“A horse,” Merit replied. “If you’ll excuse me.” She turned and quickly headed to the barn once again.
Timberlynn shook her head and started to walk backward toward the barn. “She’s better off without you.” And with that, she headed off in the same direction as Merit.
Brock came up and stood next to me as he let out a sigh.
I motioned with my hand at the two retreating women. “This is why I don’t do relationships. I’m out of here.”
“Dirk—” Brock started to say.
“I don’t need this shit right now, Brock. Not from her, not from anyone. She’s been acting strange, and honestly, I can’t deal with it right now. Not now.”
Brock looked as if he wanted to tell me something, but all he did was nod. “Okay. If you need anything, you’ll call, right?”
“Yeah, I’ll call.”
I climbed into my truck and took another glance in the direction where Merit had headed. Something inside my chest ached, but I ignored the feeling and drove down the driveway. I had no idea where I was going, I just knew it wasn’t home.
Chapter Sixteen
MERIT
I stared at the screen in stunned silence as I watched the strange little bean move around.
“Yep, looks like you’re about seven weeks’ pregnant, Merit,” Janice said as she smiled at the ultrasound screen. Janice and I had been high school friends, so it was a no brainer I would book an appointment with her. While I went to New York for college, she went to college at Montana State University and became an OB/GYN. Her practice was fairly new, though, as she had only recently moved back to Hamilton to open it. “Her heart rate is beating at a strong one-hundred-and-fifty beats per minute.”
“H-her?” I whispered.
“Well, it’s too early to say. I simply don’t like calling a baby it. So one day I use ‘her’, the next, ‘him’.”
I smiled as I looked from Janice back to the ultrasound screen.
“Let’s listen to her heart,” she said.
Suddenly the room was filled with the sound of a rapidly beating heart. Janice kept moving around as I watched my baby.
“That’s her heartbeat?” I asked, tears now streaming down my face.
Janice laughed and then typed on the screen, “Hi, Mom and Dad, here I am.”
It felt like my heart split in two when she said “Dad,” and I cried a bit more. Janice turned to look at me and frowned.
Janice looked over at the nurse and smiled. “Mindy, would you mind giving us a few moments, please?” Janice removed the wand and cleaned me up.
The nurse nodded and replied, “Of course, Doctor Lewis.”
Once the door quietly clicked shut, Janice looked at me. “No dad?”
I wiped at my tears. “I haven’t told him yet.”
“Oh, Merit. You’ll be two months’ pregnant soon, why haven’t you told him?”
I closed my eyes and let out a humorless laugh. “Let’s see. He doesn’t want to settle down. He just lost his father last week and, oh yeah, he said I was the last person he wanted to have a relationship with. I’m sure you can figure out why I’m not in a rush to tell him.”
“Dirk Littlewood?”
I opened my eyes and stared at her. “How did you know?”
“You gave it away with his father passing.”
I shook my head and dropped it back down onto the pillow. “I don’t know what to do, Janice. I’m afraid he’s going to think I did this on purpose.”
She motioned for me to sit up, and I did as I adjusted the paper cloth over me.
“Got pregnant on purpose? I hate to tell you this, but it takes two to make that happen.”
With a groan, I covered my face with my hands and then dropped them to my sides. “It’s complicated. I don’t need him to be there for us.”
“Maybe not, but he does have the right to know. To be present for things like this. Do you really want to experience this all alone?”
I felt tears spill once more. “God, I’m so emotional. What is it with all the crying?”
Janice gave me a soft smile. “It’s called being pregnant. It only gets worse the further along you get. Now, back to my question.”
I sighed. “Of course I don’t want to do this alone. I also don’t want to force him into an instant family. I mean, not that we would get married—I know that would never happen.”
“Why not? You and Dirk used to be so close.”
With a disbelieving chuckle, I said, “Have you kept up on the gossip in town? Or watched his career?”
She shook her head. “Can’t say I have. I know he’s pretty good at riding the bulls, like the Shaw brothers. I never really paid much attention to them in high school.”
“Yeah, well, he’s the current world champion, and he seems to leave a string of one-night stands in his wake.”