She's Having a Baby Read Free Page A

“Then don’t lose it,” she advised. “Wear it. As a favor to me, Zee,” she added, her eyes locking with MacKenzie’s again.
    MacKenzie could feel herself wearing down. It wasn’t that she didn’t like the cameo. It was beautiful and she would have loved to wear it. But she also knew that there was no magic in it. Magic was for the very young and the very old to believe in. And the very superstitious. That wasn’t her. “Waste of time.”
    The argument was unacceptable. Dakota shrugged it off. “Time goes by anyway.”
    Outflanked, MacKenzie surrendered. “God, but you are chipper, even for you.”
    â€œI know.” Her smile fairly lit up the entire room, with light to spare. “I feel like I’m floating.”
    It had to be wonderful to feel that way, MacKenzie thought. “Try not to levitate until after the show, okay?”
    â€œDeal.” Dakota looked down at the cameo pointedly. “If you—”
    â€œWear the necklace—yes, I know. Way ahead of you on that one.” She sighed, capitulating. “Okay, I’ll wear it.”
    Dakota kept looking at her expectantly. Waiting. “Now.”
    MacKenzie glanced at her watch. It was almost time to go on. “Dakota—”
    Dakota rose from her seat, moving around to stand behind MacKenzie. She reached around her, her hand out for the cameo that was nestled in MacKenzie’s hand. “Now,” she repeated.
    With a sigh, MacKenzie relinquished the cameo she’d meant to stash in her tiny jewelry box, and placed the piece and its velvet ribbon in her friend’s hand. “It’s not going to do any good.”
    â€œHumor me.”
    MacKenzie suppressed another sigh. “Okay, you’re the star.”
    â€œNo,” Dakota corrected, securing the ribbon and then coming around to take a look at her handiwork. “I’m the friend.”
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    MacKenzie knew that Dakota meant well. That the woman who had come up the ranks right along with her only had her best interests at heart. But at this point in the game, her own interests were going to have to take a time-out and slip into the back seat.
    At least her romantic interests.
    She had a career to worry about, granted, but more important than that, she had a brand new life to worry about. The brand new life she’d just discovered yesterday morning existed within her.
    Apparently, Jeff was never going to be permanently out of her life.
    Or at least a part of him wasn’t going to be.
    She was pregnant. Probably not more than a few weeks because that was the last time she and Jeff had made love. Three and a half weeks. Just before Dakota’s autumn wedding.
    Damn it, how could this have happened? Science had advanced so far, you’d think there could be a hundred-percent guarantee for things like birth control pills. But there wasn’t because she had used birth-control and still she found herself unexpectedly carrying a new life within her. A baby who by all rights shouldn’t have been there.
    But it was, she thought, placing her hand over what was an absolutely flat stomach.
    It was there. Six stupid sticks, all pointing to the same thing, couldn’t be wrong no matter how much she wanted them to be.
    Six, that was how many kits she’d brought home,buying each one at a different drugstore so that if for some reason one batch had emerged from the manufacturer with some kind of malfunction, she could turn to another for the true results.
    She’d turned six times.
    Not a single one of them had given her a smattering of hope. Each one had pointed to the same results: She was pregnant.
    Dragging herself out of her shower this morning after allowing the hot water to wash over her for longer than usual, MacKenzie knew she was going to have to make an appointment with her gynecologist for a true confirmation. Not that she held any real hope that the six sticks had lied to