Her mother raised her index finger. “But only for something very important. Howard and I are committed to pursuing complete spiritual awakening, and my energist felt I needed to continue developing my psychic energy reading abilities.”
The hint of a grin pulled at the corners of her stepfather’s mouth. How he fell madly in love with her crazy train of a mother was something she’d never fully understand.
Still, the man she’d remembered from her childhood, who always seemed to be working, looked at ease. Lorraine Vanderdinkle truly was the yin to his yang.
Her mother’s forehead produced a slight spasm—the Botox equivalent of her surprised face. “I almost forgot, pumpkin! You and Jordan will need to take over a few of our charity duties while we’re gone. A gala here, a benefit there, maybe a planning meeting or two. I’ll have my assistant Nicolette get you the details.”
Benefits, galas, and planning meetings? Georgie swallowed hard. They had a lot on their plate already, but how could she say no?
“I thought you fired Nicolette because she was a Sagittarius?” she queried.
“I have a new Nicolette! She’s a Libra!” her mother answered, as if hiring someone based on their horoscope made complete sense.
Jordan leaned in. “Howard, Lorraine, we should probably tell you that—”
Without missing a beat, Georgie angled the phone away from her husband and filled the frame with her face. She was not about to allow him to disclose the possibility of a bun in the oven—not when they weren’t one hundred percent sure.
And with the way she knew her mother would fuss over a pregnancy, it was in everyone’s best interest to keep this under wraps as long as possible.
“Jordan was going to say that India sounds magical!” she announced, cutting him off in game show hostess mode. “We wish you all the best. Don’t worry! We’ve got everything under control.”
“All right, then! Kiss, kiss! Namaste!” her mother trilled as Howard waved goodbye, and the screen went blank.
Jordan raised an eyebrow. “You don’t want to tell them?”
She sat back against the hard, plastic seat, now wishing the whole damn toilet was padded. “Tell them what?”
Jordan cocked his head to the side. He was no fool. She knew what he was thinking but feigned naive.
“We don’t know anything yet.”
His expression softened. “Georgie.”
She still couldn’t understand how he was so calm.
If she were pregnant, what then? Yes, a baby! She’d picked that up in sex ed. But what did it mean for their lives and their marriage? They hadn’t even known each other for six months. Their love story had unfolded in record time. She hadn’t even begun to wrap her mind around becoming a mother.
And what kind of mother would she be?
She steadied herself. “Let’s take this one step at a time, okay?”
“We’ve already taken twelve pee-covered steps,” he countered with a sweet smile.
She sat up straight as if she were the Princess of Potties. “For all we know, those tests could be defective—”
“Georgiana!” Jordan shot back.
She raised her hand. “Let me finish. And Howard pretty much said if we needed to get a message to them, we could go through his office. Let’s not put the cart before the horse. Like I told my mother, we’ve got everything under control.”
Jordan gave her his best I-call-bullshit face, but it didn’t work on her.
“We do!” she said, but the roller-coaster anxiety pangs in her chest begged to differ.
He glanced at his watch. “We need to leave for the doctor’s appointment soon. Can you be ready to go in twenty minutes?”
Twenty minutes to get ready. A fifteen-minute drive to the office. In under an hour, they might be taking their seats on the Babyland express.
Her heart jumped into her throat, but she swallowed back the emotion. “Absolutely, I’m totally in control.”
2
Jordan
“This is it,” Georgie said, pointing to a pair of frosted glass doors.
Jordan glanced down the beige hallway, taking in the nondescript interior of the medical building. It seemed as good as any other—not that he frequented ob-gyn offices. In fact, this constituted his first visit.
But he wasn’t in the dark when it came to human reproduction.
Thanks to majoring in kinesiology, he understood not only the mechanics of human movement but had in-depth training in anatomy and nutrition. As a CrossFit trainer, he’d maintained his professional knowledge on the subject with numerous continuing education classes. Not to mention, all the research he’d done himself, staying up-to-date with the latest exercise science findings and crafting fitness routines for people of all ability levels.
He knew bodies.
Men’s bodies.
Women’s bodies.
And even pregnant women’s bodies. His coursework demanded it. Movement was a critical element in pregnancy health. Moderate exercise reduced the risk of delivering a low birth weight baby. It improved the mother’s mood, increased her energy, aided in sleep, and could reduce aches and pains. The list went on and on, and as a fitness professional, he was obligated to remain informed.
After consulting with pregnant clients and collecting the necessary medical information, he could whip up a prenatal workout plan in no time flat.
But today wasn’t a casual appointment to set up a fitness regimen for just anyone.
He was ninety-nine-point-nine percent sure this appointment would confirm what had hit him like a Mack truck in Fiji.
His pineapple-loving sex machine of a wife was most likely with child.
When did it happen? Hell if he knew!
They had less than a three-week window between the date he proposed in late September and their wedding on the third Saturday in October. Their wham, bam, thank you, ma’am light-speed of an engagement ebbed and flowed with emotional highs and lows that had put their relationship to the test.
But that didn’t mean they’d scrimped on the hanky-panky.
The moment he’d put together all the signs and realized the love of his life could be carrying actual life, he’d gone into health researcher mode, counting up all the times they’d been intimate since his wife’s last period in September.
Yeah, her period! He wasn’t one of those boyfriends, now, a husband, who got embarrassed by all that. In his opinion, it was a badge of honor. He had no qualms standing in line at the market with a box of jumbo organic cotton tampons in one hand and a couple of tubes of vegan chocolate chip cookie dough in the other.
During that short window of time, their sexcapades sessions had been just as crazy as everything else.
They’d done it in the car, in a tent, and in the wilderness, accidentally, in front of an alpaca—something he’d never recommend. If they ever decided to knock boots in the great outdoors again, he’d be doing a broad alpaca perimeter sweep first. That’s for damn sure!
And it wasn’t like they weren’t careful.
Georgie was on the pill. But throughout that handful of weeks, and especially during their stint at a godforsaken wilderness boot camp, he’d had no idea if she’d taken it. And it wasn’t like he was in the right headspace to remind her. To say things had gone sideways during that time, was the understatement of the century.