Free Barefoot at Moonrise (Barefoot Bay Timeless Book 2) by Roxanne St. Claire

five-alarm fire as the words banged against his brain.
    “I’m told the odds were one in a thousand,” she said.
    One in a thousand? “Well, we beat those odds,” he said with a masculine stab of pride he couldn’t deny.
    She narrowed her eyes at him. “Don’t get all male smug about your power swimmers. This is real, Ken.”
    “It sure as hell is.” He closed his eyes, letting this new reality roll over him. “I can’t believe it.”
    “Listen to me.” She held out her hand as if she wanted to touch him, but then withdrew it before she actually made contact. “I thought you might feel that way.”
    What way? He didn’t know how he felt right now.
    “I’m not upset,” she said quickly. “Well, I was a little thrown when I had a dizzy spell in the middle of the Super Min.”
    “Were you okay? Did you faint? Did you get hurt?” Hell, that was one rescue call he’d have gone on in a heartbeat.
    “Only by the look of judgment on Charity Grambling’s face when I almost puked in the aisle.”
    He puffed some air in a dry laugh, thinking of the old busybody.
    “Anyway, I took a bunch of home pregnancy tests.” She bit her lip and raised an eyebrow. “Seven of them.”
    “All positive?”
    She nodded. “Then I went to the doctor. In fact, I just came from there and—”
    “You went to the doctor already? Without me?” He realized that was kind of a dumb question, but what the hell. He was in shock.
    “I had to see my doctor and make sure everything is okay because, as I told you, I had my tubes tied, and that can increase the chances of something going wrong.”
    “Going…wrong?” His gut squeezed. “What do you mean, going wrong?”
    “An ectopic pregnancy, which has an increased chance of happening after a tubal, or a miscarriage, of which I’ve had both. But I had an ultrasound this morning—”
    “You had an ultrasound ?” He could barely croak out the words.
    “Yes,” she said, her tone reminding him whose body this baby was in. “There was a distinct possibility that it wasn’t a viable pregnancy, so I wanted to be sure it was first. Otherwise, what use would it have been to tell you?”
    What use? He couldn’t even begin to answer that, so he swallowed the question. She was here now and only seven weeks pregnant. “What did the ultrasound show?” he asked. Good God, did she know the baby’s gender already?
    “It showed that the pregnancy is not ectopic. I’m going back in two weeks.”
    “I’ll go with you.”
    “I’m not asking for that,” she said quickly. “In fact, you don’t have to do anything at all. I can completely—”
    “Beth, stop.” He scooted closer. “Not do anything? Who the hell do you think I am?”
    “I know who you are, but do you fully understand who this child is?”
    “Other than mine?” he demanded.
    “This child is and will always be Ray Endicott’s grandchild.”
    He stared at her, refusing to let that change anything. “And my child,” he said.
    She exhaled and inched back. “Whatever you want is fine. You can have a role in this child’s life, of course. And you can give money if it makes you feel better, though I don’t need it. Or you can let me walk out of here and forget this ever happened, or you can sign some legal document—I don’t care.”
    “But I do.” He finally ground the truth out. “I care like…like…” He shook his head, words eluding him. “Like nothing I’ve ever cared about in my whole life.”
    “But this is—”
    The screech of a callout alert blasted from the loudspeaker, making her gasp and jump.
    “Station one-six, engine five-five, possible house fire—”
    He didn’t even blink, vaulting up from his desk. “That’s me.”
    “Ken.” She looked up, dismay on her face.
    “We’re not done here.” He never even turned to look at her expression, hustling into the station, the callout still screaming instructions he had to process.
    Not news about a baby.
    Not the fact that his life