I glanced cautiously at Zach, but he didn’t seem to be listening, and the only words he’d been interested in repeating lately had been limited to the four-letter variety, a less-than-endearing trait I could probably blame on my ex-husband.
“Active? A bit.” That last part was an understatement. My lady parts had been stormed more times in the last five months than the beaches of Normandy.
“How many partners have you had since your last exam?”
“Two. But one was just a fling,” I rushed to add when the doctor raised an eyebrow. Julian Baker, a hot (and much younger) bartender, had been in his third year of law school when we’d met. He’d been an attentive and enthusiastic partner in bed, a welcome and much-needed distraction after Steven’s many betrayals and oursubsequent divorce, but the age gap had proven to be too much. Julian and I had been—and still were—at very different places in our lives, and in the end, we weren’t as compatible outside the bedroom as we’d been in it. I still considered him a close friend, but we hadn’t been romantically involved since I’d fallen for Detective Nicholas Anthony.
“And the other?” the doctor asked.
“The other is my boyfriend.” It still felt strange calling him that. My relationship with the smart and devastatingly sexy detective was only a few months old, but it had survived a lot in a short period of time, and our feelings for each other had grown pretty serious. I trusted Nick. But more than that, I was in love with him. My kids adored him. Even my ex (begrudgingly) respected him. And my mother and sister were both eager to plan a wedding Nick and I hadn’t even discussed yet.
“What kind of birth control are you and your boyfriend using?” Dr. Wiley asked.
“You mean besides that one?” I pointed to my toddler with a chuckle. Dr. Wiley didn’t return it, and I quickly cleared my throat. “I’m on the pill.”
We both turned to look at my son. “That’s probably for the best,” Dr. Wiley said.
Zach squatted by her feet, picking the tape off the floor with his sticky red fingers and affixing the torn pieces to the front of his overalls like badges of honor. He noticed us watching and started to fidget. I knew that look. It was only a matter of time before he started searching for things to get into, the shinier the better.
He lunged for the rolling cart. I reached out with a socked foot and pushed the tray out of his reach before he could grab it.
I hopped off the table and trapped Zach against me with one arm, his wriggly body holding the paper drape in place as I reachedfor my underwear. “Anything else?” I asked, not bothering to wait for the doctor and nurse to leave before putting on my clothes. I needed to get out of there before Zach broke something expensive and we got billed for more than a Pap smear. “Damnit,” I muttered as he reached for a plastic model of a vagina.
“Damnit,” Zach repeated gleefully.
I took the model from his greedy fingers, watching his face contort with the promise of a tantrum I didn’t have time for. I had to pick up my daughter from preschool by four. And clean the house. And do the laundry. And the grocery shopping. And figure out what to make for dinner. With any luck, maybe I’d get the kids fed, bathed, and tucked into bed with enough time left for me to shower before Nick got off work and came over.
I held fast to my writhing son while I fed my arm through a bra strap, switching sides as Zach began to wail. The doctor asked me what kind of birth control pills I was on, and all I could think wasnot nearly enough. I answered her absently as I put on my shirt and jammed my feet into my shoes.
“Maybe I should run some blood work while you’re here,” Dr. Wiley suggested. “You look tired.”
I laughed darkly as I tossed the drape into the trash can. I wasn’t tired. I was exhausted. It had been three weeks since Vero had been handed over to law enforcement in Maryland. My house was a disaster. My family was a mess. And I had a laundry list of overdue revisions that my editor was waiting on. We were all in limbo as we waited for Vero to come home. My nanny had become a pivotal part of our family—the beating heart and soul of it. More than that, she had become my best friend, and I missed her more than I ever thought I could. But just because I was tired didn’t mean I was pregnant.
“I’m not pregnant,” I said, as much to myself as to Dr. Wiley.
“When was your last period? I don’t see it in your chart.” She raised an eyebrow over the rims of her readers. I attempted the mental gymnastics of the math while my son had a nuclear meltdown on the floor.
“A month… I think… I don’t know,” I said over Zach’s wails. “I’ve been under a lot of stress. I forgot to write it down.” There was no possible way I could be pregnant, because I refused to believe the universe could have such a twisted sense of humor. Could it?
The thought of it made me queasy.
I hooked one arm around my screaming toddler and threw my purse over the other. “Don’t worry,” I told the doctor as my head began to pound. “I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about.”
CHAPTER 1
I returned home later that afternoon with a minivan full of grocery bags, a twin-pack of pregnancy tests, two cranky, hungry kids, and a jumble of paranoid thoughts. I hadn’t been able to shake Dr. Wiley’s line of questioning, and by the time we’d arrived at the grocery store, I’d started wondering if she could be right.
I couldn’t have been more than a day or two late, but I’d been so frazzled in her office, maybe I’d miscalculated. I’d tossed the two-pack of home tests in my shopping cart just to be sure, assuring myself I’d count my pills the moment I got home.
Delia sat up in her booster to see out the window as I pulled into my driveway. “Javi’s here!” she said cheerfully when she spotted his white work van parked in front of our house.
I shoved the box of pregnancy tests deeper inside the grocery bag and checked the time. Vero had given her boyfriend her house key when she’d been arrested three weeks ago, along with firm instructions to help me and the children with whatever we needed while she was gone. But he’d been showing up more often since Vero’s extradition to Maryland, busying himself with minuscule repairs and minor home-improvement projects I hadn’t asked forand probably didn’t need. It had started to feel less like a favor to me and more like a grieving man doing everything in his power to keep the home fires burning, and I was beginning to worry about Javi’s state of mind.
The auto repair shop where he worked didn’t close for another few hours. The shop was owned by Vero’s cousin Ramón. Javi and Ramón had been best friends since grade school, and Ramón entrusted his business to Javi on the days when he made the long drive to Maryland to check on Vero and her mother. It wasn’t unusual on those days for Javi to come straight from work and busy himself with odd jobs, but the fact that he was here while the garage was supposed to be open didn’t sit right.
I looped all the grocery bags around one arm and followed the children into the house. I ordered Zach to go straight to the bathroom to wash the lollipop goo from his hands, while Delia made a beeline to the pantry.
“No cookies,” I said preemptively. “We’re having dinner in an hour.” I had no idea what that dinner would consist of yet, but almost every recipe I knew could be thrown together from five ingredients in sixty minutes or less.
