Chapter 7

Rachel’s announcement left Joshua buzzing for the rest of the evening. She was pregnant. Pregnant. He was going to be a father. A father.

They had not exactly been trying to conceive, but they hadn’t been trying to prevent it, either. Their attitude was that when the time was right, the baby would come. A child was a gift from God. No one could ever strictly control the granting of a blessing.

He had an almost irrepressible urge to call everyone he knew and share the good news. But Rachel promised him to silence. She wanted to visit her OB-GYN and confirm the pregnancy with another test, to be absolutely sure. She also advised him that until she passed the first trimester, it would be unwise to tell the whole world about the baby, because in the early stages there was always the possibility of a miscarriage. In the meantime, she wanted him to keep the news under wraps.

He reluctantly agreed to her request, though walking around with such a wonderful secret was going to drive him nuts. There was so much to think about, so much to plan . . . he felt as if he were going to pop like a balloon.

I’m going to be a dad. I can’t believe it.

He had assumed he would be awake all night, riding high on excitement, but he wound up falling asleep shortly before midnight, exhausted, like a kid who’d eaten too much candy crashing after the sugar rush faded. Rachel climbed in bed, found a comfortable spot in his arms, and drifted asleep, too.

When he awoke sometime later that night, she was gone.

He glanced toward the bathroom. The door was shut, but blackness framed the doorway. She wasn’t in there.

He thought about the nightmare she’d had last night, and anxiety wrenched his stomach. What if she was sleepwalking this time, fleeing her mysterious dream villain?

It was a melodramatic idea—Rachel might have padded downstairs only to get a glass of water—but he couldn’t discount it. With her announcement of her pregnancy, he felt an instinctual drive to protect her from harm. That included Rachel accidentally hurting herself in the throes of a bad dream.

He put on his glasses. The clock read a quarter past three.

He got out of bed, shuffled into the hallway. It was dark. No light filtered up there from downstairs, which it would have if she were in the kitchen.

He was about to call her name, when he heard a clicking sound coming from the room at the end of the hallway. Rachel’s office.

Quietly, he went down the hall. The door was cracked open about an inch, giving him a narrow view.

Rachel sat before her desk, typing on her laptop. The silvery glow from the display was the only light source in the study, imbuing her face with a ghostly pallor.

What was she doing in here at a quarter past three o’clock in the morning?

He looked at the screen. He could make out a few words. He frowned, leaned forward—

--and unintentionally bumped against the door. Rachel twisted around, startled.

“Hey, it’s only me,” he said.

“You scared me.” She put her hand to her chest, sighed.

He stepped inside the room. “Sorry. I saw you’d gotten out of bed. What are you doing up?”

“Reading about pregnancy.” She hit a button on the keyboard, closing the programs she had opened. “I’m so excited I can hardly sleep. I figured as long as I was awake, I’d do some research.”

Joshua wished there was sufficient light in the room to reveal her eyes, because he was positive that she was lying to him. The text he’d read on the screen was proof of her duplicity.

“When are you coming back to bed?” he asked.

“Right now, actually.” She switched off the computer. Within seconds, the display went black, and darkness fell over the room.

She came to him, slid her arms around his waist. One of her hands crawled inside his boxer shorts.

“Coming with me?” she asked in a whisper.

Although Joshua was usually as pliable as clay in Rachel’s erotically adept fingers, he wasn’t in the mood for sex. But if he turned her down, she would think something was wrong. Something was wrong, but he wasn’t prepared to talk about it yet.

“I’ll be there in a minute,” he said. “I’m going downstairs to get some water. Want anything?”

“Only you.” She pulled her t-shirt over her head, dangled it from her finger.

Joshua’s vision had mostly adjusted to the darkness. Rachel was wearing only her panties, and the sight of her could have resurrected the pulse of a dead man. In spite of his troubled mood, the promise of being with her sent a wave of warmth through his veins.

“Be right back,” he said.

“Don’t keep me waiting long.” Hips swaying prettily, she sashayed to their bedroom.

He watched her go, his mouth dry; he really could use some water. Before heading downstairs, he glanced at the laptop again, and felt an uncomfortable twinge.

He hadn’t seen the word “pregnancy” on the screen when he’d been spying over Rachel’s shoulder. He’d seen a different word altogether.

Penitentiary.