She checked her watch for the tenth time. Another two minutes and her home-pregnancy test would be complete. Meanwhile she needed to focus on having fun with the child she already had, a child as dear to her as any she might carry below her heart for nine months. No matter how the test turned out, Lori wouldn't be giving up Magda. She wanted to be Magda's legal mother. The paperwork had already been filed.
"Tree." Lori pointed to her T page. "Tree."
"Twee," Magda repeated.
"Good girl, Magda! Good girl." She gathered her close, smiling down at Magda's precious, healthy face. Lori folded two fingers, leaving her pinky, pointer and thumb extended. "I love you."
Magda repeated the gesture, if not the words, without hesitation. Lori hugged her tighter. She didn't know whether to attribute the sting of tears to pregnancy or PMS. Either way, her throat clogged, and she wanted to share this moment with Gray so much it hurt.
Picking away at Lori's already crumbling defenses, the CD shifted to "Old MacDonald."
With the unerring timing of a child, Magda looked around the kitchen. "Doc?"
The lone word sucker punched Lori. She stroked Magda's mussed hair back. "Sorry, Magda. Doc's not here."
Why hadn't he called before leaving? Of course she'd told him she would contact him if she had "news" when he'd dropped her off after the day at his parents' house. But she'd been scared then, not by the thought of pregnancy, but by how much making love to Gray had shaken her.
Why hadn't she made the first move to phone him even once the past week? She told herself it was because she wanted definite news when they spoke—one way or the other.
A prideful part of her insisted she needed him to come to her this time in spite of what she'd said.
Lori checked her watch again, eyeing the sweep of the second hand as it ticked away the last … two seconds.
She bolted from her chair to the bathroom. The little indicator stick rested on the edge of the marble vanity. Lon shuffled forward.
A single diagonal line glared back at her. Negative.
She squeezed her eyes shut as if that would change the results. It didn't. Dreams of impish little boys and dimple-checked little girls slipped farther away, leaving behind a hollow disappointment that had nothing to do with PMS.
Lori flung the test into the trash and reminded herself she had Magda and couldn't love that little girl any more if she was her own child. But that failed pregnancy test severed the last tie to Gray.
She returned to the kitchen and found Magda intent on dragging out all the pots and pans. Lori passed her a wooden spoon—the one Gray had used as a microphone when he'd sung "Old MacDonald." Of its own volition, her mouth curved into a smile at the memory.
Should she call him or wait for the definite sign when she started … or finally received a positive test? Lori fingered the phone on the wall and considered calling his parents for his new number. Of course, she had his cell phone number, too. She lifted the receiver.
Damn him, if he wanted to know, he would call her.
She slammed it on the cradle.
Ring. The phone vibrated under her hand.
Lori startled back a step, then yanked it off the wall, uncaring if she sounded too eager. She had been waiting by the phone after all, and since he'd finally been the one to call she didn't care if he knew.
"Hello." Her voice sounded breathless and eager even to her own ears.
"Lori, this is Barbara."
Her attorney? With the evidentiary hearing a week away, they weren't scheduled to check in for another few days. Why would she call now? Foreboding gripped Lori by the throat. "Yes, Barbara, what can I do for you?"
"Lori, I hate to tell you this. But we've got a problem."
"What's the problem with this house, Major Clark?"
Gray stared back at the matronly real estate agent, a stack of house listing printouts gripped in his hand. "I'm not sure."
He circled the empty family room, searching for some flaw. They'd started with apartments, and he'd quickly known that wouldn't work for him anymore, not enough room and strangely too generic.
He'd asked the agent to pull house listings, having since plowed through about forty. The last had too small a backyard. The one before was located on a busy street. Another didn't have hardwood floors like Lori preferred.