Daddy in Disguise (Crescent Cove 7)

Actually, no. They would get the second kick. The sperminator in question should get the first one. A man got to enjoy making the baby and then just sat back and waited for the cigars. While the woman gained weight from looking at a cookie and then tossed them up whether or not she’d even eaten any.

“Goddamn you, John Gideon, I hate you.” I gripped the edge of the toilet bowl in our new house. We’d just moved into it, for pity’s sake, and I hadn’t even made it two weeks without indoctrinating it in an unexpected way.

Not wholly unexpected. I’d opened these floodgates the night of Gideon’s proposal. But I’d been thinking the baby would come, you know, sometime in the future.

I definitely hadn’t meant to get pregnant near this Halloween. Hello. The kid would be born in July most likely, and my cats hated fireworks.

They probably hated babies too.

Which was one more irony, since Trick, that hussy, had gotten herself knocked up, a fact I’d only discovered this morning during a routine vet appointment. She’d escaped a couple of weeks ago through an open door, and since she was an indoor-only cat, I’d never gotten around to getting her spayed.

My lesson was a litter of kittens that would be born…soon. She’d damn well be getting spayed after that.

Dani would dance on the ceiling. Gideon? Not so sure. He was still adapting to having two cats, never mind half a dozen. But since he was the one who’d left the door open while reinforcing the jamb or some such, this was basically his fault.

He was to blame for lots of pregnancies around these parts lately.

That horrible mouth-watering feeling came up again, and I swore as I rapped my engagement ring against the porcelain bowl. My perfectly gorgeous solitaire ring had gotten an upgrade with an honest to God black diamond bat ring wrap from my husband-to-be.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t used to the extra heft and banged it on every-freaking-thing.

It dug into my finger as I heaved again and prayed for the agony to subside. My Google-Fu had shown me not all women got morning sickness. Or afternoon sickness, or whatever the heck this was at just past noon. I’d always loved being the exceptional one.

Closing my eyes, I wiped my mouth with a wad of toilet paper and rolled on my side on the nice, fluffy bathroom rug. As places to die went, there were probably worse.

The next time I opened my eyes, it was past two and I was almost late to pick up Dani at school. Holy fuck. I’d actually passed out on the rug like a hungover socialite with an angry minion in her belly.

My only day off this week from my very successful businesses was not going as planned so far.

I thought longingly about a shower and decided I’d take one before bed. Or maybe I’d take a bath. With bubbles. Which usually was not my idea of a good time, because who wanted to sit in their dirty body water? But I was now operating as if every potential self-care item was a must do, on account of the fact I had actually let Gideon knock me up on purpose.

No accidental sip of the Crescent Cove water here. We’d tossed out the condoms and he had lied in my face that it usually “took awhile” so “no rush.”

I stared down at my flat-ish belly. “Tell your kid that, pal. Seems like he or she disagrees.”

After changing my shirt, I grabbed my jacket and my keys and hurried out to my car. I wouldn’t say I speeded to pick up Dani, but let’s say that when a cop came up behind me, I started readying the waterworks to pretend to be a scared new mom with diarrhea or whatever would get me out of a speeding ticket.

So, I needed to Google more. So, sue me.

But Sheriff Brooks turned on his siren to get me to move over and waved as he passed, so I dodged that bullet.

I slid into the carpool line at Dani’s school and had to grin when she came bounding out a few minutes later with some crazy art project that looked like a reindeer had chugged too much eggnog.

r /> “What is that?” I asked with a laugh as she slid into the backseat.

“Hello, it’s Rudolph. It’s for the mantle. See, his legs dangle.” She tugged on the spiral paper that served for legs and the whole thing nearly came apart, but I smiled and nodded as if it was entirely secure.

Besides, I had Super Glue and I knew how to use it.

“Did you get the bats?” she asked excitedly, snapping on her belt before I signaled back into traffic.

“Yes. But your father is going to flip. You have to pretend it was all your idea.”

“It basically was. I was the one who suggested pastel bat Christmas.”

“You were.” I had to beam with pride. “We’ll put them on the other tree I got, not the main one so your dad can pretend he still has a measure of control. I also got some hard hats to put on them. He’s gotta like that, right?”

“Oh, that’s sick.” I looked in the rearview mirror as Dani gazed at me with wide eyes. “We don’t have much time. We need to be done decorating before he gets home or else he’ll wig out.”