"Hi," a female voice crooned. "Could I speak to Chris, please? Tell him it's Miranda."
At least now he didn't have to make a room search for the girl upstairs. "Son, it's a girl for you."
Chris charged toward the phone.
"Someone named Miranda."
The boy stopped in his tracks, gym shoes shrieking on tile. He shook his head.
Cupping his palm over the mouthpiece, J.T. said, "Your mother and I will leave the room."
And go upstairs where maybe he could regain ground. Chris stumbled back, tripping over his dragging shoelaces before righting himself.
J.T. raised the phone to his ear again. "I'm sorry, but he just stepped out. I couldn't catch him in time. Do you want to leave a message?"
"Just tell him he needs to come in to work an hour early tomorrow and run deliveries."
"Will do." He replaced the receiver. "She says you're supposed to come in an hour early to run deliveries."
Chris's face paled until acne shone double. Females could do that to a man.
"So you work with her?"
"Yeah, she's one of the hostesses." His gaze ping-ponged from one smiling parent to the other. "It's not like that."
"Okay, son. You're entitled to your privacy." J.T. hefted the transparent garbage bag out of the trash can. "But that doesn't mean I won't be curious as hell."
J.T. started for the door. Rena's gasp stopped him. "What? Is something wrong? The baby?"
"Bring the bag over here," she ordered, standing on one foot. She yanked the clear bag from his hands, tore it open.
Dumped it on the floor? She started rifling through empty cans and wadded napkins.
"What in the hell are you doing, Rena? Careful or you're going to cut yourself."
She knocked aside his hands and pulled free from the rubbish…
A box for an early-pregnancy test.
Chapter 9
Hand shaking nearly as much as her insides, Rena thrust the box closer to her son.
Talk about a visit from the Ghost of Knocked-Up Teenagers Past. Nothing like having her own mistakes come back to haunt her. But she couldn't think about herself or her own fears, not with a more pressing concern on her hands.
Literally.
Chris snatched the empty box from her. "You can both quit with the freaked-out looks. It's not mine. Well, I mean, obviously the test isn't mine, but it has nothing to do with me. You know?"
J.T. nudged his toe along the pile of soda cans on top of an empty cereal box. "Then what is it doing in our trash?"
"It was for a good friend." Chris's words tumbled over each other. "Someone you don't know."
His squeaky gym shoes betrayed his attempt to lie, and that twisted more old fears inside her. She'd worked to teach her children the importance of honesty—a trait she so admired in their father.
Even when that honesty broke her heart.
Of course, this lie didn't rank up there with a Mob hit or money laundering or any of the other things her family had been accused of while she was a child. But she was so afraid of unwittingly passing along defective genes and shifty mind-sets to her kids.