“Thanks.” My eyes got wet again. “I know you could get in trouble for helping me like this. I owe you big, and I’ll never forget it.” My voice broke on that last part. Damn it!
His face got very, very worried. “Camdyn, what—”
“Gotta go. Thanks again, Lyle.” I kissed his cheek and rushed out of the stadium.
A light snow started to drift down from the sky as I drove. It was heavier by the time I made it to the address on the post-it note, but snow wasn’t going to stop me. Neither was the big gate that blocked my way down the driveway. I parked in front and studied it through my windshield for a moment before I got out and stuffed my gloves into my coat pocket. Not electrified, not even pointy at the top. In terms of security, the gate was ridiculous—any child could have climbed it, and it took me all of five seconds. I straddled the highest rail and looked around, getting a lay of the land, and then quickly descended the other side.
I brushed off my hands and replaced my gloves as I stalked up the driveway, staring more at the house. It was big and gaudy, much too ornate for my taste. There was no style, either, just stuff piled on top of stuff. It looked like the builder had googled “fancy house” and then added every element he had seen there. I had gotten to help pick the colors and furniture to redecorate the tasting room in the winery where we’d had the New Year’s party. From that, I’d developed an interest in design, and this house was definitely not what I would have chosen. Actually…
Actually, it was damn cold. I blew a cloud of steamy air. It was much too cold to stand in the driveway and criticize the architecture in order to delay ringing the doorbell and confronting the problem inside. So yeah, here I went. I stepped forward and pressed the button and stared into the camera.
No one came. I waited and then rang again, hearing the bell tones echo through the big house. Awesome, I had come all this way and climbed the stupid gate and—
The tall, ugly door swung open and a very tall, but not at all ugly man stood in front of me. He squinted, confused. “Uh, hi…Camille.”
Jesus and Mary. “No, it’s Camdyn. Hi, César.”
The Woodsmen tight end stared at me. “Camdyn, right. What are you doing here?
There wasn’t a great way to sugarcoat this. “I’m pregnant,” I announced.
His brown eyes widened and his mouth dropped open. “What?”
“Yeah, pregnant,” I said. “I took ten tests.”
César seemed to gather himself. “Why are you telling me?”
Because I wanted to spread the cheer. “Why do you think I’m telling you?” I asked angrily. “It’s your baby!”
The words puffed out of my mouth and hung in the frozen air like tiny nuclear bombs.
Chapter 2
I stamped my feet against the cold. “Can I come in or something?”
“What? Oh, yeah.” César stepped aside like he was in a daze and opened the door wider. “Sure, sure.”
We stood in the foyer, where a gold leaf ceiling soared above the pink marble floor. And we just kept standing there, a foot away from the door. “Can I come in a little further?” I asked.
He seemed to snap out of it. “Let’s go to the kitchen,” he told me, and I followed him along the pink marble hallway and into another big room. I remembered squeezing behind Kaya’s chair to get to the sink that morning in my own kitchen, and this one was quite a bit different. It had about ten acres more space, purple granite countertops, a lot of faux finishes, and a collection of large, gold roosters perched along the tops of the cabinets. Ouch.
César opened the refrigerator and took out a bottle of beer. It was still the morning, but he popped off the cap and chugged the entire thing right down without taking a breath. Then he inhaled deeply and wiped off his mouth with the back of his hand. “You think you’re pregnant. And you think the baby is mine.”
I sat down at his island. “I took ten pregnancy tests. And you’re the only possibility.”
“You and I had sex,” he stated, but then he looked at me, questioning.
“Wait one damn second. Are you seriously saying that you don’t remember me?” I asked angrily.
“No, I remember you. We met after the game, and then we went out for drinks, and then…”
“Then you came back to my cottage and we had a lot of tequila shots,” I continued, but after that, my memory of the night got a little hazy as well. “The next morning, I watched you try to sneak out. You dropped your shoes three times. For a man who makes his living being quick on his feet, you suck at sneaking,” I mentioned.
He rubbed his eyes. “I remember bringing the tequila. You didn’t have shot glasses so we drank out of mugs. We did mug shots.”
That had been a mistake. That bottle had gone down way too fast and way too easy.
“Right,” I agreed. “And then you spent the night, and then you snuck away in the morning, and now I’m pregnant.”
“And you’re sure.” César’s skin was a beautiful, golden tan—normally, it was. Right now, it was more of a pale green.
That he was getting pale and sick over this somehow made me mad again, even though that had been my reaction too, when I’d first confronted the situation at the medical clinic the day before. “Of course, I’m sure!” I snapped. “The tests all said yes.”
“And you went to the doctor for confirmation?”
“No,” I admitted, “not yet.” Well, I had been to the doctor, but I had run out like a scared guinea pig. I thought again of Mr. Fluffy and my
