My Ex's Baby (Crescent Cove Book 8)

by Taryn Quinn

  I couldn’t seem to stop pacing.

  As soon as Ivy rushed into the waiting room, the emotion in her expressive eyes so like August’s, I started to cry. She’d stopped momentarily, her cheeks blotchy and red. But the instant our gazes connected, it was instant waterworks on her side too.

  She hurried toward me and we hugged, any earlier awkwardness forgotten. “She’s fine,” I repeated over and over, stroking her hair. “She’s with August in with the doctor. Everything is going to be okay.”

  As if I’d summoned him, he came into the waiting room, toting a now subdued Rhiannon. “She had a shot,” he explained sheepishly before Ivy wrenched away from me and hurtled herself at her child.

  Rhiannon’s chin wobbled and she immediately started crying again as she saw her mother, extending her arms in a universal gesture my already maternal heart recognized.

  And yearned for, as much as it made me ache.

  “There’s my darling. There’s my sweetheart. Mama’s here. I’m here, baby. I won’t ever leave you again, I promise.” Ivy cradled Rhiannon gently, brushing her ginger curls away from her flushed forehead.

  August and I exchanged a glance over Ivy and Rhi, the moment plunging me back into the past to the day of the baby’s birth. He was so good with her. So good with Ivy as he rubbed his sister’s back and told her softly what the doctor had said. But his eyes remained riveted on me.

  If I had to say one moment had changed everything between us, Ivy’s baby’s birth had been the start.

  “Rory’s on his way,” I said into the momentary silence. “He’s catching the first flight back he can.”

  “Yeah, he called. We spent a few minutes crying and going crazy while I drove here.” Ivy let out a sniffly laugh. “He tried to be strong of course, but I heard him sniffing. Said he had a cold. He loves her as ferociously as I do.” She tugged her daughter’s blanket up more tightly around her. “Isn’t that right, Rhi-Rhi? Daddy’s hurrying here to see you. He’ll be here to put you to sleep tonight.” She sighed. “First, we have a prescription to get.”

  Again, my gaze clung to August. It was impossible not to think about what kind of father he’d be to our child. Would it be a girl or a boy? Better question—would I be a hopeless mess every time he or she got a skinned knee or the flu?

  I hoped not. Practice made perfect, right? In time, I’d find a modicum of chill.

  If not, August would be there to be my balance. As he’d been today. As he was so often lately without even realizing it.

  Just don’t get too used to depending on him. He said he wanted to be involved in the kid’s life, but the baby hasn’t arrived yet.

  The baby wasn’t even confirmed. I was late, but I hadn’t taken a test. Not quite yet.

  “I can drive you back. Kinleigh can take my truck.”

  Ivy waved him off. “You guys have done enough. Surely you have a better way to spend the evening, right?” She looked between us, her expression probing.

  What was she getting at?

  “I called August when I didn’t know what to do with the baby. He has more experience with her,” I said quickly.

  “Right.”

  “He does. He’s her uncle, isn’t he?”

  “And you’re basically her aunt.”

  I crossed my arms. “He babysits more often.”

  August remained stoically silent. Funny how I didn’t appreciate that quality in him as much right now.

  “Just saying I’m sure you guys want some privacy. I mean, to be alone.” Ivy’s voice was even, but her eyebrows were on the verge of waggling.

  “I’ll call Mom and see if she can meet you at the house.” August withdrew his phone from his jeans. “Just until Rory gets there.”

  So August wasn’t even making a pretense of going back with his sister. He let her make statements that somehow sounded pretty freaking incriminating and just rolled with it.

  Sounded like Ivy’s brother in a nutshell.

  “I’ll go get Rhiannon’s carrier.” Before anyone could argue, I snagged Ivy’s keys dangling from her jacket pocket and rushed out of the waiting room and down the hallway to the double doors that led outside.

  We’d gone into the hospital without the carrier, newbie parents that we were. We weren’t even that yet technically.

  Despite my desire to run a hand over my belly and to give in to the urge to buy another one of those pee sticks, I had no concrete reason to suspect anything. Sure, my breasts seemed heavy in my bra. My nipples were almost sore. I was so tired, on the edge of cranky.

  My body was sending out signals. Some of them might’ve been due to the stress of hiding far too much from too many people I lo—

  Cared about.

  Some might’ve been wishful thinking. But if not, if August and I having sex at truly Olympic levels had worked this quickly, everything was going to change.

  Maybe even me.

  I crossed the lot to Ivy’s car and unlocked it. I was getting the carrier out of the back when a cool, purportedly friendly voice made my whole body turn cold.

  “Kinleigh, is that you?”

  I jerked so hard I hit my head on the ceiling before hurriedly backing out of the backseat. Just as that nightmare upper crust voice had confirmed, in front of me stood Percy Maitland. Tall, lean, impossibly rigid in every way with his shock of dark hair that dipped into brown eyes and lips that curled too easily into a sneer. But he wasn’t doing that now. He was far too interested in the item I’d been wrestling with.

  “Hello, Percy. How are you?”

  “Doing quite well, thank you. And yourself?” He smoothed a hand down his already impeccably placed tie as he cast a glance into the still open backseat of Ivy’s car.

  “Fine.” I was pretty sure I stuttered on the reply and I hated myself for it. For feeling about five inches tall with the hole in the sole of my shoe as I’d been the day Percy had glided into the shop I’d been stocking shelves in so many years ago. His suit then had been top of the line, just as it was today. He’d worn Italian loafers then and now and expensive cologne followed him like a signature.

  The same. Always the same.

  Just as you are. Same not good enough Kinleigh, pretending you’ve earned your place.

  “Do you have a baby?”

  I hadn’t expected that question at all. Instead of saying no, instead of saying anything at all, I let out a sound that bordered on a hiccup.

  “Yes.” August somehow appeared at my side and took my elbow.

  I stared up at him, as perplexed at his sudden presence and how he’d known to agree to the lie—yet another lie, at least as far as we knew at this very moment—until I noticed the man in black standing beside a limousine parked at the end of the lot. The driver’s attention was squarely centered on Percy, who couldn’t seem to decide if he wanted to focus on me or August.

  Or Ivy, cradling her beautiful, now sleeping daughter with the red hair so like her own—or like mine when Ivy stepped forward and wordlessly passed the baby to me.

  My eyes filled and I started to shake my head, but she pressed her lips into a fierce line as she determinedly offered up her daughter.

  Ivy knew who Percy was. I’d told her the story of my ex a long time ago. Leaving out some details of course, like how deeply he’d scarred me with the way he’d dismissed and dumped me. But she knew the Maitland family. Everyone in the Cove did. They were wheelers and dealers and power brokers that even the likes of the Hamilton brothers couldn’t quite rub shoulders with—and they were one of the richest families around.

  “She’s yours?” Percy frowned, his dark eyes narrowing. “And yours?” he asked August, who merely stepped closer and wrapped his arm securely around my waist. The warmth from his body made me want to burrow into him. To let him shield me from the world.

  I’d never had anyone who wanted to. It had always been me against everyone else. Fighting to prove my worth and that I belonged. I’d started out as the outsider foster kid, but I’d finally made so
mething of myself.

  August didn’t answer him. I didn’t either. I couldn’t. Because August was tipping my chin up with his free hand, his thumb exerting gentle pressure against the corner of my mouth. As if he was searching for the lever to get me to open up for him and let him in.

  With those intent green eyes on mine, I couldn’t do anything else.

  His lips were so warm and soft. He didn’t push. Didn’t demand. Just coaxed me so sweetly to accept what he offered while the baby between us let out a gurgle.

  She wasn’t the only baby between us. I knew it with a certainty that had me leaning up for more, lost in his kiss and his touch and the wonder he wrapped around us like a cloak that would never ever let anything in but light and heat and promise.

  “Mine,” he whispered as we reluctantly drew apart, and I knew the word was for me alone. It trembled on my tongue to give it to him in return. I couldn’t help myself. It might’ve even slipped out if Rhiannon hadn’t grabbed a fistful of my hair and tugged hard enough to make me yelp.

  All at once, I remembered our audience. Ivy. Percy, who’d mercifully turned to go back to the car. I didn’t know if he’d been visiting someone in the hospital or just ambulance chasing for his law firm.

  And for once, I realized I truly didn’t care. He was my past, dead and buried.

  What he’d left behind and embedded in my psyche would be harder to root out and dispose of. But I was trying. Goddess, I was trying so hard.

  I just needed a little more time.

  “Kinleigh.” Ivy’s soft voice brought me back to the present with a thud.

  She didn’t sound mad or accusatory. She was every bit as patient as her brother, at least on the surface. But her blue eyes were wounded.

  I started to explain. It was all for show. She had to understand we’d kissed to kind of give the middle finger to Percy. Even if he’d long ago moved on with someone named Priscilla—yes, I’d ferreted out that fact years ago—and even if they’d bought a townhouse together—I’d also dug that up—and owned a Shiz Tsu named Sally—yeah, found that out too. It was amazing what someone with long, lonely nights could unearth online.

  An easy explanation was right there.

  Oh, August, aren’t you the sweetest for helping me out. Thanks, buddy, old pal. Here’s your baby back, Ivy.

  Scene over.

  I just couldn’t form the words. Couldn’t look at August and dismiss the significance of that kiss while what we’d made together was inside me. At that instant, I almost would’ve dared any test to prove me wrong.

  But I also couldn’t declare my feelings either. Not when my emotions were hot and edgy and my faith that this would last was so shaky.

  I’d never had any good role models growing up. Nor did I know how to be the sort of woman August could devote himself to. The idea of ever disappointing him was crushing.

  How could I expect his trust when I didn’t even trust myself?

  So I didn’t say anything. I returned Rhiannon to her mother and leaned toward Ivy for a long hug that I hoped conveyed what I couldn’t say. Not only about August this time. About her too.

  I love you. Please understand. Please don’t hate me.

  You’re both all the family I have left.

  Twenty-One

  The first part of the drive to Kinleigh’s was made in silence. I hadn’t even turned on the radio.

  What was there left to say when I’d just met—sort of—the man Kinleigh had allowed to help her become a shell of herself? He’d torn her down with words she’d not only listened to and believed, she’ d made them into a life motto and slapped them onto a T-shirt.

  Some rich prick who hadn’t even introduced himself to me or done anything but look through me as if my only use was as the possible father of Kinleigh’s progeny.

  Seemed to be a lot of that going around right now.

  Every time I slid a glance her way, she was cupping her stomach. It probably wouldn’t have been noticeable to anyone who hadn’t been trying to plant a baby in her for almost a month and a half now. But I saw far too much when it came to Kinleigh Scott.

  And yet not enough to understand all the reasons she was so quick to push me away.

  Regardless, we’d been working on this long enough that she could give me a progress report for how I was doing. Because, yes, I was the caveman who expected results when I went without a condom.

  Even if I wasn’t sure this whole plan wasn’t insane. If I wasn’t insane to agree to it.

  But God, I ached to see her belly full with our baby.

  How could I get angry with her for allowing Percy-flipping-Maitland to jerk her around when most of the time, I was no better? She didn’t tear me down with words. Far from it. Her most often wielded weapon was indifference.

  “When are you going to take a pregnancy test?”

  Her head whipped toward mine and the hand protectively wrapped over her stomach flexed. So much for giving her time. “I will when it’s the right moment.”

  “You haven’t, have you?”

  “Do you really think I’d take one without telling you? We’re in this together.”

  “Oh, really. If we are, then why does Ivy know that punk ass’s name and your history with him when I don’t?”

  “I told you what he said.”

  “Telling me what he said when you were drunk and your guard was down is not the same as a rational, adult conversation about our exes when you’re sober.”

  “What about Serafina?”

  The name was like a blast from the ancient past. “What about her?”

  “You think I wasn’t around when you kept pingponging back and forth out of her bed? Ivy said she yanked your chain all the time.”

  “Yeah, well, you’ll notice we aren’t together anymore. We haven’t been for quite a while. You’ll also notice I never mention her, never see her, never even think about her until you brought her up. Unlike your ex who I just watched render you speechless. You so badly wanted to impress him you even let me kiss you in front of my sister and God and country, so that says the hold he still has on you.”

  “He wasn’t the reason I couldn’t speak. He thought I had a baby. That Rhi was mine. And you and Ivy—”

  “We made sure he understood you were loved. It’s nice to do that for someone, you know?” I hated, absolutely hated, the edge to my voice, but it couldn’t be helped.

  I’d tried to put a choke-chain on my impatience and irritation for weeks now. I understood that I’d been blessed to come from a decent family with good, hardworking parents, an amazing sister, and a halfway respectable brother. Not everyone had such a secure foundation. I got that. But Kinleigh never spoke of her family, which was the only tip I had that she’d had a difficult home life. She never gave me anything about herself that didn’t involve taking off my damn pants.

  “I really appreciate you two stepping up for me. I understand that someone like you can’t grasp how my confidence could be knocked by Percy.”

  I tapped my thumbs on the wheel. By nature, I was not a violent man. Today was testing that theory. “Percy is the most inane name I’ve ever heard. And what do you mean, someone like me?”

  “Someone who has a solid base. You’ve never had to struggle, August.” Her prim tone rankled the last nerve I had that wasn’t already pissed the fuck off.

  “You think I’ve never had to struggle? Look at the last few months. I can say you are very wrong.”

  “Speaking of inane, you think Serafina isn’t? Isn’t that a Disney princess?”

  “Difference is I didn’t make her my excuse for not living my life.”

  She fell silent, her cheeks leaching of all color, and I wanted to rip out my tongue and feed it to the hounds the snooty Mrs. Whaley was walking three-deep across the street.

  I didn’t want to hurt her. Anything but that. The idea of Kinleigh in pain caused an answering reaction inside me. I wanted to give her everything. Make her eyes light up and hear her laughter and offer h
er anything she’d ever dreamed of. Right every wrong, even the ones she wouldn’t tell me about.

  But she wouldn’t let me, and I didn’t know what she could’ve done that would have stung more.

  Once we reached Kinleigh’s place, she unclicked her seatbelt and climbed out. I didn’t know if she wanted me to leave. That was probably a good guess, since she went inside without even glancing back at the truck.

  I couldn’t leave her like this. Couldn’t leave us like this.

  We’d been trying for weeks to build something. Beyond the child we wanted to bring into the world, I knew we were creating something of our own too. Sometimes the steps we took were so small no one could see them. I couldn’t even see them most of the time.

  But I knew she was trying. I knew she loved my sister, and whether or not she would ever admit it, she felt something for me too.

  I turned off the ignition and dropped my head into my hands. Forcing her feelings out of her was never going to work. A promise demanded wasn’t a promise at all.

  It took me a couple minutes to get myself back in line enough to follow her inside. When I knocked on her door, I was prepared for her to not answer or to flip me the bird before slamming the door in my face.

  What I wasn’t prepared for? For her to grab a handful of my shirt and drag me inside.

  She booted the door shut and boosted herself up on my hips, fusing her mouth to mine as her arms locked around my neck. Her taste poured into me—the fizz from the soda she’d had at the hospital while waiting for Rhiannon to be examined, the burst of fruit from her lip gloss, the wild hint of more that was simply Kinleigh. I clung to her because I was afraid I’d wake up alone in my bed, and I honestly wasn’t sure I’d survive it.

  We stumbled into the living room. Fell onto the couch, still kissing, hands roaming, buttons flying, zippers sticking. A couple of tugs and it loosened. Thank fuck. She scooped her hand into my jeans and boxers to find me hard and straining. Ready for her as if I’d been born for exactly that.

  I expected even in the midst of madness for her to roll her hips and take me inside—we had a purpose, after all—but that flash of pale skin above her waist was a sin I couldn’t resist. I was so fixated on touching every bit of her I could reach that I didn’t grasp where she was headed until she’d shimmied down the sofa and her thong-clad ass was in the air, her airy skirt slipping down her body to pool at her waist.