Jennifer Lohmann - A Promise for the Baby

It’s not as though he hadn’t imagined having a pregnant wife before. When he’d believed their marriage to be happy, he’d roll over in bed to look at Jessica and wonder what their children would look like. But with Jessica everything would’ve been planned. There would have been a calendar tracking when she was fertile, the best OB-GYN practice in Chicago already chosen and she would have picked out the crib she wanted before they even stopped using birth control. Jessica organized everything.

And he would’ve been a better partner to Jessica. Despite their arguments, Jessica wouldn’t have questioned whether he would be around to discuss the pregnancy. She would have assumed.

Vivian was a stranger, but legally she was his wife and—until he knew for certain otherwise—she was carrying their child. He should be no less a partner to Vivian just because she and the baby were inconvenient. Pregnancy was hardly convenient for Vivian, either. Whatever had driven her out of Vegas, she’d had a life there.

He squeezed her hand in return. “Yes. I would like to go to the first prenatal visit. I’m not sure I can make all of them, but I’ll make the ones I can, so long as you want me to.”

“I dropped in on your doorstep with no warning and you’ve taken me in. You’ve been great, considering. Really.”

“You’re a bad liar.” She looked out the window, but he saw the lie in the way her nostrils curled. “I didn’t kick a pregnant woman out on the streets, which means I’m not a jerk. It doesn’t make me great. We don’t know each other now, but that doesn’t mean we can’t eventually become friends. Friendship would be a better place to start than many people having a baby together.”

“Friends.” She turned her head back to face him. She was wearing the same pink sweater she’d worn when she’d first arrived. At the time he’d been too overwhelmed by the situation to concentrate on anything other than small details of her features and the haze of his memories. Looking at her now, face-to-face and with his mind open to his changing circumstances, he could see how pretty she was. Simple and without fuss, like a sunrise over the lake. “I’d like that.”

Neither of them noticed they were still holding hands until the bird climbed from the cover of the book to stand on Vivian’s middle finger and whistle.

She blushed and eased her hand out from his grip, the bird still carefully balanced on her finger. “I need to go to bed. This is past my pregnancy bedtime. I’ll clean up Xìnyùn’s mess in the morning.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said to her back as she slumped off to the bedroom. Cleaning up after a parrot would give him something to think about, other than his suddenly empty hand.

CHAPTER FOUR

“I’M SORRY, DAD....”

Karl eased the front door closed, not wanting to disturb Vivian’s conversation, and if he was being honest with himself, because he wanted to hear what she had to say to her father. She was in her bedroom, but the door was open so she couldn’t have an expectation of privacy.

That she probably still expected him to be out getting their breakfast made that argument a bit specious—a technicality he was willing to ignore to learn more about his mysterious bride. Vivian wasn’t forthcoming with information.

“...but I’m not going to tell you anything about what’s happened to me if you’re not going to tell me where you are.”

Interesting. Not knowing her father’s whereabouts was very different than his being unavailable.

“You always say it’s important, Dad, but me telling you that I’m fine is all you need to know right now.”

He slipped his shoes off and walked to the door of the guest bedroom in his socks, indecision an unfamiliar and uncomfortable feeling.

“No, nothing much in my life has changed since I last saw you.” The sarcasm in her voice cut through the door and Karl was certain her father was bleeding on the other end of the call, though it sounded as though her dad didn’t know why she was being so cutting. Hell, Karl didn’t know why she was being so cutting.

When had she last seen her father? She’d said he wasn’t available—a bit of an overstatement—but did he even know she was pregnant? That she’d lost her job? Based on the present conversation, Karl was willing to bet the answer to all those questions was no. For all her dad knew, Vivian was still in Vegas, dealing, single and with an empty uterus.

Vivian sighed. “Yes, you’re my father and you care about my well-being, but maybe you can see how that doesn’t mean very much to me right now.”

Clearly she didn’t want her father to know about the upheaval in her life, but why? Was she lying about the pregnancy? He shook the second question from his head. She would be a fool to lie about a pregnancy and invite him to the doctor’s office. He pulled his hand back from knocking at the door. It was unethical to eavesdrop and he now had more questions than answers—a punishment the Greek gods could have devised.

“I’ve been in Sin City for sixteen years and you were never so interested in my well-being before.” One short thunk came from the room. “I will continue to take care of myself, and it will be easier without wondering if you’ll show up on my doorstep.”

Her words stopped his attempt to be courteous and find something else to listen to. However occasionally constricted Karl felt at having his entire family live in the same city, he couldn’t imagine fearing their appearance on his stoop. Or worse, believing them to be more of a hindrance than help if he got in trouble.

“Dad, that was a fun time, but I’m too old to be looking for the next adventure.”

The desperation in her voice echoed the strain on her face from the night she’d shown up in his lobby. It had been that strain that had convinced him she was pregnant and that she believed it was his baby. Both of their lives would be a lot easier if he’d never bought her that drink.

Realizing he wasn’t going to learn any more about his wife, Karl walked to the kitchen, setting the newspapers and the bag of bagels on the counter. He was putting out plates when she came out of her room.

“Oh.” She stopped short at the sight of him, blinking. “I didn’t hear the front door.”

He turned his back to her and poured two cups of coffee. “I know.” When he turned back to face her, she hadn’t moved. “Sit down. Have some breakfast.”

She clasped her hands together, twisting them. “How much did you hear?”

“Enough to know you don’t know where your father is and that you’ve not told him you lost your job. Or that you’re pregnant. Why?”

A quick, frightened glance at the bedroom door gave away her thoughts.

“Is there a reason the fact of your father’s ignorance might induce me to kick you out of the apartment?”

“No.” Her hands fell to her sides and she inched to the breakfast bar. She gave him one more cautious look before sitting down. “I have good reasons for not telling my father about losing my job.”

He pushed a cup of coffee to her. “And for not telling him that you’re pregnant.”

“That, too.” She wrapped her hands around the mug, but didn’t drink any coffee. Karl waited. “I’m not going to tell you what those reasons are right now, no matter how silent you are.”

His laughter surprised them both. “The tactic loses some of its effectiveness when you put it so baldly.” That he was continuing to help her didn’t disturb him—she was pregnant and he didn’t believe in punishing a child for the sins of the mother, whatever the sins she was hiding might be—but how little he cared about her secret scared the hell out of him. Her attractiveness wasn’t enough to justify his feelings. He liked her, simple as that. “At least tell me that you’re not keeping a secret from me because you did something illegal.”