The Nurse's Newborn Gift. Wendy S. Marcus

to her that night. “Getting desperate? Every other guy at the party turned you down?” Like she was a common slut, like she’d only gone after him because no one else would have her. He had no idea how long it’d taken her to finally act on her feelings for him. If anyone had gotten hurt that night it’d been her.

      Krissy turned back around to face him. “Jarrod and I were friends. Best friends. That’s all.”

      “He wanted more.” Spencer stared her down. “Why do you think he kissed you?”

      An innocent peck on the lips, in the tenth grade, beneath the bleachers at a basketball game. “He said he liked me better than any other girl at school and he just wanted to see...” But there’d been nothing. No tingle. No spark. No desire to take the kiss deeper, for either of them...or so she’d thought...so he’d led her to believe. Why?

      “Did you have to laugh afterward?” Spencer asked, doing nothing to hide his contempt, as he walked back to the kitchen, folded Jarrod’s letter and stuffed it back in the envelope.

      The whole kiss thing had made her feel weird and out of sorts. So yeah, she’d laughed. A nervous kind of laugh, because she didn’t know what else to do, the two them standing there, alone... “He told you about that?”

      Spencer nodded. Then he shrugged. “You confided in him and he confided in me. After you went off with your friends, like nothing had happened, he sent me a text.” Spencer looked down at his feet. “I found him crying in the third floor bathroom.”

      “You told me he went home because he wasn’t feeling well.”

      “He wasn’t feeling well. He was heartbroken. He’d finally kissed the girl he’d secretly loved for years and she’d laughed in his face.”

      Krissy’s stomach churned.

      Spencer folded the envelope and slid it into his back pocket, casual as can be, while Krissy felt like the very foundation of her life was crumbling beneath her feet.

      “The next day, after he’d calmed down he decided he could be patient.” Spencer’s eyes met hers. “That you were worth the wait. That eventually he’d win you over, but you didn’t make it easy on him, did you?”

      Had she really hurt her best friend again and again? God help her. All the things she’d confided in him. Vomit started to creep up to the back of her throat. “I had no idea.” Absolutely no idea at all or she never would have—

      “Why do you think he went into the army?” Spencer looked at her with such anger, such...hatred. “To impress you.”

      No! “Don’t you dare belittle his decision,” she jabbed her index finger in Spencer’s direction, “his commitment and dedication or how hard he’d worked to get into shape. He enlisted because he wanted to serve his country.”

      “He enlisted to impress you.” Spencer shook his head. “There was no talking him out of it, believe me, I tried. After hearing you gush about that Martinez kid who’d joined the marines, Jarrod got it into his head that he’d join the military, too. So you’d gush about him. He’d planned to come home a war hero so you’d finally see him as a man.”

      What? “Are you saying...?” The ache in her chest worsened. The floor seemed to undulate beneath her feet. Krissy grabbed on to the wall for stability. “He joined the military because of me?” A sharp pain stabbed at the right side of her belly. “Ow.” She rubbed the area, tears forming in her eyes. It couldn’t be. “That he’s dead...” Her whole abdomen tightened uncomfortably. “He’s dead...” She couldn’t breathe. “...because of me?”

      Fluid gushed between her legs. “No.” She clamped them closed.

      “What’s wrong?” Spencer ran toward her. He looked down. Then he ran back to the kitchen, grabbed a chair and ran back. “Sit.”

      She wanted to yell, “I am not a dog,” because Spencer brought out the fight in her. But if she didn’t sit right then there was a good chance she’d collapse to the floor. “I can’t have this baby. Not yet.” She rubbed her belly, wasn’t ready. “It’s too soon.” The baby kicked. At least that was a good sign.

      Krissy could hear Spencer talking but she paid no attention to what he was saying, thoughts of Jarrod swirling in her head. He’d gone into the army because of her. He’d been killed because of her. I’m sorry. So sorry.

      Spencer knelt down beside her. “How far along are you?”

      “I’m due in five weeks.” He repeated what she’d told him into his cell phone. “Who are you talking to?”

      “An ambulance is on the way.”

       CHAPTER TWO

      UPON THEIR ARRIVAL at the hospital, the ambulance crew whisked them right up to the Labor and Delivery floor where Spencer stood by helplessly—something he was not used to and did not like one bit—while the doctor examined Krissy and the nurse hooked her up to a fetal monitor. Forty-five minutes later, they were alone, Spencer sitting in a guest chair, holding on to a black and white sonogram picture. Krissy in a hospital gown, lying on her side in the bed, facing away from him. The sound of her baby’s rapid heartbeat—correction: her and Jarrod’s baby’s rapid heartbeat—filled the tense silence between them.

      What had Jarrod been thinking, asking someone as irresponsible and self-centered as Krissy to have his baby, especially when he wouldn’t be here to, at the very least, keep an eye on her? And now he expected Spencer to do it? He shifted in the uncomfortable plastic chair. Friendship had limits. Even after death.

      Ten years.

      For the past ten years, since his father had collapsed on a subway platform and died of a massive heart attack when Spencer was only seventeen, he’d been the man of the family, helping his mother, looking out for his two younger sisters. Finally, just this year, with Reagan in graduate school out in California, Tara finishing her first year of college in Massachusetts, and Mom moved out of their old apartment and into a smaller, more affordable one close to her new boyfriend, he’d earned his freedom.

      He had his own place, outside of New York City where his mother still lived, could come and go as he pleased without having to check in with anyone. In the off season he could spend the winter skiing in Utah or on the beach in the Caribbean. Or he could do both! He was responsible for no one but himself...finally.

      And now this. Krissy was having a baby, and Jarrod expected Spencer to look after them both? He wanted to run from the room screaming, Noooooooooo.

      Seeing her for the first time since high school—her face fuller, but still beautiful, the blue eyes that used to haunt his teenage dreams, her breasts looking even more voluptuous beneath her baggy scrubs—had been like a punch to the gut. And the way she’d been looking him over, with lust in her eyes.

      Why couldn’t she have looked at him like that back in high school? Why couldn’t she have set Jarrod straight all those years ago? Told him, in no uncertain terms, that they’d never be more than friends? Then Jarrod could have gotten a real girlfriend and he wouldn’t have gone into the army and he wouldn’t be dead! Long buried anger, frustration, and blame had resurfaced. He’d wanted to hurt her, like she’d hurt Jarrod, so many times, like she’d hurt him. So Spencer had emptied the load he’d been carrying, telling her everything.

      It was as if nine years had not gone by, as if he hadn’t changed at all. As if he was still the antagonistic jerk he’d turned into all those years ago.

      But this evening’s little bit of bad behavior aside, he had changed. He was more tolerant and understanding, at least he tried to be...usually. Now, when he wanted something, he went after it, regardless of who else wanted it.

      Maybe she had changed, too, at least a little. While the girl she’d been wouldn’t have thought twice about making an empty promise to her best friend, old Krissy