Okay, well when he put it that way…
“Sammy is good friends with him. They grew up together. It’s hard to trash someone that your brother likes. That y’all like. That grew up coming to our house when he was a teenager. I don’t totally hate the guy, I just don’t like him.” I paused.
I totally didn’t address the pregnancy issue.
Like, for real, I should have, but I was too much of a chickenshit.
My family knew I was impulsive.
And hell, this time, I think I really was impulsive—I mean who the hell ordered sperm and impregnated themselves with it because they wanted a baby and didn’t want to wait to do it the ‘correct’ way?
Me, that’s who.
Then, without totally thinking things through, I said stuff that I shouldn’t have said.
“I’m seeing someone,” I blurted. “It’s new. We’re new. I don’t want you to scare him off.”
My father’s frown was ferocious.
Why the hell was I lying? What had I just done?
What would it accomplish other than to piss my family off when they finally found out the truth?
Because I did, at one point, plan to tell them the truth.
When they were looking at me more clearly.
“As for Mark…” I said. “Mark and I have been done for a while. I just didn’t want to tell you because y’all are so gung ho on him. Y’all expected wedding bells and babies and a new house. Meanwhile, he doesn’t even want to stay in Texas. Did you know that he wants to move up north?”
Dad’s eyebrows climbed high. “No shit?”
“He doesn’t like working down here. Dad, he wants to move to New York. He wants to move and ‘make a difference’ where it’ll matter. Apparently, he can’t make a difference down here. That’s why he bought the electric car. He’s trying to leave a better ‘carbon footprint.’” I paused because my father’s eyes glazed over a bit. “And he said that he doesn’t want to be down here anymore because we’re all a bunch of people that don’t care about the environment.” I paused. “And he’s a vegan now. Did you not notice how he didn’t eat the last few times he came over?”
Mark had changed a lot over the last year.
I wasn’t sure what it was, exactly, that had set him on that particular path, but he’d started to force his beliefs on me as well.
And I had to tell him the truth, New York had never appealed to me.
There were just too many freakin’ people.
Plus, I already had my dream job here. Not to mention my family was here—even if they weren’t always the most supportive of people.
“Fine,” he said. “But I want to meet this guy that you’re seeing.”
Shit.
Shit, shit, shit.
“Sure,” I squeaked.
Lies.
I wouldn’t be introducing them at all—my fictional boyfriend/baby daddy was always going to stay just that. Fictional.
“I gotta go.” He paused. “Are you dealing okay with the wreck? Do you need me to do anything about it?”
I shook my head. “Not as of yet. The parents are taking care of everything because they don’t want their son to get into any more trouble. They’re trying to be extremely super helpful. My car’s already in the shop. Getting fixed up as we speak.”
He nodded. “Which shop?”
I rattled off the shop that I’d taken it to in Longview.
“Let me know if you need anything,” he said as he dropped a kiss to my forehead. “I have to get to work.”
I watched my father leave with half an eye on him, and half on the couple that were still standing on the front stoop of Grans’ place.
My brows rose as I slowly closed the door on them.
Was Grans home?
I didn’t know.
But Dad wasn’t the only one that had to get to work.
I did, too.
So, ignoring the couple on the other stoop, I got ready for work, glanced once at my SWAT calendar that was hanging on the wall to make sure I hadn’t missed any appointments, and headed out without a backward glance.
• • •
“Please, will you come?”
After my day, I wanted to say no.
I wanted to be like, hell no.
But this was Hastings.
And I’d do anything for Hastings.
“How long do I have to stay?” I asked.
“It’s kind of like a block party between everyone,” she said. “All of us are gathering around, barbequing, and having a good time. Everyone wants you here.”
I tell you what.
If there was anywhere I didn’t want to be, it was out with my brother anywhere in the vicinity.
After him tattle-telling to my father and forcing me to blurt shit out that wasn’t real, the last thing I wanted to do was see him.
But… yeah.
“I’m bringing Axe,” I muttered. “That way I can be like… oh, no. I need to go. Axe is tired.”
Axe was such a good buffer. And he didn’t care when I lied and used him as an excuse.
Hastings snickered. “You do that.”
“When do I have to be there?” I wondered.
“Now,” she said. “Everyone’s already here.”
I sighed. “I’ll be there in however long it takes me to walk there.”
Then I hung up and looked at Axe.
“You want to go for a walk, ol’ buddy?” I asked.
His ears perked up.
Oh, yes. He loved his walks.
Especially the ones through the woods that we’d started taking lately.
Grans had shown me her shortcut when I’d explained that my brother lived in the duplexes not far from her house.
She’d been super excited and had informed me that her grandson lived over there, too.
And now that I knew that her grandson was Malachi, things made a weird sort of sense.
Grans loved talking about her grandson, but every once in a while she got this really sad, defeated look about her when she spoke of him.
Now that I knew who he was, I understood that sad look.
Malachi had been held as a prisoner of war and had been kept that way for quite a long time. Another couple of men that moved to Kilgore, or were from Kilgore originally, had also been part of that group.
They’d healed together once they were back home.
Hayes, another man on the SWAT team, was one of those men. He was very active in a military group based in East Texas to help soldiers just like him and Malachi to overcome whatever they’d suffered over there.
I wonder if Gabriel is also a part of this same group. It would make sense.
But, since we’d made a pact long ago to always keep the really personal stuff just that, personal, I wouldn’t ever ask him.
Though, now that I was thinking about him…
I pulled out my phone and sent a quick text to him, letting him know my misery.
Sierra: I’m about to go to a party that I don’t want to go to. Wish me luck.
Gabriel: Sounds like fun. That’s what I’m doing, too.
Sierra: I’ll send you an emergency text in an hour. You send me one back. Then we’ll both have an excuse to leave.
Gabriel: Deal.
The walk to my brother’s duplexes that were dubbed as ‘Cop Row’ took less time than I’d been hoping, and when I arrived, Hastings was right. The entire party was in full swing.
I spotted Hastings and made a beeline straight for her.
She saw me coming and turned, widening the gap of the small circle that she was standing in with Amelia, Rowen, Avery, Ashe, Ares, Calloway, Dillan, Delanie, and Reggie.
“You came!” Rowen, who belonged to Dax, another member of the SWAT team, cried. “We’ve been talking about you.”
I looked at Hastings, then moved my gaze over to Amelia. “About what?”
“About the fact that you live in Malachi’s grandmother’s house,” Ares, who belonged to Hayes, said.
“Oh, yeah.” I nodded, expecting her to say something about my knocked-upness. “I do.”
Ares snorted. “I’ve always wanted to go see that house. You know he’s like, super-duper rich, right?”
I assumed.
With Grans being an open book about her place, I had no doubt in my mind that she was quite wealthy.
And if Grans was wealthy, that meant that by default, Malachi was wealthy, too.
“I kind of guessed that,” I admitted as my stomach rumbled, making the ones closest to me giggle. “I’m starving. I didn’t even get a chance to eat today thanks to how busy the NICU is.”
“Amen to that,” Reggie grumbled as she patted her own hungry belly. “How about we go snag a weenie or two?”
That sounded like heaven.
“Let’s do it. We’ll be back,” I said to the group as a whole.
Reggie threaded her arm through mine, and I laughingly switched Axe’s leash over to my other hand.
We were seconds away from the food table that was set up in the middle of the street between Ford’s place and Sammy’s place when Axe just went… nuts.
There was no explanation for it.
One second he was walking peacefully at my side.
The next he was barking and carrying on the likes of which I’d never seen before.
I gasped and felt my arm wrench, and then all of a sudden the dog was no longer in my grasp as he streaked across the road toward… Malachi?
I gasped and let Reggie go to haul ass after my dog and came to a sudden bone-jarring halt when the big, bad Malachi looked at my dog and… crumpled.
I’d never seen anything like it.
Malachi dropped down to his knees in the middle of the street.
One second, he was standing there, and the next he had his arms around my dog and he was pulling him in tight.
“Axe!” I cried as I came to a stop right in front of him.
I bent over and picked up Axe’s leash, lightly tugging him backward.
He didn’t come.
He stayed exactly where he was attacking Malachi with kisses and yips and full body slams.
“Axe,” I said, gently tugging the leash.
I didn’t want to get too close or I might touch Malachi, and honestly, Malachi was the scariest man I’d ever seen in my life. I didn’t want to accidentally touch him and accidentally burn myself or something to that effect.
“Axe,” I repeated, tugging again.
Axe finally pulled off of Malachi and wiggled his big, German Shepherd butt at him, tongue lolling, as he practically danced in place.
That’s when those hot, eyes—eyes such a light shade of gray that they were disconcerting to say the least—belonging to Malachi came to me, I felt my entire body start to respond.
My hands went damp, my fingers started to tingle, and my ears went red.
That wasn’t even counting the things that were happening to my lower half. My knees were weak, my toes were curling, and there was a distinct dampness to my underwear that hadn’t been there before.
“Maxie.” Malachi’s deep, dark voice slid along my nerve endings. “The dog’s name is Maxie.”
I frowned hard, brows furrowed.
Maxie. Why did that sound so familiar?
“Sorry, but no. His name is Axe.” I shook my head, trying to knock some sense into myself.
I was in this weird sort of haze when it came to Malachi.
Jesus, the man was potent.
“No, it’s not,” Malachi denied. “His name is Maxie. He may go by Axe for you now, but his real name is Maxie. When he was an itty, bitty baby puppy at five weeks old, I named him Maxie.”
“Wait,” I said. “You… this… what?”
Malachi’s eyes were on me. They were hot. They were on fire, actually.
“That’s my dog,” he rumbled, eyes fixed on the dog that was most certainly not his, but mine.
I slowly broke off our eye contact and took a look around.
Nobody was paying us any attention.
They were all laughing, eating, and genuinely having a great time. All the while, I was having an out of body experience.
“I adopted him from a no-kill shelter a few years ago,” I said, thoughts starting to attack my brain. Then my eyes narrowed. “If he was your dog, why would he be there?”
Malachi’s jaw worked as he stood up to his full height.
I refused to be intimidated by his big, muscular body or his intense scrutiny.
Instead, I crossed my arms over my chest, more than aware that the move pushed my boobs up in the tank top I was wearing.
I didn’t care.
“I didn’t have a choice,” he said, voice thick with some emotion I refused to acknowledge. “I didn’t have a choice because I was deployed. The military told me to go, and I went. They didn’t care all that much that I had a dog that needed me.”
“You could’ve had your grandmother watch him,” I countered. “Or your parents. You didn’t have to take him to a shelter.”
Malachi’s jaw worked.
“I…” he started to say, then thought better of whatever he was about to say. “What makes you think that I didn’t try that first?”
I bit the inside of my cheek and was just about to tell him that he was shit out of luck when it came to my dog when we were interrupted.
I hadn’t been aware of how close we’d moved to each other until we practically flew apart.
“Sierra Nevada,” someone called. “What are you doing here?”
Malachi moved closer to me, not because he was protecting me or anything, but because I was the lesser of two evils.
He didn’t like having his back to people—something in which he did on instinct.
Okay, so I may or may not watch him. A lot.
He was an intriguing man, and I couldn’t help my obsession.
I was attracted to dark and dangerous things.
And with how much I watched him, I knew that he always—and I do mean always—kept his back to the wall to ensure that nothing ever surprised him.
He most certainly didn’t like having someone dangerous at his back—someone like Luke Roberts.
I smiled and walked into Luke’s arms, feeling the leash tug as Axe refused to move away from Malachi.
“Hey, Luke.” I smiled.
When I let him go, he looked over at Malachi with a frown.
“This the guy that you’re seeing?” he asked.
I blushed seven shades of red.
Why had I said what I’d said earlier in front of my father?
Malachi’s eyes went calculating.
“Ummm,” I said, not sure what to say.
I didn’t want to say mostly because if I did, then I’d have to provide someone that I was seeing… and I wasn’t seeing anybody at all.
Oh, God.
I was so going to hell for lying to everyone.
“What would it matter if I was?” Malachi asked stiffly.
It was almost as if he was pissed that Luke had asked and looked somewhat put off by the idea.
My lips twitched.
“Was just fucking thinking that would be the first smart thing you’ve done in the last couple of weeks that didn’t almost get you fired,” Luke countered.
My brows rose and I looked over at Malachi out of the corner of my eye.
Oh, man.
He looked pissed at Luke’s words.
Almost as if he was outraged by the fact that just the thought of him dating me would be that abhorrent to Luke.
Before Luke could say anything more, he was called away by his son, Derek.
Seconds later, we were left standing there with a dancing dog between us, both of us glaring hard at the other.
“I want my dog back,” he said.
My brows rose. “He’s been my dog for years,” I said. “You can’t have him. He sleeps with me and keeps my feet warm at night.”
A weird expression took over Malachi’s face.
I instantly felt like a heel.
I had no clue what happened with his dog.
Maybe there was more to the story and he just wasn’t willing to admit it.
“I have a proposition for you,” Malachi said carefully.
I looked over at him with surprise.
“What?” I asked, feeling something flutter in my belly.
“How about we pretend that we’re together?” he suggested. “It works out for you. It definitely works out for me if it gets the chief of police off my back… it’s a win-win.”
“They’ll think you fathered my child,” I pointed out.
Malachi’s warm eyes met mine.
“Is that a bad thing?” he asked.
I frowned. “You knew I was pregnant?”
“I knew that you were.” He paused. “Your brother has done nothing but bitch about how horrible the timing is for the last few days. Kind of hard not to put two and two together.”
I rolled my eyes.
“My brother’s the biggest turd I know,” I grumbled. “What did you do to get on the chief’s bad side?”
He sighed. “Apparently he’s not liking all the complaints I’m getting from people.”
“Complaints?” I wondered.
“Complaints,” he confirmed. “Apparently, I’m not the nicest person in the world, and I come off as an asshole. And when people bitch and complain, I’m not sympathetic enough, and don’t really care about their sob stories. So then I give them tickets, and they bitch about me and the Kilgore Police Department on social media, and then I’m once again in the hot seat.”
I burst out laughing. “You, not sympathetic?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, his hand going down to rub Axe’s ears.
“It means that you’re very intimidating, and that I can see why you’re not the favorite cop in KPD,” I answered.
His brows rose, and I felt my heart rate start to skyrocket.
God, he sure was sexy.
Like you know when you saw flames of a fire, and you thought they were so pretty that you wanted to touch them, but knew you shouldn’t because you would get burned?
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