Seducing Simon Read Free

be at the station by six forty-five for their shift. Usually, she’d get up and shoot the breeze with them before they left, but this morning she stayed in bed to avoid them.
    When she heard them leave, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and tensed for the wave of nausea she’d come to expect. She reached into her nightstand drawer for the small package of crackers she’d put there the previous day. Taking small bites, she got up and headed for the bathroom.
    At seven thirty, she got into her yellow Jeep Wrangler and headed for the veterinary practice across town. She’d worked as Doc Johnson’s assistant for the last six years, since she’d come home after one year of college.
    He was a kindly older man, very much a father figure after the death of her parents. She loved her job and loved living in her small town even more. It was where she’d lived all her life, and she couldn’t envision that changing.
    Things could get a little difficult when her stomach started bulging, though. The only problem with living in a town where everyone knew you was, well, everyone knew you.
    She climbed out of her Jeep and threw on her lab coat before heading inside.
    -15-

    Maya Banks
    “Mornin’, Toni,” Marnie called as she opened the door.
    “Mornin,” she returned.
    “Doc’s waiting on you in back. We just got in a dog with a broken hip, and he’s prepping it for surgery.”
    Toni nodded and walked through the door past the exam rooms and on to the surgery area. She scrubbed then entered the surgery where Doc Johnson was waiting.
    “Mornin, Toni. Just in time. Come on over so I can get started.” An hour later, Toni washed up and walked back out to the reception desk. Thankful Marnie was on the other phone, she hastily looked up the number for the local obstetrician’s office and dialed. After making an appointment to have blood drawn, she hung up and returned to work.
    At one, she took her keys and headed out the door. A few minutes later, she had the glorious honor of peeing in a cup that wasn’t large enough to spit in. Then the nurse took a blood sample. Toni was asked to wait a moment in the waiting room, so she went out and poured over a magazine.
    She watched women in various stages of pregnancy walk in and out of the office, and she wondered what it would feel like to have a burgeoning stomach. To feel the baby kick within her. Have a bulge for her hand to rest on.
    The nurse stuck her head into the lobby and called Toni back. Toni shot from her chair and followed the nurse back to a small desk.
    “Your urine results were positive, Miss Langston. I’ll phone your blood results to you tomorrow afternoon, but congratulations. It certainly appears you’re pregnant. We’ll check your HCG levels and make sure they’re where they should be. Then we’ll get you an appointment for your first check up in four weeks.”
    -16-

    Seducing Simon
    Toni murmured her thanks and left the office. Numbly she sat behind the wheel of her Jeep. Thankfully she didn’t have to return to work today since Doc was taking the afternoon off. She wanted to go home and hide in her room, but instead, she instinctively drove toward the fire station.
    God, what a mess she was in. Pregnant. Single. No way to tell the father without admitting what she had done. What a fool she’d been.
    She clenched her hands around the steering wheel as she neared the station. She pulled into the small parking area and stopped next to Simon’s extra cab Ford truck. To her surprise and a little dismay, he was getting out of his truck with lunch in hand.
    He immediately walked over, setting the sacks on the hood of her jeep. “How did it go?”
    The concern in his voice was nearly her undoing. “It went okay. I, uh, well, I’m definitely pregnant.” Of all the ways she’d imagined telling the father of her baby she was pregnant, this wasn’t one of them.
    He pulled her into his arms and she rested her head on his chest, breathing deeply of