by Maisey Yates
Heat rushed through her, and she had to marvel at the degree to which Ace had cast a spell over her body. Here she was, arguing custody arrangements and marriage with the man who had knocked her up, and he was right. Really, she just wished that she could tear his clothes off. “Well, we need to get over that. Not encourage it.”
“Okay, I’ll make you a deal. If we can figure out a way to deal with each other platonically over the next few months, then I will see how I feel about your co-parenting idea.”
She sighed. “That is completely noncommittal, stubborn and not all that giving.”
“It’s all I have.”
“Okay... What’s the flip side?”
“If we can’t, then you marry me.”
She crossed her arms, her stance mirroring his own. “You can’t make me marry you.“
“And you won’t be able to keep your hands off me.”
She laughed. “Honey, I’m pregnant. This may be my first rodeo, so to speak, but I guarantee you that in a few weeks about the only thing I will want to get my hands on is a cheeseburger.”
“I’d be willing to bet money that you and I will end up naked again.”
“I’ll take that bet.”
“Well, look at it this way, if I win, we both win,” he said.
She gritted her teeth. “You’re not winning. So I’d let go of that right now.”
“I’m going to need you to move onto my property.”
“Excuse me?” she asked, the subject change giving her whiplash.
“I want to keep you close. And I want to take care of you. It makes sense. The original house that came with my land is still in great condition. I had it all fixed up when I moved in. Because I lived there while I had my house built. We won’t be living together, you’ll just be close.”
“It seems unnecessary.”
“You’re living with your brother, so refusal seems unnecessary, too.”
She threw her hands up in the air. “All of this seems unnecessary.”
“All of it?”
“I am... I have always been very responsible. I don’t sleep with men until I’m good and ready. And when I have a boyfriend I get on the pill, and I make him use condoms every time. I always have. I’ve only been with two men aside from you. I had long-term relationships with them. I don’t...have unprotected sex with strangers on countertops.”
He rubbed his chin slowly, his palm scraping across his whiskers, his dark eyes heated. His response was slow in coming, as deliberate as the slide of his hand across his face. Making her imagine touching him. Kissing him.
Bastard.
“Except that you do have sex with strange men on countertops,” he said, finally.
“Did. Once. And now I’m dealing with the world’s most long-running consequence.”
“It’s an age-old consequence,” he said. “You play, you pay.”
A sudden thought occurred to her, and her stomach sank. “How many women have you gotten pregnant? Because, judging by this little conversation we had about your family history and now this, it seems like you get yourself in this situation a lot.”
He frowned, his dark brows locking together. “Do I have more than one ex-wife?”
“Not that I know of,” she said.
“Then I think it’s safe to say I don’t make a habit out of this. First of all, Callie wasn’t actually mine, but I can’t deny I felt like the possibility was there. Then, after Denise, I was very careful. I have been very careful.”
“Until me,” she said, feeling annoyed and persecuted all at the same time. He was some kind of legendary sex god, who was apparently also super into safe sex. But he had failed her.
You failed yourself. You can’t pawn it off on him.
You failed each other.
“Exactly,” he said. “Which is why I don’t have a very big amount of confidence in the two of us keeping our hands off of each other in the future. The fact that both of us acted so out of character says something.”
“So, we were trying to deal with it by...acting out?”
He shrugged. “Maybe. But the fact remains we’re in this situation. We have to deal with it. You’re moving in with me. That’s final.”
His words skittered down her spine, ricocheting around inside of her. She should be hideously offended by them. They were commanding, and ridiculous, and all of this was a bit patriarchal. But then, something inside of her gloried in it.
Because this man was her child’s father.
She thought back to her own father. To his casual disinterest. To what he’d done to Jack.
But this was a man who would hold on to any child of his. Who had gone broke trying to keep his visitation rights. Who carried the pain over the loss of his daughter still.
This was a man that she could trust with her child.
Now her heart was another matter. Her heart was staying out of this.
“Fine. I’ll move to your property,” she said. “But nothing is going to happen between us. I’m more than happy to work out some kind of an arrangement.”
“Great.”
“But I mean it, Ace. Nothing is going to happen between us,” she reiterated.
“Of course not.”
“I don’t like your tone.”
“You never do, Sierra. You never do.”
“When do you want me to—”
“As soon as possible.”
“I guess I need to talk to my brother.”
“What are the odds he comes after me with a shotgun?”
“High. Very high. But I think if I deal with him, maybe I can save your balls.”
“I’m not very happy with my balls right now, so I may just let it happen.”
For some reason, that made her laugh. Possibly because the entire situation was just so ridiculous she couldn’t even believe she was standing here. There was a surreal quality to the past three hours. She felt like she was in a haze. Like she had to be dreaming. And so there really was nothing to do but laugh.
“What? You think the idea of me being separated from my balls is funny?”
She laughed harder, doubling over. The tears that had been conspicuously absent in the cramped bathroom stall were now streaming down her face. “Yes,” she said, waving her hand. “It’s all funny.” She straightened up, drawing her fingers beneath her eyes and wiping the tears away. “The idea of you sacrificing your balls for their bad behavior. The word balls. It’s all so funny.”
“I’m glad you see some humor in it.”
“Well, it’s that or have a nervous breakdown,” she said, sighing. “So I guess I’ll take this.”
“Do you have furniture or anything?”
“Not really,” she said.
“Well, we’ll see if I have any in storage. Because we’re going to have to get something in that house.”
“Is there at least a bed?”
“Yes, a bed, a couch. But I don’t have dishes in it or anything.”
She had no way of getting them. Well, she had a little bit of money from her job. And she supposed if she was getting herself into yet another position where she didn’t have to pay rent, she might well be able to buy some small things for her little house. But it struck her then, how perilously close she was to needing charity.
“I’ll figure it out,” she said.
“All right. But the beauty of it is we’ll be figuring it out together.”
“I’m not really sure how great that will be,” she said, forcing a smile. “But I guess we’ll find out.”
He nodded, his expression grim. “I guess we will.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
“I’M MOVING OUT.”
Sierra knew that pronouncement would be met with interrogation.
She was prepared for it. Well, as prepared as she could be, considering the fact that the only answers she could possibly provide for her older brother were unpleasant, embarrassing and potentially problematic.
She wasn’t ready for her parents to know about the baby. Really, she wasn’t ready for Colton to know about the baby. Come to think of it, she hadn’t exactly been ready for Ace to know about the baby.
She wasn’t entirely sure she was ready to know about the baby.
But she did. So, Ace did. And a part of the deal was she would move onto his property for a while. So Colton had to know, too.
Unless he didn’t press for answers, but she had a feeling that the odds of that were almost nonexistent.
“When?” he asked, leaning back in his seat on the porch swing.
She had chosen to ambush him after work, hoping that he would be too tired to try and get details. It was a nice evening, the sun touching the tip of the mountains and spilling rose gold over the tops of the trees.
He had a beer in hand, and—until she had spoken at least—an easy smile on his lips. So maybe this wouldn’t be so bad.
Maybe.
“As soon as possible,” she said, fixing her eyes on the flowery wreath on the front door—courtesy of Natalie, she assumed.
“Meaning what?” he asked, lifting the beer bottle to his lips and taking a sip.
“I guess, as soon as I can pack my bags. It isn’t like I have a whole passel of worldly possessions squirreled away in your house.”
He stared at her for a moment. She raised her brows and lifted her hands. He stared back. She said nothing because there was nothing to say that she wanted to deal with at the moment.
And he just kept staring. Then he sighed heavily, setting his beer bottle down on the porch by his feet. “Okay, Sierra. I am trying to be patient here, but clearly you’re not going to just give me the reason you’ve decided to move out. Did something happen with Natalie?”
She was a little surprised that Colton was so willing to acknowledge that his fiancée might have driven her away. “No, it doesn’t have anything to do with Natalie.”
“Good. I know that things aren’t always easy between the two of you. But you have to understand that it’s just the stress of the wedding. Plus the fact that her best friend is running against her father in the mayoral election. I’m not feeling very happy with Lydia at the moment.”
Sierra cringed. “Are you ever happy with Lydia?”
He made a scoffing sound. “Why would you say that? She’s...uptight and irritating, sure, but until she started running against Natalie’s father I didn’t have anything against her.”
Sierra disagreed, since she’d heard Colton make disparaging remarks about Lydia Carpenter on more than one occasion, but she wasn’t going to press the issue. “Well, it would have been nice for her to wait on announcing her candidacy until after the wedding. Although I’m not entirely sure that election timelines consulted your event planner on the subject.”
“Much to Natalie’s chagrin, not nearly enough people have consulted our event coordinator on their comings and goings.”
Sierra laughed uneasily. “Yeah, well. Life goes on and all. Even around the wedding of the century.”
“Wedding of the century?” he asked, brows arched.
“Well, as far as Copper Ridge is concerned. It’s basically a royal wedding.”
“Don’t say that in front of Mom or I’ll end up leaving the country club in a carriage.”
She scrunched her face up. “Heaven forfend.”
“Things will calm down. And so will Natalie. I swear, when she’s not dealing with wedding fever she is a pretty pleasant woman.”
Sierra didn’t think pretty pleasant was good enough for her brother, and she really didn’t see why he was settling for a marriage that would be—at best—mediocre.
But then, look at his example. Their parents’ marriage was such a mess. Even before the revelations about Jack had come out, it was clear it hadn’t been a functional relationship.
She imagined Colton was taking on whatever he felt he could handle. It didn’t mean she had to approve. “Well, I hope you find her pleasant. Since you’re marrying her.”
“And you’re sidestepping the issue. Why are you moving out?”
Sierra sucked in a sharp breath and started counting yellow flowers on the wreath while she tried to figure out what to say next. One thing was certain: if she didn’t tell Colton the whole story, Madison wouldn’t. Because Madison was her sister, and as much as they both loved their brother, the bond of sisterhood won out above all else.
So, she could lie to Colton if she wanted to. Could hang on to her secret just a little bit longer.
The thought made her feel shaky.
There had been enough lying.
It hit her then that this was how it started. The temptation to make your life easier just because you didn’t want to face the consequences.
She was ashamed, in that moment, that she had already been tempted to go the route of her father. To deny the existence of her own baby simply because she didn’t want to deal with Colton’s reaction.
No. She wasn’t going to do that. She was responsible for this, and she was going to take responsibility.
She swallowed hard, then wrenched her eyes away from the wreath, forcing herself to look at her brother. “Well, I’m kinda moving in with someone? Only, not really.”
Colton frowned. “Uh-huh.”
“I mean, it’s a man. But, I’m not moving into his house.”
His frown deepened. “Uh-huh.”
“I’ll just be on his property. It isn’t sexual.” Colton’s brows shot upward. “Well, it was sexual. Once.”
“Hold it right there.”
“I’m trying to explain,” she said.
Colton stood. “Is there any part of this explanation that will make me not want to go punch some guy in the junk?”
“No. Anyway, I haven’t even gotten to the part of the story that will really make you want to junk punch him.”
Colton’s eyes narrowed. “Sierra, what’s going on?”
“Well,” she said, smiling, trying to force a smile on to her brother’s face, too. “You know Ace Thompson.”
“Hell yeah, I know Ace Thompson,” Colton responded, not smiling. “He’s your boss. And he’s older than I am.”
She waved her hand. “You make it sound like he’s aged. He’s not. He’s in a perfectly reasonable age group for me.”
“I don’t like where this is going.”
“I know you don’t,” she said, sounding weary. “So I might as well tell you the rest. I’m pregnant.”
The string of expletives that came out of her brother’s mouth was so creative she didn’t know whether to be offended, or to congratulate him.
She winced. “I knew you weren’t going to be happy.”
“A baby? You’re a kid. How are you going to handle a baby?”
“Okay, slow your roll, mister. I am not a kid and I’m not too young. I’m twenty-five.”
“Not too young. If you don’t think it’s young, that just proves my point. Because you’re still too young to have any idea how young that is.”
She knew she was going to have to let him have his moment, even though it was annoying. She didn’t really feel like he was entitled to have a freak-out when she was the one who should be curled up on the floor, but she knew he’d have one.
Anyway, in some ways it was nice to have her brother do the freaking out for her. She was the one who had to survive this day, this change, this future. She couldn’t afford to lose her mind.
“You don’t make any sense,” she said, grabbing hold of the bridge of her nose.
“No, Sierra, this doesn’t make any sense. You go to w
ork for this guy, and the next thing I know you’re pregnant with his baby? Actually, even more disturbing, moving in with him. I was with Natalie for two years before she moved in here. We were engaged before she moved in.”
“She’s also not pregnant.”
At the mention of the word the color drained slightly from Colton’s face. “No,” he said, “she’s not.”
“You’re one hundred percent sure?” she asked, wondering for a moment if the reaction was just to dealing with her news, or if he had some doubts.
“Yes,” he said, his teeth set on edge.
“Well, I guess you can’t really be one hundred percent sure...”
“I sure as hell can, since we have been sleeping in separate bedrooms for the last couple of weeks, because she likes the idea of abstaining before the wedding.”
Sierra nearly swallowed her tongue. “Too much information!”
“Quid pro quo,” he said, his tone hard, “because I’m privy to the fact that you had a one-night stand with the town bartender.”
“Why do you have to say it like that? You make it sound like it was...dirty or something.”
“Are you trying to tell me it isn’t?”
She gritted her teeth, and tried hard to keep the annoyance off her face. She was not going to let him get to her. Instead, she allowed one corner of her mouth to lift upward. “Well, now that you mention it, it was pretty dirty.”
He held up a hand. “Stop.”
“Don’t be a jerk or I’ll retaliate accordingly.”
“Obviously,” he said, gesturing broadly, “you need somebody to be a little bit more of a jerk. Because then maybe you would have made better choices.”
“Look, I’m not going to claim this was some kind of complicated matter of the heart, but trust me when I say the loins want what the loins want,” she said. “And I’m sure you know what I mean by that.”
He sighed, the long, slow breath seeming to take a good portion of the anger out of him. He let his hands fall down to his sides. “I don’t know why I’m bothering to argue with you about something that isn’t up for debate. It isn’t like you can go back in time.”