* *
BEFORE PAISLEY RECEIVED an adequate answer from Wayne, he was gone. Just as well. Her baby was practicing soccer kicks against her ribs and the pain made a task as simple as talking too big of an effort to enjoy—even with a too-handsome-for-his-own-good SEAL like Wayne.
She’d crushed on him for three years.
Ever since watching him move into the apartment next-door, hauling boxes and furniture bare-chested past her living room window all day long. Sadly, she’d soon enough learned the score for not only him, but his SEAL friends. They were a cocky lot—admittedly for good reason—but the constant string of bikini models and flight attendants made it clear that a plain Jane such as herself was strictly friend material.
Probably a good thing.
If Paisley had managed to catch hard-bodied Wayne, she wouldn’t know what to do with him. Guys like him no doubt possessed skills she’d never dreamed of in certain explicit areas...
Hands to superheated cheeks, she grinned.
Yes, it was a good thing Wayne had already left.
She was also thankful for the fact that she’d firmly sworn off all males over the age of three months. Dr. Dirtbag had burned her badly enough to leave scars.
Paisley had met him at the corner Starbucks.
David was cute in a glasses-wearing, nerdy way. As an ER doctor, he’d always been dressed in scrubs and brimming with thrilling stories of the latest lives he’d saved. It had never occurred to her that he could have been lying—stupid given her family history. But she supposed if you wanted to believe something badly enough, you did. She’d never thought to question why she only saw him early weekday mornings. He was a doctor. Of course, his schedule would be tricky. Any amount of time he’d carved for them had been precious. Their routine had been lovely. She’d prepare him breakfast, they’d make love, shower, then go about their days.
Never once had she thought to question why in over three months of dating, she’d never seen him at night. Or why his car was crappier than hers. Or why his scrubs were faded and frayed from too many washings.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Her pregnancy had been an accident.
When she told him he was going to be a father, she’d expected happy tears and an engagement ring. She’d daydreamed of finally living out her lifelong vision of belonging to a real family.
What had she gotten?
Ugly accusations.
You got pregnant on purpose, didn’t you? Just like your mom did with all her men, you set out to trap me.
Nothing could have been further from the truth. Nothing could have cut deeper than to be compared to her mother from whom she’d worked all these years to distance herself.
Ever since her release from prison, her mother had been calling. The calls now came frequently enough that Paisley dreaded looking at her phone.
She regretted having told David her deepest secrets. It wasn’t a mistake she’d ever make again.
Even worse? He wasn’t even a doctor, but a phlebotomist.
Paisley was too ashamed to tell Monica—or anyone else. Monica would probably post some directive to her fifty-thousand Twitter followers to toilet paper Dr. Dirtbag’s house.
A knock on the door jolted her from her sleepy state.
“Come in!” she shouted, praying Wayne would enter and not a random robber.
“You shouldn’t leave your door unlocked,” Wayne said. Crinkling paper told her he’d set grocery bags on her kitchen counter.
“You shouldn’t buy out half the store when you were only going for three items.”
“Touché. But I’m hungry, too. Hope you don’t mind if I use your grill? Mine died.”
“How does a grill die?” Feeling like an upside-down turtle, she struggled to flop over to face him. The apartment’s kitchen and living room shared the same space. Another dream was of one day owning her own home, but with Southern California real estate prices, that could be a while. She couldn’t wait to decorate to her heart’s content with no lease restrictions. Until then, she was stuck with beige walls, carpet and tile. She was at least fortunate to have bought a Christopher Guy sofa and matching armchairs from a client who had deemed them so last season.
“I left the grill out. It apparently collapsed from exposure.” She watched him rummage around in one of the shopping bags, and then he presented her with a pack of gummy worms. “Hope these are okay? I used to love ’em when I was a kid.”
She took one look at the slimy confection and bolted for the restroom. Thankfully, she made it in time, but as she rinsed her mouth and washed her face with a cool washcloth, Paisley found herself reluctant to face Wayne.
“Everything okay in there?” he asked from behind the closed door.
“Sort of.”
“Can I help?”
Just thinking about the worms brought a fresh onslaught of nausea. She dashed for the commode.
The door burst open at the worst imaginable time.
“Damn, girl...” Wayne knelt beside her, holding back her coppery hair, rubbing her shoulders, making soothing sounds the way she’d fantasized David would. “How long have you been like this?” He left her to refresh her cool rag, then pressed it to her flushed forehead.
“Forever. I don’t mean to sound like a diva, but could I ask you a teensy favor?”
“Anything.”
“As soon as humanly possible, could you get those w-worms out of my apartment?”
“Absolutely, but I thought you were craving gummy stuff?”
“Cute bears—that’s all. No sharks, either.”
“Got it. My bad.” He flushed the commode, then took off running for the kitchen.
By the time he returned from disposing of the offensive edible creatures, she’d cleaned herself and once again collapsed on the sofa.
“This is probably going to make me sound like an idiot—” he sat in the armchair opposite her “—but is every pregnant woman this sick?”
“I don’t think so. My ob-gyn says this far into my third trimester I should be feeling better—but then she said that about my second trimester, too, so...” She shrugged.
“Well, look...” Leaning forward, he rested his elbows on his knees. “Considering what’s going on with you, I’m going to make your soup and my steak, then table my question for another time.”
“What question?” She’d forgotten his big mystery. “Whatever it is, you might as well ask. At least it’ll take my mind off those disgusting worms.”
“Sorry
