Her cheeks pink, she nodded.
Of all the stores in Swallow Creek, he would have to choose the one where Nita just happened to be.
“Ty? Ellie?” she exclaimed when she spotted them in the checkout line. “I didn’t know y’all were headed to town.”
Ty considered putting the box behind his back, but figured that would only draw Nita’s attention to what he held. Not that he needed to worry. She noticed anyway.
Her eyes growing huge, Nita’s jaw dropped, her hands clasped together.
“Are you pregnant?” she gasped, much louder than Ty would have liked. Surely everyone in the general mart was now staring, waiting for Ellie to answer.
Ellie’s cheeks glowed a bright pink and she didn’t seem capable of answering. Perhaps she wasn’t.
“Mind your own business, Nita. Besides, if we knew the answer to that question, we wouldn’t have need for this, now, would we?” He motioned to the rectangular box he held.
Looking way too excited, Nita said, “Your mother said Ellie was pregnant, but I didn’t—”
“Mom said what?” he gasped. If Ellie was pregnant, they needed time to digest the news, time to figure out what they wanted, time without his family butting in. His mother knew?
A sinking feeling gripped his gut. If his mother knew, his father would soon know.
Nita smiled, knowing she’d snagged his attention. “Yesterday, after the two of you went upstairs after lunch, she said that Ellie was pregnant, but the rest of us thought she was just doing some wishful thinking out loud.”
His entire family had been debating the possibility of Ellie being pregnant before either of them had suspected a thing?
“Wishful thinking?” he muttered, still trying to wrap his mind around how his mother was so observant she’d figured out quickly what he’d missed. He was a doctor. Then again, she’d lived on a farm or ranch her entire life and was on a first-name basis with Mother Nature. He was pretty sure they sat down for tea on a regular basis.
“You know how she wants more grandkids to spoil rotten,” Nita reminded him, beaming at Ellie.
“So you and Harry give her a few more.”
“Ty?” Ellie’s voice sounded panicky. She reached out, clutched his upper arm as if for support.
His gaze immediately went to her pale face.
“I think I’m going to pass out.”
Then she did.
He caught her just before she hit the floor.
Two blue lines. Pregnant.
Eleanor was grateful she was sitting on the shiny oak floor of Ty’s bathroom, that she was leaning up against the wall, that Ty sat beside her, holding the test so they could look at the results together.
His hand shook as he held it out for them both to read.
She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and looked at the results again.
There were still two blue lines.
Positive.
Eleanor Aston, the other Aston daughter, the quiet, shy Aston, pregnant out of wedlock.
The media would have a field day.
Her father would have a fit.