It Started With A Pregnancy. Christy Jeffries

unequipped to handle the situation before him. Grant was the problem solver in his family, the one who dropped everything to help those who needed him. However, the determined line of Rebekah’s clenched jaw suggested that she didn’t want his assistance in solving this problem.

      Not that her being pregnant was a problem, he corrected himself as he rolled his shoulders backward to loosen the tense muscles.

      He carefully thought about his next words. “Actually, if the decision were up to me, I’d have a house full of kids.”

      Her perfectly arched brows shot nearly to her hairline, and before she could open her mouth, he already knew what she was thinking.

      “Not that I would have purposely gotten you pregnant!” The words tumbled out of his mouth defensively and his right hand lifted as though he were swearing a solemn oath.

      “Shhh!” Her eyes darted right past him and toward the reception desk. From outside the office, he could hear a door opening and what sounded like a couple of volunteers discussing last night’s episode of Top Chef.

      He lowered his voice. “I’m just stating for the record that none of this was my intent. In fact, I even used that hot-pink condom that left glitter all over my...”

      She immediately clapped her hand to his mouth.

      He mumbled more words behind her palm, but she didn’t remove it. So he did what any man would do when presented with a beautiful woman’s skin so close to his lips. He kissed the sensitive spot right between her thumb and forefinger.

      Rebekah yanked her palm back and her eyes narrowed into a warning glance. Her voice came out in a fierce whisper. “Well, at least I had...protection.”

      Her implication hung in the air between them.

      “Listen, I’m sorry for not being better prepared.” It was an odd feeling, being on the defensive like this, and for a moment it was difficult for him to get the words out. “As much as you might want to think otherwise, I usually don’t go home with—”

      “Grant,” Aunt Bunny interrupted as she swept into the office. Rebekah jumped away from him so quickly, he heard a thunk against her desk. The sweet older woman glanced down at his preferred beach attire. “I wasn’t expecting you this early. Were the waves too small to hold your interest this morning?”

      “You know me too well, Aunt Bunny.” Grant lifted his arms and shrugged his shoulders. “When I saw that the surf was under two feet, I caught an earlier flight into Raleigh–Durham and figured I’d rent a car and swing by to go over the marketing plans for the upcoming adoption events.”

      Bunny’s attention turned to Rebekah, who was holding herself so rigidly she could’ve been one of his surfboards. Except with many more curves. Did it make him a bad person to want to pull the sexy and stiff woman close to him and run his hands along her waist and over her full hips until she relaxed and melted in his arms?

      His normally absentminded aunt might tend to pay more attention to animals of the four-legged variety than she did to humans, but her eyes were uncharacteristically sharp as her glance bounced back and forth between Grant and Rebekah. Finally, Bunny asked, “Where are they?”

      “Where are what?” Grant sidestepped around the upholstered chair, pivoting his body in the hopes of blocking Bunny’s view of the empty pharmacy bag threatening to fall off Rebekah’s desk again. He had to command his own eyes not to scan the room for the prenatal vitamins.

      “Your marketing plans?” His aunt lifted a thin gray brow.

      “Oh. On my laptop,” Grant replied, hoping she wouldn’t ask why he’d left his computer in the rental car. He didn’t want to admit that he’d been in such a hurry to follow Rebekah inside the building this morning, he hadn’t given his initial excuse for flying into town a second thought.

      “All that will have to wait.” Bunny waved a work-roughened hand at him. “Since I have both of you together, come outside and see our new sign. The old one was destroyed with all that tornado damage, and we wanted to install an extra one at the edge of the parking lot so people can now see it from the road.”

      “Oh, they’re early.” Rebekah jumped at the excuse to get out of the office and away from the conversation they’d been having. Literally. Her knee-length skirt fluttered open at the slit as she made a little hop to skip past him.

      As he followed her and Bunny past the reception desk and through the lobby, Grant had to restrain himself from hurrying to catch up with them. Now that Rebekah was no longer watching him so intently, waiting to see if he’d give the wrong reaction, he could take a moment to let her words sink in.

      She was possibly pregnant. With his child.

      What he’d told her about wanting a house full of children was true. However, he hadn’t expected to become a father quite so soon. Rebekah’s earlier revelation had landed like a sucker punch to the gut. The blow had been swift and unexpected and heavy, dropping him into the chair as he attempted to wrap his mind around what had just happened. Then, just as quickly, Rebekah had pulled back emotionally, that initial hit leaving a hollow, empty feeling in his stomach.

      He was used to being needed and usually relished his role as the guy who came in and solved things. It was what made him so good at his job. It was why his mom and his sisters often relied on him to keep his family’s surf shop on top of the latest trends. It was why he was currently in Spring Forest to oversee his elderly aunts’ troubled financial situation.

      But Rebekah didn’t seem to want anything from him. At least, not yet. Maybe she would change her mind after the appointment next week.

      Either way, the woman would need to get used to Grant being around. If she was, in fact, having his child, she would soon learn that he always put his family first.

       Chapter Three

      Rebekah had never been so relieved to see someone as when Bunny Whitaker had walked into her office five minutes ago. Sure, she’d had to paste a calm smile on her face while awkwardly reaching behind her blindly in order to shove the bottle of prenatal vitamins into the tote bag sitting on top of her desk.

      Still, the older woman’s fortunate arrival got Rebekah away from facing more of Grant’s potential follow-up questions. Questions Rebekah didn’t have all the answers for yet.

      Speaking of the man, his flip-flops smacked against the flat gravel as he caught up with them in the parking lot. Rebekah’s jaw clenched as he approached behind her. She had to swallow several times and take deep breaths in through her nose—not so much from annoyance at the man for always appearing at the worst times, but from the fact that her stomach was still doing somersaults and she was afraid that the morning-sickness fairy was currently paying her a visit.

      “Hey, Aunt Bunny, what happened to the logo that my graphic designer sent you?” Grant asked from behind Rebekah’s shoulder. Rebekah’s eyes shot to the five-foot piece of painted aluminum tilted between two men wearing Signs 4 Less T-shirts.

      Oh, no. Rebekah ignored the tiny rocks flicking between her toes and the soles of her wedge sandals as she strode across the parking lot to make sure she wasn’t reading the sign wrong. She could hear her boss’s voice as Bunny and Grant caught up to her.

      “Well, the owner of Signs 4 Less felt real bad about not taking our advice to get his dog spayed, so when we found foster homes for all of her puppies, he offered to give us a great price if we just used standard lettering with no artwork.”

      “But I’d already negotiated a deal with the sign company out of Raleigh,” Rebekah said. “I left the contract on your desk last week so you could approve it and sign it.”

      “I know, honey, but poor Marv had really bonded with those sweet pups and he was just an absolute wreck when he had to say goodbye to them. He started crying right there in the foster intake area and