She leaned against the old Formica counter. Sagged more than leaned, actually. “Okay,” she said vaguely.

“Besides, our conflicts were really more about having fun than they were serious disagreements, right?”

She frowned. “That’s not how I remember it.”

“Oh?”

“I’m a left-leaning organic-farming peacenik, and you’re a dedicated member of the military-industrial complex. We had great sex, but that’s it.”

“Is your beef with me really because I’m in the military?”

“Partly. And it’s also because I know you want the traditional married-with-children life, and that makes us inherently incompatible.”

West laughed. “You’re the one wearing an apron and slicing freshly baked bread, not me.”

Her frown turned to a scowl, and West kept a close eye on the bread knife just to be safe.

“You’re not funny,” she said, her voice flat.

“Oh, and you’re pregnant with a child.”

My child, he almost said.

“But I’m not married, and I never will be. I don’t believe in it.”

They’d have to wait and see about that. If she was carrying his child, they’d be talking commitment. He didn’t see any harm in a shotgun marriage, if the situation called for it. And in spite of all her big talk, he’d have bet the sun and moon she was damn scared of raising a child alone.

It was time to find out the truth-pleasantries be dammed. Speculation was counterproductive. Only with the facts could he make a solid plan for the future.

“Soleil is there something you need to tell me about your pregnancy?”

CHAPTER THREE

SOLEIL FELT as if the words were lodged in her throat, refusing to exit. A wave of nausea the likes of which she hadn’t felt in weeks hit her, and her face broke out in a cold sweat.

West was not a man she wanted to raise a child with. She’d yet to meet anyone she wanted to raise a child with, but especially not a trained killer, whose politics and values were as opposite hers as they could possibly be.