What Price Paradise by Katherine Allred

No, it wasn’t since the wedding, he thought. It had happened later that day. After she’d gone upstairs to change. Maybe it was the talk they’d had in the kitchen while he helped her with supper.
    He only knew that they had spent a comfortable evening going over the seed catalogs together while Buddy did his homework upstairs. A grin split his face as he remembered Abby’s comment about needing a ladder to pick strawberries, and the laughter it had prompted from him. Apparently she’d never picked strawberries before, or even seen one of the low growing plants. She’d actually slugged him in the arm for laughing at her.
    And that wasn’t all. The house was so clean he was almost afraid to walk though it. She’d even washed clothes. For the first time since his mom died, you could actually find Buddy’s bed.
    Yesterday, they had sat under a tree while he ate the left-over chicken and cobbler she’d brought, washing the food down with about a gallon of iced tea. And even when they hadn’t been talking, the silence hadn’t seemed so uneasy.
    The door to the exam room opened and Abby came back in, hesitated and then clutched the gown to her chest, staring at Tate helplessly. Tate knew how she felt. There was nowhere in the room to offer her any privacy. He cleared his throat. “Uh, I’ll just wait outside the door while you change.”
    He stepped though the door, closing it behind him. The nurse was at a desk near the end of the hall and she looked up, one eyebrow arched in question.
    “Problem?”
    Tate thought fast. “No, just wondering if you have a drinking fountain.”
    She pointed to her right. “Down there.”
    “Thanks.” He took his time, dawdling to give Abby a chance to change, then went back to the room and knocked softly before opening the door a crack.
    She was standing in the middle of the room, one hand behind her clutching the gown closed, looking like she was about to cry.
    He slid all the way into the room. “Abby, what’s wrong?”
    “I broke the strings on the gown trying to get them tied.”
    “Turn around. Maybe I can fix it.”
    She presented her back to him and Tate tried his best not to look at the long expanse of bare skin that led down to a nicely curved bottom. It wasn’t easy. Carefully, he examined the gown. “They’re only broken on one side.”
    He took out his pocket knife and poked holes in the paper, threading the remaining strings through them and tying them off. “There. You’re all fixed up.”
    He didn’t have the heart to tell her that there was still a two inch gap in the back of the gown. She was nervous enough as it was.
    “What do you think they’re going to do to me?”
    He shook his head. “Your guess is as good as mine. I’ve never been through this before either.”
    They both looked up as the nurse came back in carrying a packet. Tate watched as she put a rubber strap around the top of Abby’s arm, but turned away with a wince when she pulled out a syringe. God, he hated needles.
    “There we go. Just hold your arm closed for a second and I’ll get a Band-Aid on that for you.”
    He looked back as the nurse collected the vials. Abby didn’t look like she was in mortal pain and he breathed a sigh of relief.
    “Doctor Spanos will be in shortly.”
    They were both quiet while they waited, Abby fiddling nervously with the sheet the nurse had draped over her lap. She literally jumped when the door opened again.
    A short, stout man with hair as white as the jacket he wore came in, looking at the chart in his hands through black rimmed glasses. The nurse followed him.
    He nodded at Tate, then turned to the table. “Abby, isn’t it?”
    “Yes.”
    “Well, Abby, you are definitely pregnant. When was your last period?”
    “March first.”
    The doctor did some rapid figuring on the chart then peered at her over his glasses. “That would put your due date about December sixteenth.” He handed the chart to the nurse. “Now, I’ll need you to just