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“No.” He chuckled, shaking his head. “We see this happen from time to time. She’ll be perfectly fine. So will the baby. The worst-case scenario is some time in the NICU with the bilirubin lights for jaundice and a blood transfusion, but Sierra’s case seems to be pretty mild so far.”
I leaned back in my chair, my heart thundering in my chest.
“Otherwise, all is well. They’re both fine. Sierra is stressed, obviously. This pregnancy was a surprise to both of you, but it seems you’re making it work. Your parents would be proud of you, Pete.”
I tried not to let the emotion show on my face as I winced.
Oh course, Sierra was stressed out. We both were. We’d finally fallen into some kind of routine, fallen into each other’s arms, too. We were working through that—through what we were to each other, aside from a couple of people expecting a baby together.
She meant more to me that I’d let myself believe, and every day that was becoming clearer. But she was also so distracted and out of sorts about her mother possibly sniffing around town.
I didn’t blame her. I didn’t like this situation with her family one bit.
I sucked my lower lip and nodded, standing up and shaking the doctor’s hand before leaving the room and going to find Sierra, the mother of my child.
I was giddy at the news that the parentage had been confirmed but I didn’t let it show. I hadn’t realized how much it had actually mattered to me until I found out, without a shadow of doubt, that this baby was my own.
I did feel like a jackass, however, for even thinking Sierra would lie about something like this. As the days went on and I learnedmore about her, I found that she was nothing but sincere in everything that she did and said.
She made fast friends with everyone she talked to. Moira and Keely loved her. Everyone in town loved her. She’d fallen right in and taken up some void that no one realized was there and had done so effortlessly.
I wasn’t ready to admit that she’d filled the void in my own heart.
Sierra was in a panic over that whole RH thing the next couple of days. She clutched the glossy print out of the ultrasound pictures and spent hours looking up the condition until her eyes were red and her hair was standing on end. I wished that Doctor Marks had only told me and spared her the panic, but that wouldn’t been fair. If anything, her worry only made me feel better about the fact she was having my baby.
She would be a great mother. A fantastic one. This baby, whoever they would be, would be good and loved because of her.
“Baby doesn’t like onions?” I asked as Sierra finished off my plate of food while we sat at a high-top table at my bar. She’d eaten everything but the onion rings.
“I don’t like onions,” she corrected, smiling softly as she toyed with one of the onion rings. “Not just plain, you know. Cooked into something is one thing.”
“I learn something new about you every day.” I laughed, and that was true. A few days passed since her appointment, and a few days had gone by without another sighting of her mother—if it had even been her mother. Sierra had been busy reading all of those books I bought her and reorganizing the book shop, which under her direction had been an uptick in business.
“Do you have a blender?”
“There’s a margarita maker on the bar—”
“No, I mean a blender. For smoothies, and milkshakes.”
I blinked, trying to remember if I had one upstairs at my apartment. “Possibly? I don’t know. Keely brought over a bunch of stuff after I renovated the place but that was… a decade ago, or more—”
“I was just thinking that milkshakes sound kind of nice.”
She had a far-off look in her eyes as she looked out the window.
“Baby likes milkshakes?”
“Baby loves milkshakes.” She giggled.
“I’m sure I can find an older blender around here somewhere,” I breathed, standing up with the baskets of what remained of the fried, greasy food we’d eaten for dinner. She followed me back to the kitchen, smiling and chatty with the bartenders and patrons saddled up to the bar while I rifled through the storeroom, finding a blender that might have been older than Moira’s son Day, but it probably still worked.
“What baby wants, baby gets,” I whispered to myself. A soft smile touched my lips as I reached for a canister of malt powder on top of the dry goods shelf. I liked a vanilla malt every once in a while.
I also risked having to go up a few pant sizes if Sierra kept making us eat like this. Going to gym every day wasn’t canceling out the Chinese food and burgers. If anything, all of my shirts were tight now because I’d lost the lean, muscular build and gained roughly ten pounds of solid muscle.
Sierra didn’t seem to mind. I had no qualms about watching her soften and round out, either. Her curves were already to die for, but now?
I stifled a groan at the thought of her naked and walked back out the bar, the blender balanced in my arms.
