Rebecca Winters - Baby's On The Way!

As she landed, she wobbled again, and this time Leo’s arm caught her around the waist. She’d put out a hand to break the fall she’d been sure was inevitable, but instead of hitting the floor it hit solid, warm muscle. She should have snatched it back, of course. Should definitely not have stretched her fingers and pressed her palm a little tighter against him, remembering the night she had spent held against that chest, the salty taste as she’d kissed it, how she’d pressed her palms to it as she’d...

Leo’s arm tightened around her and she wondered if he was remembering, too. She looked up and found his gaze intent on her, his eyes serious and the smile gone. Her lips parted, and her body begged her to stretch up, to press her lips against his, to lose herself in his body. But her brain screamed warnings thick and fast. Caught in the middle, she wavered, leaning back slightly against Leo’s arm as she met his gaze. Over his shoulder, she caught a glance of the room they had just left—the chaos, the power tools, the almost complete lack of floor —and she took a deliberate step backwards. Her life was chaotic enough. One night with Leo had shaken up everything she thought she knew about the future and dumped it back around her. The last thing she needed at the moment was for that to happen again.

Leo gave her a long look, his expression neither regretful nor pleased, but hovering somewhere around wary. After a beat, he turned from her and strode back across the joists to rescue her case from outside. Rachel dragged her eyes from him and, determined to distract herself, took a moment to look around the room she’d landed in so inelegantly. The contrast between the front room and this kitchen couldn’t be greater. From chaos, she’d stepped into a lifestyle magazine. Sunlight spilled in through wide windows with views out towards the bay, reflecting off the polished wooden worktops. A huge table, made of boards similar to the ones Leo was laying in the next room, occupied one half of the kitchen and an enormous range cooker occupied an inglenook fireplace. Glass doors opened out onto a small garden and a staircase wound up the wall in the corner of the room. It was beautiful, and when she looked at Leo it was with admiration for more than his well-developed lats.

He arrived back at the door to the kitchen with her case slung effortlessly over his shoulder. Okay, she was still admiring the lats, she realised, that perfect diagonal of muscle between underarm and waist—and reminded herself that all her future plans for her life came with a big fat No Repeat Performance clause. If she wanted to stay on track, she had to get her ogle under control.

‘Luckily for you, the kitchen and bathrooms were finished first,’ he said with a grin.

‘This is beautiful.’ She was still slightly taken aback by the contrast of this room with the building sites she’d seen so far, but determined to stay focused. ‘Did you do all the work yourself?’

He nodded. ‘Everything I legally can—an electrician did a couple of bits, but most of it was me.’

‘You’ve done a great job.’

‘Thanks.’ He smiled and nodded, without false modesty or undue pride. ‘Can I get you anything before I go and clean myself up? Coffee? Tea?’ He glanced down at his sawdust-caked jeans and T-shirt as he spoke.

She brushed off his offer, instead getting him to point her towards coffee and mugs. When he’d disappeared up the stairs, Rachel turned to the cupboard and started on the coffee, almost squealing with delight when the tin next to the kettle turned out to contain cake and biscuits. Her eyes threatened to fill with tears—stupid hormones. But she guessed he wasn’t the type to keep cake in the cupboard, and that meant it was only there for her sake. Butterflies were still causing havoc in her tummy, and she reluctantly admitted to herself that her nerves were more about the man, today, than the baby.

Once the initial gigantic I-don’t-know-what-the-hell-is-going-to-happen-next panic had receded slightly, the day after she’d taken the pregnancy test, she’d started to think more and more about the baby growing inside her. About bringing a new life into the world, and excitement had grown and grown. Her thoughts about Leo? Still bound up with an almighty warning sign. And seeing his home, the centre of his disorder, hadn’t helped. She rubbed her belly, thinking soothing thoughts, not wanting to inflict her worries on her baby. It seemed important already that she didn’t allow her concerns to become his, or hers. Not as her parents had with her.

She turned as she heard Leo’s footsteps on the stairs, and he appeared around the curve of the staircase in clean jeans and a black T-shirt, his hair a little damp.

‘Sorry to abandon you like that. I looked in the mirror and thought I’d gone prematurely grey so I jumped in the shower to get rid of the dust.’

She smiled as she transferred coffee pot, mugs and cake to the table. ‘And here was me thinking the shock had sent you all Marie Antoinette.’

He raised an eyebrow, questioning.

‘Hair went white overnight? Never mind, obscure reference. Coffee and cake?’

‘Sounds good,’ Leo said, pulling out a chair and dropping into it. She watched his hands as he hacked a couple of wedges of cake, impressed and wondering whether she now had a pregnancy get-out clause when it came to denying her sweet tooth. She pulled up the chair beside him and poured the coffee, sending him sideways glances, wondering if he was finding this sudden domesticity as strange as she was. Bizarre, she thought. That she could find something so ordinary as coffee and cake new and nerve-racking when they were already somehow a family.

Rachel sipped the coffee and flinched when it scalded her lips. But it was worth it for the familiar caffeine buzz. The smell, even the taste, made her feel more comfortable. More herself. And the act of sitting at a great big table with a hot cup of coffee was all she needed to get her brain in gear, and have her reaching for her tablet. She grabbed her handbag, which she’d left propped by the chair, and pulled out all the plans she’d made since she’d first read Pregnant on that test. They had a lot to discuss, and it made sense to start work, she thought. She pulled herself up slightly on the word work ; technically this was personal. But her—their—new life was going to take so much organising that it might as well be work. It was easier to think of it that way. To slot Leo and their child and all the changes they represented into her life as she would any other project. Because what was the alternative—chucking out everything she thought she knew and starting again?

But when she’d spread out her tablet and binders and looked up, she found Leo staring at her, a grimace on his face. She faltered slightly at the hard lines of his brows. The white knuckles of his fists.

‘What are they?’ The words were forced through his teeth, none too friendly. She glanced down—a little confused about how this had caused so much hostility. It wasn’t as if he even knew what her plans contained. He’d gone white even at the thought of them.

‘It’s a tablet.’ She spoke slowly, treading carefully in light of his sudden shift in mood. Not wanting to upset things further. ‘And some charts. I had a few ideas about how we’re going to make this work. I thought you might want to talk them through.’

‘Oh, you did?’ He took a long sip of his coffee—diversionary tactic, she guessed. ‘And here was me thinking you were about to present me with a finished plan.’ She dropped her eyes and felt her cheeks warm—it had never occurred to her to wait until she’d spoken to him before drawing up their options. But now they were laid out in front of her, and Leo was so obviously fighting to keep his annoyance under control, she could see that he was right.