you cooked, we can do the dishes,” Hugh volunteered.
“Another time.” She shooed them out of the kitchen. “Garrett just got here yesterday. You still have lots of catching up to do.”
“Isn’t she terrific?” Hugh asked adoringly as they relocated to the living room. He grabbed a television remote from the side pocket in his recliner, flipping through channels until he found a college football game. “If you’d told me when I was a freckled, fifteen-year-old comic book collector that I could get a woman like that to marry me...”
Garrett snorted. “You were also six feet tall and the team quarterback.” His auburn-haired friend might well have freckles and an interest in superheroes, but he hadn’t spent his teenage years lonely. “As I recall, you went to senior proms at three separate high schools.”
Hugh grinned. “Did I? Before Darcy, it’s all a blur. What about you, man? You had a pretty active social life, too. I was surprised you didn’t bring anyone to the wedding.”
Boy, would that night have ended differently. A month prior to the wedding, he’d been dating a woman he’d planned to take to the ceremony, but they’d ended things when she got a job offer that took her to the east coast.
“Speaking of your wedding,” Garrett said with studied nonchalance, “I never got to see how the photos turned out. Isn’t there an album or something?”
“Darcy,” he called to his wife, “you have a willing victim here. Garrett asked to see wedding pictures.” Turning back to Garrett, he added, “Narrating our photos is one of her favorite hobbies, up there with bird-watching and snowboarding. I warn you, the collection is massive. There’s the professional album our photographer put together, then the one Darcy crammed full of everything from wedding shower pics to the honeymoon.”
“I remember the photographer,” Garrett said. Understatement of the year—she was seared into his memory like a brand. “Arden, right?”
Hugh smirked. “Why, you looking for a photographer? Maybe planning to have some of those glamorized portraits done? You’d look pretty spiffy in a sequined cowboy hat.”
“I think I ran into her at the grocery store earlier. The woman I saw was pregnant?”
“That’s her, Arden Cade.” Hugh clucked his tongue. “Poor kid. Being a single mom can’t be easy under the best of circumstances, much less with gossips buzzing about the dad.”
Garrett leaned forward on the couch. “Why? Who’s the dad?”
“It’s a big mystery. Far as anyone knew, she wasn’t seeing anyone. Maybe it was a long-distance relationship with an out-of-town guy. People were shocked when she turned up pregnant and even more shocked those two brothers of hers didn’t march the dude responsible into a shotgun wedding.”
The fear he’d seen on Arden’s face today flashed through his mind, and a completely insane thought struck him. He was an out-of-town guy. They’d used condoms, but those weren’t effective one hundred percent of the time, were they? He’d heard stories.
“Out of...” His throat was so dry he had to try again. “Out of curiosity, do you know how far along she is?”
Hugh regarded him suspiciously but didn’t challenge the bizarre question. “Hey, Darce? You have any idea how far along Arden is in her pregnancy?”
Darcy appeared in the doorway between rooms, drying her hands on a green-and-yellow-checkered towel. “Around six months, maybe? She said she’s due the week of Thanksgiving.”
Garrett’s blood froze. Six months.
No, he was crazy to contemplate it. It was unfathomable that the woman who had been so open and expressive beneath him would keep a secret of this magnitude, cruelly excluding him. She knew he was friends with the Connors and could have found him easily. She could have called, emailed, sent a telegram—something! This was just his imagination running wild.
The unpleasant combination of newfound cynicism and sleepless nights had colored his judgment. The odds that Arden was pregnant by him... They’d used condoms, and they’d only been together one night.
Then again, Garrett himself was living proof that once was all it took.
* * *
“LAYLA, I AM IN trouble.” Arden leaned back in the leather office chair, resenting the way it creaked. She hadn’t gained that much weight. “Deep, deep trouble.”
“Don’t panic,” her friend counseled over the phone. The words of wisdom were somewhat muffled around a bite of sandwich. In response to Arden’s frantic text that morning, Layla was taking her lunch break in her car, away from the curious ears of students or fellow teachers.
“But he’s here! Why is he here?”
“Um, didn’t you say you met him because he was in town for a good friend’s wedding? Makes sense that he’d occasionally visit said friend. The part I can’t believe is that you saw him Sunday, yet waited until Tuesday to let me know.”
“Because I spent yesterday in denial,” Arden mumbled. She’d never been comfortable discussing her night with Garrett. It had felt so private, something meant only to be between them. Maybe if she’d known Layla back then, or if Natalie had still been alive... “Am I being punished for having a one-night stand? Am I a bad person?”
“Don’t start pinning those scarlet A’s on your maternity clothes just yet. The fact that you’d only been with two men up until then is pretty solid evidence you’re not a tramp.”
“No, the fact that there had only been two previous lovers in my life is evidence that I have very large, very overprotective brothers,” Arden said without rancor. Her brothers’ local influence had probably helped prevent some impulsive mistakes in her teens. She nervously twisted the cord on the phone. “I think Justin suspects Garrett is the father. What if Garrett suspects as much?” So many emotions had rampaged through her when she’d seen him. She hadn’t exactly maintained a poker face.
“Did he give you any reason to think that?”
“Not really. He was making small talk. I was busy freaking out.”
“Then let’s not borrow trouble,” Layla advised. “Are you going to—”
“Oops, work beckons,” Arden interrupted as the door to her studio swung open. “Maybe we can meet for dinner?”
“I don’t know. I’ve got a stack of practice tests I have to grade so I can figure out how much my students forgot over the summer and plan accordingly. But give me a few hours to talk myself into it, and I’ll text you later.”
Arden disconnected, calling out, “Be with you in a second.”
Over the summer, Layla had acted briefly as receptionist, but for the most part, Arden had always run a one-woman shop. She didn’t get many random drop-ins. Customers usually called or emailed to schedule an appointment or, in the case of big events, to ask preliminary questions and do price comparisons.
Coming around the edge of her desk, she steadied herself with her hand. She was constantly readjusting to her ever-changing center of gravity.
“Hope
