by Taryn Quinn
Samantha would be so excited. If she didn’t start screaming in fright.
I swallowed over and over, but nothing seemed to diminish the lump in my throat.
This was all new to me. My mom had taken off when I’d been too young to remember much. I definitely didn’t recall her trying to make Christmas amazing for Mason and I.
Ever since I’d hit adulthood, I had shoved the notion of family holidays beyond my given family into a deep, dark closet. Some people weren’t made for lasting coupledom and the whole deal with kids. And I’d been okay with it. More than that, I had believed it was best for me.
Now I was in early talks with my lawyer to make sure my daughter would remain mine despite any potential future legal challenges from her mother—unlikely or not. Preston had agreed to handle this situation for me, and he’d asked me today if I wanted to go so far as to submit paperwork to Samantha’s mother to formally sever her parental rights. I didn’t want to risk her coming back into the baby’s life and confusing her or worse, hurting her. As far as I was concerned, she’d lost her chance with her kid. She’d put her in a basket and left her on the porch of a dude she barely knew on a brutally cold night.
Of course before I filed that paperwork, I had to actually do a paternity test.
I hadn’t answered Gina’s question last week about if the baby’s biological mother knew I was a cop. I couldn’t even give her that much credit. I’d deliberately been vague about who I was, although I’d told her where I lived. Crescent Cove was notorious in some circles for our baby boom, especially in New York State, so I’d wanted to be honest about my hometown in case she didn’t want to take the risk.
Maybe now the Cove’s reach was spreading. I had brought bottled lake water on my trip. I rarely disputed such seemingly impossible theories these days. I had the baby to prove it, even if we hadn’t done the deed in the town proper.
She hadn’t earned her parental rights, but that was only part of why I wanted to make sure she had no ties to the kid. The rest had to do with the woman who was trying her hardest to give my little girl an incredible holiday, even if she wouldn’t remember it later on.
But deep down, Samantha would know. The details wouldn’t be clear, but she would understand she had a home. A foundation. And yes, even a family.
Co-headed by an often clueless dude who would still do his very best to take care of the ones he lo—
Cared about. I cared so much.
I withdrew my keys from the ignition and closed them in my fist. I didn’t want to scare off Bee. Didn’t want to burden her with a child she hadn’t made. But it seemed as if she was choosing her. As if she was choosing us. I didn’t exactly grasp what that meant or what all this would look like going forward, but maybe we could just try.
Just see.
We were so good together. My buddy, John, had made it his life’s work to tease me about finally hooking up with Gina. August too. I hadn’t let myself go there, since I’d never wanted to risk messing up a damn great thing.
But what if that great thing could get even better?
I shifted in my seat. This line of self-questioning was not due to the prompting of my half hard cock, just from thinking about her brushing against me while we gave the baby a bath.
Okay, while she gave her a bath.
Or when we were reheating our late night snack, standing together at the stove, hip-checking each other and laughing.
Last night, we’d curled up on the couch to watch those relentlessly perky holiday rom-coms, and she’d set her socked feet in my lap like she always did. Except this time, I’d wanted to start with my usual foot massage—and just keep on going up her sexy as hell body.
I wanted to touch her. Kiss every part of her and then do it all over again.
Make her come with my name on her lips.
I closed my eyes. Now what the fuck was I going to do about it?
A text buzzed on my phone.
Hey copasaurus, you gonna come in sometime today or just keep your buns warm in the car?
I grinned. If she only knew what was really keeping my buns—and all the rest of me—warm right now, she’d—
What? What would she do if I propositioned her?
In a classy way, of course. I couldn’t just jump on her like some kind of horny bastard who couldn’t keep it together anymore in her direction.
Add in watching her with my baby, and I needed a Teflon shell to keep my dick from tearing a hole in my regulation trousers. I just was not strong enough to withstand Gina singing to my kid while she rocked her to sleep.
And she was texting me again. Even the irritated buzz from her messages somehow had an attitude to match hers.
I couldn’t help smiling again as I read what she’d written.
Hello? I see you out there. I’m looking through the window. What are you doing?
Imagining fucking you unconscious.
That probably wasn’t the way to go, as far as announcing my intentions. Which were what, exactly? I certainly couldn’t quantify them. All I knew was I liked coming home to her—and the baby, even if I didn’t entirely understand how to deal with her yet. I appreciated that Bee had upended her own routine to help. That she cared.
I even liked that she’d made my house into an eye-searing holiday wonderland.
We’d managed to keep this thing between us going for a couple of years now. Sex was our last frontier. It only made sense to at least put it on the table.
If she didn’t agree, if she didn’t want to go there, I would understand. I’d probably have blue balls for the rest of my life, but I’d adjust.
I climbed out of the car and slammed my door with new resolve. Whatever way this went, I could handle it.
“What do you mean, you think it’s time we figure out a new arrangement?” I demanded, focusing on Gina’s face rather than how she looked toting the baby around on her hip. She’d dressed her in that Auntie Claus outfit, and while it was festive and cute, it was wrong. All wrong.
Gina wasn’t meant to be her aunt. Her role should be a different one altogether.
Maybe I was the only one who got that.
She diverted her attention to the shimmering silver garland she’d looped around the floor-to-ceiling living room windows. She must’ve gotten out the stepladder to get that stuff up there. “Some of the garland is bunched up. Can you take Samantha while I get back up there to fix it? It’ll just take a minute.”
“No. I will not take the baby. We are having a conversation.”
Gina’s dark eyes flashed, a sure sign her fiery nature was one more snippy comment from coming to the fore. And most likely, it would lead to a vase heaved at my head.
It wouldn’t be the first time.
“Her name is not ‘the baby’. Her name is Samantha. Sound it out with me. Sam-an-tha.”
“I know her name. This isn’t about that right now. How could you do all of this,” I gestured to the decorations dripping from every eave and arranged on every surface, “and then just not want to come back?”
Her face softened, and I wanted to punch the smug Santa grinning in my front window. My reaction wasn’t rational. But she wanted to back off when I wanted so much more.
She took a step toward me then stopped. The baby was using her fist as a pacifier. Sadie peeked out from behind Gina’s legs, and even her big golden eyes were filled with trepidation.
I hated that I was the one putting that expression on all their faces, even the ones who didn’t understand why I was pissed off.
Hell, Gina probably had no clue. How could she when I hadn’t said a word to her about any of it yet?
Now I wouldn’t be. I couldn’t. Not when I knew she had leaving on her mind, even if she covered it up with the compassion that came as naturally to her as breathing.
Except I didn’t want her sympathy. I wanted her.
“You know that’s not true. I won’t ever leave and not come back. I wouldn’t have before Samantha and definitely not afte
r her.”
“You like her better than me.” Knowing the statement sounded pathetic didn’t keep me from saying it.
Gina’s lips twitched. “Someone’s in a mood. Here I watched your daughter, and cleaned the whole house, and decorated until the place looks like a Christmas bomb went off, and you’re still not happy.”
I moved forward to scoop my fingers through the ends of the baby’s silky hair. She’d obviously had another bath today with the actual baby shampoo Gina had picked up the other day. “I am happy. I appreciate all you’ve done. The house looks amazing. I just want—”
“What?”
Too much. Everything. Including all the things that obviously were not meant for me.
Or not meant for Gina and I, and that fucking burned.
“It’s for the best,” she said quietly. “We don’t want the lines to get blurred.”
“Oh, yeah? Is that the reason you want to kill everything we had going?”
“I don’t want to kill anything. Stop being dramatic.”
I pressed my lips together so I didn’t toss back a remark that would lead to an argument that would scare the baby. And Sadie.
And would probably end with Santa in shards on the hardwood floor.
“People are talking. My car has been here practically every hour I haven’t been parked at the diner for the past week.”
“So what? Everyone knows we’re friends.”
“They also have suspicious minds. Mrs. Gunderson actually told me yesterday she has a hundred bucks on the ‘are they or aren’t they fucking’ pool. She didn’t say fucking though. She called it ‘intimate private time’.”
This was not news. I’d known about that pool for the better part of a year. I just hadn’t told Gina.
“Maybe I should bet on it,” I muttered. “I could make a mint.”
Gina stomped on my foot as she walked past me, still carting the baby. I didn’t groan—out loud at least.
She had some power behind that stomp.
Carefully, she set down Samantha in the swing and turned on the rainbow-colored musical mobile. Sadie took up her favorite spot beside the baby on the floor.
“You knew about that pool.”
I shrugged and hooked my thumbs in my pockets. “Does it matter?”
“Did you laugh about it? Maybe even pretended you hit it whenever you want?”
“Hit it? Are you serious right now?” My jaw locked as I forced down the red-hot irritation I couldn’t let free. Not now. “If you genuinely think that about me, we’ve got a problem.”
“We do have a problem, because my asserting my right to resume my life is a personal affront to you.”
“That’s what you see.”
She shrugged and crossed her arms over her standard Rusty Spoon T-shirt, pulling the well-worn material snugly across her breasts.
Which annoyed me too.
Why did she have to tug at me even now? All I wanted to do was kiss the holy hell out of her and resolve this in a way that made my intentions crystal clear.
But I couldn’t, if I wanted to keep our friendship intact. If it even still was. Somehow it seemed as if our previously rock-solid relationship had sprung some cracks when I wasn’t looking.
I narrowed my eyes. “Is this about Trina?”
“Trina,” she repeated as if the word tasted foul. “Is that your baby mama? Since you never bothered to name her before.”
“I didn’t name her because she doesn’t matter.”
“Yes, I know. You already told me how your dick has a mind of its own.”
“I made the decision to sleep with her, not my dick,” I said tightly. “But it was just supposed to be a couple of days. It wasn’t supposed to produce a lifelong reminder.”
I swallowed the bitter tang from my words. In just a week, Samantha was more than that to me. I didn’t see her mother when I looked at her or gave her a bottle or tried to have a one-sided conversation with her. She was just mine.
But I could be unreasonably petty when I was clawing back from the corner Gina had shoved me into.
“Whatever it was supposed to do, she’s here. And Samantha,” she enunciated carefully, “deserves to know you more than she knows her Aunt Gina.”
“You’re not her aunt.”
“Why do you keep saying that? First, you’re mad I’m leaving forever, which is epic BS and insulting to boot. I’m sticking. We’re glue and peanut butter and all those other messy substances.” She stomped toward me and poked me hard in the chest. “But then you try to strip away that title, as if you don’t want me to think I have any rightful place in Samantha’s life. Make up your damn mind, Brooks, because you’re confusing the hell out of me.”
I gripped her finger, holding on even when she would’ve ripped it away. “I don’t want you to be her aunt. I want something else entirely. Can’t you see that? Or are you really that fucking blind?”
Her cheeks paled as her finger went limp under mine. “I have to get to work,” she said after a moment.
A moment where my heartbeat reverberated against my skull like a gunshot.
“Of course.” I let out a harsh laugh and released her before stepping back and holding up my hands. “I wouldn’t dream of keeping you from resuming your life.”
Wild, beautiful color rushed back into her cheeks as she hurried over to the sofa to collect her purse and coat. “You’re such a colossal jerk.”
“I am. A colossal jerk who slept with someone a year ago whose name rhymed with yours.”
She stopped moving, her head falling forward as if she didn’t have the strength to hold it up any longer. “I can’t keep this secret for you anymore. People who are important to me are asking questions, and they have a right to know about Samantha. She shouldn’t be hidden away like some mistake. She isn’t.” She whirled around again to face me, clutching her purse and coat to her chest as if they were armor. “She’s beautiful and perfect, and you don’t even know how lucky you are to have her. To be given the chance to have her.”
Her stricken expression made my gut twist. “Bee, wait.” I stepped toward her, lifting my hand to her face. “What is it? Tell me.”
I didn’t even know what I was asking for. I just knew there was something more to what she was saying, something just out of my grasp, and my stupid hurt feelings didn’t matter when she was in pain. None of my emotions even ranked compared to making sure she was okay.
She didn’t let me touch her, skirting around me and running out the door without even saying goodbye to Samantha or Sadie.
The door closed almost silently, the sound achingly final.
The twinkling Christmas lights blurred in my vision. I’d wanted to prevent her from leaving, and instead, I’d driven her away when she’d only tried to help.
I sagged onto the sofa. I could still smell her alluring gingerbread scent. I never knew if she got it from cooking or from some alluring combination of products, but that particular scent never failed to get my blood pumping.
Now it just seemed like a parting shot.
Sadie trotted over to me and pushed her head against my hand until I gave in and buried my face in her silky fur. “I’m sorry, girl. It’s my fault she left. My fault she didn’t want to stay.”
Nine
Sheriff Jared Brooks was the reason I wasn’t making pecan pie today.
Thanksgiving was one of my favorite holidays. If this was a typical year, I’d be rushing through my last minute prep before I went over to my parents’ place, already eagerly anticipating all the food I’d be eating in massive quantities. I’d also be wearing my comfy sweatpants, because the only people there would be family and close friends like Brooks. I didn’t have to dress up for him.
Normally.
I glanced down at my hooker heels, seductively laced up my legs. This was most definitely an outfit I’d never worn to a family meal before. I’d also never applied lots of mascara or chosen a boob-nestler necklace that would surely snag some attention while
I was reaching for the creamed spinach.
But then he’d told me about Trina. A name that had once rhymed with my name, which was no longer the case as I was changing mine. Now I would be known as something far more flamboyant. Like…Shalimar.
Also, that was a name that was patently impossible to rhyme with anything.
“I need to disinvite someone from Thanksgiving,” I said into the phone. “Preferably without actually having to, you know, speak to them. I’m not against signage.”
My mother would probably appreciate not having a sign planted in her front yard that read, “Go fuck yourself, Brooks,” but I couldn’t deny I’d considered it since it was too late to move.
“Harsh. You know people are alone today. It’s a rough day to cut someone out—oh. It’s him, isn’t it? Sheriff Oblivious,” my friend Luna Hastings said with obvious glee on the other end of the phone as I cradled her in the crook between my neck and my shoulder and stirred like a demon.
The recipe had said to stir well. Who needed Kitchen-Aid when I was currently powered by the anger from a thousand missed orgasms?
All right, probably not a thousand. That was an entirely inaccurate count. But I just knew I’d missed out while I’d been avoiding looking at other men. All the while, Brooks had been screwing strangers with names that sounded like mine.
Implanting children in them.
“I didn’t say who it was,” I said in an undertone. “Just that I need to ensure I won’t see a certain male face today or for the next hundred years.”
Luna cackled. “Oh, is that all? That shouldn’t be a problem. C’mon, gimme the deets. What did he do this time?”
“This time? I don’t fight with him that much.”
“Actually with him? No. But in your head, it happens far more often.”