Becca's Baby

Todd stared at his hands. When he raised his eyes, they were glistening. “I’m going to miss them like hell,” he admitted softly.

Just not enough, apparently, to make him stay.

“By next year we’ll be settled and I’ll send for them for the summer.”

The man had gone stark raving mad. Or maybe he had. No one was who he’d thought, not anymore. Todd having an affair, leaving his job, his wife, his family. Becca, willing to consider aborting the child they’d waited two decades to have, not sure she wanted to be a mother anymore. His own doubts about his part in Becca’s decision, the fears that had been plaguing him since her migraine. Doubts about decisions he himself had fallen into rather than chosen. The town he’d always loved maybe sheltering him too much all these years, robbing him of the necessary tests of his mettle, of life, rather than providing space for him to grow.

Nothing was making sense anymore.

“WHAT ARE YOU doing?”

Becca started, swinging around to face Will in the doorway of her home office Tuesday evening.

“Thinking,” she said.

“Standing in the middle of the room?”

“I was thinking about rearranging it.”

“Not by yourself, I hope. That desk’s heavy.”

“No.” Becca shook her head. “I wasn’t going to do it myself.”

“I thought you liked your desk by the window,” he continued, coming fully into the room. He was still wearing the dress slacks, shirt and tie he’d worn to work, though, in deference to the Arizona May heat, he’d removed his jacket the second he’d left his office at the university. He looked so good to Becca, tall, solid, reassuring.

And sexy as hell.

“I do love my desk there,” she said now. “But we might have to move it out of this room.”

He frowned. “Why? Where would you put it?”

Shrugging, Becca looked at him. “That’s my problem. I don’t know.”

“Then why—”

“We need a nursery, Will,” she interrupted, tired of all the games they were playing. Tired of their being nice to each other on the surface when they were tearing each other up inside. “Can you think of any other room we could use as a nursery?”

“My office?” But he didn’t sound particularly enamored of the idea.

“Your office is bigger. This room is more practical,” she said, only because it was true. “Besides, it’s closer to our bedroom.”

He thought for a moment. Walked around the room, as though contemplating. “The crib would look nice over there,” he said, pointing to the alcove across from the window.

Becca nodded. “That’s what I thought. And the changing table over there.” She pointed to the adjacent wall.

“Right.” He went over to the spot and stood there.

“It can’t be by the window. I don’t want him throwing something through it or kicking the glass.”

“Or rolling off,” she agreed, her stomach tightening as she envisioned all kinds of possible mishaps.

“Todd resigned today,” he announced suddenly.

“What?” Becca asked, moving over to stand beside him, as though his nearness could make the blow easier to bear. Or her nearness could somehow give him the comfort she knew he must need. “What happened?”

“The private investigator came up with the goods,” he said. His eyes were clouded, his face contorted with grief.

Becca ached for her husband. Todd had been his best friend for as long as she’d known him.