For His Forever Read Online Free PDF Page B

erection.
    “No!” She screamed. “Leave me alone!” She pushed against his chest with all her might—fear and adrenaline seemed to give her a burst of strength that surprised both of them.
    Brad stumbled back and fell over the laundry basket, his face a mask of surprise.
    “Fuck!” he shouted, as he landed on his butt, elbows hitting the floor, the basket spilling clothes everywhere.
    Kallie ran out of the laundry room and sprinted down the hallway, then out the front door. Her breath was already coming in gasps and she was crying in fear and anger and confusion.
    The whole thing was a blur. She kept running, remembering her days in track and field in high school, starting to find a rhythm now, pacing herself as she made her way down the driveway and onto the narrow forest road.
    She didn’t even know where she was going. She just knew that she was going to get far, far away from the Danvers’s home.

    ***
    Sometimes life was just plain weird, and you got dragged into situations you’d never imagined yourself being in.
    So it was that Nicole found herself at Bottle and Cradle, a boutique baby store, ready to go shopping for baby clothes with Erica Jameson—the same woman who’d viciously insulted her not so long ago.
    She didn’t quite know how Erica was so adept at worming her way into spending more time together than originally planned, but suddenly lunch had become brunch and then that had turned into Erica and Nicole meeting at eight-thirty in the morning at Bottle and Cradle.
    Erica was standing beside the entrance to the store with a big, sunny smile on her face when Nicole arrived.
    Nicole got slowly out of the car, and then walked to greet her mother-in-law with a hug. Erica squeezed her warmly and pecked her on the cheek.
    “You are positively glowing, Nicole.”
    “Did you say glowing or growing?” Nicole joked.
    Erica laughed. “I know how it feels when you get to this point and you just want to get the darn thing out of you already. But believe me, it will be here before you know it.”
    “I’m sure you’re right.”
    “Shall we?” Erica asked, and then opened the door without waiting for a response.
    The two of them walked into the store, and the little chime announced their entrance. A perky salesgirl approached and asked if they needed help finding anything in particular.
    “I think we’ll just browse for now, darling,” Erica told her, looking around and making a beeline towards the clothing racks and shelves of baby accessories. “It’s so fun to shop for a newborn or even a baby that’s not yet arrived. I swear, nothing gives me more pleasure than to buy an outfit and imagine it on your tiny little baby girl.”
    Nicole smiled tightly. She and Red had agreed that they wouldn’t be purchasing baby items (not clothes or diapers or any of it) until much closer to the birth of the child.
    The truth was, they were being nervous and somewhat superstitious. It felt like they’d be tempting fate if they started counting their chickens before they hatched, so to speak.
    Red hadn’t even wanted to set up a nursery or paint a room in their house to prepare for the little girl’s arrival. He was at least as jumpy as Nicole was about the pregnancy, and the idea of going through another miscarriage was so horrifying to him that he wouldn’t even utter the word.
    Nonetheless, Nicole and he both knew the specter of another miscarriage hung over this pregnancy like a pall, and they avoided it like the proverbial elephant in the room.
    Still, even with her fears and doubts, she hadn’t been able to say no to Erica’s kind offer to buy the unborn baby a few outfits. It was such a sweet gesture, and she seemed to be trying hard to rebuild the trust that had been destroyed on her fateful visit those months back.
    “Oh, look at these little socks. Adorable!” Erica squealed, holding up the tiniest pair of pink socks that Nicole had ever seen.
    “Those are some cute ones,” Nicole