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“I never had morning sickness, and neither did my mother,” their mom commented. “I guess it runs in the family.”
“Instead, you had to pass down your ragweed allergies,” Mitch complained humorously. “Thanks a lot, Mom.”
After everyone chuckled at that, Meagan commented, “Maybe if I’d had some morning sickness, I’d have realized I was pregnant before two and a half months had passed. You’d think a doctor would be more tuned in to such things, but since my surgery, I haven’t been all that regular and there was the chance I wouldn’t be able to get pregnant at my age and with only one ovary.”
“If you’re going to start talking about women’s issues, I’m out of here,” Mitch complained wryly.
Alice rolled her eyes. “You’re a doctor, too, Uncle Mitch. Geez.”
He grinned. “I’m a bone surgeon. Basically a carpenter. I get to use power tools and everything—no gynecological issues involved.”
“You should have been at that dude ranch when I was trying to remember how to deliver a baby,” Madison said with a shake of her head. She’d told her family a little about the incident, saying only that she and another doctor who was equally inexperienced with labor and delivery had handled the birth. They’d been too amused by her humorous recounting to ask many questions about her involuntary assistant.
Madison thought of the conversation with her sister again when she climbed into her car a couple of hours later, carefully storing a stack of leftovers in disposable containers on the seat next to her. Something Meagan had said nipped uncomfortably at the back of her mind. Sitting behind the steering wheel before turning the key, she mentally replayed her sister’s account of how long it had taken her to realize she was pregnant.
Swallowing hard, Madison counted weeks on her fingers. When she had to switch to her other hand, she felt the bottom fall out of her stomach.
She’d been so busy and so distracted for almost six weeks that she hadn’t paid attention to her own cycles. It had never even crossed her mind that she could be pregnant. She and Jason had been so careful. They’d used protection every time—except that one last time in Dallas, in the shower, she remembered rather sickly.
One time. Was her luck really that bad?
Maybe it wasn’t true. Like Meagan, she had a history of minor gynecological problems which had led to menstrual irregularity in the past. She was a few months overdue for her annual checkup. Maybe this was something else entirely. As she had just stressed to her family, she was not an ob-gyn.
Still, she thought she would make a stop on her way home. After that…well, she couldn’t look that far ahead just yet.
Jason had no clue what had gone wrong. Was it something he had done or said? Had Madison’s day with her family caused her change in attitude toward him? Had she reconsidered all he had said to her last night and decided he had no place in her future?
The problem was, she wasn’t talking. For the first time since he’d met her—admittedly, not that long ago—her usually animated, expressive and approachable face was completely closed to him.
He’d returned to her apartment from his aunt’s house at just before nine. Rather than letting himself in with the key, which seemed a bit presumptuous when she was there, he’d rung the bell. Her expression had been distant from the moment she’d opened the door to him. She’d responded to his conversational overtures politely, somewhat absently, little more than monosyllabically.
Something was definitely wrong.
She asked him courteously if he wanted anything to eat or drink. He replied with a laugh that he couldn’t possibly fit another bite into a stomach already filled with his aunt Lindsay’s cooking. She didn’t laugh in return.
His phone beeped with a text message alert. Glancing at the screen, he saw that it was from one of his cousins, wishing him a happy Thanksgiving. He’d talked to all his immediate family members earlier, and he would answer this message later. No rush, he told himself, setting the phone aside. He had more important issues to concern him now, he thought as he studied Madison’s somber face again.
“Is everything okay with your family?” he asked cautiously. It was none of his business, of course, if there had been a family quarrel or some other unpleasantness that had affected her mood, but if she needed to talk, he wanted her to know he was here for her.
“Yes, they’re all fine, thank you. And yours?”
“Yeah, great. I enjoyed visiting them. It’s rare we have a chance to chat in small groups like that. Usually on holidays there’s such a huge mob of family it’s hard to talk to anyone one on one.”
> “I’m glad you had a nice visit.”
He couldn’t take this any longer. He got the impression that her odd mood had nothing to do with her family and everything to do with him. “Okay, Madison, what’s going on? Is there something you want to say to me?”
Still wearing that inscrutable mask, she tucked her hands inside her elbows. “I was just wondering—when were you planning to head back to Dallas?”
He felt his left eyebrow rise. “Kicking me out?”
It had been a joke, of sorts, but when she didn’t smile, any faint amusement he’d felt faded abruptly. “You are kicking me out?”
“Of course not,” she said, though she didn’t sound entirely sincere. “It’s just that I’m going to be pretty busy the next couple days, and I wouldn’t want you to be bored. I had some plans for the long weekend, and I’d kind of hate to cancel them at this point because I’m going to be so busy in the coming weeks.”
“I told you when I arrived without notice that I didn’t want to get in your way if you had other plans for this weekend,” he reminded her evenly. “I meant it. All you have to do is tell me and I’m out.”
She avoided his gaze by brushing at a nonexistent piece of lint on her dark pants. “Maybe it’s best. It could become a little awkward.”
