Fall Into Me: Hearts of the South

by Linda Winfree

  He pulled his arm from around her, rested his elbow on his knee, pinched the bridge of his nose. “We need to talk.”

  “Oh, Mark, can’t it wait? You have to be exhausted and I know I am—”

  “Tori.” He lifted his head, meeting her gaze. “It’s important. What I have to say…this could change everything, change how you feel about me.”

  “Mark, honey, nothing could—”

  “I’m serious.”

  The pretty line of her mouth tightened and her throat moved with a swallow. “You’re scaring me.”

  “Well, that makes two of us.”

  Her delicate brows dropped into a V. “What’s wrong?”

  He turned his head, staring out over the nearly deserted parking lot. A fine mist of cold rain danced beneath the halogen lamps. A shudder worked through him. “Angel’s pregnant. She told me today. She’s pregnant and there’s a chance I could be the father.”

  Silence shivered between them. A funny little sound, almost like a wounded chuckle, emerged from her throat. She propped her elbow on the back of the bench. “Mark, when I said I wanted your baby, this isn’t exactly what I had in mind.”

  He couldn’t help himself. He laughed, burying his face in his hands as gulping breaths caught between laughter and sobs shook his shoulders.

  “Mark, don’t.” Tori embraced him, resting her mouth against his nape. She stroked his hair. “So how do you feel about it?”

  “I really hate when you ask me things like that,” he mumbled into his palms. He raised his head. “I don’t know. I spent the afternoon being scared to death you’d leave me once you knew. Then I spent the rest of the day being scared to death Troy Lee would die.”

  She traced the edges of his hair at his neck. “Kind of cosmic, isn’t it, to learn this so soon after finding Jenny and the baby. Like you’re being given something for what you lost.”

  He turned sharply to look at her. She blinked. “What?”

  “Nothing.” He shook his head, a slow side-to-side motion. “Just…nothing.”

  She tugged at his hair, lightly. “You thought I would leave you?”

  “Honestly? I didn’t know how you’d react.” He chafed the heel of his hand across his mouth. “Yeah, I thought it was going to be over for good.”

  “Heh. You made the mistake of giving me a ring, Mark Cook. You’re stuck with me now.” She nudged his shoulder with her own, a familiar playful gesture that lightened the boulder that had taken up residence in his chest. She sobered on a soft exhale. “I had to tell Sara and Trace Davis their daughter was dead, then watch Miss Francie fold in on herself when we told her about Devonte. It seems like any new life should be celebrated today, even if it complicates our lives, you know?”

  A smile tugged at his mouth. He nudged her shoulder. “You sound like your mama.”

  She groaned and buried her face against him. “Please don’t say things like that.”

  Index finger under her chin, he tilted her mouth to his. “I love you, Tori.”

  “I love you too.” She laid her palm along his cheek. “No matter what. If this is your baby, we’ll love it too and find a way to make everything work.”

  He crushed her to him, relief making him a little rough, but she didn’t protest, merely curling closer. After a moment, she pulled back. “I want you to myself for a while. Go find my brother and take him home to his wife. I’ll be waiting for you.”

  “Your place or mine?” He dropped a kiss at the corner of her mouth.

  “Yours.” She smiled against his lips. “The bed is bigger and the sheets smell like you.”

  Where the hell was Tick anyway? Mark rapped his knuckles on the nurse’s station. “Lorraine, you sure you haven’t see him?”

  She put her MegaGulp cup aside and gave him the look. “I’m sure.”

  He expelled a frustrated breath. He was tired, damn it, and he’d been given his life back. He wanted nothing more than to go home and crawl into his bed with Tori, and Tick wanted to play a little game of hide-and-seek.

  Maybe he’d gone back to see Troy Lee.

  “He ain’t up there.” Lorraine shuffled some files and laid them in the inbox for the upcoming shift. Mark glanced at her, surprised. Hell, he was out of it enough he was talking to himself aloud now? “Layla just came back from checking him one more time before she goes home. Nobody’s in that room but his little blonde. Even his mama and sisters have gone. Did you text him?”

  “Yeah.” Mark returned the look. He’d texted him, tried to raise him on the handheld, all to no avail. “Four times.”

  “And?”

  “Nada.”

  Lorraine shrugged and slipped into her thick sweater. “Maybe he caught a ride with someone else.”

  And not told him? No, that didn’t sound like Tick, normally courteous to a fault.

  His cell phone rang and he lifted it to find Falconetti’s number on the display. “Cook.”

  “You were supposed to bring my husband home. Have you misplaced him?” Caitlin teased.

  “Yeah. You could say that.” He glanced around the now-deserted waiting room. “I’m assuming he’s not with you.”

  “No, and he’s not answering his cell.”

  He wasn’t responding to Falconetti either? Mark frowned. Okay, now he was worried.

  “He’s deliberately avoiding me.” Caitlin’s voice pulled him back.

  “What?”

  “He doesn’t want to bring the afterburn home to me. Why, I don’t know.” Disappointment invaded her husky voice. “Actually, I do know, but I won’t bore you with it. God, he makes me crazy when he gets stubborn like this.”

  “You too?”

  She sighed, and he didn’t miss the way it trembled with worry. “Just take care of him, all right?”

  “I have to find him first, Falconetti.”

  “I know. I’ll let you go. And Cookie?”

  “Yeah?”

  “If he’s smoking when you find him, you can tell him I’ll kick his ass.”

  “Will do.” He snapped the phone shut and returned it to his belt. The hell with this. He’d wait at the car. Sooner or later, Tick would decide it was time to go home.

  Keys in hand, he exited through the waiting room. The temperature had dropped in the last hour and the wet chill slapped his bare arms. He shivered. It was cold as a well-digger’s butt. He cut the corner on the hospital and an ironic laugh built in his throat. Son of a bitch. The one place he hadn’t thought to look.

  Tick sat on the unmarked unit’s trunk, his gaze lifted toward the stars half-hidden by high wispy clouds. An unlit cigarette dangled between his fingers.

  Mark leaned on the vehicle next to him. “Falconetti says if you smoke that, your ass is hers.”

  “Yeah. I could probably get away with coming home smelling like another woman before I could one of these.” Tick held the crumpled smoke up and sighed. “I bummed it off Dix Singleton before I realized I don’t have a lighter anymore.”

  “There’s one in the car.”

  “Someone had the keys.” He expelled a harsh sigh. “So how much trouble am I in for not answering her calls?”

  “Probably not much.” Mark kicked at a loose piece of gravel. “She’s worried about you.”

  “Yeah. I know.” Tick turned the cigarette between his fingers, rolling it like a baton. “I can’t…I have those sounds and images in my head. I keep hearing Kaydee Davis asking for her mother, keep feeling the way she shuddered under my hand when she stopped whimpering and I knew she was dead…I can’t take that home to her, Cookie.”

  “Yes, you can. She’s one of us. She’ll get it better than anyone.”

  “No.” Tick shook his head, a familiar stubborn slant to his chin. “Not anymore.”

  “Man, what are you talking about? She had a baby, Tick, but that doesn’t change who she is—”

  “You don’t get it.” The words came from between clenched teeth. “You weren’t there.”

  “The hell I wasn’t
.” Anger flashed along Mark’s nerves, so hot he was surprised his skin didn’t give off steam in the icy night. “What do you think it was like for me, trying to get Troy Lee out of that damn car before he choked on his own blood?”

  “That’s not what I mean.” Tick came off the trunk to his feet in a tense, edgy movement. He paced a few feet away and jerked a hand through already disheveled hair. “You weren’t in that delivery room when she went white—not pale, white—and passed out before I could get another breath. She could have died and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it—”

  “Tick.”

  “You weren’t in that NICU all those weeks, when she was living on every breath he took, when we weren’t sure he would take another one some days, when I knew if we lost him, it would destroy her and I couldn’t do anything about that either—”

  “Lamar.” He half-shouted before he remembered where he was. Frustration burned over the nape of his neck.

  Tick glared. “What?”

  “Get in the damn car.”

  They stared at one another in impasse for a moment. Tick tossed the unlit cigarette aside and stalked to the passenger door. He jerked once on the handle. “It’s locked.”

  Mark hit the remote unlock. Tick yanked the door open and climbed in. With a deep breath, Mark opened the driver’s door and sank behind the wheel. He jammed the key in the ignition. “She needs to kick your ass. Somebody ought to knock some sense into that damn thick head of yours before you mess around and screw up the best thing that ever happened to you.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You know, you’re not normally this stupid.” A harsh laugh wrung itself from Mark’s throat. He shook his head as he pulled onto the side street. “Hell, you said Troy Lee had the common sense of a fence post. Turns out he’s smarter than both of us.”

  Tick glared at him but didn’t reply.

  “He pegged it. Said you could either fight life or roll with it.”

  “You need some caffeine. Or some sleep. You’re not even making sense.”

  “I’m not making sense? Look in the mirror, partner. You’re the one who won’t go home out of some misguided sense of male protectiveness. I got news for you though, man. That’s one woman who’s not going to let you treat her like a fragile hothouse flower. You might as well give in and start getting things back to normal. Quit obsessing about all the things that could’ve happened or might happen, and live your damn life. Be Falconetti’s husband and that boy’s daddy and enjoy every second of it. I’m sure as hell going to.”

  “You make it sound so damn simple.” Again the sense that Tick spoke from between clenched teeth. “And it’s not.”

  “Because you’re fighting. Stop trying to control everything.” He slowed for the traffic light at 19. A left and then a right took them onto 112, away from town and deeper into the rural landscape around Coney. The shadows of dark houses and even darker woods flicked and danced beyond the windows.

  Tick thumped his thumb on his knee. “Where are we going?”

  “You’ll see.”

  Silence hovered for all of three seconds. “I don’t try to control everything.”

  Mark snickered. “Only because Falconetti won’t let you.”

  He swung the patrol car onto a nearly abandoned red clay road. Eroded ditches rose on either side. He pulled to one side and killed the engine, but left the headlights on. The twin beams stretched down the road, throwing a pool of illumination around them. Mark climbed from the vehicle. After the heater’s warmth, the cold bit even worse.

  The passenger door slammed. Tick rested both hands on the hood. “Want to tell me what we’re doing out here?”

  “You’re going to want to take a swing at me. I’m giving you the privacy and the opportunity.”

  “Why would I…” Tick’s gaze sharpened. “What did you do?”

  Mark rested his hands at his gun belt and regarded him steadily. “Angel’s pregnant.”

  They stared at one another across the car. The underbrush atop the ditch rustled, eerie green eyes appearing for a second and darting away.

  “Holy hell.” Oxygen rushed visibly from Tick’s lungs, puffing into mist in the cold air. He scraped a hand through his hair, and he turned his back on Mark to rest against the hood. “I knew it. I freakin’ knew something like this was going to happen.”

  “Yeah, life does that sometimes.” Fury detonated in Mark’s chest, decimating the tightness that he’d carried there all day, sending explosive heat under his skin, burning his nape. “Kinda like forgetting the condom once when you’re about to go undercover for a year.”

  “What did you say?” Tick rounded the car. A matching rage vibrated off him. “What the hell did you just say to me?”

  “I’m not taking any damn grief off you over this, Tick. Got that? It was an accident. They happen. You of all people should know that.”

  “Don’t even try making this the same thing.”

  “Oh, I’m not. I took precautions and got caught. You were just stupid and careless. The difference is, if this kid is mine, I’ll actually be here, not off in damn Mississippi—”

  “Son of a bitch.” On the low growl, Tick planted both hands on Mark’s chest and shoved, hard.

  Mark picked up the invitation. He grabbed Tick’s collar in a cross-hold and slammed him against the car. “Don’t make me hurt you, Lamar.”

  “Yeah, right—”

  “Go ahead and say it,” Mark gritted. He tightened his grip and dragged Tick’s gaze closer to his own. “Do it so we can get it over with.”

  Tick glared. In the dim light around the car, his dark eyes glittered, mutinous, enraged. He didn’t open his mouth, the skin there tight and pale.

  “Say it. It’s been eating at you for weeks.” Mark gave him a slight shake, shoved him against the car and let go. “Say I’m not good enough for her.”

  Tick didn’t reply, still eyeing him with simmering resentment.

  “You can’t, can you? You want to, but that damn honest streak of yours won’t let you,” Mark taunted. “Because deep down, you know it’s not true. In here”—Mark tapped his chest with one finger—“you know that I’m what she needs, that I’m just as good for her as she is for me.”

  “Yeah, this is going to be really good for her.” Tick straightened his collar. His back still against the car, he folded his arms over his chest. “So how long have you known?”

  Did he really think that deceptively casual tone wasn’t transparent? The narrow-eyed way he glowered gave him away. Mark held his gaze. “Since about an hour before Troy Lee’s wreck.”

  “Which is why you were at my place. Talking to Cait.”

  “Not like I could confide in you.”

  “Does Tori even know yet?”

  “What do you think? Do you really think I’d tell you before I told her?”

  Silence stretched. Tick coughed into one fist. “How did she take it?”

  “She said it wasn’t exactly what she had in mind when we talked about having a baby.”

  Tick chuckled, Mark figured probably completely against his will. “Sounds just like her.”

  “Yeah.” Remembered dismay and fear bounced through him once more. “I thought for sure she’d leave me.”

  Even he could hear the pain vibrating in his voice. Quiet fell between them, then Tick cleared his throat roughly. “No, when she commits to something, that’s it. She’s stubborn like that.”

  “No clue where she gets that trait.”

  “Kiss my ass, Cookie. It can be a really good quality, unless you’re applying it to the wrong things.”

  “Wow. That sounds almost like a self-revelation.”

  Tick’s long-suffering sigh hovered between them. He pushed both hands through his hair, which already stood out at weird angles. Hell, Mark could feel the need for that discarded cigarette emanating off him. Letting down his guard, Mark ambled to the car and leaned against the hood next to his partner. He rubbed the pa
d of his thumb across the edge of his opposite thumbnail. “She thinks, after everything that happened today, this baby should be celebrated.”

  “They all should be.” Tick chafed his palms together and blew into them. “She sounds like Mama. She—Mama, that is—told me once that sometimes we have to look for our joy. That sometimes it comes out of our greatest pain. I figured out on my own that losing something or someone important makes you value your second chances all the more.”

  “I can get that.” Again, the shimmery idea that this baby might be an unexpected blessing of reparation whispered through him.

  “Yeah.” Tick dragged both hands down his face. “After today, a little joy would be nice.”

  Mark made a vague noise of agreement in his throat.

  “You said if it’s yours…is there a question?”

  “It could be Jim’s.”

  Tick’s snort defined rude. “Like Jim needs a kid.”

  “Like Angel needs to deal with him for the rest of her life.” He traced the edge of his nail again. “She and Troy Lee are good for one another. He’s…there’s a lot to him under that pretty-boy face of his.”

  “I’m seeing that.” This time, the silence suspended between them felt comfortable, like, well, like before. Tick cocked a sideways glance at him. “Learning to roll with it, huh?”

  Mark nodded. “Yeah. I spent too much time hiding from it instead of fighting, which is probably the same thing, and I’ve lost too much to throw anything else away, you know?”

  “Sounds like Troy Lee’s not the only smart one.” Tick’s quiet laugh emerged as the barest huff of humor. “Guess that makes me the dumbass this time around.”

  “You said it. I didn’t.”

  Tick pushed away from the car. “Let’s go home, Cookie. After today, I really need to hold my family for a while.”

  With Tori waiting at home for him, Mark could get that. “Sounds good to me.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Fucking nuts. That’s what he was. The whole click-hiss-pause rhythm invaded Troy Lee’s brain until he could focus on nothing else. He’d woken and found himself alone when the nurse came in to check his vitals and adjust the bed. So it had just been him and the ventilator for the last hour, and the damn machine was winning.