Got it Bad

by Christi Barth

  Until now. Was it luck, though?

  Or had her period not shown up for two months for an entirely different reason?

  Oh. My. God.

  Grabbing Mollie’s arm, Delaney said, “I have to go. I’m sorry.”

  “Are you okay?” The ingrained doctor in Mollie had her reaching one hand to feel Delaney’s forehead.

  “I have absolutely no idea. I just . . . I have to go.” Without so much as a thank you to Norah, Delaney stumbled out of the shop and broke into a half jog to get to the drugstore three blocks over. Her hands shook as she stood in front of the shelf with way too many choices in pregnancy tests.

  This wasn’t in the plan. Not in any version of the plan. Delaney had focused on her career trajectory, because it was something she could do all by herself. Without relying on her criminal father or dead mother or some nameless man the universe might eventually send her way.

  She only admitted to Emily last year—after several whisky sours—that having a baby was her secret dream. One that would remain only a dream because it didn’t fit into the life she’d crafted. A satisfying life. And Delaney was a strong believer that you should only be a parent if you were one hundred and ten percent committed to that choice. So more of a fantasy than a dream, really. Like winning the lottery. It’d be nice, but you knew it’d never actually happen.

  But . . . but . . . deep down? Delaney had never stopped wishing. Hoping. At least a little.

  She’d never, ever wished or hoped, however, about becoming pregnant at the culmination of the biggest case of her life, right after breaking up with the man she loved.

  Kellan.

  The mere thought of his name was a visceral punch. Kellan had to know. She had to do this with him. That one thought of him was enough to stop the shakes, make her swat five different tests into her basket, and race to the checkout counter.

  There were three places he could be right now. Hanging out at home, hanging at the Gorse watching Flynn juggle the busy holiday crowd, or . . .

  He could be at the station. Mateo had promised Kellan shifts this weekend to prep him for the influx of tourists with the Cranberry Festival. And it was just around the corner.

  Delaney broke into a full-out sprint to get there. She didn’t care about blending in, about not making people wonder what the heck was going on with the crazy woman bolting down the street.

  She needed Kellan.

  Who was she kidding? She’d always need Kellan. A week away from him had proven that in spades.

  The admin gaped at her dramatic entrance, but waved her on back without a word. And there he was, at the first desk. The one with a giant bouquet of flowers stuffed into a water pitcher. Kellan looked so official in his tan uniform, with his hat balanced on the corner of his monitor. So serious. So wonderful. Then he looked up and saw her.

  “Delaney, what’s wrong?” He jolted out of his seat, sending it rolling across the floor.

  At the clatter, Mateo poked his head out of his office, and also hurried to her side. “Were you identified, Marshal? Attacked?”

  She shook her head.

  Kellan almost reached for her shoulder, but then dropped his hand back to his side. “Are my brothers okay?”

  Finally, Delaney found her words. “Everyone’s safe. There’s no danger. I’m sorry for causing a fuss. I just . . . Sheriff, I need a few minutes alone with your deputy.”

  To his credit, Mateo didn’t ask any questions. “His shift’s over in five, anyway. Go ahead and use the room in the back.”

  Delaney’s sandals slapped against the concrete. She watched Kellan in front of her, his walk a little looser with the equipment belt weighing him down. He looked official, determined, and sexy as hell.

  Guess even sheer, life-changing panic couldn’t block her brain from noticing that.

  She closed the door of the interrogation room behind her. Immediately, Kellan grabbed her hands.

  A little piece of her world stabilized at his touch.

  Eyes flashing, dark brows knitted together, he asked, “What’s going on? What can I do? What do you need?”

  His worry, his tender care washed over her in a soothing wave. It took her panic down from a stammering ten to a let’s-do-this two. “I’m sorry to barge in on you like this—”

  “Laney, there’s nothing I’ve wished for more over the past week than to have you barge back into my life. I just wish it wasn’t happening when your face looks like you just saw a ten-foot-tall Transformer firing bazookas.”

  Now that she was here, in front of him? Delaney wished the same thing. Wished she’d realized without the need for a panic prompter that she’d made a horrible mistake sending him away. And they’d get to that—hopefully. If he was still willing to listen to her after the bomb she simply had to drop first.

  Delaney licked her dry lips. “I have something—maybe—to tell you.”

  “I have something to tell you, too. That I was wrong.” His words rushed out, like Kellan was worried she might turn and leave at any second. “That I know exactly how stupid it was to tell my brothers anything about you. That I lied to you, that I made you not trust me. I was a thoughtless idiot, and it wasn’t fair to you and I’m so very, very sorry. I was on my way to track you down and tell you all this tonight. That’s what the flowers on my desk are for. I’ll apologize until I lose my voice, and then I’ll keep writing it in the sand until you forgive me.”

  Oh, my. The unexpected surprises just kept coming today. That was beyond lovely. Gratifying. Heart melting. And she wanted to have that conversation with him.

  After.

  “I might be pregnant,” she blurted out.

  His hands tightened to the point of pain around hers. Then he let go, and pulled her in tight against him. His lips brushed the rim of her ear. “When will you know?”

  “As soon as I take one of the five tests I just bought. I wanted—I needed—to do it with you.”

  “Let’s go.” Hand in hand, they banged out of the room and down five more steps to the bathroom door. Delaney fumbled one box out of her purse. Kellan reached in and grabbed another.

  “Might as well try two at a time.” He made quick work of the packaging and handed her the two sticks. Then he gave an encouraging nod as she slipped inside.

  It was all happening so fast. Life never moved this fast. Schooling took so long to finish, and then the marshals training. Even falling in love with Kellan had taken a few weeks. How could her entire life be about to change with a two-minute test?

  Delaney set both tests on the institutional metal sink and let Kellan in. “Now we wait.”

  “God, I’ve missed you.”

  Those words grated against the raw wound of her heart. It didn’t matter anymore if she was like her mother, dependent on a man. If it was perhaps a weakness to be this in love with a man.

  Delaney was done with that mantra, the fear that had guided her entire life. Loving Kellan, being with him, had only made her stronger. So she told him the truth. “I’ve missed you, too.”

  “I want this settled before we know the results.” He grabbed her shoulders to turn her away from the tests. To her dismay, he immediately dropped his hands. “I don’t want anything but the truth of our feelings between us. Can you forgive me? I don’t care how long it takes. Will you give us another chance? Let me rebuild that trust? Will you take me back?”

  The truth?

  Was that her heart had never let him go.

  “You’ve already got your answer.” Delaney put a hand over his heart. Even through the starched polyester and the cotton of his undershirt, she could feel it thumping outrageously hard and fast. “I came to find you, Kellan. Not because I needed to lean on you. But because something momentous was about to happen to me, and I had to share it with you. Because everything is better when I share it with you.”

  He cupped his hand around hers. “Babe, I completely agree. I don’t want to be one of those couples who lead separate lives. I want to share our work, ou
r successes, our failures, our laughter. Our everything.”

  Oh, they were so completely on the same page. The fact that there was a toilet running behind them and the room reeked of nauseatingly strong pine air freshener didn’t diminish the romance of the moment one bit.

  Delaney tilted her head up to stare directly into those sky blue eyes. “I don’t have any solutions. Yet. But I do have an answer. I forgive you, and I love you. I’m sorry I walked away. We should’ve fought, hashed it out, and tried again.”

  “That sounds like a much better plan than breaking up.”

  “Let me finish apologizing. I reacted, well, overreacted. I was scared, upset, so hurt. Instantly, I saw myself making the same wrong choices my mother had. I focused on all the things that could go wrong, all the worst-case scenarios, because that’s what I’m trained to do every moment of every day.”

  With a lopsided grin, Kellan said, “Maybe that’s one of those things you should try to leave at the office. And I won’t automatically arrest everyone I see jaywalking when I’m off duty.”

  His talent to reset the mood of a room with a single, carefree comment should be bottled and sold to SWAT team negotiators. Her laughter chased away the tears thickly lining the back of her throat. “That’s a good plan. Except . . . has anyone actually been arrested for jaywalking in this century?”

  “Dunno. But I’ll get right on it after we solve the more burning question of are you pregnant.”

  Delaney curled her fingers around the placket of his shirt, keeping him from turning to learn the answer. “Do you want me to be?” she asked in a near whisper.

  “I love you.”

  Was he stonewalling her? Now? About this? “That’s not an answer.”

  “It’s the intro to my thoughtful and heartfelt answer. Don’t rush me, woman!”

  Had she actually forgotten in the past week his love of language? The way he used words the way other men used chocolates and roses to melt a woman into a puddle of longing? Grinning, she urged, “Do go on.”

  Kellan kept up the slow, reassuring strokes up and down her back. “I always planned for a family someday. My ties to my brothers are so strong, I want to pass that on to the next generation. I don’t want your life to be any more complicated right now, but if you are pregnant, I’d be thrilled. We’ll roll with it, whatever happens.”

  “You know that’s exactly the right answer, don’t you?”

  “Marshal, I was valedictorian of my class.”

  Delaney challenged him just for the fun of hearing the answer, even though it was in his file that she’d memorized so long ago. “Which one?”

  “All of ’em. I only give right answers. Now what about you? What do you want the test to say?”

  “In my head I know this isn’t the right time. It would complicate my next assignment, or maybe even this one, depending on how bad the morning sickness gets. A baby wasn’t on my career path. But in my heart? Of course I want it. I’d want our baby whenever it decided to come.”

  “Also the right answer.” Kellan squeezed her hand, then split them apart to face the sink. “Ready?”

  They both stepped forward and leaned over to see a double pink line on one test, and the word pregnant on the other.

  Guessing that it was possible was worlds away from actually seeing the confirmation. Stunned to her core, Delaney met Kellan’s gaze in the mirror. “We did it. We made a baby.”

  “We did, Laney. I can’t believe it.” Then he whooped so loudly the sound clanged around the room as he lifted her and swung her in circles. Delaney squealed and they laughed and it felt like the whole station would burst open with their joy.

  “We should be quieter. Mateo’s going to think we’ve lost our minds.”

  He set her down carefully. “Are you kidding? I want to shout it from the top of the lighthouse so the whole town knows.”

  The logistics and reality of what had to happen next smothered her joy like a heavy fire blanket. “One step at a time. We shouldn’t say anything. It isn’t safe. I’m not three months along yet.”

  “How far along are you?” Kellan rubbed a hand over her belly with a bemused expression. “How did this even happen?”

  “You’ll need to be sitting down for that explanation. But I meant that we shouldn’t tell anyone yet. Not my work, not Emily, not even your brothers.” With all her good intentions of not forcing him to choose between her and his brothers? That’s exactly what had to happen. Kellan had to lie to them. A lie of omission. A lie expectant parents routinely used every day. But still a lie. “Not until we figure everything out.”

  Because this changed . . . everything. Delaney had sworn to guard her protectees with her life. Had ordered Kellan to stay away from the trial so that she wouldn’t be distracted from protecting his brothers.

  But with a life growing inside her? Could she knowingly put it at risk? Would she still throw herself willingly in front of a bullet headed for Rafe if it meant injuring their baby? Delaney didn’t know the answer to that. And it was an answer she’d have to come up with before heading back to Chicago.

  Kellan must’ve sensed that she was spinning out, because he pulled her in for a tight hug, rubbing circles on her back. “We will. I promise. You won’t be able to shake me again. I’ll be your date to your dad’s parole hearing—or sit at home with you on the couch eating popcorn if you want to avoid it. I’ll be at every ultrasound, every end of a long day when you need a foot rub. We’ll figure out how to have a future together.”

  “That might not even be possible until after the trial.” If things went south and one or both of his brothers didn’t come back to Bandon, would Kellan stay?

  Worse yet, would he be able to forgive her if she couldn’t keep them safe in the end? That fear crushed down on Delaney, stealing her breath.

  She never discussed with the Maguires the full extent of the danger they were putting themselves in by going back to testify. The day Rafe came to WITSEC, the agent who signed him on board read him the standard disclosures.

  But Delaney’s job was to keep them safe mentally as well as physically. So she downplayed the risk, keeping them focused on getting through it and starting their lives for good once the trial was over. The harsh reality, though, was that she couldn’t promise them absolute safety.

  Kellan pulled back to cradle her face in his wide palms. “We’ve got the rest of our lives together. Nothing has to happen right now. Nothing starts the moment we walk out of this bathroom except celebrating that we’re back together, and we’re going to be parents. Let’s take the rest of tonight, even the rest of the week, to take that in.”

  He was right. And she was all over the place. Delaney happily checked off pregnancy hormones as an excuse for the first time. “I never expected this. But then, I never expected you, either.”

  As they kissed, Delaney hoped that all the surprises in store for them were this good.

  But the one thing she knew, that she saw day in and day out, was that life came with no guarantees.

  Chapter Twenty

  Mateo double-thumped his knuckles on the scarred wood of Kellan’s desk. “Isn’t it time for you to clock out, Deputy?”

  Whoa. A glance at the corner of his monitor told Kellan he should’ve changed ten minutes ago. This was just like all the times the library closed around him in law school. His concentration totally wiped out his inner clock.

  “I lost track of time.” He logged out with an apologetic grin. “Memorizing rules and regs so I’m ready to hit the Academy.”

  “I’m beginning to think the Academy won’t know what hit it when you walk through the door. Try not to show up every other recruit, okay? Leave a few of them their pride?”

  “I’ll play it cool, I promise. Just . . . excited and itching to get started full-time.” Kellan was in the zone with his deputy training. Beyond ready to jump into the deep end.

  “You’ll get plenty of full-time helping out at the festival this weekend. Expect twelve-hour shifts,
minimum, even if some of it is babysitting the drunk tank.”

  “Whatever you need.”

  Mateo placed a gun, holster, and ammunition in a pile in front of Kellan. “Be sure you fully suit up for it.”

  Talk about a surprise. Kellan curled his fingers around the snub-nosed barrel of the Smith & Wesson. “I thought I couldn’t carry until I finish the Academy training?”

  “It’s the Wild West out here. We’ve been deputizing citizens since the first wagon trains rumbled down the Oregon trail.” Mateo hooked his thumbs in his own gun belt. “You passed your shooting certification last week, officially. The Cranberry Festival’s got all the ingredients for trouble—lots of people, lots of drinking, and competitions. I want you armed. And I trust you to know to keep it holstered in ninety-nine out of a hundred situations.”

  This nod of approval from the sheriff meant more than getting his official certificate would in a few months. Today, September 5, was Kellan’s personal graduation day. “Thanks for trusting me. I won’t let you down.”

  “I know. I’ve been watching you. You’ve got the book smarts down cold, but it’s the way you respect the people in this town that makes the difference for me. Like everyone matters.”

  “Isn’t that what the law is all about? Making sure everyone gets treated equally?”

  A laugh that practically shook the building roared out of Mateo. “There’s still a part of you that’s wet behind the ears and naive as all hell. But sure. Go with that mindset. I hope it lasts.” Still chuckling, he headed out the front door, tossing a wave at Rafe and Flynn as they entered.

  Flynn was in his usual uniform of a black tee and jeans, despite the fact that it was pushing eighty-five outside. He’d been doing that ever since O’Brien hit town. He could get away with wearing his steel-toed boots with jeans. Those boots and his killer MMA moves were more than enough protection.

  But Rafe wore a dark green scrub top over his jeans. Jeans that meant he was hiding a knife or two somewhere on his body for added protection. That scrub top gave Kellan the perfect opening to poke at his oldest brother. “What’s with the shirt? Is this your less-than-subtle way of announcing to the world that you snuck into the hospital again at lunch for a quickie with your hot doctor girlfriend?”