The M.D. She Had To Marry

He lifted a dark brow. “What?”

“That…look.”

“Look?”

“Yes, Logan. That look. That look that says you know something I don’t.”

He lifted both big, sculpted shoulders. “Beats me.”

She wanted to slug him. Or kiss him. She said, “I’m going back to bed. And if I get up again, could you pretend not to notice? It’s bad enough that I spend my nights going in and out of the back door. I don’t need you hovering nearby ready to check my vital signs every time I come in.”

“Will do.”

“What does that mean?”

“Unless you call for me, I won’t get up.”

“Thank you.”

“You are very welcome.”

She peered at him. “What is going on?”

“Nothing. Go on back to bed.”

It was good advice, and she knew it. She ducked into the sleeping nook, dragged her poor ungainly body onto the bed and curled on her side. The light in the main room went out.

The next time she got up, about two hours later, Logan didn’t even stir.

Daylight came as it always did: earlier than Lacey would have liked.

Not that she noticed. By then, as always, she was finally sound asleep. If Logan went outside, she didn’t hear it, and she didn’t hear him come back in, either.

But she did hear him fiddling with the stove.

She turned over and grumbled to herself and drifted back into a pleasant, floating state of slumber, thinking as sleep claimed her that at least he was trying to be quiet.

Not much later, she found herself awake again. She sighed, breathed deeply, told herself to relax and let go.

But there was a problem.

She could swear she heard every move he made. The clink of a bowl as he set it on the table, the rustle of cereal spilling out of a box. The muffled click—twice—as he carefully opened, then closed the refrigerator door, the pad of his stocking feet across the plank floor, the glug-glug-glug of milk poured from a carton.

She tried putting her pillow over her head, then even yanked the blankets over that. It did no good.

She was awake—at eight thirty-three in the morning, after having slept fewer than four measly hours.

She knew that Logan usually woke around six. Which meant that in all likelihood, he’d been lying there for at least a couple of hours, actively restraining himself from getting up and starting in with his annoying morning-person activities. The only reason he would do such a thing was to give her a chance to sleep undisturbed.

It was thoughtful of him. And she should have been grateful.

But she wasn’t grateful.

She was nine months’ pregnant and she was tired and Logan Severance was driving her crazy with his will of iron and his musing I-know-something-you-don’t-know smiles and his absolute refusal to accept that she was never, ever going to say “I do.”

Lacey pulled the pillow closer around her face and muttered a few choice naughty words.

Couldn’t he see that it would never work? Even if he returned her love, what possible chance did they have of making it as a couple? They didn’t even get up at the same time.

He went back to the refrigerator—did he actually imagine she couldn’t hear every move he made?—and put the milk away. Then back to the table again. He didn’t scrape the floor with the chair, but it creaked when he sat down. His spoon clinked against the bowl.

When she found herself straining to hear him chew, she knew it was no use.

With another low oath, she shoved back the covers and reached for the tent of the day, a scoop-necked, ankle-length, teal-blue creation, which she’d left hanging on a wall peg along with her bra the night before. Her ballerina flats were right there, too, in the tiny space to the right of the bed. She tore off her sleep shirt and put on the clothes, shivering a little with cold, realizing that he must not have built a fire after all, even though she’d distinctly heard him fooling around with the stove.

When she entered the main room, he looked up in mid-crunch. She didn’t say a word, just went out the door and into the bathroom, where she relieved her overworked bladder and splashed icy water on her face and grumbled to herself in the mirror as she raked a brush through her hair.