Excerpt

"It’s stress," Tabitha Talbot murmured to herself. "Just stress."

Clutching her purse to her chest, she leaned her head against the tile wall. A curl of near-black hair blocked her view of the tiny, one-stall room. She blew it out of the way with a sigh. The cleansing breath didn’t loosen the knot in her stomach. Nothing would. Not until the requisite five minute wait for the results of the test had passed and she knew for sure it really was stress.

She’d never missed a period, no matter how stressful her life. If living with her flaky mother for eighteen years hadn’t been stressful enough, then nothing else was.

"Please, just let it be stress."

She stared at her watch. Five thirty-nine. The morning radio show she cohosted with Sam Stevens wouldn’t go on the air for another twenty-one minutes. Knowing she had plenty of time didn’t lessen her anxiety.

Okay, so taking a pregnancy test at work probably wasn’t the smartest thing she’d ever done.

But dread had been gnawing at her since she’d stopped at the all-night drug store to buy the test on the way in. She had to know. Now. Not eight hours from now when she finally made it home. Now.

So she’d crept into the "executive" bathroom, locked the door, and peed on the stick. And in approximately three minutes and forty seconds, she’d know if she was pregnant.

The seconds seemed to stretch endlessly, as if a lifetime could be lived in between the pulsing of her watch’s second hand.

She let her eyes drift closed, simulating a calm she didn’t feel. She tried breathing deeply, but the cloying smell of the bathroom air freshener sickened her.

"You’ll be okay," she told herself. "Whatever happens, you’ll be okay. You’re a mature adult. You’re in a stable, long-term relationship with a great guy."

Hmmm. "Great guy" was a bit of an overstatement. Bob wasn’t great so much as … steady.

He didn’t make her pulse pound or her knees weak. That was okay. She could live without wild animal attraction. What worried her was that he didn’t make her laugh. Didn’t challenge her mind.

She wasn’t a child. She was long past expecting all that from one man. And steady was much higher on her list of desirable traits than funny or brilliant or even sexy.

"Steady is good," she reminded herself to quell the sinking feeling in her gut. "Steady is what you want."

She’d been raised by a single mother. Her mother’s boyfriends had meant well, but none of them had been around long enough to be father figures. Her biological father had been just as temporary.

Since long before she left for college at the age of eighteen, she’d had her life all planned out. College, career, financial stability, marriage, then—maybe—a child or two.

Yes, she was doing things a little out of order. And yes, she had doubts about Bob. But she wasn’t going to let that get in the way of her ten-year plan—which now apparently was going to happen in five years.

The thought made her pulse quicken. She glanced at her watch. Two minutes and fourteen seconds to go. Since talking to herself hadn’t helped, she concentrated on the piped-in music. Naturally, the station always played its own music. She heard the last few notes of one of her favorite songs, followed by the station jingle. Then she heard her own prerecorded voice.

"If you didn’t catch the show yesterday, here’s what you missed …"

"So, what you’re saying," Sam’s voice began, "is that you’re trying to trap your boyfriend into marrying you."

"Of course not," the listener snapped, "he wants to get married—"

Sam cut her off. "Honey, no man wants to get married. Women want to get married. Men just want to get laid."

A few seconds of canned laughter segued into a commercial for a new restaurant. Now, she blocked out that as well. The clip from this morning’s show hadn’t distracted her at all. It had only reminded her what she already knew.

The sexy, single guys—the guys like Sam—were commitment-phobes. Boys, pretending to be men. Luckily, Bob was nothing like Sam.

She glanced at her watch. Thirteen seconds to go. She exhaled, then stood. She draped the strap of her mammoth leather bag over the door handle, ignoring it as it dropped with a thud, and flexed her fingers to loosen the convulsed muscles. In two steps she crossed to the vanity. For a moment, she stared at herself in the mirror.

"Whatever happens, you’ll be okay." She met her reflection’s gaze and nodded before looking at the wand.

One window framed a single blue stripe. Proof the test had worked. In the other, two blue lines formed an X.

She was pregnant.

Anger flashed through her. This wasn’t fair. All her life, she’d been so careful, so responsible. And now this? Her future ruined by poor quality control at a latex factory!

She grabbed the wand, intending to hurl it across the tiny room. In her anger, she knocked her knuckles against the vanity. Pain seared through her hand.

"Ouch! Ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch!"

Still grasping the wand, she shook her hand to dispel the sting.

"Are you okay?"

The question came from behind her. Too close behind her.

Panicked, she whirled to find Sam filling the doorway.

"What are you doing in here?" she gasped.

"What’s in your hand?"

Horrified, she looked down at the incriminating wand then thrust her hand behind her back. With forced nonchalance she said, "Nothing."

His eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Was that a thermometer?"

"No. Leave!" She watched in disbelief as he stepped into the room, shutting the door behind him.

"If you’re running a fever, you should go home. We can cover for you." His annoying protective instincts were very much at odds with his flippant radio personality. Sometimes she just didn’t know which was the real Sam. Today she would have preferred the flippant Sam.

"I’m not sick. How did you get in?"

"The door was open. Now let me see the thermometer." He held out his hand.

With frantic hands she searched the vanity behind her for some place to hide the wand. Her sleek, pocketless dress proved useless in this situation. Her purse lay on the floor by Sam’s feet.

Only then did she realize the weight of the purse on the handle must have unlocked the door. Damn her carelessness.

While she was distracted, he reached around her and plucked the wand from her fingertips. For a second, awareness flashed through her. He towered over her, larger and taller than he’d ever been before.

She reached for the test, but was too late. Horror crossed his face as he realized what he held was not a thermometer. He dropped the wand and stepped away, flattening his back against the door as if the pregnancy test carried some deadly disease.

Under other circumstances, she might have laughed.

"I told you it wasn’t a thermometer."

"Is that a …" He seemed unable to choke out the words.

"Yes. It is." She ran her hands over her face to her temples. She massaged the tender skin, trying to ease the ache pounding through her head.

Sam let out a low whistle. Then he crouched and peered at the wand where it lay on the floor. He didn’t touch it.

"There’s a plus sign. Positive means good news, right?"

"No, positive means the test is positive. Not that the news is positive." Thirty-two and he didn’t know how to read a pregnancy test. Lucky guy.

Almost as if he’d read her thoughts he said, "I’ve never had to read one of these before."

"How nice for you."

"What are you going to do now?" He stood up, wiping his hands on his jeans.

"I guess I’m going to ask Bob to marry me."

"That rat! That dirty, rotten rat!" Jasmine pounded her delicate fist for emphasis.

Up and down the length of the conference table, heads turned in their direction as Tabitha shushed her friend.

Scooting her chair closer to Jasmine’s, she whispered, "Can we just not talk about it?"

"Your boyfriend walks out on you after two years and you don’t want to talk about it?"

Of course she didn’t want to talk about it. Co-workers surrounding them, the Monday morning meeting was starting in less than five minutes, and if Marty, their program director, heard about this, he’d find some way to exploit it. She hadn’t meant to tell anyone. But beneath Jasmine’s bohemian facade of variable hair color and Celtic tattoos lay the heart of a CIA interrogator.

"I don’t want to talk about it here," Tabitha tried again.

"You don’t want to talk about what?"

She looked up to see Sam standing right behind her. He wore what she teasingly referred to as his uniform: worn jeans, Dingo boots, and an untucked, unbuttoned plaid shirt over a particularly ratty T-shirt. As always, he exuded a scruffy, I-don’t-give-a-damn charm that made women melt.

Made other women melt, she mentally corrected.

She spent a lot time shoring up her defenses against men like Sam—the wild, untamable ones. She’d pack her heart in dry ice before she let herself melt over a man like Sam. Not that she was the meltable type. And if she was, she’d melt over a man’s accurate day planner and sound five-year plan, not his devil-may-care-grin and tousled hair.

Especially not when they belonged to the man who, at the moment, had the power to make her life miserable. Scratch that, more miserable.

He was the only person who knew she was pregnant. Besides Bob, who had scurried to safety when he’d heard the news. It seemed he was a commitment-phobe. Too bad she hadn’t recognized it—until now.

What a waste of her time and energy. Bob had seemed like such a safe choice. Two years of stupefying business dinners and coma-inducing dates only to find out steady and responsible weren’t the same things after all.

If she’d wanted to end up pregnant and alone she could have accomplished that dating someone considerably more fun than Bob. Someone wild and sexy. Someone like…Sam.

Not Sam, of course—she’d never date anyone at work—but someone like him. It was a moot point, because instead of knee-weakening and irresponsible, she’d unknowingly chosen boring and irresponsible. Either way, she figured too many irresponsible men knew about her pregnancy.

"Nothing," she insisted. She tried to kick Jasmine’s leg, but missed and stubbed her toe on the table pedestal.

"Bob dumped Tabitha," Jasmine announced just as Sam slid into the chair on Tabitha’s other side.

"He did what?" Sam’s roar silenced all other conversation and had heads turning in their direction.

Before he could blurt out anything else, she grabbed his hand and yanked him close enough to whisper, "Tell anyone about what happened Friday and you’re a dead man."

He raised his eyebrows in question but said nothing. Unfortunately, most of the eyes in the room were still focused on them. A moment later, Marty came in.

He paused just inside the door, obviously surprised by the dead silence. Marty always dressed impeccably. Today, his slate suit accented the gray at his temples in a way he had to have planned. He looked like the consummate businessman. Which he was. For him, the bottom line was God.

"What’s up?" Marty looked around the room. The five or so other people shrugged. Jasmine however, shifted in her chair and flipped through her notepad, pretending she hadn’t heard.

"Jasmine," Marty called out.

"Yes?" She looked up innocently.

"What’s up?"

She struggled for an answer, but ultimately she caved. "Tabitha’s boyfriend dumped her."

Tabitha sucked in her breath. Here it comes. Some scheme or ploy to turn her personal tragedy into a marketing bonanza.

To her surprise, instead of pouncing, Marty looked first at her, then at Sam, assessing them both. Finally he pinned her with a stare. "So," he barked, "you’re single again."

"So it would seem."

"Interesting." Marty lingered over the word.

No one in the room so much as murmured while they watched him with rapt attention.

Sam’s expression darkened and Tabitha found herself wondering if he would honor her "request" for silence. She didn’t put a whole lot of faith in his discretion.

He gave her a hard time about everything. He’d made jokes on the air the time she’d rushed out of the bathroom with her skirt hem caught in her panty hose. Teased her mercilessly the time she’d interviewed the mayor with her shirt unbuttoned. It was all part of their on-air relationship. He was the joker to her straight man. The Laurel to her Hardy. The yang to her yin.

Which was all well and good on the radio, but she wasn’t comfortable trusting Wild Man Sam with the personal knowledge that she was doomed to my-boyfriend’s-an-irresponsible-jerk singlemotherhood.

Glancing in his direction, she saw not the teasing gleam she’d expected but a frown. An all-out scowl really.

Before she could ponder his uncharacteristic expression, Marty reclaimed her attention.

"Tabby, my girl, the listeners love you."

She sat up a little straighter. "Thank you." I think.

"They sympathize with you. Men and women alike. You’re the darling of the morning air waves."

Uh-oh.

"And you’ve just been brutally dumped. The man you loved, the man you trusted, has crushed your fragile heart."

This …

"You’re wounded. You’re hurt."

…did not…

"Your ego lies in ruins."

…sound good.

"It’s perfect!"

"I don’t know that I would use the word ‘ruins’," she protested. Marty pegged her with a demanding look. "Sir."

She tacked on the "sir" in hopes of placating him. It didn’t work.

"Tomorrow morning you will."

"I will?" Did he really expect her to go on the air and talk about being dumped by her boyfriend?