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“Aren’t you one of them now?” He could hear her smile.
“Never say die, Stef. What’s up with you?”
“I’m going to plan a bridal shower for your future wife,” she answered, bringing him to a halt a few yards from his office door. “And I didn’t know, if by the time I threw it, we’d also include the baby shower part. Thoughts?”
Woodenly, he moved to the sanctuary of his office and shut the door behind him. “No showers. We’re doing this low-key.”
“No low-key. You’re a Ferguson and we do things very high-key. Or off-key, if we’re talking about Dad’s singing. I’m en route to the florist for a consultation for a fund-raiser dinner Mom is throwing, but I thought I’d ask about bridal arrangements while I was there. By the way, when is the wedding date?”
“We don’t have a wedding date. No showers.”
“Well, you’d better set one because that baby has a due date and I have a feeling he or she will stick to it whether you’re married or not.”
His face went cold as the blood drained from his cheeks. When he’d become “engaged” to Pen, no part of him believed they’d actually get married. Now that there was a baby on the way, well...he still hadn’t planned on marrying her, but he also hadn’t considered that everyone would expect them to make things official. Especially with a child who would carry on the Ferguson name.
“Have to run. Ciao!” Stefanie hung up on him and Zach set the cell phone on his calendar and stared dumbly at the month of May.
His sister had a point. Their baby was coming whether or not he set a wedding date. If he and Pen didn’t get married, in a few short weeks they’d have to announce a pregnancy and the decision not to wed.
It was archaic to believe they had to marry because they were expecting, but his parents would expect it. Especially now that they’d learned he’d married Yvonne on a whim.
Except no one knew the real reason for his marriage to Yvonne. It was a challenge in a way—to see if he could do it. Could he get over the past in one fell swoop without years of therapy or repression?
He could, as it turned out. He’d had to drink half the liquor in Nevada, but he’d walked down the aisle, had a spontaneous Vegas honeymoon and then wrapped things up in a matter of days.
All because once upon a time he’d been in love—for real. Yes, he’d been twenty-six, but he knew in his bones that Lonna was the one for him. She was four years older than him and had absolutely consumed every corner of his world.
They dated for a year and on that one-year anniversary when they sat across from each other at a rooftop bar, Zach proposed.
He recited a speech including how much he loved her, how there was no one else for him and how the rest of his life would be spent by her side.
Lonna had an announcement that evening, too. She’d come to break up with him. She’d had a speech prepared—it was about how she couldn’t see herself with him past that year, and how she couldn’t bring herself to lie to him because she didn’t love him.
She’d said she never had.
It was a blow he was sure he’d never recover from. Thank God he’d kept the relationship quiet, only telling his parents and friends that they were “dating.” After the breakup, he kept things quieter. He dodged questions, confided in no one and cried in private.
Then he decided he’d been humiliated for the last time, packed up his life and started a new one away from Dallas.
Now he had a decision to make. About a marriage. About a future with Penelope in his life.
No matter what those future plans entailed, one thing was certain: Pen and he might get married, they would have a baby, but Zach refused to allow himself to fall in love.
Not now.
Not ever again.
