“Heck if I know.” Rose laid one hand on her flat belly and tried to imagine the reality of carrying a child.
An instant later, she was wishing for more doughnuts.
“You’re probably not pregnant,” Dee said thoughtfully. “I mean, people try for years without conceiving. What’re the odds you could do it in one try?”
“True,” she agreed, not really believing it.
“And I know you probably don’t want to hear this, but as the best friend, I have to at least suggest it…”
“What?” she asked warily.
Dee sighed. “There is a pill you can take the morning after, and you know it.”
“I know,” Rose said. “I actually thought of that around three this morning.” Then she shook her head. “But I can’t, Dee. It would be like wishing the baby away—if there is one—and I couldn’t live with it. With Mom and Dad both gone now, if there is a baby, it would be my family, you know? So I can’t, you know? I mean, it’s good that it’s out there, but it’s not for me.”
“Yeah. Wouldn’t be for me, either.” Dee leaned over and patted Rose’s hand in support. “So, we’ll just have to hope for the best, and wait and see on the baby front. On the Lucas front…”
“Oh,” Rose told her with a quick shake of her head, “trust me when I say there is no Lucas front.”
“Please. You can’t even sleep for thinking about the man.”
“That doesn’t mean there’s anything there, Dee. It just means that we had one wild, incredible night of sex followed by a humiliating argument.” She took a breath and blew it out again. “Saint Rose.”
Dee laughed, and Rose sent her a look.
“Sorry,” her friend said, making an effort to stop the chuckles. “But if you could see the look on your face when you said that.”
Rose grabbed one of the throw pillows, tugged it out from behind her back and held it in front of her, wrapping both arms around it. “The Saint-Rose thing notwithstanding, you should have seen the expression on Lucas’s face when he told me that we’d be getting married if I turn up pregnant. He meant every word, Dee.”
“So what?” Dee scooted closer, draped one arm around Rose’s shoulder and said, “He can’t force you to marry him, sweetie. All he can do is bluster and demand. You don’t have to do a damn thing you don’t want to—beyond sharing custody, of course.”
Rose dropped her head to the back of the couch and stared up at the ceiling. “Custody battles. Doesn’t that sound like a good time?”
“You play, you pay,” Dee told her gently.
“Isn’t this the part where you’re supposed to comfort me?”
“Right. Well, here’s the comfort.” Dee gave her shoulders a squeeze. “You’re probably not pregnant, so chances are, you’ll never have to see Lucas King again.”
Never see Lucas again. Four words that left a cold, dark empty feeling inside her. Rose looked at her friend. “Sadly, that thought isn’t much comfort, either.”
Dee nodded. “Yeah, I know.”
Nine
After Dee left, Rose had a brief cry and a long nap, then woke up feeling almost human again. She still didn’t have a clue what she was going to do next, but whatever it turned out to be, she was sure she could handle it. If she never saw Lucas again, at least she’d had that one night with him that she used to dream of experiencing.
Of course now, she would be dreaming about that night for the rest of her life, but that was okay, she thought firmly. She could deal.
“Hear that, universe? I can take it.” She stirred a big pot of beef-and-barley soup and took a deep breath of the amazing scents wafting into the air.
Outside, it was dark, and a storm had blown in off the ocean. Wind rattled tree limbs and rain tapped at the windows like nervous fingers. But inside, all was warm and cozy.
Cooking had always soothed her. As a child, she remembered standing on a chair at the counter while the family cook taught her to make cookies. And as Rose got older, the lessons became more complex. By the time she was a teenager, she spent most of her spare time in the kitchen.
She hadn’t had boyfriends—not with her father and brother standing guard over her. So she spent most nights alone in the house, coming up with new recipes to ease the boredom.
Now, Rose set the spoon down on the ceramic-duck spoon rest in the center of her stove and realized that she’d come full circle. Years later and here she was standing in her kitchen daydreaming about guys. Well, one guy.
“And that’s just pitiful.”
She took a seat at the kitchen table and reached for the dark green shirt she had left hanging over the back of one of the chairs. The shirt Lucas had loaned her the night before, she’d meant to wash it today, but hadn’t. Lifting it to her face, she inhaled the scent of him and let pangs of regret and disappointment rush through her.
“No,” she whispered, “this is pitiful.”
God, she didn’t know what was wrong with her. It wasn’t as if she’d never had sex before. And fine, yes, there was the pregnancy worry hanging over her head, but that wasn’t what was bothering her, either. Why was she so torn up inside? Why couldn’t she take a deep breath without feeling as if there were iron bands around her lungs?
“And why are you asking yourself so many questions when you already know the answers?”
Her fingers trailed across the gold crown and the King Construction logo on the shirt. An image of Lucas sprang up in her mind—dark hair tumbled across his forehead. Blue eyes going hot with passion as he covered her body with his own. And Rose finally admitted to herself what the problem here really was.
She was in love with Lucas King. A part of her had loved him for three years, she thought, fingers still tracing across the King logo on his shirt. From the moment Dave had brought him home and she looked up into those blue eyes. He had been polite, a little distant—no doubt having gotten the off-limits warning from Dave already—but he had smiled at her and something inside Rose had come to life.
She’d been lost even back then.
Maybe that was why she had never found another man that made her heart race and her knees go weak. Maybe that was the real reason she’d agreed to marry Henry Porter when her family asked her to. Somewhere inside her, she had realized that she’d never have the man she wanted, so what did it matter?