“Oh.” Laurel focused back at Jason Abbott’s mugshot. Even there, on the day he’d been arrested, his gaze was direct and his stature confident.
“You don’t have to be jealous, Laurel,” Kate said.
She paused. “Jealous of what?”
Kate studied her for a moment. “Forget it.”
Sometimes people just didn’t make any sense, or more likely Laurel was missing something again. But right now, she had to concentrate on her job. There wasn’t time to deal with anything else.
Nausea rolled up in her stomach, and she sucked in oxygen. Oh, no. She was okay. Oh, wait. No, she wasn’t. Lunging from where she was sitting, she grabbed the wastepaper basket from the corner of the room and lost her lunch and all of the pie.
“Whoa, boss.” Kate grasped her hair to pull it away from her face. “Whoa.”
Laurel retched harder, her body convulsing.
“How much pie did you eat?”
Laurel coughed and then straightened, standing with both arms around the bucket. “Sorry, I must’ve eaten something unpleasant.”
“You look pale, Laurel. You should to sit down.”
“No, I’m all right. I need to brush my teeth.”
She stumbled out of the conference room and down to her office where she kept a toiletry kit. Supposedly morning sickness abated after the first trimester, and she had great hopes that she would stop vomiting at that time. Although she understood from her research that it was entirely possible she’d be this nauseated through the entire pregnancy.
Taking the tin garbage can with her, she rinsed the thick metal out in the bathroom before washing her face and brushing her teeth. Her throat felt raw, so after returning the wastebasket to the conference room, she walked down to the kitchen and made herself a cup of soothing chamomile tea. Hopefully that would help.
Huck appeared in the doorway. “Hey, Kate said you puked all over. Are you okay?”
Laurel finished stirring the tea. “Yes, I vomited, but I’m all right. I lost all the pie, though.”
He chuckled. “Isn’t that supposed to go away soon?”
She turned and looked at him. His eyebrows were lifted and his gaze intent. “Is that concern on your face?”
“Yeah. That’s concern on my face.”
She took a sip of the tea, letting the chamomile soothe her throat. “There’s a chance the nausea will dissipate after twelve weeks, but there’s no bright line in the sand.”
Huck smiled, still looking concerned. “Where does that phrase come from anyway, ‘bright line in the sand’?”
“Oh,” she said, sipping again. “The ‘bright’ part is new. It used to be just a line in the sand. You know, to delineate a limit. I think, according to popular lore, it was used during the Battle of the Alamo in 1836.”
“Is that a fact?” Huck leaned against the doorframe.
“Yes. Apparently Lieutenant Colonel William Travis drew a line in the sand with a sword and asked those willing to stay and defend the fort to step over the line.”
“Did everybody step over the line?”
She warmed to the subject. “Everybody but one man.”
“Who’s the guy who didn’t step over the line?”
Laurel ran through what she remembered. “Keep in mind all of this may have been embellished or invented as a good story, but supposedly a man named Louis Moses Rose did not cross the line. This is just folklore.”
“I do like how you quote folklore,” he said. “You did a good job facing down Zeke Caine yesterday.”
“Thank you. You excelled at refraining from punching him in the face.”
