what she’d said in response, only that there’d been a tear in her eye when she’d asked him to make love to her, and no way could he have held back after that.
She gazed down at her hands. Her small, golden, freckled hands, upon which she wore no jewelry other than her sports watch. No rings.
“I know I implied that I was on birth control, T.J. But I wasn’t.”
He almost smiled, as a blush revealed Heather’s embarrassment. That was something else he’d always liked about her, even though she probably wouldn’t guess it from the way he’d teased her.
Teasing Heather Sweeney had become habit for him during their school years. In truth, taunting her had been the only way he could get her to notice him. From a very young age, Heather had time for only one guy at school, and that was Russell Matthew, two years her senior and a virtual god in her eyes.
From what he’d observed from a distance, T.J. suspected she still carried a secret torch for the man. Given that Russ was happily married with two kids, that wasn’t a recipe for Heather’s future happiness. Ten years ago he could have happily offered her a solution to her dilemma. But since what had happened with Lynn—and his daughter—he didn’t have much left to offer any woman. Or child.
“I have a confession, T.J. The reason I let you assume everything was okay was that I didn’t care whether I became pregnant. In fact, a part of me actually hoped it would happen.”
Silently T.J. turned over this new information in his mind. Heather was thirty-five years old. Widowed, with no serious boyfriend in her life. Why would she want to get pregnant?
“I don’t get it.”
Her sigh sounded long-suffering. “There was a reason I was in the bar by myself that night. It’s not something I normally do. But I’d just had an appointment with my doctor.”
He wanted to tell her to stop. If she had a fatal disease he couldn’t stand to hear. Not Heather. But of course he didn’t say anything, and she kept talking.
“The women in my family are susceptible to a certain type of problem—I’ll spare you the details. But the problem can lead to early infertility. I’d had an ultrasound and the doctors told me that it was happening to me, too. I can still have a baby now, but in the future it may be a little more tricky.”
She was throwing a lot at him. And he was starting to feel angry. “Are you saying you used me to get pregnant?”
“I suppose in a way I did.”
She sounded utterly unhappy, but he no longer cared how Heather Sweeney felt.
“Didn’t you think I should have a say in whether or not I wanted to bring another child into this world?”
And his say would have been no. He’d already proven what an unfit parent he made. He’d neglected Sally, even worse than he’d neglected Lynn. He’d lost them both and he knew he had no one to blame but himself.
“It wasn’t like I planned for it to happen. I didn’t know you’d be in the bar that night, or that you’d…come home with me,” she finished miserably. With one hand she plucked at the grass in front of her. “I’m not proud of what I did, T.J. Not the sleeping together part. And not the birth control part, either. I guess you have every right to be angry with me.”
“Oh, hell.” He leaned back using his arms for support and stared out at the lake. The water was silver-blue in the high afternoon sun. At the far end, he could just make out the assorted buildings and trees of Chatsworth.
“You’re sure you’re pregnant?”
“Three months.”
“Oh, hell,” he said again. Yeah, it had been about that long since he’d held her small, curvy body close to his own. During