Free Who's Your Daddy? by Lauren Gallagher

of—to cringe. “So are you about to break down crying or smack one of us?”
    “Neither.” She grabbed Isaac. “I’m horny.”

Chapter Six
    Carmen
     
    “Are you going to tell her?” Rose asked as she pulled into the parking lot below our parents’ condo.
    “Not yet.” I swallowed the nausea that tried to rise in my throat. “I’m sort of keeping a lid on it with almost everyone until that twelve-week mark, anyway.”
    “I suppose that’s a good idea,” she said softly. “If you need someone there when you go to tell her, just let me know.”
    “Thanks,” I said with the closest thing to a smile I could manage. Then I allowed myself a quiet laugh. “She and Dad will probably go through the roof if they find out exactly how I got into this.”
    Steering the car into one of the guest parking spots, Rose laughed. “I’m thinking you might want to ease them into all of that, if you tell them at all.”
    “You think?”
    “Uh, yeah.”
    We exchanged glances, and both laughed, this time with some feeling.
    She shifted into park, then reached across the console and patted my leg. “Things will work out with them. They might be upset when they hear about it, but something tells me they’ll get over it.”
    “We’ll see,” I said dryly. “I thought they’d get over me divorcing Paul, but Mom is still giving me hell for that.”
    Rose shrugged and turned off the engine. As she tucked her keys into her purse, she said, “This is different, though. There’s a baby on the way. Mom is so desperate for more grandkids, she’s probably willing to forgive a lot.” She reached for the door but paused. “In fact, that’s probably why she’s still so bent out of shape over you splitting from Paul.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “As long as you had a ring on your finger, there was the possibility of a grandchild.”
    I laughed aloud. “Oh God, no. No, no, no.”
    Rose snickered. “I’m just telling you how Mom probably saw it.”
    “Ugh.” I rolled my eyes. “I think that was the first sign that I needed to get the hell away from Paul, when the thought of having his baby made me want to heave.”
    “That was not the first sign,” Rose said. “Unless you were in a world of denial.”
    “Well, I did spend eleven years with him.”
    “True.”
    “So I’m a slow learner?” I shrugged and reached for my door handle. “At least I finally did get out of there.”
    “Thank the Lord.”
    “Pity Mom and Dad don’t agree,” I muttered.
    As we got out of the car, Rose said, “You know them, though. They don’t like anything that shakes things up. Mom was practically breathing into a paper bag when I moved across town the year before last.”
    “You’d think they’d be objective about—” I stopped when she shot me a smirk. Then I laughed. “Okay, this is Mom and Dad we’re talking about, but still.”
    “Yeah, I know.” She sighed and pulled her purse up onto her shoulder as we walked across the parking lot. “They’ll get over it, but it’s not like you need that kind of stress right now.”
    “Tell me about it.”
    She gave me a sympathetic look, and we continued into the lobby of our parents’ condominium. The elevator was already on the ground floor, so we didn’t have to wait for it for once, and in mere seconds, we were on our way up.
    As soon as the elevator doors opened on our parents’ floor, I had to fight to keep from gagging. My sense of smell was stronger lately anyway, but I could almost always smell my mother’s cooking from a block away. Walking down the hall now from the elevator to her front door, my eyes watered and my stomach lurched from the unmistakable odor of salmon and about thirteen more spices than any recipe could have called for. Part of my queasiness was hormones; part of it was just from dreading being in the same room with my parents while I carried this little secret, but the smell? Oh, dear Lord, the smell was a factor.
    “Ugh.” Rose wrinkled her