“Congratulations, Ms. Carter.”
Leighton squeezed her eyes closed, hoping she’d misheard those fateful words. Yes, the home pregnancy test had been positive, but false positives were a thing. And there were plenty of valid reasons for morning nausea. And a late period. Several months in a row.
Whoosh. All the other noises in the room absorbed into a vacuum of buzzing white noise, leaving her with the pounding staccato of her heartbeat. The paper-thin hospital gown left her too exposed. To the ultrasound technician. To reality itself. This couldn’t be happening.
“Ma’am, are you okay?”
No, she wasn’t okay. She was far from okay.
“Is there someone I can call for you?”
She shook her head. This wasn’t the kind of news you delivered over the phone.
“Remember to make a follow-up appointment in two weeks.”
Leighton nodded.
“I’ll give you privacy to dress.”
The door closed with a distinctive click, and she quickly changed back into her street clothes. The technician had left a printout on the bedside tray. She placed it in her purse. What a disaster. At least she’d had the sense to make the appointment in Chicago. In her rural hometown nestled in the Fox River Valley, despite patient confidentiality, this kind of news would’ve reached her parents before she even left the parking lot.
Her parents. She sighed. They’d be disappointed, a far cry from the pride she’d seen on their faces when she graduated with her technical diploma a few months ago. And they’d already flipped out when she told them she was moving to Chicago to be with Jonathan. To say they disapproved would be a total understatement. Add in pregnancy out of wedlock and she was as good as disowned.
A calming sense of certainty came over her as she straightened her shoulders. She knew what she had to do first. Tell Jonathan.
She stepped out of the exam room and ran into a solid wall of muscle.
“Oops. Sorry.” She automatically braced herself, placing her hand on his chest, then cranked her neck up to look the stranger in the eyes. He was a gorgeous specimen of a man, a veritable Greek god with tousled dark-brown hair, piercing brown eyes, and the delicious scruff of three-day stubble. Just looking at him was arousing. How mortifying. The pregnancy must be wreaking havoc with her hormones.
“The apologies are mine.” His voice was melodious and lightly accented.
She stepped back, dropping her hand, and noticed his white lab coat and hospital ID badge. She nodded, without saying another word, before heading for the parking lot.
Sitting behind the steering wheel, she pulled the printout from her purse and stared at the grainy picture. She traced her finger over the tiny head. At least she thought it was the head. Seeing the baby growing inside her was pretty incredible. With her other hand, she touched her stomach. Hopefully Jonathan would be as … excited? Happy? Her initial reaction wasn’t either of those emotions, but the more she thought about it, the more she was overcome with wonder. And, in a few minutes, she’d know Jonathan’s reaction.
She put his address into her phone’s map app. This whole situation was weird. They’d been dating for over a year, but she hadn’t been to his house yet. Of course, he’d been living in an apartment while he worked in the Valley, and there was never any reason to visit the city. Until now. His contract was over and since he now lived here full-time, she did too. Kinda. With a car packed full of her stuff, she had one foot in the Valley and the other in the city. A residential limbo of sorts.
Her hands shook despite her iron grip on the steering wheel. She was so nervous even her thoughts were babbling. He’d be happy, right? Having a baby together was good news. Unexpected, but good. She turned up the radio in an attempt to drown out her thoughts.
She knew he lived in suburban Chicago but was unprepared for the stately house at the end of a sprawling driveway. Glancing at her phone, she double-checked the address. Yes, no mistake about it, this was the place. She gawked at the impeccable red brick, two-storey colonial. It had to be 4,000 square feet. Plenty of room for her and the baby.
But she was getting ahead of herself. A baby didn’t mean she’d move in, even though she’d hoped. And it seemed like the next logical step in their relationship…
She knocked on the door.
A dour-faced, heavyset woman appeared. “Can I help you?”
“Is Jonathan home?”
The woman squeezed her eyebrows together suspiciously. “What do you want with Jonathan?”
The man in question materialized with a pleasant smile plastered on his face. “Don’t worry, dear. I’ll take care of this.” He stepped outside and closed the door behind him. His smile vanished. “What are you doing here, Leighton?”
“Who answered the door?”
“My wife.” He glared at her. “Why are you here?”
“You’re married?” Her mouth gaped open. This was not the outcome she’d expected when she’d received confirmation of her pregnancy this morning.
Jonathan’s thin lips curled into a cruel sneer.
She scrambled to gather her thoughts. “I—”
“Spit it out, girl. I don’t have all day.”
Her mind cleared, and she took a prolonged look at the man she thought she loved. At that moment, she didn’t know him at all. What did I ever see in him? His shiny veneer didn’t look polished now. She took in his thinning blond hair and rounded stomach. Polar opposite of the handsome man she’d literally run into at the hospital. Still, she owed him the truth. Might as well rip off the bandage. “I’m pregnant.”
“You stupid bitch.” He shook his fist in the air. “This is all your fault.”
Surprise she’d expected, but anger? She cowered, protectively shielding her barely-there baby bump.
A furious stranger stared back at her with zero compassion in his eyes. He reached into his wallet and tossed a few bills on the ground. “Take care of it. And don’t come here again.”
She watched him storm off, feeling like a fool as he slammed the door in her face. With wooden feet, she walked down the driveway. Bitter tears streamed down her cheeks.
She drove away with no particular destination in mind but it didn’t matter, because she had nowhere to go.
She ended up in the back corner of a big-box store parking lot, camouflaged by the steady flow of traffic. People getting off work. Running errands. All with places to go. With—she choked back her tears—people who loved them.
When she woke this morning, she’d had no idea this was her destination. Sitting in her car. Alone in an unfamiliar city. And pregnant. Well, she’d had an inkling about the pregnancy. And now? Her pregnancy was the only certainty. Everything else—namely a place to live and a job—was up in the air. Maybe her parents would help her. She ignored her memory of their last encounter. Their ultimatum and, once she refused to give in, their coldness. Her shoulders drooped. The likelihood of assistance from that corner was slim-to-none. She patted her stomach. “Guess it’s just you and me, babe.”
She didn’t know what to do. Or where to go. Everything she owned was in the trunk of her car, packed neatly into boxes. It was too overwhelming. She buried her face in her hands and let all the tears out, crying until she succumbed to exhaustion.
