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He wasn’t going to make that mistake again.
* * *
Two hours later, Lacy was at home, closed up in the bathroom, staring down at the counter and the three—count them, three—pregnancy tests.
She’d driven into Logan to buy them just so she wouldn’t run into anyone she knew in the local drugstore. She’d bought three different kinds of early-response tests because she was feeling a little obsessive and didn’t really trust results to just one single test. And for the first time in her life, she got straight A’s on three separate tests.
Positive.
All three of them.
Lacy lifted her gaze to her own reflection in the bathroom mirror. She waited for a sense of panic to erupt inside her. Waited to see worry shining in her own eyes. But those emotions didn’t come. Her mind raced and her heart galloped just to keep pace.
“Oh, my God. Really?” Her voice echoed in the quiet cabin. All alone, she took a moment to smile and watched herself as the smile became a grin. She was going to have a baby.
Instinctively, she dropped one hand to lay it gently against her abdomen as if comforting the child within. When she and Sam were together, she had daydreamed about building a family with him. About how she might tell him the happy news when she got pregnant.
“Times change,” she muttered. “Now it’s not how to tell him, but if to tell him.”
She had to, though, didn’t she? Sure she did. That was just one of the rules people lived by. They’d made a baby together and he had a right to know. “Oh, boy, not looking forward to that.”
Funny, a couple of years ago, there would have been celebration, happiness. Now she was happy. But what about Sam? He said he wanted her, but that wasn’t love. Lust burned bright but went to ash just as quickly. And love was no guarantee anyway. He had loved her two years ago, but he’d left anyway. She loved him now, but it wasn’t enough.
“Oh, God.” She stared into her own eyes and watched them widen with realization. Kristi was right. Lacy did still love Sam. But that love had changed, just as she had. It was bigger. More grown-up. Less naive. She knew there were problems. Knew she wasn’t on steady ground, and it wasn’t enough to wipe away what she felt. Especially when she didn’t know if she wanted it wiped away. God, she really was a glutton for punishment. Just pitiful.
The baby added another layer to this whole situation. Yes, Sam had to know.
“But,” she told the girl in the mirror, “none of the rules say when you have to tell him.”
The problem was, she wanted him to be here right now. Wanted to turn into his arms and feel them come around her. She wanted to share this...magic with him and see him happy about it. She wanted him to love her.
Stepping away from the counter, she plopped down onto the closed toilet seat and just sat there in stunned silence. She was still in love with the man who had once shattered her heart. She might have buried her emotions and her pain for two long years, but she hadn’t been able to completely cut him out of her heart. He had stayed there because he belonged there, Lacy thought. He always had.
But loving him was a one-way ticket to misery if he didn’t love her back. And if she told him about the baby, he’d say and do all the right things—she knew him well enough to know that for certain. He’d want to get married again maybe. Raise their child together, and she would never really know if he would have chosen her without the baby. Would he have come not just back home, but back to her?
She couldn’t live an entire life never knowing, never sure.
Slowly, she pushed to her feet, stared at the test kits, then swept all three of them into the trash can. Patting her abdomen, she said, “No offense, sweetie, but I need to know if your daddy would want me even if you weren’t here. So let’s keep this between us for a while, okay?”
* * *
“You all right?” Sam asked the next morning when he caught her staring off into space. “Still have an upset stomach?”
“What?” Lacy jolted a little. “Um, no. Feel much better.” Not a lie at all, she told herself. Once she got past the first fifteen or twenty minutes of feeling like death, everything really lightened up. Of course, she really missed coffee. Herbal tea was just...disappointing.
“Okay.” He gave her a wary look as if trying to decide if she was telling the truth or not. “You were acting a little off last night when I stopped by your place with dinner, too.”
Because she had still been reeling with the shock of finding herself pregnant. She hadn’t really expected him to show up, especially bringing calzones from La Ferrovia. And once he was in the cabin, she had assumed that he would make a move to get her back into bed. But he hadn’t. Instead, they’d talked about old times, his new plans for the resort, everything in fact, except what was simmering between them.
