Close to Home by Liz Lee Page B

Donovan finally found his voice and planned on saying he totally understood his best friend’s anger, Grady hit him again.
    “And that’s for leaving her pregnant.”

Chapter Seven
    Kacie Jo unlocked her door and walked straight to the answering machine. Her life had become one series of patterns after another, just the way it’d been before that one night with Donovan.
    Get up at five, go for a walk, work on lesson plans for next year. Go for a walk. Come home and watch movies that never failed to make her cry, sometimes alone, sometimes with Eliza. Go to bed and read the baby book Grady’d bought her last month in an effort to apologize for his reaction to her news.
    The only break in the monotony came with mealtime when she decided what to eat and whether or not chocolate would hurt the tiny life growing inside her.
    The machine blinked three times, and she punched play at the same time she thankfully shucked her shoes.
    How she could be barely three months pregnant, barely showing anywhere on her body and still have swollen feet amazed her.
    For a moment, she wished her mother were alive so she could ask her if that was normal. Sometimes she felt the strangest fears, fears with no name, no real source. Fears like those from childhood when she’d lain in bed and refused to open her eyes because she was afraid of the monsters under her bed or in her closet or outside the window.
    Fears like those she felt that day they buried her mother when she’d made her father put a sweater in the casket because she didn’t want Momma to be cold.
    For years she’d gone through life trying to forget her mother’s cancer and subsequent death. Now that she was pregnant, she found herself thinking about her own mortality all the time.
    She wiped a trail of sweat away from her eyes and forced herself to stop that line of thinking as she listened to Eliza tell her she wouldn’t make it over for a Sleepless in Seattle, When Harry Met Sally marathon.
    Wonderful. No need to worry about entertaining. She could open a can of soup and call that supper.
    God, she hated summer. She’d never been so hot in her life. Unbuttoning her shirt she threw it across the room where it landed on her couch. She might as well take advantage of living alone. It wasn’t like anyone was going to be looking at her almost naked body anytime in the near future.
    She settled her hands over her barely rounded stomach and listened to the last message. What sounded like a bad cell connection played for the first few seconds and then her brother’s voice said what sounded like…
    No…
    He wouldn’t. She’d simply misunderstood.
    She punched the play button again, skipped the first two messages and listened as the static sounded and then, sure enough, her brother’s voice saying he hoped she didn’t kill him before his voice was cut off.
    Her stomach plummeted to her toes. Dammit all. There was only one reason she’d want to kill Grady these days. If he’d gone out and found Donovan after she’d specifically told him to butt out, dead didn’t begin to cover it.
    She might look puny these days, but where her baby was concerned, she was deadly serious.
    She’d made her decision, and nothing was changing her mind.
    Donovan hadn’t promised her anything, and she wanted nothing from him. Nothing.
    Suddenly, the heat from earlier was replaced with a stream of cold dread running down her back.
    Donovan Nelson didn’t want or need a baby. She was raising this child alone, and if Donovan came back to Caldale, she’d explain.
    But not if he came back because her hardheaded brother dragged him back.
    Dammit.
    She pulled her shirt back on as she punched in the numbers to her brother’s cell. Four rings later, she hung up on his voice mail.
    Grabbing a suitcase from the closet, she started packing.
    If Grady brought Donovan home with him, he’d find her gone. The stupid guy would want to do the honorable thing.
    She’d weighed all the pros and cons a million