“We should probably take my car,” I admitted. “I have a thousand things I need to get, and though you say one overnight bag, I still need my nursing bag. Two changes of clothes. Toiletries. Makeup. My toothbrush. And my latte maker.”
“I have a coffee maker,” he pointed out as he hesitated near the bike.
“I know,” I said. “But my coffee maker is also a latte maker. I don’t drink regular coffee anymore. I drink lattes.”
Nathan frowned, thought about what I was saying, and then sighed.
He pulled the keys back out of the bike and shoved them back into his pocket.
“We’ll take my truck,” he said, his eyes going up to the sky. “It was just a really pretty day. There won’t be many more of these left. And I needed a ride after…”
After he’d found out that Eerie had broken the law and quite a few moral boundaries, he had a kid, and now he’d have to fight like crazy to get him.
Let’s not forget the icing on the cake—her naming that kid after the man that had killed his family.
“How about we go for a ride after we get my stuff?” I suggested. “It shouldn’t take me long there.”
Five minutes max at most. I already knew what I needed.
He looked hopeful as he gestured toward his truck that was behind us.
I walked to the passenger side and was already halfway in when I realized that Nathan had walked to this side with me to open my door—which I’d already gotten.
Once I was in, I allowed him to close it, though.
He winked at me and closed it, and I was struck with a mild heart attack at a wink, aimed at me, on Nathan Cox’s face.
I’d never in my life thought I’d be on the receiving end of one of those.
It was something he’d done for most of his life to everyone that wasn’t me.
His mom? Yes.
His sister. Double yes.
My mom? Yep.
Me? Hell no.
Nathan got into the cab of the truck and didn’t even realize I was having a meltdown beside him.
In fact, we drove all the way to my place before I’d even gotten myself under enough control to draw a coherent thought that wasn’t centered on Nathan and that wink.
“Fucking bullshit.”
“What?” I asked, startled out of my thoughts.
“Ol’ drug dealer Joe is back,” Nathan grumbled. “What the fuckin’ hell? He’s been gone when I do drive-bys.”
“He has a kid stationed out by the road behind a tree. They have a relay system. He gets a call that a cop is headed our way, he moves,” I answered.
I’d watched the shit out of my window on multiple occasions.
“You’re shitting me,” Nathan said, angry eyes turning toward me.
I shook my head.
“Actually, the kid had been down with the flu for ten days. That’s probably why he’d been caught that first time you showed.” I paused. “Or, at least seen.”
Nathan grumbled something underneath his breath and made a call.
“Yeah, there’s a drug dealer at…”
Instead of parking at my spot near my apartment, Nathan continued down around the building until he’d been to the part I’d never been to before. Generally, I tried to avoid anything and everything that had to do with this complex unless it was to get out of my car to go inside or get out of my house and go to my car.
I surveyed my surroundings, becoming ever so thankful the farther we went into the complex that my place was right at the front, closest to the roads, and therefore the exit, meaning I could get the fuck out as fast as possible.
He turned around and parked, backing into a spot that was next to an old, broken down Ford that looked like it hadn’t run, or moved for that matter, since 1999.
“Still can’t believe that you live here,” he grumbled, his eyes scanning the buildings in front of him with disgust. “I’m glad that you’re coming to my place.”
I felt my belly roll at his words.
Seconds passed as I tried to decide whether he really needed to know what the hell my reasoning was for living in a place like the one I was currently occupying.
It was a while later before I finally spoke, realizing that I couldn’t keep my thoughts from him if we were supposed to be married. Even if I wasn’t really sure what the rules were on the emotional side of things that enabled most married partners to share their feelings with their spouse.
“I felt bad,” I admitted. “You had all these cool things. Took your parents to do fun things. Even paid for our vacations once you started in the majors. I wanted to buy myself nice things, too. And I ended up doing the dumbest thing and accruing student loans to do it.”
He looked over at me in surprise. “No shit?”
“No shit,” I confirmed. “Sadly, you married a woman in debt up to her eyeballs. I’m slowly paying it off, but I have like twenty thousand dollars in student loans.” I paused. “They should really tell you that it’s a stupid idea to take out student loans. The loan officer at school just gave it to me. Even though I didn’t need it. And it was addictive. Having money now that you don’t have to pay back until you’re finished with college? That’s addictive to teenagers.”
He shook his head at me, and I felt like the stupidest person on the planet.
“I went on my own spending spree you know,” he said, surprising me because he’d defended my choices. “I bought my truck. A bike. My condo. Our vacations. I was buying all this shit and I didn’t even need it. It was my dad telling me to cool my jets that finally made me realize I needed to start taking better care of the money I had while I had it. That’s why I have such a hefty cushion now even though I only played the five years of my contract.”
I looked at him in surprise. “You should’ve never quit.”
I still didn’t know exactly why, to be honest.
I wished I had the courage to ask.
“You’re wanting to know why I did it,” he guessed.
I shrugged. “If you want to tell me.”
He sighed and ran his hands down over his face roughly.
“Fuckin’ Eerie.” He looked over at me then. “She was the reason that I quit.”
My brows went up. “What?”
“Well, not really all the way. In a roundabout way. She’s a big part of why,” he admitted, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. “That last year I played? A couple of reporters took a big interest in me because of my back story. My dad. My biological father. Things like that. And the reporters were all, thank God he didn’t follow in his father’s footsteps. What a waste. Then they found out about my fertilizing Eerie’s eggs situation when she was sick. They hounded me incessantly. And one day when I woke up, I realized that this was never what I wanted. I just wanted to play baseball. And I could go play on a pickup league with a bunch of guys on a Wednesday night and still get the same thing out of it that I was getting out of playing in the majors. So I… quit.”
I stared at him wide-eyed.
“You quit because people were butting into your business?” I blurted. “Nathan, what the fuck?”
Nathan shrugged. “You don’t know what it’s like. They were digging up stuff that even I didn’t know about my dad. Like, did you know that he and my mother were getting a divorce? I didn’t. I was always under the impression that they were happy.”
“I thought that Wolf was the one getting a divorce when that happened,” I said, my voice sounding confused.
“He was,” Nathan confirmed. “When his wife was killed, and he was almost killed, they were in the process of getting a divorce as well. When I asked my dad if he knew that my parents were getting a divorce, too, he seemed really surprised. As if he hadn’t realized that. As far as he knew, they had a great marriage.”
I sighed. “It sounds like KPD needs to hire whoever figured out all that mess when it came to your family.” I paused. “But I still don’t think you should’v
e quit. I mean, you could’ve been a bazillionaire.”
Nathan snorted out a laugh. “I highly doubt that. But you’re right, I could’ve made more money. Sold my soul to the devil, so to speak.”
I pressed both hands over my eyes as my muscles practically burned with weariness.
“How long do we have to sit here?” I wondered. “I have to pee.”
Just as I finished asking my question, our neighborhood drug dealer came running around the corner of the complex, climbed up a set of stairs beside us, and slammed through the door of an apartment.
Moments later a cop came prowling around the side of the duplex looking pissed.
Saint.
“When did Saint get a police dog?” I asked curiously.
“That’s new,” Nathan admitted. “In fact, we’re at like a week now. Saint had to go down for training in Benton, Louisiana. He just got back last Monday, I think.”
Nathan rolled the window down and pointed up. “He went into apartment 373B.”
Saint nodded his head and started up the stairs as another officer I hadn’t been introduced to before, Malachi, started around the back just in case the drug dealer tried to make a jump for it.
Instead of staying and watching the excitement, Nathan pulled out of his spot and drove back to my place, pulling in and taking up both the visitor spot and my spot.
I rolled my eyes at his lack of caring when it came to being between the lines and started up the stairs to my place.
I was halfway up the stairs when I noticed that my door was once again open.
“Son of a bitch,” I grumbled darkly.
“What?” Nathan asked, coming to a stop beside me.
“Door’s broken,” I answered, gesturing to it.
Nathan cursed under his breath, produced a gun from somewhere in the front of his pants, and started forward with a wariness that gave me enough time to admire the breadth of his shoulders.
I was behind him when he toed open the door and swept inside as if he wasn’t worried about what might be in there with him.
I didn’t bother to follow him inside.
Instead I moved to the left of the door and waited for him to call me and tell me I was allowed to come inside. Something he did about five minutes later after I assumed he’d made it through all of the rooms.
“Is everything destroyed?” I asked curiously.
“No,” he said. “It doesn’t even look like whoever was in here took anything. Just unlocked it and was careless in locking it back up.”
I sighed. “That’s what happened last time,” I said as I pushed through the door and looked around, taking everything in with how I’d left it this morning when I’d left for work. “The last time there were little things here and there that were in a slightly different position. It was as if whoever did it just came in, looked at stuff, moved a few things around, and then left.”
Kind of like right then.
The place wasn’t even all that different from how I’d left it this morning. Other than what looked to be a coffee cup of pencils moved off of the corner of my kitchen counter.
Now, all the pencils were in there, though upside down instead of eraser up, and they were in the middle of the counter instead of on the edge.
“Glad you’re moving out of here,” he grumbled. “My place at least has an alarm.”
I rolled my eyes. “This place has an alarm.”
“Do you set it?” he asked.
No. Because I didn’t want to pay to have the place monitored. Duh.
He must’ve read the truth on my face because he grumbled something under his breath and gestured to my bedroom. “Go get your crap.”
***
It was only after I’d ‘gotten my crap’ and we’d arrived back at his place that the nerves started to set in.
Luckily, Saint had followed us home, giving me some time to clean up, take a shower, and get ready for bed. I had decided that the motorcycle ride could wait. I was just too exhausted.
When Nathan still hadn’t come into the house, I took that as a sign and went to lie down in his bed while wearing the shirt that I’d seen him take off from before we’d had sex.
After waiting for all of five minutes, my brain decided that it was done with today, and I was going to sleep whether my newly announced husband was there or not.
The last thought I had was that I could get used to this. My husband taking care of me. Falling asleep in his clothes and his bed, all the while knowing he would be there to protect me if I ever needed it.
Chapter 14
Yes, it’s a bad time to talk. You should come back when I’m not feeling so honest.
-Text from Reggie to Nathan
Reggie
Thankfully I woke up the next morning before my alarm.
I rolled over and grabbed my phone, switching the alarm off before it could wake the sleeping giant in the bed next to me.
The sleeping giant that slept like the dead, hogged the bed, and was so sexy that it hurt.
His hair was a giant mess, and he slept with his mouth hanging half open.
I wanted to reach forward and poke my finger inside the opening, but I was also supremely embarrassed mostly because in the light of day, I remembered all the stuff that I’d demanded of him the night before, from the baby to the pregnancy to him giving it to me harder.
Yeah, that was all right there playing on replay in my brain.
Face flaming, I got out of bed and felt Nathan’s shirt—the one that I’d stolen to wear to bed—slide down my torso and fall to a stop right below my ass.
Glancing once more at the man in the bed, I went to the bathroom and started to get ready for work.
It was an hour later that I was walking out the door, all the while still not having woken the man who still hadn’t moved.
After one quick glance over my shoulder and the thought that I would need to ask him for a key to get in sooner rather than later, I closed the door quietly behind me after having locked it from the inside.
I was halfway down the driveway when I looked up and found a four-pack of men standing at the base of Nathan’s driveway staring at me.
I blinked, coming to a stop by Nathan’s truck.
“What?” I asked, feeling my face flame.
The person closest, Sammy, grinned. “How’s your head?”
I touched the cheek where I’d gotten nailed with the football a couple of days prior.
“My cheekbone still hurts,” I admitted. “Why?”
He shook his head. “Nothing. I just distinctly remember hearing you tell Nathan to go fuck himself as we were leaving.”
The angry retort was on my lips before I could even tell myself that he was joking.
“How about you just mind your own damn business?” I replied sweetly.
Sammy’s lips turned up at the edges as he lifted his palms up in a ‘calm down’ gesture.
I grumbled under my breath and walked to my car. “If you will all so kindly move, I have to get to work.”
They didn’t move fast enough for my liking, so I revved my engine.
As I finally backed out of the driveway, I made sure to give them all a one-fingered salute as I left, causing them all to laugh.
I was smiling as I rolled down the road.
I arrived at work bound and determined to make this a good day, even though I dreaded seeing Eerie’s face.
My mind was a jumble of emotions, first and foremost that despite the ugliness of what Eerie was putting us through, I was fucking happy.
Really, really fucking happy.
I’m talking, I just had sex with Nathan, no longer had my V-card, was going to get to do it again tonight happy—at least if I could talk myself out of my embarrassment.
After our two rounds of hot, mind-shattering sex the night before and all the moving that I’d done once we’d arrived at my place, I was sore.
When Nathan had discove
red that my place had been broken into again, it’d prompted us to take way more than we’d intended.
Basically, I was now practically moved in to his place.
That honestly made me so happy that I felt like skipping right into the hospital.
But when I arrived at my floor, I knew that it wasn’t going to be a good day at all.
In fact, seeing as the first person that I saw was Eerie? Yeah, I knew it was going to be shit.
“What’s going on?” I asked Sierra.
Sierra was washing her hands at the sink while looking into the NICU.
I looked in right along with her as Eerie gestured with her hands and practically yelled at Peyton about something.
“They’re moving the baby to a different hospital.” Sierra paused. “Actually, Eerie wants to. And Peyton and the doctor are explaining why that would be a terrible idea. I’ve asked them to stall as long as they can. I had to bring Dr. Atellan on board, though. I’m sorry.”
My heart started to pound, and I pulled out my phone and dialed Nathan, all the while my hands were still soaking wet.
He answered on the fourth ring sounding groggy.
“You need to get here now. Eerie’s trying to move the baby to a different hospital.”
He cursed and I knew that he was getting out of bed. “Stall.”
I would. I’d do everything that I could to make sure that she didn’t get to leave.
“Okay,” Sierra said as she turned to me as she dried off her hands. “What the hell is going on?”
I gave her the shortened version of everything that had happened yesterday.
When I was done, Sierra was busy blinking owlishly at me in surprise.
“I just…wow!” she said. “That’s one hell of a story.”
But before I could reply, or she could say anymore, the doors to the NICU whooshed open and Eerie came out looking smug.
I wanted to kick her in the teeth with my dirty Crocs.
Surely, she’d catch some deadly disease from all the human feces I collected while walking around the hospital.
“You’re married,” Eerie said, eyes wide as she looked down at my hand. “I thought the other day was just a fake.”
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