by Dena Christy
Honor had always been the person she’d turned to, to talk about what made her happy and what made her sad. Even when she’d been in other relationships, Honor had been her rock. In the past, it would have never occurred to her to talk to her current man about what was bothering her. It was always Honor she turned to. But as soon as Dwight had driven away, her first thought had been of Alex and talking to him.
She heard a vehicle pull up outside, and she moved over to the sofa and knotted her hands together. Alex was home now, and while that offered her some relief to the emotions churning inside her, she did her best to settle the rest.
She heard his boots come up the front steps and the front door opened. The door between the vestibule and the living room was open, and he looked surprised when he walked through it.
“I’m surprised to see you up.” He smiled at her, looking pleased that she was up waiting for him. He searched her face for a second and must have seen something there because his smile fell away. He came to sit beside her on the sofa and turned so that his body was facing hers. “What’s going on?”
“Two things.” She figured she’d tell him the good news and get that out of the way since it wasn’t what was troubling her. “I got a call from the doctor’s office and the blood test came back. We are for sure pregnant.”
A soft tender smile came over his face. He leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss on her lips. She longed to cling to him, to have him take her to his bedroom so that she would forget about how the visit from her father had disturbed her. And that instinct, to block what she was feeling with sex with him was what had gotten her pregnant. And she knew that was something that neither of them needed at the moment. It would only complicate things and send the wrong message. If they ever slept together again, she wanted it to be for no other reason than their desire for each other.
He leaned back and looked at her. “This is a good thing, right?”
“Yes, I’m very happy that this baby is a reality. While it wasn’t planned, it is wanted, at least by me.” She looked at him for reassurance, and while she was fairly certain that this baby was wanted by him too, the sudden appearance of Dwight Chambers had thrown a lot of things into question.
Just because a man wanted to be a father, didn’t mean that he wanted to be one forever. Alex may want this baby now, but what would happen in a couple of years? Would he still feel the same when the reality of being responsible for another person really sank in?
He frowned at her. “You know I want this baby. I have made no bones about that from the moment you told me. Is there something else going on here? You said you had two things to tell me.”
“I went to my house today, to pick up my car and get a few things.” She knew that he hadn’t wanted her to go out by herself, so she felt she had to let him know that she had been safe while at her house. “I had Luke take me over and he checked out the house before I went in.”
Alex took her hand and gave it a squeeze. “I know that your independence doesn’t mean you’d take foolish risks. Did something happen while you were at your house?”
“Yes. It was after Luke left. A man came knocking on the door, and he told me that he was my father.” She looked at him, expecting to see shock on his face at the bombshell she’d just dropped. There was nothing on his face, no reaction, no shock. He just looked at her as if he expected her to continue. “You don’t seem very surprised by that. I know we haven’t known each other for a long time, but trust me, Dwight Chambers coming back in town after all this time is a big deal for me.”
“The reason I’m not surprised is that I’ve seen him. He came to the bar asking to speak to Logan and to ask about the bartender job. What time did you see him?”
“It was this morning, I’m not sure exactly when but it was a couple hours before lunch. What time did he show up at the bar?” When she’d told him that he would have to talk to the alpha of Cold Bay about staying, she didn’t think he’d take her up on it. She thought for sure that he’d disappear from her life again, and she could put him from her mind. He would just be an odd blip in her life and she would pretend that he hadn’t shown up. Now it looked like he’d been serious about staying.
“Just before lunch. Logan will let him stick around, and once he checks his references, he’s more than likely going to offer him the bartender job. Is that going to be an issue for you?”
She wasn’t sure what she should say to that. When she was a kid she used to dream about the day that her father would come back into her life. For years she would go to bed at night hoping that the next day he would come home, walking back in the door as if he’d never left.
But now she wasn’t so sure she wanted him back in her life. The time he’d spent away was too long and having him show up again dredged up a lot of old feelings that she didn’t want to deal with.
“Honestly, I don’t know. I can’t help but wonder why now? Did he say anything to Logan about why he’s shown up out of the blue?” There had to be a reason behind all this.
“He told Logan that he wanted to get to know his daughter.”
Mercy gave a bitter laugh. “Like I said, why now? He left twenty-three years ago, and he had plenty of opportunities to come back, to get to know me. It’s not like I was the one who disappeared and he didn’t know where to find me. He found me exactly in the same place I’ve been my entire life, in the house that he walked out of one morning and never came back to.”
“Well, if he has a reason for being here other than what he says, I’m sure it will come out, eventually. If he gets the job at the bar, at least Logan will be able to keep an eye on him and so will I? Do you know much about him?”
Mercy shook her head. “I know next to nothing about him. My mother wasn’t exactly forthcoming about him. Whenever I asked, she would just say that he was gone and not coming back. When I kept pestering her, she told me he was dead. I asked her how, and she broke down, saying that she didn’t know but the man she’d mated with, her Dwight, would never have left her unless he was dead. I guess she was wrong about that.”
Mercy’s mouth gave a bitter twist. That’s what pissed her off the most. Dwight Chambers had not only left her mother to raise a child by herself, but he'd also hurt her in the deepest way possible. The only way her mother could cope with it was to lie to herself, to tell herself that the man she loved had died.
“Did he say anything to you while you were at the house? Anything that would give you a clue about why he’s here now?”
“He said that he wanted to tell me why he left all those years ago. Apparently, he had a reason, although I have no idea what it could be. I’m not sure I want to know. The truth is he left.”
“Well, you don’t have to see him if you don’t want to. The only place he knows to find you is at your house, and you aren’t staying there.” He put his arm around her and pulled her close to him. “Besides, maybe once he sees that you aren’t interested in getting to know him, he’ll be gone again.”
She leaned her head against his shoulder and snuggled closer to him. There was something that had been troubling her all day, and sitting this close to him, she thought about telling him. “When I was a kid, there was a part of me that blamed myself. He and my mother had been together for six years before I came along. I always thought that his leaving had something to do with me. That there was something about me that made him not love me enough to stay.”
He tightened his arm around her. “Whatever reason he had for leaving, I’m sure that it had nothing to do with you. Some men have trouble sticking around, and there is no good explanation for it. But I don’t want you to think for one second that there is something wrong with you. You were a little girl. You aren’t to blame for his leaving.”
She nodded her head but said nothing as she rested against him. For most of her life, deep down, she’d blamed herself for her father walking out the door and never coming back. And a few words of reassurance from Alex weren’t going to miraculously make that disappe
ar.
“Should I talk to him?” All her instincts told her to avoid Dwight, that what he had to say was too little too late. That by talking to him and listening to him, she was opening herself up to a world of hurt. And he’d hurt her enough by abandoning her when she was little.
Alex’s arms tightened around her for a moment. “I don’t for one second think you owe him anything. He’s the one who left, and if you don’t want to give him the time of day that is your prerogative. But if you think it would help you to hear what he has to say, then you should. It’s up to you to decide.”
“I’ll think about it, I guess.” And that was as far as she would go to committing to talking to her estranged father. Alex was right, she didn’t owe Dwight anything. But didn’t she owe it to herself to find out what had taken him away from her and her mother? Was talking to him about it the key to finally putting his abandonment behind her?
8
Alex groaned when his phone went off on his bedside table.
It can’t be time to get up yet.
He’d stayed up with Mercy, just talking to her until she’d fallen asleep against his shoulder. He’d carried her to the guest room and settled her into bed. It had taken him a while to get to sleep after that because his mind wouldn’t stop.
And his phone was another thing that wouldn’t stop. He groped for it and looked at the screen so he could hit the snooze and realized it wasn’t his alarm. It was Logan calling him.
His voice was gravelly and indistinct when he answered.
“Sorry for waking you up, but I wanted to let you know that I’m not opening the bar today.”
Alex blinked up at his ceiling as he tried to process what Logan was saying. It was Friday, and tonight would be one of the busiest nights for the bar. Closing it didn’t make any sense.
“Why, what’s happening?”
“You’ll figure it out once you get out a bed and look outside. Enjoy your day off.”
The call disconnected, and Alex threw the phone aside on his mattress. He rolled over and snuggled into his pillow. He didn’t want to waste the opportunity of a surprise day off by worrying about why.
He closed his eyes and was on the cusp of sleep when he heard the sound of Mercy rushing to the bathroom and shutting the door hard. She was up and sick, and he rolled over onto his back. Although there wasn’t much he could do for her at the moment, it felt like a shitty thing to do to sleep through her suffering.
He moved over to the edge of the bed and sat up. With a big yawn, he rubbed his fingers over his eyes to clear away the sleep. He stood and stretched, walked over to his dresser and pulled on some comfortable clothes. He’d go to the kitchen and get some crackers for her to nibble on. They seemed to help settle her stomach, and he wanted to do whatever he could to make things easier for her.
He walked out of his bedroom and was going down the hall just as Mercy emerged from the bathroom. She looked pale and her eyes were watery but she smiled softly at him when he came up to her.
“Morning sickness still bad?” He reached out his hand and rubbed her back. She leaned against him for a moment before she straightened.
“I’m getting used to it. When it first started it was horrendous because I hadn’t figured out the pattern and how to deal with it. I know a little more about it now.”
“Do the crackers help?”
“Yes, they do.”
He put his arm around her as they went down the hall. He guided her to the sofa and pulled away from her.
“You just sit and take it easy and I’ll get you some crackers so you have something in your stomach.” He turned away and went to the kitchen. As he was setting the crackers on a plate, he looked out the kitchen window and smiled when he saw what had happened overnight. It had been lightly snowing when he’d come home from the bar, but the snow had gotten a lot harder during the night.
Everywhere outside the window a thick blanket of snow covering everything, and it had gone back to softly falling flakes again. But there was enough out there that the branches of the trees he could see were bent under the weight, and it was going to take some time for people to dig themselves out.
No wonder Logan had opted to close the bar. The residents of the area were used to snow since Cold Bay and the surrounding area got a lot of snow every winter. But this was the first heavy one of the year, and most businesses in town would be closed.
He turned and went into the living room. “Look out the window.”
She gave him a funny look and went over to the big picture window in the living room and pulled open the curtains. She gasped and squealed like an excited little kid. He remembered when they’d had their date after her doctor’s appointment that she said she liked snow. She clearly hadn’t been exaggerating if the huge smile that spread across her face when she turned back to him.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” She came back to him and tilted her head so she was looking up at him. He didn’t know about the snow, but as he looked down at her, it was her that was beautiful. Although her skin was still a little pale from her bout of sickness, her excitement over the snow lit up her eyes. And he realized that no matter how much time he spent with her, he would always be a sucker for those eyes.
Her smile slowly faded as her eyes darted down to his mouth. It was all the invitation he needed to lean down and kiss her. His mouth found hers in the softest of kisses. The desire for her that slumbered inside him flared to life, but he kept his touch soft as he reached up to cup her cheek. He would treat her like a skittish animal and let her get used to small touches from him until she was unlikely to bolt.
He kept himself under tight control as he kissed her. She pressed against him, and he put one arm around her. He deepened the kiss as the smell of her shampoo invaded his senses, and her mouth parted under his. Tension tightened his body, and he knew it was time to end this kiss. The point was to get her used to him kissing her, touching her without the expectation that she jumped into bed with him.
He drew back and her eyes slowly drifted open. There was a warm desire in the depths of her topaz eyes, and they almost broke the iron will he had over himself. But he had an end in mind, one that involved him and Mercy being together for the rest of their lives. They would raise this baby and all the other children that followed, and if that was his goal, this moment was a tiny blip against all the moments to come. He had all the time in the world to make love with her again. And he could use that time to build on the desire he could see when he looked into her eyes.
And he knew that he’d made the right decision to end the kiss because under the desire, he could see the hesitation in her eyes too. It was that hesitation that made him take a step back and smile down at her. He and Mercy would sleep together again, but not until that small bit of caution was gone from her eyes.
“I brought you crackers.” He set the plate on the table beside the sofa and acted like nothing out of the ordinary had happened. “Eat them to settle your stomach.”
She looked at him as a puzzled frown creased her forehead. She went to the sofa and did as he suggested, nibbling on the crackers but he could see slight confusion on her face. He knew that she’d been feeling the same desire that he had during the kiss, and he was sure she was confused about why he wasn’t pushing for more. That he seemed content to kiss her and then move away as if kissing her was enough.
“I’m going to make some coffee, but I’ll stay in the kitchen with it so it doesn’t set off your nausea.” He turned and left the room. As soon as he got to the kitchen, a huge smile stretched across his face. He resisted the urge to rub his hands together when he remembered the confusion on her face when he’d left the room. Little did she know that he was on a mission, that his end game was a life spent with her.
And even if it wasn’t, she was worth taking his time with. While the longing he had for her was always there, he knew that the delay would make when they finally came together all the sweeter. And fortunately, the snow had given him the opportunity t
o spend all day with her.
He went about making coffee as he planned in his head. He needed to keep her on her toes, to keep her guessing. He would build the desire inside her until there was nothing she could do but find expression with him. And he needed to be subtle because he knew enough about Mercy to know that she was afraid. Not of him, because he’d done nothing to make her think that he would hurt her. He was fairly certain that she was afraid to fall for him because she somehow got it in her head that she wasn’t worthy of him.
It didn’t take a genius to figure out that her father leaving had messed her up. So he had an uphill battle to convince her that he wasn’t going anywhere. He would have to be patient with her and show her that she had every right to expect him to treat her like she was precious to him because she was soon becoming that way.
He would give her time to get curious about that kiss he’d given her in the living room, and also to plant the seeds inside her that would make her want more.
The coffee was ready, and he poured himself a cup and went to sit at the kitchen table. He looked up in surprise when he saw Mercy walk in.
She sat down at the table across from where he was sitting, and he frowned at her.
“Are you going to be okay in here while I drink my coffee? Do you want me to dump it?” He normally needed the jumpstart that his morning cup of coffee gave him, but if it was going to make her feel sicker than he would get rid of it.
“No, don’t do that. The crackers have helped and if I don’t think about the smell too much, I should be okay.”
He nodded and sipped at his coffee. He could see her studying him, and he pretended not to notice. There was speculation in her eyes, and he hid his smile in his coffee mug.
“I think when I’m done here I’m going to go out and clear off the front porch and maybe the driveway.” He took another sip of his coffee and looked at her.
“Aren’t you working today?”
