She's Having a Baby Read Online Free Page A

sighed, straightening slowly. He had to get back to work. He had exactly one day—today—to settle in before he had to report for his new position at theWiley Memorial Research Labs. And begin his new life.
    And hopefully find a way to move on.
    Â 
    It had not been a good day.
    Twice, during the course of her workday, MacKenzie had found herself on the verge of breaking down. Both times Dakota had been near her. She’d almost told her best friend that she was pregnant.
    But each time she’d begun, the words had stuck to the roof of her mouth, refusing to be dislodged. She’d shared absolutely everything with Dakota in the years that she’d known her and thought of the woman as almost a twin sister. But her pregnancy was something she needed to get used to herself before she could bring herself to talk to anyone else about it.
    Hoping against irrational hope that this was all some rebellious act by her body, she’d decided to reschedule her exam with her doctor. She’d asked the nurse to try to squeeze her in somehow.
    MacKenzie got lucky. There’d been a cancellation just called in. Consequently, Lisa, Dr. Neubert’s nurse, put her down for one o’clock. With butterflies strapping themselves onto Boeing jets inside her stomach, she told Dakota that she was grabbing a late lunch and would be back in time for the show, then bolted.
    Less than twenty minutes later, she found herself draped in tissue paper and lying on the examination table, counting holes in the ceiling tiles while Dr. Ann Neubert, her doctor for the last five years, performed an internal exam.
    The second Dr. Neubert withdrew, MacKenzie propped herself up on her elbows and tried vainly to read the blond woman’s expression.
    â€œI’m wrong, right?” MacKenzie asked eagerly, praying for confirmation.
    Ann had stripped off her gloves, throwing them into the small trash basket.
    â€œNo, you’re right.” The woman’s expression was soft, encouraging, as if second-guessing her patient’s anguish. “Babies bring rainbows into your life—a new way of seeing things.”
    Oh God, it’s true. I’m really pregnant. Now what am I going to do?
    She wasn’t ready for this, not by a long shot. “Easy for you to say,” MacKenzie had muttered audibly. “You have a husband.”
    Her doctor had surprised her then by putting down her chart and sitting down on the table beside her.
    There was an earnest, faraway look in her eyes as she said, “I didn’t when I first found out that I was pregnant.” And then she laughed. “My first daughter was the result of an all-but-out-of-body, wild, impetuous experience one star-filled night on the beach with a handsome journalist who was going overseas to cover war stories the very next day.”
    MacKenzie vaguely remembered the woman had two beautiful little girls and an even more beautiful husband who earned his living writing for one of the larger newspapers. “Isn’t your husband a journalist?”
    Ann winked at her. “Turned out to be one and the same.” The doctor took hold of her hands, which madeher feel just for a moment a sense of calm, that things would work out. “What I’m saying is that perhaps you and the baby’s father—”
    And the calm vanished. She shook her head. “Not going to happen. He went back to a wife I didn’t know he had.”
    MacKenzie sighed deeply. Everything always happened for a reason, her grandmother had been fond of saying. Maybe there was a reason behind this, too, although for the life of her, she didn’t see one.
    â€œBesides, looking back, maybe I didn’t really love him in quite that ‘forever’ kind of way.” Helpless to continue, she shrugged.
    Ann laid a hand on her shoulder. “Things have a way of working out. You’ll see. If not one way, then another.” And then she paused just before