She's Having a Baby by Marie Ferrarella Page B

but himself for opening up the floodgates.
    Quade tossed a “Yes” in his wake as he hurried off to make use of her bathroom.
    She tried not to notice just how low slung the waist-band of his cutoffs actually was and that it threatened to slip down even farther with each movement.
    She was so busy trying not to notice, it took her a few minutes to realize that her first stop this morning hadn’t been to commune with the porcelain bowl and that her stomach was not lodged in her throat first thing, the way it had been for the last couple of weeks.
    The lack of nausea hadn’t registered itself with her brain until after she’d taken out the box of tea bags for herself.
    She stopped, stunned. Waiting for a delayed wave. It didn’t come.
    â€œSon of a gun, it really does work,” she muttered, pleased. The ginger actually worked. Aggie had been right, bless her.
    MacKenzie smiled as she took in a deep breath and held it for a moment before releasing it again. It was nice to be able to greet the morning feeling like a human being again instead of something even the cat wouldn’t drag in.
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    â€œThanks again.”
    The deep baritone voice seeped into her consciousness a beat after the words were uttered. MacKenzie turned around from the stove where she was preparing breakfast, a real breakfast for a change. French toast with a dusting of confectioners’ sugar.
    Quade was standing a few feet away from her, poised to leave. Droplets of water were still evident in his hairand a few were on his chest, bearing silent testimony to the shower he’d just taken. She noted with just the smallest pang that the sexy stubble was gone, but he still wore the cutoffs. The damp towel was slung over his bare shoulder and he had something bunched up in his hand.
    Underwear?
    Did that mean he was going commando beneath those threadbare shorts of his? Her breath abruptly halted its journey through her lungs.
    MacKenzie struggled to keep her mind from going there, but it was too late. She was experiencing a definite reaction around her stomach akin to a cross between an earthquake and a tidal wave.
    Delayed morning sickness?
    No, this felt more like something was flip-flopping at the pit of her stomach. Probably terrifying the baby, she thought.
    It took her a second, maybe two, but she finally found her tongue. MacKenzie did her best to force an easy smile to her lips. “Look, why don’t you stay for breakfast?” She saw the protest rising to his lips and beat him to it using logic. She figured he might like that. “Anything you use to cook your own, you won’t be able to wash and there’s no water to use for your coffee.”
    Quade quietly and neatly shot her reasons down one by one, telling himself it had been a mistake to come here. He had done it with great reluctance, but he couldn’t very well show up his first day on the job looking like a hermit who had come out of hiding, even if that was the way he felt inside. And if he was going touse her water to shave, he might as well use it to shower, as well, and try to feel a little more human about the experience that lay ahead of him.
    But he drew the line at anything more. “I don’t really eat breakfast and from what I can see, there’s a Star-bucks or something similar located practically every twenty feet in this city.”
    MacKenzie looked at him, unfazed. She was not one to give up easily. Living with three brothers had taught her that.
    â€œDifference is, I won’t charge you three dollars and change for a cup,” she told him, already filling the one she’d taken out for him. She pushed the cup and saucer along the counter, moving it right in front of him. “You take it black, don’t you?”
    Well, since it was there, staring him in the face, he might as well drink it. He didn’t believe in wasting things. “How did you know?”
    She smiled, putting a tea bag into the