What Happens at the Ranch... Read online

  “So there’s a chance... Urine tests aren’t the most accurate. Blood tests are. Urine tests are known to be wrong sometimes...” Elaina could hardly believe she was the one babbling. She had never been prone to do anything that didn’t have her exhibiting at least a modicum of control.

  “Your cervix is soft and has changed color. Your uterus is already enlarging. You’re pregnant, Elaina.”

  She couldn’t be.

  That wasn’t the plan.

  And it wasn’t fair.

  Not to the baby.

  Not to the baby’s father...

  Oh, God.

  Oh, God. Oh, God.

  “Are you in a relationship with the father?”

  A quaint way of handling the hugely awkward situation, she supposed. Peter, as a resident, had worked with Cheryl. Not that anyone would blame her for getting on with her life. Peter had been gone a long time.

  “I’m not in a relationship with anyone,” Elaina quickly blurted.

  What?

  Oh, God. It wasn’t happening.

  Wasn’t supposed to happen that way.

  The whole plan...the self-realizations...the move from being reliant to self-reliant...from using a man for her own emotional security—even at the risk of that man’s happiness—to standing on her own and giving back to those who’d given to her.

  To Wood.

  Cassie’s husband.

  Elaina’s own ex-husband.

  Dr. Miller was studying her with a look of concern. Not that Elaina blamed her. She’d be doing the same if she were on the doctor’s stool rather than the chair she occupied. Hell, she was doing it even in the chair she occupied. Watching herself fall apart.

  “I had relations...a friends-with-benefits thing...but I broke that off...”

  “Does he know about your plans to be inseminated with Peter’s sperm?”

  She shook her head. “He doesn’t even know I want to have a baby. We weren’t...that kind of close...”

  Greg had made her laugh out loud. Something Elaina wasn’t prone to doing. He’d given her moments of freedom from everything she expected of herself. Freedom from grief.

  She’d used him. Just like she’d used Wood for emotional companionship after Peter’s death.

  Unintentionally. Unknowingly. Until he’d met Cassie and she’d slowly begun to see the truth about herself.

  But that didn’t change the facts.

  “He... I didn’t really talk about Peter...we weren’t...” That kind of close. “He knew about him,” she hastened to add to the tail end of her unfinished previous sentence. “Knew that Peter had just gotten his license to practice, and that he was killed by a drunk driver. He knew that I was in the car...and seriously hurt...but about his sperm being frozen...” She shook her head.

  They weren’t that kind of close.

  The words just kept repeating themselves in Elaina’s head, as though their truth could put a stop to the madness.

  To turn events back to the way they were supposed to go.

  She couldn’t be pregnant. Most certainly not with Greg Adams’s baby. He wasn’t even a permanent hire—would probably be leaving town as soon as he found a job at a bigger hospital.

  “Forgive me for asking, but is he married?”

  “No!” Horrified at the picture that made of her, of her friendship with Greg, she clamped down on her tongue.

  “Do you know his feelings on having a family?”

  As Elaina stared at the doctor, humiliated to admit that she did not know, it occurred to her that Cheryl was spending far more time with her than her job stipulated. It was up to the doctor to just deliver the news, then let Elaina find a counselor who could help her sort out the horrid mess she’d made of things.

  “I broke up with him after I’d made the final decision to proceed here,” she said, heat inflaming her face as she told another god-awful truth. She’d been sleeping with a man, intermittently, no strings attached, while meeting with a counselor and going through preliminary paperwork to have her husband’s child.

  It was all so...mixed up.

  “Peter’s been gone for so many years...”

  Cheryl shook her head. “It’s not wrong for you to have a man, or even men, in your life, Elaina. You have your whole life ahead of you.”

  A life she’d promised herself wouldn’t include a man propping her up anymore.

  “I didn’t intend to live celibately,” she said then, honesty pouring out of her as though she could somehow redeem herself. As though she needed redeeming.

  “I just... I mean I was intending to be celibate for a while—until the baby was old enough that I’d feel comfortable going out on a date now and then. Maybe longer.” She’d figured that she could cross that bridge when she came to it.

  Everyone at the clinic had seemed to take a personal interest in her quest to have Peter’s baby. Most of them had known him. Known how much she’d loved him. Known how much he’d loved her, too. Almost as much as he’d loved medicine.

  She’d let them all down.

  Let his memory down.

  Shaking her head, she stopped her thoughts before they took such a melodramatic turn that she made more of a fool of herself. She hadn’t been having Peter’s baby for him—she didn’t owe it to him. Or if she did, it was only in small part.

  If she hadn’t raised her voice to his raised voice...maybe he’d have seen the car driving in the wrong lane sooner...could have reacted in a timelier fashion...

  Still, a baby didn’t change any of that.

  No, it just changed her life. Gave her a family to love. To raise. To watch grow into a contributing member of society. To be happy and find joy with...as a single parent.

  Peter’s baby wouldn’t have come with the added complication of a living father.

  And yet, he or she would have had Wood as a father figure...a very willing biological uncle who came with an equally willing aunt. Cassie and Wood had been thrilled when she’d told them she wanted to have a family. Had offered to help her in any way they could.

  Said they’d babysit, that the cousins—their new baby and Elaina’s soon-to-be—would be pals for life. Go through school together. Celebrate holidays together.

  Even before they’d found out that she intended to do it alone. With Peter’s sperm.

  She glanced at the doctor. “You’re sure?”

  Dr. Miller nodded.

  And Elaina watched her whole future change course once again.

  Copyright © 2020 by TTQ Books LLC

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  ISBN-13: 9781488075223

  What Happens at the Ranch...

  Copyright © 2020 by Christy Jeffries

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This edit
ion published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

  For questions and comments about the quality of this book, please contact us at [email protected].

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