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Frowning, I set my cup down, put my hands on her desk and lean in. “What’s going on?” I asked. “No one’s hurt?”
Running a tree service company, I always worried about my employees. Chain saws, falling timber and other hazards meant the possibility of bad injuries. That was from working on the trees, not from falling ones. Like the one that we cut up that had fallen through Lindy Beckett’s house last summer. Fortunately, no one had been home when her neighbor had played lumberjack.
“No. No one’s hurt.”
I sighed because it was always in the back of my mind. “Then what’s curdled your milk?”
She picked up pink message slips and pushed them into my face.
I snagged them and stepped back.
“I thought you learned your lesson right after high school, Daniel Case Pearson. I mean, I thought out of everyone, you’d know about condoms. Talk about gambling. Getting a girl pregnant? Now? You’re forty years old.”
I blinked, looked more closely at what Ang wrote. Condoms? Pregnant? What the hell was she talking about?
The test came back positive.You need to call me.
I toldyou this would happen, but no. You thought a little fun wouldn’t have consequences. Call me.
Where are you?What am I supposed to do, take care of this on my own?
Fine,fun was had. Now we face the consequences.
I lifted my head,met Ang’s wise, pointed gaze.
“These were on the business voicemail?”
Ang nodded. “I copied those down from the weekend. Exactly as recorded.”
“And you think this was me?” I waved the papers. “Chad’s a little careless from what I’ve heard.”
“She calls you out by name.”
“Who?” I glanced again at the messages. “Who is saying I… I–”
“Got her pregnant?”
I swallowed hard. Nodded.
“Melanie Harwood.”
Frowning, I looked to Ang. “Who?”
She shook her head and tsked me like a scolding mother. Since she was close friends with mine, they’d had practice for the past four decades.
“Little Melly Harwood. The librarian. And someone so young, too.”
“Young?”
“She can’t be more than twenty-four. Mabel’s daughter was two years ahead of her in school.”
Figuring out how Mabel’s daughter had any relevance wasn’t important. I didn’t know who she was either.
Crushing the papers in my hand, I crossed my arms over my chest. “You think I got a twenty-four year old librarian pregnant?”
“The messages were all directed to you. Remember, you wanted toget back out there.” She made stupid air quotes with her fingers about how everyone in the office thought I should find a woman.
“Fuck me,” I muttered. I ran a hand down my face, stomped into my office and slammed the door shut.
