LITMIR.BIZ

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and come out just fine on the other side.” She was counting on it. “Which is usually after three months.”

      “And right now, you’re—” he frowned, calculating “—five weeks?”

      “Six.”

      “Have you told anyone?”

      She took a deep breath. “Tomorrow is the big day. I’m having my dad and Meg over to dinner. I admitted to Meg that I had a big announcement.”

      He must have heard something in her tone. “Did she guess?”

      “She assumed I was going back to law school.”

      “Ah.” Caleb studied her, but said nothing.

      “What?”

      His eyebrows rose. “I didn’t say anything.”

      “But you were thinking it.” Laurel knew she sounded bellicose.

      “I was thinking, My God, we’re having a baby.”

      Tears abruptly filled her eyes, and she bit her lip. “We are, aren’t we?”

      He reached out and took her hand. “Did you ever think, back in college, that we’d come to this?”

      “Not that you’d donate sperm.” She had sometimes dreamed that one day they would look at each other and realize that the like they’d fallen into had become love. Maybe it had, on her side. Or at least, she’d become aware of the possibility. But that she’d cold-bloodedly choose him to father her baby because he was handsome, smart and healthy… No, never that.

      “Yeah, that one would have taken me by surprise, too.” Still smiling, he started the engine. “Do you want me to be there tomorrow night?”

      She turned her whole upper body. “Would you?” Hope trembled in her voice.

      “I’d like to be.” He looked over his shoulder to merge into traffic. “I was afraid…”

      “What?”

      His shoulders moved, a small jerk. “That you wouldn’t want to be open about me being the father.”

      Nonplussed, she realized she had never really thought it through. If Matt had fathered her baby, she’d intended to keep the knowledge among a chosen few. Probably her dad and sister. They’d met Matt a few times and knew he and Laurel were friends. But a more public announcement would have been awkward all around. Either she explained to everyone that it was just sperm, or people would think he and she had had a fling, which wasn’t kind to Sheila.

      But with Caleb… It wouldn’t matter if most people assumed they’d had a brief relationship. At least, it wouldn’t to her.

      She sneaked a glance at his profile.

      He turned his head, his blue eyes meeting hers. “This taking deep thought?”

      “No, I was just realizing that it didn’t. Unless you’d rather I kept it to myself, I don’t mind if everyone knows you’re the father.”

      “Like I told you, I want to be a father. In every sense of the word.”

      If he hadn’t signed a contract and parenting plan—well, okay, if he wasn’t Caleb—that might have scared her. If Matt had started talking like that, she would have freaked. She’d wanted the baby to be hers. Hers alone.

      How funny that now she was okay with this baby being theirs.

      Unaware of her reverie, Caleb muttered a profanity as a hulking SUV cut him off on the freeway.

      “Have you told your parents?” she asked.

      He shook his head. “I figured I’d wait until it happened.”

      She couldn’t blame him, since she’d done the same. Almost at random, Laurel said, “I’m planning dinner for six tomorrow.”

      “Cooking doesn’t nauseate you?”

      “Yeah, but I’ll survive.”

      “Why don’t I cook? You have to admit, my sweet-and-sour pork is to die for.”

      “Why aren’t you married?”

      “Huh?”

      “Do you know how many women would kill for a man who’d make that kind of offer?”

      This grin was faintly wicked. “Yeah, I’m one of a kind. Women do propose all the time. But I’m saving myself for…” He broke off.

      “For?”

      “God knows. An octogenarian wedding?”

      “You and a little white-haired lady in a nursing home?”

      “Maybe.” He growled something under his breath. “Does traffic get worse every day, or is it my imagination?”

      Contemplating the giant parking lot I-5 had become, Laurel said, “It gets worse, I think. That’s why I ride the bus.”

      His face settled into a frown. “I don’t like the idea of you having to take buses when you’re really pregnant.”

      “As opposed to only a tiny bit pregnant?”

      He ignored her flippancy. “What if you have a long wait? And the Metro buses have lousy shock absorbers.” He wasn’t done. “What if you have to stand? And you know how you get jostled getting on and off.”

      She did know, and wasn’t looking forward to it. But the idea of squeezing herself behind the wheel of a car, only to inch along the freeway, was even less appealing.

      “The bus is actually pretty relaxing. And people are nice. Somebody would give up their seat for me.”

      “Hell, let’s get off here.” He took the Forty-fifth Street exit and got in the left lane to head west, toward the Sound. “What do you feel like eating?”

      Her stomach quivered. “A piece of dry toast?”

      “In other words, don’t bother taking you to Le Gourmand?”

      She groped through her purse for the soda crackers she’d taken to carrying. “Really, really no.”

      “Ah, well, let me get some takeout and we’ll go to your place.”

      Even the smell of his Korean takeout upset her stomach. She had to crack her window, which would have helped more if the air outside hadn’t been diesel-laden. But she made it home and curled up on her couch a safe distance from Caleb while he ate. Her stomach had settled enough to accept a piece of toast, which he made for her, and some strawberries.

      He didn’t stay long, promising to be back by four tomorrow with the groceries he needed to make dinner. “You don’t have to do a thing” were his last words.

      The next afternoon, Caleb returned so vibrantly full of life and energy Laurel felt washed out in comparison. She’d been so tired all day that she’d already taken a nap. She only hoped today was an anomaly. How would she get through a day at work if all she wanted to do was crawl under her desk and snooze?

      She left him to cook while she showered and then fortified herself with a couple of crackers. She wouldn’t even have to make an announcement if she had to dash off and puke the minute Dad and Meg walked through the door.

      They arrived separately. Megan, four years younger than Laurel, was a hotshot software designer for a small firm that existed in Microsoft’s shadow in Redmond, just across Lake Washington from Seattle. She was currently working on a team designing some kind of management software that she claimed would be a big seller thanks to flexibility from a rules-based interface.

      Whatever that was. Laurel was embarrassed to have so little grasp of what her sister actually did.

      Both sisters had had dishwater-blond hair when they were toddlers—the kind that the sun bleached to silver-blond every summer. Laurel’s had stayed somewhere

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