Loving Piper Read Online Free Page B

facial features. Shoulder-length dark hair that hung loosely around her face, nice legs, well…one leg anyhow.
    Finally she closed her phone and he stepped back quickly against the wall, away from the window, not wanting her to catch him watching. He smoothed his shirtfront, walked to the side door, the shared entrance to the apartment and the main house, and opened the door.
    He had raised his hand, about to greet his potential tenant, when he saw her rise from the car, lose her balance and crumple to the ground. Rob bounded off the porch and was on his knees at her side within a matter of seconds.
    First-aid training ran through his mind as he looked closely at the woman. “Good, you’re breathing,” he whispered. Her eyes were closed and he wondered if she had hit her head on the open door as she fell. He lifted her limp arm and quickly took her pulse. It was steady, and not abnormally fast or slow. He looked at her face. Her skin tone was fair, one of those ivory shades, on the wan side at this moment. She didn’t appear to be in pain or have trouble breathing. She seemed younger but he knew, from the rental agency, that she was in her late thirties.
    “I think it’s time for 911,” Rob said, mostly to himself. He had begun to rise from the pavement, when he heard her moan and saw her begin to move her legs. He could see the faint crow’s feet fanning out from her eyes, which were now squeezed tightly shut.
    “Are you all right? Are you in pain?” he said slowly, enunciating each word. “Do you need a doctor?” Ready to spring into action, he continued to crouch beside her, focused intently on her and waiting for an indication of what he ought to do.
     
    Mum, I know this is not something you’re expecting to hear from me, not the best timing. I’m pregnant. Kathleen’s announcement echoed in Piper’s mind. She lay on the ground beside her car wishing she could be swallowed up by the driveway and transported to an alternate universe, one where Kathleen wasn’t pregnant and where she, Piper, wasn’t clumsy and in pain, and embarrassed, as well.
    She could hear her prospective landlord speaking softly to her, but she couldn’t force her eyes to open. Maybe if she lay still and continued to ignore him, he’d make that call to 911 and she’d leave, mercifully, in the back of an ambulance. She shouldn’t have worn the high-heeled strapless sandals that were intended for standing only, and Kathleen shouldn’t have called her with her alarming news. And she should have eaten, too. She felt light-headed, even though it was her ankle that actually hurt. Finally she opened one eye and stared into a bright blue sea of concern.
    She had the strange thought that he was too handsome to be a landlord...too handsome, period. His clear eyes and the smooth features that had coalesced into such a serious expression made her even more aware of her unglamorous pose and the humiliation that went with it. “I’ll be right back with…a glass of water…stay still,” he said. He sounded calmer now. “And a cold compress.” With that, he was gone. Piper was grateful to be removed from under the microscope, even for a minute. She closed her eyes again. “Cold compress,” she groaned. “It’s going to take more than a cold compress.”
    She wanted to yell at her daughter. After all, Kathleen was an engineering student, and engineering students didn’t get pregnant. She was too studious to get pregnant. Hadn’t she learned anything at all from her mother about teenage pregnancies? And what about the crushing load of assignments and labs and fieldwork—when exactly had she found the time to get pregnant? Was the sperm donor another engineering student? Had engineering students never heard of birth control? Then again, maybe the father wasn’t a student in the same faculty. Maybe he wasn’t a student at all—maybe he was an unemployed, dope-smoking kid with tattoos and an enhanced sense of entitlement who hoped to