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Ten
Shelby woke up, but she didn’t get out of bed. She just lay there, the reality of her new life rolling over her.
She was pregnant. She was pregnant with Kit Carson’s baby. There was no denying it.
And the sharp knock on her door seemed to underscore that.
Maybe it was her mom, coming to yell more.
There had been a lot of yelling last night.
It had all ended in tears. And everybody was fine now. She wasn’t really surprised at the way that it had gone. They didn’t want her to be a single mother. But they were reacting to stigma from a different time. And they were also acting like she was sixteen and not twenty-eight. She had the means to manage herself. She didn’t care if anybody judged her. And anyway, they weren’t going to. It just wasn’t like that anymore. But they could not quite understand that. She understood. They were reacting not just because of the way the world was with women, but specifically because of the way the world was to Brown women. She got it. She had lived her whole life in her skin. But she was deciding to do this. And she was assured in that. She wasn’t a kid. She wasn’t doing this naively.
And she knew that her family would support her no matter what. They would rally around. It was just they had to air their opinions and grievances first.
And so sitting through the grievances had been a thing.
But she had endured it. And now... Someone was here for round two.
She was not quite ready for round two. Even if it involved smothering and apologies.
She rolled out of bed, and padded to the door. She pushed her hair out of her face and jerked the door open, and froze. Because there was Kit Carson. On her doorstep. Holding bags of groceries.
“What are you doing here?”
“I came to make you breakfast.”
“I don’t recall...” But he was sweeping past her, into the house, and she felt as if he had broken an invisible tape that had been stretched across the door. Like he had breached something. Changed it.
Because here was this man in her house. This man whom she had slept with. Who was not her husband.
And he was getting food out and setting it on the counter. And rummaging around for pots and pans.
“Coffee?”
“I’m not sure on the coffee rules with pregnancy. I think I can have one. But I might just do tea.”
“Works for me. But I need some coffee. Will the smell bother you?”
“No,” she said, watching, feeling dazed as he opened up a package of bacon and put a skillet on the stovetop. Her stomach growled.
He turned with his broad back to her, and she couldn’t help but admire his form. His muscular shoulders, his narrow waist.
She really needed to get a grip.
But there was bacon. And Kit, and things felt very confused.
“I don’t know if you like bacon. Or if you prefer sweet breakfast. But I figured I’d do up some pancakes also.”
“I... I like food,” she said.
And she felt grateful then that she didn’t feel any sort of nausea. Because that, she was given to believe, was a hallmark of the early stages of pregnancy. And she really had felt... Mostly fine.
She had felt a grim sense of foreboding, but she hadn’t been sick. Or even really fatigued.
Suddenly, she wondered if that was something she should be worried about.
Well, this was going to be a joy. Worrying about not feeling bad was certainly something she hadn’t anticipated.
