Page 3 of Craving You

Just thinking of Max Calloway had her sighing dreamily. She had met him at the rehearsal dinner the night before her cousin Billie’s wedding. They flirted almost shamelessly the entire night, but it was a family event and nothing happened. Then, she saw him again at the wedding—Billie married his brother—and the two of them laughed and danced and kissed and…

Another sigh.

It was the hottest, sexiest, most satisfying night of her life.

Well…two nights.

It had been a fun weekend fling, and that was perfectly fine with her. But it was a little over a month ago, and since coming home to Florida, she hadn’t thought about him much.

Okay, she’d thought about him a little.

Each day.

And especially at night.

“Ugh…now is so not the time to be thinking about this. Sloane will be here any minute.” From that moment on, she vowed to focus on girls’ night—Chinese food, sundaes, whatever movie they decide on, and just hanging out and relaxing.

So…until her sister arrived, she was going to think about something else—like placing their dinner order and making sure it would get there in a reasonable amount of time.

Fifteen minutes later, Sloane texted that she was out front and needed a hand.

“Hey!” Hailey called out as she jogged out to the car. “Sorry. I should have been watching for you because I knew you’d need a hand.” She was instantly at the trunk pulling out shopping bags. “I appreciate you picking up dessert.” There were more bags than she expected, but the two of them carried them into the house and went straight to the kitchen.

“I hope the ice cream didn’t get too melty,” Sloane said as she quickly tossed it all into the freezer. “Some days I can’t stand the Florida heat!”

It was something Hailey had been thinking about a lot in the last year. She was so ready for a change of scenery and had even considered moving up to Sweetbriar Ridge near her cousins and…wow. Now that might happen if Max wanted to be involved with the baby.

If there was a baby.

Ugh…stop thinking about it!

“So, what happened at work today? You mentioned that it was a crappy day.”

Sloane waved her off. “Just the usual crap. Nobody does their work, and it all gets dumped on me. Same old, same old.” When the last of the food was put away, she asked, “Did you order dinner already?”

“Yup. I got all our favorites, and it will be here in thirty minutes. So why don’t you go and freshen up? I put out some jammies for you. Well, yoga pants and a T-shirt, but they could totally be jammies if you wanted them to be. They’re on my bed.”

“You didn’t have to do that, but I appreciate it.” And before she left the room, she gave Hailey a hug. “You’re the best!”

While she waited for her sister to get changed, she looked over all the sundae toppings and tried to figure out which ones she was going to use, and all the possible combinations.

Suddenly Sloane appeared in the doorway. “Um…what the hell is this?”

Turning, she saw the pregnancy test in her sister’s hand.

Uh-oh…

“You know I peed on that, right?” was all Hailey could think of at the moment.

Sloane threw the test directly at her. “Ew! Gross! And that’s not an answer!”

“Well, I need a minute, okay? And why were you fishing through my garbage?” she snapped.

“Okay, first, I wasn’t fishing through anything. It was right there on the top and I saw it when I was getting changed!”

“Oh.”

“That’s all you have to say? There’s a positive pregnancy test in your trash and you weren’t going to say anything?”

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