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Chapter One
Sole Regret hadn’t even left the city limits of Houston, and their brand-spankablely-new pregnant problem was already making Owen’s life hell. He flinched when Lindsey took his wrist in her hand. They probably should have left the chick behind the stadium instead of inviting her on the tour until the band—or more likely he—figured out what to do with her.
“I need to speak to you in private,” she said.
She had backed Owen into a corner—both literally and figuratively. He looked down the aisle of the tour bus to his friends—his band brothers—for a bit of support, but it was as if he’d turned invisible. He didn’t hate Lindsey, but he didn’t want to talk to her either. Caitlyn had left because of the woman’s odious timing, and while he felt bad for Lindsey—who was notably pregnant and apparently had no one in the world who cared—he had more important worries. Like how to convince Caitlyn they were meant to be together when he had a surprise pregnant groupie showing up on his bus step.
“It will only take a minute,” Lindsey said, her blue eyes weary in her gaunt face.
He wondered if she was eating right. No matter how uncomfortable she made him, she was knocked-up and needed help. His conscience wouldn’t let him disregard her without hearing what she had to say.
“I’m listening,” he said.
Lindsey glanced at the other band members on the bus, guys trying so hard to ignore her that they’d fixated on her instead. He was pretty sure they were all holding their breath so she wouldn’t notice they existed. Owen would like to play dead too, but she’d already zeroed in on him.
“Not here,” she said under her breath. “I don’t think you want them to listen in on this conversation.”
He shrugged. “I don’t think there’s anything you can say that they shouldn’t hear for themselves.” Owen projected his voice toward the possum-playing rockers, but no one so much as blinked. Apparently they planned to throw him under the proverbial bus. And lucky for them, they had one handy.
Something about the intensity in Lindsey’s gaze made him reconsider his claim to share her conversation with everyone. Without another word, he brushed past her to make his way to the open bedroom door. If she tried to make a move on him, he was sure he could handle himself. And if that wasn’t why she wanted to speak to him in private . . . Well, maybe he was wrong about her.
He closed the door behind them and sat on the edge of the bed, crossing his leg over his knee so she couldn’t sit too close to him. She released a shaky breath and didn’t sit at all. Instead, she stood over him with a wide stance to maintain her balance. Concerned the bus might make a sudden move and send her tumbling, he patted the mattress beside him.
“Please sit. You look like you’re about to fall over.”
She considered him for a long moment, hooking her long blond hair behind one ear, and then she sat beside him, leaning forward and folding her arms over her belly.
“I’m not sure how to say this,” she said.
“Just spit it out, Lindsey. Nothing you say can possibly be more upsetting than finding out I might be the father of your baby.”
“You are the father,” she insisted.
“Until you present some solid evidence, I’ll hold off on installing a car seat in my Jeep.”
She rubbed at her tired eyes and released a weary sigh.
“How well do you remember that night in the mountain pass?” she asked.
“Pretty well. I wasn’t even drunk.” Drunk on lust maybe, but not on alcohol.
“Then you’ll recall the final time we were together that night. Everyone else had already passed out. That’s when it happened. I’m sure of it.”
He squinted as he tried to conjure up faded memories. He slept with a lot of woman and didn’t recall each occurrence in vivid detail. “I know I wore a condom every time, even that last time. So unless you poked a hole in it—”
Her glare cut off his accusation. “Of course I didn’t poke a hole in it. What kind of psycho do you think I am?”
He decided that was a question best left unanswered.
Her glare intensified. “You were the one who tried to put it on wrong side out.”
He laughed. Oh yeah, that had been awkward. He’d been eager to fuck her one last time but had been forced to slow down when he’d tried unsuccessfully to unroll an inside-out condom over his dick. “I realized my mistake pretty quickly.” And he’d felt like such an awkward idiot.
“You touched the outside of the condom to your . . .” She lifted her eyebrows and then glanced down at his crotch. “I know you had cum on your tip. I’d been rubbing it into your head with my thumb. Remember?”
He didn’t remember clearly. He remembered being awoken in the middle of the night by her mouth sucking at his cock, and he remembered almost putting the condom on wrong side out before flipping it over and unrolling it. They’d gotten a good laugh out of how clumsy he was in his excitement. The woman had been hot and impatient—there was no denying that. But had he actually touched the outside of the rubber to his jizz-sticky skin? He wasn’t sure. And he hadn’t given the incident a single thought since it had happened all those months ago.
“Why would I do something that stupid?” he said, a heavy weight pressing down on him.
“You were excited,” she said, “and it was your last condom. And I wanted you so bad, I wasn’t thinking clearly either.”
That was no excuse. Stupid mistakes like that got women pregnant. Owen suddenly felt light-headed.
This could not be happening.
“Are you sure I touched it to my . . .” He couldn’t even bring himself to say cum. That stuff had potentially gotten him an unwanted heap of responsibility.
She nodded.
“And that’s why you think the baby is mine?”
She nodded again. “The fault isn’t entirely yours, Owen. I’m not blaming you. We both made mistakes. I could have told you I didn’t want to do it with that contaminated condom, but I was on the pill. I didn’t think it was a big deal.”
“How did you get pregnant if you’re on the pill?”
“My doctor said it was most likely the St. John’s Wort I started taking a few months before. Did you know something like that can interfere with birth control pill effectiveness?”
How the hell would he know that? “So lots of women get pregnant that way.”
She shook her head. “No, it’s really rare. It’s almost like a higher power wanted this to happen just to punish me.”
“Punish you? For what?”
“For fooling around.”
“We all fooled around.”
And maybe they were all being punished. But not with a baby. A baby should be considered a joy, not a consequence. He was always so careful. Owen still wasn’t a hundred percent convinced that Lindsey was pregnant with his baby, but if he’d done something as totally idiotic as fucking her with a contaminated condom, then more than likely she was.
This could not be happening.
“You can’t tell the guys,” Owen blurted.
“Why not?”
Because they’d think he was a total moron. If they thought he’d knocked her up because there’d been a hole in the condom, that was one thing. But if they knew he’d made the stupidest mistake of his life, he’d never live it down.
“I’ll take responsibility for the baby for now,” he said, “but don’t tell them why.”
“Owen . . .”
