Нора Робертс - The Last Boyfriend

“Okay, take it down a notch.” To halt his brother’s angry pacing, Beckett moved into the path, held up both hands. “You don’t know if she’s pregnant.”

“I’d say, the way she handles things, I’ll be the last to know.” Along with the sudden hot rage ran a cold stream of hurt. “I’ve had it.”

“What did she say when you asked her about it?”

“Nothing. I didn’t.”

After a moment staring at Owen’s angry face, Beckett rubbed his hands over his own. “You didn’t ask her why she was buying the kit?”

“No. I froze, okay? Jesus. She’s tossing it in her basket like it’s a bag of candy—with a little smile—and I froze. What the hell would you do?”

“It’s not the same for Clare and me.” Beckett stared out at the rain, steady and slow, from under the pitch of the roof. “We’ve talked about having a baby. We want to have another kid. I take it the two of you haven’t discussed what you’d do on the if.”

“No. I never thought of the if. She should’ve told me, Beck, that’s bottom line. She should’ve told me she needed a test. Why does she think she has to deal with everything by herself? I can’t work that way, and I don’t want to live that way.”

“No, you can’t.” Not Owen, Beckett thought. His brother was a born team player, an innate believer in partnership and shared loads. For Owen, secrets were for Christmas and birthdays, not for day-to-day living. “You need to talk to her, but Christ, not now. She’s in the middle of her lunch rush. And you need to cool off some anyway.”

“I don’t think cooling off’s going to happen. The more I think about it, the more pissed off I am.”

“Then think about this. If she is pregnant, what do you want to do?”

“If she’s pregnant, we should get married.”

“I didn’t ask should, I asked want.”

“I . . .” He waited for his mind to make that subtle and vital switch. “If we’re making a baby, I’d want to get married.”

“Okay, so take an hour to figure it out. You always figure it out, Owen. By that time, her place will have cleared out some. Go over and tell her you need to talk to her in private. And find out, for Christ’s sake, if you’re going to be a daddy before you freak out any more than you are. Then handle it.”

“You’re right. Jesus, I feel a little . . .”

“Sick?”

“Not exactly. Off. I never figured on anything like this. It’s out of . . .”

“Owen’s Order of Events. Adjust,” he suggested, giving Owen a light punch on the shoulder.

“Adjust. Yeah, I can adjust.” His face darkened, his eyes glinted. “But I’m not the only one who’s going to.”

He waited an hour, decided he’d calmed down, steadied up. He walked over to Vesta in the unrelenting rain, and into the warm, into the scents of sauce and spice.

Behind the cash register, Avery rang up a customer, sent Owen a sassy wink.

A wink, he thought, heating up again. This wasn’t the time for cute little winks.

“Good timing,” she told him. “Things’ve just slowed down. I was going to run over and see what you guys have demolished so far.”

“I need to talk to you.”

“Sure, have a seat. I’m going to get Franny to take over. Do you want a slice?”

“No. And I need to talk to you upstairs. In private.”

“Oh. Crap. Is something wrong in the new place?”

“It’s got nothing to do with that.”

“Then what—”

“Avery.” His tone flattened, had her eyebrows drawing together. “Upstairs, now. In private.”

“Fine. Fine, but you’re screwing with my really good mood.” She stalked to the doorway between the kitchens. “Franny? I need to run out.” She pulled off her apron as she spoke, tagged it on a peg. “I really want to see the new place,” she began.

“You can go after if that’s what you want.”

“What are you pissed about?” she asked as they went through the side door. “I haven’t done anything.”

“Maybe not doing is the problem.”

“Really screwing with my mood,” she repeated and shoved open her apartment door. “Now, what the hell is the problem?”

His carefully planned, thoroughly reasonable approach fizzled away. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me you were pregnant?”

“What? What? ”

“Don’t give me that shock-and-awe crap, Avery. I saw you at the drugstore. I saw you buy the pregnancy test.”

“You . . .” Her hands fisted on her hips. “You were spying on me.”

“Don’t be stupid. I was out running errands, and went into the CVS. And there you were pulling one of those tests off the shelf and tossing it in your basket. Goddamn it, what’s wrong with you that you don’t tell me? That you don’t trust me, or respect what we are to each other enough to tell me you’re pregnant.”

“Maybe because I’m not.”

“Not?”

“I’m not pregnant, you moron.”

Something odd worked inside him, but he couldn’t identify the sensation. “The test was negative.”

“No, the test was positive.” She yanked out her phone.

Now his heart jumped several beats and landed hard in his throat. “If it was positive, then you’re pregnant. Who’s the moron?”

“You.” She turned the phone around to show him the picture of the test stick, and the PREGNANT. “Because this is Clare’s pregnancy test. The pregnancy test I picked up for her this morning when she asked me to.”

“I saw Beckett ten minutes ago. Clare’s not pregnant or he’d have told me.”

“She hasn’t told him . She wants to tell him when they’re alone, wants to make it a special moment—which you’d also get if you weren’t the moron. And she asked me not to tell anyone, and now I’ve broken my promise. And that pisses me off.”

“I won’t say anything to him, for Christ’s sake. I won’t spoil it for them.” Unsteady, unsure, a little light-headed, he shoved both hands through hair just damp enough to stand out in tufts. “But, Jesus, what was I supposed to think when I saw you buying the thing?”

“I don’t know, Owen. Maybe the solution might’ve been to walk the hell up to me, say, hey, Avery, fancy meeting you here, and why are you buying that pregnancy test?”

“I have to sit down.” He did. “I’m going to remind you, you owe me a break.” He breathed for a minute. “I couldn’t think. And then you were just walking off. You were so damn casual about it, and I just couldn’t think.”

She said nothing as she studied him. He looked so perplexed, so confused, as Owen rarely did. “You wigged.”

“In a manner of speaking. Maybe.”

“And you jumped to conclusions.”

“I . . . Okay.”

“You never jump.”

“I’ve never seen you buy a pregnancy test before—especially when I’m the only one having sex with you.”

She considered. “That’s actually sort of understandable. Sort of.” When a grin tugged at the corners of her mouth, she let it come. “You totally freaked.”

“I semi-freaked,” he corrected. “I was more pissed, and . . .” Might as well admit it, he decided. “And hurt when I thought you weren’t telling me. We’ve never talked about if.”

She blew out a breath. “That’s a conversation. I don’t know, and it’s not something we can talk out in ten minutes, I guess. We’re fine now, right, because I’m not, and Clare is. And she’s so happy. Beckett’s going to be happy.”

“Yeah, he is. He really is.”

“So let’s just be happy for them, and let me have the pleasure of knowing you were a moron. We’ll talk about ifs sometime, but I really want to see the demo. Then I told Clare I’d get the kids from school and bring them to the shop so she can tell Beckett. She doesn’t want to tell the kids until she’s further along. Probably not until after the wedding anyway. It’s for her and Beckett now, and I guess you and me and Hope and Ryder and your parents and hers. Which is already a lot.”