License to Thrill

by Tori Carrington

  He hesitated. Not because he didn’t know how he felt. He was afraid of falling into a carefully laid trap. “Yes. Yes, I am.”

  She didn’t answer, and he couldn’t see enough of her face to see her response.

  He grew tense. “You always told me I was never any good at putting my feelings into words, Mel,” he said gruffly. “But I want to try to explain this one to you, if you’ll hear me out.”

  She nodded, but still didn’t look at him.

  He trained his gaze on the road disappearing under the wheels of the Jeep. “Two days ago I didn’t think there was a chance in hell of ever seeing you again.” It had been a difficult realization. But with Mel’s wedding date fast approaching, and without a clue how to get to her, he’d given up hope of repairing things between them.

  “Then Hooker escaped,” she said.

  He nodded, then said, “No, no. I mean, yes, of course he escaped, but that’s not what I’m working at.”

  He finally earned her attention. He didn’t know if that was good or bad. What he did know was that he was quickly running out of road, and if there was anything to be said, he better say it now, because he might not get a chance later.

  Spit it out, McCoy.

  “I don’t know what I’m trying to say,” he grumbled, ticked off at himself. “But I do know that when you told me you were pregnant…well, I know you and—that a year ago when we talked about having kids…well, I thought I didn’t want any.”

  He chanced a glance in her direction.

  Get to the point already, man, you’re losing her.

  He clenched the steering wheel tightly. “And when I found out you were marrying somebody else…it shocked me, you know?” He bit back a curse. “My gut reaction was that something had to be going on, but I had no idea it was…”

  She turned to the window.

  “No, don’t turn away,” he said urgently, touching her arm. He couldn’t define why, but it was important he say this to her, important she understand.

  He withdrew his hand and exhaled loudly. “What I’m trying to say to you, Mel, is that when you told me you were having my…our baby, I knew it meant you weren’t only going to be a part of my life….” He swallowed. “But that you were going to stay that way for a long time to come.” He released the wheel and turned his hands palms up. “And I…I was happier than I’ve been in a long, long time.” He rubbed the back of his neck so hard his skin hurt. “Maybe ever.”

  The silence in the Jeep was deafening. Marc kept his gaze fixed on the road, afraid he’d screwed up again.

  But when seconds dragged into minutes without a reaction, he gave in and finally looked at her.

  And found her crying. “Aw, hell, Mel, don’t go turning on the waterworks again.”

  She made a sniffling sound that made him groan. “That’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

  Despite the stiff way he sat, a funny feeling exploded in his chest. An odd mixture of pride and hope. “Yeah, well,” he murmured, wondering if his face was red. “I wouldn’t recommend looking for me to do it again. That was hard enough for me to say and I…I don’t know if I can do it again.”

  MELANIE REACHED OUT and took his hand, ignoring his prickly posture as she cupped his palm against her cheek. For a long, glorious moment, she reveled in the rough feel of his skin against her. Tears plopped over his fingers, but she didn’t really care.

  He grew more tense, and she smiled, aware of how much the admission had cost him. He was right. She had constantly accused him of keeping his thoughts and feelings from her. But if this was any example of what lay dormant inside him, then she hadn’t given him nearly enough credit.

  “Come on,” he said, opening the glove compartment. “Somebody will think I hit you or something.” He handed her a tissue.

  She wiped her cheeks and blew her nose, laughing at his horrified expression.

  “Hell, Mel, if you don’t stop, I’m never going to say stuff like that again.”

  She whacked him on the arm as a fresh bout of tears sprang to her eyes. “Must be the hormones,” she said, wondering at her extreme emotional reaction to his gruff confession.

  The Jeep fishtailed as Marc screeched to a stop on the two-lane road, earning him a honk from the truck behind them. “Good Lord. Do you have to be sick?”

  Melanie glanced through the back window. “What are you doing? You could have gotten us killed.”

  The truck pulled around them, honking once more as it passed.

  “So you’re okay, then?”

  Melanie laughed. She was more than okay—she was euphoric, delirious, thrilled. Despite the knowledge that his confession wouldn’t, couldn’t lead them anywhere. “I’m fine, Marc. Not every pregnant woman gets sick, you know.”

  His grimace was endearing. “No, I didn’t know.” He rubbed the back of his neck. Something she noticed he was doing often lately. “Why do I have the feeling there’s a whole lot about this I’m not going to know?”

  Melanie hid her smile and glanced through the window as he got under way, going noticeably slower. She appreciated the deep green of the tobacco fields, the patches of wild rhododendrons, the utter stillness of the land around them. Then it dawned on her where he must be taking her.

  Sure enough, ten minutes later she spotted a buckshot-peppered sign announcing they were entering Manchester, Population 1,999. She craned her neck at a small diner, then stared at a bar and gawked at a cute general store with the requisite old man sitting on a rocking chair whittling.

  Melanie’s heart dipped into her stomach. He was taking her home.

  ALONG WITH the initial jolt of excitement Marc had felt at the news of his impending fatherhood, fear twisted in his gut. What did he know about being a father? He’d never been around kids. Well, aside from his brothers.

  Boy, am I ever going to catch hell for this one, he thought, envisioning those same four brothers.

  Marc slowed to the speed limit, spotting Sheriff Percy Mathison sitting in his usual place on the outskirts of town waiting for speeders. He waved, and Percy waved back tersely, apparently upset he wasn’t able to get another hefty contribution to the Manchester County coffers.

  It was late afternoon, and everyone was either home or on their way. The general store had its share of customers, as did the diner, but it was the absence of Connor’s car at the bar that made Marc wince. That meant Connor was either working late or he was already home. He sincerely hoped it was the former, because he really didn’t need another run-in with his older brother right now.

  “This is…nice,” Mel said quietly.

  Nice. Now there was a word. But it certainly couldn’t be used to describe Manchester. Small, maybe. Perhaps even okay. But definitely not nice. He grew more uncomfortable the closer he got to the family house. He grimaced. Mel would take back her words the minute she got a gander at the McCoy place.

  Set back from the road, the old, sprawling farmhouse looked ready for the wrecking ball. Then there was the barn. The instant he thought about it, it came hulking into view, little more than a haunted, weatherworn, gargantuan structure whose slats had shifted long ago. It was no safer to enter than it looked. Not that it mattered. They hadn’t had any animals in a long, long time. Unless you counted Mitch’s dog Goliath. Even when his quarry darted inside, Goliath stood outside and barked up a storm. The old slobber puss never went in.

  Marc shifted, nearly knocking his knee against the dash. He wasn’t sure why he’d never brought Mel here, but as they approached, a prickly knot pulled tight in his stomach. He glanced over to find her attention glued to the scenery. No matter how she might react to the McCoy place, it was too late to turn back. Besides, it was the safest place for Mel and the…baby. No one would dare mess with the McCoys. No one.

  He groaned when he spotted the cars parked in the rutted drive. It figured—every single McCoy male was home. While it meant more protection for Mel, it also meant a hell of a lot more trouble for him.

 
; In all the years he’d lived here, not one of his brothers—or his father, for that matter—had ever brought a woman to visit. The youngest, David, had posted a sign on the front porch when he was six and had been burned by his first-grade girlfriend. It had said, No Girlz Allowed. Marc cringed when he saw the unvarnished piece of wood still hanging there, creaking ominously in the spring breeze.

  Wait! Marc’s black mood lightened as he brought the Jeep to a stop, blocking in everyone else. Mitch had brought a woman home once. Liz something or other. His hope deflated when he remembered that on the day of their wedding, Liz had run off, leaving Mitch standing high and dry at the altar.

  “This is home?” Mel asked quietly, her eyes huge as she took in the overgrown grass, the drooping fence, the demolished front steps.

  “Yep. This is it.”

  He climbed from the Jeep, sensing rather than seeing Mel step to his side. He cleared his throat. “The place isn’t usually this…” He coughed, catching the lie before he finished it. Of course the place was usually this bad.

  Marc spotted Connor looking out the side door. He was filled with a sudden urge to hustle Mel into the Jeep but managed to hold his ground.

  He exhaled. “Guess we’d better get this over with. Come on.”

  He wasn’t sure what Mel had expected, but when he realized she wasn’t next to him, he looked to find her frowning at his back before reluctantly following.

  “Aw, hell.” He backtracked and held his arm for her to take.

  She kept her hands stoically at her sides. “I’m okay.”

  “Take my arm, Mel.”

  Her eyes flashed. “I said I’m okay. Pregnant women can walk on their own.”

  He bit back a curse and grabbed her stiff, cold hand. “Why does everything have to be a fight with you?” He noticed he’d quickened his step and purposely slowed it. “Oh, and about the, um…”

  “Baby?”

  “Yeah, the pregnancy thing. Let’s say we keep that information to ourselves for a while, okay?” He didn’t want to send his father into cardiac arrest. “Anyway, I think it’s a good idea if we tell them we’re getting married first.”

  She tried to pull her hand away. He held fast.

  “Marc McCoy, I’m not going to marry you.”

  “Sure, Mel, sure,” he said, decidedly distracted.

  JUST WHEN SHE THOUGHT Marc had passed some major milestone, he’d say or do something that completely destroyed it. Now was no exception.

  “Marc, I—”

  He grimaced at her. “We’ll talk about this later, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Good.”

  She looked at him long and hard. Was it her, or was Marc McCoy anxious? She noted the way his mouth was pulled into a nervous line, no trace of the happiness he’d proclaimed a short time ago. She followed his gaze. Someone stood at the side door. They were similar in size and hair coloring, but that’s where the similarities ended. One of Marc’s brothers? It seemed the obvious guess. As they drew closer, she saw the glum expression on the other man’s face, and knew for sure that it had to be true. Only a blood relative of Marc could pull off that don’t-screw-with-me look.

  “Marc,” he said.

  “Connor.”

  Melanie waited for an introduction, but not for long. Marc pulled her inside the house with barely enough time for her to make eye contact with Connor.

  For a ridiculous moment, she was afraid he intended to take her inside and stuff her in a closet away from his family, away from where she might get him or herself into any trouble. He pulled her into the kitchen. She stopped cold, her breath freezing somewhere en route between her lungs and her nose.

  Oh, God.

  Marc finally released her hand, leaving her standing in the doorway, barely aware when Connor gently budged her out of the way so he could pass and join the room full of other McCoy males.

  The house had appeared enormous from the outside. But looking at it now, filled to the brim with prime male flesh, she didn’t think there was a house large enough to hold the amount of testosterone in the room.

  “Hi,” she said hoarsely.

  10

  MELANIE WAS AFRAID she had spoken a foreign language. No one responded to her choked greeting. Her gaze slowly drifted over five devastatingly handsome faces. They stared back. Despite the size of the table, which could easily fit a family of ten, it looked puny with these guys sitting at it.

  Suddenly, everyone spoke at once. But it was the oldest, maybe Marc’s father, who rose.

  Melanie blinked slowly. It couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible. “Sean?”

  His grizzly warm grin told her it could be and was. Then it dawned on her. Sean hadn’t been at the hospital to visit anyone else, as she had assumed. He had never corrected her. Sean was Marc’s father.

  A missing puzzle piece shifted into place, completing a picture she hadn’t known was there. All at once, she recalled how he had defended Marc’s actions, offered practical reasons Marc hadn’t come to visit her. At the time, she hadn’t thought it odd that he should try to defend someone he didn’t know. She thought it was a man thing.

  “Maybe he can’t get away from work,” Sean had suggested.

  When that one hadn’t worked during their third visit—when he’d smuggled in eggs, bacon and hash browns from a nearby family restaurant because she wasn’t eating the hospital fare—he’d said quietly, “Maybe there’s something about hospitals that bothers him.”

  When she had quietly disagreed, he had gone on.

  “I don’t think it’s so far-fetched. This is the first time I’ve…well, that I’ve spent so much time in a hospital in a long, long time. You see, my wife died….”

  Melanie’s mind reeled with the images and words, her thoughts a jumble as she realized how much she knew about the family before her, though not through normal channels. During her long conversations with Sean while her mother had been busy ordering the hospital personnel around, while Craig had been working and Joanie had been snowed under at her shop, she and Marc’s father had spent hours talking, seemingly about nothing. She had thought he was humoring her by telling her about himself. And even then she had wondered if what he was sharing was true, or was just a way to get her mind off her own problems.

  She now knew every one of his stories had been true.

  Her gaze drifted over the four other men in the room. She realized she could pick them out based on what Sean had told her.

  The tall one who had been at the door had dark eyes that looked as though they had seen more than any one man should. He offered her a chair. She would have known without Marc’s calling him by name that he was Connor. Sean had said Connor had been more of a father to the others than he had ever been. It appeared he was still playing the role. She sat down and murmured a thank-you.

  Then it occurred to her that Sean knew an awful lot about her. She felt her cheeks go hot, remembering all she’d shared with him, thinking him a stranger she could confide in with no risk of her troubles becoming known to anybody else.

  “Evening, Mellie. You’ll have to excuse us,” Sean said with a grin Melanie realized was reminiscent of Marc’s. “We’re not used to having women around here.”

  Shocker, Melanie thought, and returned his smile.

  “Can I talk to you in the other room for a minute?” Connor said to Marc.

  Panic swelled in Melanie’s throat. No. Marc couldn’t leave her here with…with them. She could barely manage him—if that’s what you could call what she did with him—much less four other brothers exactly like him. Well, not exactly like him. One of the brothers had sandy blond hair. One of them looked as though he had missed his last two appointments at the barbershop. But given their gift for gab so far—

  Sean put a hand on her shoulder, seeming to sense her uneasiness. She instantly relaxed. “Are you hungry? Here, why don’t I fix you a plate.”

  She slowly shook her head, feeling a little better. “No, really, I’m not—”
>
  “I already fixed her one, Pops.” Marc plopped a plate full of meat loaf, mashed potatoes and corn in front of her. Her stomach growled. A quiet laugh next to her said she wasn’t the only one who heard it. She looked to find the blond brother—a dead ringer for Brad Pitt—watching her. He would be David, she realized.

  “Excuse us for a minute, will you?” Connor said, aiming a grin at her. He slapped a hand against Marc’s back and moved it toward his neck. The way Marc bent slightly told Melanie he didn’t have much choice in the matter.

  She hid her smile and watched the one with long dark hair—he would be Mitch, ex-FBI, now PI—as he put a glass of milk in front of her.

  “You must be Melanie,” he said, sitting down.

  She nodded and filled her fork with potatoes.

  “Nice to meet you. I’m Mitch.”

  A chair screeched as the blond one scooted closer. “I’m David. And the quiet one over there is Jake. Don’t let him scare you. He’s probably wondering if you have your green card.”

  That’s right. Marc had told her once that all his brothers were in law enforcement. The information combined with what Sean had shared gave her a jumping off point. “That must make him the one with Immigration and Naturalization Services.”

  “And do you?” Jake asked.

  She choked. “Excuse me?”

  “Have your green card.”

  She laughed. “Better. I have a copy of my birth certificate.”

  He didn’t respond.

  “Showing I was born here.”

  David chuckled. “Don’t pay him any mind. He’s just yanking your chain.”

  Popping a bite of meat loaf into her mouth, she considered him. “Let’s see, you’re David, so that must make you with the police department.”

  “Right.”

  She gestured toward the table. “Please, eat.”

  “She’s right,” Sean said, and sat down. “We’re making her uncomfortable.”