He hugged her and kissed her. “Nicole, I’m really sorry.”

She swallowed, then nodded. “I know you were just reacting. Besides, this isn’t a real relationship. We have a deal, remember?”

He stared into her blue eyes. A deal? Sure, that’s how things had started, but now?

“I’m not in it for the deal,” he said. “I’m in it for you.”

She sniffed. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, and I have fifty kids waiting for me at the pizza place.”

“Oh, sure. Say something like that and take off. Typical guy.” But she didn’t sound mad anymore.

“Come with me?”

She stepped back. “I can’t. I look terrible.”

“You look fine. Streaky, but women know how to fix that sort of thing with a little, I don’t know, powder or something.”

She smiled. “Okay. Give me five minutes.”

“I’ll wait.”

She turned away.

He grabbed her arm and pulled her against him, then kissed her again. “I’m sorry,” he murmured, his mouth against hers.

“I got that.”

She looked into his eyes and smiled.

It was a soft I-forgive-you smile that made his breath hitch and the world go silent. Because in that moment, there was nothing he wanted more.

NICOLE BENT OVER the textbook. “I don’t like any math problem that starts with two cars traveling toward each other. Why does it have to be cars?”

“Sometimes it’s trains,” Raoul said.

She rolled her eyes. “That doesn’t make it better. Okay, two cars driving toward each other. Car A is going thirty miles per hour. Car B is going forty miles per hour. They begin a mile apart. Where on the one-mile track will they meet and what is the time, assuming it is now 2:00 p.m.?”

Nicole looked at him. “Is this a joke?”

“No.”

“I was afraid of that.”

She picked up the book and flipped back a couple of chapters, hoping to get a hint of how to work the problem. She kept turning back the pages until she reached the front cover.

“Do you want my book from last year?” he asked, grinning at her. “Or my books from middle school?”

“Do you want my help?”

“Maybe not.”

She handed him his textbook. “This is not my thing. I’m sorry, but I was a business major in college. We had a special calculus class. Dummy calculus, according to our instructor. We were mocked by the real calculus students, but I learned to live with that.” She stared at the problem again.

“You’re going to have to convert the miles to feet. And I guess convert the miles per hour to feet per minute. Then write an equation with maybe distance as a function of time for each car. Which gives you time in common. You can solve for time. Does that sound right?”

He picked up his pencil. “I’ll let you know.”

“If it’s not, I’ve exhausted all my higher math knowledge. Seriously, after this, we’ll have to discuss the revolutionary war.”

Raoul sighed. “I’d rather work on math than history.”

“Typical guy. What do you want to study in college?”

“You mean aside from football?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I don’t know. I’d like to work in business. Advertising.”

“Excuses to have expensive lunches with clients?”

He grinned. “I’d be good at that.”

“Especially if the clients were women.”

He laughed. The humor faded. “First I have to get into college.”

“Is there any doubt?” She pointed at the textbook on the kitchen table. “This isn’t dummy math, Raoul. You’re taking hard classes and getting good grades.”

“I guess I meant I have to get my ride lined up.”

“Ah, the football scholarship.”

“That’s the only way I’ll make it to a good school.”

Because there wasn’t any money. Of course there were grants and loans but she understood why Raoul would want a scholarship if one were available.

She wanted to say she’d seen him play and he was brilliant. That of course he’d get a football scholarship, but what did she know?

“What does Coach say?”

“That I’ve got a shot. That I should listen to everything they say and then he’ll help me make the right choice if I want.”

“The colleges come to you?”

“Recruiters. They’re contacting me.”

“You meet with them?”

“They want to take me to dinner or to a Seahawks game. That kind of stuff.”

Gee, all she’d gotten from the University of Washington was an application and later a letter of acceptance.

“So do they give you gifts?” she asked eagerly.

“They’re not supposed to.”

“If they offer chocolate, say yes.”

He laughed. “They don’t offer chocolate. It’s football.”

“So you’re more likely to, say, get half a cow.”

“Right.”

“I don’t have the freezer space for that.”

“They want to take me to nice places and tell me how great their school is, talk about the program, the perks, that sort of thing.”

“Sounds like fun.”

He picked up his pencil, then put it down. “I guess. I’m kind of nervous.”

“Don’t be. You’re the talent, Raoul. You’re what they’re looking for. You are their reason for living.”

He didn’t smile. Instead he ducked his head and said, “There’s a guy coming in next week. He wants to take me to dinner. Would you come with me? To the dinner?” He glanced at her, then looked away. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to be asking, so I thought you could help with that.”

Nicole was stunned and flattered. “Shouldn’t Hawk go with you?”

“He is. But I want you there, too.”

Warmth spread through her. She touched his arm. “I would be honored to help in any way I can.”

NICOLE PARKED in the garage and pulled out her Nordstrom’s bag. She’d had a great afternoon of shopping with Claire. They’d started with brunch at The Cheesecake Factory, then had shopped for a killer dress for the recruiter dinner. Nicole wanted to make Raoul proud and Hawk whimper. While there was now a sizable balance on her credit card, she’d accomplished her mission. Life was good.

She carried her bag inside and found Raoul standing by the back door. She’d noticed Brittany’s car out front, but didn’t see the girl anywhere.

“Hi,” she said. “I bought an amazing dress. It’s…”

She paused. Raoul looked uneasy, in a trying-to-act-casual sort of way.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“Nothing.”

“Where’s Brittany?”

“In the bathroom.”

She swore under her breath. “Were you two having sex? Raoul, we’ve talked about this. Not in my house. Hawk will kill both of you. You’re too young and this is not something I want to deal with.”

She hadn’t even thought about leaving them alone. Should she have to? Was it her job to monitor them every second?

He flushed. “We didn’t have sex. I swear. She’s just in the bathroom. With all her clothes on.”

As if on cue, water rushed down the pipes from the upstairs bathroom. The sound of footsteps clattered on the stairs.

Raoul muttered something Nicole didn’t quite catch. It almost sounded like a prayer. Then Brittany burst into the kitchen. She looked both happy and terrified and there was something in her hand. Something white and plastic and sort of Popsicle-stick shaped. She held it out in front of her.

“Look,” she said, glancing between Raoul and Nicole.

Nicole felt the floor shift. Blood turned solid in her veins, and she couldn’t breathe.

“I wasn’t sure,” Brittany continued. “I’d sort of guessed because I haven’t been feeling good. Now we know for sure.” She turned to Raoul. “I’m pregnant. We’re going to have a baby.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

NICOLE STOOD in the center of the kitchen, waiting for the shift in the universe to stop and everything to return to the way it was. Her mind raced in four hundred different directions and she wasn’t sure speech was possible. Even more astonishing than the news was the way Raoul and Brittany looked at each other with an impossible combination of love and hope and certainty. Hello, they were talking about a baby.

“You’re sure?” Nicole asked, then shook her head as she eyed the stick in Brittany’s hand. “Never mind. Stupid question. How far along are you?”

“About six weeks. Maybe seven.”

Back before Raoul was living here, Nicole thought, sure it must have happened while Raoul was staying in the abandoned building. Who knows how much time they’d spent alone together with no one to disturb them.

Brittany rushed to Raoul and snuggled close. “This is going to be great,” she said. “Just like we talked about.”

Nicole fought against the need to shake her head. There was no way she’d just heard that. “Great?” she asked, her voice slightly strangled. “Great? On what planet?”

Brittany gave her a comforting smile. “We have it all figured out. You don’t have to be worried. We’re good.”

“You’re pregnant. You’re still in high school. Nothing about that falls under the definition of good.” Nicole sucked in a breath in an effort to keep from getting shrill.

“We’ll be fine. Nicole, I promise, it’s okay. Look, my parents did this and everything turned out fine. They were young and in love and they were totally happy. Raoul and I are going to be the same way. You’ve seen him play. He’ll get a scholarship to college for sure. We’ll get to be together, like a real family.”

Family, huh? Maybe they could move into Cinderella’s castle, next door to the talking mushrooms but in front of the magic forest. “You can’t have thought this through.”

“We’re getting married,” Raoul said, standing tall and putting his arm around his girlfriend.

Nicole tried to ignore her bone-crushing disappointment. Not him, too. He couldn’t honestly think this was going to turn out well.

“Brittany’s not eighteen.”

The teenage girl flicked away that reality with her wrist. “I will be in the spring, but my dad will give me permission. It’ll be fine. I’ll have the baby next summer, which is perfect. Then I can move to college with Raoul and stay home with our child.”

“Supported by?”

“Different people. It happened for Mom and Dad. The boosters, the alumni, they take care of their athletes. Dad talks about it all the time. We’ll have a cute little house and I’ll learn to cook. I’ve kind of been starting with you, Nicole. It’ll be so much fun.”

Nicole grabbed on to her patience with both hands. “Have you had any experience with children or babies? Do you know how much work it’s going to be?”

“Oh, sure. It’ll be hard at times, but we love each other. Raoul and I only want to be together.”

“That’s not going to happen. He’s going to be practicing every day, and studying. He’ll be going to class and traveling to games while you’re home with a colicky baby, far from your family and your friends.”

“I’ll go on the road trips.”

“Who will take care of the baby during all this?”

“I don’t know. Someone. Or we’ll take the baby with us.”

“You know they cry, right? Sometimes all night long. Raoul will need to sleep so he can play or go to class, which means it’s all up to you.”

Brittany glared at her. “You’re just trying to be mean and I don’t know why. I know it works. My parents made it work. They said it was wonderful and you’re trying to ruin all that. I guess you don’t know what it’s really like to be in love.”

The well-timed verbal slap hit the mark. Nicole took a step back. Maybe Brittany was right. It wasn’t as if she’d been desperately in love with Drew and before him, the men in her life had been rare as Bigfoot sightings.

Still, she knew in her gut this was a disaster in the making. No one wants to get pregnant at seventeen and give up her future.

“What about you going to college?” she asked, keeping her voice low. “What about your dreams?”

“I’ll go back later, after Raoul makes it to the NFL. We’ll be rich. Or my dad will pay for it. I’ll get my degree. I still want that.”

Talk about entitlement, Nicole thought grimly. She turned to Raoul. “Is this what you want? Honestly?”

He nodded. “I love Brittany.”

Meaning he would stand by her no matter what. Nicole had to respect that, if nothing else.

She told herself that at least there was still time. No decisions had to be made this minute. Maybe one of them would get a minor head injury and rediscover common sense.

Brittany smiled at him, then looked at Nicole. “I know you’re having a hard time with this, but please be happy for us. I know it’s all going to work out.”

“Sure.”

“I need to get home.” She kissed Raoul and started for the door. On the way she dropped the pregnancy stick in the trash. “Oh. I left the rest of the kit upstairs.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Okay. Thanks.” She paused, then looked back at Nicole. “My dad doesn’t know. Can you please not tell him? I want the news to come from us.”