Becca's Baby

CHAPTER NINE

BECCA WAS LATE. She had a meeting with the mayor in half an hour. Because he’d be up for reelection the following year, the weasel had finally volunteered some city funds for Save the Youth. And now Becca couldn’t get her skirt zipped up.

Damn.

Letting her arms fall to her sides, she rested them for a moment before reaching behind her to start tugging again. And grunting. The damn thing wouldn’t budge.

Unable to decide whether to stamp her foot or cry, she did both. She didn’t have time for this.

“Can I help?”

Startled, because she’d thought she was home alone, Becca turned away as Will approached. “No, I’ll get it,” she said. Bad enough that she couldn’t fit into any of her clothes. She didn’t need him witnessing the indignity.

“You’re going to break your arms, Bec,” he said, approaching her as she backed away. He followed as she backed herself into a corner of their room.

“It’s stuck,” she said.

Turning her gently, he yanked at the fabric, drawing it together enough to get the skirt zipped.

“You need some new clothes, honey,” he said, not a trace of humor in his voice.

Becca nodded, turning around again, embarrassed, although she didn’t know why. It wasn’t as though she didn’t have a perfectly acceptable reason for gaining the extra weight.

With the pads of his thumbs, Will dried the tears that had spilled onto her cheeks.

“We can go to the mall in Phoenix tonight, if you’d like, and buy you a whole new wardrobe.”

She wanted to refuse. To say that she’d take care of it herself. But she missed Will so much—too much to turn down the chance to spend an entire evening in his company.

“If you’re sure you aren’t too busy,” she said, slipping into her pumps.

Will grabbed the money clip he’d left on his dresser—obviously what he’d come back for—and slid it into his pocket. “It’s Monday of finals week, so no one’s got time for the president,” he joked. “Can you be ready by five?”

Becca nodded, already wondering if she’d made a mistake by agreeing to the trip. The way things were going, the sooner she learned to be happy without Will, the better.

“Bec?” he asked, stopping in the doorway.

“Yeah?”

“I’m looking forward to it.”

God help her, she was, too.

THE HEADACHE STARTED while she was still in her meeting with Mayor Smith. He was coughing up some funds—or rather, agreeing not to put a stop on the allocation—but it was going to be “soft” money. Which meant a one-time payment, not a yearly budget as she’d requested. Luckily, she’d written all those grant proposals two weeks before and had verbal promises of enough hard money—money that would be replenished every year—to get the program off the ground in time for summer vacation. She should know by the end of the week.

When she left Mayor Smith’s office, her head was pounding, making it difficult to think. Making her sick to her stomach for the first time in almost a month. She was just hitting her four-month mark. Morning sickness was supposed to be finished now. They’d been in for a doctor’s visit the we

ek before, and although Dr. Anderson had warned her to get more rest, she’d said the next trimester should be easier.

Apparently someone needed to tell her baby that.

Slumped in her car in the parking lot, Becca tried to decide what she should do next. In twenty minutes she had a meeting with a group of citizens who wanted more traffic lights out by a new housing development being built on the perimeter of Shelter Valley. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to hold her head up that long.

Resting against the soft leather seatback, she tried to relax. Loosened the top button of her blouse and undid the button on her skirt beneath the jacket.

The tension was getting to her, that was all.

She’d been thinking about the nursery all weekend. She wanted bright primary colors that would work for either a girl or a boy. Lots of rainbows and clouds and stars. She wanted the furniture to be in light wood, and the carpet to be off-white. She wanted a changing table, a bassinet, a crib and a cradle that she could move from room to room. No playpens. Lots of those little sleepers and disposable diapers. She’d only need a few bottles, as she was planning to breastfeed. She’d need a rocking chair for that. And so she could hear the baby at all times, a monitor system, too.