My mouth formed the words before my brain was able to even process the scene before me: I'm pregnant.
But I didn't speak those words. They stuck in my throat, and I thought I might choke on them.
I stood there, my mouth open, unblinking and unmoving. Edward's pants were around his knees, his pale ass thrusting against the woman on the desk.
His secretary. Brittany.
Her legs were wrapped around his waist, her bright red heels digging into the small of his back.
"Oh shit!" she blurted out. I wasn't sure at first if the words were meant for me or for him. Her arm flailing, she slapped Edward's forearm repeatedly.
"Oh yeah, your fucking * is so tight," he groaned. “Squeeze it for me, baby. I love being bare inside you. I’m going to come so hard.”
"Your wife," she squealed, slapping him again.
His head finally turned. "Oh, shit."
I stood there holding the box that contained everything I’d wanted my entire life, and watched my husband fuck his bimbo secretary.
When I finally opened my mouth to speak, the words fell out. Good news and bad news. "I'm pregnant," I said. "And my father is dead."
2
Autumn
West Bend, Colorado
"Do you see the colors on the trees? There are red, and brown, and gold. We're almost home, Liv-bug." I'm babbling, giving Olivia the play-by-play and trying to distract her on the car ride home from town with my not-very-creative scenery descriptions. Olivia has never done well with car rides, not since she turned a year old. She hasn't wanted to stop moving, ever since she learned to crawl; sitting in a car seat, even for fifteen minutes, is too unbearable for her little toddler self.
Olivia gives me a little warning howl of disapproval, the precursor to the full-fledged meltdown I know is on the horizon, and I sing softly to her while my phone buzzes again – for the fourth time on the drive home.
I should answer, but I ignore the phone, feeling slightly irritated. I’m running an orchard. I’m not a surgeon on call. Sure, it’s the middle of harvest, but really, nothing can be that important that it can’t wait five minutes until Olivia and I get home. Besides, I know it's just going to be my foreman and I can't deal with him right now.
Today is already stressful enough just because of what day it is to begin with – the anniversary of my father’s death.
And the death of my marriage.
Of course, to be accurate, my marriage died well before the day I walked in on Edward and his bimbo secretary going at it on the desk in his office. I just didn't want to admit it to myself. And really, I should be sending that bitch regular thank-you cards and flowers for saving me from my train-wreck of a husband.
Especially after Edward was arrested four months later. He's now serving an eight-year sentence in a minimum-security federal prison for embezzlement. As it turned out, schtupping his secretary wasn't enough for him; he was stealing from my father, too.
Hell, I can pick a real winner, can't I?
I exhale heavily, suppressing the curse on the tip of my tongue for Olivia’s benefit as I round the corner toward the orchard. I see the grey haze in the air, smell smoke before I even pull down the long gravel drive that leads to my house. But even if I couldn't, the fire truck blocks the driveway, crowded with firefighters. My eyes immediately go to the house, and I breathe a sigh of relief at the fact that it's intact before I even begin to process what the hell is going on. Thank goodness.
Olivia howls, clearly sensing that something is wrong, and I "shush" her, humming a lullaby under my breath as I pull up in the driveway in front of the house and try to calm my own racing heart.
As soon as I open the driver’s side door, one of the volunteer firefighters – West Bend, Colorado is not big enough for its own fire department – flags me down. "Autumn Mayburn?"
"That's me," I say. "This is my place. What's happening?"
"You've got a fire down in the orchard. It’s contained now.”
Olivia squeals from the back seat of the car. I'm half-listening to the firefighter as I walk around the front of the SUV toward the passenger side to pull Olivia from her car seat when he comes walking toward me.
I don't know who the hell he is. I've never seen him before, but he takes my breath away, and I’m not just saying that because I’m inhaling a crapload of smoke in the air. I mean that literally. I swear that I stop breathing for a second, pausing for a moment to gape because he looks like he just stepped off the set of a romance movie.
He's walking toward me in jeans and boots, a t-shirt spotted with grime and sweat. The fabric sticks to his skin, outlining his chest muscles so clearly he might as well not even be wearing his shirt. I swear I can see the striations in his abdomen. His face is streaked with gray soot, his chiseled jaw clenched.