There were plus signs; double pink lines; double blue lines; double black lines; two dots; a smiley face; a big Y; and the topper, the one that just announced it: PREGNANT.
“Oh, no,” I breathed out.
Oh, yes, she sure is!
Camdyn Riordan is not ready to have a baby—she’s the one who lost the class guinea pig in second grade, she’s the one who now won’t keep a boyfriend long enough to leave a toothbrush at his house!
And there’s another wrinkle: the father is César Hidalgo, the famous football player, the guy who ran out of her house so fast after their night together that he left a jet trail in his wake. The guy with a list of past girlfriends as long as his hard, muscular arm.
They’re going to be parents, but first, they’re going to be roommates, and then maybe they’ll be friends. But there is no way—NO WAY—that this is going to turn into some kind of love story, no matter how much Camdyn likes him, no matter how sweet he is, no matter anything.
Absolutely not. Even though César is pretty much the ideal, if a woman was interested in something like a permanent future with a gorgeous, muscled-up guy who also likes to cook.
That’s not what Camdyn wants—she’s positive, as positive as all those pregnancy tests! But life does have a funny way of moving your goal line…
The Goal Line
Jamie Bennett
Copyright © 2020 by Jamie Bennett
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the author, except as used in a book review. Please contact the author at [email protected].
This is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is purely coincidental.
Book cover by Angela Haddon Book Cover Designs.
Chapter 1
“TEN! NINE!”
Everyone at the party in the winery’s grand tasting room counted down together. We were almost in a new year, and thank God, because I could have used a fresh start. I’d begin again, push everything behind me, and make the next 12 months the best of my life. Yeah, this would be the Year of Camdyn. I raised my glass of sparkling wine, toasting to myself.
“EIGHT! SEVEN!”
The guy next to me—technically, my date—clinked his glass to mine and winked, and I forced myself to smile at him. I had been on a little vacation from men, a man-cation, staying away from the opposite sex. It had seemed like New Year’s Eve would be the perfect time to jump back on the man-horse and go out with someone.
“SIX! FIVE!”
My date grinned back, looking right at my boobs. He had already guzzled his sparkling wine—several glasses, in fact, after making sure that he wasn’t going to have to pay for it. “You work here, right? This is free, right?” he’d determined about a million times, then glug, glug, glug. Now he put his hand on my leg, focus still breast-centric, and tried to shove his fingers up my dress to get a feel of things in my crotch area.
“FOUR! THREE!”
Yeah, no. I slapped his hand, hard, and his fingers went away, along with his grin. Ugh. Maybe I shouldn’t have picked this guy as the man-horse to jump on, but I had needed to get out. It had been a rough couple of months, and I deserved to have some fun. My date worked with my friend Nicky, and she’d sworn that he was awesome. I frowned at him, but his eyes had gone back to nipple-level. Sure, he was awesome. Awesomely skeevy.
“THREE! TWO!”
I turned away from him in disgust, bringing my breasts out of consideration, and took a look around the party instead. I was working tonight, even if I was currently taking a little break. I checked to make sure that the waitstaff was circulating with their trays of food and that all the party-goers had full glasses of our in-house sparkling wine for the big toast. I did special events for the winery, and this party had been our total focus for the past few weeks, definitely our biggest job of the slow winter season. I shook my head as I saw one of the waiters hitting on a guest—that wasn’t what we paid him for. Then I shook my head at myself, because Jesus and Mary, it was New Year’s Eve! What had I become?
“ONE! HAPPY NEW YEAR!”
The streamers we had set up rained down, the crowd cheered, and the band struck up Auld Lang Syne. Despite my previous slap, my date winked at me and leaned in for a kiss, tongue already out. Again, it was a hard no. I jerked my face away from his slimy lips and slid off the wine tasting table where I had planted my tired butt. Planning this party had been exhausting, but most things had been exhausting me lately. I moved away from my gross date and through the people kissing, hugging, laughing, and trying to sing along with a song that no one really knew. “Happy New Year,” I told them, nodding and smiling vaguely.
I slid behind one of the curtains and slipped out through the French doors onto the deck of the winery to look out over the vineyard. Right now, the grape vines were a collection of dark sticks silhouetted by the moon against the snow. Northern Michigan was a frozen, white landscape, but it was beautiful, and much nicer to look at than my date’s open mouth as he moved in on me. It was also colder than a witch’s tit out here, but the fresh air made me feel better, easing the queasiness in my stomach and waking me up.
I walked to the railing and flipped over the glass of
