The Pregnancy Pact. Kandy Shepherd
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just talked to Jake,” he said, taking a sip of his own coffee, and eyeing her over the rim of it.
“Who?”
“Jake. The contractor who fixed the door at your shop. He’s over at your house.”
“He’s at my house at, what is it, seven o’clock on Sunday morning? How do you get a contractor, especially a good one, to do that?”
“I used my substantial charm.”
“And your substantial checkbook?” she asked sweetly.
He pretended to be offended. “He’s going to do the list of all the things that need fixing—the leak in the roof and the toilet handle and the floors, which really need refinishing now. And he’ll fix the new smoke damage on the ceiling, too. That’s the good news.”
“Uh-oh, there’s bad news.”
“Yeah. There always is, isn’t there? It’s going to take him the better part of a week to get everything done. And he says it will go a lot smoother if you aren’t there.”
She concentrated hard on her coffee. “Oh,” she finally squeaked out. A week of this? Coffee delivered by a gorgeous man whom she happened to know intimately? Who had joined her last night in bed in his underwear? She’d be a basket case. “Look, obviously I can’t stay here. I’ll call a friend. Or get a hotel.”
“Why is it obvious you can’t stay here?” he asked.
“Kade, we’re getting a divorce. We’re supposed to be fighting, not setting up as roommates.” Certainly she should not be feeling this way about the near nudity of a man she was about to divorce!
“‘From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever,’” he said softly.
“I hate it when you quote Chief Joseph.” No, she didn’t. She loved it. She loved it as much as she loved that he had made her coffee exactly as she liked it, without even having to ask.
She loved that he remembered she had once bought a piece of art—that they couldn’t afford—with a part of that quote as its name. She remembered that he hadn’t been mad. He’d turned the piece over in his hands—a shard of gourd, burned with an Appaloosa galloping across it toward the sun—and he’d smiled and said, “Worth starving for a few weeks.”
And, of course, they hadn’t starved.
But of course, that had been at the beginning, when her staying home and having a house of her own and a husband to look after had been so novel. Later, it seemed as if Kade was nothing but annoyed when she bought things for the house. She thought of reminding him of that.
But it seemed too petty. She slid him a look now. Was he quoting that because they were turning over a new leaf? Because they were not going to squabble anymore?
Everybody squabbled when they got divorced.
“You want to do something fun today?” he asked. “Since fixing the house has been removed from our list?”
No, she did not want to do something fun! She wanted to get a divorce. She wanted to sell the house they had shared. She wanted to cut ties with him. She wanted to adopt a baby and get on with her life, without him. Fun? Who had fun in the middle of a divorce?
“I thought I took the fun out of everything,” she said. She put the coffee down and folded her arms over the largeness of his shirt, which she suddenly wished was at least a little sexy. She recognized the treachery of her thoughts.
He looked bewildered. “You took the fun out of everything?”
“That’s what you said. The day you left.”
Kade looked genuinely shocked. “I didn’t say that.”
“Yes, you did.” The words, in fact, felt burned into her, as if they had become part of who she was.
“Are you sure?”
“Oh, yeah.”
He looked genuinely distressed, but she found she couldn’t let it go.
“So,” she said, trying for a bright, light note, “what do you do for fun? You’re probably an expert at it, now that the dead weight isn’t around your neck anymore.”
“Jessica, I don’t remember saying that. It must have been one of those mean, in-the-heat-of-the-moment things. I’m sorry.”
She shrugged, as if it didn’t matter one little bit, as if she had not mulled over those words every single day for a year.
“So if we were going to do something fun today—and I’m not saying that we are—what would you suggest?” Did it sound as if she was forgiving him? Was she forgiving him? “Remember, I have one arm out of commission. Skydiving is out. Ditto for rock climbing. And bull riding.”
“I said that? That you took the fun out of everything?”
“Yes! And then you packed your bag, and you left, and you never looked back.”
“I thought you’d call, Jessica.”
“Why would I call? You were the one who left.” She hesitated. She tried to strip any hurt from her voice. “I thought you’d call.”
“I didn’t know what to say.”
“Neither did I. I wasn’t going to beg you to come back.”
“Why would you beg me to come back?” he asked wearily. “And I guess that’s why I didn’t call, either. We had reached a complete impasse. We were utterly and exhaustingly miserable. We just seemed to go in endless circles. You wanted a baby. I’d had enough.”
She could see the very real pain in his face. For the first time? Had she really been so wrapped up in herself and what she wanted that she could not see what it was doing to him? She’d accused him of being insensitive to her, but she saw now it had been a two-way street. She felt an odd little shiver of awareness go up her spine.
“So,” Jessica said carefully, trying to navigate the minefield between them without getting blown up, “answer the question. What do you do with a one-armed woman for fun?”
His eyes fastened on her lips.
“Stop it,” she said.
“Stop what?” he asked innocently.
“Looking at me like that. I think that would be quite a challenge one armed.”
“What?” he asked innocently.
“You know.”
He smiled wickedly. “I think that could be quite a lot of fun.
“I think it would be darn near impossible.”
“I don’t. I like a challenge. I like figuring things out.”
Good grief, she could not stay here for days with this kind of delicious sensual tension in the air between them.
“I could start by offering to help you shower,” he said, his voice a low growl.
She threw the pillow at him. It was a clean miss, but he dodged anyway, managing to save his coffee. He laughed and made a face at her. “So are we agreed? We’ll do something fun today?”
“I suppose, if you promise to be good,” she said warningly, reaching for the other pillow.
“Do I have to? Okay, okay.” And then he backed away from her, closed the door and was gone.
She freshened up in the bathroom and put on the maternity dress. When she saw her reflection in the full-length mirror of his opulent guest bathroom, she felt she had succeeded just a little too well in her goals.
She had wanted to look as if she didn’t care! She was not sure she had wanted to look quite this bad! She looked like a waif abandoned outside an orphanage. Still, defiantly,