by Maya Banks
Simon bolted over and grabbed Mike by the collar, slamming him against the locker. “Shut the hell up, Sanders. I don’t know why Toni confided in you, but shut your filthy mouth up.”
“Could it be she had no one else?” Mike asked pointedly, not at all intimidated by Simon’s strangle hold on him.
Simon slowly released him and he slid down the locker.
“You’re a damn fool, Simon. I bet you’ve spent the last few months secretly wishing the baby was yours so you and Toni could be one big happy family. And now that your wish has been granted, you’re doing your best to screw it up. Makes a hell of a lot of sense.”
“As much as I hate to agree with pretty boy Sanders, he has a very good point,” A.J. spoke up.
Simon turned to glare at A.J. who was leaning casually against the locker, anger still written on his face.
“Really, Simon. What’s your problem? Don’t you have everything you ever wanted? Didn’t you say the other night that things would be such much simpler if it were your baby she carried?” A.J. asked.
“She should have told me,” Simon whispered. “I had the right to know.”
“Yeah well I don’t think anyone’s going to argue that with you. But it’s a moot point. So are you going to hold it against her forever, or are you going to take care of the girl who loves you and raise your child together?” Mike stood defiantly a few inches from Simon’s face as he laid down the challenge. “Personally, I don’t think you deserve her, but for whatever reason, she chose you. She’s never betrayed you, never even looked at another guy. How many women can you say that about? Certainly no one in your past,” he said derisively.
“Enough already,” Matt said, holding up a hand and inserting himself between Simon and Mike. “We’ve got work to do. Toni’s a smart girl. She’s probably off working this out on her own like Simon’s doing. Back off and leave them to it.”
“You screw this up, Simon, and I’ll make damn sure you don’t get another chance with her,” Mike said as he stalked off.
Simon pounded his fist into the locker. “Damn it!” he swore. He turned to A.J. “You think I’m a jerk don’t you?”
“Well…not in so many words. I have a feeling you were pretty harsh on her though. Maybe said some things you shouldn’t have.”
“Tell me about it,” he muttered, thinking back to her earlier phone call. We have nothing to talk about rang in his ears. He looked back up at A.J. “She hasn’t been home in two days?”
A.J. shook his head. “Not that I’ve seen. I’ve called several times and I’ve driven by a few times.”
“She called me earlier today,” he said in a low voice.
“She did? What did she say? Where was she?”
He flushed again, his guilt in major overdrive. “I don’t know,” he said lamely.
“You don’t know?” Matt asked, finally speaking up.
“I hung up on her…after I told her we had nothing to talk about.”
“Damn,” A.J. said with a shake of his head. “You sure know how to put the screws to a person.”
“Let’s not haul me over the rack yet. I need to find out where she is. I’ll call her from inside.”
“If she’ll talk to you now,” A.J. said, raising one eyebrow.
Simon walked back inside and went straight to the phone. He dialed Toni’s number and let it ring twenty some odd times. In frustration he hung up. Was A.J. right? Had she not been home in two days? It wasn’t like her to miss so much work.
He picked up the phone and called the vet’s office. After speaking to Marnie for a few minutes, he hung up, worry beginning to crawl up his spine.
“That was Marnie,” he said as A.J. walked up behind him. “She’s worried about Toni too. Said she called yesterday and it sounded like she was at a payphone somewhere. This morning she called and the connection was clearer but she didn’t say anything other than she was sick and not coming in.”
A.J. frowned. “Doesn’t sound good, man.”
The radio went off and the crew launched into action. Simon swore and pulled his gear on. According to the scanner, the ice was already
starting to build on the secondary roads. It was only a matter of time before the main roads started to freeze as well.
Leave it to Mother Nature to pull a freak ice storm in southeast Texas in December. He’d be lucky if he had time to call Toni again. Traffic accidents would mount as the ice formed. People in these parts had no idea how to drive in this kind of weather.
“Let’s go,” the chief shouted.
Simon pulled on his helmet and climbed into the truck. It was going to be a long day. His worry over Toni wasn’t going to make it any easier. His own nagging guilt was merely another nail in his coffin.
As Toni drove the lonely stretch of highway between Beaumont and Cypress, she thought, not for the first time, that she would have been better off remaining in her hotel room on the coast. While the sleet was coming down along the coastal rode, it wasn’t sticking. But here, just miles north, the roads were quickly icing over.
“Whoever heard of an ice storm in December?” she grumbled. She slowed to a crawl as she crossed the bridge over Cypress creek. Only ten more miles and she’d be home. At an absurd hour of the night. Or morning, she thought as she checked her watch. It was almost two a.m.
She’d slept most of the day, her exhaustion extreme after a night up and the emotional turmoil she’d suffered before. She rubbed her belly as she slowed for another corner. “It’s just you and me, kid. But I love you,” she whispered. “And I don’t regret anything.”
Tears welled in her eyes again, stinging her eyelids. How much could she cry in a twenty-four hour period? She scrubbed at her face with the back of her hand.
When she pulled her hand away, she was suddenly blinded by a set of headlights. They were coming right for her. Too late, she realized the other vehicle was skidding out of control.
She gripped the steering wheel and yanked it over, trying desperately to avoid the oncoming car. With a sickening crunch, the car hit her broadside on the passenger side. The Jeep spun and lurched off the road. Her world turned upside down as the Jeep rolled. Pain exploded in her consciousness just before she registered a blast of cold air.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Where are you, Toni?” Simon murmured as he dropped the phone beside the bed. He leaned back on the small cot and stared up at the ceiling. He’d done a lot of thinking today. Rational thinking. And he’d gained a unique perspective.
After he’d calmed down and separated through his feelings of hurt and betrayal, he’d immediately wanted to kick himself in the ass. Yeah, Toni had done the wrong thing in keeping the truth about her pregnancy from him, but if that was the worst thing she ever did he was one lucky guy.
And A.J. was right. He should be jumping for joy. He had gotten precisely what he’d spent the last month wishing for. The baby was his. Toni was his. There was no other guy in the picture.
He’d been her first. An inexplicable wave of satisfaction gripped him. But then he’d turned around and called her Starla. He could only imagine how that had made her feel.
He rubbed his eyes tiredly. It all made sense to him now. What he’d thought were vivid fantasies about her were actually snippets of memory from the night they had made love. Even now if he thought hard about the night in question, he could form hasty images of her. Naked beneath him. How good she’d felt. And he could remember kissing her. That much he knew wasn’t a fantasy.
“Still can’t sleep?” A.J. asked from across the room.
“Nah. Too busy kicking my ass. And I’m worried about Toni,” he admitted.
A.J. got up and ambled over. He parked it in a chair next to Simon’s cot. “She’ll come around. She’s probably just upset and taking a break.”
“I was a jerk. She didn’t deserve to be treated like I treated her. No matter how angry I was, she is pregnant with my child. The upset can’t be good for either of them.”
&
nbsp; “Has it sunk in yet?” A.J. asked.
“That the baby is mine?”
A.J. nodded.
“It’s the weirdest feeling. I can’t even describe it. I mean I already felt extremely possessive of Toni. Some archaic cave man response. She’s mine. Hands off. That sort of thing. But now it’s even stronger. She’s carrying my child. Mine. Her belly is swelling with a part of me. I can’t get over it.”