AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Those green eyes were too intense. It was her turn to stare at the ground. “I might be pregnant. I took a drugstore test, and it read positive. I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow morning to get something more official.”
Hands cupped her shoulders. She looked up to find concern written all over his face—in the set of his brow and the grooves bracketing his mouth. “I thought that couldn’t happen?”
There wasn’t an ounce of doubt in the question, or suspicion. Gentle as his words were, she couldn’t handle them. She spun away and wrapped her arms around her waist to try and hold herself together. “It wasn’t supposed to. The test I took this morning could be wrong. But even if it’s not, I don’t know if the pregnancy will be different than before.”
Dammit. She was very far down a road she didn’t want to be on. Chances were good she knew exactly where it ended—with Shane, the pregnancy, everything—and the bottom line was, she had no one to blame but herself for winding up here again. Apparently, she never learned.
“We’ll figure it out.” The low assurance came from close behind her, and then his hands settled on her shoulders again. The urge to lean against him and let herself be supported by his big, sturdy frame nearly overwhelmed her. She dug deep for the strength her father seemed to think she possessed and stepped away. It took another moment, and a deep breath, before she could turn and face him. “There’s no ‘we.’ You’re leaving.”
A muscle clenched in his jaw. “I’ll be back.”
“After Hawaii? Or Seattle? Or another ten years? Excuse me if I don’t promise to wait this time.”
“It’s nothing like last time. I have to go, but—”
“Just like last time.”
“No. Trust me.”
“Trust? Seriously? Look where trusting you has gotten me.”
“That’s not fair. I didn’t know Ricky—”
“Ricky? You think this is about Ricky?” Her shoulders sagged. “Life’s not fair, Shane. I learned that lesson ten years ago.”
He was in motion before she could blink, closing the distance between them, and holding her in her spot with the sheer determination in his eyes. “I’ll be back. And when I get back, I’m going to fix this—all of it—whether you trust me or not.”
…
“I got good news, and bad news, Maguire. Which do you want first?”
Shane squeezed through a group of Japanese tourists at Lihue Airport to get a better look at the departing flights timetable. “I thought I had the good news. Least that’s what I’d call overseeing the execution of emergency plans that helped a key client’s new resort weather a tropical storm without a single major issue.”
“I call that business as usual,” Haggerty responded. “I expected nothing less.”
Shane stifled a curse. The board showed a two-hour delay in the departure time for his flight to Seattle. “Fine. I’ll take the good news.”
“The good news is Magnolia Grove wants the firm to finish the project. They’re happy with the plans you drafted, and they’re not interested in changing horses this far into the race.”
“That is good news. I’ll switch my ticket from Seattle to Norcross and be in Magnolia Grove by this evening.” He already knew how Haggerty would respond, but some masochistic part of him needed to hear it.
“Not so fast, hotshot. The city council respects your skills, but they think things might go smoother if someone else comes down to deal with the face-to-face interactions.”
Peel the spin off that statement and it meant, essentially, he’d been fired as the director of the project. The knowledge left a bad taste in his mouth. Even though he’d expected the outcome, it hurt. A lot. Twice now, he’d been booted from his hometown in the name of keeping the peace. Deep down, he’d harbored hope things would go his way, this time. But history did, indeed, repeat itself.
You really are washed up there. He swallowed that bitter pill and then, what the hell, decided he might as well find out which hungry young project manager had benefitted from his fuckup. “Who are you sending?”
“I’m going. This one’s not delegable.”
“Awesome. I’ve got the boss as my own personal janitor. I hope this concludes the bad news portion of this call.”
“Get real, Maguire. I haven’t gotten to the bad news yet.”
Well, shit. Was it worse than spending the last three days reaching out to Sinclair via text and voicemail, and getting no response? Worse than the text he’d finally received from her in the wee hours of the morning, his time, stating simply, “I’m pregnant,” which answered one question but left an assload of others unaddressed. Could the doctor determine viability? He figured they could, at least for now, because otherwise she would have sent a different text. Something like, “Adios, motherfucker. Thanks for nothing.” So yeah, they were on track to be parents. Was she excited? Scared? Was she okay? He had no fucking idea because she was stonewalling him.
And he was making it easy for her, because the whole goddamn universe was conspiring to pull him away. “What’s the bad ne
ws?”
