She could always hope.
At least until she opened her door to him twenty minutes later. His warm green eyes met hers for a moment. A great moment. But then they started to travel.
“Wow,” he said, staring at her belly.
“Yeah.”
“That can’t be comfortable.”
She felt like some kind of freak. “It’s not so bad.”
For a second, he looked back up to her face, but then, as if drawn by a will of their own, his eyes focused again on her midsection. “You’ve still got five months to go.”
Probably more like four since her doctor expected her to deliver early—but, hey, who was counting. “Women have babies all the time, Michael,” she told him, wishing he’d quit staring at her. “It’s no big deal.”
But it was. And they both knew it.
GRINNING, Michael sat back and watched his ex-wife at work. He’d forgotten how truly amazing a Susan show could be. She’d bet on every race, somewhere between eleven and fifteen of them, had tally sheets spread on the table in front of her, and was somehow watching enough of all the races, on numerous monitors, to keep track of her winnings.
“Damn,” she muttered.
Or losses.
He’d given up betting an hour ago, appreciating the sport of Thoroughbred racing a whole lot more than the betting. He was also keeping one eye on the baseball game being broadcast over a nearby monitor.
“Go, baby,” Susan said, her eyes riveted to one screen.
Susan, on the other hand, loved the gambling.
Go, baby. Baby. He still felt the shock of Susan’s protruding belly every time he thought of her standing in that doorway this morning. He’d known for months that she was pregnant. You’d think he’d have been prepared for the evidence. He hadn’t. He wasn’t.
“You ready to go?”
He glanced up to find her looking at him. “Only when you are.” According to the clock, they’d been there a little more than three hours. And though the racing continued until eleven o’clock at night, he was hoping to have Susan in bed long before then.
Placing no new bets, Susan still watched until her cards had dwindled down to nothing.
“How’d you do?” Michael asked, smiling as she frowned over the final tally.
“Up twenty dollars,” she announced with satisfaction.
“An afternoon of fun, and money, too.”
“Can we walk for a while?” Susan asked as they passed through the elaborate entranceway and back out into the Kentucky sunshine.
Looking around at the parking lot, Michael said, “Here?”
“My leg’s cramped.” With her hands in the pockets of her jumper Susan glanced up too quickly for him to gauge her expression. Then she perused the hills off in the distance. “Besides,” she said, “I need to talk to you and I don’t want to do it in the car.”
Curious, Michael set off with her, wondering what was suddenly so important that it couldn’t wait until they got back to the house.
“What’s up?” he asked, when she appeared to be having difficulty getting started.
Another couple of steps, a glance toward the hills again. A deep sigh. “I’ve known something about this pregnancy for a while now, and I put off telling you, but it occurs to me that, as my friend, you should know.”
He wondered how long she’d rehearsed to get those words just right. “You know the sex of the child?” he asked. He’d wondered. He knew they could find things out these days, that most people knew what they were having long before the pregnancy became obvious to the rest of the world.
“No.” She shook her head. And then looked over at him. “You think I should?”