by Laurel Greer
“You don’t look well,” he said. “Do you need to sit down? Water? Crackers?”
“I’m fine. Just overwhelmed.”
He snorted. “I know that feeling. I have more questions than I can count, but they’ll have to wait.”
“I should have waited until this evening to come tell you,” Marisol murmured, leaning into him a little.
You should have persisted and told me months ago.
The mental picture of Marisol suffering from morning sickness and hurting because she’d assumed he was avoiding her kept him from spitting out the retort.
She glanced at her flip-flop-clad feet. “I have a plan.”
“You don’t think I should have a say in that plan?”
“No. I mean, yes, but... I honestly didn’t think you’d want to.” Her posture slumped. “We don’t need to make any decisions today. We have until September. The sixth, to be specific.”
So two and a half months, give or take. He blew out a breath. “I want to make decisions, Marisol. I’d prefer to do it without everyone and their dog—or cat—interfering, but—”
A throat cleared, and he spun toward the noise. His sister stood in the doorway to the operating room, knuckles white around a tray. “You found out, then.”
“I thought you were waiting to tell me first,” he said to Marisol.
Marisol let out a sound of throaty regret. “I was. But Maggie let me in this morning. She guessed.”
Maggie eyed Lachlan. “Are you going to be okay?”
“Yeah—No—I mean—” He swore again, and his profanity-averse sister cringed.
Marisol’s mouth tugged down at the corners. But he knew her displeasure had nothing to do with his language.
His heart sank. “We’ll figure this out, I promise.”
“I have it figured out.”
He blinked, irritation heating his neck. If she already had everything solved, her definition of talking did not line up with his.
“Lach, Petunia is not going to dictate her medical history herself,” Evan called from down the hall. “And, Dr. Mags, you have the Franklins’ Weimaraner waiting for you after you’re done with Kittay. Do not throw my schedule off today, folks.”
“On it, Ev,” Maggie called, whirling into the exam room to a waiting Mrs. Rafferty.
“I don’t know who looks more miserable, you or my sister,” Lach said.
“Go,” Marisol said firmly, ignoring his observation and pushing on his shoulder with a finger.
“You won’t leave town before the end of my shift?”
Her expression turned thunderous. “I’m not leaving ever. I’ve moved here, in part so that you can be close to the baby. So I’d appreciate less assholish snark!”
Frozen in place by the magnitude of her announcement, it was long after the side door slammed behind her that he realized she’d mentioned him being close to the baby, but not to her.
Chapter Two
“Don’t even think about lifting that box.”
Marisol froze at her brother’s command, then ignored it, toting the offending collection of pots and pans into the galley kitchen. “It’s light. Calm down, Zach.”
Her brother scowled at her through the pass-through of the wall connecting the kitchen and dining area, and resumed assembling the desk she’d had delivered this morning. No way was she kneeling on the floor for an hour with a screwdriver—her back would be furious from the strain. So she owed her brother.
But she bristled at the suggestion she didn’t know her limits.
Not that Zach didn’t have plenty of reasons to doubt her judgment. She only needed to look as far as her credit history for a reminder that she’d made her fair share of terrible decisions in her life. But she would not trust so easily this time. She’d get a coparenting arrangement set with Lachlan and would be well settled in her new apartment by the time the baby arrived. She’d have her PhD prospectus presented and approved by then, too.
Panic teased the base of her skull, and she gripped the counter as a grounding exercise.
One step at a time. Kitchen first.
The lack of space—she only had the dining-living area and two bedrooms to fill—made for easy unpacking. With a little elbow grease, she’d have all her boxes emptied by the time Lachlan came over after his shift ended. Not that she was in a hurry to resume that awkward conversation.
Only to be outdone by the one I have to have with Zach.
Ugh. Would he understand her reasons for telling him someone other than Lachlan was the father of her baby? Zach was more forgiving than most, and before finding love with his fiancée, he’d kept secrets himself...
Yeah. Secrets. Not dishonesty.
Probably best to wait until after he’d finished building her desk, though. She wouldn’t want to knock him out of his construction groove by announcing she’d been lying to him about her child’s paternity since she found out she was pregnant in January.
Shoving down the guilt, she bent over awkwardly to load frying pans into the drawer under the oven. Her new apartment had come mostly furnished—with some of her brother’s furniture, given he’d lived in the same unit for a few months with his soon-to-be wife. Knowing Marisol would be taking over the lease, they’d left behind some essentials that didn’t fit in their new house. They’d moved in the spring so that Ben would have a yard to grow up in. Zach was going through the process of adopting Ben, Cadie’s son from her first marriage. Cadie had been widowed, and her son wasn’t yet two, so Zach would be the only dad the boy remembered.
Watching Zach love someone else’s baby as his own had been one of the reasons Marisol had believed Lachlan might come around to parenthood.
So why are you upset that it’s something he’s apparently wanted all along?
Good question. Maggie’s assertion that Lachlan had wanted a family his whole life had been jostling around Marisol’s brain since this morning. She wanted him to have a connection with their child.
But I don’t want him to want one with me.
She shoved a stack of bowls into one of the cabinets with too much emphasis, and the porcelain clattered.
Right. For all the effort she intended to put into helping him establish a bond with their baby, she’d put the same into making sure he didn’t form one with her.
He doesn’t want strings. It’ll be okay.
“Everything under control in there?” her brother mumbled around the couple of screws he had sticking out of one corner of his mouth.
“Mmm-hmm. I have all of three cupboards’ worth of crap. Once I’m done in here, all that’s left is loading my books onto the shelf you’ve yet to build,” she said.
He looked at the ceiling in exasperation. “No better way to spend my day off.”
She cringed. She’d been in town all of twenty-four hours and was already a burden. “Never mind, I can do it.”
Shaking his head, he spat the screws into his palm.
“Marisol.” Their parents had prioritized speaking their first languages around the house—Spanish for their dad and German for their mom—and Zach was hands-down the best linguist of their generation. He always pronounced her name with perfect Spanish inflection, unlike their sisters, who anglicized the hell out of it. “I want to help you make this place a home. Some of my best memories are from this apartment, and hopefully it’ll be the same for you.”
“I do want that.” She’d do her best with what she had. Renting a house was out of the realm of student-budget possibility. And the apartment wasn’t huge—an open-plan dining-and-living area and two bedrooms—but there was a park nearby.
Plus, she could take the kid to her brother’s yard for playtime.
Zach growled at the sheet of directions, then leaned back against the dining room wall. He stared through the rectangular space in the wall, suspicion written in his green
eyes. God, he looked like their dad sometimes. Acted like him, too, which usually brought on the waves of younger sibling inadequacy...
Marisol’s stomach turned, and she focused on unpacking her plates instead of making eye contact.
“Cadie said she saw your car at the vet clinic this morning,” Zach said.
Spectacular. Talk about a fishbowl. Maybe she wasn’t up for small-town life. As fast as she’d unpacked, she could repack—
No. This move was a good one for her PhD candidacy, and a necessary one for her baby. She couldn’t chicken out now.
Not with staying in Sutter Creek, or with apologizing to Zach for having lied.
“Mari?” he prodded. “Thought you and Lachlan were a onetime thing. Especially given...”
“We were.” The baby chose that moment to shift, as if in communion with Zach. She laid a hand on the tiny foot kicking her navel and cocked an eyebrow at her brother. “You have some major uncle vibes, you know that?”
“The kid and I are going to be best friends.” His smile faded. “I promise, okay? I want him or her to know nothing but love from our family. Father or no father.”
Oh, frick. There was the guilt again, snaking its way up her spine. Family can have many definitions. She’d tried the traditional route once before, and look how that turned out—she’d had to sign divorce papers before receiving her bachelor’s degree. She’d just managed to pay off her parents last year. They’d bailed her out when her ex’s creditors had come after her. And even though she thanked the universe every day that he was no longer in her life, she’d never forget the pain of him walking out on her post-miscarriage. She wasn’t up for another epic fail. Finishing her PhD and raising her baby were going to take her all.
“I appreciate the help. I moved here for that.”
Would need the help, in fact, depending on how much Lachlan wanted to contribute. He’d seemed surprised when she’d told him she had a plan.
Be fair—you dropped a lot on him.
“So if you aren’t wanting something permanent with Lachlan, why would you go...” Zach’s mouth fell open.
Marisol’s throat closed over.
“Oh. No goddamn way, Mari.”
She crossed her arms between her breasts and her bump, the anatomy of being pregnant still so unfamiliar at times, especially now when the only thing that mattered was the betrayal darkening her brother’s face.
“Zach. I—”
“Choose your words carefully,” he warned, rising stiff-shouldered from the floor.
“I can explain—”
A knock sounded at the door, and she jumped so high she almost knocked the bar of halogen lights from the ceiling.
“That’s Lachlan, isn’t it?” Zach said through gritted teeth.
“Probably.”
He swore. “He’s the father?”
“Yeah,” she whispered.
“You told me it was another grad student.”
“I did.” Holy Mother, it was hard to talk around the lump in her throat.
“You lied.”
“I did.”
“You didn’t have to lie.”
“I—”
“Do not say ‘I did.’”
“—did.”
Zach dragged both palms down his face. “Why?”
“I couldn’t get a hold of him. I tried, and I thought... Well, that’s not important, crossed wires and all that.”
“The guy’s one of my SAR buddies, Mari. We messaged every week or so while he was away.”
Damn it. Maybe Lachlan had been right about trying Facebook. Maybe she’d let her fear guide her decisions too much.
And lay my heart out for a guy to stomp on again? No, thank you.
The framed psychology degrees still in a box on the floor taunted her with the point that she might have some teensy-weensy commitment issues.
Damn right, I do. And she wasn’t going to apologize for them. Nor was she stupid enough to set herself up for another failed relationship. Not with a baby involved.
“I couldn’t ask you to contact him for me, because then you’d have guessed, and he needed to be the first to find out,” she said.
Zach’s chin dropped a fraction and he closed his eyes in resignation.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
Another series of raps sounded.
“Answer it,” Zach mumbled.
“Okay.” She made her way to the door, wincing as one of her hip ligaments pulled. Hurray for carrying around a soccer ball on her front. At least all the super attractive—eye roll—pregnancy stuff would keep Lachlan’s hands off her.
Her brother followed. His hand landed on her shoulder, a wordless gesture of always having her back, no matter how much she screwed up. When she hesitated, hand hovering near the knob, he yanked it open for her.
Lachlan stood in the hall. He took his hands out of his pockets and straightened. He pinned her with a questioning gaze, then lifted his chin at her brother. “Zach. Hey.” Nerves flitted across his face as he attempted a smile. “Seems we’re going to be family.”
Zach let out a noise so close to a growl that Marisol planted an elbow in his gut.
“Ow.” His grip on her shoulder tightened. “Real talk, Reid. I get you not knowing was a misunderstanding. And that this is new to you. But now you’re aware. And if you screw up here—” he shuffled around Marisol and jabbed Lachlan in the chest with a finger “—it won’t matter that Fudge is a skilled-as-hell cadaver dog. No one will ever find your body.”
Skirting past Lachlan, her brother started down the hallway.
“Hey!” Marisol yelled. Her brother’s protective streak was legendary, but she could tell the threats were bravado. “You didn’t finish my desk!”
“You have bigger fish to fry than a desk, little sister,” he called back before disappearing into the exit staircase.
She did. Six-feet one-inch of muscular male “fish,” To be specific. And the life they’d created together.
“You’re off early.”
Lachlan nodded. He gripped the sides of the doorjamb with both hands, standing on a bit of an angle and making his T-shirt stretch across his tall, lean frame. Any attempt he’d made to finger-comb his hair had only made the thick, caramel-colored strands messier. His eyes hooked into her core, threatening never to let her out of their deep brown spell. But the crooked smile that usually lit up those eyes was nowhere to be found. Had she ever seen his mouth set so grimly?
“I can build your desk,” he said.
“So can I. That’s not the point. Zach just found out about...you...and he—”
“Pretty familiar with that feeling.”
“I... I’m sorry.” A knee-jerk apology. But hell, she was Canadian. Came with the territory. And something about those flat lips demanded it.
One side of his mouth curved up. “For what?”
“This hasn’t gone well.”
Relief crossed his face. “Ah. Not sure there was a good way to go about it, Marisol. But I’m just glad you’re not apologizing for the baby.”
“Of course not.”
His fingers whitened on the wood frame. “You didn’t consider termination?”
“I did. Decided it wasn’t right for me.” After losing one baby, choosing not to have this one hadn’t been an option.
“Okay. Then it’s not right for me, either.” He tentatively reached toward her stomach, catching her gaze in wordless supplication.
It’s about touching the baby. Not me.
She nodded.
Lips parted, his breath caught audibly as he rested his big hand on her belly. The air hitched in her own lungs. He shifted forward a little, until they were only a foot apart. Placing his free hand on the other side, he framed her bump.
The warmth from his palms seeped throu
gh the thin cotton of her blouse. God, her skin was too sensitive there. The heat of the caress spread downward, pooling between her legs. She bit her lip. Hopefully he wouldn’t want to touch her often. They’d gotten into this because they couldn’t keep their hands off each other.
It was tempting to pull away, but the awe on his face... He was clearly having a moment. She wasn’t going to take that from him.
“How often does it—uh, he? She?—move?” His hands shifted, little circles of torture that necessitated she swallow to get any words out.
“A lot in the middle of the night. Or when I’m sitting. And I don’t know what the sex is.”
“You want to be surprised?”
She shook her head. “I’m dying to know.” Had gone so far as to have the ultrasound tech mark it on the file. But she’d never asked her doctor for the information. “It didn’t feel right to find that out without you.”
He straightened, hands falling to his sides. Dark doubt clouded his expression. “If you thought I was avoiding you, why would you want me to be involved?”
A hundred reasons clogged her thoughts. She waved him inside to the living area, currently populated by Zach’s worn, corduroy couch and the Ikea coffee table she’d jammed Jenga-style into her hatchback. “Getting involved with the baby is different from getting involved with me.”
“Getting involved with the baby will mean getting involved with you.”
“Not how we were.”
A breath hissed between clenched teeth. He flopped on the couch, challenging her with his gaze. “It pisses me off that you’ve been alone in this, Marisol.”
She sat on the edge of the sofa, leaving a chunk of distance between them. Safety in inches. Or feet. “All you missed was puking and naps.”
“And ultrasounds. And first movements,” he said softly.
“I didn’t think you’d care about that, to be honest.”
His head tipped back, exposing a strong column of tanned skin over strong neck muscles. “I shouldn’t have fed you that line.”
“What line?”
“Whatever I told you about being too busy for a relationship. It was self-preserving nonsense, and I almost lost out on knowing my kid because of it.”