The Negotiator (Harbor City 1)

She shook her head. “Nope.”

“Okay, so…”

“We wait to see if I’m pregnant or not. It’s the only thing we can do.” She yanked on her jeans and pulled on her tank top, her stomach roiling and her mind going eight directions at the speed of light all at once. “No offense, but can we not have this talk right now? I just want to go inside.”

Once there, she’d shut the door to her childhood bedroom and stare at the water stain on her ceiling until she stopped feeling like she was going to puke or pass out.

Sawyer nodded, his eyes brighter behind the glasses he’d put back on. “Sure.”

He got dressed quickly, she rolled up the blanket and tucked it under her arm, and they left the lake behind them. The walk through the woods back to the house was filled with shadows and silence. By the time they got to the gate with its cheery gnome handle, Clover was cold inside and out.

Sawyer stopped her before she could walk through the gate. “It’s gonna be okay. We’ll figure it out.”

The words were pretty, but she knew the truth. Whatever else the past few weeks had been for Sawyer and her, they weren’t a prelude to something permanent. He was an industry titan from a wealthy family with a big-picture plan for everything. She was a working-class girl from Sparksville who’d never met a job she couldn’t quit or an adventure she could turn down. They weren’t a forever couple. They weren’t even a for now couple. Fake engagement, real maybe baby. She glanced up at the house behind the white picket fence. Despite her best efforts, she might just turn into her mother anyway. Her gut cramped.

“Let’s just keep this between us until we know if I’m even pregnant. That’s not negotiable.”

“Agreed.” But it didn’t sound like he liked it.

She nodded her head, unable to do much more than mutter a quiet, “Good night.”

He didn’t stop her as she walked through the gate, around the corner of the house, and in through the kitchen door to her childhood home, the one she’d sworn she’d never come back to or build one like it for herself.

Chapter Twenty

The sun was up and Clover could hear voices coming down the hall from the kitchen. She smoothed her shirt over her flat belly and ran a brush through her hair. The bed was made. The bathroom connected to her bedroom put back to how it had been before. Her overnighter had been repacked and zipped closed. She’d delayed as long as she could. Time to put a smile on and pretend that everything hadn’t just changed. More than that, she had to do it all while lying to her family about the man she wasn’t about to marry and wouldn’t be seeing after today.

Still, she didn’t move toward her closed bedroom door.

A baby. Maybe.

Her period was due in about a week. Until then, there was nothing she could do but wait and worry and…ignore the small bubble of excitement surrounding the boulder of anxiety in her stomach and the dream she’d had last night of a baby with her hair and Sawyer’s hazel eyes. That wasn’t the life for her. She was about new places and new experiences, not a static life behind a white picket fence.

Hustling out of the room before that mental image could take hold, she walked down the hallway toward the kitchen, the telltale smell of smoke announcing that her mother was in the kitchen. God love the woman, but she could burn water, which is why her dad did most of the cooking.

“You’re gonna burn the place down, Laura,” her dad’s voice filtered out of the kitchen, along with the haze of burned bacon–scented air.

“You just got back from the hospital. Don’t make me send you back there, Phillip,” her mom retorted. “Now, go sit in the living room like I told you until everything’s ready.”

The smoke detector let out a long squawk before being silenced as Clover approached the kitchen, listening to the banter that had been a part of her parents’ marriage for as long as she could remember. She hesitated in the doorway. Her brother was at the table, a book open on the table and oblivious to the goings-on around him. Her mom looked harried but happy as she stood in front of the stove waving a tea towel to push the smoke from the pan toward the open back door. Her dad, a little paler than normal with a tired pinch to his eyes, leaned against the half-wall dividing the kitchen from the living room.

“Good thing I didn’t marry you for your cooking,” Phillip said, shaking his head.

Her mom tossed the towel across one shoulder and marched over to her dad. “Nope, you married me because, and I quote, you couldn’t imagine your life without the most beautiful woman you ever met.”

“More like the most maddening,” he said, beaming down at her.

“And you love it.” Laura went up on her toes and kissed Phillip’s cheek. “Now get out of here. Sawyer and I can handle brunch.”

Sawyer?

At that moment, the man in question came strolling out of the walk-in pantry his arms filled with pancake mix, syrup, chocolate chips, and powdered sugar. Some of the sugar must have poofed up from the bag because there was a fine dusting of white across one of his glass lenses. He looked totally out of place and completely ridiculous, and her heart skipped anyway. Damn it. Not the reaction she needed to be having right now.

He spotted her and stopped. Every nerve ending in her body came alive when he looked at her and the bubble of hope that had no right to be inside her expanded just a little.

A baby. Maybe.

Don’t do it, Clover girl.