Marriage of Inconvenience by Debbie Macomber

Author:Debbie Macomber [Macomber, Debbie]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: MIRA
Published: 2012-02-05T13:00:00+00:00

Eight

Jamie felt wretched. Not only had she spent the most miserable weekend of her life, but late Sunday afternoon she’d come down with a ferocious case of the flu.

Monday morning she’d phoned in sick. For most of the day she’d stayed in bed, trying to convince herself that it was a twenty-four-hour virus and she’d be fine by Tuesday morning.

Her head throbbed, her muscles ached and she was sure she had a fever. If she wasn’t so sick, she’d get out of bed to take her temperature. The only times she’d risked leaving the comfort of her warm cocoon had been to make trips to the bathroom.

The phone at her bedside rang and she reached for it blindly, nearly toppling a glass of liquid flu medication left from the night before.

“Hello,” she croaked. It was probably some salesman hoping to sell her a cemetery plot. The timing couldn’t be better.

“Jamie?”

“Rich?” Naturally he’d phone her now, when her defenses were down and she was too weak to react. She’d waited three painful days to hear from him. Nightmare days.

Now that he’d called, Jamie experienced absolutely no emotion. Certainly not relief. Or anger, although she’d spent most of Sunday furious with him, and so hurt it was all she could do not to simply give in to self-pity.

“I phoned the bank and they told me you were home sick,” he explained, as though he needed a reason to call her.

“I’ve got the flu.”

A slight hesitation followed. “You’re sure? Have you been to the doctor?”

“I’m too sick for that.” She found his concern laughable. He’d walked out on her. Ignored her. Hurt her. And now he was upset because she hadn’t seen a doctor over a twenty-four-hour flu bug?

Once again Rich hesitated. “I think you should make an appointment with Dr. Fullerton.”

“Dr. Fullerton?” she echoed. Rich wasn’t making sense. “Why would I see a gynecologist?”

“Because what you have might not be the flu,” he returned, his words sounding as though they were spoken from between clenched teeth.

Maybe she was being obtuse, but she didn’t understand what he was saying. “Trust me, it’s the flu. I’ve got all the symptoms.”

“Didn’t it dawn on you that it might be something else?” His voice rose with impatience.

“No. Should it?”

“Yes!”

It hit Jamie like a bolt of lightning. Rich thought she might be pregnant! If it wasn’t so ludicrous she’d cry. He actually seemed worried.

“It’s too soon to tell,” she said in her most formal voice, as if she were relaying the bank’s decision regarding a loan application. “But it’s unlikely.”

“Your temperature was elevated, remember?”

“Not that much. Don’t worry, you’re safe.”

His angry sigh told her that either he was exasperated or furious—Jamie didn’t know which.

When would she learn? Time after time she’d foolishly handed her heart to a man, and the outcome was always the same. Within a few months her heart would be broken, shattered, and she’d be limping away. Some women were meant to find love, but apparently she wasn’t one of them. Some women were destined to have forty or fifty years of contented marital bliss.

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