Until now.
As he watched her, his senses kicked in and he thought maybe he knew exactly why she seemed so on edge all of a sudden.
She opened her mouth, closed it again, then huffed out a breath.
“Just say it, Julie.” Travis braced himself for hearing the only words that would explain both her queasiness and the tension that was clearly gripping him.
“I’m pregnant.”
He rocked back on his feet as those two simple words punched into his gut. The words he’d somehow expected to hear. In the blink of an eye, everything had changed.
Pregnant.
His gaze dropped to her flat abdomen before lifting to meet her eyes again. She was carrying his child. Even now, that tiny life was growing, already racing toward the finish line of birth.
His baby.
Travis’s brain worked frantically. He didn’t know what to think. What to feel. How was a man supposed to react when he found out he was going to be someone’s father?
Panicked, that’s how.
That emotion wasn’t one Travis had a lot of experience with. He always knew what to do. He never had to wonder if he was making the right decision or not. He was always sure of himself. And now, a tiny being the size of his thumbnail had him feeling as if he was sliding off the edge of the earth, scrambling for a handhold to stop his fall.
Scrubbing one hand over his face, Travis told himself he was a man who liked being in charge. A man who made his own choices in life. Now, though, he was a man caught firmly in the grip of a very whimsical Fate.
Travis King…a father?
Boggled the mind.
He took a breath and waited a second for it to kick in, maybe air out his mind so his thoughts could clear up. But that obviously wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.
“How long have you known?” The words were squeezed out from between clenched teeth. Did it matter when she had found out about the baby? Yes. It did. He had to know if she’d been keeping this from him—the thought of any secrecy irritated him. Or if she would have kept quiet about it altogether had he not asked her flat out what was bothering her.
“An hour,” she said and folded her arms around her middle, as if instinctively protecting the child within her body. “I was going to tell you tonight.”
An hour. She’d only just found out herself and, judging by the expression on her face, the news was as overwhelming to her as it had been to him. Her eyes looked wide and a little confused. Well, hell. He knew just how she felt.
Travis’s chest suddenly tightened to the point where he was half afraid he wouldn’t be able to draw another breath. He stared at her as if seeing her for the first time. Her hair shone with dark red and gold lights in the final rays of the dying sun. Her face was pale and her eyes looked huge in her face.
She was more beautiful to him in this moment than he’d ever thought her before. His instincts fired. His woman. His child. Everything in him, everything he’d been taught as a child, his belief system—or morals—railed at him to protect her. To care for her. To stand between her and the world. Hell, it was all he could do to keep from rushing at Julie, lifting her off her feet and carrying her to the nearest chair, forcing her to sit down.
But instead he just stood there, trying to come to grips with the latest wrinkle in his world. He hadn’t planned on being a parent. In fact, he’d gone out of his way to insure that he wouldn’t be a father. Travis had made it a point in his life to be careful with the women he spent time with. He hadn’t wanted to be creating life carelessly with a woman who was no more than a brief blip on his radar.
Now he was married—albeit temporarily—and his wife was pregnant with his baby.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she said quietly.
“Oh,” he said, with a short, sharp burst of laughter. “I doubt that.” Hell, even he couldn’t keep track of his thoughts. No way she would be able to make sense of them.
“You’re wondering if this baby is even yours.”
She’d surprised him again.
That thought had never crossed his mind.
Her arms tightened around her middle and she lifted her chin as if trying to win a battle he hadn’t even engaged in yet. “It’s your baby, Travis. It’s not Jean Claude’s.”
He shook his head. “What are you talking about?”
“I know you’ve had your doubts about me.” She paused for a breath. “With the trouble Jean Claude’s caused, I can even understand that to a point. But this is different. This is our baby. And I don’t want you to think even for a second that—”
“Stop,” he said quietly, cutting off her speech because he didn’t need to hear it. He hated that she felt as though she had to defend their child to him. Hated that he’d made her feel as if he would doubt her about something this big. “I know it’s my baby, Julie. Our baby.”
Strange, everything they’d been through the last few weeks, and he hadn’t even considered that the child could have been her ex’s. Almost laughable now, he thought, that he’d been so incensed by a photo of that Frenchman kissing her. He’d doubted her loyalties. Doubted her feelings.
But on this, he had no doubts.
Julie would never foist another man’s child on him. It wasn’t in her to be that duplicitous. She was too honest. Too straightforward.
God, he was an idiot.
How could he have ever believed that she was in cahoots with her ex? He should have trusted her. Hadn’t he known her long enough to know that she had a core that was as scrupulously honest as his own? Had he really been so thrown by Pierre’s foolish plans that he was willing to lump Julie in with the man?
It was a wonder she was still speaking to him. Julie simply wasn’t the kind of woman to sink to those kinds of games. And he should have realized that simple truth before now.
She blew out a breath and nodded. “Thanks for that.”
“You shouldn’t be thanking me,” he said tightly. “You should be furious at me for not believing in you all along.”
She shrugged a little and laid the flat of one hand against her abdomen, as if she were shielding the child within. “I was before,” she assured him with a small laugh that sounded strained and tight. “You’ve made me furious lots of times over the last several weeks, Travis. And sometimes talking to you is like talking to a wall—only the wall would probably listen better.”
He winced a little at that, because he recognized it as pure truth. He hadn’t been willing to listen. Too intent on his own will, his own way, he hadn’t wanted to hear from her unless she’d been agreeing with him.