Little Secrets: Unexpectedly Pregnant

It wasn’t a kiss she’d received from Tyce before and Sage didn’t know how to respond. She wanted to urge him to deepen it, to take more, to stoke the fire but she also didn’t want the sweetness of this kiss to end. It was pure seduction, totally charming. And over far too soon. Tyce lifted his mouth off hers and leaned back, his black eyes glinting in the low light of the room. Sage was surprised to see the fine tremor in the hand he put back on her thigh.

“Seeing you fall… You scared the crap out of me, Sage.”

Her words had deserted her so Sage just nodded, unable to drop her eyes from the emotional thunderstorm in his eyes. It was the first time she’d seen Tyce without his reticent cloak, his barriers. There was so much emotion in those dark depths that it made her breath hitch, her heart rate accelerate.

Her hand lifted to touch his face. She longed to run her hands down his big biceps, to pull his shirt up and feel the definition in his chest. She wanted to crawl inside him, explore that steel-trap mind, his creative genius, peek into his soul. Tyce made her forget to keep her distance; he tempted her in ways that petrified her.

It was time to step back… Way back.

“So, the phone calls,” she said, her voice curt.

At her prosaic words, his shields came up. “Everyone said they would come over tonight to check up on you, so instead of them arriving in dribs and drabs, I told Linc to tell them to come around after work and to stay for dinner.”

Sage nodded, resigned. Sure, they were worried about her but she knew that her brothers wanted another chance to check up on Tyce, to see if he was treating her right and to, possibly, drop another threat or two in his ear.

One day they’d wake up and realize that Tyce marched to the beat of his own drum and didn’t really care what they thought.

Sage ran a hand over her face, pain pounding through her head and her tailbone and her arm in symphony. “They’ll want food and I don’t have much in the fridge. I’ll have to order in.”

Tyce squeezed her thigh to get her attention. “I made a chicken casserole and there’s more than enough for everybody.”

Sage frowned at him. “You cook?”

“I do.”

“Since when?”

“Since I was a kid and the only way to get a good meal into my stomach, and more important, into Lachlyn’s, was to learn,” Tyce shot back and immediately looked annoyed that he’d allowed something so personal to slip.

Sage knew that he didn’t want to pursue this conversation but since he’d opened the door, she was going to walk through it. She was just…doing a background check on him, she told herself. Finding out information about her baby’s father.

Pffft. Even she didn’t believe the garbage she was thinking! The truth was that Tyce fascinated her. And, yet again, she was venturing where she shouldn’t go.

Oh, well…

“Where was your mom? Didn’t she feed you?”

“When she felt well enough to do so,” Tyce replied, standing up. That action and his closed-off face was a sign—billboard high and painted in neon—that he wasn’t discussing his past anymore. Or again.

“Was she sick?”

Tyce stared at the abstract painting above her head and he eventually shrugged. “She suffered from depression. There were days when she wouldn’t get up off the floor, when she’d rock herself for hours. Most days, she managed to work—just—but when she got home she’d collapse into a nonresponsive heap. If I didn’t look after myself, feed myself, and Lachlyn when she came along, we didn’t eat. It was… Yeah, it was tough.”

“Where is she now? Is she…” Sage hesitated, keeping her voice neutral, knowing that she had to be careful how she framed her questions. If she was too blasé she’d sound callous; if she came across as being too sympathetic Tyce would immediately stop talking. “…still alive?”

“She died from a bout of pneumonia a long time ago.”

Sage pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. “I’m so sorry, Tyce.”

Tyce shrugged. “It happened.”

When he looked around the room, Sage knew that he was trying to change the subject. She wasn’t surprised. Tyce had told her more in ten minutes than he’d shared the entire time they’d been together three years ago. He resumed his seat next to her on the bed and picked a curl up off her cheek and pushed it behind her ear. “I keep looking at that photo of the red diamond flower ring. It’s amazing. It’s your time to spill. Tell me about it and tell me why you didn’t want it displayed at the exhibition.”