Bernie just stood there in that bathroom, staring at that stick and watching her life come to an end.
“Come on, Bernie!” Bill shouted. “Give us the verdict!”
She wondered how long she could survive in there on tap water and toothpaste. Nine months, maybe?
She opened the door. Slumped against the door frame. They all turned around to look at her. Bernie knew her expression said it all, but she couldn’t seem to wipe it away. She waited for the taunts, the laughter, the ridicule, but strangely, none of it came. They just sat there staring at her, and suddenly Bernie knew why. They were no longer looking at a colleague. A security specialist like themselves. Just one of the guys. They were looking at a pregnant woman, and the very idea of it short-circuited their brains. Even Teresa couldn’t hide her expression of disbelief. You? Bernadette Hogan? Pregnant? How in the hell did that happen?
Okay, so the how was pretty obvious. It was the who they were all wondering about, but they’d get that information out of her only over her dead body.
“Bernie?” Teresa said.
She opened her mouth to say something, but the words got lost between her brain and her lips.
Teresa turned to the men. “Okay, you guys. Out.”
They looked at her dumbly.
“I said out! Now!”
“But I live here!” Bill said.
“All of you!”
Bill and Lucky took flight like a pair of startled birds, scraping their chairs against the tile floor, stumbling over each other in their haste to get as far away from the pregnant woman as they could. Gabe was more measured in his exit, but Bernie could tell he’d still rather be anywhere else. Max, who never got in a hurry to do anything, stared at her a long, analytical moment before picking up his winnings and following the other guys to the door.
“Wait!” Bernie shouted.
They froze. Turned back.
“If one of you so much as breathes a word of this to anyone,” Bernie said, her voice low and malevolent, “I’ll rip your eyeballs out and squash them with my bare hands. Are we clear on that?”
Bernie didn’t make threats often, and these guys knew it. If they opened their mouths, they were blind men.
Bernie turned away and collapsed on the sofa, and the guys took that as permission to clear out, closing the door behind them with a solid thunk. The sudden screaming silence and Teresa’s sympathetic expression as she sat down beside Bernie made her want to duck her head under a cushion and leave it there until she asphyxiated herself.
“How accurate are those tests?” she managed to croak out.
“It depends. When was your last period?”
“I… I don’t know. I don’t really keep track all that well.”
But it had been a while. Maybe more than a month. Maybe more than two months. Maybe she didn’t know.
“Who’s the… I mean, do you have a boyfriend?” Teresa said.
As sick as Bernie had felt all day, the very idea that there was only one candidate for fatherhood made her stomach curdle with dread.
“I really can’t talk about it,” she said.
“So if it’s true, would it be a…” Teresa paused, wincing as she spoke. “Bad thing?”
Bernie turned slowly to look at her, feeling her own face falling into a you-gotta-be-kidding-me expression.
“Okay, then,” Teresa said. “You don’t have to panic just yet. Really. It was just a dumb over-the-counter test. Sometimes they’re wrong. Get another test. Do it again. It’ll probably be negative.”
“Have you ever had a false positive before?”
“Well… no.”
“Ever known anyone who did?”
“No, but I’ve heard that it does happen.”
I don’t want anecdotes! Bernie wanted to shout. I want somebody to tell me that these tests are worthless pieces of crap!
“I’m thirty-six years old,” she said. “Don’t the odds of getting pregnant diminish with age?”
“Yeah, if you’re forty-five or fifty,” Teresa said. “But thirty-six-year-olds get pregnant all the—” She stopped short. “But I’m sure not this time. It’s probably just—”
“I need to go.”
“Uh… yeah. Okay.” They rose from the sofa, and Teresa opened the door. “Let me know what happens. And tell me if I can… you know. Do anything for you.”
Bernie nodded. “Thanks. But I think it’s a mistake, you know? I’ll probably be laughing about this in the morning.”
“Probably,” Teresa said, just about as unconvincingly as Bernie had ever heard anyone utter a single word.
She left the house and headed for her car parked at the curb. There was no sign of Lucky or Gabe—apparently they’d really cleared out. Bill came back up the sidewalk, passing by her without a word, and returned to the house. Only Max remained, leaning against the driver’s door of Bernie’s SUV, his arms folded, staring at her.
No. No. She didn’t want to talk to anyone right now. Not even him. She stopped in front of him. “Go home, Max.”
“Not just yet.”
“Get out of my way,” she snapped, “or I’ll move you out of my way.”
“Under normal circumstances, I’d take that threat seriously. But right now you don’t look strong enough to beat up a kitten.”
“You’re right. So I don’t feel like arguing. Will you just let me go home?”
“Nope. We’ve been watching each other’s backs for years. I don’t intend to stop now.”
He was right about that. The military had brought them together. Delgado & Associates had kept them together. They were friends, nothing more, but she’d always been able to count on Max, like the big brother she’d never had. The way she felt right now, though, she’d rather count on him tomorrow.
“There’s no reason to get all worried about this,” Bernie said.
“I’m not the one who’s uptight.”
“I’m not pregnant, you know.”
“The test was positive.”
“The test was wrong. I can’t be pregnant. No way.”
Max nodded thoughtfully. “Uh-huh.”
She threw up her hands. “I told you I’m not pregnant!” Then she closed her eyes in frustration. “Damn it, would you at least try to be as oblivious as other men? Just once?”
“I’d ask who the father is, but I’m guessing you’d rather keep that to yourself.”
She started to say that there wasn’t a father because she wasn’t pregnant, but it would have fallen on deaf ears. And first she had to believe it herself.
“Do another test,” Max said.
“I intend to.”
“Tonight. If it’s negative, maybe you can actually sleep.”
A nice thought, but Bernie could hear what Max wasn’t saying. And if it’s positive, you’re screwed.
“You okay to drive home?” he asked her.
“Of course I am.”
Bernie clicked open her car door. Max stepped aside and opened it. As she settled into the driver’s seat, her stomach did a slow, sickening heave. Good Lord. If this was what pregnancy felt like, how did the average woman stand it?
“Can I count on you to keep this quiet? Not a word to anyone? You know—until I find out for sure what’s up.”
“Hell, yes, I’ll keep it quiet,” he said with a tiny smile. “You think I want my eyeballs squashed?”
“Come on, Max. You know I wouldn’t really squash your eyeballs. Lucky’s maybe. Never yours.”
Squashed eyeballs notwithstanding, she didn’t know why she worried about Max. If the population dwindled away and there was only one discreet person left on this planet, it would be Max Delinsky.
“Don’t sweat this until you’re sure there’s something to sweat, okay?” Max said. “Get another test, rule it out, and then you can forget about it.”
Bernie nodded. She got into her car, and at the first red light she came to, she grabbed her iPhone and found a twenty-four-hour drugstore. It was twelve miles away, but she didn’t care. She tossed her phone to the passenger seat and drove there, where she picked up another pregnancy test. She was careful to get a different brand from the one she’d already taken just in case that particular manufacturer wasn’t quite up to par. As she made her way to the checkout counter, she felt as if everyone in the store was looking at her, so she also grabbed a Snickers bar, a bottle of shampoo, and a pack of razor blades, as if those would distract from her real intent: I’m hungry, my hair’s dirty, I have hairy legs, and… oh, yeah. I need to see if I’m pregnant. The teenage girl behind the counter didn’t blink as she rang the stuff up, but Bernie still felt as if a gigantic spotlight had appeared from nowhere to shine directly on her.
All the way home, her heart beat like mad at the same time her stomach flip-flopped like a fish on the deck of a bass boat. She came through her apartment door and headed straight for her bathroom, where she yanked the directions out of the box and read them from beginning to end, including a statement about the effectiveness of the test. “Supersensitive in detecting hCG levels” and “99 percent accurate after seven to nine days” didn’t exactly fill her with hope.
A few minutes later, there it was. Corroborating evidence. She was going to have a baby.
In dazed disbelief, she tossed the test into the trash. She made her way to the living room, where she plunked herself down on the sofa. She stared straight ahead, her hand on her stomach, trying to reconcile the test she’d just taken with the reality of an actual baby growing inside her. She’d always been proud of the fact that she had a job that one in ten thousand women couldn’t have qualified for, yet here she was in a situation any brainless teenager in the backseat of a car could have gotten herself into.
Then she thought about Jeremy. Oh, God. What was he going to say when he found out?
She couldn’t think about that now. Not when the majority of her energy was consumed with trying to keep from throwing up. Morning sickness? Wrong damned time of day. And it sounded so benign. There had to be another name for it, something more like bubonic plague.
She lay down on the sofa and tucked a pillow beneath her head, stifling a groan as she curled up in a semifetal position. She closed her eyes, willing the nausea to subside, only to hear a knock at her door.
No! Whoever you are, go away! I want to die in peace!
She closed her eyes again, only to hear more knocking. Finally she got up and staggered to her door, intending to open it only if somebody was carrying a five-foot-long Publishers Clearing House check for a million bucks. She looked out the peephole.
Oh, God. Her mother?
More knocking. “Bernadette? Open the door. I saw your car. I know you’re home!”
Bernie felt a twinge of panic. If her mother saw her looking like this, she’d call 911.
The flu. She’d just say she had the flu, because she sure couldn’t tell the truth. Not until she had a chance to think about it when she felt better. Whenever that might be.
She opened the door. “Mom? What are you doing here this late? You know you shouldn’t be driving after dark.”
“I tried to call you, but you didn’t answer. I got worried.”
“You called? I didn’t hear—” She stopped short. “Oh. I must have left my phone in the car.” And what a dumb, dumb move that had turned out to be.
Eleanor came into the apartment, her brows drawing together. “Oh, my. You really are sick. I can tell. You’re feeling worse, aren’t you?” She pressed her palms against Bernie’s cheeks. “Hmm. Still no fever. Do you have a headache? Muscle aches?”
“Yeah. I think it’s the flu.”
“Are you nauseated?”
Just hearing those words was all it took for Bernie’s stomach to turn upside down one more time. She yanked herself away from her mother and hurried to the bathroom. When she reached the toilet, she dropped to her knees, flung up the lid, and started to heave. A few moments later her mother was beside her, sitting on the edge of the tub, holding her hair and patting her back. When Bernie finally stopped throwing up, she took the wet towel her mother offered her and wondered what she’d done in a former life that was so bad that she’d get stuck with karma like this.
“Poor baby,” her mother said.
“It’s just the flu,” Bernie croaked. “I’ll be over it in a few days.”
“Don’t you usually get a flu shot?”
I do. But flu shots don’t prevent pregnancy. “Yeah. Usually. It just got past me this year.”
“You need water. Fluids will help you feel better. I’ll get you a glass of—” When she stopped short, Bernie looked up to see her staring down at something. The trash can. When her mother reached inside, Bernie froze with dread, but there was no stopping her now.
She pulled out the box the pregnancy test had come in.
She looked at it. She looked at Bernie. At the box. At Bernie. It was as if she was finding it impossible to reconcile the two, but feminine barfing in the presence of a used pregnancy test would eventually lead anyone to the truth.
“Bernadette,” Eleanor said finally, her voice quivering. “It isn’t the flu, is it?”
Bernie scoured her brain for a really good lie, but absolutely nothing came to her. “No, Mom,” she said on a sigh. “It’s not the flu.”
When Eleanor slid her hand to her throat, her eyes wide, her jaw slack with disbelief, Bernie actually began to tremble with dread. After all, how had her mother reacted when Sharon Binkley, the biggest slut at Bernie’s high school, had gotten pregnant? What’s wrong with these girls? she’d said in a hushed, horrified whisper. Having relations outside of marriage? Do they have no shame? No shame at all? Then came the lecture she subjected Bernie to, the one about boys and their motives and the dreadful things that happened to any girl dumb enough to fall prey to their manipulation. Eleanor had done her best to pray for poor Sharon, but Bernie knew the truth as her mother saw it: The shameless, spineless pregnant girl was going straight to hell.
Now, twenty years later, it was Eleanor’s own daughter on the hot seat, and nothing had changed. Bernie had no doubt her churchgoing mother was going to bring down the wrath of God right onto her head. And in the event that God chose to spare her an instantaneous death, Eleanor would simply drag her to church every day for the rest of her life to save her from eternal damnation.
“Bernadette?” she said slowly, carefully. “Are you… p-pr…?”
Oh, God. She couldn’t even say the word. This was going to be bad. Very, very bad. But there wasn’t much that Bernie could do now to stop it from happening.
“Yeah, Mom,” she said. “I’m pregnant.”
Bernie braced herself. As much as Eleanor loved her daughter, a sin was a sin, after all, and any moment she was going to throw her arm skyward and beseech God to send down that thunderbolt. But to Bernie’s total amazement, the whole Old Testament thing never happened.
Instead her mother started to smile. A look of delighted relief swept over her face. She dropped the box and threw her arms around Bernie, hugging her so tightly Bernie swore she was going to throw up all over again.
What the hell…?
Eleanor pulled away and took Bernie by the shoulders. “So it’s really true? You’re pregnant? You’re going to have a baby?”
“So… you’re not mad?”
“Mad? Mad? Why would I be mad? I’m going to be a grandmother!”
And then she was hugging Bernie all over again. For several stunned seconds, Bernie just let it happen, wondering what portal she’d fallen through to land in this alternate universe. Then Eleanor slowly backed away, putting her hand on her chest, and closed her eyes, taking a deep, relaxing breath. When she opened them again, they glistened with tears.
Bernie blinked. “Mom? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, dear. Nothing.” She wiped beneath her eyes with her fingertips. “It’s just that…” She exhaled. “I’d given up hope. You’re so independent, and since you’ve never said you have any interest in getting married, I assumed that having a baby was out of the question. I’ve always wanted to be a grandmother. So much. At church, they show me photos of their grandkids. Katherine has eleven. Did you know that? Eleven grandchildren, and I don’t have even one. And I always smile and tell them how beautiful they are—and I’m not lying, they are—but I can’t help it. I’m always so envious. That’s one of the seven deadly sins. Envy. I know that. But surely God understands, doesn’t he? How I feel? How much I want just one?” Then her eyes grew wide with understanding. “That’s it! He must know! He must, because look at what he’s done!” She took Bernie’s hands. “This is a blessing, Bernadette. A blessing from heaven.”
Bernie didn’t have a clue what to say. A blessing? This?
“How far along are you?” her mother asked.
“About two months, I think.”
“You have so much to do. But don’t worry. I’ll help you. Have you called Dr. Underwood?”
“No, not yet. But—”
“You need to get an appointment right away. Prenatal care is a must. Have you been eating properly?”
“I’ve been eating just fine,” Bernie said.
“Well, you have to make sure to from now on. You’re eating for two, you know.”
Her mother kept prattling on, wearing an expression of pure ecstasy. Given her diagnosis, Bernie thought she’d never see that look on her mother’s face again. But everything about this wasn’t wonderful, and Bernie couldn’t let her go on thinking that it was.
“Hold on, Mom. Wait a minute.”
Her mother stopped short. “Yes?”
Bernie swallowed hard. “I haven’t really decided…”
“What?”
“What… you know. To do about it.”
For several seconds, her mother looked bewildered. “Wh-what do you mean?”
When Bernie just stared at her, her mother’s face slowly fell. Bernie could actually feel the joy slip away from her, leaving her body as if she’d drawn her last breath.
“Oh,” Eleanor said, leaning away. “I see.” She drew herself up in the way she always did when emotion was getting the better of her and she was trying not to fall apart. “I just thought that maybe, for just a little while, I’d have a grandchild, you know? Even if the time comes when I don’t remember, at least I’d have had one for a little while.”
Please don’t say that! “Mom—”
Eleanor held up her palm. “No. It’s okay. It’s your decision, Bernadette. Not mine. I know that.” She took a deep, shaky breath, trying to get a grip, but her eyes still filled with tears. “And contrary to what you might think, I’ll love you no matter what you choose to do. No matter what. I mean that. I just hope you’re thinking of adoption. Not… not the other.”
Bernie felt her own eyes filling with tears. The thought of having a baby was so overwhelming that she almost couldn’t imagine it. “The other” was out no matter what. But adoption… could she have this baby, only to give it away?
No. She couldn’t. And not just because it would break her mother’s heart. Now that she was facing the reality of the situation, she realized it would break her heart, too.
At first she’d been in total disbelief that her life had taken such a drastic turn, but now she was starting to think that maybe this was a shot of good luck, not bad. She’d never had a relationship with a man that had leaned toward marriage, and the older she got, the less she expected that would happen. And if it didn’t, she’d always assumed she’d never have a child.
Now she was going to.
The longer she sat there, the more her conviction grew. Maybe her mother was right. Maybe this really was a blessing. This was probably going to be her only chance to be a mother, and if that were true, she didn’t want to let it go.
She took her mother’s hands. “Oh, no, Mom. You misunderstood.”
Eleanor blinked, and another tear went south. “I did?”
“I didn’t mean that I don’t know what I was going to do about the baby. I just meant that I don’t know what I’m going to do about my job. It’s going to be kind of hard to be a bodyguard and pregnant, too, you know? But I’ll figure out something.”
“So… so you’re going to have the baby?”
“Well, of course.”
And then her mother was smiling and hugging her all over again. And for the first time since she’d seen those two lines, Bernie was smiling, too.
So what now? Gabe already knew she was pregnant, so that was the last she was going to see of any personal protection jobs. But even with this incredible nausea, maybe she could still fill some kind of contract position for Delgado & Associates that didn’t involve carrying a weapon and protecting somebody’s life, a job that wouldn’t put her or her baby in danger or under stress. One way or another, she was going to work it out.
Her mother eased away, tears still shining in her eyes. “Bernadette?”
“Yes?”
“Have you…”
“Have I what?”
“Told the father?”
Not a question Bernie wanted to hear right now. But it was one she’d eventually have to answer. She could beat around the bush, or she could get the issue out of the way right now, once and for all.
“The father won’t want to be part of this,” she told her mother. “And believe me, Mom—it’s for the best.”
Her mother’s brow furrowed with consternation. “A man who doesn’t want to know his own child?” Eleanor said. “Are you sure that’s the case?”
“Yeah, Mom. I’m sure.”
“Maybe things will change as time goes on.”
“Please don’t count on that.”
“Can you tell me who the father is?”
Bernie bowed her head with a heavy sigh. Then she looked up again. “I’d rather just pretend he was never in the picture at all. Do you think you can do that, too?”
Her mother’s expression fell. “Oh. Yes, of course. I won’t say another word about it.” She paused. “But that isn’t going to stop me from praying that he somehow sees the light and you all eventually become a family.”
Bernie gave her a shaky smile. “Nobody’s ever been able to stop you from praying, Mom.”
And speaking of the father, there was something Bernie had to do before her pregnancy progressed one day further. Bridges might be the biological father, but the last thing she wanted was for that heartless, soulless, controlling man to have anything to do with her baby.
She’d watched him in business. He wasn’t above getting what he wanted by any means necessary, as long as it was legal. She’d watched him with women. Even as he smiled and seduced, she’d never seen a shred of a connection on an emotional level. It was one thing for her to enjoy the mental challenge of bantering with a man whose IQ dwarfed the average person’s, but it was quite another to imagine him as the father of her child. When she thought of her own father, of the warmth and acceptance she’d felt from him, it nearly brought her to tears. To subject her own child to the complete opposite of that was something she refused to do.
It could take her a week or two to get the legalities in place, but by the time she was finished, she was going to make sure Jeremy had no hold over her, or her baby, for the rest of their lives.