Mummy in the Making

Hurry up and adjust, she told herself. Because she had a whole lot more to deal with than mere hormones.

She dried her face and took a look in the mirror above the sink.

Rosy glow—the pamphlets had talked about that, too, and surprisingly, Issa could see it. She’d always had an extremely pale complexion, but now her coloring couldn’t be better—her high cheekbones were petal pink, making her look robustly healthy even without blush.

That was a good thing, she thought. One of the few advantages to pregnancy.

That and the fact that her previously A-cup breasts had already gone to a B. She didn’t have any complaints about that, either.

And in spite of how tired she felt most of the time, there weren’t any circles under her blue-green eyes—she was grateful for that. At least nothing gave away how she felt.

Now if only the pamphlets were wrong about the potential for hair loss or dullness. She liked her light, flaxen hair the way it was—although at the moment one side of it had escaped the clip that had been holding the shoulder-length locks at the back of her head and it looked awful.

Great, bedhead…

Another way in which she was not happy to have met Hutch Kincaid.

She took the clip out, quickly ran a brush through her hair and then caught it in the back again where she reclipped it.

Sprucing up for her handsome landlord?

That wasn’t what she was doing, she reasoned. She just wanted to be presentable.

Which was also why she applied the light lip gloss.

And when it came to adding a touch of mascara even though she hadn’t put any on earlier today? That was just so she looked more bright-eyed and not like some slug-a-bed who slept the afternoons away.

In her clothes….

How did they look?

Checking, she judged that her jeans showed no evidence that she’d been sleeping in them. She just wished that they weren’t her puttering-around-the-house jeans, that they were her better jeans. One of the other pairs that didn’t sag in the seat.

Not that it mattered what her seat did.

As for the cap-sleeved T-shirt she had on? It was slightly rumpled, so she tugged on the hem to stretch the wrinkles out of it. That pulled the V-neckline lower, although not low enough to show cleavage. But because the T-shirt was a bit on the snug side, it still showed off the single visible clue that she was pregnant—her blossoming chest.

Why that had even crossed her mind she didn’t know. It shouldn’t have.

But the new B-cups did make her T-shirts look a lot better. It was just about her general appearance, and had nothing whatsoever to do with who might see her. It was a confidence builder. And she definitely needed that!

Okay, presentable—she just wanted to be presentable and she was.

So get back out there to the landlord…

She took a deep breath, exhaled it completely and told herself to try to have some composure, to be more outgoing than she was naturally inclined to be. The shyness had never served her well and it certainly wasn’t helping now.

Another deep breath and she opened the bathroom door.

When she did, she could see Hutch Kincaid in the vicinity of the apartment’s entrance again, this time with his back to her as he fiddled with the door handle.

The rear view of him was no less impressive than the front. His jeans definitely didn’t sag in the seat. Instead, he sported a derriere to die for, splendidly displayed in denim.

And from there up? Her gaze began at his narrow waist and rose to broad, broad shoulders that didn’t have the slightest hunch to them. Nope, straight and strong-looking, they formed a V-shaped canvas that squared into biceps straining the short sleeves of his polo shirt with well-defined muscles.

Okay, so there was nothing lacking in the man’s physique. It still didn’t matter to her.

“I just realized that I didn’t introduce myself,” she said when he changed angles and caught sight of her coming out of the bathroom. “I’m sure you know, but I’m Issa McKendrick. I didn’t mean to be rude.”

“Itta?” the little boy said from where he was hunkered down near the door, playing with a screwdriver and a pair of pliers.

“Issa,” she corrected.

“Itta,” the toddler countered as if he’d said it right the first time.

“That’s probably as good as it’s gonna get,” Hutch Kincaid said as he put the screwdriver he’d been using in one of the back pockets of his jeans. Then he put one hand on the knob on the outside of the door and the other on the inside knob. Cupping them, he slowly turned them both back and forth, back and forth…

And out of nowhere Issa suddenly had a flash of something far less innocent being done with those hands. And her own new B-cups.

Where that had come from she had no idea and she was so stunned by it that for a moment she didn’t know what to do.

Then she realized her landlord had no idea what had just shot through her mind and that she needed to ignore it herself. So, still not wanting to be a shrinking violet, Issa attempted to make small talk while he worked.

“I’ve known your brother Chase since I was a kid—he was at our house so much growing up that he was like one of us.”

“I’ve heard that. He’s talked about how unhappy he was with his foster father. We all hate that he didn’t get adopted the way the rest of us did.”

“It came as such a surprise to find out that he had biological brothers and sisters.”

“It came as a surprise to us, too,” Hutch said.

Hutch’s birth parents had been killed in a car accident when Hutch and his twin brother, Ian, were two months old, leaving behind five children—Hutch, Ian, an older sister named Shannon, their older brother, Chase, and a much older half sister, Angie. Angie had been returned to her birth father, the three youngest children had been adopted to two different homes, while Chase had been placed in foster care and grown up in Northbridge, best friends with Issa’s half brother Logan.

It was Angie who remembered the other four siblings, who sought them out and revealed that there were brothers and another sister when she’d faced the end of her own life and needed someone to raise her son.

“All that time Chase had all these brothers and sisters he didn’t know about…” Issa marveled.

“And now there’s also our half sister Angie’s son, Cody, to round things out,” Hutch added.

“Right. A nephew Chase is raising—it’s hard to picture the Chase I knew as a dad. But the whole thing was just amazing. I was here at Christmastime, so I met Shannon and Cody then, and I heard before I left that they’d contacted you and your twin—”

“Ian,” he supplied.

“Right. I’ve only been in town a couple of days, so I haven’t met him yet, but I knew that was his name. Ian Kincaid. And you’re Hutch…”

And she was babbling.

She was just no good at this.