Page 67 of Snow in Texas

He shrugged, his look challenging, glinting with a dangerous light. “So? You think I give a shit what her name is so long as she knows what to do with her mouth?”

She wanted to hit him, and because she’d never done such a thing, she gulped down a sudden surge of nausea, shocked at her depth of emotion.

It must have shown in her face, because Colin’s frown morphed into one of concern. “Jen–”

“I’m pregnant,” she blurted.

Twenty-Six

Colin

“Uh….” He’d been saying that for a whole minute. Or five. Fifteen. How longhadhe been staring at her,uhing?

“Colin. Say something else,” Jenny prompted. She had her hands curled around her glass of ice water, looking at him with mixed amusement and annoyance.

His brain, catching again and again on the wordpregnantlike a broken record, lurched suddenly, shot him forward into full-on panic. “Jesus,” he breathed. “Shit. Like…for real?”

She rolled her eyes. “I haven’t been to the doc yet, but yeah, all the tests I took said so.”

“But…how?”

“Well, when a man sticks his–”

“I know that!” he snapped, voice rising.

Jenny had been whispering, and she sat back when she heard his tone, brows lifting. “You want everyone to know?”

“Do you?”

Jenny started to respond…

But he’d had enough. Of her distance, coldness, of the way this whole disastrous conversation was going. He stepped out from behind the bar, and caught himself, just before he reached for her. “Would you come with me?” he asked instead. “Please?”

“Where?” But she was already shifting her weight, preparing to slide off the stool.

“Just…” He sighed, checked his temper. He had left marks on her, after all. “Can we do this somewhere else?” He gestured toward the hall.

She studied him a moment, expression guarded. Then nodded and followed.

Colin took them to his dorm, and locked the door once they were inside. The bed was unmade and he had laundry heaped on the desk. He pulled the blankets hastily straight, to give Jenny a place to sit, but when he turned around, she was in the desk chair.

A small, possibly meaningless maneuver, but one that bothered him. Was she really so frightened of him now? Distrustful? She couldn’t even sit on the same sheets where they’d…

Grumbling internally, he dropped down onto the mattress and didn’t try to keep the edge from his voice. “You’re pregnant.”

“Ninety-five percent sure, yeah.”

“So there’s a five percent chance you’re not?”

She made a face and tugged a hand through her hair, not meeting his gaze. “It’s not an exact percentage thing. I was just saying.” Her eyes darted to him, and then away. “I should have started a week ago.”

“Started?”

“My period.” There was an impliedidiottacked onto the end of the statement. “I’m never late, and right now I’m a week late.”

“And the test came back positive?”

“Like I said: yeah.”

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