The Bachelor's Baby (Bachelor Auction Book 3)(25)



Meg was so tired she didn’t even hear Petra leave. When she woke, it was dark. She clicked on a light, used the bathroom, washed her face and combed her hair, hoping to look less like she’d been orphaned by war when she went in for dinner.

Car doors slammed and she could hear male voices. Blake and Ethan were home. Moving back into the bedroom, she found the thick cardigan Liz had loaned her, the one that felt like a security blanket when she hugged it around herself. Glancing outside when she heard another engine, she saw a second pair of brake lights douse and a man climb from a pick up truck.

Her heart gave a lurch in her chest.

Linc.

He looked right at her. She stepped away from the window, but knew he’d seen her. Footsteps squeaked on the snow, getting louder as they approached the door.

He knocked. “Meg?”

She wasn’t ready for this, but supposed it was unavoidable. Cracking the door, she saw fat wet flakes were starting to fall beyond his wide shoulders, already dusting the vehicles.

She couldn’t make herself look into his face or even say anything. Could only stare at the small triangular tear on his shirtfront.

“Do you want to go into town and get a bite?” he asked. “Talk?”

“We can go into the house to eat if you’re hungry. Liz was making stew.”

“I can wait. She brought sandwiches when she dropped off Ethan. But I want to talk.”

Meg vaguely remembered watching Liz make what looked like a lot of sandwiches, saying something about how the kids were always hungry when they got home from school and that Blake hadn’t had a proper lunch.

“Can we?” Linc prompted. “Will you let me in?”

She stepped back and he bent to untie his boots, leaving them outside as he stepped into the service area of the spa where a sink with a lip for hair washing was mounted near a shelf awaiting linens and other supplies. A manicure table was set up with an array of polish across its front and a giant massage chair with a pedicure tub stood under a criminal amount of shrink film.

Glancing toward the house, Meg saw Blake’s silhouette watching from the window in the back door. She closed him out and pointed to the wooden pegs beside the door to indicate that’s where Linc should hang his coat.

“Are you hungry?” he asked as if it suddenly occurred to him. “Because we can go in if you are.”

“I don’t keep much down anyway. I’ll wait until you’re gone and I’m not so worked up.” That was probably too much information. She clenched her hands together, knuckles like pearls, they stood out so shiny and white.

“What do you mean? Morning sickness or something?” He sounded nonplussed.

She nodded jerkily. “That’s why I was so upset earlier. I was hungry too, and, you know, hormones,” she lied, trying to cover up that she’d been gutted like a fish, gasping and screaming in airless agony.

“Meg, don’t let me off the hook—” He started forward, palm up in entreaty.

She took a step back.

He stopped, hand falling. “Jesus, Meg.” If she’d wanted to strike back at him, she might have found the way. He sounded really stunned and offended. “I won’t hurt you. Please tell me you believe that.”

She pulled in her lips with contrition, having acted out of instinct. “I know,” she said in a small voice. “It’s just been…” She scowled at a spot on the wall somewhere past his elbow, clasping Liz’s cardigan close around her. “I’m being silly,” she mumbled. “It’s fine.”

“No, it’s not,” he said with an impatient sigh. “I know this isn’t fine. Meg, look at me.”

She didn’t want to. He’d see how battered and crushed she was.

Swallowing, she let her eyes come up, already flinching from whatever she would see in his face.

He looked tortured. Tired and aged and filled with regret. “I’m sorry,” he said, stubbled beard not disguising the way his face spasmed with compunction. “Of course I want my baby.” His voice went low with hushed, masculine emotion.

It made her prickle all over, even behind her eyes, because finally he was saying what she’d been aching to hear. Pressure filled her chest. New tears, but different. Cautious relief.

“I never saw anything like this happening to me,” he continued, big shoulders lifting in a fresh shrug of utter bewilderment. “I think, after my dad died, I made an unconscious decision never to risk leaving my own kid to deal with something like that. Losing him, losing my mom… I don’t want to feel that kind of sadness ever again. So I’ve avoided getting into a situation where something could happen and I might.” He implored her to understand, palm out and up again.

Marriage. Babies. She supposed that’s what kind of situations he meant and she understood. To some extent she had done the same thing, always letting relationships fizzle at the first sign, fearing that rejection was inescapable. It was a different side of the same dread of loving and losing.

“I won’t turn my back on my kid, Meg. I wouldn’t do that. I’m sorry I made you think I wanted to.”

She nodded, tongue-tied by emotion, accepting the apology because she believed he was being sincere, but still silently holding up thick walls against him, wary of another knockout blow.

“So… Don’t take this the wrong way, I’m just trying to get it all straight in my head. You’re keeping it?” he asked.

Dani Collins's Books