The Second Time Around. Marie Ferrarella

is that women with twenty-three-year-old sons don’t get pregnant.”

      And what the hell was that supposed to mean? she thought, struggling to keep from losing her temper. She began to pace back and forth around the sofa. She’d been through this often enough to know that it was the hormones talking. They were playing Ping-Pong with her emotions. Having her husband say asinine things didn’t help, of course.

      “Is that some kind of a law?” she asked. “Because if it is, I was out of town the day Congress passed it.”

      “Laurel, stop pacing.” Then, when she didn’t, he caught hold of her shoulders and held her in place. Or tried to.

      She pushed away his hands. “Why? So you can get a clear shot at me?” Okay, that was over the top, she told herself. “Sorry, I can’t help it. I’m exhausted and yet, there’s all this pent-up energy inside of me. Just like with Luke,” she repeated, her tone daring him to deny her statement.

      “Pregnant,” he repeated again. The word kept attacking him from all angles, seeking entrance into his brain. He just couldn’t handle it and he sank onto the sofa.

      Because she had nowhere else to go, Laurel lowered herself down beside him. Deep within her soul, she wanted her husband, her partner, her best friend of so many years, to tell her everything was going to be all right. That he wasn’t upset or angry about this bizarre twist their lives had taken. And that he was going to stand by her, no matter what. Stand by her and rub cocoa butter onto her swiftly expanding abdomen to prevent stretch marks, the way he had all the other times.

      All the other times, she reminded herself silently, they had been much younger. Jason had been much younger.

      Oh God, this was going to be a nightmare. And when she woke up, she was going to be alone. In her mind’s eye, she could see Jason running for the hills. Who wants to be married to a forty-five-year-old pregnant woman?

      She blew out a breath. “So.”

      The word hung in the air between them, waiting for more. Begging for more.

      “So,” he finally echoed, then turned to look at her. As she watched, his expression changed from that of a man who had just dived into a foxhole, shell-shocked, to that of a man who had suddenly seen the course of action opening up before him. “You can’t have it,” he told her, his voice firm.

      She blinked, stunned.

      Jason was the type who refused to kill crickets in the house. He captured them and set them free on the patio. He couldn’t be saying what she thought he was saying. “Excuse me?”

      “You can’t have it,” he repeated, his voice carrying just a shade less conviction than it had a moment ago.

      “What do you mean, I ‘can’t have it’?” she demanded. “This isn’t some rich piece of cake that’s going to send my diet into a tailspin—this is a baby. I already have it. I’m pregnant. With child,” she added, using the terminology Dr. Kilpatrick had used when breaking the news to her. She fought back the wave of horror that was mounting within her. “Jason, you’re talking about a human being here.”

      There were a score of theories as to when a fetus became a living being. He couldn’t summon one to back him up. “There’s a debate over that at this stage.”

      She stood up indignantly. “Not to me. You can’t just sweep it away like that.”

      Didn’t she understand what was at stake? He rose, trying to put his hands on her shoulders. Trying to form a unit. “Yes, I can.”

      There was anger in her eyes, anger mixed with disappointment and deep, deep hurt. “Look, I’m sorry this messes up the plans you’ve been dreaming about these last few years. They were my plans, too, but—”

      “Is that what you think? That I’m upset because we can’t take a—a stupid road trip?”

      “Well, aren’t you?”

      “Hell, no.” And then because his denial wasn’t strictly true, Jason backtracked a little, correcting himself. “I’m disappointed, sure, but the whole road trip idea is becoming sort of an unattainable goal, like Shangri-la.”

      “Is it the summer home?” she asked. “Because we could still build one, just not as big and maybe not quite in the location you wanted—”

      He cut her short. “It’s not the summer home.”

      She’d run out of things to guess. “All right then, what are you upset about?”

      “You.”

      “Me?” He had completely lost her. “What about me?”

      His gift of gab, the very thing that helped him pitch the ads he so cleverly constructed, left him when it came to speaking from his heart. He wasn’t a man who bared his emotions. He turned away for a moment, shoving his hands deep into his pocket, searching for a way to anchor himself. Searching for words.

      When he spoke, he addressed the words to the wall. “Look, I don’t want to have to do without you.”

      Was that it? He was afraid of losing his maid? Over the years, she’d spoiled him and she knew it. She’d taken a relatively self-sufficient man and gotten him used to having everything done for him.

      Her own fault, she thought.

      “I’ll still do everything I’ve always done,” she assured him, trying hard not to let her annoyance show. “Your shirts will still be ironed, your meals will still be made, most likely on time, your—”

      “The hell with my shirts. The hell with the meals,” he retorted.

      For a second, because he had her really confused, Laurel stopped talking. Confusion had her resorting to quips.

      “Okay, you’ll be wrinkled and hungry. I wish you’d told me that years ago. You would have saved me so much time every week—”

      “I don’t want to have to do without you,” Jason repeated, saying the words with more feeling. And then, because his wife eyed him as if he had suddenly started speaking in several foreign languages, all at once, he was forced to elaborate. He hated being made to say every word. She was supposed to be able to read between the lines. “If something happened to you, I wouldn’t be able to go on.”

      For one of the very few times in her life, Laurel found herself truly speechless.

      CHAPTER 5

      The silence in the living room continued, stretching out like a long, silken thread until Jason couldn’t take it anymore.

      “Say something,” he urged.

      Laurel felt tears stinging her eyes, threatening to spill out. She knew they were there partially because of the king-size hormonal blender into which her emotions had been tossed. But the tears had also sprung up because words of affection from Jason, any sort of affection, were as rare as a blizzard in July in Southern California. It had been years since he’d said anything romantic. He rarely expressed his feelings for her, he just expected her to know.

      The breath she let out was ragged. “I think that’s one of the nicest things you’ve ever said to me.”

      Jason looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. “I’m talking about you dying.”

      “No,” she contradicted, “you’re talking about love.” She wasn’t going to let him bluster his way out of this. He’d said something nice and she was holding him to it. Laurel touched his face, every single available space within her welling up with affection. “I’m not going to die in childbirth, Jase.”

      He took her hand, but rather than pushing it aside, he pressed it to his cheek. Just for a moment. And then he moved it aside. “How do you know?”

      “All right.” She inclined her head as if to give him his due. “I can’t give you a written guarantee. But I also can’t