Unexpected Complication (Harlequin Super Romance) Read online

  “No. I can’t.” She fought to keep her annoyance in check. “I won’t.”

  “So you’re going to have it.”

  It hadn’t really been a question as much as a statement.

  “Do you really want to get married, Carey?” She heard uncharacteristic doubt in the question.

  She hesitated, a dozen thoughts running through her mind. “Actually, no. Stop sweating. You’re off the hook, at least on that.”

  His relief was obvious. He crossed the room and sat next to her on the sofa, suddenly not quite as stand-offish. “I can give you a little money each month…” He sounded removed from the situation, as if he were negotiating a contract for the station or something. No, not even that…he’d show a lot more enthusiasm if his career were involved.

  It rubbed Carey the wrong way.

  Apathy wasn’t what Carey wanted. At all. And it wasn’t what she’d subject her baby to. If he wasn’t in it because he wanted to be, then she didn’t want him in it at all. This child was not going to grow up feeling like nothing more than a burden.

  She stood. “You know what, Jerod? Thank you for offering. I think you’re probably trying your best to do what’s right.” She paused, blowing stray strands of hair from her face. “I don’t want your money. We’ll be absolutely fine on our own.”

  He rose, too, and looked at her as though she were crazy. “Carey, you can barely get by on your paycheck as it is.”

  She hadn’t been angry before, but this statement insulted her. “I do just fine, thank you. Nowhere close to your way of living, but I can survive. And I will.”

  Jerod looked at her vacantly for several seconds, then finally shrugged. “Do it your way.”

  “Goodbye, Jerod.”

  She walked to the door and instead of feeling sad, as she’d expected, she was relieved. She knew where she stood.

  Minutes later, she hopped into the Bug for cover as large drops of rain began to pelt the pavement. Behind the wheel, she sucked in stifling, humid air. Her hands were shaking.

  She pulled out into traffic. The giant question that had loomed over her for the past eighteen hours was answered. Now she could focus on the myriad other considerations of becoming a single mom. She swallowed her trepidation.

  Without thought, she headed toward Monica’s part of town…then stopped herself. She refused to talk to her about this pregnancy any more than she could help.

  Devin wasn’t an option, either. Understanding wasn’t his strong suit lately. He’d only offer I-told-you-he’s-a-jerk and other useless feedback.

  In spite of her relief, she felt lonely. Going home to an empty house would depress her. Her mom’s house…no. She wasn’t up for that scene yet. Her brother and sometimes-roommate Trent was in Alaska for who knew how long.

  She was completely alone.

  Carey had never liked being alone. She supposed she’d have to get used to it, since late nights out and smoke-filled bars would become a thing of her past, especially while she carried this baby in her womb. And she’d be alone with a newborn soon. She didn’t figure the little one would be the best conversationalist.

  Carey steered aimlessly around town in the rain, her stereo blaring. She tried like the devil to ignore the uneasiness in her stomach, the fear that seemed to hover just behind her, like a silent stalker intent on following her home.

  “Dammit, I can do this. Without Jerod’s money.”

  There, she finally addressed the fear foremost on her mind—her impulsive rejection of his financial help. Could she live without child support? Was that fair to the baby?

  Things would be tight, but they’d make it work. She could do this without a man’s support—somehow.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  BY WEDNESDAY afternoon, reality had had plenty of time to set in. Carey had turned her situation over and over in her mind and had come to a few conclusions.

  One, she needed more income.

  Two, she couldn’t fly all over the country as a freelance photographer once the baby came, and would probably have to cut down on travel even before the birth.

  Three, she needed either to find more local gigs or get a part-time job somewhere.

  Four, this would be challenging, but she was up for it. She could do it. The details of how just hadn’t come to her yet.

  The doorbell rang, yanking her from her thoughts. She got up from the kitchen table to answer it.

  Carey’s odd work hours often allowed her to be at home in the middle of the day, just like the stay-at-home moms and the otherwise unemployed. She’d learned long ago that if someone knocked on the door between the hours of nine and five, odds were it’d be either a religious zealot here to save her soul or a college kid bursting with a sales pitch for more magazine subscriptions than she could read in a lifetime.

  She opened the door to find the last person she expected—her mother.

  She’d avoided her mom all week and had yet to tell her she was pregnant.

  On more than one occasion, Carey had lectured her mom on not rushing to bed with a man. It was plain to see Carey had done exactly that—rushed to bed with a man she didn’t know as well as she thought. She wasn’t in the mood to eat crow just now.

  “Hey, Mom, what are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be working?”

  Her mom sighed woefully. “I took off early. Mind if I come in?”

  The rims of her mom’s eyes were red, her mascara slightly smeared. Carey had a feeling she knew what was wrong. She backed up and opened the door wider to let her in. “Have a seat. Want something to drink?”

  “I could use a hard one.”

  “Mom. You don’t drink.”

  “Special day.” Her mom collapsed on the sofa.

  “You seriously want something with alcohol in it?”

  As much as her mother combed the bars for single fifty-something men, she didn’t succumb to the “vices” inherent in the bar-hopping lifestyle. She avoided drinking and smoking and rarely swore. Taking the wrong man home was her special exception.

  “Sure. What do you have?”

  Not much, as it turned out. “Maybe a beer, and I think I could scrounge up a rum and Coke.”

  “Can you make it taste like Coke?”

  “I could give you a straight Coke.”

  “I’ll try it with a little rum.”

  The irony that ruled Carey’s life lately struck again. She mixed her mom an unheard-of drink while she herself couldn’t have a sip. She wondered what on earth could have Penny Langford Stringer in such a state. Man trouble was typical and didn’t usually call for a stiff drink.

  Returning to the living room, Carey handed her mom the cocktail and looked her over for a clue. She wore her usual work attire—a long, billowing blue-and-yellow skirt that hid never-ending legs a twenty-year-old would envy, a plain white blouse with a conservative V-neck and strappy heels. Her unnaturally blond hair curled sedately under below her ears as usual.

  At fifty-two, her mom was still a knockout, which was why she had no problem luring men home. In all fairness, Carey suspected sex wasn’t her mom’s ultimate goal. A husband was. She just didn’t seem to know of any other way to snag one.

  “Tell me, Mom. What happened?” Carey sat on the sofa next to her.

  “Bad day all around. Had it out with my boss, which is one reason I left early.”

  “Was…he okay with that?”

  Her mom shrugged. “He won’t fire me, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  “Okay. So what’s the other reason you left early?”

  “Harold broke up with me on my lunch hour.”

  “Another one bites the dust,” Carey muttered.

  Her mom, however, had perfect hearing and a dash of nosiness to go with it. “Why? Are you and Jerod not still together?”

  “Actually, no. We broke up a month ago. But I did the breaking up, and it wasn’t on his lunch hour. What was Harold’s problem?”

  Her mom had been dating the guy for several weeks
, which was longer than a lot of them lasted. Carey had met him once, and he seemed to have left his personality at home that day. But she was accustomed to not caring for the men her mother entertained.

  “Turns out he’s married.”

  Carey’s jaw dropped. She reached to squeeze her mom’s arm in sympathy. She’d developed a certain immunity to her mother’s love woes over the years, but this one shocked her. Mr. Anti-Personality had a wife? And he was crafty enough to hide it? “That really sucks. Did you have any clue?”

  Her mom shook her head. “There were lots of times he couldn’t see me, but he’s an accountant. It was tax season.” She took several gulps of the rum and Coke, making a bitter face when she finished. “I’m tired, Carey. So tired.”

  She suspected her mom referred to more than a lack of sleep. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but why don’t you rest for a bit? Take some time out from the dating scene?”

  Her mom looked sad. “No. I’m not going to give up. I know there’s someone out there, someone as wonderful as your father was. I’m going to find that man.”

  “You can find him later. Give yourself a break.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “No, I don’t. I never have.” Carey stood, her ire building, both at her mom for putting herself through this and at the men who kept treating her like dirt. Crossing her arms, she paced to the other side of the room. “You’ve been married four times, Mom. Dad was the only good guy. You’ve gone out with half a bajillion men in between.” She stopped and perched on the arm of the love seat opposite the sofa. “Why do you do this? Don’t you think it’s possible to be happier on your own?”

  Her mom’s eyes widened. “You don’t get it, do you?” A hint of anger underlined her words.

  It was enough to set Carey off. “No, Mom. I don’t. What is so attractive to you about getting your heart stomped on every other month? Why do you insist on doing it? Don’t you like yourself more than that?”

  Her mother stood, and though they were the same height, at this moment, Penny Langford Stringer definitely seemed mightier. “You’re young, Carey. I try to remember that. Yet at your age, I had two kids and a settled life.”

  “Settled until Dad died. Then you were alone again and couldn’t be happy.”

  Tears appeared in her mom’s eyes, and Carey felt an ounce of remorse for the blunt comment. But it was true. Her mom had never once been happy when she didn’t have a man in her life. And she was rarely happy for long when she did.

  “My marriage to your dad was the best thing that ever happened to me. We loved each other so much…” She took a deep breath and started again. “I can only hope you’ll understand how it feels one day, Carey. I hope you can find it. I hope I can find it again.”

  “Don’t hold your breath for me. I’m not looking.”

  Her mom shook her head, speechless. She set her drink down on the end table and walked to the door. “I don’t have it in me to argue with you, too.” She reached for the doorknob, then turned back. “It’s worth looking for, worth fighting for, Carey.” She paused, clearly overcome by emotion. “What I wouldn’t give for both you and I to be able to find the kind of love I had with your father….”

  She opened the door and walked out without another word.

  Carey’s heart went out to her mom, in spite of the harsh tone of their conversation. She’d been searching for so long, and didn’t seem to grasp that what she’d had years ago she’d been lucky as hell to find once.

  Carey sighed. Broken heart or not, she was worse off than her mom this time.

  Pushing the unsettling thought away, she headed to the bathroom for a shower. Devin’s birthday party for his grandpa started in two hours and she and Monica had promised they’d be there early to help.

  “YOU GUYS want screwdrivers like the geezers? Or beer?” Carey asked the other two. She’d appointed herself the bar wench for the night. Devin was relieved for the assistance, as entertaining was miles outside of his comfort zone. He’d pushed any feelings he had for Carey out of his mind so that he could enjoy the evening.

  “Beer’s fine,” Monica said.

  “I’ve got it.” Devin headed for the fridge, which was much fuller than usual. “Just don’t let them hear you call them geezers.”

  Fresh air wafted in through the open kitchen window, carrying the aroma of newly mown grass and a chorus of laughter from the group on the deck. Devin’s grandpa and his three self-described old-coot friends lounged around the outdoor table, along with Kyle, Monica’s husband.

  His grandpa turned eighty-five today, and Devin had wanted to do something special for him.

  Gramps was in his element. He didn’t get to see his friends much anymore since he couldn’t drive and refused to move into the city closer to Devin. All four old guys had spent the evening so far trying to one-up each other flirting with Carey and Monica. The women were good sports and gave it right back to the octogenarians.

  Devin had to look closely to recognize Gramps wasn’t feeling as great as he let on. He was in good spirits, but he hadn’t moved from his spot on the deck since he’d arrived. Completely out of character for a man who’d always been active. And he hadn’t turned his oxygen supply off once, which was telling. And disturbing. Gramps was the kind of man who would never ask for help, who hated lugging a little tank around with him to be able to breathe. He loathed needing help at all.

  Devin was still coming to grips with his grandpa’s recently discovered heart condition, too.

  He set one of the beers on the counter in front of Monica, who was chopping vegetables for salsa. “Thanks, Dev.” She smiled and took a drink, then pushed her dark brown hair behind her ears. “So, Carey, did you tell Jerod yet?”

  Devin’s pulse rate kicked up a notch. Carey glanced at Monica, dread in her expression, as if she hadn’t wanted the topic to come up. But how could she expect that they wouldn’t talk about her pregnancy or the jerk who’d knocked her up? It was tough to ignore that her whole life had changed in the course of a few days.

  “Yeah. Saturday.”

  “And you didn’t tell me about it yet? It’s been almost a week,” Monica pointed out.

  “I know. I haven’t been in the mood to talk about it.”

  “You better not be tiptoeing around for my sake.”

  Carey whipped her head toward Monica. “Don’t flatter yourself.” She forced a laugh. “I’ve had a lot to figure out.”

  “So what did he say?”

  Devin waited for the answer as eagerly as Monica, although he didn’t want to think about why it mattered to him so much.

  Carey was annoyingly silent as she poured orange juice into the glasses in front of her. When she’d filled all four of them, she set the carton down. “He wasn’t excited.”

  Monica held her knife in the air above the jalapeño pepper she’d been cutting, staring at Carey. “And?”

  “And…he asked me what I wanted him to do. He asked if I wanted to get married.”

  Devin’s heart stopped. Surely she didn’t….

  “What’d you tell him?” Monica demanded.

  “No.” Finally she looked up at them. “Come on, guys, what’d you expect?”

  Neither answered.

  “After watching my mom settle for the wrong men all these years, did you think I’d hook up with him just because I’m pregnant?” She turned back to the concoctions on the counter.

  “And don’t say it,” Carey continued, pointing the bottle of vodka at Devin. “I don’t want to hear how you told me so again.”

  Devin set his beer on the counter and raised both hands in surrender. “I didn’t even say much while you were dating him. I think I showed admirable control.”

  Her only reply was to glare at him.

  He rubbed his thumb and forefinger over his eyes to massage away the headache that had taken root hours ago. “I said I was sorry for the other night.”

  “What, exactly, happened the other night?” Monica ask
ed, chopping rhythmically again.

  “I was a jerk.”

  “He was a jerk,” Carey announced at the exact same time, which made them all laugh.

  “At least we have that straight,” Monica said.

  “I overreacted. But it still burns me up that you’re the one whose life is affected till the end of time.”

  “Which way do you want it, Devin? Do you want him to marry me and play daddy or do you want him out of my life?”

  He couldn’t answer that, because honestly, both options made his blood boil. “What I want doesn’t matter a damn bit. So what else did you two decide?”

  Carey carried the glasses over to the refrigerator to fill them with ice. Taking her time to drop exactly four cubes in each one, she seemed not to have heard the question. She rummaged through one of Devin’s lower cupboards and stood up holding a seldom-used baking pan. One by one, she placed the drinks on the makeshift tray.

  “We didn’t decide anything.” She opened the fridge and grabbed a beer, popped the lid off and set it on the tray as well. “He offered to give me child support. I turned him down.” Carey took the tray and set it on the counter next to Monica, who was now stirring her creation. “Which reminds me, I need the name of a good doctor.”

  “What do you mean you turned him down?” Devin interrupted.

  “I don’t want his money.”

  He moved beside her. “You’re letting him off the hook?”

  “Yes.” Carey gritted her teeth for a moment, then turned back to Monica. “Would you recommend the doctor you go to?”

  Devin stifled a smile. Selfish lout that he was, a large part of him was glad she’d given Jerod the boot, his money and all. This was one example of Carey’s impulsive nature he could actually stand behind, although he suspected he shouldn’t. He should try to talk her into taking the bastard’s money for the baby’s sake…and hers. He absently shoved tortilla chips in his mouth.

  “Dr. Estes is good. Not bad looking either,” Monica said.

  “You think I should go to a male doctor?”

  Monica shrugged. “Why not? He’s seen girls naked before. It’s all clinical to him.”