I will not lose my temper. She took a deep breath and let it out again. If nothing else, she could mend the rift with her sister, and the three of them could have a relatively peaceful, supportive relationship. Even if it was only because they’d united against their parents.
Amy would need help, because Gwen strongly suspected the baby’s father wouldn’t be involved that much. Despite Amy’s assurances to the contrary, Gwen knew what men could be like. Especially lying, cheating assholes who got women other than their wives pregnant. And besides, Amy didn’t need a man in her life. She had enough in savings to get her by until she started working full time again. Gwen and Liam would babysit for her. They could talk her into moving in with them.
She wistfully smiled. Kids of her own weren’t on the radar, especially now and maybe never, but she wouldn’t mind being able to spoil a niece or nephew rotten. Liam would make a great uncle. He wasn’t much more than a big kid himself in many ways.
This would all work out okay, once they finished running interference for Amy with their parents. They’d take the brunt of it for her, shelter her, let her focus on being a mom so she could enjoy it as much as possible.
She didn’t see Amy’s car when she pulled into the parking lot. She parked off to the side, hopefully where Amy wouldn’t notice her.
Her nerves a jangled mess, Gwen walked into the doctor’s office and was surprised to find Amy already sitting in the waiting room. Amy didn’t look up when she walked in, until Gwen walked over to her.
Amy’s jaw dropped. “Gwen! What are you doing here?”
She sat beside her. “Please, don’t be mad at me. I’m sorry we fought and I lost my temper.” She grabbed her sister’s hands. “I’m so sorry. I was a total bitch, and you didn’t deserve for me to go off on you like that. Listen to me, Liam and I love you, and we want to support you in this. We don’t want you going through this alone. Liam and I agree we want you to live with us. We’ll help you take care of the baby. We’ll babysit for you when you go back to work, and we’ll help you with Mom and Dad.”
She shook her head. “I–I–”
“Stop, please. Let me finish. We don’t care what happened or why, and we’re not going to play the stupid blame games Mom and Dad are so fond of. It happened, and we’re here for you.” She took a deep breath. “We mean it. We’ll—” Her voice broke off as Ruthie’s husband, Bob Tamsin, emerged from the bathroom and froze when he saw Gwen sitting there. After a moment’s stunned shock, he walked over
“Bob? What are you doing here?” Gwen asked. Then she looked at Amy and spotted her horrified expression. The Rapid City desk clerk’s description of the man Amy stayed with came back to Gwen.
All the pieces suddenly clicked into place. Bob had been on a business trip the same time Amy left.
Bob hadn’t been available to help Liam move.
Ruthie still swore Bob was having an affair.
The prepaid phone Gwen spotted in Amy’s stuff.
Gwen didn’t want to contemplate if Jack knew about this part of Amy’s secret or not. Had she even told him about Ruthie? She couldn’t remember.
As the full impact of Amy’s betrayal hit Gwen, her breath left in a whoosh. She stood on feet that had suddenly gone numb. “No,” she whispered, shaking her head and backing away from them. “I don’t believe it. I can’t believe it. After all she went through, you do this to her?”
Bob tried to speak, but Gwen pointed at him. “No. Don’t. Don’t you dare make excuses!”
Amy hadn’t moved from her chair. “Gwen, please, we didn’t mean for it to happen. It just did.”
Gwen felt ill. Worse, she felt like an idiot. No wonder Amy didn’t want to tell her and Liam about the secret man in her life. “How long has this been going on?” Gwen shrilly asked. She didn’t care that the whole waiting room had gone silent and was staring at them.
“Six months,” Amy softly admitted.
Six months. For six months, Ruthie had kept insisting something was wrong.
How right she’d been.
Gwen couldn’t stop shaking. She somehow managed to turn herself around and get pointed toward the exit. Bob caught up with her outside and tried to grab her arm to stop her, but she wheeled on him. “Don’t fucking touch me, you son of a bitch!” she screamed. “How the fuck could you do this to Ruthie?”
“You don’t know what it’s like living with her, Gwen. I didn’t mean for it to happen, but it did. I’m sorry this is going to hurt Ruthie, but I’m not sorry I finally have a chance to be happy with a normal woman after all the years of crap I’ve had to deal with.”
Gwen’s stomach rolled. She thought she might actually throw up. She held up a hand to silence him and stumbled backward. “Get the fuck away from me, you lying bastard. I can’t believe I actually thought you were a good guy.” She ran for her car, only realizing she was sobbing once inside. Her fingers trembled so bad she dropped her key three times before she seated it in the ignition and started the engine.
When she walked into the living room at home, she found Liam on the couch, working on his laptop. “How’d it go, sis?” Once he spotted her tears, he set the computer on the coffee table and opened his arms.
She fell onto the couch and Liam held her while she sobbed. She felt grateful he didn’t bother asking what happened.
Retelling it might make her sick.
Her BlackBerry rang—“Wipe Out.”
Ruthie.
She shoved it at him. “I can’t talk to her,” she said, her voice a haggard whisper. “Please, talk to her. Tell her anything, but I can’t talk to her yet.”
Confused, he answered. “Hiya, Ruthie, what’s up?…She’s upstairs taking a nap. I kept her up late last night. Don’t want to talk to me, huh?” he joked. “That’s okay, you know I was just teasing you, kiddo. So what’re you up to?” After chatting with her for five minutes, he got her off the phone.
His eyes met Gwen’s. He brushed the hair from her forehead. “All right, sis,” he quietly said. “I take it things didn’t go well. What happened? Talk to me.”
“I met the baby’s father,” she managed to choke out. “Now I know why Amy was terrified to tell us who he was.” She stared at her phone, which he still held.
He frowned as he studied the phone. Then he closed his eyes and swore as he connected the dots. “Oh, no.”
She nodded. “Oh, yes. The fuckwad was there at the doctor with her.”
He looked at her. “Oh, fuck me. Poor Ruthie. Did he explain himself?”
“I didn’t give him a chance. There’s nothing either of them can say to me to explain themselves. They’ve been seeing each other for six months.” She laid her head in his lap and let him stroke her hair. “There is no excuse. What? She accidentally fell on his dick enough times to get knocked up?”
He laughed. “That’s a good one. You should use that in a book.”
“It’s not funny.”
He sighed. “No, unfortunately, it’s not funny.”
She wanted Tim and Jack. She wanted to curl up in their arms and sob herself to sleep. But they were a half a country away in Rapid City, and Jack wanted nothing to do with her.
“I can’t tell Ruthie,” she finally said. “It’ll kill her. Or she’ll kill him. Or I’ll kill him, I don’t know. All I do know is I can’t tell her.”
“Don’t tell her. You shouldn’t. It’s not your job.”
“But what do I say? She’s my friend.”
“That’s why you shouldn’t say anything.” He stroked her hair. “It’s between Bob and her.” He glared. “And Amy.”
“I hate Amy for this.” She looked back at all the times Amy made snide comments about Ruthie. “She knew, all this time, what she was doing and could look me in the eye and…” She swallowed back bile. “I hate them.”