The Chase (29 page)

This was possibly the most absolutely perfect week of her life.

Even more so when her father called twenty minutes later.

“Hello?” Kendall stepped away from the noise of the track.

“Congratulations, baby, we’re all very proud of you.”

Those words meant more to her than he could imagine. “Thanks, Dad, I appreciate it.”

“When you and your husband get home, we’ll celebrate.”

“Sounds good!” Kendall was having a hard time hearing him, so she told him she would call him back later when she was in the RV.

When she hung up, her crew showered her with beer. Laughing, Kendall grabbed a bottle from her jackman and took a swig. After a head rubbing from Jim, Kendall pushed him away, flushed and as proud as she had ever been. “Get off me, you big lug.”

“Have you seen Evan?” she asked.

“No.”

“I’ll be back in five.”

She wanted to find her husband.

What she didn’t want to find was her husband standing outside their motor home with a blonde. Her excitement instantly deflated as she wondered just who in the hell that woman was.

As Kendall approached them, she saw that Evan looked more nauseous than flirty, but nonetheless, she wasn’t liking some other woman cornering her husband. Especially given the expression on his face. He looked . . . upset.

And Eve was there, too, her shoulders tense, gesturing towards the motor home like she wanted them to take this conversation inside.

Evan looked up and spotted her. “Kendall! Sweetheart.” His voice was panicked, guilty.

Guilty of what?

The blonde swung around to face her, tears streaking her pretty face. She was cute and buxom, and very thin . . . except for the perky pregnant belly tucked into a clinging T-shirt.

Feeling a sour taste building up inside her mouth, Kendall sped up her footsteps. “What’s going on?” Her voice sounded shrill even to her own ears.

Evan reached to take her hand, but Kendall avoided his touch. She had a really goddamn bad feeling about this.

“This is Sara, Nikki Strickland’s friend.” Evan jerked his thumb in the girl’s direction. “Sara, this is my wife, Kendall Holbrook.”

They both stared at each other. If Evan thought they were going to do some bullshit nice-to-meet-you exchange, he was an idiot.

“I’ll be in in a minute,” he told her. “Just give me two seconds and I’ll be right inside. Why don’t you and Eve go on and crack open a bottle of champagne to celebrate your finish.”

The hell with that. “I’ll go in after you explain to me what is going on here.”

“Can we not do this here?” Eve whispered urgently. “Seriously.”

Everyone ignored her.

“I’m pregnant,” Sara told her, nose in the air, sniffling primly.

“I can see that. Congratulations.” Yes, that was sarcasm, because without a doubt Kendall knew what was coming next.

“Sara says there is a possibility that I may be the father.”

Yep. That was it. The little bomb that exploded in Kendall’s face. “Really? Is it a possibility?”

“You are the father!” Sara rounded on Evan. “You’re the only guy I had sex with that whole month and the only guy in the last year I didn’t use a condom with.”

Judging from the expression on Evan’s face, she was telling the truth about not using a condom.

Jesus. “Screw champagne. I think I’ll have some whiskey now.”

“Kendall, wait . . .”

Without another word, she went into the motor home, letting the door slam behind her.

Eve followed her. “Kendall, I don’t know what to say . . . guys do stupid things. Hell, women do, too. I think all of us have had lapsed judgment when it comes to birth control at one point or another.”

Yanking open the fridge, Kendall stared in, the contents blurring as her eyes filled with tears. “I don’t want to talk about this right now.”

In fact, what she wanted to do was listen. Slamming the fridge shut again, she went back to the main room of the motor home and stood by the door. The windows were open, and even though their words were muffled slightly, she could still hear Evan and Sara talking.

“Why didn’t you say something sooner?” he asked.

“Because at first I wasn’t sure I was even going to keep it. Then I realized I couldn’t just . . . you know. I decided I want this baby. I texted you and you blew me off and that was the only way I had to get ahold of you.”

“I didn’t know you needed to talk to me about something important. I just thought you wanted to flirt, and my heart just wasn’t in it. I didn’t want to lead you on by sleeping with you again. Then a month ago, I started seeing my wife again.”

His wife. Kendall grabbed a throw pillow off the couch and hugged it.

“I don’t think you should listen to this,” Eve told her, an open beer in each of her hands.

Kendall gratefully took the beer and drank deeply. “I have to. You would, too, you know.”

“I know.”

“I didn’t think it was cool to tell you you’re going to be a father in a text message. That’s just not fair to unload something so major like that in such an impersonal way.”

The girl looked barely out of high school, but so far she seemed to have a reasonable head on her shoulders.

“But when you said you couldn’t talk, I didn’t have a choice. I mean, what was I going to do, like stalk you or something?”

Kendall squeezed the pillow tighter, clutching it with the beer bottle tucked into it, waiting for Evan’s response.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know, Sara. I’m sorry that I was so irresponsible and didn’t use protection. And I’m sorry that you’ve had to go it alone so far. What can I do to help you?”

There it was. Her husband’s acceptance of his guilt and responsibility. Kendall jammed her eyes closed and sighed. Good Lord . . . another woman was going to give birth to her husband’s child.

“I just need some help with my doctor’s bills, that’s all. I’m not stupid, I don’t expect you to be super involved or anything. Okay, I admit, I was kind of hoping we could like date or whatever, but then I heard about your marriage from Nikki and I knew that was a big forget it.”

“It was spontaneous,” he murmured.

“And I’m not some bitch who wants to ruin your life or anything, but I’m just a nursing school student and I don’t have any money. I can’t even afford maternity jeans, let alone a thousand-dollar sonogram.”

“Of course I’ll help you. I’ll pay for everything, don’t worry about it.”

Eve made a sound that was something like a growl. “What the hell? He needs to let her know that we’re having a DNA test done the minute she pushes that baby out. I don’t trust this chick.”

But even as it splintered her heart and hollowed her soul to know that she wouldn’t be the first woman to give her husband a baby, his own flesh and blood, Kendall knew she wouldn’t love him if he were the kind of man who would give this girl the cold shoulder. Who demanded a DNA test five minutes after getting the news of his possible paternity. He was doing the right thing, and she was pleased with that at the same time that she was appalled at the situation.

“Where are you staying? If you need money for rent, let me know. Was it safe to fly out here, by the way?”

“It’s fine for another two months. It was Nikki’s idea. She’s sick of me crying all the time.” Sara sniffled. “I can’t seem to stop, sorry.”

“Hey, hey, it’s okay. I think you’re handling this great.”

That concern in his voice, that gentle tenderness, turned Kendall’s heart to stone.

“Have you been eating enough? You’re super skinny, you know. Maybe I should take you to a nutritionist.”

Kendall dropped the pillow. Eve was right. She didn’t want to hear this. Setting the beer down on the coffee table, she headed for the bedroom.

“Kendall . . .”

But she ignored Eve, shut the door behind her, and locked it.

 

 

EVAN
didn’t know what to think, to feel, to do. He had sent Sara back to Nikki’s with the eighty bucks he’d had in his wallet, which at best was paltry, at worst insulting. But she looked so desperately like she needed lunch, and while he knew Nikki was sponsoring her trip, he wasn’t sure how much Sara was willing to ask Nikki for.

The truth was, he didn’t know squat about Sara. He had only met her that one night, and he’d been buzzed and she’d been loaded.

Now they were having a baby. Jesus.

Going into his motor home, he headed straight for the kitchen cabinet that held the whiskey. He needed a drink, desperately. Eve was leaning on the counter drinking a beer. Actually, she was sucking the last drops down and going to the fridge for another.

“Helluva day, huh?” she asked.

“That is the biggest understatement of the decade.” He splashed the amber whiskey into a juice glass. “I don’t even know what to say. Where’s Kendall?”

He wanted to explain to her, he wanted her advice and her opinion on what the hell he was supposed to do.

“She’s in the bedroom with the door locked and she won’t come out.”

Great. He took a liberal swallow of liquor, gritting his teeth against the burn. “I’m going to go talk to her. Thanks for helping.”

“I meant to arrange for a private meeting. I didn’t expect the girl to ambush you at the gate.”

“It’s okay.” He shrugged. “We needed to talk.”

“But not standing around outside. This is going to get out, you know.”

Evan couldn’t even think about that. All he cared about was his wife and that baby.

“At least when that chick tried to pin paternity on Elec I knew it wasn’t his kid. But this is trickier. We won’t know until she gives birth if you’re really the father or not.”

“Why would she lie about that?”

Eve gave him an incredulous look. “Um, because let’s see . . . if the possible daddies are you or a guy she hooked up with at a bar, which one do you think she’s going to go with?”

He knew Eve had a point, but how could Sara look him in the eye and lie about something as important as this? He was inclined to believe her.

“I guess we can ask her to keep it on the down low until the baby’s born. But I need to do something to help her.”

“What you need to do is go talk to your wife. I don’t think she appreciated for one minute hearing you fawn all over that girl.”

“Fawn over her?” Evan took another sip of the whiskey. “I wasn’t doing that!”

“Word to the wise, no woman wants to hear her husband worrying over what some other woman is eating.” With that, Eve set her beer down on the counter and said, “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

Evan got what Eve was saying, but what the hell was he supposed to do? Sara was pregnant. Wasn’t it right and appropriate and all that to be concerned about her, and the baby’s health? And he didn’t know what he was doing here. This was all brand-new, shocking information he’d just gotten. He was bound to do or say something wrong as he bumbled his way through this.

So he went to his bedroom door and knocked gently, trying the handle. It was locked. “Kendall? Can I come in, baby?”

Her voice was muffled and hoarse, like she’d been crying. “Can you just go away please? I need to be alone right now.”

He didn’t like that answer. He wanted to hold her, to reassure her, hell, to have her reassure
him
that this was all going to be okay. “We need to talk about this.”

“Talk about what? The fact that you’re having a baby with someone else? The single most important bond two people can share?”

Evan sighed, resting his head on the door. He tried the knob again, like somehow it would magically open. “What about the bond of marriage? That’s equally as important.”

She didn’t answer him.

The nausea he’d been fighting all day was now a burning hole in his gut. “You have a past. I have a past. What if I told you I had herpes or something? Would you refuse to speak to me?”

“It’s not the same thing!”

Maybe it wasn’t. But everyone made mistakes. They’d both made their fair share. This wasn’t ideal, not by any stretch of the imagination, but the result of this mistake was a child, and even in his horror, Evan had to admit he was a little awed at that prospect. He also firmly believed that this baby shouldn’t be punished for the mistakes her parents had made.

“Well, explain to me what it is. Let’s talk about it, get our feelings out. Figure out what we’re going to do.”

“What you’re going to do is sleep in the other motor home tonight.”

That was definitely not the way to deal with it. But alright, Evan got it. Kendall needed time. This was a big deal.

“I’ll sleep on the couch here. I’m not leaving. If you want to talk, just wake me up.”

Not that he was going to sleep one freaking wink.

“By the way, congratulations again on your awesome finish, babe. I’m really proud of you.”

“Whatever.”

Yeah, she wasn’t going to be coming to talk to him anytime soon.

Evan passed the couch and went right back to the whiskey.

KENDALL
couldn’t believe it. That girl was on the same flight as they were back to Charlotte. Granted, it made sense given the time of day and that Jonas Strickland was on the flight, but really? Did she really have to be subjected to the sight of that virtual teenager bopping down the aisle, all perky and cute and smiling now that she had gotten what she wanted?

Sitting in first class, avoiding Evan next to her, like she had for the last twelve hours, Kendall felt mean and volatile and angry. It wasn’t fair. This was supposed to be the happiest time of her life—she was a newlywed and her career was taking off. But it had been marred by this skinny and extremely feminine woman, who was going to nursing school of all things. It was like everything that gave Kendall doubts about her own sexiness, her own worth as a woman, all rolled into one.