Pregnancy Plan (28 page)

“
How soon until Michael arrives?”
Jason covered Kelly's hand with his.

“
They should be here anytime now.”
Jillian checked the clock. The excitement of having the house full
of family and friends made her smile with contentment. Finally, her
life was back on track.

“
Speak of the devil, I think that his
car in the driveway now.” Jason walked to the door and held it
opened while Karen Ann and Michael entered.

“
You guys are just in time. We were
about to start dinner,” Jillian said after everyone had greeted
each other.

“
Great, what can we do to help?” Karen
Ann asked, strolling to the counter.

“
Well, if Derek will get the grill
going?” Jillian requested again as she smiled at him
slyly.

“
Okay, I’m on my way.” He kissed her
on the way out to the back patio.

“
Need any help?” Jason said, following
behind him.

“
Sure.”

“
Jillian, can we talk to you a minute
alone?” Michael asked, glancing briefly at Kelly.

“
Okay, I get the message. I’ll go see
how the guys are coming with the grill.” Kelly left the
room.

Jillian eyed them both, wondering about what
they might want to tell her. “Okay, what’s up?”

Michael paused a moment, then blurted out,
“I’ve asked Karen Ann to move in with me.”

Surprised, but not shocked by the
development. Jillian turned to her friend. “And?”

“
I’ve agreed. I’ll give my two weeks
notice on Monday.”

“
Why, this is wonderful.” Jillian
wrapped her arms around Karen Ann. “But I can’t believe you’re
moving to Dallas.”

Karen Ann shrugged. “It is easier for me to
find a new job.”

Jillian tugged on her brother's arm and gave
him a hug. “You know you’re taking my best friend away from
me.”

“
I know, but we can come visit.”
Michael hugged her close. His strong arms lay comforting around
her.

“
You’d better.”

His smiling face warmed her heart. She liked
that he wouldn’t be alone. Karen Ann would make him happy.

Jillian noticed Derek entering the room and
told him the news. “Can you believe it?”

“
I hope you can make it work.” He
congratulated them both and shook Michael’s hand.

“
We’ll do our best.” Michael's smile
showed his excitement of having Karen Ann in his life.

Derek picked up the meat, and left the room
to put the steaks on the grill. Her brother followed along behind
him.

When the men had left, Karen Ann laid a hand
on Jillian’s arm. “You really don’t mind, do you?”

“
Well, I don’t like losing my best
friend.” Then unable to hold back her joy, Jillian continued. “But
I’m really hoping to gain a sister.”

“
Don’t start. We want to see if we can
live together before we start talking about marriage.”

“
Well, don’t talk too long. You know
your biological clock is ticking.”

Karen shook her head. “Now, you’ve really
gone over the top. Children aren’t anywhere in our foreseeable
future.”

“
Oh, come on, I’ll make a wonderful
aunt.”

“
You just worry about the one in the
oven,” Karen Ann said, pointing at Jillian’s midsection.

She covered her stomach with her hand. “Hear
that, junior? You might have a cousin before you know it.”

“
Your mother is nuts,” Karen Ann spoke
to Jillian’s stomach.

The light flutter under her hand made her
smile. “I don’t think he agrees. He just kicked my hand.”

“
Really, let me feel.” Karen Ann
placed her hand on Jillian’s stomach.

Michael walked back in the room. “What are
you two doing?”

“
I was just feeling the baby
kick.”

He turned to Jason, who had followed him
back into the room. “We’re not going to eat until midnight because
the baby is moving.”

Jillian peered at her brother. His teasing
manner made her want to hug him with all the love she was feeling
at the moment, but instead she told him gruffly. “Fine, since
you’re such a smart aleck, you can set the table.”

“
Where do you want to eat? Inside or
out?” Kelly entered the room on Derek’s heels.

“
I thought it was pretty hot outside.
Why don’t we just eat in here?” Jillian handed Michael the
plates.

“
Sounds good to me.” Jason helped
Michael set the table.

Together, they had everything on the table
in no time. Everyone sank into their seats.

“
So what have you two been up too?”
Michael asked his friend as they started to eat.

Jason eyed Kelly. A slight nod of her head
and he answered. “Kelly and I went and got our marriage license
today. We decided to go ahead and get married this coming Saturday.
We’d like y’all to come.”

Surprising everyone with his announcement,
they all offered their congratulations.

“
That’s great. How are you going to
get everything done by this coming weekend?” Jillian knew why they
were getting married on such short notice, but a wedding required a
massive amount of work.

“
Well, we don’t plan on it being a big
wedding. Just you guys, my parents and sisters, about twenty people
in all,” Kelly answered.

“
More power to you.” Karen Ann lifted
her drink in a mock toast. “Where are you planning to get
married?”

“
We couldn’t find a church or chapel
with this short of notice, so we thought we’d have it at the
condo.” Jason reasoned, “There should be enough room.”

“
Well, I must say it’s going to be
quick. The only people I know whose was quicker was your
brother's.” Michael glanced at Derek for confirmation.

“
That’s right.” Kelly touched
Jillian's hand. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything about your
wedding.”

Jillian forced a smile and she didn't
wanting to discuss the subject, but she knew she had to let the
reveal the truth sooner or later. She turned and noticed the
questions swimming in Karen Ann's eyes.

“
I don’t think I have either,” Michael
added.

“
Why don’t you tell us about it,
Derek?” Karen Ann interjected.

****

Derek glanced at the people around him. Each
had an expectant look on their face. This was a memory that was
still a little hazy from before his accident.

“
Let’s see.” He paused. “I remember
meeting Jillian on a Saturday night at her hotel. I had gone over
there to find out about her relationship with Jason.”

“
Me? What relationship with me?” He
shook his head in confusion.

“
I played a message on your answering
machine that said something about Jillian not being pregnant. So I
took it to mean you two where having an affair. I went to break it
up,” Derek explained.

“
But why did you leave such a message
on my machine, Jillian?” Jason turned to her.

She couldn’t help but smile at his dilemma.
“That wasn’t long after my father’s death. Remember the
conversation we had about how I wanted to get pregnant?”

“
Oh, yeah.”

Michael punched Jason in the arm. “What
conversation? You never told me she wanted to get pregnant.”

“
It doesn’t matter now. Get back to
the story, Derek,” Jason answered, avoiding the subject, and pushed
Michael away.

“
Anyway, I met Jillian. And well, one
thing led to another and we spent the weekend together.” Derek
covered her hand. “By Sunday evening, I was begging her to marry
me. Oh course, my good looks and great charm convinced her. So
Monday morning, we went out and got her this beautiful white dress
to wear to the wedding.”

His forehead wrinkled in thought. He
struggled with the sequence of events. “I can remember staring down
into her face, thinking I was the luckiest man on earth. Saying I
promise to give my life to her and her repeating the same promise
to me.”

“
Where did you get married?” Kelly
asked.

Lost in the memory of the moment, he didn’t
answer right away. “Let see, I remember kissing Jillian after our
vows. Then?” He searched his memory. Pictures flashed in his head
but they didn’t make sense. He shook his head.

“
The phone rang?” Derek asked
Jillian.

She nodded, but her smile looked forced.

“
We were upstairs in my bedroom.” He
released her hand. Then he pushed his chair away from the table.
“The phone rang and it was Mark Evan.”

Again, she nodded. He recalled the angry
expression on her face when he got off the phone that morning. He
continued slowly. “He said that I needed to get to the airport
right away because we were leaving for the Middle East,
immediately. When I got off the phone, I...”

Derek stared at his wife. He could hear her
words from their argument ring in his ears. He’d left her. “Told
you that we’d get married when I got back.”

Stunned by the realization of the truth, he
glanced around at the others and said. “We never got married.” He
looked back at Jillian. “Did we?”

Tears started falling from her eyes, and she
reached for him. “Not legally.”

His world imploding, he struggled to make
sense of his life. All the things he’d held dear were false.
Jillian wasn’t his wife. He shifted farther away from her. “You
lied to me.”

“
But Jillian, you told us that you
were married,” Jason growled.

“
I had to.” She turned to talk to his
brother. “There was no way you were going to let me bring Derek
home with me unless you thought we were married.”

“
Why would you want him to come live
with you if you weren’t married?” Michael asked at the same time as
Jason said, “But why, Jillian?”

Michael offered a solution. “Were you after
his money? After all, he helped you buy this house.”

Derek caught the look of hurt Michael’s
comment caused her, but he couldn’t help but wonder the same thing.
Why hadn’t she told him the truth?

“
Oh, yes, Michael that’s it. Tell them
Derek, how I begged you for the money to buy this
house.”

His mind wrestled with this question. Then
he remembered a conversation with a banker and her claim that she
didn’t need his help. “I don’t remember you even wanting my help.
If I remember correctly, I had to contact the bank myself. You were
going to lose the loan, if I hadn’t called and said that I would
cosign. The bank had a rule about not allow loans to single
self-employed individuals.”

“
Okay, tell them how you’re paying all
my bills.” She stood and strolled to the counter with her back
against it as if fighting the whole group.

“
What?” Derek thought for a moment. In
the last few weeks, he hadn’t opened an envelope, much less seen a
bill. Jillian carried all the mail into her office. “I haven’t paid
for anything, have I?”

“
Then tell them, how I make you work
at the store for nothing?” She pointed her finger at him, drilling
him with her questions.

Spouting more lies.

Did she make him go to work with her?

He tried to see a way that she was forcing
him to handle things at the store. His mind couldn’t absorb the
idea. He shook his head, confused. “No, I’ve watched her fill out
my deposit slip and mail my check to my bank every week.”

“
Well, then, tell them how we go out
every night so that I can run up your credit card bill?” Tears were
flowing down her cheeks. Her whole body reflected the misery she
was feeling, but he couldn’t feel sorry for her.

Angrily, he searched for the truth of her
words. He thought about what they did after work each day. “That’s
not true either. You usually make dinner.”

She slumped back against the counter, her
hands resting beside her hips. “Then if I wanted to snag him for
his money, I must be doing it all wrong.”

“
But if you weren’t after his money,
why lie?” Michael questioned.

“
Maybe because I knew we were
committed to each other. Otherwise, he’d never have claimed that we
were married. I couldn’t let him down.” She swiped at her
tears.

“
That’s no reason.” Her brother
pushed, “Mom and Dad always taught us that no matter what you tell
the truth.”

“
Okay, you tell me. What choice did I
have?” She walked behind the counter and leaned forward. “Derek was
injured in a foreign country, and claimed we were married. I didn’t
know what had happened to him so I went along with it.”

He watched her. He tried to focus on her
words so he could understand, but resentment bubbled inside him.
Did she think he was so deranged that he needed her to take care of
him?

“
Then, when he got home, all of you
started pushing to keep us apart. I couldn’t let that happen
either. So I decided that I wouldn’t let the fact that we didn’t
have a marriage license stop me from taking my place at his side.”
She dropped her head and stared at her hands, defeated. “Don’t you
see? I couldn’t let him down. I just did what I had to do to get
him back.”

“
But why haven’t you told me the truth
since I’ve been home?”

She stared at him, her eyes begging him to
understand. “How could I have done that? Just blurted it out over
dinner one night? Oh, by the way Derek, we’re not married.”