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In this case, he had.
Becca had called. Then, when he’d slept right through that, she’d texted. Her message had said, The results are in. She’d included a link to a website and a password.
He’d known what the results would be before he’d typed in the first character. He’d known in his bones that Becca wasn’t the kind of woman who would try to pawn off another guy’s child on someone else. He supposed he’d known the truth since the moment he’d set eyes on her again in the emergency room, but he hadn’t been able to wrap his mind around it.
A father. He was going to be a father. He couldn’t imagine a worse person for such an important job. The kid deserved better than anything he could offer. Of course he would provide for the child, but love? How could he love someone else when he didn’t even like himself sometimes?
The bald reality rolled around inside his gut, cold and heavy like a large ball bearing. To make it stop, he pushed up off the sofa bed and made short order of putting the couch back together, tossing the cushions into place. The chore had become a routine because if he didn’t put away his bed, it dominated the living space in the tiny efficiency apartment that sat above George and Mary Jane Hewitt’s garage. He’d rented the place on a month-to-month basis, figuring he’d find something more permanent once he got settled in his job and got to know the area. Since the place came fully furnished, he’d had the movers unload everything he owned, except his clothes, into a storage shed.
He didn’t spend much time at home, and as the modest apartment came with everything he needed, he really hadn’t missed the stuff that was stashed in those boxes. The Hewitts’ granddaughter was coming to live with them in January. So they wouldn’t offer more than a sixty-day lease. By that time, Nick figured he’d be settled in at the hospital and have a better read on the town. He’d even planned on looking up Becca.
It didn’t make any sense to unpack only to pack it all up again when he moved again after the first of the year. It felt good and light and free to not be weighed down by worldly possessions, even if temporarily.
But he hadn’t counted on the news that Becca was carrying his child.
He was going to be a father.
Maybe if he repeated the words to himself enough it would start to sink in. Yeah. No, that hadn’t happened yet.
As Nick made his way into the tiny kitchenette, he uttered a silent oath that was utterly unfatherly. He braced his arms on the edge of the slip of kitchen counter, where the coffeemaker and toaster lived. He knocked his head against the cabinet in front of him for not being more careful.
But he had been careful. They’d used protection. Short of being celibate, how much more careful could he be?
The only thing that was crystal clear now was, with Nick as its father, this poor kid was screwed. Nick wasn’t cut out to be a dad or a family man. The most devastating part of the equation was that this child hadn’t asked for this, hadn’t selected him. He or she—God, this was a person, a living, breathing human being whom he could screw up—deserved so much more than such a poor excuse for a father.
But like it or not, this child would arrive in about six months. There was no changing that. He squeezed his eyes together and raked both hands through his hair, which was still sleep mussed. Then he grabbed his phone and called Becca.
The phone rang three times, and he thought it might go to voice mail, but she answered.
“Hi, it’s Nick.”
There was a beat of silence, and for a moment he wondered if the call had dropped. He was just pulling the phone away from his ear to look at the screen when he heard her.
“Hi, Nick.” Her voice sounded neutral, almost businesslike. Of course, she was probably at work. And nearly four hours had passed since she’d texted him this morning.
“I just picked up your text.”
“Okay.”
She wasn’t going to make this easy on him, was she? Well, why should she?
Okay, so he had some smoothing over to do to convince her he wasn’t a first-class creep. But he still felt justified asking for proof positive. He hoped Becca would understand that the test results were the first step in moving forward.
“We have a lot to talk about,” he said.
“Do we, Nick?”
Her tone wasn’t hostile, just calm, eerily calm, a matter-of-fact answer to his feeble attempts to meet her halfway.
“I would ask you to have dinner tonight, but I have to work at seven. Would you have time to meet for coffee after you get off work?”
