Baby Love Lite by Andrea Smith Page B

that would piss me
off. My emotions are just too raw right now. I'd appreciate you
speaking to him and getting a referral for me.”
    “ Of course I will! I'll be
here for you just as you've always been there for me. Have you
talked to your mom about this?’
    “ No way. I asked Aunt Becky
to do it. If you thought I had an East coast temper, you should see
my mom’s! It’s better if she hears the news from Aunt
Becky.”
    Gina and I finally had lunch though she
didn’t eat much. She was totally destroyed by this and I'd have
been the same way had it been me.
    Trey was home promptly at 6:00 p.m. I'd just
started dinner. He found me in the kitchen and pulled me into his
strong arms, holding me tightly. I was totally out of sorts with
the day that I had.
    “ How are you, baby?” he
asked.
    “ Bad day all around,” I
said. “Were you able to find out anything more about
Jean?”
    “ Not really,” he replied.
“One witness said it was a late model SUV and appeared to have
out-of-state license plates. He said it was as if the driver
swerved to make sure that he hit Jean. It makes no
sense.”
    “ I’m still in shock,” I
said. “What if she doesn’t pull through?"
    “ Hey, don’t think like that,
honey! Jean's a strong woman. I called her daughter Cathy this
afternoon and the doctors are very optimistic that she'll
recover.”
    “ I hope so. I feel so
guilty. I’m not sure why.”
    Trey pulled back from me, tilting my chin
upward to kiss me softly on the lips. “Sweetie, you've no reason to
feel guilty about anything. It was a random act of some sort. It
has nothing to do with you or me, okay?”
    I nodded but I wasn't convinced that he was
right. Something about this had my stomach tied in knots of fear.
There was something personal about it, though I wasn’t sure how it
could possibly be linked to Trey or to me. “I've more bad news, I’m
afraid.”
    Trey looked over at me, taking a peeled
carrot from the cutting board to snack on as he waited for the
news.
    “ When Gina came for lunch
today she was devastated. She caught Ian in the act of cheating
with one of his young female employees. She's beside herself. She
asked if you'd represent her in divorce proceedings.”
    “ Hmmph,” he grunted, “I'd be
more inclined to represent Ian - pro bono.”
    “ What?” I snapped. “This
isn’t a joke, Trey. He's freaking destroyed her.”
    “ Oh, come on! You don’t
think in Gina’s own way she hasn't emasculated him over the years?
It was just a matter of time before Ian discovered he had some
balls.”
    “ What the hell are you
saying? Do you actually think that there's any excuse for cheating?”
    “ I didn't say that, Tylar.
Look, let’s not argue about Gina and Ian’s business,
okay?”
    I didn’t answer him, continuing to peel
vegetables for our salad.
    “ Where’s ‘Chubbers’?” he
asked, clearly wanting to change the subject. Trey had taken to
referring to her now as "Chubbers". I didn't care for the nickname.
My baby was at a healthy weight.
    “ Don’t call her that,” I
reminded him again. “She’s in her crib napping. I put her down
about an hour ago. Would you look in on her?”
    “ I’d be happy to do that,”
he said heading down the hall to check on Preston. I knew he would
end up waking her up. Several minutes later he reappeared cradling
her in his arms.
    “ Tylar,” he said in a
serious tone.
    I looked up at him from where I'd continued
chopping up carrots for our salads. Preston gave me a dimpled grin
from her vantage point against Trey’s chest.
    “ I changed her diaper just
now. What’s with the rash that she still has on her bottom? Why
aren’t you doing anything for it?”
    I didn’t know what it was. Perhaps it was the
stress over what I'd just learned about Jean; perhaps it was Trey’s
cavalier attitude about Ian’s cheating on Gina or maybe it was the
repetitive nightmares that I'd been having about losing Preston.
All I knew was that in that nanosecond