Rachel Gibson - Not Another Bad Date

Twins. He couldn’t wrap his brain around one baby, let alone two. He didn’t want any more children. Hell, he didn’t know what he was doing half the time with the child he already had. He didn’t want a wife either. He hadn’t meant to mention marriage as an option, but as she’d sat in the Escalade crying about getting as big as a whale, he’d felt responsible. She’d accused him of getting her pregnant, then acting like the wounded party, which was partly true, and for a few unguarded seconds, he’d felt like he had fourteen years ago when Devon had told him she was pregnant. Like before, he’d proposed marriage, but unlike Devon, Adele had turned him down flat. He should be congratulating himself.

I’m pregnant, not stupid. I’m not going to make two mistakes, she’d said. You don’t love me, and I don’t want a bad marriage on top of everything else. He should be doing a victory dance in the end zone, but he didn’t feel like celebrating. Admit it, you don’t want to marry me any more than you wanted to marry Devon. He hadn’t given marrying any woman a lot of thought. Knocked up with his twins or not. He remembered how he’d felt when he’d married Devon. Responsible. Resigned. Trapped. Like fourteen years ago, he was responsible for creating new life, two new lives, and he felt like someone had kicked him in the chest and knocked the wind out of him, but he didn’t feel trapped. Adele hadn’t tried to trap him, or she clearly wouldn’t be so upset about it herself. He should probably clear that up with her. Maybe even apologize for thinking she’d lied about the IUD. Yeah, maybe he’d do that when she wasn’t so emotional.

“Daddy?”

Zach turned his head and looked at Tiffany. “Yeah?”

“Are you going to marry Adele?”

“I asked.” He pushed away from the counter. “She said no.”

“She doesn’t like you?” Tiffany asked, as if the mere thought was impossible.

Adele refused to marry him and didn’t think he was capable of being faithful. “No, I don’t think she likes me right now.”

“Do you like her?”

“Yeah.” He liked her. He liked the way her hair wrapped around his fingers and the way her cheeks got real red when she jogged. He liked that she’d moved to Texas to help out her sister. He liked a whole lot of things about her that he wasn’t even going to think about with his daughter around. Mostly, though, he liked the way she made him feel when he was with her. Alive for the first time in a very long time.

Tiffany moved toward him and wrapped her arms around his waist. “I’m sorry I said you were gross. You’re the best ever.”

At the moment he didn’t feel like “the best ever.” His life was suddenly a damn mess. He’d been knocked flat. Now he needed to pick himself up and figure out the game plan.

One thing was for certain though, having Zach’s twins certainly settled the question of Adele leaving town.

Adele sat on the edge of the couch where she’d slept the night before and took a careful sip of tea. She flipped on the television and watched the last segment of Today. Kendra and Sherilyn had already left for the hospital an hour before. This morning, little Harris was coming home to begin his life with his mom and his sister.

Adele curled up with the quilt and took another sip, hoping she’d keep it down this time. Her shoulder ached from sleeping on the pullout, and she thought of her own bed. In her own home, and she felt a wave of sickness that had nothing to do with her pregnancy.

The doorbell rang, and she ignored it. It rang again, and she pushed the quilt aside. Zach. It had to be. Who else would be so pushy so early in the morning? Adele moved to the door and swung it open to stare into Tiffany’s green eyes and neon blue eye shadow.

“My daddy says you’re gonna have his babies,” the teen said without so much as a hello.

“Yes.” She stuck her head outside and looked around. “Does your daddy know you’re here?”

“No. Joe and Cindy Anne Baker came over. He went to breakfast with them at the Caralinda’s Cozy Cafe.” She played with the pull on the zipper of her coat. “I think they’re dating.”

“Who? Joe and Cindy Anne?”

Tiffany nodded.

Just a few short weeks ago, Joe had wanted a skin sandwich with Adele. “Come in.” She shut the door behind Tiffany, and the young girl followed her into the living room.

“Do you know if they’re going to be girls or boys?”

“What?”

“The babies.”

“Not yet.”

Her gaze lowered to Adele’s stomach. “You don’t look pregnant.”

“I’m not very far along.”

She looked back up. “When are the babies due?”

“August.”

Her eyes rounded and she pointed to herself. “My birthday’s in August.”

Adele smiled at the irony.

“My daddy said you won’t marry him.” Tiffany folded her arms across her chest. “Why?”

She really didn’t know how to explain it to a thirteen-year-old. So she said simply, “Because he doesn’t love me.”

“Maybe he will.” Tiffany shrugged. “Someday. You should think about it.”

Adele wasn’t going to wait for someday. She tilted her head to one side. “I thought you didn’t like me.”

“Things are different now.”

Which was a huge understatement.

“Where’s Kendra?”

“She and Sherilyn are bringing the baby home.”

“Gosh. Today?”

Adele heard the car pull into the driveway. “Right now.” A few minutes later they were all crowded in the baby’s room watching him sleep in the cradle Zach had put together. Adele was the first to leave the room. She returned to her spot on the sofa and closed her eyes. She was exhausted and wanted to go to sleep for a year or two.

She wanted to go home.

“You’re what?” Lucy Rothschild-McIntyre sat up straight in her chair, a piece of chocolate torte suspended on the fork tines in front of her face.

Clare Vaughan stared across the kitchen table at Adele, her eyes wide as Maddie Jones set down her glass of wine and lifted a brow. “Are you shitting me?” Maddie asked.

Adele shook her head. Her three closest friends sat at her kitchen table in her home in Boise, feasting on Lucy’s torte. She’d been home a day and a half, and her friends had come over to cook dinner together and catch up. Adele had waited until dessert to drop her bombshell.

“Nope,” Adele answered, and took a bite of cake. “Not shitting you. I’m pregnant.”

“And you waited until now to tell us.”

Adele shrugged. “I knew that’s all we’d talk about, and I wanted to know what y’all have been up to first.”

One corner of Maddie’s lips rose. “Y’all?”

“How far along are you?” Clare asked.

“Eight weeks now.” Two months. The nausea hadn’t let up, and her breasts were sore. She could practically feel them getting bigger, pushing against the restraint of her C cups.

The three friends all glanced at each other, and Maddie asked, “Who’s the daddy?”

“His name is Zach Zemaitis.” The sound of his name on her lips brought back memories of him and made her heart stutter. Distance had not put a dent in healing her heart.

A frown wrinkled Lucy’s brow. “Why does that name sound familiar?”

“He used to play professional football.” She remembered the day in his office when she’d read about his skilled hands. She took another bite and said around a mouthful of torte, “He played for Denver.”

The wrinkle in Lucy’s brow smoothed. “That Zach Zemaitis?”

“The quarterback?” Maddie once again reached for her wine. “He’s huge.”

“Yep.” Lord, cake hadn’t tasted so good since she’d dated stoner Doug back in college, and she tried to concentrate on that rather than Zach and how much she missed him. Just like the first time she’d been with Zach, their time together had been hot and intense and brief, and he’d left her shattered.

“I don’t watch football.” Clare shook her head. “Sorry, I don’t know who he is. How did you meet him?”

“I met him years ago at UT,” she answered, then filled them in on the past. She told them that Zach was the first guy she’d had sex with and she told them about Devon. “Now he lives in Cedar Creek with his daughter,” she finished. She took a drink of her decaf coffee and wondered what he was doing. If he even knew that she’d left two days ago. She’d left without telling him. Not out of hurt or spite, but because he’d want to know when she’d be back, and she didn’t know the answer to that herself. Or maybe he wouldn’t want to know. Maybe he didn’t even care. He hadn’t called, so her guess would be that he didn’t care. He was probably out celebrating her refusal to marry him.

“I guess it’s too late for my safe-sex lecture,” Maddie said.

“We used two forms of birth control.” Or at least she’d thought she had birth control.

“What’s he do now?” Clare wanted to know.

“He coaches high-school football,” she said, and recalled the way he pushed and pulled at his hat as he stood on the sidelines. Her chest ached, but she wouldn’t cry. Not now. Her friends were here. She didn’t want the sadness to swamp her like an incoming tide. Not yet.

“What does he think about the baby?”

Adele held up two fingers. “I’m having twins.”

“What?”

“No!”

“Yep. Twins, and Zach believes I got pregnant on purpose to trap him into marriage.”

“Jerk.”

“Ass.”

Clare reached for Adele’s hand. “You would never do that. If he thinks so, then he is unworthy of you.”

Adele smiled and squeezed Clare’s fingers. “Thank you.”

“What are your plans?” Lucy asked.

Adele shrugged and lifted her gaze to the dark windows above Lucy’s head. Outside, fat snowflakes floated toward the ground and blanketed the earth in virgin white. It was the first weekend in January. New Year. New snow. New life.