Cowboy, Undone by Vicki Tharp

Author:Vicki Tharp
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-948798-52-5
Publisher: JPC Publishing

Jenna stared at the plus sign on the pregnancy test, inanely wondering if the positive test constituted anything changing, as her dad had put it.

“Don’t—” Mac heaved into the toilet, but by now, nothing much was coming up. The bathroom in the old foreman’s house was tiny enough that Jenna could sit on the wood floor against one wall and reach her leg out and flush the toilet with her toes, which she did. She tossed Mac a hand towel.

“Don’t tell your father.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me. You have to tell him.”

Mac settled back against the tub, hugging the cold porcelain to the side of her face. “I will, but not yet.”

“Why? I thought you two wanted a kid.”

“Well, yeah. But that was years ago.” She took a sip of water from a glass, rinsed her mouth, and spit it back out into the toilet. She slouched with her back against the tub. “Your dad’s forty-two now.”

“So.”

“So…” Mac shook her head when no words came.

“But if you were trying to get pregnant, he’ll be thrilled. I mean, who wouldn’t want another me?” Jenna gifted Mac with her cheesiest smile.

“Well, we weren’t trying anymore. I hadn’t gotten pregnant, so we figured it wasn’t going to happen for us. But we weren’t preventing it, either.”

Something about Mac’s concern about her dad’s age didn’t ring true—a dull, sour, tuneless tone. “It’s not my dad’s age, is it?”

Mac laughed, but it was rueful. “It seems like yesterday I was taking the seventeen-year-old you to the clinic for birth control.”

“After all that, I never did use them. You think they’re still good?” Jenna was mostly kidding.

“Quinn?” Mac asked.

Jenna thumped the back of her head against the wall a couple of times. Not enough to hurt, but enough to knock a little sense into her head. She wasn’t silly enough to think she and Quinn had any kind of future.

When Quinn’s leave was up, he’d get his wings back, and he’d forget her again. “Yeah,” she eventually admitted. The word came out thin. A hard truth that had to be yanked out of her.

Crawling partway over Jenna’s outstretched legs, Mac rummaged around in the cabinet under the sink and handed her a box of condoms.

“Ohmygod. Mac, I’m old enough to buy my own condoms.”

Mac settled back against the tub, the effort turning her a light shade of green. “Do you have any?”

“No, but—”

“Take them. Go on. I’m too wrung out to argue with you.”

Tucking the box into the back pocket of her jeans, Jenna said, “Fine.”

“Might want to check the expiration date.”

“Mac.”

Mac shut up. Jenna checked the date. Not expired. Jenna swallowed her smile. They sat there a moment, then Jenna gave Mac a do-you-really- think-I’m-that-stupid smile.

“What?” Mac asked.

“I’d forgotten how good you were at misdirection.”

Mac’s eyelids got droopy now that the dry heaves had settled. “No idea what you’re talking about.”

“Why haven’t you told Dad you’re pregnant? And don’t give me some bullshit story about his age.”

“I need a little time to get used to the idea.

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