* * *
Mike didn’t sleep a wink that night. Only a part of his restlessness could be blamed on the too-short, lumpy sofa in Jane’s living room. There hadn’t been any question of him sharing her bed. When they’d gotten back from dinner, she’d walked into the bedroom and shut the door. A moment later she’d emerged and tossed some sheets and a pillow in the direction of the sofa. He’d gotten the message. What he hadn’t gotten was a moment’s sleep.
He was still wrestling with the idea that he was going to be a father. He and Janie were going to have a baby. The thought boggled his mind. Over dinner he had pumped her for every single detail of her pregnancy, trying to hide his resentment over having already missed so much of this miraculous process.
To think that she could have had this child and he might never have learned of it. The very idea of that made him so furious he wanted to break things. When he got past wanting to throttle her for not seeing to it he was informed, he thanked God over and over that she had decided to go through with the pregnancy. His next hurdle was to convince her to marry him so their child would bear his name.
He could hardly wait to hear the explosion likely to greet that plan. He’d spent the whole night trying to come up with the right words to convince her. In the end he’d concluded he would just drag her off to a church and let a minister persuade her that her child deserved to be born within the sanctity of marriage. He liked that. It was exactly the right button to push.
However well she might seem to be coping, it was obvious to him that she’d left her home because she didn’t want the stigma for herself or her baby of being an unwed mom. That stigma wasn’t likely to go away just because everyone back home missed the actual pregnancy. The only way to make things right for all of them was to get married. He just had to get the timing perfect.
Jane was a morning person. She always had been. He figured she’d be up with the birds, which meant he had to get busy. He dug around in the kitchen cupboards and came up with the best china the place had to offer. He found a couple of candles tucked in a drawer and put them in the middle of the table in the apartment’s tiny dining alcove. Then he went to work in the kitchen.
He made biscuits and an omelet and squeezed fresh juice from the oranges he found in the refrigerator. He had coffee perking and a glass of milk poured by the time he heard the first stirrings in her room.
A few minutes later, she wandered into the dining area, barely covering a yawn. She stared at the fancy table and the huge breakfast, then sank into a chair.
“You’ve been busy,” she said, regarding him warily.
“You told me to make myself at home. Do you want jam for your biscuits?”
“Yes, please.” She toyed with the food on her plate. “Mike?”
“Yes.”
“You can’t keep doing this.”
“Why not?”
“I’ll be big as a barn.”
“Maybe a bungalow,” he said, grinning. “Never a barn. It won’t matter anyway. I’ll still think you’re beautiful.”
“That’s only because you haven’t seen my swollen ankles,” she said, holding out her feet. She was wearing fluffy blue slippers. “Look. And this is at the beginning of the day. They’ll only get worse.”
“That’s because you’ve been on your feet too much. That’s going to stop, now that I’m here. You can keep them propped up.”
“And do what?”
“Watch TV, read a book, crochet little booties.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Jane, I intend to pamper you.” He glanced at her plate. “Finish your omelet. The baby needs protein.”
“How do you know?”
“I read that book you left by the sofa. Milk and protein for the baby’s bones, plus plenty of fruits and vegetables.”
She regarded him with amusement. “Mike, I’m eight and a half months pregnant. I know what to eat. I know how to take care of myself. If you’re going to hover, you can leave now.”
“I’m going to hover,” he said, then added with a touch of defiance, “And I’m not going to leave. Get used to it.”
CHAPTER 6
Mike was very big on routine. He always had been. Growing up in his household of rambunctious brothers and sisters, order and routine had been in short supply. He had always craved it. Jane suspected that was one of the reasons he’d been drawn to the calm and serenity in her house. Now he’d taken that need for order to new heights.
By the third day of his visit, Jane was fairly sure he’d missed his true calling…drill sergeant. When he wasn’t stuffing her with food, promptly at seven a.m., noon and six with a couple of snacks thrown in at precisely two-thirty p.m. and eight, he was pushing the latest child care books on her to read. Judging from the stack he’d accumulated, she doubted there was a single title on parenting or prenatal care left in the local library.
And then there were the walks. Not the sort of strolls she’d grown accustomed to taking every afternoon, no. These were more like forced marches. By the time Saturday rolled around, she could hardly wait to get out from under his watchful gaze for a few hours while she met her friends for lunch.
When she appeared in the living room wearing her favorite maternity dress, the only outfit that didn’t make her look like a blimp, he popped up out of his chair.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m meeting Donna and some others for lunch.”
“Where?”
“At a little restaurant and craft shop in Lottsburg. I doubt you’ve ever been there.”
He looked horrified. “But I know where Lottsburg is. It’s on a back road in the middle of nowhere. You can’t drive over there by yourself. I’ll take
