ONCE UPON A VALENTINE Read online

  “That’s...that’s so sweet.”

  It was his turn to grimace. “Yeah. Sweet. That’s what every guy goes for.”

  “It’s true, though.” She chewed at her lip, slowly moving toward him and the door. She stopped when she reached him and looked up at him. “I don’t know where we go from here,” she whispered.

  “That’s okay.” He slid the loose hair behind her ear and forced himself not to clasp her head in his hands and cover her mouth with his. “People have been having babies for a long time,” he murmured. “We’ll figure it out, too.”

  They both heard the audible gasp at the same time and turned to see his mom standing in the hallway, her hands clasped together in front of her white apron.

  “Is it true?” she asked. “You’re pregnant?”

  Chapter Six

  Shea’s stomach dropped to her toes. She felt Pax’s fingers squeeze her shoulder and he gave her an “oh well” sort of look that struck her as entirely too convenient.

  “Yeah,” he told his mom. “Shea and I are pregnant.”

  It was too much, hearing him phrase it that way. She couldn’t even hold onto blaming him for spilling the beans, and her eyes stung with fresh tears all over again.

  “Oh my goodness!” Pax’s mother looked teary herself. She hurried to them, reaching out to pull Pax into a hug. “I’d begun to think I was never going to get a grandchild!” She pushed him back only to tug his face down and give him a kiss. Just as quickly, she turned to Shea. “And Shea. We haven’t even been properly introduced,” she exclaimed, putting her arms around Shea, engulfing her in the soft scent of Chanel No. 5. “I’m Linda Merrick,” the woman said, rocking back and forth excitedly. “Trust my son to keep his cards close to the vest.” She pushed back enough to look up at Pax. “Can we look forward to wedding bells, too?”

  Shea nearly choked.

  “Mom.” Pax’s tone was warning, giving Shea the sense that the topic wasn’t a new one. “Don’t.”

  “Oh, fine,” Linda said and turned her gaze back to Shea. She tightened her arm around Shea’s shoulder. “This is what a mother gets for raising an independent cuss.”

  “Hon,” a deep voice interrupted them, “your mother refuses to open another gift until you get back in there.”

  “Daniel.” Pax’s mother turned to look at the man who could only be Pax’s father, the resemblance was so strong. She beckoned excitedly. “You’re never going to believe it. Pax and Shea are having a baby!”

  Pax’s eyes met Shea’s. “See? We don’t even have to tell anyone. Mom’ll do the heavy lifting.”

  Shea smiled weakly.

  Pax’s father didn’t display quite the level of enthusiasm that his wife had, but his smile was pretty broad. He strode forward, giving Pax a slap on the shoulder while he looked at Shea. “We knew he was hiding someone special, but we had no idea it was this serious.” He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.

  “Oh, now we’re embarrassing her,” Linda tsked. She let go of Shea, but only to grab her by the hand and squeeze. “Come on now.” She pushed Pax’s shoulder with her other hand, nudging him toward the living room. “Wedding or not, your grandparents are going to be over the moon when they hear.” She grinned at Shea. “My husband’s side of the family has been popping out grandchildren for years. But your baby will be the first great-grandchild on the Mahoney side.”

  Shea managed a smile. “Great.”

  “What about your family, honey? Are there many grandchildren yet?”

  Shea thought about the wild assortment of people who’d moved in and out of her life. There were too many divorces to count, but she honestly couldn’t say whether any of her one-time stepsiblings had produced any babies. Even if they had, they weren’t remotely part of her or Gloria’s lives. The only one to remain in contact with Shea’s mother was Marco, and that was as her attorney.

  She shook her head. “This is the first.” And she could only imagine what Gloria would have to say about it. She certainly wouldn’t be as happy as Pax’s mother seemed to be.

  “You know, the Merricks always have a boy first.” Linda’s eyes crinkled. “Might as well prepare yourself.” They’d reached the living room, where the kids had stopped batting balloons around, but only because they’d been sent out onto the deck to make room for the adults, who were now crowded into every spare inch of space.

  Shea plucked at the neck of her T-shirt, feeling way too warm.

  “Everyone,” Linda’s voice rose above the voices. “Pax and Shea are pregnant!”

  Her legs felt wobbly as she and Pax were sucked into the crowd as inexorably as quicksand. She was hugged, patted, squeezed and kissed, and though she recognized the display was well meant, it was still overwhelming. She preferred being an observer. Not a participant.

  Pax was no help, either; he’d been drawn off to one side where a bunch of men of varying ages were slapping him on the back as if he’d just won the World Series.

  “Give the girl some breathing room.” Pax’s grandmother finally tugged Shea down to sit on the edge of her chair with her. She was wearing a pair of half-glasses that she hadn’t been wearing while she’d been cutting the rug with her husband, and she peered over the tops of them at Shea. “How far along are you?”

  Shea swallowed. She knew to the day exactly how far. “A-about eight weeks.”

  Mrs. Mahoney nodded, looking pleased. “You and Paxton’ll make beautiful babies together.”

  Babies? Shea could barely deal with the one. “I didn’t intend for our news to take over your anniversary celebration, Mrs. Mahoney.”

  “Already told you, dear. It’s Grammy.” She patted Shea’s knee. “Now, I know it’s not fashionable to ask these things these days, but what are your plans? Is there a wedding in the wings or—”

  “Don’t bug her about that, Mom,” Linda interrupted before Shea could stumble out some sort of reply. “I already tried. Pax and Shea are adults. I’m sure they know what they’re doing.”

  Shea smiled weakly, wishing it were true. She could feel Pax’s gaze from across the room. It was anybody’s guess what he was thinking. Her stomach churned again and a bead of sweat crawled down her spine. She swallowed, then shifted uncomfortably.

  “Who’s your ob-gyn?”

  Shea looked at the young woman who’d asked. Everyone had introduced themselves during the mad hug-fest. But though Shea was usually good with names, she was drawing a blank now. “I—” She swallowed hard again and dashed her hand over her damp forehead. She felt so closed in, it made her dizzy. “I don’t have one yet, actually.”

  “Sara Montgomery is the one you want to see,” the other woman said, earning several nods of agreement. “She delivered my three—”

  “—and mine,” someone added.

  “—and I think she’s the best ob-gyn in the city,” the woman finished.

  Jennifer. That was her name. She was one of Pax’s cousins and the little girl with the lopsided pigtails was her daughter. For some reason, solving that particular mystery seemed to calm the nausea tugging at Shea’s insides, though it didn’t do anything for how overheated she felt.

  “But she’ll have a devil of a time getting in to see her,” another mother was saying. “Last I checked, Dr. Montgomery’s not taking on new patients.”

  Jennifer looked across at Pax. He was standing between his father and his grandfather. All three of them now had thin, unlit cigars clenched between their teeth. “You can get her in, can’t you, Pax?”

  Donny laughed, answering before Pax could. “Don’t know about that. It’s not like he can take the receptionist out for a sail to charm her into making an appointment. Those days are done, aren’t they?”

  Pax laughed, too, as his gaze found Shea’s. She felt another bead of sweat creep down her spine. “I have better d
ays in store now,” he said.

  The comment earned an “awww” from most of the women and wry laughter from most of the men.

  Grammy patted Shea’s knee. “Don’t worry, dear. They won’t light up those awful things in here. Maybe you should eat something. You’re quite green around the gills.”

  Shea let out a soundless laugh that was short on humor and long on desperation. From where they were sitting, she could see the lavish buffet that was set out on the table in the dining room. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea right now, Mrs....Grammy.”

  The elderly woman smiled. “Dry cereal,” she advised. “One of those sweetened types that parents hate and children love. Linda.” She raised her voice to catch her daughter’s attention. “Bring Shea some of that cereal we keep on hand for the children. She needs a little nibble to help settle her stomach.”

  “I know just the thing.” Pax’s mom hurried into the dining room, past the weighted-down table and through a swinging door that presumably led to the kitchen.

  In the living room, the women started chattering about morning sickness and their methods for dealing with it, suggesting everything from pickle juice to acupuncture.

  Shea wanted to sink through the floor.

  She hated being the center of attention.

  Pax had ditched the cigar somewhere and was working his way across the room to her. He crouched down beside the chair and looked up at her. “You’re sweating.”

  “Thanks for pointing that out,” she muttered.

  He pressed his palm to her forehead and his brows pulled together. “Jesus. You’re burning.” He immediately rose and pulled her to her feet. “Come on.”

  “Pax—”

  He leaned over to kiss his grandmother’s cheek. “Tell Mom we’re taking a rain check on the Cap’n Crunch. Shea’s not feeling well enough. Love you.” Then he tugged Shea around the coffee table and toward the front door.

  “Pax, we can’t leave like this,” Shea said under her breath.

  “Sure we can.” He waved to everyone and pushed her out the door.

  The cold air felt heavenly on her hot skin.

  “It’s rude!”

  “You didn’t want to come in the first place,” he reminded her.

  “Don’t put leaving like this on me!”

  He marched her along the brick walkway. “You have a fever,” he said flatly. “I’m taking you home and we’re calling the doctor.”

  She wasn’t sure she recognized him. The Pax she knew didn’t go around giving orders and making demands, yet that’s what he’d been doing since the night before at the fundraiser. “I don’t have a doctor.”

  “Then we’ll get you in to see that Montgomery lady.”

  “You heard them in there. She’s not taking new patients. I don’t need a doctor right now anyway. Just some aspirin or something and a nap.” Preferably one not interrupted this time by dreams about him and his darned shirt!

  He didn’t bother responding. They’d reached the curb and he nudged her onto the low brick-topped retaining wall. “Sit there. I’ll get the truck.”

  Simply being outdoors in the cold air where she could actually breathe without feeling hemmed in by people was making her feel better. “I can walk.”

  His hand on her shoulder kept her in place. “Sit.”

  She exhaled and spread her hands in a gesture of capitulation. “Fine.” To prove she was staying put, she even crossed one leg over the other. “Satisfied?”

  “I will be when you’re not running a fever.” He set off down the sidewalk. With all the cars parked on the street, they’d had to park a few blocks away.

  Shea glanced back at the house when she heard footsteps. Bea was hurrying toward her, Shea’s jacket in one hand and a sealed plastic bag in the other. “Here.” She handed both to Shea. “The cereal,” she explained when Shea peered at the contents of the bag.

  “Oh. Thanks.” She had no desire to put on her jacket, so she set it on the wall beside her. But she was admittedly curious as to what a few pieces of dry, sweetened cereal were going to do for her nausea. She’d always heard saltine crackers were the cure, yet that hadn’t been one of the suggestions the women had batted around earlier.

  Beatrice sat down, too. “My brother is crazy about you, you know.”

  Shea barely kept her jaw from dropping. She had absolutely no clue how to respond. Pax most definitely was not crazy about her. But they’d just announced, inadvertently or not, that she was pregnant with his baby. She didn’t know much about how regular families functioned, but she was pretty sure they probably wanted some affection involved when there was a baby on the way.

  “He’d skin me alive if he knew I was saying this,” Beatrice continued. “I just...kind of felt like I needed to.”

  Shea gathered herself. “Why?”

  “Because he’s a good guy.”

  She could hear the sound of his truck coming up the street. “I know he is.”

  “He’s not the kind of guy who’d do what your crumb or my crumb did.”

  Shea opened her mouth to say she knew that too, but she couldn’t make the words come. In her experience, it didn’t matter how decent a person started out being; when the relationship didn’t work—and it never did—people sank to all sorts of new depths.

  Beatrice sighed a little. “I guess I just wanted to say that I don’t want to see him get hurt.”

  Shea frowned. “I’m not going to hurt Pax.”

  “You’re holding all the cards, Shea. You’re the one who’s pregnant. Do you plan to marry him?”

  She felt hot again. “He hasn’t asked me,” she said faintly.

  “He will.”

  She pressed her fingertips into the bricks beneath her. If Pax suggested marriage, it would be only because of the baby. Marriages failed often enough without going into one because of convenience. And she couldn’t imagine why he would suggest marriage anyway, when he’d already dismissed the idea to his own mother.

  “Beatrice,” she moistened her lips, trying to frame her words well. “I would never try to keep Pax from his own baby. He can be as involved as he wants to be.”

  The other woman gave her an incredulous look. “How can you be with Pax and have any doubt that he wouldn’t want to be involved?”

  Shea cringed. She’d always been better putting her words in writing. “I didn’t mean to imply that. I’m just saying that I realize Pax has an equal say in this baby.”

  “Really?”

  She nearly jumped out of her skin when Pax spoke. He’d double-parked the SUV on the street in front of her and was standing two feet away on the sidewalk.

  She felt hemmed in by the intensity in his gaze on one side, and his sister sitting beside her on the other. It felt as claustrophobic as it had in his grandparents’ living room.

  “Really.” She pushed off the retaining wall, dusted her hands and grabbed her jacket. She managed a smile for Pax’s sister. “Thanks for the, uh—” She didn’t know how to define Beatrice’s unexpected “talk” with her brother standing within earshot. So she lifted the jacket. “For remembering my jacket.”

  Beatrice nodded. If she’d intended to say anything else, Pax didn’t give her a chance because he took Shea’s elbow and hustled her to the SUV, where he lifted her right off the ground and set her on the passenger seat.

  She was so surprised, her heart just about shot out the top of her pounding head. But all he did was close the door, round the SUV and get in. “Seat belt,” he reminded her.

  She shivered, remembering the way he’d said the same thing the morning after the ice storm.

  She fastened her seat belt and stared sightlessly out the window. She thought about how her mother’s house was about five blocks away on a much larger lot with a waterfront view. She so
on roused herself, though, as Pax drove out of the neighborhood. He clearly wasn’t heading in the direction of her apartment. “Where are we going?”

  “Dr. Montgomery is meeting us at the hospital.”

  She jerked around in her seat, nearly strangling herself on the seat belt, and impatiently dragged the strap away from her neck. “I don’t need a darned hospital!”

  “Probably not,” he agreed. “But that’s where she is this afternoon. She’s going to fit you in.”

  She stared at him. “It didn’t even take you ten minutes to get the car. How’d you arrange this so fast?”

  His gaze slid her way. “The Hunt Foundation is a major donor for the hospital. I called Cornelia.”

  “I knew you begged coffee off her a lot, but I didn’t realize you were on such familiar footing with her.” She wasn’t sure why it disturbed her so much to realize it. But it did.

  “I called J.T. first,” he allowed. “J.T. Hunt,” he elaborated when she frowned at him. “One of Cornelia’s stepsons.”

  “I know who he is.” Pax and Eric often credited their meteoric success to a yacht they’d built for J.T. “I didn’t know you were friends.”

  “What if we are? We’ve done a few builds for him now. He gave me Cornelia’s personal number.”

  She actually worked for Cornelia, albeit part time, and she didn’t know the woman’s personal number. It was a simple matter of security, given the identity of her husband. Shea had never met the computer genius herself, though she’d once snagged a quote from Harrison Hunt’s eldest son, Grayson, who now ran the mega-corporation his father had founded. But according to the rumors, Harrison was more than a little eccentric and highly protective of his wife.

  “Fast work,” she murmured. “Guess it proves that whole ‘who you know’ thing.” Obviously, Pax was wealthy. He and his partner were extremely successful. But it was something else to think that he rubbed elbows with people like the Hunts. They occupied an entirely different stratosphere than regular mortals. “I suppose you had to go and tell Cornelia I’m pregnant, too.”