by Kira Blakely
“Kids,” he announces in his firm, fatherly voice. “Maggie and I have something to share with you.”
Charlie points his gun at Lucas and fires, plunging him in the chest with a bright orange foam dart. “The codes to the reactor?!” he yells.
“The secret password to get apple pie?” Madison guesses, twirling across the floor like someone who has watched ballet a lot and thinks that they know how to do it, more or less.
“No, and no,” Lucas says, settling down onto the couch with me. He still holds my hand, though neither kid seems to even notice, honestly. Maybe this will be easier than I thought. They are still young. They’re young enough to understand and accept a new person in their life pretty easily—and I’m not even a new person. I’ve been in this family for almost two months now.
“We have something to tell you about us,” I broach, and that brings both the kids to still. They settle on the carpet in front of us, and our hand-holding no longer escapes Charlie’s attention.
“Ohhh,” he says, furrowing his brow thoughtfully. “You’re girlfriend and boyfriend now.”
Lucas nods. “We are boyfriend and girlfriend,” he says, “and I like her very much. I know that means that you might see her a little differently—”
“But you shouldn’t,” I interrupt, unable to stop myself. I can’t bear the thought of them hating me. “I still care about you just as much as I did. I’m not here for your dad. I’m here for you.”
Lucas squeezes my hand and we smile at each other.
“Is that going to be OK?” Lucas wonders.
“I guess,” Charlie mutters. “It’s kind of gross, but grown-ups are gross. There isn’t really anything that anyone can do about that.”
“I like it!” Madison chirps, rolling across the carpet until she’s halfway under the Christmas tree. “Maggie is nice.”
“That’s another thing,” Lucas says, and his grip on my hand tightens. What is he about to say? “Maggie’s name is actually Sofia.”
My eyes bulge, and my jaw drops. What is he doing?
“I want you to know the real Sofia, and not the girl that we all met at first,” he explains, gazing into my eyes and looking back at the kids. “She was in trouble, so she told us the wrong name, because she didn’t want to get caught. But we’re going to find out how to help Sofia without anyone getting hurt. Everything is going to be OK. Sofia is a good woman, even if she lied to us at first. She was trying to protect herself.”
“Is that why Mom freaked out at the mall?” Charlie wonders knowingly. He’s too smart for his own good. “Because you told her about you and Mag—Sofia?”
“Mom was upset because she thought she was going to stay at the house for Christmas, and I told her that she couldn’t. We need to plan that kind of thing ahead of time. No big surprises. That’s not fair to me. Is that all right with you, Charlie?”
Charlie nods and mutters, “She’s always on her phone, anyway.”
I grimace and let go of Lucas’s hand, so I can put mine on Charlie’s shoulder. “It’s OK,” I tell him sweetly. “Some people don’t even have phones, Charlie.”
He smiles back to me, but Madison interrupts our moment with a loud and shocking question. “Are you guys going to get married?”
Chapter 36
Lucas
With a ragged laugh, I pull Madison into my arms, so that now Sofia holds Charlie and I hold Madison. This is the way that family should be. Family should be there for each other. Family should be happy. I press a kiss into Madison’s silky dark hair.
“There are still lots of surprises in life, baby,” I whisper to her. “We’ll see.”
“They are!” Madison cheers, vaulting off my lap in her certainty. “They are! That’s so crazy!”
“Say it a little louder,” Sofia murmurs, nudging me conspiratorially. “I don’t think the neighbors can hear you, baby.”
A steady thunk of a knock comes from the front door, and Sofia stiffens alongside me. Even my own throat tightens. Is it Astrid, drunk and here to ruin Christmas for the kids? Or is it Agent Finn Callahan, ready to give me back my thirty thousand in cash, ready to take away the love of my life and the baby inside her?
I pat Sofia’s knee with a comforting squeeze. I know she’s thinking the exact same thing. The fear hums off her.
“It’s OK,” I murmur to Sofia. “I’ll take care of it. You can relax.”
I stand and go to the front door, chancing a peek out of a window before risking anything. All I can see is a shoulder, clothed in a heavy coat. The door shudders with another loud knock.
“Let me the fuck in!” James’s bitchy voice penetrates the wood, and the tension flows graciously from my body. I throw the locks off the front door and let him in. Bitter December air floods the foyer and he stomps inside, scattering snow on the wood and blowing furiously into his palms, even though he’s already wearing thick mittens. I slam the door against that howler and, in my haste, I forget to throw the locks back on.
“I can’t believe you drove in that,” I tell him, clapping him on the back in a close hug. All my body heat is leeched away by the halo of ice James seems to carry around him right now.
“Radio says it’s only going to get worse,” James answers, shaking snowflakes out of his dark hair. “So, is it true, or is Astrid totally unhinged right now?”
“Is what true?”
Just then, Madison comes shrieking into the foyer, and James is forced to scoop her up and mercilessly blow raspberries into her neck. Madison wails and contorts like she’s dying, all the while laughing.
“Now probably isn’t the best time,” I tell him, and he settles Madison back down. She rushes off with promises to return in a second with her new ornament to show Uncle James.
“It’s a surprise!” she cheers, her feet thundering across the wood floor as she disappears into the den. “It’s Olaf from Frozen! He’s my favorite snowman! Oh my gosh, let’s watch Frozen, Dad!”
I open my mouth to try to figure out what the hell Astrid said or did to James, but Charlie filters into the foyer next, and Sofia is right behind him. So much for privacy. He hugs both of them and ruffles Charlie’s hair.
“I heard you attacked, like, four muggers at the same time?” James wonders, smiling down at Charlie. “You got back some lady’s purse?”
“I punched a kid in my class,” Charlie corrects him with a sheepish, but proud, grin. “It was no big deal.”
“’No big deal,’ he says,” James echoes as he takes Sofia into his arms and embraces her next.
When he releases her and they part, he gives her a significant and questioning glare, like he’s trying to figure out something for himself.
“Is it true?” he wonders softly, staring down at her. His eyes flick to me. “Is she…?”
Fuck. Astrid called James and spilled out her bullshit theory—which, in this particular instance, was one hundred percent correct. The woman has no boundaries. She might like it like that, but it makes life a lot more difficult for the rest of us, trying to live in our own lanes without getting sideswiped by her assumptive ass.
I look around to make sure the kids aren’t within eyesight and then I nod subtly to James.
“Yeah, man,” I tell him, expecting the barrage of judgment. “She is.”
But James chuckles and rolls his eyes. “I knew it,” he says, shaking his head. “I knew it was going to happen sooner or later. Didn’t know it would happen this soon.”
“Mag—I mean, Sofia!” Charlie calls to Sofia, which draws her away from the foyer and also draws James’s eyebrows up into his hairline.
“Things have changed here on Walton’s Mountain,” he says, nodding his head up and down at me. “You told them everything?”
“Not everything,” I reply, drawing my brother toward the kitchen. Comforting smells of Christmas Eve dinner float through the air and I loop an arm around James’s shoulders. “They don’t know that she’s pregnant, but they do know her name is Sofia, and that
she told us she was Maggie because she was in some trouble.”
“Was in some trouble?” James questions me. “I don’t remember ever hearing that she wasn’t in trouble anymore.”
“We’re playing it by ear,” I explain. “But I did pay off the investigator on her case.”
“Jesus, man, you’re making Astrid sound like the sane one,” he tells me, speaking in the same whisper I use. “You got this nanny, and you got her pregnant. She’s wanted for insurance fraud, though. What are you two going to do? Get married and pretend like nothing ever happened?”
“I’m not thinking that far ahead.”
“Clearly!”
I scowl at him, annoyed that he isn’t congratulating me on my third child. I’m happy for us. Why can’t he be? Is he really on Astrid’s side here? “It’s Christmas,” I remind him. “Let’s put it to rest for now, if you’re having a problem with it.”
James sighs and idly opens the stove, peering at the turkey inside. “It’s not that,” he mutters, shutting the stove again and leaning his hip on the kitchen counter. “It’s just… Man, you know how Astrid is. She’s a powder keg. She’s ready to go off. You can’t detonate a bomb like that in front of her. You don’t know what might happen.”
“Oh, yeah?” James has no idea what he’s talking about. He was never married to Astrid. There is never a good time to think of yourself, never a good time to break news that she won’t want to hear. If you put Astrid first, you’ll always put Astrid first. “You think that I don’t know Astrid, James? We were married for eight years. I know Astrid.”
“And you couldn’t wait until after Christmas.”
“Then it’s New Year’s,” I remind him.
“Then February!”
“Then it’s Valentine’s. You didn’t see her, James. She was on a war path. It would’ve been even worse if I didn’t tell her at all. If I let her come here and hit on me in front of Sofia? Trust me. I did what I had to do to avoid the worst-case scenario.”
James grimaces and nods, though I don’t think he believes me. “She sounded drunk as hell when she called me,” he warns.
“I’m not surprised,” I allow. “It was bad news for her plans, and she does like to drink when she’s upset. But there’s still nothing that I can do. We’re divorced. We’ve been apart for two years. She can’t come here on Christmas Eve and ‘surprise’ me with a visit. It wasn’t… just a visit. It was a ploy, and it was only going to get worse.”
James sighs. “I hear what you’re saying. I just don’t think you avoided that worst-case scenario this time.”
Chapter 37
Sofia
Lucas and James might have been speaking low enough to escape the radar of rambunctious children, but they weren’t speaking low enough to escape my radar. I sit near the door to the kitchen and I catch bits and pieces of their conversation—enough to spend the rest of the day in a terror that Astrid Gray might burst through the front door at any moment, drunk and armed, intent on ripping this baby out of my womb. Did he tell her that I was pregnant?
I wish he hadn’t done that yet.
But there’s plenty of holiday festivity to draw my attention away from his bitter, jealous ex-wife. There’s a massive turkey dinner, and then the children are each allowed to open one present before Christmas morning. Charlie delights in a much larger Nerf gun, and Madison dresses herself in a full princess costume. We read How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and then everyone trundles off to bed, except for James, who is still flipping through Christmas specials on cable when Lucas and I trudge tiredly upstairs.
I don’t try to sleep with Lucas tonight. I have too much on my mind. I take a nice hot bath to distract myself, and that helps a little bit.
My mind is still filled with guilt and worry, though. I climb out of the bath and towel off, then select one of my long, silky nightgowns for bed. This is a sheer, crisp blue, and I admire my body in the full-length mirror then climb under the warm blankets on my bed.
I nestle deep against the pillow and tell myself that everything is going to be all right, even though the only thing that makes me feel that way is Lucas. At least I have him, promising me that everything will be OK when I’m almost sure that it won’t.
I drift in and out of sleep for hours. The next time I look at the clock, it’s long after three in the morning, but I can’t relax. No sense of ease will settle over me, no matter how long I lay in this warm bed.
Outside my bedroom window, the icy blizzard howls and the house creaks and branches tap and scrape against the wood. I feel like I’m in a horror movie, even though this is supposed to be the warm, familiar scene from a Christmas film. This is supposed to be the moment Old Saint Nick comes down the chimney, not the Headless Horseman.
I hear a doorknob twist and click, then the creak of a wooden door opening. I stiffen under the blankets and almost tug them up to my head.
“Sofia,” Lucas’s voice hisses to me through the darkness, and my muscles relax. Thank God. It’s Lucas, coming to check on me. I should’ve known that he wouldn’t allow himself to sleep in a cold, empty bed all the way through Christmas Eve night.
His feet pad across the floor, and he tugs the blanket off my body. A shudder runs over my skin as he slides under the blankets with me, his strong arms looping around me and pulling me close. “Hey,” he breathes against my ear. “I thought you were going to come to bed.”
“I was,” I breathe, my fingernails trailing up and down his corded forearm. “I got lost in thought.”
“Come on,” Lucas purrs against my ear, kissing the earlobe softly. “You can be real with me, Sofia. When you can’t be real with anybody else, you can be real with me.”
“I know.” I sigh, and my ass twists smoothly over his erection.
Lucas nuzzles against my neck and a smile spread on his lips. He smiles against my skin. Hell, his dick twitches and pulses against my ass cheeks. He’s not just here for cuddling. “God, you smell good, Sof.”
“Shh, wait,” I whisper up to him, sighing and twisting in his embrace. “Maybe we should talk.”
An uncertain smile tugs at the corner of Lucas’s mouth. “All right,” he allows, his eyes measured and steady on me now. I have his attention, even though I can still feel his erection running along my stomach now.
“I need to tell you that I overheard your conversation with your brother,” I confess. “And I wish you hadn’t told Astrid that I’m pregnant right now. You know she’s unstable, and it’s so early. We could have waited.”
“I didn’t tell her,” Lucas defends himself softly. “She saw the bag from the maternity store and she assumed. I just didn’t deny it. I hardly had time to deny it, Sofia. You don’t know Astrid the way I do.”
My brow knits, and I draw away from him, annoyed by the tone. “What do you mean, I don’t know Astrid the way you do?”
“If I said you weren’t pregnant, it wouldn’t have mattered. She goes with whatever she thinks, and you can’t tell her anything else. There was nothing I could do.”
“The way you and James talk about her, she sounds dangerous,” I hiss up to him. “I don’t want her to hurt me. I don’t want her to hurt our baby. You said that she was abusive toward the kids before you left her, and they are her own flesh and blood. So, what is she going to do when she has to deal with Madison and Charlie’s half-brother or half-sister?”
“The only thing you can do with someone like that is watch them,” Lucas tells me. He’s trying to calm me down. It’s working only a little bit. “Don’t worry about it, though, OK? Because she’s never going to watch our baby for us. This baby is ours, not hers. No part of it is hers.”
I take a deep, shuddering breath and try to accept that.
I don’t even notice the way that my arms have come up to lace around my own stomach. I want to go to my first ultrasound and hear the heartbeat. I don’t want anything to come between me and this little peanut. I want everything to be happy and easy, even if I know how unreal
istic that all is. After the long, hard road that brought me here, I’m ready for things to be easy. But they’re not going to be.
“I know,” I whisper, curling up against Lucas. I’m too freaked out to be turned on right now. “I wish things could be simple.”
A clatter and a thunk causes sounds outside, and I perk up.
“Did James leave the house?” I wonder.
“I don’t think so,” Lucas whispers back. “Even James isn’t that stupid. It’s not supposed to stop snowing until dawn.”
“I heard something.”
“I know. I heard it, too.”
We both freeze and listen intently to nothing at all. The wind howls outside the window. Distantly, the sound of the television comes through the guest room floor. James probably fell asleep on the couch. Everything is quiet. Everything is fine.
A long, high creak fills the downstairs, and footsteps echo in the silence.
Someone’s in the house.
Chapter 38
Lucas
Sofia tightens up against me, and her breathing pattern changes, louder now. I run my palm down her back, hoping to soothe her, but I’m not sure how much good it does. I’m barely soothed myself.
“Someone’s in the house,” Sofia hisses, and I nod. I know someone is.
“I’m going downstairs,” I say, separating my body from hers and sliding off the bed.
Sofia’s hand darts out and gets a grip on my shirt. “Don’t leave me. I don’t want to be up here all alone.”
“I don’t want you to be down there with me,” I tell her, and her hand releases me. In the darkness, she’s only a silhouette lit by moonlight, but I can still feel how much terror is in her eyes. “Nothing is going to happen to you,” I promise. “It was probably James. I’ll be right back.”
I tread first across her bedroom floor and flip the latch on the door, locking her in.
“Keep that locked,” I command her, then stride over to the adjoining bathroom, depress its button lock on the doorknob, and pull it shut, sealing myself out of her room. It’s better this way, and she’ll only breach those locks if one of the kids is in trouble.