The Virgin Next Door

by Stasia Black

  “But I passed out when I fell off Painter. My horse,” Calla clarified.

  “You said you felt like you had the wind knocked out of you when you came to in the ambulance, right?”

  Calla nodded.

  “Did you have much to eat this morning?”

  Calla shook her head and looked down at her lap. “No. I mean, I had half a bagel, but that was it.” More like a fourth of a bagel if she was being honest. Mack had urged her to eat more but she’d felt nauseous. Morning sickness still hit some days. She claimed it was nerves because of the competition. God, that seemed like it was a million years ago now.

  After the police had gotten her free of the cuffs attaching her to that horrible coffin of a gurney, another ambulance brought her to the hospital. She’d about hyperventilated when they put her in the back of it. Liam and Mack hadn’t been able to come either because the police were still questioning them.

  “Well,” the doctor said, running his pen-light over her pupils again, “barring the results of your blood test, I’d venture to say that it was just a combination of low blood sugar and the shock of the fall that had you briefly passing out. And after the stress of everything that happened to you today,” he patted her shoulder, “I suggest focusing on rest and nutrition for the next few days. But like I said, I don’t see any reason you shouldn’t continue with a healthy pregnancy.”

  Calla blinked but couldn’t hold back any more. She put her hands to her face and started crying.

  “Oh. There, there, Ms. Carter.”

  “Calla!”

  Calla looked up at Liam’s worried voice. “Are you all right? I’m sorry we took so long. The cops kept asking a million questions.”

  Liam jogged past the doctor to her side. Mack was behind him but he stopped in the doorway.

  “Are you okay?” Liam asked again, slipping an arm under her head and pulling her to his chest. She didn’t realize how tense she’d been until all her muscles relaxed at his touch. She went limp against him, reaching her other hand out for Mack.

  He stared at her for a long moment before coming forward and clasping it. Finally. Finally she could breathe out.

  “Everything’s fine,” she said, laughing and crying at the same time. “The baby’s fine.”

  The next moment, though, her head was filling with images of what happened earlier.

  God, when she’d come to in the ambulance only to find an attendant strapping her waist to the gurney. And then—she shuddered remembering how that man, that monster, ripped the second ambulance attendant backwards and how the blood sprayed when he slit his throat—

  She shuddered.

  “What is it?” Liam said. “Baby, you’re killing us here.”

  She could tell he meant it, too. He sounded anguished. He didn’t deserve it. She knew both he and Mackenzie had been through the ringer today too.

  “Just…” She looked from Liam to Mack. “Thank you. If you hadn’t gotten there when you did…” She shuddered again and pressed the hands they were holding to her stomach.

  Mack jerked his hand away and she looked up at him startled.

  He ran his hand through his hair. “I need to go.”

  He stood up abruptly.

  “Wha—” Calla said at the same time Liam said, “You’re not going fecking anywhere.”

  Mack swallowed, looking from one to the other. He shook his head and looked down. “I almost got you killed. The bab—” His voice broke and he looked toward the window, jaw flexing with emotion.

  “You saved me.” Calla reached for his hand again but again, he pulled it away.

  “Stop it,” he bit out, eyes flashing at her. “I know what I am. I’m ugly and fucked up inside. Why do you think I got these tattoos?” He yanked up his shirt sleeve to expose one of the bug-eyed devils inked on his skin. “It’s what he made me. I’m damaged fucking goods and you deserve better than me. You deserve a man like him.” Mack’s eyes went to Liam.

  “Mackenzie,” Calla cried. How could he think that of himself? He’d been used and abused so horribly, but didn’t he see? That was over now. “Don’t you see? I felt ugly and alone my whole life until you two. We belong together. We’re each other’s family. And now we’re about to add one more.”

  Mack’s face went pained as he glanced at her hand on her stomach.

  Don’t pull away. Please. Don’t pull away again, she begged silently.

  “For Christ’s sake, there you are,” boomed a voice from the doorway. Calla’s head swung that direction just in time to see Liam’s father striding into the room.

  41

  LIAM

  “I had to find out from the fecking paparazzi where me own son was. They’re flocked outside like buzzards over a kill.” Ciarán looked Liam up and down. “Well, you look a bit waterlogged but not too much worse for wear. Now let’s end this nonsense and come home with me on the private jet.”

  Liam could only stare at him in disbelief. Did he not see the woman in the hospital bed whose hand he was holding?

  He stood up straighter. Enough. “Da, this is me girl, Calla. And that there,” he pointed to the ultrasound picture that had been printed off, “may or not be me biological son or daughter. Either way, I’m going to love them as if they were.”

  His father’s back stiffened. “You have to find out. You can do a test before its born. If I would have had that chance, it would have changed everything.” Emotion choked his father’s voice.

  Liam could only blink in disbelief at the man he’d spent his whole life either worshiping or hating. “So you coulda kicked me and ma to the curb if you found out I was the stablemaster’s bastard before I was even born? Is that what you’re sayin’ straight to me face?”

  Ciarán shook his head. “If you would have let me get two words in the other day, you would’ve heard me when I told you I did a DNA test. With some hairs from your comb you left behind. You’d only been gone a month at the time, but I realized it was time to know. To put this behind us once and for all.” Liam couldn’t be sure, but it looked like there might be a sheen to Ciarán’s eye. “You’re mine after all. You’re me son. But then I didn’t know where you were. Not until that woman got in touch with us. You have to believe me, lad, if I’d known all along, it would have been different.”

  He shook his head. “But learning about the affair when you were still a boy and knowing there was a chance you weren’t mine—”

  “So Ma was right,” Liam huffed out a short mirthless laugh. “I didn’t believe her at first when she told me the reason you’d never tested me DNA against yours was ‘cause you didn’t trust yourself not to throw me out like last week’s garbage if you found out I wasn’t yours.”

  “But you are mine—”

  “It shouldn’t have mattered!” Liam shouted, hands going to the sides of his head. “Jaysus, I’ve spent the last two years ever since ma told me the truth trying to prove to meself that I was your son. People only ever wanted me for what I could give them. If you disinherited me and I lost it all, where’d that leave me?”

  “Son, I—”

  “Don’t,” Liam bit out, running a hand roughly down the back of his neck and staring at the floor. There was silence for a second before Liam looked back up. “It wasn’t ever about the money to me.” He stared Da down. “All I ever wanted was you. I didn’t even realize it, either. Not ‘til the last few months.”

  He looked at Calla and then Mack. “I didn’t know what it meant to love someone who loved you back. Not because of what you could do for them. But just for you. Just because you made each other happy.”

  He focused on Mack. “I’m sorry for how I’ve been to you. But you gotta know everything you just said was complete shite. Here I was trying to prove I was better than you, like it meant I was his son somehow.”

  He shook his head, pain tightening his gut as Mack frowned. “But every step of the way, you’ve proved you’re a better man than me. You’re the best man I’ve ever met.” Mack took a step
back at that, but Liam followed him, getting right up in front of him. “Seems the only place I could admit that was the bedroom. But you took me as I am. It’s just one of the reasons I love you.”

  Then he kissed Mack in front of God, his dad, and anyone who happened to be passing by.

  His father made a disgusted noise and turned around. “When you’re done with these juvenile stunts, call me office.” He headed for the door.

  “This is all I’ve got to say to ya.” Liam gave his dad the middle finger, never taking his eyes off Mackenzie. Then he intertwined his fingers with Mack’s and pulled him back toward Calla on the bed.

  Calla had tears in her eyes.

  Liam’s neck heated but he didn’t let go of Mack’s hand. “So. If you didn’t hear, I’m not interested in ever findin’ out which one of us donated to make the little sprout.”

  Calla laughed and this time when she reached for their hands and put them to her belly, Mack didn’t pull away. The look on his face was priceless, Liam wished he had a camera to capture it. It was full of shock and awe while he also looked a little like he was about to pass out.

  “Family,” Mack finally whispered, echoing Calla’s earlier sentiment. He squeezed both their hands and bowed his head to Calla’s stomach.

  Epilogue

  MACK

  “Is the blindfold really necessary?” Calla asked, tilting her head toward Mack. He was driving and he frowned her way. Liam reached up from the back seat and waved his hand right in front of her face, but she didn’t react. Mack smiled.

  “You bet your arse it’s necessary. What’s the point of a grand gesture if it isn’t grand?”

  Mack pulled onto the long gravel driveway and Calla grabbed for the door to steady herself when the truck started bouncing up and down.

  “Whoa,” she said. “So we’re officially somewhere off the beaten path.”

  Mack glanced in the rearview mirror and saw Liam looking smug as fuck. Shit, he’d never hear the end of how this was Liam’s great idea. Rest of his life, the Irish wanker would brag about how he knew just how to make all Calla’s dreams come true.

  But then Mack smiled. After all, it was his name going on the paperwork.

  Mack slowed the truck down as they came up to the house.

  “Wait’s almost over,” Mack said. He parked in front of the house and then Liam got out of the truck and opened Mel’s door for her.

  “Can I take the blindfold off now?”

  “Not yet,” Liam said.

  Mack came around the front of the truck to their side and took Calla’s other hand.

  “Now,” he and Liam said together.

  Calla reached up and pulled the blindfold off. She blinked a few times in the bright noon sunlight. Then her brow scrunched.

  She looked from Liam to Mack. “I don’t understand. Why are we at my family’s old ranch?”

  Liam’s grin was so wide it was gonna break his damn face. “Gotta have a place to bring our baby home to, yeah?”

  Calla blinked some more. “What do you—”

  “We bought the place,” Mack said.

  Calla’s mouth dropped open and her eyes went wide. “But how—”

  “Turns out there was a reason Mack got a full ride to Harvard. He’s a right smart bastard.”

  Calla looked to Mack. He put a hand on the back of his neck. “I just happened to see there was a future in cryptocurrencies. So I made a small investment.”

  Calla started smiling but Mack could see she was still confused. Apparently, Liam could see it too.

  “Fecking Bitcoin,” Liam said, shaking his head. “Mack bought five-hundred dollars of it in 2011, and now it’s worth fifteen million. Can you fecking believe that?”

  “Holy shit,” Calla breathed out. She grabbed Mack’s arm. Her eyes ping-ponged back and forth between them before settling on Mack’s. “Is he serious?”

  Mack nodded. He’d worked his ass off at the mechanics shop in town all through high school and had a few grand saved up by the time he went to college… and then prison.

  Pres occasionally got a cell phone smuggled in and Mack had used the fifteen minutes of internet Pres granted him to try to do something with the little money he had. Otherwise he knew he’d be fucked when he got out. He’d first heard about cryptocurrencies at Harvard and had read up on it, so that’s where he put five hundred bucks. He’d tried a couple other investments but that was the only one that took off so fucking insanely.

  “Can you believe it?” Liam asked. “Now I’m broke but this lanky bastard is our sugar daddy.”

  Mack looked at Liam. “Never. Call. Me. That. Again.”

  Liam laughed and clapped him on the back. Mack did have to say, though, Liam was taking the whole not-having-a-penny-to-his-name thing surprisingly well. His dad was ‘cutting him off until he came to his senses.’ Liam had responded to that text with a selfie of himself kissing Mack while simultaneously squeezing Calla’s ass. Really, it was quite impressive he’d fit them all in a single camera frame.

  “So you bought back my old house?”

  “And the ranch,” Liam said. “And an additional five hundred acres on either side of it.”

  Calla stumbled a little and Mack grabbed her arm to steady her. “Holy shit,” she whispered again.

  “Know you dreamed about setting up a horse training and boarding place, so there’s money in the budget for that.”

  Calla just shook her head. “But how? That’s Ned Cunningham’s land and he’d nev—”

  Mack felt his blood rise at even hearing the name. “Turns out he’s so ashamed of having a lying, cheating, whore of a daughter, he’s selling out and moving to California.”

  “I heard that after the sheriff arrested B— Betty? Bailey? Whatever her name is. Anyway, after she got arrested and everyone learned what she did, some folks who Cunningham was in debt to called in their markers. So he had no choice but to sell.”

  “Six months in jail and a four-thousand-dollar fine is a fucking injustice,” Mack muttered. Stunt like that—using a buzzer on a recent broke mustang— Mack’s teeth ground together. The bitch had meant for Calla to get thrown. And plenty of the best horsewomen and men got seriously injured every year. Just last year Mack had seen a guy on a spooked horse get thrown and then dragged a quarter of a mile when his foot got tied up in the stirrup. Even thinking of how easily Calla could have lost the baby made sweat break out on Mack’s forehead.

  But apparently, Daddy Cunningham still had enough money for a slick lawyer. He’d gotten his daughter’s charge pled down to assault causing bodily harm.

  Then again, Mack himself had finally enjoyed the benefit of a good lawyer for once. Of course it had helped that Liam claimed he’d been the one to shoot Bone. Said the gun was his too.

  Mack had never in his life had someone go to the mat like that for him. Seemed like the bastard meant it when he said he loved him. Wonders would never fucking cease.

  “I don’t care about Bethany,” Calla waved a hand. “Can we get back to the part where you bought my family’s ranch?” She bounced up and down on her toes, looking around.

  A neigh sounded in the distance and Calla froze. Again, her mouth dropped open. “You didn’t,” she whispered.

  “We did.” Another grin lit Liam’s face.

  Calla took off sprinting around the side of the house toward the barn and horse paddock. Her shrill scream of excitement carried clear across the yard. “Prissy!”

  She was over the gate and hugging her horse’s neck by the time Mack and Liam got there. When she looked back at them, tears shone in her eyes. “I can never repay you.”

  She ran over, climbed the wooden fence of the paddock, and dragged both Liam and Mack close.

  Christ but it was the best feeling in the world. Their two bodies, warm and alive against them. Family. It was Calla who first said it and every day Mack woke up with Calla and Liam in bed beside him, he could still barely believe it.

  He ran his hand down her side
to her stomach. A month after the Horse Makeover competition and their little one was growing strong.

  “No repayment necessary,” Mack said, clearing his throat when the words came out rough. “That’s the point of family, right?”

  Calla beamed up at him and she went up on her tiptoes to kiss first him, then Liam.

  While she was kissing Liam, Liam gestured behind her back at Mack.

  Oh. Right. The other thing.

  He dropped on one knee and as soon as Calla broke away from Liam, he did the same.

  “What are you—?” If Mack thought Calla’s eyes were wide before, it was nothing to the saucers they became now.

  Liam pulled the ring box out of his pocket. “Calla Carter, will you marry us?”

  Calla’s hand went to her mouth and more tears glistened in her eyes.

  “Mack won the coin toss,” Liam went on, “so it’ll be his name that goes on the official papers, but it’s between all of us.”

  Calla just kept standing there, staring down at them.

  “Shit,” Mack said, starting to get up. This was too soon. She hadn’t even got used to the—

  “Yes!” Calla shouted, dropping down and hugging them both close. “Yes. A million times yes!”

  She sounded happy but she was crying. Her back heaved up and down she was crying so hard.

  “Darlin,” Mack held her closer, “don’t cry.”

  Calla pulled back. “They’re happy tears.”

  “How about just the happy, and no tears?” Mack kissed her deep.

  She kissed him back and finally her shaking slowed and then stopped. Mack pulled back but only long enough to turn her toward Liam.

  Liam put the engagement ring on her finger, then cupped her face and kissed her. It was gentle at first, but it quickly got frantic.

  Fuck, it was so hot when they went after each other like that.

  “Let’s take this inside,” Mack said, standing up and hauling Calla with him. He smirked at the look of denied lust on Liam’s face.