Alex rolled her eyes. “Dylan, my father Charlie over there in the corner. You’ve met Jenna, apparently. This is Logan,” she said, pointing at her brother-in-law, who stood and clapped Dylan’s hand. “He’s married to my sister Beth, who I think you probably remember.”
He shook Beth’s hand. “The sister obsessed with decaf.”
Beth’s face was as hard as stone, but Alex and Logan both chuckled. This baby thing had totally knocked all the fun out of Beth. She was a total basket case. God bless Logan for putting up with her mood swings when she wasn’t even the one with the hormone hurricane raging inside of her.
“So, I met Andy, the twin”—Dylan sent Alex a sharp look—“and her husband Owen. Who am I missing? Just the brother, right?”
“Spencer,” Alex supplied.
“He’s at Alex’s, installing a bar for her to hold onto in her shower,” Logan supplied.
“Seriously?” Alex growled.
“I asked him to,” Beth put in quietly. “Just to be safe.”
Dylan was watching the byplay, a look of great intensity marring his face. He was taking in every word, every nuance.
He probably thought she was dying or something. Alex guessed it was time to clue him in on what was going on.
“Could you guys give us a minute alone,” Alex asked as nicely as she could muster. It probably still came out a bit snippy but she was tired. She’d been up most of the night, nurses in and out constantly and Beth by her side, worry radiating off her in waves.
They filed out of the room, one by one, Jenna giving her a thumbs-up on her way out. If she’d been older, Alex would have flipped her the bird.
“Pull up a chair,” Alex offered.
Instead, he planted his butt on the bed at her hip, taking her hands in his.
“Why didn’t you text me back this week?” he asked without preamble.
“I didn’t get a text from you,” she argued.
He pulled out his phone and then after a few swipes, shook his head. He turned it around and showed her a typed-out message.
“You never pressed send,” she pointed out.
He turned it back around and groaned. “Shit. I meant to send it. Technology and I don’t always get along. I wanted to talk to you. Then the week got away from me, and I assumed you didn’t want to talk to me when you didn’t respond.” He sent her a look. “You could have called me.”
She pulled a face that said yeah right. “I’m not so hard up that I need to call your secretary to schedule in a meeting.”
He just watched her for a second, her meaning hopefully becoming clear.
“Is this because I gave you my office number?”
She was about to answer but Dr. Bell poked her head into the room at that moment. Dylan stood when she came in, as if she was going to kick him off the bed. “Knock, knock. Mind if I come in and take another peek at that baby. Make sure everything looks okay in there before we send you home.”
That was not exactly how she wanted to break the news to Dylan that she was knocked up. His head cut sharply from the door to Alex, his dark eyes confused and she would guess a little angry. She understood. Most guys didn’t go around trying to pick up women and expect them to be pregnant.
Let alone with someone else’s baby.
“Surprise,” she said, her smile bright with humor.
He’d either take her or leave her, no matter how she came.
This was his shot.
Baby?
Dylan locked onto Lexi’s blue eyes and she was smiling, almost laughing at him.
“Surprise,” she said in that deep voice, a laugh underscoring her statement when he jumped quickly to his feet.
“You’re…” he couldn’t even finish the statement. There were several things coursing through his mind. Wondering if there was another man in her life, first and foremost. He didn’t like to share but he’d fight for her if he had to. But was he ready to take on a woman with a baby that wasn’t his?
“Pregnant?” she asked. “I am, but it’s not what you think.”
“Am I interrupting?” Dr. Bell asked now, looking between the two of them.
“If you wouldn’t mind coming back, Beth and Logan should be back in a few minutes. I’ll send them a text to let them know you’re ready.”
“Okay,” the doctor agreed, then looked to Dylan, then back to Lexi. “Sorry,” she mouthed.
Lexi just shrugged. She swung her gaze back to Dylan when the doctor left.
“Yes, I’m pregnant. Due in September.”
He felt his legs wobble and sat down heavily on her bed.
“It’s not mine though,” Lexi continued. “It’s Beth and Logan’s. I’m just carrying it. She can’t carry a baby because she had a hysterectomy. Our mother died of ovarian cancer and Beth totally freaked out. Well, she tested positive for the mutated gene and decided to get rid of everything when she had the chance. Andy and I tested negative. I’m not sure how those things work. Anyway, she can’t have kids and she and Logan wanted one, so I offered. Now I can’t remember why because I’ve pretty much barfed the last three months straight, and now I’m saddled with this whole dizzy-spell thing which sucks, so, I’m just waiting for the good part, you know?”
She was totally rambling, but Dylan didn’t mind. Not only was it sweet but it was very informative.
“We heard the heartbeat yesterday and I kind of lost it. I mean, I knew there was a baby in there, but holy shit, there’s really a baby in there. I didn’t think it would be a big deal, but it is. Then there’s you, coming into the shop and chatting me up. How’m I supposed to tell a man that’s hitting on me and buying me coffee that I’m pregnant, but oh yeah, the baby isn’t mine so no worries. I couldn’t exactly say anything—”
“Lexi—” Dylan tried to interrupt.
“I mean, what would I say? And I never meet men. Mostly because they’re all morons, and the second they find out I’m a twin, they make a gross sex joke because that’s apparently ingrained at birth, and then I’m out after that. But I didn’t think you’d do that because you’re way too classy for that.”
“Lexi.” He put a hand to her cheek and she settled instantly into his touch. “It’s okay.”
Suddenly, Beth freaking out about her sister drinking decaf made sense. He felt a swamp of guilt at supplying her with that half-caff if she wasn’t supposed to have it.
“It’ll have to be,” she said. “I’m totally knocked up now and out of the first trimester. It didn’t take the first two tries and my sister is a total wreck. She’ll come storming in here in a few minutes and hover over me because she can’t help herself.”
Dylan ran a hand over her head and encountered a big lump on the back of her head. She winced at his touch.
“Sorry,” he murmured. “How bad is it?”
“It’s fine. Just a lump. They just want to make sure I didn’t do anything to the baby, but they’ve already checked and said it’s fine in there. Just one more check and I think they’ll let me go home. You didn’t have to come all this way.”
“Your sister and Owen wouldn’t tell me anything about what was going on. Jenna spilled the beans that you were here in the hospital but after that, they all clammed up. You really think I wouldn’t come?”
“I think we’ve met a handful of times. It doesn’t exactly mean you have to come running when I take a little spill.”
Dylan shook his head and took her hand in his, intertwining their fingers.
“I don’t mind running,” he admitted. “Besides, I just won a baking class this morning. You’ll have to pencil me into your schedule.”
She let out a laugh that sent a tickle of pleasure down his spine.
“You picked the strawberry bomboloni?”
“I picked them all,” he admitted. “I wanted to win.”
“Well, congratulations then,” she said. “I can call your office to coordinate the best time.”
She was making that face again. The one that screamed her an
noyance. Definitely pissed about giving her his business card instead of his personal number.
Dylan grabbed his phone and sent the message he’d intended to send earlier in the week.
He’d thought to send it, even typed the whole thing out. Not actually sending it made him feel careless and he’d hate for Lexi to think he was careless.
Especially if she was in a fragile state.
He glanced at her again. She didn’t look overly fragile. She still looked annoyed, but adorably so in her hospital gown with her mussed hair and sleepy eyes.
“I sent the message, so now you have my cell number. You can call or text me anytime.”
“We’ll see,” she said haughtily.
He didn’t hold back his laugh. “Not that you’re holding it against me.”
“Only a little,” she said. “But you showing up here helps, even if I’m in a paper dress and haven’t brushed my hair since yesterday.”
“I think you look incredible.”
She rolled her eyes. “Says the man wearing a designer suit.”
“Have to look the part at work,” he told her before her family started pouring in again.
“We brought the doctor back in for one more check,” Beth said, her husband right behind her.
He was a big guy who gave off a mellow vibe but Dylan had met plenty of men like Logan Hallowell before. They were the guys that ran the private security sector, all ex-military men and women. Something about the way he carried himself. He got the same feel from Owen, the way the man stood behind his family in public, guarding them from some unknown threat.
He’d ask Lexi about it someday, but for now, he just stood at her bedside awaiting instruction.
Charlie, her father, a grizzled older man, parked himself in the corner, out of the way. Jenna and her parents took up residence by the window, all standing together. Beth and Logan stood at the foot of the bed, their hands clasped together tightly.
Quite a story Lexi had told about Beth not being able to have children.
Quite a thing she was doing for her sister. They must be close, he assumed.
The doctor stood on the other side of the bed, a little wand thing in her hand and a smile on her face.
“One more check of the heartbeat, just to ease our minds, and then you can go home.”
Lexi laid herself flat on the bed and then flipped her eyes up to his. “You sure you want to stay for this?”
It was then that he realized what he was in the middle of. Her family was standing by, hoping to hear the baby’s heartbeat which could only be done through Lexi’s stomach.
They were all staring at him, waiting to see what he was going to do.
He felt very out of place and questioned whether he belonged there or not.
“Now or never, hotshot,” Lexi prodded as she slid her lower body under the blanket to cover her hips. “You’re either in it with a pregnant lady or taking a hike. No hard feelings.”
“There would totally be hard feelings,” her sister Andy argued without hesitating.
The rest of the room agreed.
“Yeah,” Beth agreed with a nod. “We’re grudge-holders.”
“Long memories,” Owen added.
Dylan felt an affinity for this group of people. He liked the way they knew each other and the way they protected each other. He and his parents were close but there were only three of them, so the dynamic was completely different. There were no protective brothers or sisters hovering around; the closest things he had were Brady, Lincoln, and Grant.
“I’m in,” he told her, his voice gruff as he grabbed her hand and held it in his.
The smile she sent him was full of surprise, like she’d been sure he was going to turn tail and run out the door.
So, she was pregnant. Like she’d said, it wasn’t her baby, so they wouldn’t have to worry about what happened when the baby came. There wasn’t another man to contend with—a baby daddy that would be sticking his nose into their burgeoning relationship.
Dylan was at least willing to see where this thing went.
As far as he was concerned, he was taking his chances with The Bad Girl of Sweets.
And the baby she was carrying.
Dylan had stayed through her hospital visit until she checked out. He’d been there through listening to the baby’s heartbeat, which was still strong, to being discharged. He’d stood around with her family arguing about which car she was going to ride home in, even putting in his two cents.
More than putting his opinion in, he’d won the argument, she marveled, as she directed him back to her little house in Freehope, from the passenger seat of his car.
His very nice, very expensive car.
“You’re sure you’re okay?” he asked for the tenth time.
Alex nodded. “Just can’t believe you showed up and somehow won an argument with my family. They’re like a pack of rabid wolverines.”
“Who usually wins?” Dylan asked, one big, smooth hand on the wheel, the other holding her hand in his.
He was a toucher. One of those people that, even if it was just his pinky, needed to be touching her if they were together. It had barely been two hours since he’d shown up at the hospital and he hadn’t stopped touching her since.
She loved it.
Men were strange creatures: some like her brother Spencer, so surly they barely spoke, let alone so affectionate he wanted to cuddle. Some like Owen, who wanted to talk everything to death. Logan was a listener, a watcher, just waiting for his moment to step in and smooth everything over.
Dylan was a toucher.
“It’s a toss-up between my father and Andy.”
“Really?” he said, surprised.
“She kind of took over my mom’s spot after she died, taking care of everyone. Jenna was just a baby, around two, but Andy still took care of the rest of us. Or tried her best to, so we all listen to her when she speaks.”
“She and Owen must have been together for a long time,” he noted.
Alex shook her head and chuckled. “Just a few years.”
“But Jenna…” he let the sentence hang, confusion evident in his voice as he tried to work it out.
He never would. Andy and Owen’s story was long and winding, lasting decades.
“It’s a long story,” she told him.
He gave her hand a squeeze. “I have time.”
“Don’t you have to work?” Alex asked, knowing that she’d had to call and cancel her classes for the day. Certainly, on a Thursday, he’d be expected at his office.
“I can do what I need to do from home tonight,” he said unconcerned. “So, I’ve got all day to make sure you’re comfortable.”
Well that was cute, but totally unnecessary. “I have to bake everything for the Bean tomorrow,” she told him. “And I have to work tomorrow.”
He turned to look at her and then back to the road. “You have another job? Other than baking?”
“Selling a handful of stuff at the shop doesn’t exactly pay the bills. I’m just trying to get my name out there in some shops and maybe someday, yes, it’ll keep me afloat, but for now, I teach at the university and tend bar a couple nights a week.”
“What do you teach?”
She shrugged. “Principles of baking. Working with yeast. Things like that.”
“There are classes for that?” Again, he sounded surprised.
“What? You think people are just born knowing these things?”
He shook his head. “I guess I never really thought about it. That’s fascinating.” He looked quickly to her again as she directed him onto her street. “You must have quite the kitchen, to make the things you do.”
Alex laughed. Her kitchen was straight out of the seventies, all avocado greens and burnt oranges, but it still got the job done.
“Not quite,” she hedged. “But everything works and that’s all I need.”
She pointed to her driveway and he pulled in, parking in the little driveway next to her car. A
lex wondered what he saw. Her little house only had two bedrooms, both upstairs, and one little bath downstairs. It was the perfect size for her, if not in need of a little work. She still had plastic on some of the windows, keeping out the late winter chill, and some of the planks of her hardwood were missing completely.
She’d bought the place with the intention of fixing it up, but that was a lot of work and she had no idea how to do any of it. Hiring someone was very expensive so she only did that when something broke beyond what she could manage.
It probably looked like a ramshackle cabin to his eyes, and she suddenly felt a wave of embarrassment.
After that came anger, hot and fast, mostly with herself. This was the home she’d made for herself. She’d struggled to make every penny to pay for it, and she had nothing to be embarrassed about. Not everyone was born with a trust fund and a free ticket to the Ivy League.
“It doesn’t look like much,” she said tightly as she unbuckled, “but it’s mine.”
“I like it. I think it looks perfect.” He gave her hand a squeeze again. “Stay put. I’ll help you out.”
He got out of the car and trotted around the front. He’d lost his suit coat and was just wearing the vest. It looked uncomfortable and ridiculous in Freehope but she wanted to ask him to wear it every day, maybe even when he slept.
He looked ungodly attractive—magazine worthy.
And she was acutely aware that she hadn’t brushed her hair or changed her clothes since the day before.
He opened her door and held out a hand, helping her to stand.
“My brother is still here,” she told him, noting that Spencer’s truck was still parked at the curb in front of her house.
“So, I get to meet the whole family today?”
“That’s about all of us,” she agreed, a sharp wave of loss rushing over her.
Sometimes it hit her like that—the loss of her mother never leaving her, just biding its time until it could rear its head and remind her of that bone-deep pain.
Dylan held a warm hand to the small of her back as she led the way to the front door, his big body close enough that she could smell his cologne. The door wasn’t locked; she didn’t expect it to be with Spencer inside.
Delivering History (The Freehope Series Book 4) Page 6