Beth sighed with relief.
“Not that you shouldn’t be extremely careful,” Dr. Moore added. “I don’t want you lifting anything weighing over fifteen pounds or doing any strenuous activity. Normal activity is fine. You can walk, do yoga, ride a bike, have sex, or even lightly jog. But no heavy lifting. And I want to hear from you immediately if you notice any spotting.”
Thank God she hadn’t started demo on the house. But now she’d have to hire help, and she’d have to…tell Ken.
Oh yes, she’d have to do that today. She’d already put it off too long. “Okay.”
“You look a little horrified. Were you planning on moving a piano or something?” Dr. Moore asked.
That might be easier than what she’d have to do this afternoon.
“I do a lot of physical work when I remodel homes,” Beth said. “But as luck would have it, I’ve been waiting for final designs on my current flip. I haven’t so much as lifted a screwdriver. It’s been incredibly frustrating.”
“And a blessing.” Dr. Moore replaced the chart. “I want to see you again in two weeks, and we’ll get a nice heartbeat to put your mind at ease.” She smiled. “Congratulations, young lady.”
“Young? I don’t know about that. I’ll be forty-one by the time this baby is born.”
“Haven’t you heard? Forty-one is the new twenty-five in my world.” Dr. Moore’s brows lifted as she handed the chart to Shelley. “Can you return this to the front for me?”
Shelley nodded, slipping off her gloves to take the chart. The door clicked shut, and Beth’s heart rate ratcheted up when she looked at Dr. Moore’s serious expression.
“I don’t know if you’re going through this alone, Beth, but I know of some fantastic support groups who love to help others enjoy and relish the experience of having a baby without a partner.”
“Thank you, Dr. Moore.” She sighed and smiled. “Now that I know it’s not ectopic, I’m going to be telling the baby’s father today.”
“Good. I hope he’s there for you.”
She had a feeling he would be, but, honestly, Beth had no idea how Ken would take the news. Only that she had to deliver it and couldn’t wait one more day now that she knew this was a viable pregnancy.
Only, the last one was viable, too.
“You still look terrified.”
“My history,” Beth said softly. “The miscarriage, the tubal, and I told you my own mother died giving birth to me.”
“History does not need to repeat itself,” Dr. Moore assured her. “I’ll see you in two weeks and every month after that until you are holding a beautiful baby in your arms.”
With one more comforting pat to Beth’s shoulder, she stepped outside and closed the door, leaving Beth alone with the indistinguishable image on the monitor.
She stared at it, squinting, trying to see something other than a blob of black and white and gray. Right there, that…was her baby.
“Hi, cupcake,” she whispered.
And then she let herself do what she had refused to do for two weeks, three days, and six hours.
She cried tears of pure joy.
* * *
“Captain Cav.”
Ken looked up from the training manual he was studying in his office. On the floor, sideways with her little legs crossed and suspended in the air over her huge belly, Sally merely opened her brown eyes, showing the same distaste for the interruption that Ken felt. “Jenkins, was I not clear?”
“Totally, Captain. You’re preparing a training class, and the only interruption should come from the dispatcher with an alarm or me with another cup of coffee, less milk this time.”
“Much less. Nice to know you’re listening.” He stared at the young lieutenant, raising his eyebrows expectantly. “I don’t hear the alarm or see any coffee.”
“I forgot the coffee, and my guess is you want this interruption—”
“I don’t want any interruption.” He picked up a pen and looked back at the manual.
“—’cause we’re all kind of hoping this puts an end to your dry spell.”
“My…” Slowly, he set the pen back down and stared at the other man. “What the hell makes you think I’m having a dry spell?”
“Your mood, which is bordering on foul and sliding right into beastly. Has been for weeks. Maybe months. There’s already a pool on how long it’s been since you got laid.”
Seven weeks was how freaking long. “Is that why you came in here, Jenkins? To drag me into Pookie’s latest betting cesspool?”
“No, sir. That’s a private pool. She suggested we keep it under the table.”
Oh, for shit’s sake, did everything have to be a wager around here? He had work to do. “Then what’s the interruption?”
“Her name is…” Jenkins looked down at a card in his hand. “Bethany Endicott.”
“What?” Ken blinked at the man, feeling a twist in his gut that probably showed on his face. After damn near two months of radio silence, she shows up at the fire station?
“Well, the card says Bethany—”
“I heard you.” He practically knocked over his chair standing up, making Jenkins raise his brows. “What the hell is she doing here?” he mumbled.
“Well, right now, Irish is showing her around the bay.”
He didn’t even want to think about that conversation. He turned away and scanned his desk, looking for something, like…composure.
Beth was here?
“All right, all right,” he said, as much to himself as to Jenkins. “I’ll see her.” He absently reached for his collar, the sudden thought that she’d seen him naked but never in uniform throwing him a little off-balance.
“I knew you would,” Jenkins said, leaning against the doorjamb, his knowing smirk firmly in place. “She’s hot.”
“Shut up.”
He straightened at the command. “You want me to bring her back, Captain?”
“So you can tell her about my dry spell?”
Jenkins grinned. “Ten bucks says Irish did that already.”
“Shit.” Ken took another breath. “I’ll get her as soon as I…” Collect myself. “Just give me a minute.”
Jenkins got the message and left, closing the door behind him.
Alone but still visible to anyone passing by through the glass wall that enclosed his office, Ken turned to slowly close the manual on his desk and let the fact that Beth was here hit him fully in the heart.
He took a breath, letting the emotions he’d felt for the woman over the past weeks surface. Longing, frustration, anger, and an epic set of blue balls had all devolved into a low-grade level of pissed off at life in general. Also known as the dry spell the entire station was wagering on.
And now? He felt nothing except…some unwanted hope that hung around long after he willed it away. Damn it.
Why was she here? Nothing had changed in seven weeks, unless you count how many times he took cold showers and barked at his team.
In all probability, she had some house-flipping favor she needed, or wanted to bring some friend’s kid to the firehouse on a field trip. There were a million reasons why she would be here, and all he had to do was find out what it was without letting her get back under his skin like a splinter.
He looked at the ground, meeting Sally’s curious gaze. “We can do this, right, Sal?”
She dropped her head back to the floor with a heavy dog sigh, like she had no faith in him at all where Beth Endicott was concerned.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence, kid.”
He marched out of his office, strode through the station, and kept his focus ahead. He barely noticed the tangy garlic wafting from Mike Verona’s kitchen. He ignored an incoming F-bomb from a raucous game of Call of Duty in the day room. He walked into this particular fire the way he would any other, with caution and trust for his instincts.
Then his instincts saw a flash of golden hair, and he knew nothing could be trusted.
She was flanked by two
men, with Billy “Irish” Hanrahan showing off the ladder truck like she was a six-year-old boy who dreamed about outrigger hydraulics.
“Oh, Captain.” Irish stepped away from Beth at the sight of him. “There you are.”
The men all backed off, giving Ken a clear shot of Beth and making it impossible for him to keep from sucking in a breath. Damn it all to hell and back, she was as gorgeous as he remembered. Silky hair the color of that cream-heavy coffee he’d just had fell over a black top tucked into white slacks that hung like they were made for her body. She looked professional—so she mustn’t be doing her demolition work today.
Unless her target was his heart.
“Hi,” she offered up a shaky smile.
He dug for that pissed-off feeling that had been his constant companion, but his expression betrayed him with a smile.
“Beth,” he said. “This is a surprise.”
She gave a nervous laugh. “Yeah, I guess it is.”
All of the men and women in the bay stopped what they were doing to observe the exchange.
Ken shot Hanrahan a warning look. “That rig clean yet, Irish?”
“Not quite, Captain.”
“Then get to work.” He put a light hand on Beth’s shoulder. Possessive, yeah. But she didn’t shake him off, so he left it there for the sheer pleasure of being connected to her. “Want me to show you around?”
“No, I don’t need a tour.” She looked up at him. “I need to talk to you.”
In his peripheral vision, he saw everyone in the bay taking them in, their heads turning from side to side like it was a tennis match all set up for the entertainment of Station 16.
“Sure. We can go in my office.” He guided her away and shot a look at Irish, Jenkins, and the two men behind them. “Get to work, people.”
“You, too, Captain.”
He could hear them laughing as he guided her around the corner, wishing like hell they were anywhere but at the station. He gestured toward his office. “It has a door, but I’ll warn you, the glass wall means we might have an audience.”
She took a slow breath. “I’m sorry to burst in on you at work. I’m sure you’re busy, but…” She wet her lips as if her mouth were as dry as the desert. “I need to talk to you.”
So she’d said. “It’s fine. But it is a fire station, and I’m on duty. We could get called out at any minute.”
She nodded. “I’ll be brief.”
He led her into his office, and instantly, Sally hauled herself up for a sniff.
“Well, you get to meet my dog after all,” he said, kicking himself for being happy about that.
“Oh, look at her.” She bent over to greet the dog with an outstretched hand. “She’s a…Yorkie?”
“Maybe. She’s definitely a terrier of some sort, bred with…a cow.”
She laughed as Sally trotted her wide ass on three-inch legs and looked right up into Beth’s eyes. “She doesn’t look like a Sally.”
“She was left here at the station, and the only command she obeyed was ‘lay down,’ so the guys started calling her Lay Down Sally.” He crouched down to pet her and whisper an introduction. “Beth, this is my girl, Sally. Sal, this is…” Not my girl. “Beth.”
Sally sniffed and tipped her head from side to side in a shameless beg for a neck scratch, which she received. He watched, vaguely aware of how the sight of Beth being tender with Sally kind of made his heart come undone.
Damn it, Sal. She’s not ours to care about.
“Have a seat.” He came around the desk because there was only one extra chair in his office and, from across his desk, he took a good look at her.
She wore more makeup today than he remembered, but then, they’d last seen each other after a long night of hot sex.
He pushed the thought far away, and fast. Too much of that and she’d know he’d had a dry spell for sure. “So, what’s up?” he asked, momentarily proud of how chill he sounded. Like they were old acquaintances with a casual relationship and not the reason he’d had way too many sleepless nights.
“I have something to tell you.” She looked down and plucked at an imaginary thread on her slacks. “It’s not…easy.”
He leaned closer, trying to read her expression and brace for whatever it was. “Okay.”
“Okay,” she echoed, and for the first time, it dawned on him that she was way more nervous than he was. A thousand times more.
And under blush-pink cheeks, her skin looked pale. Below her eyes, she hadn’t quite concealed dark shadows. Her cheeks looked hollow, and even her shoulders seemed narrower than he remembered.
Suddenly, his sleepless nights were forgotten as he leaned closer. “Are you all right, Beth?”
“I’m…” She inhaled and exhaled slowly. “I really don’t know how else to say this, so I just will.”
He had a flash of insight. This was about his dad. She’d come to tell him something had been hidden or lied about, that her family had—
“I’m pregnant.”
His whole body went numb. “Excuse me?”
She nodded. “Yeah. I said the same thing when I saw the test.”
“But I thought you said—”
“I did, and it was the truth. I had a tubal ligation three years ago. What’s happened is rare.” She puffed out a breath. “But not impossible.”
“You’re…pregnant.” The word lodged in his throat, and all he could do was stare at her as his chest squeezed so hard it was like a vise grip stealing all his oxygen. His head grew light. His ears rang like a five-alarm fire as the words banged against his brain.
“I’m told the odds were one in a thousand,” she said.
One in a thousand? “Well, we beat those odds,” he said with a masculine stab of pride he couldn’t deny.
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Don’t get all male smug about your power swimmers. This is real, Ken.”
“It sure as hell is.” He closed his eyes, letting this new reality roll over him. “I can’t believe it.”
“Listen to me.” She held out her hand as if she wanted to touch him, but then withdrew it before she actually made contact. “I thought you might feel that way.”
What way? He didn’t know how he felt right now.
“I’m not upset,” she said quickly. “Well, I was a little thrown when I had a dizzy spell in the middle of the Super Min.”
“Were you okay? Did you faint? Did you get hurt?” Hell, that was one rescue call he’d have gone on in a heartbeat.
“Only by the look of judgment on Charity Grambling’s face when I almost puked in the aisle.”
He puffed some air in a dry laugh, thinking of the old busybody.
“Anyway, I took a bunch of home pregnancy tests.” She bit her lip and raised an eyebrow. “Seven of them.”
“All positive?”
She nodded. “Then I went to the doctor. In fact, I just came from there and—”
“You went to the doctor already? Without me?” He realized that was kind of a dumb question, but what the hell. He was in shock.
“I had to see my doctor and make sure everything is okay because, as I told you, I had my tubes tied, and that can increase the chances of something going wrong.”
“Going…wrong?” His gut squeezed. “What do you mean, going wrong?”
“An ectopic pregnancy, which has an increased chance of happening after a tubal, or a miscarriage, of which I’ve had both. But I had an ultrasound this morning—”
“You had an ultrasound?” He could barely croak out the words.
“Yes,” she said, her tone reminding him whose body this baby was in. “There was a distinct possibility that it wasn’t a viable pregnancy, so I wanted to be sure it was first. Otherwise, what use would it have been to tell you?”
What use? He couldn’t even begin to answer that, so he swallowed the question. She was here now and only seven weeks pregnant. “What did the ultrasound show?” he asked. Good God, did she know the baby’s gender already?
br /> “It showed that the pregnancy is not ectopic. I’m going back in two weeks.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“I’m not asking for that,” she said quickly. “In fact, you don’t have to do anything at all. I can completely—”
“Beth, stop.” He scooted closer. “Not do anything? Who the hell do you think I am?”
“I know who you are, but do you fully understand who this child is?”
“Other than mine?” he demanded.
“This child is and will always be Ray Endicott’s grandchild.”
He stared at her, refusing to let that change anything. “And my child,” he said.
She exhaled and inched back. “Whatever you want is fine. You can have a role in this child’s life, of course. And you can give money if it makes you feel better, though I don’t need it. Or you can let me walk out of here and forget this ever happened, or you can sign some legal document—I don’t care.”
“But I do.” He finally ground the truth out. “I care like…like…” He shook his head, words eluding him. “Like nothing I’ve ever cared about in my whole life.”
“But this is—”
The screech of a callout alert blasted from the loudspeaker, making her gasp and jump.
“Station one-six, engine five-five, possible house fire—”
He didn’t even blink, vaulting up from his desk. “That’s me.”
“Ken.” She looked up, dismay on her face.
“We’re not done here.” He never even turned to look at her expression, hustling into the station, the callout still screaming instructions he had to process.
Not news about a baby.
Not the fact that his life just changed forever.
Not her list of possible options for how involved he could be in the life of his child.
Not anything but that dispatcher’s voice telling him what he needed to know to do his job. Possible house fire meant both the ladder and the pumper. Chief was gone by now, and the rescue crew would come along.
A BFD that had men and women propelled into the action of gearing up to do battle with a blaze…seconds after he was delivered a mind-blowing, life-changing, heart-wrecking sucker punch.
In the bay, he went through the motions of stepping into his bunker pants and boots and moving more from muscle memory than any real thought. In less than ten seconds, he was dressed and hoisted himself into the rig where his bunker coat, helmet, and SCBA gear waited.