WASITPOSSIBLEfor a smiley face on a pregnancy stick to be mocking?
Everleigh’s fingers curled around the test. She closed her eyes, counted to three, and then opened them.
The face stared back at her, a wide grin stretched from side to side. With a sigh, she glanced at the other five tests scattered across the bed, each one saying the same thing.
Pregnant.
How was this possible? Adrian had used protection both times. But the test, as it boasted in pink bubble letters on the box, was over ninety-nine percent accurate. However it had happened, she was pregnant with Adrian Cabrera’s child.
She dropped the test on the floor and let her head fall into her hands. What was she going to do? Adrian had made it clear he had no interest in her or a long-term relationship. He might have wanted a family once, before Nicole had gotten her gold-digging hooks into him, but he’d made it clear having a family now was off the table.
She’d have to tell him at some point. It wouldn’t be right to conceal something like that from the father of her baby. But she’d wait a while, give herself time to get used to the idea of becoming a mother, and figure out exactly what she was going to say.
When she told him, she’d make it clear that she would raise this child on her own. The thought of taking money from him for their baby when he wouldn’t be a part of its life made her sick to her stomach.
Or was that the baby? She’d only taken the test because, along with her period being late, there had been...something—a feeling deep in her bones that her life had just been drastically altered once more.
Her hand drifted to her belly, her fingers settling on her still flat stomach. “Hi, baby.”
Joy whispered at the edges of her pain. It would be hard raising a child alone, especially as she took on the new challenge of directing Fox. And yet the part of her that had yearned for years for a family of her own, yearned to walk barefoot through the vineyards on a summer morning as the sun rose and pluck ripe grapes with her child, thrilled at the gift that had been given to her in the midst of such heartbreak.
“Hi, baby,” she said softly again.
Tears pricked her eyes. She was going to be a mom. She could do this. She would be the best mom she could be, and she’d make sure this baby knew every single day just how much she loved it.
Gravel crunched outside. She rose and walked to her window just in time to see her dad pull up outside the farmhouse. He hopped out of his car with a spring in his step that brought a smile to her face. She hadn’t seen that kind of energy in him in months.
When the Cabrera plane had touched down at Fox Creek’s airport a week ago she’d finally called her dad. Every time she’d tried before—on her way back to the house to pack, on the limo ride to the airport, in the air—her throat had closed and she’d come so close to crying she’d barely been able to get out a request for water to the flight attendant. But when her dad had picked up the phone it had been to tell her he was still in New York and wouldn’t be home until the day of the party.
“I’m sorry, Ever-girl. I thought you were going to be in Spain until the day before,” he’d said.
“Change of plans,” Everleigh had responded, in as bright a voice as she’d been able to manage. “There’s some stuff I need to do here before the party and...” Her voice had nearly broken. “It’ll be wonderful to see you, Dad.”
He’d invited her to spend the week with him in New York, but the thought of returning to the city where she and Adrian had first met had filled her with such sadness that she’d made excuses and returned to the empty farmhouse.
For the first time ever, the sight of the rolling hills sweeping up to the wraparound porch had failed to produce that wonderful sense of homecoming.
Home, as she’d found out the hard way, was no longer a place. It was people. People like her father and, whether he wanted to be with her or not, Adrian.
She’d have to tell her dad...maybe right after her first doctor’s appointment. The thought of her father not being there for her baby’s birth, for her baby’s first steps, first words, threatened the tiny amount of happiness that contemplating motherhood had brought her.
With a muffled curse, she swept the tests into the drawer of her vanity and hurried downstairs.
“Dad!”
Her dad turned from hanging up his blazer and beamed at her. “Ever-girl!”
She skipped the last step of the stairs and flung herself into his arms. He hugged her back with unexpected energy, his tight embrace soothing some of the raging turmoil inside her.
“Dad, you look amazing,” she said as she pulled back.
Her eyes drank in the sight of his face, fuller and tanner than when she’d last seen him, nearly a month ago. Unlike on the day he’d told her the winery was on the verge of bankruptcy, when his clothes had hung loose on his too-thin frame, today he sported a polo shirt that, while still big, seemed to conform more to his chest and his shoulders.
“What have you been doing?” she asked.
“Everleigh...”
His hands settled on her shoulders and the smile he gave her temporarily chased away the negativity of the past week.