growing louder and louder, gaining textures, piling up on itself, creaking, shifting, shuddering and shattering. A cacophony of sound.
The books in the shelf near the TV, she thought, would tumble to the floor. The framed paintings on the walls would rattle and hang askew. Or slide down the wall, hit the floor with a bang. Plaster and paint would flake from the ceiling.
Then suddenly the earthquake would be over, gone more quickly than it had come. Leaving behind a deafening silence.
She looked at Kyle, sitting quietly beside her on the couch, his forehead buried in his hands. He hadn’t moved. An emotional earthquake had passed through his living room and he hadn’t moved.
He didn’t even glance up. Rubble lay all around them—the rubble of their lives as they’d known them, their lives before this moment.
Before they’d made love.
Before she’d told him the truth. Before he’d known they’d made a baby together.
Melissa set the mug and washcloth down on the coffee table. “Kyle, please. Say something.”
He dropped his hands from his forehead and looked over at her. For a long moment he didn’t speak. They just stared at each other, trying to read thoughts through eyes. To understand emotions without words.
“You’re pregnant,” he finally said.
“Yes.”
“From that night in July.”
He didn’t need her confirmation. Of course he knew it couldn’t be otherwise. She didn’t exactly have a highly active sex life. At thirty-one, she’d had fewer partners than most eighteen-year-olds.
Kyle massaged his temples. “I can’t believe this. We used protection. We were careful.”
“No, we weren’t,” she said.
If they’d been careful they never would have made love at all. She saw by his expression he knew what she meant.
But they hadn’t been their normal selves that night. They’d each been running from something, each seeking a way to forget. And their solution had worked—temporarily.
Now they had to face the consequences of their foolishness.
“Condoms aren’t one hundred percent effective,” she reminded him.
“I know. But I never thought—” He stopped, shaking his head. “How long have you known?”
This was the part she’d dreaded. She didn’t want to tell him. She couldn’t explain or justify her behavior. “About—about six weeks.”
“Jesus, Mel. That long?”
“I wanted to tell you sooner. I just—couldn’t.” She felt overwhelmed. Overstimulated. As if she were having one of her sister’s anxiety attacks. She took a deep, calming breath and forced tense muscles to release and relax. “I’m sorry.”
She stared straight ahead at the blank television. Kyle had a twenty-five-inch screen—almost double the size of hers—which was why they always watched The X-Files at his place.
“It was right after my birthday,” she said. “I’m not…very regular, so it took me a while to figure it out.”
“You haven’t been getting sick or anything. I would have noticed if you’d started throwing up every day.”
“Of course. But not all pregnant women experience morning sickness.”
“Oh.”
She could feel his gaze on her.
We’re going to have a baby.
It was a thought she’d had many times recently. She would look over at him as they were working, or driving somewhere, or sharing a meal, and she would know she had to tell him. But the words had always refused to come. Her tongue had felt heavy and thick and incapable of forming the right sounds. She’d let the moments pass.
Until tonight.
“I don’t understand this,” Kyle said. “I don’t understand how you could—” He waved a hand in the air, momentarily speechless. His gaze pinned hers. “How could you act so normal? All this time. Six weeks, for God’s sake, you’ve known you’re carrying our baby.”
Melissa abruptly grabbed the items she’d set on the coffee table. She stood and headed for the kitchen.
Kyle followed her.
She wiped down the counters, loaded a few more items into the dishwasher. A butter knife. The bowl and spoon Kyle had used for his cereal that morning.
He stood and watched her, leaning a hip against the edge of the counter, arms crossed. “You asked me to say something back there. Now it’s your turn. Talk to me, Mel.”
She stopped and closed her eyes, flattening both hands on the countertop. “I don’t know if I’m ready,” she admitted.
“It’s been six weeks since you found out. How much more time do you need?”
More than I’ve gotten. A lifetime, maybe. I’m simply not prepared for this.
“You weren’t even going to tell me tonight, were you?”
She shook her head. “It was just because you…said what you did,” she admitted.
She stared down at the backs of her hands. Doctor’s hands. Well trained, sensitive yet strong. A narrow scar ran from her left wrist toward her thumb, a memento from that day over twenty years ago. And she had other scars, too—the invisible kind. The kind that wrenched you from sleep in the middle of the night, soaked with the sweat from another bad dream.
“How long were you going to wait, then?” Kyle asked. “Until you started to show? Were you going to make me work it out on my own when I saw your belly get big?”
She turned toward him, chin raised. “Kyle, I can’t do this right now. I need some space.”
He ran a hand through his short, dark hair, tousling it.
The man was gorgeous, she thought—an irrelevant, inappropriate fact to focus on. But she didn’t stop herself. She let herself stare at the father of her baby.
The firm, lean muscles of his tall physique attested to the hours he spent on the basketball court at the park down the street; to the long runs and summer hikes and that intense kind of yoga he did.
He held himself and moved with graceful, careless elegance; easy charm. And unutterably sexy masculinity. Two and a half months ago Melissa had lost her ability to ignore it.
She remembered what it had been like to make love with him. He’d been very, very good in bed, drawing out her arousal until she’d lost control. Until she’d whimpered and moaned in a way that embarrassed and appalled her now.
She turned away so he wouldn’t see the flush spreading over her ears and
