Here Comes Trouble (33 page)

“I’d better get back to my prep work. I was behind already.” He turned and walked toward the door, then paused with his hand on the knob. “You want my opinion? Take a closer look at Diane.”

****

“You can’t possibly be serious with this color.” Courtney, bless her outspoken, imaginative heart, held a paint sample up and tossed it down on the coffee table. The little card landed on top of a growing pile of colors his sister had eagerly vetoed. Courtney was the most creative person he knew. He’d asked her to help him pick out some colors for the new addition to his upstairs. So far she’d hated every single one.

“And what the heck is this?” She held up a tan-colored sample. “They ought to rename this one Baby Poop. Where did you find these? Ugly Paint Colors ‘R’ Us?”

Chase leaned back against the couch and stacked his hands behind his head. “They’re all very popular colors, Court.”

A snort popped out of her baby pink lips. “Yeah, if you have no imagination.” She twisted on the couch to face him. “Why don’t you give me a blank check and I’ll surprise you.”

“Not a chance.”

Her hands slapped down on her bare knees. “Why not?”

He tugged on a strand of her short, spiky hair. “Because I’ll end up with an exercise room the same shade of hot pink as this.”

One of her thin eyebrows lifted. “Now you’re saying you don’t like my style?”

No one dared insult Courtney Devlin. “Hot pink hair is one thing. Hot pink walls are just wrong.”

She tossed the paint sample on the table. “Fine, be boring.” Her too-thin shoulders slumped over.

He nudged her elbow. “What’s got you all pissy?”

“Nothing,” she said to her knees. “It’s my mother. She’s driving me crazy.” His sister surged off the couch. “First she complains that I’m not out on my own, then she says I need to give them rent money. I mean, hello?” She lifted her arms up in the air, then let them flop down to her sides. “How am I supposed to save up for a place of my own if they’re going to charge me rent?”

“Did you say that to her?”

She tossed him a droll look over her shoulder as she paced to the fireplace and back. “Of course. Then she said we could work out a deal,” Court made quotation marks in the air with her fingers. “I’d only have to pay a hundred dollars a month plus buy my own groceries, which I’d have no problem with because I can’t stand all that fatty red meat and soda she buys.”

Courtney’s eyes bounced over pictures of Chase’s mother. “I told you before you’d be welcome to stay with me. I have three other rooms.”

Her nose ring twinkled when she wrinkled her nose. “I really don’t want to listen to my brother’s bumping and grinding at all hours of the night. But thanks anyway.”

He chuckled at her honesty. “And listening to our parents bumping and grinding is better?”

“Parents don’t bump and grind. That’s common knowledge.”

“No that’s childhood fantasy.”

Her blue eyes shot daggers at him.

“What about R.J.?” he asked around a smile.

“I barely made it through my teen years without killing him. I don’t want to go there again, thank you.”

Chase held his hands up in defense. “Pardon me.” Man, she was touchy today.

Her hands planted on her thin hips as she floated from one side of his living room to another. “I’ll figure this out on my own. I always do. In the meantime,” she twisted her wrist and dropped her gaze to her thick, lime-green watch. “I have to get to work. On my way home I’m going to pick out some paint and you’re going to like it.”

He stood and gathered the discarded paint samples. “The room’s not even built yet.”

“Regardless. It’s never too early to make decisions.” Her sandals flapped across the wood floor. “Um, Chase?”

“Yeah?”

Courtney stood in front of one of the windows with her attention outside. “Why is Lacy Taylor pulling into your driveway?”

Little details never slipped passed his sister’s notice. She was one of those people who could walk into a crowded room and notice a hairline crack on a far wall. He had no earthly clue how she did it. Maybe it was that freakish intuition women always bragged they possessed. Either way, he could feign nonchalance but she’d see right through it. And who cared if she did? Lacy was the one who wanted to keep their affair as secret as the real identity behind the Mona Lisa.

Instead of answering, he slid his hands in his pockets and leaned against the wall next to her.

Her eyes narrowed at him. “There’s something suspicious going on here, and I’m going to find out what.”

He only grinned.

She jabbed a finger at him. “You don’t fool me, Chase.” She brushed by him in a flurry of huffiness and let herself out the front door. The woman was like a damn fortune teller.

Lacy glided up the walkway in a pair of light gray cotton capris and a plain white t-shirt. A friendly open-mouthed smile broke across her face when she approached Courtney. The two girls engaged in an extended mushy hug that most women do when they see each other. Why did women always act like it’d been a lifetime since exchanging a conversation?

Chase lounged against the open doorway and waited for Lacy to finish talking to his sister. Lacy’s brilliant green eyes lit on his, then roamed down his body when she approached him. His predictable dick stirred and hardened when she drew near. Her hair hung free over her shoulders like a gleaming, yellow waterfall. He gave in to his impulse and tunneled his hand underneath the soft curtain of strands. She melted into him when he pulled her toward him and slanted his mouth over hers.

She traced her index finger over his lower lip. “What was that for?”

“I couldn’t help myself.”
And because I was just so damn happy to see you
.
 
When was the last time he’d been this pleased to see a woman? Never. What made Lacy so different?

Chase had a feeling that whatever “it” was very closely resembled love. Only one other time in his life had he allowed himself to fall in love with a woman. He’d walked away with a broken heart and a promise to never let himself fall under a woman’s spell again. Lacy, with her sexy, kissable lips, and soft touch had him wondering if he’d fallen yet again. The fact that he didn’t know for sure had the skin on the back of his neck itching. In the past, he’d always been able to define his feelings for a woman. Now, he floated around in a sea of uncertainty.

He closed the door behind Lacy and led her into the living room.

“What’s all this?” She picked up one of the samples from the table and held it up in a ray of sunshine that spilled in through one of the windows.

“Paint colors for my new exercise room.”

Her arm lowered and she pinned him with a look. “You’ve decided to take my advice about an exercise room after all?”

The smugness in her voice had his mouth turning up in a grin. “I think so. I picked those up on a whim a few days ago. Courtney was here giving me her blatantly honest opinion on them.”

“Let me guess, she hates all of them.”

He closed the distance between them and tucked some hair behind her ear. “Very vocally so, yes.”

Her tongue darted out and ran long her lower lip when his hand curled around the back of her neck. “I didn’t come here for a quickie,” she said when he skimmed his lips over her jaw bone and nibbled her ear.

“I’m not asking for one,” he whispered.

Her blunt fingernails dug into his shoulder. “You’re doing a pretty good job of showing me you do.”

Well, hell yeah, he was always up for a quickie. However, over the past few months, Lacy had become more than a convenient screw. The post-coital bliss spent talking about meaningless things was what he’d come to cherish the most. And Chase had never been that post-coital guy. He’d always been more of the “okay, thanks for the great time, but I need to be going.” Something about Lacy made him want to spend that time with her. He wanted to talk about her childhood and hear about her college years. He wanted to watch her teeth bite into her lower lip when she flew her pencil over a sketchpad. Did that mean he was in love with her?

Her hands shoved at his shoulders, which pulled him out of his thoughts and away from her lush curves.

In the span of about a minute, her shoulders had gone ramrod straight and her hands twisted in circles around each other. She paced away from him and stood in front of the wall that housed several photos of his mother. Her chin lifted and her chest puffed out with a deep breath.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, after she’d gone from hot to freezing cold.

Her eyes darted over one photograph after another. She remained silent for so long, Chase thought she wasn’t going to answer him.

“I’m pregnant,” she finally replied.

For the first time in his life, he didn’t know what the hell to say.

Eighteen

“Say that again?”

Lacy turned from the pictures and pierced him with those green eyes that always went straight to his heart. Without a word she dug into her purse and pulled out an envelope. Her feminine little fingers trembled when she handed the envelope to him.

With this heart jack-hammering up in his throat, he practically tore the envelope when he took out a fuzzy black and white picture. In the middle of a sea of blackness was a white, kidney bean-shaped…thing. Was that supposed to be a baby?

“What’s fifteen weeks?” he asked after trying to read all the little computer information in the corner of the photo.

“That’s how far along I am.” Lacy’s voice came from far away, as though he’d drifted out of his living room and viewed the two of them from far away. Was this what an out of body experience felt like? If so, he didn’t like it one damn bit. In fact, he’d rather roll over a bed of nails than feel his heart beat like a bass drum, now in the bottom of his stomach.

Then Lacy’s words finally fought their way through the cloud of anxiety in his brain. “Fifteen weeks? That’s like…” he did the math in his head, slower than he’d be able to calculate it under normal circumstances. “You’ve been pregnant since May? It’s September. How the hell long have you known?”

She snatched the photo back from him. “Calm down. I found out last week, but I didn’t see my doctor until yesterday. I wanted to be completely sure before I told you.”

He plowed sweaty hands through his hair and turned away from her. “Fuck. How the hell did this happen?” The words were meant for his ears only. After stalking halfway to the kitchen, he turned and faced Lacy. “How the hell did this happen?” The question came out more forceful than he meant it to. His uncertainty and bewilderment leaked into his tone of voice.

Lacy’s light brown eyebrows pulled together over her troubled eyes. “What do you mean, how did this happen?”

“I mean we always used protection. So I’ll ask you again, how did this happen?”

Her bare lips pursed. “If I didn’t know any better, Chase, I’d say you’re blaming me.”

He inhaled a deep breath in order to rein in his temper. “I’m not blaming anyone. I’m trying to figure out why you’re standing there telling me you’re pregnant when I used protection.”

“I bet if you think really hard you’ll be able to figure it out.” She lifted a hand and gestured behind him. “Remember a little incident in your kitchen about four months ago?”

Hell, there had been several incidents in his kitchen. The one she referred to that occurred in May didn’t ring any bells. Except…well. He did have a vague memory of not being able to keep his hands to himself. In a feverish move, he’d lifted her onto the countertop and dropped his pants practically all at once. But he’d slipped on a condom, hadn’t he? Oh hell, maybe he hadn’t. How had that not crossed his mind? Okay, he knew damn well how. He’d been so hot to get inside Lacy and feel those trim thighs around his hips that thoughts of protection hadn’t even entered his mind.

This is what you get for thinking with your dick: another knocked up girlfriend
.

All right, he could handle this. He wasn’t the same immature, inexperienced kid he’d been in college. When Allison told him she was pregnant, jittery nerves had taken control of his sensible thinking. Without so much as an encouraging word to her, he’d left her standing in the middle of his dorm room while he’d driven around town. Abandoning her like that probably hadn’t been the best way to assure her he could handle having a baby at the ripe old age of twenty. Perhaps his departure was what propelled her to abort the child. He would not freak out on Lacy the same way he had Allison.

“I can tell by the look on your face that I’ve triggered your memory.” Lacy’s soft voice pierced his thoughts.

Geez, he was stupid.

“I’m due in February, in case you’re wondering.” Her light sigh filled the silence between them. “Look, I don’t want anything from you, okay? I didn’t tell you to trap you into anything. I was just trying to do the right thing because you have a right to know. You don’t need to feel obligated to me in any way.”

He held the photo up for her to see. “This is my kid. Of course I’m obligated.” Then he blurted out the next words before he could stop himself. “Marry me.”

Her eyebrows shot up her forehead. “What?”