The Baby Arrangement Read online

  Great. Needles again. “If it’s something I contracted on the island, do you think I’m contagious?” Bree asked.

  “I doubt it, since your friends have shown no symptoms.”

  “Should I be worried?” Bree hadn’t actually considered herself sick until the doctor started asking her so many questions.

  “Let’s not jump the gun. We’ll see what the tests show.” The doctor put her hand on the doorknob. “The lab tech will be right in. Make sure the front desk has a current number to call you and we’ll go from there.”

  “Thank you.”

  Bree dreaded needles, but then, who didn’t. Not long after the doctor left, the lab tech came in. Bree couldn’t help remembering how supportive Nick had been on the island when she’d cut her foot. She almost wished he was with her now. Fortunately, taking her blood was quick and nearly painless, and Bree was back in the waiting room in no time.

  Roxie stood up when Bree returned. “What did the doctor say?”

  “She took blood and I should know later today if I picked up something while we were on the island.”

  Roxie nodded. “Good. I’m glad you’ll get some answers.”

  Bree scowled at her. “You mean you’re glad you’ll get some answers.”

  Roxie shrugged. “Yeah, that, too.”

  “Let’s get back to work.”

  As much as Bree was trying to stay calm for Roxie’s sake, inside she was panicked. She’d brushed off her symptoms until now, but what if she had something with no cure? Would it get worse and worse? Would she not be able to work? She wasn’t sure how she’d manage if she didn’t have her job to occupy her days.

  Those were the thoughts that plagued her when she returned to her office, having departed from Roxie at the elevator. As long as someone was around to distract her, she was fine. It was these times alone that made her thoughts spin out of control.

  On their way back to the office, she and Roxie had stopped at a local deli to pick up lunch. Bree sat down at her desk, opened her foam container, and the smell of the pickle next to her sandwich nearly did her in.

  She shut the lid quickly and shoved the container away from her. She closed her eyes and took a few calming breaths, hoping the nausea would go away. Finally, after a few minutes went by and she’d drawn on every bit of self-control she could muster, she felt normal again.

  Around midafternoon, feeling hungry since she’d skipped lunch, she decided to go down to the deli on the first floor to get some yogurt or an energy bar. She couldn’t bear to repeat opening the container with that pickle inside.

  She was almost out the door when her phone rang. “Bree Tucker.”

  “Bree, this is Dr. Strickland. I have the results of your blood test.”

  Bree’s heart beat double-time. She lowered herself into her office chair and waited for the news. “You know what’s wrong with me?”

  “The good news is that you’re not contagious and you will get over your symptoms in the next few months.”

  “Months?” She couldn’t keep this up for that long.

  Dr. Strickland laughed. “I decided to do a pregnancy test along with checking for other things. And, guess what? You’re pregnant.”

  Bree was dumbfounded, unable to form a sentence.

  The doctor finally broke the silence. “Are you okay? I take it this is a surprise. I hope it’s a good one.”

  “Um—”

  When Bree didn’t say anything, the doctor continued. “I would suggest seeing your ob-gyn, who can help you keep your symptoms to a minimum. Is there anything else I can help you with?”

  “Are you sure? Could there be a mistake?” This was either a mistake or a joke. A bad joke. She couldn’t be pregnant. Pregnant! She was married to her job. Her company was her baby. She had no need or desire to have a physical human being in her life. Especially one who would rely on her for its every need.

  “I had the lab run it a second time. There’s no mistake. And blood tests for pregnancy are the most accurate—more reliable than the drugstore urine tests.”

  “Okay.” She paused. “Thank you.” Bree hung up and turned her chair to stare out the window. She placed a hand on her abdomen and for the first time in her life, she had no plan for what to do next.

  * * *

  LATER THAT DAY, Roxie, Amber and Hannah went for drinks at a hipster wine bar down the street from their offices. Roxie had made the decision to not include Bree so they could talk about their friend’s health situation. With its dark wood and rosy lighting, the bar seemed a good place to have that discussion.

  “So we still don’t know what’s wrong with Bree?” Amber took a sip of her cabernet.

  Roxie shook her head. “Before I left the office, I asked if she’d heard from the doctor, but she hadn’t. She was supposed to know the results of her tests today.”

  “That doesn’t mean there’s something horribly wrong with her,” said Hannah, ever the optimist.

  “What if she’s gotten her results and doesn’t want to tell us?” Amber suggested in her glass-half-empty way. “Maybe it’s such bad news that she’s not ready to share it with anyone.”

  “I really doubt it,” Roxie said honestly. “She’s usually pretty open with us. I think she just hasn’t heard anything yet.”

  “Good evening, ladies.”

  Pete Buchanan. He had come up to their table and stood behind Roxie. She hated to admit it, but she’d recognize the man’s deep voice anywhere.

  “This is quite a coincidence.” He’d taken a few steps to the right and now he looked directly at Roxie. “We seem to run into each other often these days.”

  “We do.” Roxie took too large a swallow of her Pinot Grigio, hating that he had an obvious effect on her. He was dressed as if coming directly from work. Dark pants and a white dress shirt with the top button open and the sleeves rolled up to reveal strong forearms. His dark, thin tie hung slightly loose. On some men, she’d say the look was slovenly. On him...

  “Are you here alone?” Amber’s surprising question jolted Roxie from her reverie. “You’re welcome to join us.”

  Roxie stared at Amber with wide eyes, trying to mentally clue her in on how Roxie didn’t want to be anywhere near Pete. Besides, he probably had some girl with him. His flavor of the week. And Roxie didn’t need to see that right now.

  “Thanks, that would be great!” Pete said, oblivious of Roxie’s discomfort as he pulled up a chair from another table and sat so close to Roxie that the heat from his leg warmed her entire body.

  Pete took a long drink of the red wine he’d brought with him and then said, “So where’s your fourth? Don’t you travel in a pack?” He laughed at his own joke.

  “She’s still at work,” Roxie said quickly, before Amber or Hannah could say anything.

  “How’s she feeling these days? Better I hope. The last time I saw her was when she was at the pop-up, but I heard she was feeling a little under the weather at The Fresh Pantry last night, too.” He looked at each of the women. “She’s okay today?”

  “She’s fine,” Roxie told him, wishing she could think of some other subject to talk about.

  “She went to the doctor this morning,” Hannah shared. “We’ll find out soon if she picked up something while we were on the island.”

  Pete raised his eyebrows. “I hope it’s nothing serious. That was a few weeks ago.”

  The women looked at each other, their silent expressions communicating their own concern.

  Pete hung around for a little while and chatted on general topics, but left when some of his buddies showed up.

  “You’re really into him, aren’t you?” Amber asked Roxie as soon as Pete was out of earshot.

  Roxie felt her face heat. “No way. He’s not my type.”

  “Since when?” Ha
nnah said. “He’s a living, breathing male who seems to show up when you’re least expecting it, and you can’t stop looking at him.”

  “Not true.”

  “It’s absolutely true,” Amber verified.

  “I told you, I’m not interested in him.”

  At least she hadn’t admitted to her girlfriends what she couldn’t admit even to herself.

  * * *

  TWO DAYS LATER, Bree was finally seen by her ob-gyn. If she hadn’t pushed for the appointment, she would have had to wait several weeks. The person making the appointment was adamant that there was no need for urgency unless she was having symptoms of bleeding or cramping. Bree pushed the truth a little and said she was unable to keep any food down. That wasn’t the complete truth, but close. She’d already lost the two pounds she’d put on while on vacation and, according to everything she’d read, going below her ideal weight wasn’t good for her or the baby.

  Once she’d gathered her wits after receiving the news, she’d read what seemed like a million internet articles on pregnancy. She also bought several digital books on the subject that she’d read before coming this morning to see her ob-gyn. She liked to be well-informed.

  Sitting in a paper gown on an exam table was the last thing she wanted to be doing that morning. But she needed to make sure she was physically okay and then talk to the doctor about her options. She believed wholeheartedly that women should be able to choose what was best for them, and she’d realized over the past two days that ending the pregnancy wasn’t the right choice for her.

  There was a knock on the door and her grandmotherly doctor entered the exam room. “Hi, Bree, how have you been? I see from your chart that you were just in a few months ago for your yearly exam. What’s up?”

  “I’m pregnant.” That was the first time she’d said the words out loud. She’d told no one, not even her closest friends when they’d kept bugging her about getting her test results. “My internist did a blood test trying to figure out what was wrong with me and she also did a pregnancy test that came back positive. Twice.”

  After Dr. Bell did an exam and pronounced everything as it should be, she and Bree spent the next few minutes discussing the symptoms Bree had been having. From her reading, Bree knew that she wasn’t as bad as some. Hyperemesis gravidarum was the medical term that had made the news when Kate Middleton suffered from it. Bree felt really bad for her now that she was experiencing a much weaker case than the mother of the presumptive future King of England had suffered through.

  “We’ve gone over what you can do to alleviate the nausea and vomiting, so do you have any other questions?”

  Bree inhaled deeply. After much consideration, she’d come to what she thought was the right conclusion when it came to the pregnancy. “Yes, I do. This situation has been a complete surprise, and I’ve made a decision that I think would be best for both the child and myself.”

  Dr. Bell didn’t say anything, simply waited for Bree to continue.

  “I think adoption is the route I’d like to take.” There. She’d said it. “I’m just not mommy material. I run a growing company that takes up most of my time. I don’t think it would be fair to a child to have me as its mother.” What did she know about being a mother anyway? Her father had seen to that, forcing her own mother to be absent from Bree’s life.

  The doctor nodded. “I understand your concern. Where does the father stand in this matter? Does he agree?”

  “I haven’t told him and I don’t plan to.” Nick was supposed to have been a vacation fling, not the father of her child.

  The doctor’s pale blue eyes widened. “He has a right to know. Wouldn’t you want to know if you were in his place?”

  She hadn’t thought about it that way. “I guess so.”

  The doctor nodded. “Good. Then go tell him and if you both agree, then I can point you in the right direction for adoption. Besides, he’ll have to eventually sign off if you go through with the adoption.”

  Bree felt the panic boil her insides. How was she going to tell Nick? What would he say? Would he blame her? She’d been on low-dose birth control pills, fully expecting them to prevent pregnancy. Ha! That was a joke.

  If only one of them had remembered to use a condom that time in the shower...

  “Bree?” The doctor sounded like she’d been trying to get Bree’s attention.

  “Yes?”

  “I want you to start on daily vitamins. They might make your stomach troubles worse, so take them with food. I’ll also send you home with specific instructions on what you need to avoid eating during your pregnancy. The list has gotten quite long.”

  Bree already knew about that from her voracious reading up on pregnancy.

  After Bree dressed and left the doctor’s office, she got into her car and turned on the engine. Before pulling out of her parking space, she decided to make a call before she chickened out.

  As soon as Roxie answered, Bree asked, “Can you get Hannah and Amber and meet me in my office in about fifteen minutes?”

  “Sure, what’s up?”

  “I’ll fill you in when I get there.”

  “Is this about your health? Did you finally get the results of your tests?” Roxie sounded panicked, which was probably to be expected. Bree had held out on them for the past two days, avoiding them whenever possible, and they probably weren’t going to be very happy with her.

  “Everything’s fine. I’ll explain soon.” Bree ended the call before she blurted out her news, which was not the way she wanted her best friends to find out.

  The women were waiting for her in her office when she arrived a short time later. Bree closed her office door, not wanting anyone to overhear before she was ready to go public. Since she wasn’t keeping the child, she wanted her pregnancy a secret for as long as possible.

  “Thanks for coming,” she said as she sat down in her desk chair. “I’ve just come from the doctor and, before you get all riled up, I’m fine.”

  They let out a collective sigh.

  “Then what’s been wrong with you?” Roxie wanted to know.

  Bree swallowed, knowing she had to tell them, but once they knew, it wouldn’t be her secret alone. “I’m pregnant.”

  No one said a word.

  Bree looked at each woman in turn. Roxie’s green eyes were ready to pop, Amber’s jaw had dropped open and Hannah had covered her gasp with both hands.

  Finally Roxie spoke. “I guess that answers the question about what happened between you and Nick on the island. Have you told him yet?”

  “You’re assuming he’s the father,” Bree said.

  Roxie scowled. “Come on, who else could it be? You don’t date, have a limited social life, and unless you’ve got some secret life you haven’t shared, then Nick is the father of your baby.”

  Amber and Hannah were also giving her knowing looks.

  “Okay, so it’s Nick’s,” she admitted. “And, no, I haven’t told him yet. I have a long way to go, and telling him isn’t a priority right now.”

  “We’re going to be aunts!” Amber’s excitement came seemingly out of nowhere.

  “And we can shop for those cute little outfits,” Hannah added.

  “And noisy toys,” Roxie said with a grin. “The kind that drive parents crazy.”

  Bree watched the excitement on her friends’ faces and was loath to set them straight. “I have more to tell you.”

  They grew serious. “Is everything okay?” Hannah asked. “Is the baby okay?”

  “Everything’s fine,” Bree assured them. “It’s about me and the pregnancy. I’ve decided to put it up for adoption.”

  Again, three sets of eyes stared at her in what appeared to be disbelief. She continued speaking. “I’ve thought about this a lot and feel this is the best thing for everyone concerned.�
�

  “Then I feel even more strongly that you must tell Nick as soon as possible,” Amber said. “He should have a say in what happens to his child.”

  “He will have a say, just not yet,” Bree said. At the raised eyebrows she was confronted with, she added, “I promise I will tell him.” Unless she could figure out a way around it.

  * * *

  AFTER THE FRIDAY-NIGHT dinner rush, Nick went into the restaurant’s office to make a private call to Bree to find out how she was doing after his dessert had obviously upset her stomach. Her friends had told him they thought it was because it was a coffee dessert and coffee had been upsetting her stomach since they’d been on the island.

  He’d tried once again to get through to her office today, but had no luck. Then he’d tried Roxie and, much to his surprise, she’d offered him Bree’s cell number. He wasn’t sure what had changed, but he hadn’t been about to question it.

  “Hello,” Bree said.

  “Hi, Bree. This is Nick. Nick Harmon.” He wasn’t sure why he was adding his last name or why he felt a little nervous talking to her. They’d slept together, seen each other naked. “I hope I didn’t call at a bad time.”

  “How did you get this number?”

  He didn’t want to get Roxie in trouble. “I have my ways,” he said in what he hoped was a jovial tone and not menacing.

  “Was it Roxie?”

  She must be psychic to figure it out so quickly. He changed the subject. “I wondered how you were feeling after the tiramisu upset your stomach the other night.”

  “Oh, right. Sorry about that,” she said. “I’m feeling much better, thank you for asking.”

  “So now that you’re healthy, would you like to come back to the restaurant again?” Where had that come from? It sounded like he was asking her out. Maybe he was. “I promise not to serve you a coffee dessert again.”

  “Well—”

  “I’d like to make up for your bad experience. Your evening was cut short and I can’t have you judge my restaurant by that one night.” He knew he was babbling and didn’t know how to stop. “Whatever night works for you, I’d love to have you as my guest.”