For His Brother's Wife

She felt the same way about him, but his work crew chose that moment to drive up the lane to start work on the barn interior, so she decided to wait until later to tell him so. “It appears that we’ll have to talk about your...appetite a bit later.”

He groaned. “Duty calls.” He kissed her soundly, walked to the back door and smiled as he took his wide-brimmed hat from the peg. “With any luck, we’ll get the barn finished and start repairing the equipment shed before we break for lunch.”

“Don’t try to do too much,” she reminded him. “Remember what the doctor said about—”

“There you go fussing again,” he said, laughing as he opened the door. “But I promise I won’t overdo it.”

Turning the scrambled eggs she had planned for Cole’s breakfast into an omelet, Paige only managed to eat a few bites before the queasiness that had plagued her for the past few mornings set in. Scraping the rest of the food into the garbage disposal, she frowned. What was wrong with her? Beyond an occasional head cold, she was normally very healthy and she never lost her appetite.

But as she stood there wondering if she was coming down with some type of stomach flu, a sudden thought had her rushing into the office to look at her personal calendar. After checking the dates three times, she sat back in the desk chair in disbelief. She was almost two weeks late. The only other time that had happened was when she had become pregnant before she got married.

Glancing down at her stomach, she shook her head. She was normally as regular as clockwork. Could she be pregnant again?

A mixture of emotion flowed through her at the thought. She had wanted a baby for so long, she was afraid to hope. What if she were pregnant? How would Cole take that kind of news?

“Stop it,” she said out loud, forcing herself to be realistic.

She didn’t know anything for certain and there was no sense in going over all the what-ifs until she did. Nibbling her lower lip, she decided there was only one way to find out.

Her hands trembled slightly as she dug through her purse for her car keys, closed the door, got in her car and drove the five miles into Royal. Try as she might, she couldn’t tamp down the nervous excitement as she drove straight to the pharmacy where Cole had purchased the condoms, bought the pregnancy test and drove right back home.

Ten minutes after she returned to the ranch, Paige stared at the two white sticks in her hand. Both digital windows showed a positive result. She had bought one of the latest and, according to the pharmacist, most accurate home pregnancy tests on the market. She had even made sure the package had two test sticks just in case she did something wrong and needed an extra. When the first stick showed a definite positive, she repeated the test just to be sure. There was no doubt about it. According to the tests that boasted 99 percent accuracy, she was pregnant.

Placing her hand protectively over her flat stomach, tears of joy ran down her cheeks. She was finally going to have a baby. A baby fathered by the man she had loved since he’d first introduced himself to her all those years ago in the halls of Royal High School.

Her heart skipped a beat as she thought about her feelings for Cole. She had loved him almost from the moment she met him. Since his return to Royal, those feelings had intensified to where there was no longer any doubt in her mind about how she felt. She loved him with all of her heart and soul. And he seemed to care a great deal for her.

But how on earth was she going to tell him she was pregnant? And how would he react?

He had said when he bought the condoms that he didn’t want to make her pregnant until that was what she wanted. Did that mean he would be happy to have a baby with her? When should she tell him? And what was she going to say?

She couldn’t very well throw that kind of news at him during an ordinary dinner conversation. Something like “the rain stopped early today and oh, by the way, I’m pregnant, and please pass the mashed potatoes” would never do. No, she needed to come up with the perfect way to tell Cole he was going to be a daddy.

Unable to figure out any answers, she decided to do the one thing that usually helped her think and work through whatever decisions she needed to make. Paige started cleaning.

Starting upstairs in her room, she cleaned the already tidy space, gathered the clothes that needed laundering and put them into a basket. Going across the hall into Cole’s room, she cleaned there, as well. When she was done, she emptied his hamper into the basket and headed downstairs.

As she sorted the clothes to put into the washer, something fell to the floor. Picking it up, she wondered which one of them had left a computer flash drive in their pocket. It might be Cole’s, but she doubted it. It looked just like the one Craig had given her a few years ago to use as a backup for her charity programs. Although she didn’t remember putting it in her pocket, it must be hers. She’d had hers out the day she’d made notes for her presentation to the volunteers of the TCC Tornado Relief Fund. She probably had just forgotten she’d put it there.