Knocked up, preggo, with child, carrying a bun in the oven, in the family way, et cetera.

Five and a half months so, to be exact.

Even if this fact had not permeated every moment of every day of her waking consciousness, she would still have known it by the uncomfortable thickness in her middle and the constant, burning desire she had to eat everything in sight.

To say this development wasn't in her plans was an understatement. For a variety of reasons—some of which would require the professional supervision of a therapist to sort out—Soleil hadn't factored kids into her life. Certainly not single parenthood and certainly not now when running her youth program on her organic farm took every ounce of her energy. How she would even manage a baby in the mix baffled her. Especially on days like today.

It was a damp gray morning on Rainbow Farm, and Soleil was not in the mood to search for a lost goat. A lost cheeseburger, maybe, but missing livestock? This was only going to postpone lunch— provided the animal was found quickly and safely.

If not… She hurried across the front lawn, feeling about as lithe and agile as a watermelon. She'd once been a track star in high school and later at U.C. Berkeley. She'd been able to sprint so fast, she'd felt at certain blissful moments as if the wind carried her.

But now? She could still run, but the pace had no familiarity with wind-assisted agility, and her lithe-ness was tempered by a paranoia that with every step she was going to inadvertently cause herself to miscarry. The doctor had assured her that wasn't going to happen, that she could still run as long as she felt good doing so, but pregnancy was doing crazy