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“No shit,” Shane replied, though his eyes
widened in concern. Billie did not look good.

“Oh,” Billie said again. “Crap,” she giggled
nervously. “I don’t feel so good.”

“Hey,” Logan whirled around and grabbed her
by the waist. “Shit, Billie, you look like you’re gonna—”

He didn’t have a chance to finish. Billie
pushed away from him and ran from the room leaving the two men
staring after her in silence.

After a while, she returned, though her face
was flush and voice tremulous. “I’m going to lay down for a bit.”
She moved back when Logan would have touched. “I don’t want to
spread germs.”

Logan cocked his head to the side. “Honey,
we’ve been spreading all sorts of shit for months now.” He crossed
over, bent, and kissed her forehead. “Go lay down.”

She nodded. “Shane?”

“Yeah.”

“Bobbi loves you. I’m sure she was just
tired.”

“Yeah,” he said watching her disappear,
suddenly aware that Logan was looking at him strangely.

“What?” he barked.

Logan shrugged and went back to building the
biggest, baddest, omelette in the county. “Just get it over with
Gallagher.”

“Get what over with?”

Logan’s chuckled once more. “You want me to
make the appointment or have you got it covered?”

Okay, his buddy was losing it.
“Appointment?”

“Yeah. I hear my Dad’s running a special on
neutering but it’s this weekend only. Since you’re no good for
anyone else so you may as well get it done.”

Shane pushed off from the table and finished
his coffee. “Fuck you, Forest.”

Logan’s laughter followed Shane right out the
door and he swore he heard him even when he made it back to the
safety of his place. Once inside, he fed Pia and after that went
down to his shop to work out with his weights. Less than an hour
later he grabbed his brushes stood before the portrait he’d begun
the day before and got to work.

Several hours passed and it was nearly three
when Shane tossed his brushes aside. He’d spent the entire morning
and afternoon painting, listening to
The Stones
, and not
once had Bobbi called or even texted him.

Was he wrong to be pissed off?

Not the way he saw it. Something had changed
over the last few days and he was having none of it. Not when he’d
finally landed in a place that he knew was right for him. A place
that was right for him and Bobbi.

He headed up to his loft and into the shower
because if he didn’t get his ass in gear, he was going to be late.
And Shane had no intention of being late because he was going to
have a conversation with Bobbi tonight. He was going to explain
fully the scope of his feelings. He was going to find out what the
hell had her running scared and, and it if was the last thing he
did, he was going to fix it.

End of story.

After his shower he was in the bedroom
pulling on a pair of clean jeans when Pia came ripping into the
bedroom, growling and tossing one of her toys into the air. He
smiled and patted her head, and she jumped onto the bed and
immediately went to work on her treasure.

Shane shrugged into a long sleeved blue
Henley and had just shoved his wallet into the back of his jeans
when Pia tossed her damn toy at his feet.

“Christ, you’re feeling good, aren’t you
girl?”

He bent down to retrieve it and froze, his
eyes widening in disbelief. What the hell?

As Shane reached for the white stick, the
feeling of dread that had been dogging him all morning and
afternoon intensified. He glanced over at Pia, who looked at him
with her big eyes and wide open face, and then back down at his
hand.

Down at the Early Alert stick.

Down at the Early Alert stick that indicated
a positive pregnancy.

“Holy Christ,” he said hoarsely. Is this what
was upsetting Bobbi? She was pregnant? He groaned and sat on the
edge of the bed, staring down at a little piece of plastic that
changed lives all the time. And he felt as if the past had reached
up and grabbed him by the throat. How had they come to this?
Again?

They weren’t goddamn kids anymore. They were
adults.

His first reaction—the one that had gotten
him into trouble over and over again—was to give in to his anger.
To feed from it and let it fuel him until he marched over to the
Barker’s and confronted Bobbi. He hated secrets and she damn well
knew it.

But he wasn’t a kid anymore. He was a
grownup. And he was going to try like hell to act like one. But it
was hard. So hard not to give in to the anger beneath his skin when
the ghosts from the past echoed in his head. With a groan he closed
his eyes in agony, wanting to shut it all out but unable to.

“
I’m too young for a baby, Shane
.”

A baby. Holy fucking shit.

He looked into Bobbi’s tearstained face and
felt all the hard lines inside him shift, and crumble. “But how?
How can you be pregnant? You’re on the pill.”

“
I don’t know.” Her voice broke and she
squeezed her eyes shut, as big tears slipped from corners to lay
tracks of fear down her cheeks.

If it was possible for Shane to feel like the
lowest of the low, he was there. He was beyond there.

And he was scared, so he couldn’t imagine
what Bobbi was feeling.

“
Babe, I’m sorry. We’ll make it work. I
just don’t want…I can’t handle you crying.”

She rested her head on his chest. Her heart
was beating so fast he felt it through her thin top and his leather
jacket. “I can’t have a baby,’ she whispered.

“
We’ll get married,” he said quickly,
ignoring her, cradling her head between his hands and gazing down
into the eyes he knew he would never forget.

“
Married? Are you crazy? Shane, you’re
going to that fancy art college and I…I’m barely twenty. I don’t
even know what I want to do with my life. I can’t have a baby. God,
Billie’s just played on her second Olympic hockey team and Betty is
in Paris modelling and I’m…I’m stuck in New Waterford and pregnant.
I can’t be pregnant. I can’t have a baby.”

Stuck here. Stuck here with him. His face
hardened. “Well, it looks like you are having a baby. My baby.”

She pulled away from him and wiped the tears
from her face. “No,” she whispered, taking a step back. “No, I’m
not. I don’t want to have this baby.”

“
What are you saying?” He was barely able
to keep his anger in check.

“
Shane, you need to listen to me.” She
glanced away, shaking—shivering so much that her teeth rattled. “I
made an appointment at a clinic in the city.”

“
You made an appointment?” He took a step
toward her, not caring that fear now rested on her face. ‘How the
fuck long have you known about this?”

She shook her head and said nothing.

Before he could stop himself, his hands were
on her shoulders and he shook her so hard that her head snapped
back and he didn’t stop until her whimpers registered through the
fog in his brain. Stepping away, Shane fought hard to get control
and when he did he could barely speak. “How the fuck long?”

“
A few weeks,” she said eventually, her
eyes sliding away from his.

“
So last week when we went to that big
bush party, you knew?”

She nodded.

“
Last night when we went back to my
place…when you snuck into my room and we fucked for hours…you
knew.”

She winced, but again she nodded.

“
You knew you were pregnant and you knew
you weren’t going to have it.”

For the longest time there were no words and
when he took a step toward her, she shook her head and gulped. “I’m
not having this baby, Shane. I can’t. I need you to understand. Can
you understand?”

Shane couldn’t explain the blackness inside
him. It washed over everything in a palette of anger, confusion and
betrayal.

“
You’ve already made your decision so why
the hell do need me to understand? Why the hell do you need me at
all?”

“
What are you saying? What do you
mean?”

The blackness crushed him from the inside out
and before he even knew what he was doing—or saying—he’d set his
path and ruined the one good thing he had ever had.

“
Just tell me how much and I’ll get you
the cash. You can do whatever the fuck you want. You always
do.”

“
That’s it?” she asked between shudders
and hiccups.

“
You tell me.”

But she didn’t say another word. Bobbi had
left him there, standing in his garage like an idiot and he hadn’t
laid eyes on her until nearly a month later when she’d shown up at
his place with the unfortunate Jane Lawson beneath him.

His cell phone buzzed. Shane exhaled and
retrieved it from the bathroom where he’d left it. The cabinet door
beneath the sink was open, the garbage tipped over and he was about
to toss the First Alert packaging back inside but something stopped
him.

He glanced at his cell.
Ur late. U all
right
?

The text was from Bobbi. He stared at it for
a long time, so long in fact that the words blurred. So long that
Pia began to whine, sensing her master’s distress.

“I’m not alright,” he muttered. “I’m far from
fucking alright.”

Shane shoved the pregnancy stick back into
the packaging, stuffed it into his jeans and grabbed his cell.

He hoped he could keep his shit together,
because at the moment something hard and mean was bubbling beneath
the surface. He needed to keep his cool and let her come to him. He
didn’t want to think about the past or where her head was at in the
now.

Maybe she didn’t his kids. Or anyone’s kids
for that matter. Or maybe she was just scared to say anything to
him. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

There was nothing final and solid in,
maybe
. All that he knew for sure was that he wasn’t alright.
But he had to hold on and keep his temper under control. He had to
have faith that things would turn out the way they were supposed
to. Because without it, at this point, Shane had nothing else.

“Where’s Gerald?”

Bobbi set the mashed potatoes onto the
already full dining room table and rested her hand on her father’s
shoulder. She tried to keep the sigh from her voice but wasn’t all
that sure she succeeded. “I don’t know, daddy. I’m sure he’s
spending it with his lovely mother.”

“Sure,” Betty interjected. “Or the floozy he
brought back from his honeymoon.”

“Wait, what?” Billie asked. “He got married
on his honeymoon? What kind of rock have I been living under?”

Bobbi’s gaze was on Betty and she knew her
sister wouldn’t answer, Billie.

“He didn’t get married on our,” Bobbi
stumbled a bit, “on
his
honeymoon. Though I heard some woman
he met on the island showed up a few weeks ago.”

“Maybe she’s the one who convinced him to get
the piercings and the fake tattoo,” Betty added.

Billie giggled. “Really? Gerry got his ear
pierced? Oh wait.” A horrified look crossed her face. “Don’t tell
me it was his nipple or anything else because that would just be
gross.”

Betty acted as if Billie hadn’t said a word.
Instead she leaned forward and grabbed the basket of buns, plunking
one on her father’s plate before passing it to Logan.

“Daddy,” Betty said softly. “Bobbi is dating
Shane Gallagher.”

“Gallagher?” Travis’s eyebrows rose and he
glanced down the table where James sat beside, Herschel. “Huh,” he
said carefully. “I was wondering why you were here.”

Bobbi said nothing, even though she’d had a
conversation with her father the night before about Shane, and
again this morning.

James cleared his throat and yanked on his
tie, loosening it. “Your daughter was nice enough to ask us. I’m
sorry that Celia couldn’t be here. She’s pretty tired from
yesterday and her appetite is…”

“Celia,” Travis said carefully. “That your
new wife?”

James nodded slowly.

“Huh,” Travis said again. “I’m sorry she
isn’t feeling well.” He glanced up at Bobbi and frowned. “It would
seem that your boyfriend doesn’t think an invite to our table is
terribly important.”

Bobbi gave her dad a quick hug. “He’s just
late. He’ll be here.” She gave James a reassuring smile. She had
explained to both him and Eden, the nuances of her father’s
illness. Sometimes he was as lucid as anyone and other times his
confusion was heart breaking.

But today was a good day and in spite of the
heaviness in her heart, it gave her a lot of pleasure to see the
dining room full, with the faces of those who meant something to
her. There was only one face missing and she was starting to
worry.

“He probably lost track of time painting,”
Eden said.

Everyone glanced her way.

“What? I was with him yesterday and he did a
lot of painting. Like a lot. And sketching. And he went like, hours
without saying anything which I kind of thought was weird but,
whatever…”

“I didn’t know you went to see Shane.”

The words came from James, and Eden shrugged.
“You didn’t ask.”

“Okay, well, I’m sure Shane will be here any
minute but in the meantime I don’t want the food to get cold.”

Bobbi took her seat at the end of the table
and tried to relax as everyone dug in and filled their plates with
ham, sweet potato, mashed potatoes, green beans, fresh baked rolls,
garden salad or coleslaw.

She had just taken a small sip of wine when
they all heard the front door open. The relief—the absolute
relief—that flooded Bobbi had her cheeks flushing hard and she
glanced down at her plate, needing a moment to collect herself.

When Shane strolled into the room she didn’t
glance up right away, because she didn’t trust herself. In that
moment she wanted nothing more than to run to him, to rest her head
against his chest and let his big arms pull her in close.