She saw now, suddenly, the danger she'd accepted so naïvely. He could shatter her heart and there was no way to protect herself.
"I thought you'd be happy to see me," he said.
"I told Tully about us."
"Oh. And was there a problem?"
"She thinks I'm a rebound girl."
"She does, does she?"
Kate swallowed hard. "Do you love her?"
"That's what this is about?" He swept her up into his arms, carrying her toward her bedroom as if she weighed nothing at all. Once they were in bed, he began unbuttoning her nightgown, planting kisses along the way. "It doesn't matter," he whispered against her bare skin. "She didn't love me."
She closed her eyes and let him rock her world again, but when it was over and she was curled against him again, the uncertainty returned. She might not be the most experienced girl in the world, but neither was she the most naïve, and there was one thing of which she was sure: it mattered whether Johnny had loved Tully.
It mattered very much.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Falling in love was everything Kate had dreamed it would be. By the time spring came again, painting the landscape with vibrant color, she and Johnny were an honest-to-God couple; they spent most of their weekends together and as many weeknights as possible. In March she'd brought him home to meet the parents and they'd been ecstatic. A nice Irish Catholic boy with a great career and a good sense of humor who liked to play board games and cards. Dad called him a "good egg" and Mom declared him to be perfect. "Definitely worth waiting for," she'd whispered at the end of the first meeting.
For his part, Johnny had fit into the Mularkey clan as if he'd been born into it. He'd never admitted it, but Kate was certain that he liked being part of a family again after so many solitary years. Although they didn't talk about the future, they enjoyed every minute of the present.
But that was all about to change.
Now she was in bed, staring up at the ceiling. Beside her, Johnny lay sleeping. It was just past four o'clock in the morning and already she'd thrown up twice. There was no point in putting off the inevitable any longer.
She peeled the covers back gently, careful not to wake him, and got out of bed. Barefoot, she crossed the thick pad of carpet and went into his bathroom, closing the door behind her.
Opening her purse, she dug through the clutter and withdrew the package she'd purchased yesterday. Then she opened the package and followed the directions.
Slightly less than two hours later, she had an answer: pink for pregnant.
She stared down at it. Her first ridiculous thought was that for a girl who'd dreamed of becoming a mother, she was damned close to crying.
Johnny wouldn't be happy about this. He was nowhere near ready for fatherhood. He hadn't even said he loved her yet.
She loved him so much, and everything had been so great for the past few months. Still, she couldn't shake the feeling that it was fragile, this relationship of theirs, that the balance was tenuous. A baby could ruin them.
She hid the package and indicator back in her purse—the extraordinary thing mixed in the ordinary debris of her life—and took a long hot shower. By the time she was dressed and ready for work, the alarm was going off. She went to the bed and sat beside him, stroking his hair as he woke up.
He smiled up at her, said, "Hey," sleepily.
She wanted to say simply,I'm pregnant,but the admission wouldn't come. Instead, she said, "I've got to go in early today. The Red Robin account."
He looped a hand around the back of her neck and pulled her down for a kiss. When it was over, she meant to ease away. "I love you," she whispered.
He kissed her again. "And that makes me the luckiest guy in the world."
She said goodbye as if this were just another in the string of mornings they'd woken up together, and went to work. In her office, she slammed her door shut and stood there, trying not to cry.
"I'm pregnant," she said to the ad-covered walls.
Now, if only she could say it to Johnny. She ought to be able to say anything to him, wasn't that how love was supposed to work? God knew she loved him enough, maybe even more than enough. She could no longer imagine a life without him. She loved the routine of their lives, the way they often had breakfast together in the kitchen of his houseboat, standing side by side in front of the sink, or the way they sat in bed at night, snuggled together, watching Arsenio Hall. When he kissed her, whether it was a quiet goodnight kiss or a passionate let's-start-something one, her heart always kicked into high gear. They talked all the time, about anything and everything; until today, she would have said there were no words she couldn't say to him.
For most of the day, she moved forward on autopilot, but somewhere around four o'clock, her will failed her. Picking up the phone, she dialed the familiar number and waited impatiently.
