Becca's Baby

Becca thought about that, too. Giving her precocious sister-in-law a weary smile, she asked, “Who the hell made you so smart?”

Randi scrunched up her nose. “Hey, woman, I grew up with four older brothers. What chance did I have if I couldn’t outsmart them?”

Returning to the task before them, the two women wrote silently.

“Do you think Will’s open-minded?” Becca asked as she reached the bottom of the last page of potential patrons.

“To a point, sure,” Randi answered slowly.

“And always seeking to understand?”

“Usually, yeah, that’s Will.”

“Usually?” Becca repeated. Asked the same question herself a month ago, she would’ve answered with an emphatic “Absolutely.”

“It’s easy to be understanding when your personal universe isn’t involved.”

“You’re saying he doesn’t care?”

“No! His life, his dedication to the students at Montford, is a tribute to how much he cares, but none of that affects his heart and soul. Not like you do.”

“He’s become so black-and-white,” Becca murmured, remembering the conversation they’d had after his second meeting with Todd the previous week. Will wasn’t willing to concede that if Todd was indeed guilty of having an affair with one of his students—which Todd still had not admitted—it didn’t necessarily make Todd a bad person. A misguided one, certainly. An unhappy one. A man who’d made a serious mistake. But it didn’t change the forty good years Todd had put in on this earth.

Randi rubbed the back of Becca’s hand, a sad smile on her face. “He’s not getting over the fact that you considered an abortion, is he.”

“Nope.”

And there was nothing Becca could do to change that. She’d had the thought. She couldn’t not have it.

“Give him time, Bec. My brother’s a fair man. And he loves you. He’ll come around.”

“I love him, too,” she admitted. “But I don’t think I can live with a man who only sees things his own way. When did he become so judgmental?” And how had she missed noticing it?

“The man you’re describing may be the man who’s holed up in that office in there,” Randi said, gathering their papers in a neat pile as she stood up. “But he’s not Will. Give him time,” she said again.

At the moment Becca had few other choices. And time was something she had a lot of. Six months of it, to be exact.

WILL’S INTERVIEW with the prospective new English professor, Dr. Christine Evans, just happened to be on the same Monday as Becca’s second doctor’s appointment. He was glad of the diversion as he wondered what the doctor might tell them later that afternoon. He’d spent the past two weeks going over the warnings Dr. Anderson had laid out the last time they’d seen her. He’d done his research, knew which tests were necessary and which Becca could be spared. He also had several questions that needed answers.

He wouldn’t allow himself to think that the doctor might find some negative change in Becca’s condition, that the pregnancy wasn’t progressing as it should. But somehow the fear crept in, in spite of his very forceful admonitions to the contrary.

The first thing he noticed about Chri

stine Evans was the silky dark hair that hung all the way down to her hips. She had the thick tresses pulled back at the sides with a couple of pearled barrettes.

Just the way Becca had worn her hair twenty years ago. Back when she’d been all natural, before travel, education—life—had put a stylish veneer on her beauty.

The second thing he noticed was the quiet determination in Christine’s shadowed blue eyes.

They reminded him of Becca, too. Shadows and all.

“Please, have a seat,” he said as he shook her hand. He waited for her to settle in one of the maroon leather chairs in front of his desk before taking his own seat.

Her legs, when she sat, barely touched the floor. She was much shorter than Becca. But just as shapely. And slim.

“I’ve read your résumé,” Will said. He’d read it more than once, actually. Christine Evans was a dedicated woman when it came to her career. According to her interviews, the only family she had was a younger sister. “You achieved your doctorate at twenty-six. That’s impressive.”

She shrugged, her eyes lowering briefly. “I always knew what I wanted.”