Wrecked (Stories of Serendipity #8): #8 (17 page)

He looked into her gray eyes and saw confusion searching his face. Her irises danced from one eye to the next. She seemed to want to say something but was unsure of how he would react.

“Talk to me. What’s going on behind those beautiful eyes of yours?”

She took a deep breath, opened her mouth, and paused for a small eternity before finally saying, “I’m—” Her mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water. “I’ll call you later. Okay?”

“Okay.” He didn’t kiss her even though he badly wanted to. She was wrestling with something big, and he would let her battle her own inner stuff. He wanted to help, but if she wasn’t comfortable opening up to him, he would let her take her time.

R
enae watched him walk away with a determined step, sniffling back tears of frustration. She could only blame hormones because she couldn’t figure out why she was frustrated. He was behaving perfectly.

Too perfect.

He was easy to talk to, said all the right things, a great kisser, gorgeous, and fantastic in bed if her drunken recollections could be trusted. He seemed to understand her, really understand her, as a person. She’d never met anyone like him.

For the last eighteen years of her life, she’d been a mom first and foremost. She didn’t know how to be anything else, and if her activities since Renae had left were any indication, she didn’t really know what else she wanted to be. Renae obviously wasn’t a quilter, a reader, a work-out junkie, or a crochet queen. But she was about to be a mom again.

And she couldn’t understand why the words didn’t come. She’d intended to tell him. He needed to know. He’d been so understanding about everything else, was willing to give her the space she needed to think, wasn’t pushing her into bed again, and even went to church to see her. He went to lunch with her mom, for crying out loud. That couldn’t have been fun for him, being introduced to every nosy little bitty that stopped by the table to see who the stud was Renae had brought.

A hysterical giggle escaped her throat as she started the van and started driving home. She was waiting for the other shoe to drop. To find out he was exceptionally gassy or didn’t like kittens or had a terminal illness or…

Hated babies.

She was pissed at herself for not just saying the words. How hard could it be? “I’m pregnant.” Two words. One of them had actually come out, but her throat had closed up, and she couldn’t tell him. Saying them in the front seat of her van wasn’t exactly how she’d pictured the conversation, and something inside her had clutched those two words in its grasp and hadn’t let go of them.

She had to tell him before she found out how perfect they could be together. Jason said they were good together, and she’d felt it too. She was getting attached to him, couldn’t stop thinking about him. She was falling for him. It would be typical of her luck if she fell in love with him before she told him she was pregnant, and he didn’t want to have anything else to do with her.

The sermon about consequences for succumbing to temptation had hit her below the belt. Literally. The nausea she’d fought down the entire service was only quelled by nibbling on the crackers she’d stashed in her purse. Her mother’s glances at her belly hadn’t helped either. And her parting words about ‘Renae’s situation’ had cut deeply. Her mother had guessed, too.

She had to tell him before he figured it out as well. She wasn’t far enough along to be showing yet. She could tell, but her stomach just looked like it did after a huge meal, nothing obvious. And the morning sickness wasn’t that bad, just random moments of nausea at inopportune times. But some of her co-workers had been eyeing her suspiciously, and soon enough the rest of her friends would figure it out. And then she would be showing, and it would be undeniable.

Pulling into her driveway, she vowed to tell him the next time she saw him. That week. If he didn’t contact her, she would call him and invite him over for dinner. She would tell him then. He deserved for her to be up front about the whole thing.

When she got inside her kitchen, her land line phone was ringing. She knew it was her mother, the only person who refused to use her cell phone. Mary Colt thought they were more expensive than regular phones.

“Why haven’t you told that young man you’re pregnant?” Renae flinched under her mother’s accusatory tone.

“What?”

“Why haven’t you told him?”

“How do you know I haven’t?”

“A man acts differently when his girl is pregnant. He was staring at your breasts, your face, touching your leg. If he’d known, he would have been looking at your stomach, touching you more. Why haven’t you told him? Is he the father?”

“Of course he is… ugh… I can’t talk about this with you right now, Mom.” Would he really react that way? Would he touch her more?

“He needs to know.”

“I know, I just don’t know how to tell him. I’ll do it though. I promise.”

“If you haven’t told him by the next time I see him, I just might have to let it slip.” The sudden threat in the tone of Mary’s voice sent Renae’s hackles up.

She lowered her voice to a near whisper but sounded more desperate than threatening. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“I wouldn’t want to meddle, but you’re doing this wrong.”

“How do you know what I’m doing?” Her frustration was rising. This was exactly why she hadn’t told anyone. EVERYBODY had an opinion when it came to pregnancy. Every aspect of it.

“It’s clear to me you are having problems right now. You need to fix this. This stress isn’t good for my grandchild.”

“Right.” Renae was trying to hide the cynicism from her voice but feared she was unsuccessful. Her mother, however, was undaunted.

“Listen, Renae. I love you and Dalton more than my own life, so I think I know what’s going on. I can relate.”

How could her mother relate to getting knocked up by a stranger in her mid-forties? She suppressed the scoff rising in her throat, but her mom continued.

“I’m a mom. I know that you’re afraid to live and forget that you’re a mom too.” A sigh rang through the phone lines, and Renae settled herself in for a self-deprecating, guilt-inducing lecture. Of course, her mother was right. She
was
afraid of forgetting she was a mother because around Jason, she forgot everything except the two of them. “When you kids were little, Richard and I scheduled date nights.”

“I remember those.” Of course, once she’d gotten old enough, Renae had to baby sit Dalton.

“That was our time to be away from y’all and be together. We got to forget we were parents for a little while. Richard took me out to eat, dancing, or drinks. A couple of times, he rented a motel room, and we…”

“I get it mom. Please don’t finish that sentence.”

A girlish giggle that was so uncharacteristic of her mother made Renae want to take an ice-pick to her mental eyeball.

“I’m just saying that you need to forget every now and then that you are a mother. Live your life with Jason because whether you like it or not, he’s a part of it now. And he seems like a nice man who would love to take care of you. If he’s not in love with you already, he’ll probably be there soon enough.”

“Geez, Mom. I barely know him.”

“You know him well enough to spread those legs for him.”

Her mother’s blatant observation was enough to silence Renae for the next twenty more minutes of lectures before she was finally able to hang up the phone. Going into the living room, drained from the conversation, she picked up the coffee mugs left over from last night and took them to the kitchen to put in the dishwasher. Her mother was right, and she hated to admit it.

She needed to tell him, and the longer she waited, the harder it would be. She knew why it was so hard now. Renae couldn’t handle the rejection. She really liked Jason and didn’t want to screw it up. She wasn’t sure she could trust him not to hurt her the way Cody had. She didn’t think he would be the controlling monster Cody had turned out to be. But she’d put her trust in the words Cody had said when they’d first dated, and he’d ended up throwing all those words back in her face later in the marriage, making a mockery of them. And she was afraid of forgetting her responsibilities as a mother to both Kelly and the baby.

And then there was the sermon. If the preacher were to be believed, her mortal soul was in danger of an eternity of hellfire and damnation.

She looked at her calendar hanging on the wall to see what she had going on this week. It was Thanksgiving, and she had plans to make. Kelly would be here for dinner but couldn’t stay since she’d gotten a job at a department store and had to work most of the week, including Black Friday. It made her sad. She’d been counting on spending time with her daughter to help get her mind off the baby. But that wasn’t going to happen. In fact, after listening to her friends talk about their plans, it looked like she would be spending a lot of time alone.

Yay.

O
n Monday she traded shifts with a woman at the bank so she could make a doctor’s appointment. Cheryl, her coworker wanted to go shopping on Friday after Thanksgiving, and since Kelly wouldn’t be in town for their annual shopping extravaganza, Renae was eager to acquiesce. It would be painful to stay at home doing nothing when she and Kelly were accustomed to making a game of the day. If she wasn’t going to go shopping with her daughter, she may as well work.

Her appointment was uneventful except for peeing on her hand instead of in the cup. At least they didn’t require huge amounts of urine for their testing since Renae only managed a few drops in the required receptacle. She listened to the heartbeat, only shedding a few tears, wishing with all her heart she had actually told Jason, and he was there with her holding her hand through all of this.

She would tell him soon, she promised herself, yet again.

Walking out into the lobby, she nearly ran into Alyssa, who was also leaving.

“Renae?”

“Oh hey, ‘Lissa. What’s up?” Hoping to deflect attention from herself, she eyed Alyssa’s waistline, not seeing anything, but knowing good and well things weren’t always how they seemed.

“I’m pregnant again, how about you?” Alyssa’s tone was so matter of fact, Renae almost just agreed with a ‘me too,’ but she caught herself in time.

She really needed someone to talk to, besides her mother. As much as she wanted Jason to be the first to know, she was obviously reluctant to talk to him about it. Maybe Alyssa could help her.

“I need some girl talk. Can we go get pie or something?”

Alyssa readily agreed and followed her to the Serendipity Bakery, Renae’s favorite spot in town.

Once they’d ordered at the counter and seated themselves, Alyssa jumped into the conversation. “How far along are you?”

Unable to deny it any longer, Renae answered truthfully. Today wasn’t about avoidance, she needed to face this head on. “Ten weeks.”

Alyssa looked up, doing the mental math. “So that night at the Gin?”

Renae nodded, and Alyssa continued. “What did he say when you told him?”

Renae sighed. “I haven’t told him yet.” When Alyssa opened her mouth to say something, Renae held up her hand. “I thought he was leaving town, wasn’t sticking around. When I realized he stayed, six weeks had passed, and we sort of… started over with the dating thing. It hasn’t been the right time to tell him, and now it’s been so long I don’t know how anymore.” She took a bite of her pie and pushed it around inside her mouth, enjoying the burst of lemony tartness on her tongue before she swallowed and continued.

“Now, I really like him, and he seems so nice, I’m afraid of his reaction.”

“You can be afraid of it all you want to, but you’ve got to tell him.” Her hand snaked out to pat Renae’s. “He may surprise you. You could just be borrowing trouble where there’s not any.”

“Yeah.” Renae agreed, but the longer she waited, the angrier he had a right to be, and she knew it.

“What are you going to do?”

“What is there to do? I’m going to put my own plans on hold and raise the baby. I made the mistake, and I’ve got to suck it up and face the consequences.”

“So, you’re not planning on Jason being a part of things?”