The Baby Agenda by Janice Kay Johnson Page B

months, she might even be showing.
    He shook his head in…not disbelief, not shock, but something related. He was going to be a father.
    A sound escaped his throat. A father was the last thing in the world he’d wanted to become, at least for the next few years. He’d already raised a family. The idea of starting over appalled him. And yet…that was his baby she was carrying.
    He shoved his fingers into his hair. As things stood, his son or daughter would grow up without him, and it sounded as though that was what she’d prefer.
    He should be grateful. Glad she wasn’t demanding he be an every-other-weekend father, or that he send child-support checks. She was right; they didn’t know each other.
    Numbly, Will sat back in his chair. It would be worse if he hadn’t liked her, if it really had been a typical one-night stand. A chance-met stranger encountered in a bar, say.
    Wasn’t that what it was?
    He found himself scowling. No. No, he’d been drawn to her from the minute he set eyes on her. He’d ached the next morning to call her. The temptation to see her in the few days left to him had been acute. Now…hell. Now he wished he had. At least then they would know each other better.
    He felt another surge of anger. She wouldn’t welcome his involvement? Did that mean she hadn’t liked him nearly as much as he had her? That he really was nothing but an available sub for the jackass?
    Had it occurred to her that, if she’d had sex with him, using that same condom, she might still be pregnant? Would she prefer that, even given the way the creep had treated her?
    I have friends and family, she said. Will gritted his teeth. A mother. She had a mother. Had she forgotten that she’d told him it was just her and her mom? Okay, she probably did have friends, but friends had their own families. With the best will in the world, how much good was a friend going to be to her, caring for a baby by herself?
    He swore aloud, his voice hoarse. He didn’t know what to tell her. How to respond. Damn. He looked again and saw that her email was dated almost two weeks ago, in fact the day after he’d left Harare. She had probably already concluded that he wasn’t going to reply at all.
    Maybe she was relieved. That idea pissed him off yet again.
    One more day wouldn’t matter. He had to think about this.
    At last he made himself read the emails from his brothers and Sophie. None had any real news. Clay had met a woman shortly after Will left and sounded as if he might be serious about her. Jack had had a minor accident in a company pickup, and Clay was ragging him. Sophiewas renting a room in a house with other grad students in L.A., where she’d be attending UCLA, classes to start next week. She’d met with her faculty advisor, and told a few amusing stories about her roommates, two guys and two girls.
    Will responded to their emails with a general one telling them about this latest trip. He tried to draw word pictures, so they could see the general meeting held under a baobab tree, with him in a metal folding chair facing the sixteen men who’d sat comfortably on the dusty ground despite Western business attire that made him suspect they’d dressed up for his benefit. He described the tea plantations, with leaves as big as elephant ears, and the kraals of round mud huts with thatch roofs, women wearing Western garb cooking on open fires outside. He made fun of his more ludicrous language mistakes.
    He didn’t say, “Hey, the real news is that I’m going to be a father.” Although he’d have to tell them eventually, wouldn’t he? After years of lecturing them on safe sex.
    Yes, but he’d used the damn condom. He’d come close to forgetting it; closer than he’d ever come in his life. But he’d remembered in time, so he couldn’t blame himself now for carelessness. He hadn’t seen any obvious tear when he