Glancing down at his jeans and shirt, he knew this was the guy he’d been with Katie, but the suit was what he wore when he meant business.Preparing Katie’s house for a magical proposal meant business.This was the real deal.
“I’m going for the suit,” he said.
“You know, it is cute how nervous you are,” Sarah said.“Katie is crazy about you.”
He stopped and turned toward his sister.“I love her, Sarah.I’ve never loved any other woman the way I have loved her, and ...I can’t lose her.”
“You won’t.”
“She’s pregnant, and rather than tell me to my face, she had to do it through a door.”
Sarah sighed.“Look, when you’re pregnant, all sense kind of goes out the window.You become victim to emotion, and I mean a lot of it.There is just no sense to be made from it.”
“Did you have to tell Harry behind a door?”he asked.
“I, uh, I actually ignored it.”
“What?”
“Yeah, I ignored the fact that I was pregnant and just pretended nothing was wrong.Puking my guts up first thing in the morning and being totally okay by the afternoon, that was easy.That was just par for the course.Yeah, then the tingly breasts, that was hard to ignore, but I pretended I was ...well, you’re my brother, and you can fill in those blanks yourself.”
He couldn’t help but wrinkle his nose.
“Then, the things I loved making me feel like I was going to throw up, or just plain throwing up, yep, I did that as well.Coffee, I love coffee, and all of a sudden, it was the devil’s drink.”She shrugged.“I talked all of that away to some stupid allergy, or something else.I was the one who was not facing the truth.”
“I didn’t know this.”
“It wasn’t like I was going to talk about it,” she said, chuckling.“I couldn’t tell Harry, and he was here.You were like a world away.”
“What happened?”he asked.
“Harry decided to come home and he had a box of pregnancy test sticks for me to use.I was so not facing the truth, that I refused to take them until the morning, when the pee is supposed to be fresh and strong.”
“It was positive.”
“Of course it was.I’ve got three kids, and yeah, I panicked.I didn’t know if I wanted to be a mom.”
“Sarah, you always wanted to be a mom.”
“I know, but the crazy hormones were not helping.You don’t know what you want, and then you do know what you want.It is a whole confusing jungle of emotion, and you’ve got to be willing to go along for the ride.As it happened, I was willing, and so was Harry.After the initial shock, it was easy.You’re in love with Katie, and she is in love with you.You guys might not have been honest about your feelings, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is there for the two of you.”
Hawk nodded.
Sarah moved toward him and put a hand on his shoulder.“You’ve got this, big brother.You can do this, I promise you.There is no reason for you to be afraid.You’re going to make an amazing dad.”
Her confidence was reassuring, but there was only one person he needed right now, and that was Katie.
****
Katie didn’t call herparents.
She didn’t call Hawk.
She didn’t call his parents, or Sarah.
She spent the rest of the day behind the counter, helping customers, all the time looking toward the door, hoping Hawk would come back.
She had been such an idiot.The last thing she needed was space, and yet she had been the one to freaking ask him for it.She felt like a damn fool.She should have opened that damn door, stared into his eyes, and told him the truth.She was pregnant, she was in love, and she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him.
