Pregnant In Prosperino by Carla Cassidy Page B

girl about him.
    â€œLana?”
    â€œHmm,” she said absently, her attention focused on a night-light that also played music.
    â€œWhat are you going to tell the baby about me?”
    That got her undivided attention. She looked at him in surprise. “I’m not sure…I hadn’t really thought about it.”
    â€œSooner or later a baby grows up and has questionsthat need to be answered.” Chance frowned. “Are you going to tell him or her about our bargain?”
    Lana mirrored his frown thoughtfully. “No,” she finally said decisively. “I’ll just say that we married, it didn’t work out and we divorced. In this day and age, divorce is so common.”
    â€œAnd what if he asks why I’m not a part of his life?”
    Her frown deepened. “I don’t know, Chance. I can’t tell you right now exactly what I’m going to say. But, whatever I say, it will be in the best interest of the child.”
    Chance nodded, satisfied with her answer for the moment.
    He was relieved when she finally started for the door, stopping only at the counter to fill out a card to be placed on the mailing list. He watched over her shoulder as she filled it out, somehow disquieted when he saw her write the address to her apartment rather than the ranch.
    â€œYou could have written down the ranch address,” he said to her as they left the shop and headed back to his car.
    She shrugged. “There’s really no point. I check my mail at my apartment every week or so, and we’ll be divorced and you’ll be gone from Prosperino long before the baby is born.”
    Although he knew she was right, and it had been what he’d been reminding her of from the moment they’d gotten married, he couldn’t understand why her cool, unemotional recitation of the facts somehow depressed him.
    Â 
    â€œSo, how does it feel to be celebrating your one-month anniversary?” Maya asked her sister. “Do you and Chance have anything special planned for the night?”
    â€œNo, nothing.” Lana speared a tomato from her salad, but instead of eating it, set her fork down across the side of her plate. “Maya, I have a confession to make.”
    The two were seated in Chance’s kitchen. Rain had cancelled any work for the day and Chance had driven into town to order more supplies and eat lunch with an old friend from high school. He’d told her he’d be home in time for dinner.
    Lana had taken the opportunity to invite her sister over for lunch with the express purpose of confessing the real reasons behind her marriage to Chance.
    â€œA confession? Hmm, sounds intriguing.” Maya shot a glance at her daughter, sleeping soundly in an infant carrier on the floor, then gazed once again at her sister.
    Lana took a deep breath, dreading telling her sister the truth, yet unable to continue the charade. “My marriage to Chance isn’t real.”
    Maya frowned in confusion. “What do you mean, it isn’t real? You didn’t really get married by a justice of the peace?” A grin curved the corners of her lips and her eyes widened. “Are you telling me that my proper, straitlaced older sister is living in sin with a man?”
    â€œNo, it’s nothing like that,” Lana hurriedly protested. “We really got married, but we have no intention of staying married.”
    â€œWhat?” Maya leaned forward, any hint of a smile gone.
    Lana stared down at her salad and prepared herself for her sister’s reaction to what she was about to say. “It was a business arrangement. Chance couldn’t inherit this place unless he was married. His father had it written in his will that way.” She glanced back up to see Maya staring at her in shock.
    â€œYou married Chance so he could inherit the ranch?” Her voice held a note of incredulity. “And what do you get out of this—this business