1001 Dark Nights: Bundle Five

by Julie Kenner

  “Mexican, please,” Laurel said. She was totally willing to beg. “I’ve been dreaming about enchiladas all day.”

  “Is that why you didn’t eat breakfast this morning?” Lila asked with a judgmental eye.

  Yeah, it was awesome to live in the same apartment complex with her two sisters. Lila would show up randomly to make sure she was eating right. They’d had to watch out for each other growing up due to their mom’s preference for drugs over parenting, and it seemed her older sister hadn’t gotten out of the habit.

  “Are you on some weird diet again?” Lisa asked.

  “You know how those diets go,” Lila said with a sigh. “You starve yourself and then binge later. It’s not good for you.”

  Said the two skinny chicks. She sometimes wondered who her father was. Not because she had a grand desire to meet the man so much as to punch him in the face for passing on his faulty metabolism. Lila and Lisa were graceful and willowy. Will was lean and athletic. Laurel got teased all through school for being on the chunky side.

  Maybe that was why Mitch hadn’t wanted her. Maybe he’d wanted a slender, graceful sub. She wondered what the two exes looked like. Probably movie stars.

  “I’m not on a diet. I just was a little off this morning.” A bit nauseous, but that could be anything.

  Or you could be pregnant. Because you had sex without a condom. You had crazy, wild, can’t-forget-about-it sex without a condom and Mitchell Bradford’s sperm are probably as masculine and arrogant and aggressive as the rest of him. Knocked up. You’re all kinds of knocked up.

  She shoved that thinking to the side because she was an optimist. She wasn’t late. Her period was coming sometime this week. She’d already felt crampy and had a nice ache in her back and her boobs were slightly tender. All signs that Mother Nature was sending her a monthly package and her egg had been wilier than that army of sperm Mitch had sent her way.

  The nausea this morning could be explained away as nerves about starting a new job. She’d only been here for a week and she got a little nervous about handling cases without having Mitch on call to answer questions. That was all.

  She wondered if Mitch had hired either of the paralegals she’d sent his way. Tom and Cindy were both exceptional. And Cindy was married, so Mitch wouldn’t have to worry about another employee hitting on him and making things uncomfortable.

  Now that she looked back at it, she’d been the one to behave badly and Mitch had to put up with it. Yes, they had chemistry, but he’d been clear about not wanting to act on it. She’d practically sexually harassed the man.

  “Are you all right?” Lila asked. “You went pale. Give me your hand.”

  She didn’t have to. Lila moved in, grasping her right hand and feeling for her pulse.

  “What’s going on?” Will asked, his eyes concerned as he strode in. Her brother was dressed in slacks and a snowy-white dress shirt. He’d likely left his white coat in the car. Sometimes she thought he should wear a Superman shirt under his clothes. Super Doc. That was her big bro.

  “Her pulse rate is high,” Lila said, her voice the same flat monotone she used in the ER.

  “I’m fine.” She pulled her arm out of Lila’s hand, but then Will was checking her. She rolled her eyes and looked to her youngest sibling. “Have I thanked you for not going into the medical field?”

  Lisa grinned. “They would have been bossy either way.”

  Will let go. “She’s fine, though she is paler than normal.”

  “Complain to my northern European ancestors. Can we please get some food now? We’re supposed to be celebrating Lisa passing her classes, not worrying about my health. Which is fine by the way. I’m perfectly normal.”

  Because it was normal to get pregnant when you have sex while you’re ovulating and forget to wear protection of any kind.

  She was done. She was stopping by after work and getting a stupid pee on the stick pregnancy test and putting these thoughts out of her head. Worrying about being pregnant was making her insane. Of course, so was worrying about Mitch.

  Had he fired Sharon? She should call and see. Had he managed to turn the office into a fortress yet? She would bet he’d blocked off all the natural light and now the only illumination was fluorescent. And he’d likely eaten like crap and stopped recycling.

  None of that was her concern. She was off the Mitchell Bradford improvement committee.

  “All right, you say you’re fine, I’ll believe you,” Lila said with a nod. “I’m going to run to the bathroom and then I’ll be ready to go.”

  “I’ll go with you.” Lisa followed their sister.

  She was left alone with Will, who was staring at her the same way he had when she’d been fifteen and had snuck out of their trailer to make out with Jimmy Hodges.

  “What happened with Mitch?”

  She rolled her eyes. She’d been playing the brat with her brother since before she knew the word had more than one meaning. “He was difficult, to say the least. He was absolutely the most annoying boss I’ve ever worked for.”

  And weirdly the most thoughtful. He’d been the one to push her to become a paralegal. He’d supported her through all the training. Most bosses would have offered to hire her back when she was done with school, but Mitch had understood she needed the money. He’d let her work part time but never changed her salary and never complained when he had to do things she would have done as the office manager.

  And he’d given her those law books for graduation and told her if she wanted to go further, he would support her through law school.

  He’d actually been a great boss. He simply couldn’t love her.

  “I got sick of banging my head against the massive wall that is Mitchell Bradford. I need a job where I don’t have to fight the boss every single time I need to change something. Back when I was only his office manager, I had the time to plot and plan my way around him. Now that I’m also his paralegal…was his paralegal, I don’t have time to try to make the new copy machine look like the old copy machine because Mitch has issues with change. I had to kick the damn thing in exactly the right place to get it to work, but does the high-and-mighty Mitch see reason? Nope. He liked the copy machine. He brought the stupid copy machine with him from California. He claimed the copy machine had been more faithful than his last wife.”

  Will winced. “I told you not to get him started on his ex-wives. It’s a sore spot for him.”

  It was more than a sore spot. The two ex-Mrs. Bradfords were very likely the reason Mitch had never been willing to give her a shot. He’d spent his love and affection on women who hadn’t returned it and now he wouldn’t try again. He would hold on to his bitterness the same way he’d attempted to hold on to that rattrap old copy machine. Of course, she’d managed to get around that. While Mitch had been playing poker with the Taggart brothers one Friday afternoon, she’d simply had a new one brought in and the old one scrapped.

  And now he loved the new copy machine.

  “Well, I don’t have to worry about any of it now. I have a spiffy new job.”

  “That pays less than half of what your old job did.”

  She frowned. Where were Lila and Lisa? This was starting to seem very much like a classic Will interrogation. And how did Will know what she was making? “I’m going to get a lot of experience here.”

  “Will they let you go to law school and continue to pay you? Because I believe that was Mitch’s offer. You’re telling me he was so difficult that you would walk away from twice the pay and a boss who supports you financially through school for some experience that won’t mean anything if you don’t go to law school?”

  Yep. This was an interrogation. “It wasn’t working. It was too hard. Look, Will, you know I had feelings for him.”

  “Yes, which is exactly why I had to wonder if Mitch had done something he shouldn’t.”

  She was getting weak in the knees. “No. He didn’t do anything. I decided it was a good time to start over. I like it here so
can we stop talking about this?”

  He slanted a suspicious stare her way. “Fine. You don’t want to work with Mitch any more. Is there a reason you no longer want your Sanctum membership? Because the last time we discussed it, you were quite adamant about getting training. You jumped through all the hoops, and you’ve even been spending your weekends watching kids to pay your way. But now, all of the sudden you quit without any better reason than you changed your mind.”

  “I did.” She wasn’t sure what else to say. Everyone had been right. She’d been interested in D/s because of Mitch. She didn’t want anyone but Mitch. Hopefully in a few months she would be able to get the irritating man out of her head. “I changed my mind.”

  “Without even meeting the training Dom selected for you? I’m supposed to believe that? You fought me, tried to get around me, and all so you can quit before you start?”

  Her head was now extremely light and it made her stomach churn. “I’m keeping my promises. I told Taggart I would continue to work in the nursery, and he’s going to pay me now.”

  Will was frowning at her, but it seemed like that was all he’d done since he’d walked in the door. “Are you all right? Laurel, sit down. You’re very pale.”

  But it was already too late. Her peripheral vision was fading. She heard Will shout as she started toward the floor.

  Four hours later she was doing some frowning of her own. “I’m fine. I needed to get something to eat and now I’ve wasted an entire afternoon, and I don’t even want to think about how much that ambulance trip is going to cost me. I could have solved the problem with a five-dollar sandwich but no, Dr. Daley has to subject me to a million and one medical tests.”

  Will sighed as he moved to her hospital bed. He glanced around the room where Lila and Lisa were sitting. “Has she been this surly the whole time?”

  Lisa nodded. “Yep. And don’t get her started on the food.”

  No one would let her have any food until all the vampires had done their worst. Finally, after they’d decided she wasn’t dying, she got to have some pudding. Yippee.

  “I’m ready to go home, Will. I’m fine. I feel great. I want to go home.” She was sick of being bullied by Will and Lila, who were using the whole “we work at this hospital” thing to their advantage.

  She was really glad there was that patient confidentiality law in place.

  Will held his hands up. “All right. I’ll push the nurse to get you out of here as soon as your blood work comes back.”

  The doctor chose that moment to enter. He was a kid, probably in his first year or two of residency. He had a clipboard in his hand and a big smile on his face. “Dr. Daley, your sister’s blood work is all perfectly fine.”

  “Hey, what happened to confidentiality?” She sat up but took a deep breath. She was fine. Her blood work was fine.

  She wasn’t pregnant. That was good. That was amazing.

  So why did she feel so…lost?

  Will patted the ER doc on the back. “Thanks, Barry. I appreciate it. I know I’ve been a little paranoid, but she’s my sister. I’ve been watching out for her for a very long time.”

  Barry practically beamed at Will. “Of course, sir. All her blood work is normal. I’m glad to be the bearer of good tidings and, on another note, I’m so excited to be on your service next week. I’m looking forward to a stint in neuro, and you’re the best.”

  She was going to vomit for different reasons now.

  Lila was on her feet. “I’d like to see her blood work, please. Something’s off with her and it has been for a couple of weeks.”

  Now that she wasn’t hiding anything, she didn’t think twice about letting Lila take a look at her chart. She didn’t care. She wasn’t pregnant. She wasn’t carrying Mitchell’s baby and it was all over. That was a good thing.

  Wasn’t it?

  Barry turned the chart over. “Of course. At this point, I’m sure she feels a little off. Remind her to eat and to get enough rest. She’s healthy. The pregnancy is in its early stages, so she needs to eat and get enough water and rest and she’ll be fine.”

  The room seemed to stop. Everything got very quiet, and slowly all three of her siblings turned her way.

  Barry seemed to understand something had gone wrong. His eyes went wide. “Uhm, so no one knew she was pregnant?”

  “I thought you said my blood work was normal.” She was pregnant. Knocked up. Having his baby. Oh, god. She was having Mitch’s baby.

  He shrugged and stuttered as he started backing out of the room. “It’s perfectly normal for a pregnant woman. I assumed since you’re surrounded by medical people that someone would have figured out you’re pregnant. I mean, I haven’t examined you, but I thought you’re probably just a couple of weeks into your first trimester. Right?”

  Will’s face had turned a nice shade of pink. “I don’t have to examine her. I’m pretty sure she’s two weeks pregnant. Is that about right, Laurel?”

  Lila was combing through her chart. “How can you tell, Will?”

  “Because that’s when she quit working for Mitch,” Will said, every word dropping like a lead pipe.

  Lisa was the only one who didn’t look grim. “Whoa. You quit working for Mitch because you finally went at it like a couple of rabbits, didn’t you? This is some serious drama. We’re going to need more pudding cups. Don’t they keep popsicles somewhere?”

  Will sent their youngest sister a stern glare.

  Lisa simply shrugged. “Laurel isn’t the only one who had to skip lunch. I might not be eating for two, but I’m still hungry.”

  “I’m going to get someone to run these results again.” Lila shook her head at the chart. “Laurel isn’t this foolish. There is no way she’s pregnant. I’ll call in Dr. Bates.”

  Will nodded. “She’s who I would call. But you’re wrong about Laurel. She is that foolish.”

  “No. She couldn’t be.” Lila squared off with Will.

  Lisa hopped up on Laurel’s bed. “I think we’re about to get the mom lecture again.”

  “Laurel wouldn’t be so completely irresponsible as to not use birth control. She saw what happened to our mother. She knows how terrible it can be for a child to not even know who her father is,” Lila said passionately.

  “Oh, I know who the father is,” Will shot back. “Don’t worry. He’ll be in this kid’s life. Well, unless I kill him first.”

  Tears streamed down her face. She had been irresponsible. So irresponsible. She was having a baby and the father didn’t want a child. She’d grown up without a father, depending on Will to take care of her when she was younger, and now she was putting her own baby in the same position.

  Unwanted. Unloved. A mistake.

  Lisa’s hand found hers. “Hey, it’s going to be okay, Laurel. It’s all right.”

  She shook her head. “No, it’s not.”

  There was a brief knock on the door and Laurel was certain they were about to be asked to keep the noise down. They would have to move this party out of the ER.

  She would try to sneak away, try to get back to her tiny apartment that would be terrible for raising a baby in. There was barely enough room for her. Babies required lots of stuff. Babies required love and affection and care, and how was she going to make it work?

  The door opened and Mitch Bradford stood there looking like he’d run a couple of miles without bothering to change into sweats. He was still wearing his everyday armor, but his hair was windblown and he had a nice sheen of sweat on his brow. “Laurel, I just got the text from Will. Are you all right?”

  Her brother had texted Mitch?

  Before she could say a thing, her brother let his fist do the talking. Will reared back and Mitch went flying out of the room.

  It looked like the worst day of her life wasn’t over yet.

  Chapter Four

  Mitch hit the nurse’s station with a crash, his spine slamming into the edge. It took him a moment to truly register the fact that Will had gone completely
insane and was attacking him.

  “Someone call security.” He heard the nurse’s voice behind him.

  “No need,” Will said. “I can take out the trash myself.”

  Will came at him, throwing another punch, but this time Mitch was ready. He ducked, narrowly missing getting clocked right across the nose. Will was serious. He wasn’t fucking around. He’d obviously found out what had happened with Laurel.

  Had Laurel told her brother it was all his fault? He certainly hadn’t expected that from her.

  “Nothing happened?” Will asked the question in a mocking tone. “Earlier today you told me nothing happened. Want to amend that statement, Counselor?”

  Mitch held his ground. If they were going to do this here, then he would take his punishment, but he wasn’t going to go out quietly and he wasn’t going to stand here and let Will beat the shit out of him. “What happened is between me and Laurel.”

  “Will, stop it. You are going to break a hand and then where will you be?” The three Daley sisters were standing right outside the door to Laurel’s room. The oldest one, Lila, was staring at both of them with a ferocious frown on her face. “Also, none of this helps Laurel.”

  “I don’t care right now,” Will shot back and then returned his attention to Mitch. “You promised me she would be safe with you. You promised you would take care of her.”

  Shit. This was about the incident? He hadn’t mentioned that Laurel had been shot at because she’d begged him not to and there hadn’t been anything Will could do. He’d been in Chicago at the time. No wonder the man was pissed. “I’m so sorry. I wasn’t expecting it, obviously. It never occurred to me that she would be in that kind of danger. I swear if it had, I would have put a guard in front of that door.”