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Chapter Thirteen
Neither of them spoke much on the way home. Zack was glad he hadn’t passed out at the news. It had been a close-run thing. Twins. Identical twins. What the hell was he supposed to do with that information?
Zack sneaked a glance at Laurel. She was staring straight ahead with her hands clenched together in her lap. “Are you going back to work?” Zack asked her.
“No, I took the afternoon off.”
“Good. We should talk.”
“There’s nothing to talk about. I’m pregnant. I’m having twins.” Her voice had a hollow ring to it. He couldn’t really blame her.
“Which is exactly what we need to talk about.” He pulled into a parking space at Laurel’s apartment complex.
She didn’t say anything else, just got out of the car, took the stairs up to her apartment and let them in. She tossed her keys on the small table by the door and sat on the couch, still without speaking.
“Can I get you some water?”
Laurel hunched a shoulder, which he decided meant yes. Or at least, not no. He got both of them a glass of ice water and carried them into the den to sit beside her.
He handed her the glass and said, “So, twins.”
Laurel turned and looked at him with an aggravated stare. “Are you kidding me? That’s all you have to say?”
“No, but I thought it would break the ice. Look, Laurel, I know very little about pregnancy and nothing at all about a twin pregnancy. Other than I’ve heard it can be risky.”
“Anyone carrying multiples is considered high risk.”
“And what, exactly, does high risk mean?”
“There are all sorts of complications that can happen. You’re better off not knowing. Seriously.”
“How am I supposed to help you if I don’t know what to expect?”
“I think the best thing to do is treat it like a normal pregnancy unless, or until, I have a complication. I’m sure the doctor will talk to us about all this when I’m further along.”
“Are you all right?” He was worried about her. She didn’t seem at all like her usual self. Of course, learning you were carrying twins as a single mother with two other children had to be mind-blowing. It was sure as hell blowing his mind.
“No.” She turned and looked at him finally, her eyes filling with tears. “I’m scared.”
He put his arms around her and hugged her. “Me too. But we’ll work this out.”
“It’s not just the pregnancy. How am I supposed to raise four kids when I’m struggling right now?”
“You’re not doing it alone. I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”
“You say that now. But you don’t know how you’ll react when reality sets in.”
He drew back and looked at her, holding her upper arms. “I know I won’t desert you, your kids, and my kids. And you should know that too.” Yes, she’d been hurt and badly disillusioned, but didn’t she know him at all? What kind of man did she think he was? “Your ex sure did a number on you.”
Their gazes met. “You don’t know the half of it,” she said, and looked away. She got up, walked to the window and stared out.
The only thing you could see from her apartment window was a view of the “courtyard” in front of the apartment complex. There was a tiny bit of grass, about the size of a postage stamp and mostly weeds, surrounded by broken sidewalks. He knew Laurel’s brothers had been trying to get her into a better apartment from the time she moved into the Texan complex.
As far as he knew, the Texan, at the edge of the Barrels, didn’t run drugs or prostitutes out of the complex. There was another apartment house in the heart of the Barrels that did just that if the reports in the paper were to be believed. No, the Texan was old, beat-up and in a poor section of town. And it was getting worse. Although Whiskey River didn’t have a lot of crime, most of what they had centered around the Barrels and its surroundings.
Zack decided the first priority was to get Laurel and the kids into some decent housing. But how was he going to do that if she wouldn’t marry him?
He could buy a house and ask her and the kids to move in without marrying him. That might work.
