Free Saddled With Trouble by Michele Scott

tell me,” Michaela said. She took one look at him and knew. Dammit, the man was a glutton for punishment. “You and Summer?” It all came back to her, Ethan rushing off to his ex-fiancé’s house.
    He nodded.
    She would’ve shaken him if she’d had the energy. “Tell me, please, that you and Summer are not getting back together. It is not what I want to hear. Do you know how bad she is for you? What a bitch she was to you? My God, Ethan, she left you the day before your wedding. What are you thinking?”
    Ethan took her hand. “Mick, Summer is pregnant.”

 
     
     
     
     
    NINE
    “ YOU DUMBASS. TELL ME YOU’RE KIDDING.” Michaela shook her head and stared at Ethan to see if he was telling the truth. This was not the time to joke. He looked down, and when he looked back up at her with those green eyes of his, she could see there wasn’t any lying going on. Nope, he wasn’t yanking her chain. “What were you thinking? Wait a minute, let me rephrase that: What were you thinking with ? Hmmm? I’ll say it again: You are a dumbass.”
    “ I don’t need a lecture. I know all of this already. I know everything you’re going to say to me.”
    “ Oh, really? What? Isn’t Summer the woman who left you high and dry after you saved for a year to give the princess her perfect wedding? She’s a user, a loser, and she’ll do nothing but hurt you, Ethan . . . Hasn’t she done enough already? For all you know she isn’t even telling the truth. You know this woman’s MO. She just loves to play you and when she thinks you’re over her, she hooks you back like a dumb puppy dog.”
    “ Michaela!”
    When she looked at him this time, his eyes were moist. “Like I said, I know all of this. But it’s true. She is pregnant. I went with her to the doctor, and I can’t . . . I just can’t abandon . . .”
    She sucked in a breath of air, her mind clouded over with the events of the day, and now Ethan’s revelation. She could strangle him. But she softened at the look in his eyes and the words she knew he couldn’t express. She took his hand. “Ethan, I know what you were going to say. I do. But look, this isn’t about your father. I know you, and if the kid is yours, you will be there and be a great dad. But you don’t have to get sucked back into Summer’s drama.” Ethan had never known his father. His mother had told him that their relationship wasn’t long lived and once he found out she was pregnant, he took off. Then, he died in a car accident shortly thereafter. He and Michaela rarely discussed it, but the few times they had, it was obvious the pain Ethan felt from it. He’d once told her that he’d be the kind of dad a kid could count on. He’d always be there for any child he had, and she believed him. But, why did he have to be having a baby with Summer? What a cruel joke.
    “ I have to stick by her. I would never abandon my child, or Summer in her condition.”
    Michaela shook her head again. She couldn’t take much more of this. “You know, women raise babies on their own all of the time. You can still be the dad. But at least promise me something.”
    “ What?”
    “ You won’t marry her without really thinking about it.”
    “ I agree, Mick. But, I feel like a kid deserves a family. A real family, with his mom and dad together.” He put his face in his palms and sighed deeply. “I want to do the right thing, and I was going to marry her before she left me. I don’t know. I really don’t know right now. She’s angry at me anyway for coming back over here to stay the night.”
    “ I’m sure she is. We’re not exactly bosom buddies. You need to remember, marriage is for life. At least for someone like you, and I don’t want you to be miserable because you made the wrong choice. I . . . care about you.” She felt herself slipping and simply didn’t want to deal any longer with the horrors of the day. Standing, she brushed off her jeans. “I’m sorry if I was hard on