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Instantly, a crash of nausea dropped her to her knees. She clutched her stomach and barely managed to crawl to the toilet before she lost the contents of her stomach.
Ugh. She must have picked up the stomach flu from one of her clients.
Early in her career as a hairdresser, she’d learned the hard way that the public was germ-filled. She’d been sicker that first year than she’d ever been.
When she’d finished retching, Brea flushed the toilet and lay back on the blessedly cold tile. She was going to have to call into work, darn it. After all the disruptions to her schedule these past few months, she really hated to lose the cash flow—or, potentially, her hard-earned clientele. But it wasn’t like she could coif people while she was vomiting.
Brea took some deep breaths, trying to calm her rolling stomach. But the smell of her citrus-vanilla bath beads on the nearby tub stung her nose and revived her urge to throw up.
Seconds later, nausea forced her to pitch her head over the toilet again.
When she’d finished, she pinched her nose closed and picked up the offending box, dragging it—and herself—to the garage, where she dumped the bath beads in the trash to go out with Monday’s pickup. The second she let herself back in the house, she sagged against the doorway with a groan.
What the heck was going on? She’d loved that scent since one of her middle school friends had given her those bath beads as a birthday gift. She had repurchased them over and over because they always brought her comfort and pleasure. So why had the smell suddenly made her sick? Well, sicker.
Scents had nothing to do with the stomach flu…
Instantly, a more terrifying reason for her smell sensitivity crowded her brain.
She raced across the house and grabbed her phone from its charger. The first thing she saw was a message from Pierce.
Made it to location. No sign of asshole yet. May be here a few days. I’ll call when I can. See you when I get home.
Her relief that he was safe—at least for now—warred with her indecision about their future. But she shoved it aside to launch the app on which she charted her periods.
According to this, she hadn’t had one since early August. November was a week away.
That couldn’t be right. She couldn’t possibly have missed two periods.
But she feared her memory wasn’t faulty.
August, September, and October had been a whirlwind of craziness—Cutter’s hostage standoff, Daddy’s relapse and second surgery, Pierce’s capture and recovery, keeping the church going, her business flowing… She vaguely remembered thinking earlier this month that she’d missed a period, but she hadn’t been shocked, given all the stress she’d been under.
She hadn’t really believed that in one night Pierce had gotten her pregnant.
But it was possible. She was tired all the time. Her breasts were tender. She was weepy. She craved sex. The signs were there; she simply hadn’t put them together.
Brea sagged back to her bed, staring at the ceiling, and gaped. If she was pregnant…what was she going to do? If Daddy had been disappointed last night, he would be crushed by this news. And what would she tell Pierce? He’d asked her to be his live-in girlfriend, not have his children.
And what kind of father would he, a man who took lives, make?
Don’t get ahead of yourself. One thing at a time.
First, she had to find out what she was dealing with.
Thanking goodness Daddy was already at the church, she brushed her teeth and called in sick to work. The receptionist, bless her, promised to contact all her clients and reschedule. Then Brea dragged on some sweatpants and a hoodie, mustered up her courage, shoved down more nausea, and drove to the drugstore.
As she sat in the parking lot at the little pharmacy around the corner, Mrs. Simmons, her first-grade teacher, walked out of the sliding double doors and waved her way. She watched Mr. Laiusta, one of her dad’s parishioners, hop out of his car two spots down. Two guys she’d gone to high school with emerged, sodas and chips in hand, and eyed her through her windshield.
She couldn’t possibly walk into that store and buy a pregnancy test. Someone would see her. And everyone in town would know her secret by the end of the day.
Swallowing down another wave of sickness, she backed out and drove to Lafayette. She was familiar with the drugstore near the hospital; she’d had some of Daddy’s medicines filled there after he’d been discharged. No one at that location would know her. No one would care.
Even so, when she arrived, she braided her long hair, wound it on top of her head, then plucked one of Daddy’s discarded ball caps from her backseat and pulled it low over her eyes.
It took her less than five minutes to purchase a pregnancy test. The bored forty-something woman behind the register didn’t blink, just counted out her change and looked to the next customer in line.
