by Molly McLain
She almost laughed. Instead, she looked him square in the eye and swallowed. “I love you.”
He blinked and a flicker of something soft flashed in his eyes. That was something at least. Still, he said nothing in return and that killed her.
“But those promises you can’t make me? They’re a deal breaker. I want all of you, Mark. Your body and your heart. At this point, it’s pretty clear that isn’t going to happen. We can’t screw ourselves closer to a meaningful relationship if it’s not even something you want.”
Like she’d done far too often lately, she walked away from him, vowing it’d be the last time she’d ever compromise her heart for this man.
Baby or not.
***
“Fuuck!”
With one swipe, everything on top of the kitchen island went flying. Papers danced in the air, glass hit the floor, shit broke...
Mark blinked at the mess for less than five seconds, his nostrils flaring and blood rushing in his ears, before he took off to the bedroom for clothes.
You want her to compromise, but you’re not willing to do the same.
Bullshit.
Well, mostly bullshit. He’d worked his ass off to get where he was in his career and he loved the responsibility of making sure the people he cared about were safe. There been times during his deployment he hadn’t been able ensure that and he’d had friends he couldn’t protect afterward either. He couldn’t prevent every bad thing from happening, but sure as hell could try. He’d seen too much loss in his own life—his dad, his fellow soldiers, citizens of a country he couldn’t even stand... If he could keep others from having to deal with that same miserable pain, he’d do it. Every day for the rest of his life.
Ally? She was the color in his otherwise black and white world. A bright kaleidoscope of goodness, so beautiful and full of life. If there was anyone he wanted to wrap his arms around and shield from all the shit in this world, it was her.
Did he love her? Damn right, he did.
He pulled on a pair of jeans and a hoodie, then stuffed his feet into a pair of boots and raced out the door.
He didn’t find her at her apartment and she wasn’t at Jenny’s either. She probably wasn’t in a frame of mind to go to the coffee shop, but he swung by just in case. The lot was empty, having already closed for the night. Even McCauley’s lot was sparse for a Friday.
Where the hell could she have gone?
He reached for his cell, where it normally sat on the console, but then he remembered it flying off the counter with the candle holder and banana rack. Shit, it was probably in pieces.
He came to a stop at the light, scrubbed his hands over his face and cursed himself for not chasing after her immediately. The only other place she might have gone was to her parents and that was the last damn place he wanted to have this knock-down-drag-out with her.
Unless...
He craned his head from side to side and drummed his fingers against the wheel. He’d wanted to do the right thing with Ally, but waiting around for the perfect moment clearly hadn’t worked out in his favor. And something told him his time was ticking off a lot faster than he was prepared for.
Losing Ally? Not an option. Which left only one thing for him to do.
***
How many times had she walked away?
How many times had he broken her heart by letting her?
With shaking hands and trembling knees, she climbed out of the car and pulled in a full breath of brisk night air. The river rumbled on the other side of the park’s rock barrier and her headlights brightened the path so she could walk closer to the water without tripping.
Was she being too greedy? Wanting more from Mark than he could offer?
She closed her eyes and tipped her face up to the moonlight, the breeze drying the moisture on her cheeks. No, she wasn’t asking too much. She wanted him to love her as much as he loved his job—ideally, more—but if he couldn’t seem to conjure any love for her at all, what was there to bargain with?
Had he been any other man, there’d be no bargaining at all. She deserved someone who loved her without compromise. Only...she loved Mark so much it hurt and thought of not being with him at all incomprehensible, no matter what she might have said in the heat of the moment. No matter how pathetic it might make her to settle for someone who wasn’t willing to give her as much as she was willing to give him.
But even part of Mark was better than the totality of every other guy she’d ever dated. And being with him, even just the pieces of himself he was willing to share...she couldn’t even think about how he made her feel without getting lightheaded. Or without her heart hiccuping and the butterflies letting loose in her belly.
A belly that was possibly growing his child.
A child they’d never talked about. A child she hoped he could bring himself to love, even if he couldn’t do the same for her. Because, if there was a baby—and God help her, she hoped there was—at least she’d have a part of Mark forever.
***
“Evening, Sheriff.” Despite it being after nine o’clock, Ally’s dad opened the door before Mark could knock a second time. “What brings you to this part of town so late on a Friday night?” The man’s green-hazel eyes—just like Ally’s—laughed, even as the rest of his demeanor remained serious, eying up Mark with blatant fatherly suspicion.
“I was wondering if you’d seen Ally tonight, Mr. Barrett.” He tucked his hands into his pockets and glanced down, toeing the welcome mat like a nervous teenager.
“Mr. Barrett, huh?” The older man stepped out onto the porch and closed the door behind him. “Not sure you’ve ever addressed me as anything other than Hank before, Mark.”
Ha. “Not sure you’ve ever called me Mark before either, sir.”
“Sir?” Hank gave a bark of laughter as he paced toward the pair of Adirondack chairs situated in front of the bay window. “That kind of talk makes an old man feel like he ought to invite his shotgun to the conversation.”
Definitely should’ve done this months ago.
Hank lowered into a seat, stretching his bad leg out in front of him and gesturing for Mark to take the other chair. “Well, boy, you gonna sit or you gonna make me get up and get that gun?”
“You shouldn’t threaten the law like that, sir.” Mark smirked as he sat, but Hank’s straight-faced stare said he didn’t find any humor in the words.
“When it comes to fathers and their daughters, there is no law. At least not any that can’t be broken. I don’t give a damn if you’re the big wig in this county or not.” Hank arched an eyebrow. “If you’re here to tell me something I don’t wanna hear, that badge of yours won’t stop me from doing what I gotta do. Now how about you start by telling me why you’re looking for Ally this late at night?”
Leaning his elbows on his knees, Mark pushed his hand into his hair and sighed. Where to begin? “We had a disagreement. She left pretty upset. I can’t find her now and I thought maybe she came out here.”
Hank grunted. “Okay, maybe we need to back up a bit first, son. How about you tell me why you and my daughter would even be sharing company, let alone having a disagreement.”
He deserved this. He knew he did. Didn’t make it any easier to come clean though. Not when he had a year’s worth of guilt piled up.
“Ally and I have been seeing each other for a while.” Maybe the man wouldn’t ask for the specifics.
“Define a while.”
Shit. “Uh...” Heat began to creep up the back of his neck. “Since last year, sir.”
“Is that so?” Hank leaned back a bit, his eyes wide and mocking. Mark almost smiled at the sarcasm. Obviously her family knew they’d been seeing each other. There was no way she could have come and gone from his place all those weekends without her parents knowing what they’d been up to.
“Yes, but things haven’t been going so great lately and tonight...” Fuck. He wasn’t a sugar coater and something told him Hank would call him on it if he trie
d. “Well, the past month we kinda...” They kinda what? Had hardly spoken to each other? Had only gotten together for a couple of rounds of rushed, impromptu sex? “Shit, this is harder than I thought it would be.”
“You think it’s any easier for me to hear? You’ve been messing around with my little girl for how long now and you and I are just now having a man-to-man about it? I gotta tell ya, Mark, it’s not what I expected from a man who’s vowed to serve and protect not just this county, but this country too.”
Mark nodded. What else could he do? “I should’ve come to you when Ally and I first got together.”
“Damn right you should have. Hell, I would’ve even been happy with you coming over for Sunday supper from time to time. Eileen too.” Hank shook his head and cast his gaze out across the fields. “The only reason I can figure you didn’t was because you knew what you were doing with Ally wasn’t right. Yet, you continued doing it anyway. Makes a man wonder about your intentions now. And how on earth you think you can fix any of this mess you’ve created.”
Had Ally talked to her dad? Told him about their falling out? Hank sure seemed to know an awful lot about their relationship, even though he claimed to not.
“I’m in love with your daughter, sir.” Might as well just lay it all out there. Holding back hadn’t gone so well for him up to this point.
If Hank was surprised—or even pissed—he didn’t show it. He just sat there staring Mark down, his expression giving nothing away. Well, the old man could stare all night, because Mark was used to stare-offs. He used the tactic himself on a regular basis to make men break.
After what felt like hours, Hank finally looked away, his gaze sweeping across the wide open space before them again. The cornstalks waved in the breeze and the dry, earthy scent of fall filled Mark’s nose. The aroma made him think about his first night with Ally. A girl he’d always admired from a distance because when they’d been younger, he was too old for her. But she’d grown up and he hadn’t been able to resist the temptation any longer. They’d made love that night with the windows open, the autumn air cooling their sweaty, overheated skin.
He shivered, because that night hadn’t been about the most amazing sex of his life—it was about finding the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.
“Ally’s the only one for me, sir. But I wanted to be sure she felt the same about me and, in the process of trying to accomplish that, I hurt her. I was stupid. And I’ve been trying to find a way to make it right ever since.” He had no problem admitting his mistakes, but confessing his fuck-ups to Ally’s father was a different story. He wanted this man’s approval, because that’s just how it was done around there. And Ally loved her family more than anything. It’d be important that her father approve of them taking the next step with their relationship.
Hank leveled with him again. “It’s starting to sound like maybe you came here tonight with something specific on your mind. Almost like you were hoping Ally wouldn’t be here after all.”
Mark nodded. “I need to find her, but I was hoping to talk to you, too.”
“Well?” Hank lifted a hand.
“Well what?”
“What the hell are you waiting for? We’ve talked. Now go find my little girl, Sheriff.”
Chapter Eight
Fueled by adrenaline and a sudden need to know right freaking now, Ally pulled into the rear parking lot of the coffee shop and rushed to the door. With the drugstore bag tucked beneath her arm, she fumbled to get her key in the lock, nearly dropping it twice. Once inside, she dropped her purse on the kitchen floor and raced to the bathroom, frantically pushing down her pants and tearing open the test.
Only she didn’t have to pee. Like, at all.
Dammit.
She sat there for five minutes waiting, but...nothing. Fine time for her newly outgoing bladder to play shy.
Sighing, she pulled her pants back up and went to the kitchen for a glass of water. While she waited for the liquid to cycle through her body, she pulled out the dry ingredients for the pumpkin pies she’d make tomorrow morning. And when she still didn’t have to pee, she figured she might as well just whip up the filling.
Was that a twinge down south?
Nope. Might as well make the crust too.
She had six pies in the big, industrial-sized double oven before the first inkling of needing a potty break stirred below, and even then it took several minutes for her body to cooperate and for her hands to stop shaking enough to hold the stick between her legs without dropping it in the toilet.
After she’d done her thing, she set the wand on the counter, washed her hands, and went back to the kitchen to wait. Might as well be productive, because as soon as time was up, all bets were off. Heck, she’d be lucky enough to make it through the baking time left on the oven without losing her mind. But she’d started the pies and now she had no choice but to wait them out.
At the five minute mark, she took her time walking back to the bathroom, feigning interest in the pictures on the walls. Like being casual about what waited for her would make her any less of a wreck when she finally knew. Regardless of the outcome.
She picked up the stick, bit at her lip, and did the only thing she could do—she pulled the second wand from the double pack, because one test alone couldn’t be one hundred percent accurate, could it? While she waited for the second test to finish, she went to Gladys’ office instead, because the pumpkin pie smell...blech. She refused to be sick in the middle of baking.
She curled up on the sofa her boss’s grandkids napped on when she brought them to work with her now and then. Wow, was she exhausted. No surprise, really, since she hadn’t managed to stay up this late in weeks. A quick nap would do her good, and the pies had forty-five more minutes to go anyhow. The test...well, it wasn’t going to change if she didn’t look at it right away, now was it?
And honestly, the longer she waited, the longer she could pretend her life wasn’t about to change forever.
***
Mark sat in the parking lot of Ally’s apartment building for almost two hours, with the exception of another spin around Jenny’s block to see if Ally had shown up there in the time he’d gone out to the farm. She hadn’t. And Jenny had only given him the stink eye when he’d knocked on her door and asked her to call Ally for him. He’d tried to use his broken phone as an excuse, but Jenny hadn’t bought any of it. Her only offering was to tell him he was an idiot before she closed the door in his face.
It was close to midnight before he started to think maybe Ally wasn’t coming home at all. That maybe something more serious than him being an ass had happened to her. Setting his pride aside, he finally radioed dispatch and asked that the on-duty deputies keep an eye out for her car.
“Parker says he saw her pulling into Cedar Street a few hours ago,” Rob said over the unit a couple minutes later. “He’ll run by and see if she’s still there.”
“Thanks, man.” He was half-tempted to go into town himself, but in the off chance she was already headed home, it’d be better for him to wait. He rested his head against the back of the seat, closed his eyes, and tried to ignore the sappy lyrics of the country ballad playing on the radio. He could’ve just changed the station, but suffering through the stabbing ache in his chest seemed the least he could do. The pain he’d caused the woman he loved was a lot worse.
The song ended and another began, but the police radio squawking with the county fire tone drowned it out.
“Cameron County Dispatch to River Bend Fire. You have a general fire alarm at 106 Cedar Street. I repeat, a general fire alarm at 106 Cedar Street. We’ve got a deputy in the area. He’ll report back with more.” Rob’s voice was as steady and matter of fact as always, but the hairs on the back of Mark’s neck rose.
“101 to County Dispatch,” he said slowly into his hand radio.
“Go ahead, 101.”
“Copy that address on Cedar.”
“10-4, 101. Address is 106 Cedar Street. Depu
ty on scene just reported a silver car at the back of the building and heavy smoke coming from the rear door.” There was a pause before Rob came on again. “Cameron County Dispatch to River Bend EMS. You are needed to respond with River Bend Fire to 106 Cedar Street for a report of heavy smoke and a general alarm. Potential occupancy of the premise. I repeat...”
Motherfucker.
Mark slammed the truck into reverse and swung out of the park spot. From the corner of his eye, the front door to the apartment building flew open and Nick rushed out. In no time, he was on Mark’s tail, both of them flying into town with their hazards flashing.
Nick radioed in his response to the call, stating he’d report straight to the scene and by the time they arrived at the coffee shop, the fire department’s first response vehicle was already there. Mark slid out of his truck, not bothering to shut it off or close his door, because goddammit, Ally’s car was parked out back and there was no sign of her outside the building. Smoke seeped from the cracks in the frame of the back door and the two first responders wasted no time, running around to the front of the building to gain safer access.
What felt like forever later, the back door opened and large clouds of dark gray smoke billowed out. No flames though. And no Ally.
Mark rushed toward the door, the blood rushing so hard in his ears that the sirens wailing in the distance barely broke into his awareness. All he knew was that Ally was inside and he needed to get her out...now.
“Whoa!” Nick stepped in front of him, placing a hard hand to the middle of his chest. “I don’t see any gear on you, Sheriff.”
“Ally’s in there!” he roared. “She’s in there and I need to—”
“You need to calm down and let my men do their job.” Nick gave him a shove backwards and then said something into his radio. Parker appeared out of nowhere, unfolding an arm across Mark’s chest and corralling him out of the way as two more fire trucks swarmed onto the scene. Men in dingy yellow gear got to work fast and then one of the first responders appeared at the back door, waving more in. Without Ally once again.
