Becca's Baby

She shook her head. “No higher than usual. Not yet. But it could climb.”

“Did she put you on medication?”

“It wasn’t that high.”

And dammit, the report had been enough to make Becca give herself these two days to dream. To wonder. To hope.

Just a couple of days was all she wanted. A couple of days to pretend that after a lifetime of trying, she really was pregnant. To pretend that she really might be able to have the baby that was growing inside her.

Just a couple of days.

And then she’d consider doing w

hat Dr. Hall had insisted was her only choice.

Thinking about that, Becca felt the nausea rising. She barely made it to the bathroom in time for her nightly ritual. But tonight, when her stomach was finished with its usual protest, she wasn’t alone to face the emptiness.

A cold compress was pressed gently across the back of her neck. Then Sari wiped her mouth, her cheeks, her forehead. Sitting on the bathroom floor, Becca leaned into her sister’s ministrations, soaking up the care she’d needed so badly.

“Whatever you decide to do, Bec, I’m with you, okay? I know you wouldn’t even think about terminating unless you had no other option. I mean, the doctor wouldn’t recommend it otherwise.”

Becca nodded, feeling better than she had since she’d first suspected she might be pregnant. It felt so damn good to have someone else take care of her, even if only for a minute.

She could hardly believe she was getting Sari back. She’d been too preoccupied to see that Sari was ready to come back, but now—besides the overwhelming regret at her own situation—she also felt a sense of relief.

Sari rinsed the washcloth, hung it on the rack and slid down beside Becca. “How long do you have to make this decision?”

“I made an appointment at the clinic in Tucson for Friday.”

Before the words were even completely out of her mouth, Becca wished she could take them back.

Will was standing in the bathroom doorway. She’d been so busy retching she hadn’t heard him come home.

But there was no doubting what he’d just heard.

And no mistaking the rejection she saw in his eyes.

CHAPTER FOUR

“WE HAVE TO TALK.”

Will turned as Becca walked into his home office late Wednesday night. Still in the shirt and slacks he’d worn to work that morning, he’d gone straight to his office after hearing Becca’s announcement from the bathroom doorway. It was long past midnight now. Sari must have left hours ago. He’d hoped Becca was in bed asleep, leaving him to stumble around the chaos of his feelings in peace.

She looked lovely in the long white silk nightgown he’d bought her for Christmas the year before. As she stood there, perched on the brink of he knew not what, he had to admit she looked fragile, too.

Dammit.

“Apparently there’s nothing left to say,” he said, using every bit of self-control he had. What he wanted to do, needed to do, was shout. To tell her what he thought of her and her decision. To tell her how unfair the whole thing was, how helpless he felt. That the baby she was killing was his too.

Just the thought of what she planned to do made him burn with anger and with grief.

And yet, because the body that carried his baby was hers, because he believed in a woman’s right over her own body, and because she believed this damn doctor, he held his tongue. Or tried to. The body might be hers. But that baby was his.

“I was going to tell you about it.”

“Oh?” he asked, pushing back from his desk to replace some books on the wall of shelves behind him. “When?”

“I don’t know.” She paused. He could hear her moving farther into the room. His room. “Before I went.”