Best for the Baby by Ann Evans Page B

she’d been here four days. Hard to believe how easily she’d embraced the mission Zack had hired her for. He was right—as capable as she’d turned out to be in PR, her passion was interior design.
    As Zack had promised, he left her to make most of the decisions regarding changes to the interior, while he spent the day working outside in the crisp autumn air. As much as she loved this project and the fact that it kept her so busy she had little opportunity to think about the errant Jeffrey, she liked the evenings best.
    Sometimes she and Zack ate dinner together at the kitchen table, talking over the day’s accomplishments or revising to-do lists. Occasionally they drifted into theliving room to spend the evening reading or watching television.
    There were moments—just flickers of time—when Alaina felt as though she was living a domestic fantasy. A handsome husband she’d loved from childhood, a lovely home in the most peaceful place on earth, a baby on the way. All so perfect, a blueprint of countless teenage dreams.
    But none of it was real, of course, and she was reminded of that every night when she went to bed. Alone.
    She and Zack were polite to one another. But their agreement to keep the relationship strictly platonic made the hours they spent together feel a little unnatural, strained. As though there was an invisible line between them that neither one wanted to cross. Sometimes she felt a tension in the air as they experienced a slight shift in awareness. Murmuring the excuse that she was tired, she would often escape to her room—the same bedroom she had shared with her sister so long ago—but it would be hours before she fell asleep.
    Many times she lay in the dark, breathless, her heart hammering, when she heard Zack’s tread upon the stairs. Once, she even imagined that he had stopped outside her door, but when she turned over to see if there were shadows moving in that hem of light from the hallway, there was nothing.
    She wondered what she would have done if he had been out there. Invite him to open the door? Unthinkable.
    She decided she must have imagined it and scolded herself for such a flight of fancy. Zack seemed perfectly capable of keeping a lid on his emotions and thoughts. Why couldn’t she?
    Now, as she stood at the kitchen counter and put the finishing touches on the grilled lemon chicken and salad she was making for dinner, she heard Zack come in from outside after working on the porch all day. She knew his routine by now. He’d head straight up the stairs for a shower and clean clothes. Then he’d check to see what she’d been up to.
    In a few minutes she heard water running through the pipes overhead. Immediately, images of Zack naked and wet zipped into her mind, and just as quickly she shook them loose. It was embarrassing how often she had such thoughts, and how infrequently she called up memories of Jeffrey.
    A part of him was growing inside her, and while she didn’t have one moment of doubt or regret about the baby, she wondered how she could ever have thought of him as father material. Well…that had been part of the problem, hadn’t it? They hadn’t been thinking much at all that night.
    Suppose she never saw him again? Then what—
    “Something smells like it’s burning.”
    Alaina jumped as Zack spoke behind her. How long had she been standing at the sink, drifting into daydreams? It always seemed as if her head was somewhere else these days.
    She rushed to the stove and discovered that the water had boiled out from under the broccoli. She ran more into the pan, then checked out the damage. The pieces on the bottom were singed, but salvageable.
    “How do you like your broccoli?” she asked, tilting the pan toward him.
    “Well done?”
    “Good answer.”
    While Alaina finished preparing the meal, Zack filled iced tea glasses and set the table. He always placed their plates across from one another, as though establishing another invisible barrier between