Page 61 of Passion in Bloom

I didn’t have a chance to finish. Without looking up at who was in her way, she clutched her purse to her side and plowed past me. Her bony shoulder hit my arm as she rushed by, and I staggered to the side from spinning at the force of her knock.

“Damn,” I muttered.

Another hit of icy air accosted me from behind as she barreled into the door and exited without a word or glance back.

“Can I help you?” the café owner asked from behind the long counter.

Mr. Downing was old enough to retire, but he seemed to be one of those older souls who feared they’d stop and go stagnant if they didn’t stay busy with a job to report to.

I looked up at the counter and nodded, recalling with a bitter annoyance all the times he’d scowled at me like he did at Nevaeh rushing out.

“I’m here to pick up a takeout order for Fergus,” I said.

He nodded once. “It’ll be a minute yet.”

“Thanks.”

Since I didn’t go to the restroom at the bank on my lunch break, I figured I could now while I waited.

I walked to the back, rubbing my arms from the chill that hadn’t left me from the short walk. In the narrow restroom, I took the only available stall and did my business. Before I exited, though, an item on the floor snagged my attention.

A slim stick lay on the tile floor. Plastic and white, it was a telltale object that I recognized it instantly. I’d never used a pregnancy test, but like most people in the world, I knew one when I saw it.

What the hell?

I glanced around the bathroom, connecting the dots of what had to be true about this discovery.

Nevaeh?

She’d just rushed out of the bathroom. This was the only stall. No one else had come in during the half minute of my entry to the café.

Oh, my goodness.

A clear mark indicated that the test was positive. Someone had taken this test and learned that they were expecting. It seemed so foolish to assume anything about a huge fact like this. I didn’t want to jump to any conclusions.

Nevaeh didn’t have to be the one who’d taken this test just because she’d recently rushed out of here, but I didn’t know what else to think.

Holy shit!

I was right. I’d been guessing right, playing into that quiet but insistent hunch that had formed when I noticed the pattern of the teen seeming sick.

Not sick, but pregnant.

I took a picture of the test on the floor, using it as a time stamp to what I found here. If it was hers, if she was pregnant, she had to fess up about it. Hell, if she counted on Roarke to help her through life, he had a right to know.

Regardless of what she planned to do, she had to make decisions one way or the other. It wouldn’t be right to hide this from her uncle if she would need help to handle the situation.

Who’s the father?

All I knew about any man in Nevaeh’s was what Roarke told me. He’d shared that when Nevaeh had a boyfriend, they expected her to give them a free ride. To count on her for money and such.

It wasn’t hard to imagine that she’d be hooking up with someone when she wasn’t staying with Roarke, but getting knocked up was a far bigger deal than sleeping around and using someone’s couch as an unreliable sense of home.

I exited the bathroom, glancing around the café. Only one other customer was there, a woman with a toddler seated off to the side.

Well, it couldn’t have been Mr. Downing’s test in there...

I furrowed my brow, surprised by this discovery, and headed to get Fergus’s lunch.