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Her bottom lip quivered for a moment, and her eyes filled, but she managed to speak clearly. “I don’t want anything from you. I just thought you had a right to know.”
“You’re damn right I have a right to know.” Luke didn’t mean to be harsh, but like everything when it came to Andie, he put his foot in his mouth again.
“I’m not getting an abortion.” That lip wobbled again. Then she turned on her heel and marched for her car.
Luke cursed and dropped the stick. “Andie.” His hand wrapped around her arm, and she stiffened, but he was able to turn her into his embrace the way he’d been aching to since she’d shown up here. “Just wait a damn minute, okay?” He asked it gently, with his cheek pressed to her temple. “Fuck.” Again, he said it without rancor, and she must have realized that, because she wasn’t pulling away. In fact, after a second, she nodded and snuggled in close. She didn’t hold him back but instead kept her arms between them with her chin resting on her clasped hands, but Luke felt her melting into him regardless, letting him absorb most of her weight, and he was thankful she gave him that much.
“When did you find out?” He kept his voice to a whisper, since he was close to her ear. It gave an intimacy to the moment that he hadn’t earned but was happy to take advantage of.
“About fifteen minutes ago,” she said, her voice muffled by his chest. “I have been feeling weak and tired, and then I threw up today when I was cleaning a bathroom. I ran straight to the drug store in town. Took the test at the gas station right up the road.” Luke felt a shift in her, like a dam breaking just as words and tears started to pour forth like a flood.
“Oh, God, Luke. What am I going to do? How can I do this? I don’t know anything about babies. I never even babysat as a teenager. And there’s so much work to do. I can’t ask Logan to take on more. He’s already doing so much.” She pulled back and looked at him with tears streaming freely and might as well have gutted him. Seeing her so wretched filled him with a helpless panic he hadn’t felt since Logan got his first stitches. “Did you know he was sneaking around doing half my chores for me already? He always denies it, but I know it’s him. What does he think—that I’m not gonna notice all those things on my list are getting done before I get to them? I can’t ask him to do more. I just can’t.”
“Shh, it’s all right. Everything is going to be all right.” Luke cupped her face in his palms and kissed her forehead. “We’ll get another kid in there to help you out. Then you can stop pushing yourself so hard, all right?” He didn’t think to tell her it was him picking up the slack over at her place. That wasn’t important right now. What was important was getting her calm and keeping her that way.
“I just can’t be pregnant,” she sobbed, burrowing back into his chest. “I just can’t.”
“Well, sweetness,” Luke told her with resignation, “that stick over there on the ground says different.”
“Maybe it’s wrong,” she said, and if he wasn’t mistaken, she followed that up by wiping her nose on his shirt. “Maybe it’s a dud. I’ve heard these things can be wrong.”
Luke squeezed her a little tighter for a brief second and told her; “You know it’s not wrong. Besides, most false results are when they tell you you’renotpregnant when you are. Not the other way around.”
Another sniffle. This time, there was no mistaking it; she wiped her nose on his shirt. “Oh go ahead. I was about ready to throw this one in the rag bin anyway.” As he hoped, she gave a watery chuckle at his joke. “Come on in. I’ll get you some tea, and I think we’ve got some crackers. Those’ll help if you’re still feeling sick.”
* * *
“So,I guess I don’t need to ask how you know about pregnancy tests and crackers for nausea?” Andie asked Luke while she nibbled on a saltine.
In response, Luke nodded in the direction of a picture that hung on the wall just below the clock. Logan smiled out from the frame with his diploma clutched in one fist and his other clamped tight in his dad’s hand, raising them high above their heads between them. Luke’s smile was as big as his son’s, and Andie felt a curl of warmth wind its way through her middle at the obvious pride and joy pouring out of them both.
“That’s a great picture,” she murmured softly as she went to get a closer look. “God, you can really see how much he looks like you in this.” Her fingers brushed first over Logan’s face then Luke’s. “He’s got your smile.” She turned to give him a smile of her own. “And your eyes.”
“Yeah. That’s a nut that didn’t fall far from the tree.” Luke seemed a little uncomfortable with her words, like he was unsure what her close scrutiny would reveal.
“So,” Andie hedged, curious but not wanting to push where she wasn’t welcome. “Ummm… how old were you when Logan was born?”
Luke looked at her before answering, an expression on his face that gave Andie the impression he was weighing the decision on how much to tell her. “We were both seventeen when she got pregnant. I was eighteen when he was born.”
“That must have been scary,” Andie said in a quiet voice as she considered it. “I mean, I’m way past my teens and I’m freaked out. I can only imagine what you guys were going through.” Having picked up her tea, Andie took a testing sip. When the sweet warmth hit her tender tummy and soothed it immediately, Andie let out a grateful whimper and took a huge gulp.
“Careful.” Luke eyed her with intense focus that Andie hadn’t felt from him since that fateful night. “Slowly. You never know what you’re going to be able to keep down. For Christy, it was juice boxes and weak tea. For you, those may not work. It’s best to take it slow just in case.”
Andie nodded then cupped her palms around the mug to chase the chill from her fingers.
“So, is Christy close by? What happened between you, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Christy slept with Jax when Logan was only about two months old, and the two of them ran off together.” Andie was grateful she hadn’t taken another drink, because she was sure she’d have just spewed it all over the table. Solemn now, she slowly lowered back into her seat. “As for whether or not she’s close by, I couldn’t say. After about ten years, Jax came back. Christy never did.”
“Wait.” She set her mug down just to be safe. “Jax? The Jax I know? That’s who you’re talking about?”
“The one and only,” Luke answered, sitting back in his own chair and lacing his fingers behind his head as he watched her reaction closely. “He was my best friend, so there’s a cliché and a half for you. I’m not sure they would have left if I hadn’t caught them in the act.” At her gasp, Luke merely shrugged as though the news he just delivered was water under the bridge. “I came home early, and there they were.” He lifted one arm to point to the lovely bay window next to her with its cushioned bench seat and cozy throw pillows.
Andie let out another shocked gasp. “They did it here? In your family home? Right in front of a window!” Over the weeks, Logan had been opening up little by little to her prodding and probing. She was a talkative person by nature, and although he wasn’t, he answered all her questions about his home and growing up in this small town. So, Andie knew this house had been in Luke’s family for generations and that it had once been a much larger spread.
By the time Luke’s father inherited the farm, it barely had fifty acres left of the original five hundred, and it was mortgaged to the max. Luke had worked two jobs to help pay off the second and third mortgages—one after school at the feed store, and the other, he manned the projection booth at the drive-in theater on the weekends.
She also knew from Logan that Luke had raised him with very little help.
