Janice Johnson - First Comes Baby

But with Caleb… It wouldn’t matter if most people assumed they’d had a brief relationship. At least, it wouldn’t to her.

She sneaked a glance at his profile.

He turned his head, his blue eyes meeting hers. “This taking deep thought?”

“No, I was just realizing that it didn’t. Unless you’d rather I kept it to myself, I don’t mind if everyone knows you’re the father.”

“Like I told you, I want to be a father. In every sense of the word.”

If he hadn’t signed a contract and parenting plan—well, okay, if he wasn’t Caleb—that might have scared her. If Matt had started talking like that, she would have freaked. She’d wanted the baby to be hers. Hers alone.

How funny that now she was okay with this baby being theirs.

Unaware of her reverie, Caleb muttered a profanity as a hulking SUV cut him off on the freeway.

“Have you told your parents?” she asked.

He shook his head. “I figured I’d wait until it happened.”

She couldn’t blame him, since she’d done the same. Almost at random, Laurel said, “I’m planning dinner for six tomorrow.”

“Cooking doesn’t nauseate you?”

“Yeah, but I’ll survive.”

“Why don’t I cook? You have to admit, my sweet-and-sour pork is to die for.”

“Why aren’t you married?”

“Huh?”

“Do you know how many women would kill for a man who’d make that kind of offer?”

This grin was faintly wicked. “Yeah, I’m one of a kind. Women do propose all the time. But I’m saving myself for…” He broke off.

“For?”

“God knows. An octogenarian wedding?”

“You and a little white-haired lady in a nursing home?”

“Maybe.” He growled something under his breath. “Does traffic get worse every day, or is it my imagination?”

Contemplating the giant parking lot I-5 had become, Laurel said, “It gets worse, I think. That’s why I ride the bus.”

His face settled into a frown. “I don’t like the idea of you having to take buses when you’re really pregnant.”

“As opposed to only a tiny bit pregnant?”

He ignored her flippancy. “What if you have a long wait? And the Metro buses have lousy shock absorbers.” He wasn’t done. “What if you have to stand? And you know how you get jostled getting on and off.”

She did know, and wasn’t looking forward to it. But the idea of squeezing herself behind the wheel of a car, only to inch along the freeway, was even less appealing.

“The bus is actually pretty relaxing. And people are nice. Somebody would give up their seat for me.”

“Hell, let’s get off here.” He took the Forty-fifth Street exit and got in the left lane to head west, toward the Sound. “What do you feel like eating?”

Her stomach quivered. “A piece of dry toast?”

“In other words, don’t bother taking you to Le Gourmand?”

She groped through her purse for the soda crackers she’d taken to carrying. “Really, really no.”

“Ah, well, let me get some takeout and we’ll go to your place.”

Even the smell of his Korean takeout upset her stomach. She had to crack her window, which would have helped more if the air outside hadn’t been diesel-laden. But she made it home and curled up on her couch a safe distance from Caleb while he ate. Her stomach had settled enough to accept a piece of toast, which he made for her, and some strawberries.

He didn’t stay long, promising to be back by four tomorrow with the groceries he needed to make dinner. “You don’t have to do a thing” were his last words.

The next afternoon, Caleb returned so vibrantly full of life and energy Laurel felt washed out in comparison. She’d been so tired all day that she’d already taken a nap. She only hoped today was an anomaly. How would she get through a day at work if all she wanted to do was crawl under her desk and snooze?

She left him to cook while she showered and then fortified herself with a couple of crackers. She wouldn’t even have to make an announcement if she had to dash off and puke the minute Dad and Meg walked through the door.

They arrived separately. Megan, four years younger than Laurel, was a hotshot software designer for a small firm that existed in Microsoft’s shadow in Redmond, just across Lake Washington from Seattle. She was currently working on a team designing some kind of management software that she claimed would be a big seller thanks to flexibility from a rules-based interface.

Whatever that was. Laurel was embarrassed to have so little grasp of what her sister actually did.

Both sisters had had dishwater-blond hair when they were toddlers—the kind that the sun bleached to silver-blond every summer. Laurel’s had stayed somewhere between blond and light brown, while Megan’s had darkened to a rich shade of mahogany. Megan was, in Laurel’s admittedly biased opinion, a beauty. She had inherited their mother’s slim build instead of Grandma Woodall’s buxom one, which Laurel considered something of a curse.

In low-cut jeans, heels, a cropped lime-green blazer and big gold-hoop earrings, Megan strolled in, dropped a huge purse and hugged first Caleb and then Laurel.

“You didn’t say Caleb would be here.”

“He invited himself yesterday. And then offered to cook.”

“What a man,” her sister said admiringly.

Laurel laughed. “That’s what I told him.”

“You know, if you don’t want him…” Megan gave him a saucy look.

He grinned at her. “One Woodall sister is enough for me, thanks.”

Laurel suspected that he saw Megan as a little sister, and for all her teasing, Meg had never given the slightest sign of a crush on Caleb. She was currently dating another computer geek, a guy who would have been handsome if he’d ever comb his hair or thought about what he was putting on in the morning. Apparently his virtuosity in HTML and a dozen other computer languages offset his stylistic lack for a girl who’d cared deeply what she put on in the morning from about her second birthday on.

Dad arrived grumbling about traffic. “I had to go in to work today. Somebody screwed up.”

He was an engineer at Boeing, working on a new fuel-efficient plane that was to be built in Everett. In his mid-fifties, he had to be the catch of the Boeing plant, single, nice looking if not exactly handsome and still possessing all his hair. It was the color of Megan’s, and turning silver dramatically at the temples. As far as Laurel could tell, he had never considered remarrying. She knew he dated, but not once since her mom had died when she was eleven had he introduced a woman to his daughters.

“Smells good,” he said, shaking Caleb’s hand. “Thank God you took over the kitchen.”

Laurel threw a magazine at him. He laughed when it fell short.

“So what’s the news?” he asked. “Meggie told me last night that you have an announcement.”

Caleb clanged a pan lid. “Why don’t we wait until we sit down?”

“So you can listen? Or has she already told you?” Megan asked.

He smiled at her. “Not saying.”

“Pooh.”

“Anybody want some wine?” Laurel stood. “Caleb, how far away from sitting down are we?”

“Five minutes. In fact, you can take the salad to the table.”

Laurel’s father opened the wine and poured, and a few minutes later they were seated. The food did smell good. So good, she was having one of her brief and usually foolish moments of genuine hunger.

Meg leveled a look at her. “Out with it. We’re ready to toast. Assuming it’s good news?”

“It’s good news.” Laurel met Caleb’s gaze and drew strength from the encouragement she saw in his eyes. Then she bit her lip, looked at her dad and said, “I’m pregnant.”