She and Mick were planning a trip to Africa to climb Mr. Kilimanjaro together—something they had both secretly wanted to do since they were teens—early next year. If all went as planned, next January 1st they would be on their way to Africa to celebrate their one year anniversary atop the continent’s highest mountain.
It was going to be an amazing adventure, but nothing compared to the adventure she’d had already. In six weeks Faith had gone from lonely and well on her way to becoming a confirmed cat lady, to being in a relationship that made the world seem wonderful in ways it never had before. She was so happy, not even spending Friday afternoon being grilled by her mama about how to sweet talk Mick into proposing before the “bloom was off her rose” could sour her spirits.
Faith simply shrugged her mama’s crazy off at the bakery’s front door and made her way through the crowd waiting to pick up their Valentine’s Day treats with a grin on her face. She hurried up the stairs, slipped the key Mick had given her into the lock and eased inside, immediately feeling at home because this was where the man she loved lived and breathed.
As soon as she spied him bent over his desk sketching, his black curls standing up in a dozen directions because he always ran his hands through his hair while he worked, her chest filled with a delicious, full sensation. And then Mick turned to smile at her—clearly thrilled to see her, though they’d only been apart a few hours—and the feeling of fullness grew so intense Faith worried it might do internal damage.
God, she loved this man. Loved him like nothing else, and couldn’t wait to be with him tonight. Her fears had melted away, leaving only a warm assurance that making love to Mick was something she was never going to regret.
“You’re back.” Mick rose from his chair, crossing the room to pull her into his arms. “I missed you.”
“I missed you too,” Faith said.
“Did your mom drive you crazy?”
“No more than usual,” she said, tipping her head back to welcome his kiss, a long, slow kiss that had them both breathing faster by the time he pulled away.
“Damn,” Mick muttered, his voice thick. “If I wasn’t worried that half the town and my sisters would overhear, there’s no way I could wait until tonight.”
“We could go back to my place.” Faith leaned into him, body humming with awareness. “No customers or sisters there.”
“That sounds like a brilliant idea.” Mick’s hands slipped down to cup her bottom, urging her closer, drawing a ragged sigh from Faith’s throat. “Are you sure you’re ready?”
“Dude, I am so ready. Past ready,” Faith said with an unsteady laugh. “I’m so ready I’ve been thinking filthy things about you all day long.”
Mick’s eyes darkened and his fingers dug deeper into her flesh. “Oh, yeah? Like what?”
“Like…”
Faith stood on tiptoe to whisper one of her naughtier fantasies into his ear. She’d barely gotten to the part where they were almost naked on a bearskin rug in front of a roaring fire and Mick was pulling her panties off with his teeth when he groaned.
“Stop,” he said, swallowing hard. “I can’t take any more or I won’t be able to wait until we get to your house.”
Faith bit her lip, secretly loving that a few whispered words could affect him so deeply. “Then hurry up and grab your things, and let’s get going,” she said before adding in a softer voice, “The anticipation is killing me.”
Mick cupped her face in his hands. “Me too. You have no idea.” He took a deep breath, his eyes scanning her face in a way that left no doubt how beautiful he thought she was. “Do you have any idea how much I love you?”
“A disturbing amount,” Faith said, heart soaring even as the ache inside her ratcheted up another notch. “But not as disturbing as how much I want you.”
“How much do you want me?”
“Well, my panties are already damp,” Faith said, heart skipping a beat as Mick’s jaw clenched in response. “If that gives you a clue.”
He made a growling sound low in his throat. “I’m beginning to think you want the whole town listening in.”
“And I’m beginning to think you’re all talk and no action.” Faith grinned as she backed out of his arms, crooking her finger as she went. “Come on, Whitehouse. This virginity isn’t going to take care of itself.”
Mick blew out a long breath and rolled his eyes upward, as if praying for strength. “I’ll be down in two minutes,” he said, pinning her with a heated look that made her entire body hum. “Get the truck ready to roll.”
“Yes, sir,” she said with a naughty wink before turning and practically skipping across the room to the door, her heart lighter than she could have imagined possible considering what she and Mick were getting ready to do.
She’d always expected sleeping with someone for the first time would be a serious, sober, and somewhat scary undertaking, but nothing could be further from the way she felt right now. She was excited, giddy, and so certain she was making the right decision that nothing could shake her confidence. Mick already felt like a part of her, and this was only going to bring her closer to the man she loved.
She was humming beneath her breath as she stepped off the last stair, so high on life and love and anticipation that she didn’t realize Maddie was standing next to the landing until the other woman reached out and grabbed her arm.
“Ohmygod, you scared me,” Faith said, laughing as she turned to face Mick’s sister. But when she saw Maddie’s stricken expression, her laughter vanished. “What’s wrong?” she asked as she scanned Maddie up and down, her EMT training kicking in as she looked for an injury. “Are you okay?”
Maddie shook her head. “No, I’m not. I think you need to get Mick.”
“He’s on his way down any second,” Faith said, brows drawing together. “What happened? Is Naomi okay, did something—”
“Naomi and I are fine, I just…” Maddie cast an anxious glance toward the table in the corner where a lovely, petite young woman with silky brown hair, big blue eyes, and a sizeable baby bump sat in one of the wrought iron chairs, staring their way with a determined expression.
“I have to talk to Mick,” Maddie continued softly as her eyes drifted back to Faith’s. “Now.”
Faith nodded, unable to tear her gaze away from the woman in the chair. There was something familiar about her, though Faith knew they’d never met. She would have remembered being introduced to a person like that. The woman was so tiny she made Faith feel like an Amazon in comparison, and so perfectly put together she looked like a doll. From the crisp navy ribbon in her hair, to her adorable white maternity sweater with the sailor collar and navy pleated skirt, the woman was almost too pretty to be real. If it weren’t for that look on her face—the one that was more resolute than reposed—she would have been the perfect picture of blissful expectant motherhood.
“What’s the problem?” Faith asked, pulling her eyes from the woman’s with effort, the hair at the back of her neck standing on end as she realized the other girl was still staring. “Who is that woman?” she added beneath her breath.
Maddie’s lips parted, but before she could speak Mick slammed out of the apartment and thundered down the stairs.
“Hey, hot stuff, you ready to go?” Mick’s arms came around Faith from behind, hugging her as he pressed a kiss to the back of her head.
Faith was about to tell Mick that Maddie had something important to discuss with him when the pretty pregnant girl stood up, eyes lighting up in her impossibly lovely face.
“Mick! There you are!” She smiled, showcasing perfect rows of tiny white teeth. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”
Faith felt Mick’s arms go rigid around her and turned to see a haunted expression on his face unlike any she had seen there before. In that instant, she knew exactly who the girl was and why she had looked so familiar.
It was Bridget, Mick’s ex, the girl Faith had glimpsed briefly in Mick’s college yearbook. She and Mick were mu
gging for the camera at a Homecoming game, their school letters painted on their cheeks in bright blue and gold. Faith had thought Bridget was pretty in the picture, but she was even more stunning in real life.
Stunning, and very petite, and very girly, and very, very pregnant.
Faith’s stomach hardened into a tight knot at the center of her body as Mick withdrew his arms and stepped in front of her, putting himself between Faith and his ex.
“What are you doing here?” he asked in a rough voice. “What the hell is going on?”
“I think it’s pretty obvious what’s going on, Mick,” Maddie said, putting a hand on his shoulder, casting an anxious glance at the crowd of customers who were doing their best not to stare. “But I think we should go discuss this upstairs.”
“No,” Mick said, shrugging off Maddie’s hand. “I’m not going anywhere with her. I have no idea what kind of stunt you’re pulling Bridget, but I don’t want any—”
“Stunt?” Bridget’s big blue eyes filled with tears that somehow made her look even lovelier. “This isn’t a stunt. This is our baby, and I can’t do this alone anymore. I need you.”
At the word “baby” Faith went light-headed. It was as if someone had taken off the top of her skull and scooped her brain out, leaving nothing but raw nerves and a quivering brain stem behind. She felt dizzy, almost outside herself as she watched Maddie grab Bridget by the hand and lead her toward the stairs, while motioning for Mick and Faith to follow.
Faith turned numbly, stumbling back up the way she’d come.
“I’m so sorry,” Mick muttered as he plodded up the stairs beside her, sounding as dazed as she felt. “I can’t believe this is happening. I seriously can’t believe this.”
Faith couldn’t believe it either. A few minutes ago she’d been on cloud nine, looking forward to the rest of the night—and many more nights to come—with the man she loved. Now, she was meeting Mick’s crazy ex-girlfriend.
Bridget was beautiful, but she was also out of her mind. Faith had no reason to doubt Mick’s account of the way things had ended between him and his ex, and she knew anyone who would threaten suicide in order to maintain control of her partner was dangerously unstable. Whatever happened next was going to be bad. Just the thought of it made Faith want to take Mick by the hand and run away to a place where they would both be safe.
But he was never going to be safe, and he was never going to be free of Bridget. She was pregnant with his baby. Mick was going to be a father, and Faith was still a dumb virgin who had dared to dream of an uncomplicated future with the man she loved.
As they trudged back into Mick’s apartment, where only moments ago he and Faith had kissed without a care in the world, Faith was filled with the horrible, crushing certainty that her happily ever after had just become a trashy soap opera. Of course it had, because messed up people like her attracted messed up shit like a bug light attracted mosquitos on a muggy summer night.
Faith sure as hell wasn’t ready to be a mom, but she wasn’t sure she was ready to be a stepmom, either. Or a step-girlfriend, or whatever. God only knew what stunt Bridget would pull next, or how the woman might use her innocent child to try to get what she wanted from Mick…whatever that was.
You know what she wants. She wants him back, and he might end up going. He said he’d always be there for his child, and he has to know Bridget isn’t capable of taking care of a baby alone.
Faith bit her lip and fisted her hands at her sides, doing her best to ignore her panicked inner voice as Maddie finished wiping Bridget’s tears with the hem of her apron and the girl turned her attention Mick’s way.
Bridget’s big blue eyes lingered on Mick for only a moment before sliding to focus on Faith, who stood a few paces behind him. “I’m sorry, but who are you?” she asked in a chilly voice.
“She’s my girlfriend,” Mick said before Faith could answer. “And she stays. Anything you can say to me, you can say to her.”
He reached back to take Faith’s hand, but she couldn’t seem to make her fingers work. She wanted to give his palm a comforting squeeze, but her hands felt cold and stiff, as if rigor mortis were setting in.
Despite Mick’s words, it felt like something was dying in this room, something beautiful Faith hadn’t realized how desperately she needed until Bridget showed up to take it away. Faith had known she loved Mick and treasured what they’d found together, but she hadn’t realized that losing him would feel like something vital was being ripped from inside her, leaving her unfit for life without him.
She wasn’t sure she’d have the strength to move on without Mick, a fact that scared her nearly as much as the thought of trying to help raise a crazy woman’s baby.
“This is private, Mickey,” Bridget said, eyes filling with tears again and her full bottom lip beginning to tremble. “I don’t want to discuss our baby’s future with a stranger in the room.”
“She isn’t a stranger,” Mick said, his grip on Faith’s hand tightening.
“She is to me.” Bridget pulled in a wobbly breath. “And I think I’ve already been through enough without having to talk about the night the condom broke in front of the woman you’ve been sleeping with while I’ve been trying to figure out how to raise a child all by myself.”
Bridget dissolved into sobs again as she turned to sag against Maddie, her pale cheek resting on the taller woman’s chest while Maddie stroked her shiny hair.
“Let’s try to calm down.” Maddie cast Mick a wide-eyed look over Bridget’s head that silently begged him to take control of the situation. “Getting upset isn’t good for anyone, especially the baby.”
“I’ll go downstairs,” Faith said, squirming her hand free of Mick’s.
“You don’t have to,” he said, voice dropping as he spun to face her. “Seriously, Faith. I don’t have any secrets from you.”
“But you have a baby on the way,” Faith said, throat so tight she could barely get the words out. “That changes everything, Mick. You know it does.”
Mick shook his head, the panicked look in his eyes making Faith suspect he could feel their dreams dying too, that he could sense all their sparkles being extinguished by the tears of the woman he was going to be bound to for the rest of his life.
Bound. Like a shackle around his ankle he would drag behind him forever, ensuring he and Faith would never have the same easy, uncomplicated relationship again. The thought made Faith’s chest ache and her eyes sting as she turned and fled down the stairs alone.
Chapter Thirteen
Mick watched Faith go with a horrible sinking feeling in his stomach, struggling to ignore the voice in his head that said she was never coming back, that Bridget had ruined what Mick had with Faith the same way she’d ruined his senior year of college and now there was no way to reclaim what had been lost.
But losing Faith would be so much worse than losing a carefree, final year of school. A future without Faith in it was unthinkable, intolerable, so terrifying and rage-inducing that when Mick turned back to face Bridget, it took all his self-control to keep from yelling for her to stop the damned crying and tell him what it was going to take to get her out of his apartment.
He understood Bridget’s tears were convincing to people who didn’t know her well—Maddie was obviously worried for the girl sobbing on her chest—but Mick had seen Bridget turn the waterworks on and off like a faucet. Tears were simply another weapon in her arsenal, a tool his ex used to manipulate people.
Mick wasn’t sure Bridget was capable of feeling sadness the way other people felt it. Their final months together had made it clear she had no empathy, only the driving desire to get what she wanted, no matter what the cost.
Even if the cost was another person’s will to live.
By the end of their relationship, there had been days when the thought of checking out was preferable to the thought of living another day under Bridget’s reign of emotional terror. But he had never seriously considered that final, permanent escape. De
ep down, he’d known that he’d find a way to be free of Bridget, that one day he’d find a way to leave her behind him and never look back.
But now she was here. And she was having his baby and he hated himself for letting his dick make decisions and continuing to sleep with Bridget when there had been nothing but resentment in his heart. He hated that condom for breaking and hated fate for its fucking lousy timing.
Now, he would never escape Bridget, and soon she would have another person to terrorize, a tiny, innocent person who deserved so much better than a mother like Bridget or a father who wished he or she had never been born.
The thought made Mick’s throat close up with shame, but it was true. He didn’t want this baby. He didn’t want his ex to have an excuse to sink her claws into him again, or face a future worried for the safety of a child who would never have a stable home life so long as Bridget was in the picture.
“Okay, let’s take a deep breath,” Maddie said, rubbing Bridget’s back as Bridget wiped the tears from her cheeks with trembling hands.
The trembling is probably an act, too, Mick thought, his contempt for Bridget so intense there was no room in his heart for compassion.
“Why don’t I go make you something to drink,” Maddie continued with a pointed glance Mick’s way as she stepped over to the dining table and drew out a chair. “You two can sit down and talk this out, and I’ll be right back with warm milk. It will help you calm down.”
“Thank you so much, Maddie,” Bridget said, sniffing as she beamed up at Mick’s sister. “You’re as sweet as Mick always said you were. I appreciate your support so much.”
“Of course,” Maddie said, as she got Bridget settled at the table. “Mick, you want something? Tea or coffee?”
“No, thank you.” Mick’s jaw clenched with reluctance, but he forced himself to circle around the table and sit down across from Bridget, meeting his ex’s watery gaze as Maddie crossed the room to the kitchenette to fetch the milk and a pan to warm it in.
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