Unexpected Complication (Harlequin Super Romance)
Was he still attracted to her?
No. She was letting her imagination run away with her. They’d spent hours upon hours together over the past fifteen years. Devin didn’t want anything other than her friendship. If he did, he’d had aeons to express it.
She’d forced herself to forget how his kisses had scared the life out of her a long time ago.
Sure, there were moments—when he opened a door for her or innocently touched her the way a friend might—she had a flash of feeling for him. But the moments always passed.
Devin didn’t really do “serious” when it came to his personal life. He never had. And now he was too absorbed in launching his company to give much thought to any woman.
Especially a crazy, screwed-up woman like Carey, pregnant with his cousin’s baby.
Dear Reader,
I fell in love with my husband the traditional way: we met on a college campus, went on a bunch of dates, got married and became best friends along the way. The idea of two people being best friends first and then falling in love has always intrigued me. How do two people who know each other so well cross the line to become more than just friends? It seems so…romantic.
For Carey Langford and Devin Colyer, the feelings were there all along—the two just had to be challenged in the right way for those feelings to come out. Challenging them became the hardest part of writing their story.
The easy thing would have been for them to address the attraction years ago. The human thing, however, is to deny, ignore and fight until it’s seemingly too late. For Devin, it takes believing there’s no possible way he can ever have Carey to realize just how much he needs her.
Not realizing the depth of our feelings until we suffer a loss or face the threat of a loss is all too common in real life. Luckily, I write in a genre that always has a happy ending, and it isn’t too late for Devin and Carey.
I hope you enjoy their journey to overcome their Unexpected Complication. Please visit me online at www.amyknupp.com or e-mail me at amyknupp@amyknupp.com to let me know what you think of Devin and Carey’s story. I’d love to hear from you!
Sincerely,
Amy Knupp
UNEXPECTED COMPLICATION
Amy Knupp
To Justin, for listening to my plot problems at midnight, for insisting I can do it when I don’t think I can and for being my best friend no matter what.
To Sharon, for challenging me to open the file that very first time…and every day since.
To Anjana, for helping me become a better storyteller by making me think—hard.
To Jan and Allison, for the priceless give-and-take, and to Karin, Edie, Michelle and Liz, for the daily butt-kicking.
To my mom and dad, for always believing in me.
And to Carol and Larry, for cheering me on.
To the Des Moines girls—Kristin, Anna, Amy, Karen, Becky and Mel—for telling me I’d succeed from the time I came out of the writing closet.
To Victoria Curran, for the endless hours and effort to make this a much better story and for seeing there was something there in the first place.
Heartfelt thanks to all of you.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
EPILOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
THERE WAS nothing dignified about peeing on a stick.
Not exactly what Carey Langford had imagined thinking at this particular milestone in her life. But there it was, the depressing truth.
The foolish, idealistic part of her had always imagined this moment of truth to be a little more…romantic, for starters. Not so lonely. Maybe filled with jittery excitement and a strong, loving man pacing outside the bathroom, anxiously waiting to learn if “Daddy” would become his new handle.
Instead, she was alone, her gut as well as her body twisted like a pretzel, dreading the appearance of a double line.
One hundred and twenty seconds had never lasted so long.
She sat on the edge of the drab green bathtub, elbows on her knees, and covered her eyes with her hands as if hiding behind her hair would make the whole matter disappear.
Carey checked her watch and stood. Her heart pounded as she crossed to the counter. Still not looking at the results, she picked the test stick up with shaking hands, said a short prayer and looked.
There were two lines.
She swore out loud, a single word that hardly seemed adequate to describe her circumstances.
Apparently no higher powers were listening to her prayers tonight.
Now what?
There were two other tests—she’d bought a three-pack. She’d use them as soon as she could to be sure the first one was right. But she knew the odds of getting a false positive—almost nil. Opening a drawer, she tossed the extras inside.
She shoved the stick with the two lines back into the wrapper and carried it to the kitchen trash, stuffing it in. In an effort to have the last say, she pulled the trash bag out, tied it shut and marched out to the banged-up metal garbage can in the garage. Ceremoniously, she dropped the bag in and slammed the lid down.
As if that would get rid of her problem.
The cool dampness characteristic of Iowa in late April made her shiver, and she hurried back to the house. The dramatic blues and violets of twilight, her favorite time of day, barely filtered through her consciousness. She let the door bang shut behind her.
Carey fell into the kitchen chair closest to the door. Somehow she’d managed to go from relatively carefree independence to the sobering prospect of parenthood in mere weeks.
She’d never run into something she hadn’t felt she could handle, but right now a human-sized vise seemed to close in on her.
The phone rang, but she didn’t move to answer it. She wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone. The machine on the kitchen counter picked up and she listened to her own cheerful voice state that she wasn’t home.
“Carey, where are you? I just got back in town. Thought I’d stop by tonight if you were there. Guess not. I’ll talk to you later.”
Devin Colyer, one of her two best friends. Splendid timing for him to want to catch up. She hadn’t had a chance to spend much more than an hour at a bar or five minutes on the phone with him for ages. His life had been hectic lately because of the computer security business he was launching.
She wasn’t up for a visit from him tonight. Her ex-boyfriend was Devin’s cousin and not his favorite person. Devin wouldn’t take the news that she was pregnant with Jerod’s baby well at all. When they’d first started dating, Devin had tried to tell her Jerod wasn’t right for her. She didn’t like to take the chance of him reminding her he’d told her so.
She’d just started to get over the anger and pain since she and Jerod had broken up a month ago. Granted, they’d only actually been together four months. But she’d known him for years, had practically idolized him since high school. That was a long time to build someone up.
That she’d been
so stupid still smarted. How could she, cautious and jaded thanks to her mom’s history with men, have been so blind as to think Jerod was the long-term type, the family type? He’d been seeing other women the entire time they’d been together. The truth hit her right in the face. Where men were concerned, Carey’s judgment was completely unreliable.
Over the years, her mom had been used, dumped, snowed over, you name it. But at least she’d been happily married and very much in love when she’d wound up pregnant. So much for striving to be wiser.
Without thinking, Carey stood and grabbed the faded mustard-colored wall phone and dialed Monica Garrett, her friend since the first day of kindergarten.
But just before the phone could ring, she disconnected the call.
Damn.
Monica was the last person she could turn to with this. She and her husband had been trying to get pregnant for almost the entire year they’d been married. Carey’s news would be like acid on the wound.
She slammed the receiver down, upset on Monica’s behalf as well as her own. Still holding on to the outdated phone, she took a deep breath, closing her eyes.
All right. She was on her own with her numbing news. Might as well get used to it.
She shuffled to the living room, hitting the kitchen light on the way, plunging the house into darkness. Blessed darkness.
Grabbing an old fuzzy blanket from the couch, she settled into an ancient recliner on the far side of the room to ponder the irony of her life.
There wasn’t a whole lot she could do, other than run out and tell Jerod the oh-so-happy news. She shook her head. He’d made it clear he had no interest in settling down.
She rubbed her belly, trying to imagine how it would feel to have a huge bump there, filled with a tiny being who would depend on her for everything. Everything. It was almost too much to grasp.
There were options, of course. Ending the pregnancy. Finding someone to adopt her child—but that was just it. It was her child already.
Carey adored babies. She’d always wanted kids eventually—lots of them. The thing was, though, she’d always wanted a husband to go with the kids. She knew from experience that growing up without a dad was difficult.
Her head throbbed as the truth set in—she’d be raising this child by herself. Huddling down deeper into the thick blanket, she let the tears fall.
She had no idea how much time had passed when the sobs finally subsided. Gradually, her thoughts calmed to one at a time instead of the painful barrage.
One thing she was certain about. She absolutely would not let her child grow up in a home without love or security.
A steady, heavy rain had started to fall at some point. After a long while, she heard sturdy footsteps on the walkway outside her front door.
The knock fifteen feet away from her recliner startled her. She didn’t move, barely breathed, willing the visitor to go away. At the second knock she glared at the door.
She heard keys jangle, and before she could process what was happening, the door opened.
“Carey?”
Devin stepped into the dark living room. She wished she hadn’t given him the spare key. Her heart thudded so loudly she expected him to hear it, and she pulled the blanket up a little higher. He apparently didn’t spot her sitting across the room, but she could see him in the glow from the streetlight through the doorway.
He was drenched. His dirty-blond hair hung limply to his collar. She watched a drop of water make its way down the slight bump in his nose. He blinked a few times, as if to adjust to the darkness.
“Carey?” he hollered. “You home?”
Taking a few steps into the hallway, he glanced toward her bedroom, his back to her. He flipped the light on, and Carey squinted against the brightness. He still didn’t see her.
“What do you want, Dev?”
He whipped around, finally spotting her. Mopping his face with his upper arm, he stopped in the middle of the room.
“What the hell are you doing?” he asked, hands on his hips, hair dripping onto his shoulders.
“What does it look like I’m doing?”
“Why didn’t you answer me?”
“Why did you let yourself in?”
“Your car’s in the driveway. I figured you were here.”
“I’m here.”
If she’d been in a better mood, she would’ve laughed at the contrast they made. Devin was dripping wet, yet instead of looking like a drowned dog, he looked good—from his soaked Swim Naked T-shirt to his ratty tennis shoes. Carey, who was warm and mostly dry, could probably scare a small child with her tangled hair and puffy red eyes.
“So?” he said.
“I really want to be alone, Devin.”
“I’ve been out of town for two weeks and that’s all you can say?” His voice was teasing.
She grasped the arms of the recliner, willing herself not to snap. “Please, just go.”
Turning, he headed toward the hall bathroom. “Be right back. I need to dry off. If you’ll hear me out, I’ll leave soon.”
He acted as though he found her huddling in the dark every day.
When he returned, rubbing the back of his neck with a towel, he lowered himself to the couch. “When was the last time you talked to your friend in the IT department of that local textbook publisher?”
Carey wanted to scream—or maybe cry again. She was suffering and he wanted to talk about a possible client for his start-up company. Sometimes she admired his insane drive to make it a success, but not right now.
“It’s been awhile,” she told him. “A few weeks.”
“I’m ready to get rolling, and I need some business. The publishing company would be a big boost if I could land it. Can you talk to him again, warn him I’ll be calling and get me his contact info?”
“Devin, did it not occur to you that I’m having a crisis?”
He stopped drying himself and looked at her as if he hadn’t seen her before. “What’s wrong?” His eyebrows lowered. “This isn’t…tell me this isn’t Jerod related.”
“It isn’t Jerod related.”
“Liar.”
Carey shrugged.
“Thought you got rid of him.”
“I did.” So to speak.
Carey’s stomach rolled, and a sheen of sweat broke out on her forehead. She threw the blanket to the floor and tore to the bathroom. Made it to the toilet just in time. She threw up until her throat was on fire and tears blurred her vision.
At some point, Devin bent down behind her and gently pulled her long hair out of the way. When her stomach finished rebelling, she held on to the cool, damp sides of the toilet bowl to steady herself.
“You okay?” he asked, touching her back lightly.
She nodded and squeezed her eyes shut. She sensed rather than saw him sit on the edge of the tub a couple of feet away.
“What’s wrong, Carey? You never get sick.”
Standing to lean over the sink, she shook her head weakly. This wasn’t even morning sickness as far as she could tell; it’d come out of nowhere. It was stress, pure and simple. Her stomach was a pit of turbulence.
She splashed cold water over her face, not caring that it soaked her hair, too. Straightening, she grabbed a towel, focused on the linoleum floor.
“I’m pregnant.”
CHAPTER TWO
“YOU’RE what?” Devin couldn’t have heard right.
“You heard me.” Carey was barely audible.
Ho…ly…shit. She was dead serious. He lowered his gaze as if there’d be visible evidence of a child growing in her abdomen.
She closed the toilet lid, sat on top of it and pulled her knees up, hugging them.
Devin stood, feeling the blow of her revelation as vividly as if a round of bullets had pierced his gut. For a split second, he wondered if he’d have to take a turn at puking. He sucked in air slowly and tried to calm himself, to no avail. He leaned against the bathroom counter, flattening his palms against the cool tile.
“It’s Jerod’s?”
She nodded once.
Carey was pregnant with his cousin’s baby. His leech of a cousin who’d never deserved her in the first place.
Devin clamped his jaws together to keep from saying the hurtful things that popped into his head. As he hiked himself onto the counter, he felt numbed, disconnected and more than a little disturbed, as if he were witnessing a train wreck. “What the hell happened?”
Carey lifted her head from her hands, her eyebrows raised. “What do you mean, ‘what happened?’”
He shook his head, too rattled to speak. The question was pointless anyway. Seconds ticked by while he struggled to digest the news. “Forgive me,” he growled. “I’m a little bowled over.”
“Yeah, well, you and me both.” She walked past him out of the cramped room. “Don’t you have somewhere else to be?”
He heard her bedroom door shut, but he didn’t follow her.
Pregnant? It was too much to wrap his mind around.
How could she have been so careless? So clueless to fall for his self-absorbed cousin? Once again, he cursed the rotten coincidence of Carey running into Jerod several months ago on one of her photo assignments. She’d always had a thing for Jerod, even knowing how Devin felt about the guy. Devin had never really expressed how deep his dislike went, mostly because he knew it was irrational and steeped in jealousy. Not something he was proud of. Now he wished he’d said more.
When Carey had rattled on about her first date with his cousin, Devin had comforted himself, secure in the belief Jerod would blow it miserably within the first two weeks.
Obviously, he’d been wrong.
He rammed his knuckles into the tile, fantasizing about doing the same to Jerod’s face. “Dammit!”