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and together they slid down the wall into a twisted heap of tangled arms and legs. Her hair wrapped around his fingers, her head on his shoulder, they gasped for air as their racing hearts beat as one.

  Several minutes later, when the cramp in his leg began to demand attention, Tuck slowly came back to himself. Bay was still wrapped around him, one of her feet tucked under his butt causing that to start to cramp as well. Bay... dear god he’d just... with Bay.

  Slowly and carefully he began to try to untangle himself from her. Once she realized he was moving, she started to help him. He saw as soon as the knowledge of what they’d done hit her. The tension was back immediately, but this time it wasn’t a pleasant tension. It took some maneuvering separate from each other.

  Bay immediately grabbed her clothes from the floor and shot into the bathroom. Tuck jerked on his clothes and got out of the apartment as fast as he could. Shame and remorse filled him. How could he face Clarice now? She had so much to get through. She needed him to be strong, not to fall into another woman’s arms. Cursing, he slammed into his truck and headed for home.

  - 4 -

  Bay lay in her loft bed watching the dawn break over the town. Even after being Acting Sheriff for a month, and consequently on day shift, it was still strange to sleep at night again. She was still much more used to seeing dawn from inside a patrol car, not from her bed. Sifting and starting to move to get up and start her day, she paused as a sudden wave of nausea rose from her middle.

  Laying back, she laid a hand on her stomach. The nausea seemed to flow away. Weird, she thought and started to rise again. As soon as she sat up, it was back and hit in force. Racing down the narrow, steep stairs as fast as she dared, Bay barely made it to the bathroom. She wretched into the toilet, one hand holding her hair back, the other braced on the wall.

  Her stomach empty, she wet a cloth and wiped her face and rinsed her mouth with water. Her knees were still weak and she stepped back to slide down the wall. Sitting on the floor, she rested her head against her knees.

  What the hell was this? She wondered. Thinking back over what she ate yesterday, trying to decide if maybe she had food poisoning. Bay was never sick. She hated to be sick and so she refused to get sick. She was healthy, strong, she simply didn’t do sick.

  Her stomach quickly settled. It seemed that whatever had made her sick was evidently now flushed away down the toilet. After a shower, she felt fine. In fact she weirdly felt good for having started off the day so dramatically. Shrugging it off to some strange quirk, Bay went on about business.

  After waking up for the fifth morning the exact same way, Bay could no longer deny there was something wrong. What was confusing her the most was that after heaving up her guts then taking a hot shower, she felt fine. In fact mostly for the rest of the day she felt really good. While this was most certainly not the way she wanted to start every morning, it was hard to admit that something might be wrong with her.

  That morning when she swung into Mamie’s Diner for a quick breakfast, Bay was surprised to find Flossie sitting at a table alone. Grabbing a chair across from the woman, Bay sat and reached to grab a melon ball from the little bowl in front of Flossie. She got the expected hand smack and pretended to be hurt.

  “What are you doing here so early? I never see you up and around this time of the day.” Bay laughed.

  “Just because you don’t see me don’t mean I’m not up and around, as you say.” Flossie groused back. She picked up her coffee and looked at Bay, then paused and studied Bay’s face, a slight frown materializing.

  But Bay was looking around the diner, a frown deepening on her own face. Wrinkling her nose she asked, “What is that smell? That is foul.”

  Flossie carefully set down her coffee, her sharp eyes pinning Bay back into her chair. “That’s bacon you smell. Same thing a body always smells here in Mamie’s.” Pushing her nearly empty plate aside, she clasped her hands on table top, her eyes never leaving Bay’s face. “Normally I mind my own business, but I got issues with this.”

  Concern and a streak of fear went through Bay. “Issues?” Flossie was never at the diner in the mornings but here she was. Bay was terrified she was about to hear Flossie say she was leaving her job, retiring, something she really didn’t need right now. She’d just released the new midnight guy to patrol on his own but Flossie ran the office, no way could she lose her now.

  Flossie’s lips tightened into a firm line. “I know plenty of women that raise a child on their own for one reason or another. But you, you’re supposed to be better than that. You got to be an example to all these young girls growing up and admiring you for being in a respected position like you are.”

  Bay was at a complete loss. She blinked at the older woman a couple of times before asking, “What?” A new fear skittered down her back, was Flossie losing her mind?

  “I really thought better of you Bay Lopez. Unless you got some real good reason why you’re carrying. But really, if you’re being a surrogate or something that’s about the dumbest most irresponsible thing you could do. Might not be much crime around here but you should be thinking of all the possibilities. You could get that baby hurt.” Flossie started to gather her things to leave.

  “Wait, wait, wait.” Bay held up her hand to stop her from leaving, panic causing her heart to start to race. “Flossie what are you talking about? Are you feeling okay? Do you need a doctor?” Her concern for Flossie was through the roof now, fear starting to coat her insides with an icy cold.

  Flossie stopped and glared at Bay. “Are you going to try to deny you’re pregnant?”

  Bay went stock still. The icy fear turned into a stunning cold of shock. Her body felt frozen, unable to move, her stomach rolled over and she momentarily wondered if she was going to hurl right there in the remains of Flossie’s breakfast. Pregnant. She frantically thought, searching for the knowledge of when her last period was.

  With her normally tanned skin tone slowly leaching into a snow-white paleness, Flossie sat and stared at her. Bay’s lips were stiff with shock, “What?” she whispered. Then had the memory of the last time she’d asked that single word question of someone. That memory of the heat, the passion, however brief it may have been was all the confirmation she needed.

  When she nearly slid boneless onto the floor, Flossie paused. “You didn’t know?” As Bay shook her head, she watched Flossie’s ire drain. “Well. Now you do.”

  Bay only nodded, her brain too overloaded for her to speak coherently.

  Flossie drummed her fingers on the table top. “You gonna’ tell me who’s the daddy?”

  Frantically Bay shook her head no, pony tail swinging like mad. Fear once again shot through her at anyone having that knowledge.

  “Alright. I will apologize for the things I said. I don’t normally jump to conclusions like that.” Bay knew her eyes were nearly bugging out of her head. Flossie had just apologized. There were way too many emotions and thoughts going through her, she just couldn’t keep up. “I can see now you didn’t know. It’s obvious you weren’t expecting that to happen.” Once again Flossie’s mouth firmed up before she spoke again, “There are options though. Not that I approve of them, but I could maybe understand the need.”

  Options. Once Bay realized what Flossie meant, she immediately shut those thoughts down. While she too could understand the need in an extreme situation, and in some ways this was an extreme situation, it wasn’t an option for her. Laying a hand over her flat stomach, she knew for certain that she was carrying Tuck’s child and nothing would keep her from allowing harm to come to this child.

  “I...uh.” She stopped and cleared her throat. “I’m sorry Flossie. I really didn’t know, didn’t expect this at all. I never thought...” obviously I didn’t think. Bay took a deep breath, “The only option is to figure out how to fit a baby into my apartment and a baby seat into the patrol car.”

  Flossie leaned back in her chair and looked Bay over. It seemed that she came to some decision. Givin
g Bay a brief nod, Flossie went back to gathering her things. “If you need to know what all you gonna’ need, go see Beth Ann Roberts. She’s got two babies in diapers and can tell you anything you need to know.”

  While Bay immediately dismissed the thought of going to anyone else for baby information, she also realized that she knew nothing about babies and certainly nothing about how to be a pregnant Sheriff. Picturing herself with a bulging belly and taking down old drunk Scotty Brooks had her scooting from her chair and heading back to the office. She had a budget to look at and a Commission Council to convince that she needed another officer.

  The next weeks passed in a flurry for Bay. Miraculously, she found a grant for small counties that paid for another police officer. They qualified easily and the Council had no qualms with approving it as it was hardly going to cost them anything. Now, she just had to hire someone to help once she was unable to work the streets.

  She went back to Fayetteville for the doctor’s appoint to confirm what she already knew. She was pregnant. At least she was able to give an exact date