3
BECKY
I pushed the cart through the produce section and stopped in front of the avocados. I gave one a gentle squeeze, then another, finding some that weren’t too firm or soft. I added a bunch to my cart. I never used to like avocados, even avoiding guacamole at Mexican restaurants as if it were some kind of green slime.
Now? I couldn’t get enough of the things, which wasn’t helping my bank account. November in Montana wasn’t the best time to get them, but my body wanted the dang things, and they stayed down. At least it was healthy, unlike my ridiculous craving for cocktail wieners.
I’d only thrown up once today, which was a miracle in itself. I worked on the labor and delivery floor at the hospital. I knew all about pregnancy. Well, I thought I had, until I was pregnant myself. My OB assured me that while having morning sickness into my second trimester was perfectly normal, it wasn’t fun.
No shit, Sherlock.
It wasn’t too severe that I worried about nourishment or being dehydrated. My little peanut gave me a reprieve for most of the day to get food down. And keep it down. The rest of the time? People needed to watch out.
It just seemed like a long time since the nausea began. Since I found out. Even longer since that night. That night.
The night that Clint the Hot Cowboy and his super sperm got past a condom and knocked me up. Not only had the wild ride he’d given me in the storage room been a surprise—I’d never had a quickie before in my life—so were the two blue stripes on the pregnancy test I took a few weeks later.
I’d worked at a clinic telling people the importance of using condoms, that they weren’t a foolproof method of birth control.
Again, no shit, Sherlock.
The fateful July party was supposed to have been fun. A little wild. Something for Audrey to remember as a crazy bachelorette party before she tied the knot with her hot rodeo champ, Boyd. She wasn’t the only one who wouldn’t forget it.
I knew Boyd and Audrey went at it like rabbits. Even back then. Especially back then. But they hadn’t been the ones to get all hot and heavy in the storage room.
I had. With Clint Tucker. While I’d never met him face-to-face before that night, I’d seen him in passing, and I’d liked what I’d seen a whole hell of a lot. I’d been friends with Audrey since she first moved to town, and we began working together at the hospital. After she met Boyd, I’d gone to the ranch and seen Clint in the corral with the horses. That was when I realized I had a thing for cowboys.
He looked like the Marlboro man without the cigarette. Dark hair, muscular. Big. Well, over a foot taller than me. He had the square jawline and rugged appearance of a manly-man, but there were smile lines around his eyes that made him seem trustworthy.
There had been other guys around, but I’d been snared watching him. Only him. There’d been a calmness about him that was a draw, as if he knew who he was and didn’t give a fuck what anyone else thought. At the ranch and at the bar that night.
It was a complete one-eighty from my ex.
If there was a photo of a dick in the dictionary, it wouldn’t be of a penis—it would be my soon-to-be ex-husband’s face. Todd was a dick. Clint wasn’t one, but definitely had one, and look where that got me. Pregnant. I should have learned from Todd and steered clear of men. I had, until Clint and my need to save a horse and ride a cowboy. I had a trusty vibrator, and I should have blown out the motor.
I pushed past the fruit and steered to the meat counter. It was damn hard to eat the amount of protein recommended, according to my doctor’s meal sheet. I sighed as I waited for the butcher to come over, so I could order some sausages, but the smell of the raw fish at the far end of the display hit me hard. I gagged before I could even talk myself down.
Oh shit. Where was the bathroom in this place? I spun in a circle, wondering if it was up front by customer service or here in the back, but that only made things worse.
Abandoning my cart, I whirled away from the counter and ran smack into a wall of… tall, hard man.
Big hands wrapped around my elbows. “Hey,” a deep, all-too-familiar voice rumbled. “Becky… hey. Wow. Um… hi. Uh, you all right?”
I craned my neck to look up and... into Clint’s handsome face. My eyes widened in surprise and panic. His nostrils flared as he drew a deep breath, and for a moment, his startled eyes seemed to change from green to grey. I quickly dropped my analysis of the color of his irises because the act of moving my head too fast brought on another wave of nausea.
“Jesus, you look green,” he commented.
For a third time in five minutes, no shit, Sherlock.
I stepped to the left to get around him, but he followed. I shifted to the right as if I were a football tight end trying to get past an opposing linebacker.
“Hey,” he said at the same time as I told him to move.
He didn’t, and that was it for me. I doubled over, heaving, and—God help me—puked a little on Clint’s work boots.
“Oh my God,” I croaked, keeping my head down as I shoved my hand in my purse for a tissue. “Oh God, this is so embarrassing.”
I hadn’t seen Clint in four months, and now I threw up on him. Because of his baby being all sadistic and torturing me from the inside out.
“You okay? Shelby, get her a bottle of water,” Clint barked.
“Yep. Be right back.” The sound of a female voice brought my head up again, just in time to see the gorgeous juice bar girl from the farmer’s market heading away. I stared at how her snug jeans showed off an ass she could probably bounce a quarter off of. Her short puffy coat didn’t hide anything.
My stomach instantly settled. As in a brick sunk in it and held it down.
It wasn’t like I was interested in Clint. I wasn’t! I hadn’t told him there’d been consequences to our hookup a few months ago because the last thing I needed was guy complications. Sure, I’d stewed on that issue for a few weeks. Did I tell him? Did I not? He deserved to know. No, it didn’t matter. We’d left it as casual. A quickie. Nothing more.
I had enough trouble trying to get through my divorce from Todd in one piece. We’d been legally separated for two years, but he wouldn’t sign the papers. Wouldn’t end it. Instead, he wanted to fuck with me. Draw it out. Push up my legal bills in the hopes I’d give up and go back to him.
Yeah, I’d go back to a guy being a dick just to get me back. Todd was dumber than I’d ever thought. I was stuck with him legally until he gave up and just signed.
A wild fuck at the back of Cody’s was one thing, but I didn’t need some other guy making demands of me. They were nothing but trouble.
That was the whole reason I hadn’t gone to Audrey to be my Ob/Gyn. Not only did I not want my BFF to see my vagina or a baby popping out of it—I did have some boundaries in friendships—I was afraid she’d put two and two together and realize who the father was.
Still, seeing Clint with Juice Girl jabbed me with a hot poker of jealousy. Clearly, he and his dick had moved on. I would never have a tight body or even tighter ass. My baby belly and my breasts popped over the last week.
“Let’s get you somewhere you can clean up,” Clint suggested, looking me over.
Thank God I had on a heavy coat and a bulky sweater beneath.