“Here.” Megan held out a glass of red wine to Toni. “For when you’re done hydrating.”
Toni hesitated a moment before she took the wine and sat next to Megan. “Thanks.”
Katherine leaned her elbows on the table. “Out with it. I’m not an empath, but the worry is rolling off you like waves. Even I can feel it.”
“Cheers.” Megan clinked her glass with Katherine’s. “Here’s to Wine Wednesday and girlfriends. Together we can solve the mysteries of the universe.”
Toni nodded and took a long drink of water. “Okay, cool. What do you want to start with? The detached finger I found while trying to fix my cousin’s tractor this morning? Or the fact that I’m pretty sure I’m kind of pregnant?”
Chapter 3
Katherine promptly spat a mouthful of wine across the table. Megan, with her lightning-fast reflexes, diverted the wine with a swipe of her telekinesis before it could hit the cheese. It splashed next to Katherine’s chair as she sat coughing into a napkin.
“Well, at least I saved the cheese.” Megan gave her a sideways glare. “You have fun giving us a heart attack like that?”
“What was it? The severed finger or the pregnancy?”
“The pregnancy of course.” Megan rolled her eyes. “Who hasn’t seen a severed finger or two? You getting knocked up, on the other hand—”
“Please don’t say knocked up,” Toni said. “I’m not a teenager.”
“Could have fooled me, Miss I Don’t Know What Condoms Are.” Megan shook her head. “Are you sure?”
“Well, you’re the one with three kids. How positive is a week of bathroom pee tests that all say ‘pregnant’?”
“Yeah, you’re knocked up.”
“Will you not?” Toni reached for another slice of pear. Her stomach was in full revolt. She hadn’t eaten anything since lunch, and she was getting more nauseated as the day went by, not less. “I thought it was called morning sickness, not evening sickness.”
“Have some bread.” Megan handed her the basket. “It doesn’t follow the clock a lot of the time.” She sighed a little. “What were you thinking, Toni?”
“I was thinking I haven’t had sex in like… five years and hot man and ooooh, orgasms! I wasn’t thinking about birth control anymore.” She bit into a slice of bread. “I’m not twenty-five.”
“Did you think your uterus just stopped working?” Megan snatched the glass of red wine from Toni’s hand. “Did you come equipped with an ovary gauge that I don’t have? Women can get more fertile in their forties, Toni. It’s like a going-out-of-business sale down there.”
Toni closed her eyes. “I wasn’t thinking clearly. Obviously.”
Katherine was staring at Toni and not saying a word.
Megan took a long drink of wine. “I think you broke Katherine.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
“You know, I have these discussions with my teenagers,” Megan quipped. “I didn’t think I needed to have them with my girlfriends too. Are you keeping it?”
“I…” It hadn’t even occurred to her not to keep it. She’d been too absorbed with how she was going to manage her mother finding out. “I guess I am. I mean, I’m financially independent. I own my home. I have a big support system. I’m perfectly capable of raising a child.”
“But do you want kids?” Megan asked. “It’s not for everyone.”
“I don’t not want kids,” Toni said. “I always imagined having them, it just didn’t happen the way I thought it would. Men weren’t exactly beating down the door to marry Bobby Dusi’s daughter, who could beat them up and fix a car better than they could, you know? So I didn’t get married. So I didn’t have kids. It wasn’t a deliberate choice. Life just happened.”
“Well, life definitely just happened here. Speaking of men beating down your door, who’s the daddy?”
Katherine finally spoke. “Henry?”
Toni nodded.
“Who’s Henry?” Megan’s eyes went wide. “Why haven’t I heard about this man? Who is he? How long have you been in a relationship? Do you have pictures?”
“No, we’re not in a relationship. Exactly. And it’s not—”
“You have a picture,” Katherine said. “I saw it pop up on your phone once when he called.”
Toni pointed at her. “You are not to be trusted.”
“Oh bullshit.” Megan held her hand out. “We are going to support you whatever happens, and you know we’ve got your back walking through literal gunfire, Antonia Dusi, but we’re gonna give you shit about this first. Show me the man.”
Toni took a deep breath, opened her contacts, and tapped the picture next to Henry Durand’s name before she handed her phone to Megan.
She grabbed the phone, pulled it close, then held it at a distance and squinted before she gasped. “He is so cute! He looks like that…” She snapped her fingers. “Who’s the actor I’m thinking about?”
Katherine said, “I’m a seer, not a telepath.”
“You know, the young one who was in all those Disney musical shows.” Megan’s eyes went wide and her head whipped around to Toni. “He’s young! How young is he?”
“Thirtysomething,” Toni muttered. “I don’t know exactly. And he doesn’t look like Disney Musical Guy.”
“He kind of does though, you cougar.”
“See? This is why I was dreading telling you guys about him. I’m forty-one; I’m not a cougar.”
Katherine took the phone from Megan, looked at the picture, and smiled. “He’s not that much younger than you. I think he just has a young face. Have you told him?”
“No.” She couldn’t even imagine it. “He’ll probably want to marry me.”
“And you don’t want to get married?” Katherine asked.
“Do you know how many of my cousins got married because they got pregnant? Only one of them is still happy. I don’t object to marriage completely, but I don’t want to do it just because I got pregnant.”
“Agreed.” Megan handed her the phone back. “It’s not 1950. You’re an independent woman with a good support system. Have the baby. Work out the coparenting. Let the relationship be a separate thing.”
“Thank you.”
“Are you sure he’d want to get married?” Megan asked. “A lot of men don’t.”
“Henry is very…” She sighed. How could she explain? “He’s very good.”
Megan snorted. “Tell us more.”
“Not like… Okay, he’s good at that too, but I’m talking about his character. He’s traditional, but not in like the narrow-minded way, just like in the… good way.” She wasn’t doing this well. “He grew up on a winery; went to college in Washington State for viticulture. My cousin hired him about a year ago to be his winemaker. He’s incredibly gifted, and I know he’s traveled a lot for his education, but he still seems kind of… sheltered. Added to that, he doesn’t smoke, doesn’t drink except for work, and he volunteers at the homeless shelter. He… picks up trash on the side of the road. He already adopted a rescue dog, for heaven’s sake.”