The Pregnancy Test (17 page)

Mandy kicked her sandals off and stared at him. She was going to have to wrest that damn pregnancy book out of his hands.

“Yes.” Cheryl busied herself with her equipment.

Mandy climbed onto the table feeling whatever small amount of grace she’d possessed had disappeared. And she was only half through her pregnancy. Damien’s hand grabbed her elbow and he helped her down.

She pulled up her sky blue stretchy top and peeled down her black pants an inch or two, staring at the ceiling and grabbing a couple of deep breaths. Everything was going to be normal and she was going to see her baby.

Damien’s fingers on her stomach startled her. “I think you have to pull your pants down farther.”

If he started tugging down her pants she was going to smack him. But Cheryl was already shoving them down and tucking a towel into her underwear. Not very dignified, but the technician explained it would keep the gel from getting on her clothes.

“How does the test work?” Mandy asked.

“The instrument records echoes of sound waves as they bounce off the baby and translates them into pictures on the screen.”

Only that came from Damien, not the technician.

“Are you in the medical field?” Cheryl asked as she squirted the cool gel all over Mandy’s stomach.

“No, he’s a software executive with a desk full of baby books,” Mandy informed her. That were going to be disappearing mysteriously the next day.

Damien shrugged a little sheepishly. “I like to be well informed.”

That was an understatement. But her mild annoyance was forgotten when the wand was placed on her stomach and the first image filled the screen. It was a baby’s head, with eyes, nose, and tiny lips.

“Oh, my,” she breathed. She reached for Damien, overwhelmed with emotion. “Look at how clear that is.”

Damien’s fingers squeezed hers. “That’s unbelievable.”

Damn, she was going to cry. She was going to be one of those blubbery mothers who sniffled every time their child filled its nappy.

“There’s definitely only one.” Cheryl whipped the wand around.

Mandy ignored the discomfort she felt from the pressure and stared in amazement as various parts came into view. The spine, a perfect little hand, a foot.

“Everything looks great at first glance.”

Cheryl was clicking and freezing and measuring things on the screen while Mandy stared and Damien gave a running commentary.

“Look at that, he’s waving at us. Oh, he’s flipping around a little, trying to get comfortable, I guess. Whoa, check out the big toe.”

“What makes you think it’s a he?” Mandy thought they were looking at the bum, but she wasn’t entirely sure. “Do you see something I don’t?”

Cheryl laughed. “Do you want to know the sex? I can see if I can get a good shot for you.”

“Well, I want to know,” Damien said before she could even get her mouth open.

She stared at him. Up to this point, she hadn’t been concerned with whether it was a boy or a girl, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to know. It seemed like a special surprise at the end. “I don’t think I want to know.”

“She can just tell me and I’ll keep it a secret.”

Damien seemed to have forgotten one minor little detail. This wasn’t his baby. But he looked so enchanted, so excited for her, that she couldn’t bring herself to say anything. Maybe it was the emotion of the moment. Maybe it was her appreciation for all he had done for her. But it seemed to her that maybe, just a little bit, she had fallen in love with Damien Sharpton.

“I’m not going to have you know when I don’t know.” She laughed, picturing Damien trying to keep that a secret. One glance at his desk would unearth a copy of
Raising Girls
or something similar, and she would have the answer whether she wanted it or not.

“So is that a yes or a no?” Cheryl asked.

He looked at her in agony, leg vibrating as he jiggled his foot. “It’s up to you.”

Oh, yes. She was in love with him. Heart swelling, fingers clutching his, tears stinging her eyes, she nodded. “Tell us.”

“It’s a girl.” Cheryl pointed to the screen. “You can see right here there are definitely no baby boy parts.”

A girl. A little girl. Pink blankets and bonnets and lacy dresses.

“A girl,” Damien breathed, staring at the screen. “She’s perfect. Like her mother.”

Maybe that was pushing things a bit, but Mandy wasn’t going to protest. She felt a single tear roll out of each eye, and she blinked hard to fight more.

“But what’s wrong with the name Rebecca?”

Not the name thing again. Mandy wiped her cheek and laughed in exasperation. “There’s nothing wrong with Rebecca. I just happen to like Cecilia.”

“That’s one of those names that sounds great with your British accent, but just sounds flat when Americans say it.” He turned to Cheryl. “Which name do you like better?”

The technician held up her hand. “Whoa. I stay out of discussions like this.”

“Damien, we can talk about this later.” Much later. Like never.

“We’re almost finished here.” Cheryl started printing out the photos of the baby. “Due date comes up as October twenty-one according to the size of the fetus.”

“Hey, I wanted to ask, could you tell if there was anything wrong like an embolism or anything?” Damien asked Cheryl. “Because before we knew we shouldn’t, we had oral sex. Cunnilingus. And I wanted to make sure we didn’t inadvertently force air into the vagina.”

Mandy almost fell off the table. “Damien!” She was certain that nothing could sound more horrifying than the word cunnilingus when spoken in reference to her. “You did
not
just say that.” She didn’t dare even glance at Cheryl, afraid she would melt from mortification at the horror she was sure was on the technician’s face.

“What? We’re all adults here, and I’ve been really worried about it.”

The man had the nerve to stand there looking completely innocent. Looking concerned. Looking professional. As if discussing his cunnilingusing her wasn’t something a bit too private for mixed company.

“You have really lost your mind. Next thing I know, you’ll probably be stopping people on the street to discuss my hemorrhoids.” Mandy took the towel Cheryl was handing her and started wiping her stomach. She winced as she pressed on her overextended bladder.

“You have hemorrhoids?” Damien exclaimed, his face twisting into a grimace.

She should let him think she did. She should promote any sort of gruesome aspect of pregnancy that would get him away from her before they both found themselves in a complicated mess.

But she couldn’t do it. She just slapped the towel down, rolled her pants up, and said, “No. No, I don’t. But you’re getting a bit personal, don’t you think?”

Cheryl handed Damien the printed photos and cleared her throat. “As far as your question, I think you’ll need to discuss any concerns of that nature with your OB/GYN.” Then she looked at Mandy with a smile. “And it’s none of my business, but I think it’s great to see how involved your husband is in your pregnancy. So many fathers aren’t interested at all.”

Mandy felt slapped. Her cheeks went hot and she sat up abruptly. Damien wasn’t her husband. He wasn’t even her baby’s father. And he was far more supportive and interested than the man whose DNA was running through her daughter.

“We’re all done here. Rest room’s the last door on the right. Congratulations on a daughter.” Cheryl left them alone.

Mandy pulled her shirt over her sticky stomach and stood up. She felt shaky, hot.

“Damien—”

“I’m sorry,” he said at the same time.

“No—”

“I’ve completely overstepped. None of this is any of my damn business, and instead of just supporting you, I’m pushing you. Embarrassing you. I’m sorry.” His lips were pursed, his hand clenching the ultrasound printout at his side. In the dim lighting of the room, she couldn’t see his eyes, but she could feel his hurt. Feel him pulling back.

Which she didn’t want.

“No. Don’t be. I’m the one who should apologize. I’m being ungrateful. Here you’ve rearranged your schedule and everything.”

“I don’t want your gratitude.” The words were low, but angry.

Mandy stared at him, forgetting about putting her shoes back on, forgetting about her urgent need to use the rest room. When she looked at him, she saw what she hadn’t been able to admit to herself. She saw what she wanted. Him. With her. In a forever kind of way.

“What do you want?” she whispered.

“I want what I can’t have.” His nostrils flared.

“How do you know you can’t have it?” She was dangling on the edge of offering it. Throwing all rational actions aside and following her heart.

“Because life doesn’t give you what you want, all in one perfect package.” He reached out and handed her the photos. “There are no happy endings for me. I can only take, not give.”

“You’re wrong.” Mandy stepped into her shoes, intent on following him as Damien headed for the door. He had to understand how much he had already given her.

“No. What would be wrong would be to selfishly mix you and your daughter up in the mess that is my life.” He grabbed the door handle and turned to her. “You have no idea how truly fucked up I am, Mandy.”

“Tell me. Trust me.” What she wouldn’t give to take away that pain etched on his face.

“And have you see how ugly I really am on the inside? I don’t think so.”

He walked out of the room.

But Mandy knew right then, right there, that she wasn’t going to let him walk away from her as easily as Ben had.

She loved Damien, and he was going to know it.

D
amien rolled his carry-on bag through the hotel lobby and dialed his cousin George on his cell phone.

“Hello?”

“George, it’s Damien.” Damien headed toward the elevators, tucking the room key into the pocket of his jeans.

There was a long pause. “Well, I’ll be damned. Aunt Becky always says you’re still alive, but we never believe her anymore.”

Damien grimaced. “I’m still alive. And I’m in Chicago.” For the first time since the charges had been dropped.

The cab ride from the airport had been surreal, strange. He had expected to feel homesick, to feel pain, to have memories of Jessica bombard him. Instead, he had felt strangely detached. And the feeling wasn’t going away.

“No shit? You on business? How long you here for? My mom didn’t say anything about you coming to town.”

“I haven’t told anyone yet.” It had been an impulse. He had walked out of that hospital after Mandy’s ultrasound appointment, come home and stalked around his apartment for an hour, then had called and booked a flight. It was eight
P.M.
central time the same day, and he was in Chicago.

That hadn’t been in his plans when he’d woken up that morning. But seeing Mandy’s baby, it had brought everything up inside of him. It had made him
want
.

It was everything he couldn’t have, but something told him it was time to deal with a few issues from his past.

So here he was. “I want to sell my house, George. Can you list it?”

George was a realtor, five years Damien’s senior. He had a thriving customer base and was the smooth talker Damien had never been.

“What house?”

The elevator finally opened, and Damien entered. He pushed the tenth-floor button. “The house in Wheaton.”

“You still own that?” George sounded amazed.

Oh, yeah, he still owned it. That house had been his gift to Jess, a wedding present. He hadn’t been able to afford it at the time, but they had scraped the money together when Jessica had gotten her first post–law school job. He had thought the house was great, a two-story colonial with black shutters and a bunch of flower beds. Jessica had loved the house at first, too, until she realized how much upkeep it took.

The flowers he’d loved so much, she had seen as unruly and extra work.

Damien rubbed his eyebrows. “I’ve been renting the house.”

He hadn’t been able to deal with it after Jess had died. He’d asked his father to find a tenant, and he’d gotten the hell out. His in-laws had packed up the furniture and were storing it in their basement.

“How long have you had the house? Do you know what condition it’s in?” George shifted into professional mode.

“I bought it six years ago. I don’t know what condition it’s in, but my dad’s been keeping an eye on things, and the same couple has been living there for three years. No pets, no kids.”

“If it’s in good shape, we should be able to get quite a bit more for it now. It was a young house, if I remember it right.”

“I don’t care what price you get for it as long as I don’t lose money, and as long as I don’t have to deal with it.” That sounded a little more revealing than Damien intended. He quickly added, “So how have you been, George?”

“Hanging in there. Listen, you’ve got to sign the listing agreement, so why don’t you stop out at my house tomorrow, have dinner with us. The wife would love to see you. She always had a crush on you—something about those ugly blue eyes of yours.”

Damien snorted as he stepped off on the tenth floor. “Sure, I can do that, though I highly doubt Melanie ever gave one thought to my eyes. But don’t go blabbing to your mom that I’m here until I’ve had a chance to call my mom. I don’t want her to find out secondhand.”

“Can do. And Damien? It’s good to hear from you.”

And Damien found that he actually felt the same way.

Mandy didn’t know what to think.

Damien had disappeared.

He had walked out of the hospital and hadn’t returned to the office. She had gotten a cryptic e-mail from him asking her to cancel all of his appointments for the remainder of the week, as well as their dinner plans, because he was taking care of some business out of town.

Damien never canceled appointments. And it was only Tuesday. Taking three days off in a row was just unheard of for him.

Mandy was worried sick.

“Are you even listening to me?” Ben asked, a hint of irritation creeping into his voice.

“Hmm? Oh, sorry. It’s the pregnancy, you know,” she lied. “It makes me forgetful and easily distracted.” There was one definite plus to being pregnant. She could blame everything on that fact.

Ben had called to explain that he’d been caught up in a meeting and hadn’t been able to get away for the ultrasound. Mandy crunched pretzels and decided she couldn’t care less where Ben had been.

“It apparently has also affected your manners. Are you chewing in my ear?”

“Yes. I’m hungry. This is my bedtime snack.” Mandy set her feet on the coffee table and sank farther into the sofa cushions. It had been a sweltering day outside, and she was still sweating, even in the air-conditioning. She picked at her tank top.

“I’ll keep this brief, then. I just wanted to see how the test had gone.”

“Everything’s fine. The technician said the baby looks great and I’m due October twenty-one.” Mandy picked up the pictures she’d spent all evening leafing through. “I’ve got pictures of the scan. Do you want me to fax them to you?”

“All right.” Ben didn’t sound terribly enthusiastic. “But fax them to my apartment, not the office.”

“Okay.” She popped another pretzel stick in her mouth. “I’ve been thinking out some names…What do you think of Cecilia for a girl?”

“That’s pretty. Cecilia Hurst is a nice enough name.”

The pretzel felt inflated in her mouth. She hadn’t thought to give the baby Ben’s last name. “It’s a girl. The technician said she’s positive of it.”

“Oh, well, then. It would have been nice to have another son, but we can’t order these things, can we?” Ben gave a little laugh.

Ha ha. Mandy didn’t feel the least bit like laughing. Not when she was thinking Rebecca Sharpton would have had a father who wouldn’t have cared one whit that she was a girl instead of a boy.

But Cecilia Hurst was going to have a father like Mandy had. Distracted. Loving, but always distant, always disappointed.

It wasn’t what she wanted for her daughter, but then
we can’t order these things, can we?

And she wasn’t sure she would change things if she could. If she hadn’t been pregnant with Ben’s child, she never would have met Damien at all. They never would have made love, and she never would have realized that she loved him. Truly, deeply, loved him.

But if fate had played things out the way they were supposed to be, and Beckwith Tripp’s prediction for a long, sweet, enriched life had been correct, she didn’t see where she was supposed to go from here.

Her bun was baking, but her bloody heart was breaking.

Mandy stuffed another pretzel in her mouth.

Damien shifted the box in his hands and pressed the doorbell. His palms were sweating, and his heart was pounding. He wasn’t sure he could do this.

Even though it was only ten in the morning, the sun was beating down on him, and he felt a trickle of sweat run down the back of his T-shirt. He was giving it two more seconds; then he was getting the hell out of there.

The door swung open. Damn.

His father-in-law’s greeting died on his lips, and his jaw dropped. “Damien?” He called back over his shoulder. “Susan, you want to come on out here?”

“Hi, Fred. How are you?” The words stuck in his mouth, but Damien forced them out and willed himself not to shuffle on the sidewalk.

“Good, good.” Fred stared at him, then shook his head. “Jesus, come on in. Look at me just leaving you standing there. But you gave me a start, kid. Haven’t seen hide nor hair of you in three years.”

Fred opened the door and gestured for Damien to enter the hall. Damien’s hand shook as he stepped forward. Three years ago Jessica’s parents had stood by him, believed in his innocence, but he hadn’t been sure they would still feel the same way. With time to think, to stew, to miss their daughter, they could have changed their minds, but it didn’t appear that was the case.

“You look good,” Damien told Fred, taking in his trim gray hair and fit physique. “Retirement must agree with you.”

Fred looked back over his shoulder as he led Damien to the living room. “Truthfully, it’s boring as hell.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “And Susan gets on my damn nerves. Never thought I’d feel that way, but I have to tell you, now that I’m home, she suddenly thinks I give a crap about the new curtains for the kitchen and the petunias for the yard, and the eighteenth pair of sandals she’s bought.”

“What’s that, Fred?” Susan came into the room and stopped short. “Oh, my God.” Her hand went over her heart. “Damien.” She reached for him, kissed his cheek. “How are you, sweetheart?”

“I’m okay,” he said, because it was the closest to the truth. He’d been better. He’d been worse. “You look as lovely as ever, Susan.”

She waved her hand and snorted. “Oh, please. I look like a hag. Fred’s driving me crazy being home all the time and I have the dark circles under my eyes to prove it.”

Fred looked astonished, and Damien found himself smiling. Susan was still a beautiful woman, just like Jessica had been. He set the box down on the end table next to the suede sofa.

“What’s in the box, honey?” Susan sat down and patted the seat next to her. “Come sit by me so I can look at you. You look tired, sad. I’d hoped the next time I saw you there would be a smile on your face.”

Damien tried to force one, but it fell flat. “I brought you some of Jessica’s things…her swimming trophies, her yearbooks, and photo albums from college. It really should all come back to you, and I’m sorry it took me so long to do it. I just couldn’t go through her stuff.”

He wasn’t even sure what had possessed him to do it now. But when he’d decided to come to Chicago, he’d pulled out the taped boxes in his closet and had quickly sorted out some things for Jessica’s parents. It felt right to give pieces of Jessica back to them.

He had needed to do this, see them.

“Are you sure?” Susan’s hand was reaching for the box, but she stopped.

“Yes. These are from before we met. I kept the pictures of Jessica and me.”

Susan opened the box, and a half an hour later, Damien was finding that it wasn’t as hard as he had imagined to watch Jessica’s parents go through her personal possessions. Susan only teared up once, when she found a grade school report card, but for the most part, she and Fred smiled, laughed, reminisced about the items they pulled out.

They had healed. Damien could see it. They missed Jessica, they loved her, but they had accepted their loss and were prepared to focus on the good times.

He wanted to be able to do that, but he wasn’t there yet. Wasn’t sure he’d ever be.

“So, are you seeing anyone? Is there a special woman in your life?” Susan asked casually, her reading glasses perched on her nose.

“No.” He shook his head. There was no explaining his relationship with Mandy. He was her boss, her one-time lover, and he hoped her friend.

“I’m sorry to hear you say that,” she said quietly. “I’d hoped by now you would have moved on, found happiness.”

“No,” he said, because again it was the simplest answer.

“Cutting yourself off from family and friends—not being happy—that’s not what Jess would have wanted for you,” Susan said, stroking his arm.

That statement gave Damien pause. He ran his finger over the edge of Jessica’s yearbook, squeezing the tip of his finger between the pages until he felt pain. “You think so? Because I was never really sure what Jessica wanted.”

Fred gave a laugh. “Ain’t that the truth. Our Jess wasn’t easy to live with. She took after Susan that way.”

Susan smacked his leg. “Watch it.”

Damien didn’t think it was anything to laugh about, but for the first time ever he allowed himself to think that maybe all their problems hadn’t been his alone. Maybe no matter how much he loved her, it never would have been enough to make Jessica happy. They hadn’t been right for each other.

Maybe if she hadn’t died, they would have gone their separate ways.

Maybe none of that mattered because he was the one alive and she was dead, and hopefully Jessica was at peace.

“Well, I need to take off.” Damien stood up. “I haven’t even seen my parents yet.”

Then he had one more stop to make before he met up with George to sign the listing papers.

He had to visit the tattoo parlor.