by Molly McLain
With his presence and his touch and his kind words, Mark had made the whole situation feel like a dream. A dream she never wanted to wake up from.
But she had to, because it wasn’t just about her anymore. She had this baby to think about too and, while accepting herself as a subsidiary in Mark’s life was one thing, she wouldn’t force that half-measured affection on her child.
She had to fight, though, too. She had to try and make this work, because what if this baby changed everything? What if fathering a child became the catalyst that finally made Mark realize there was more to life than living for others? That there was also life comprised of people who loved him for the man he was beneath the uniforms he wore?
She owed her child that chance even if it meant having her heart broken all over again in the process.
“Red? You home?” A familiar and welcome voice sounded from the living room.
“Gladys!” Ally pushed out of bed, pausing for a second when a wave of nausea hit.
Gladys stood just inside the door carrying two paper bags billowing with plastic containers. Plastic containers that smelled like Olive Garden but better—Gladys Garden.
“I burned down your kitchen and you brought me food?” Ally blinked at her boss, tears instantaneous in her eyes.
“Eh, we needed a new oven anyhow. It was obviously only a matter of time before that one shorted out and bit the dust.” Gladys set the bags on the counter and pulled off her coat.
“Is that what happened? I mean, are you sure it wasn’t entirely my fault?” Ally sniffled. “Because I’ll own up to it, Glad. I’ll take the blame.”
“Honey, I don’t give a rat’s ass how it started, okay? All that matters is you’re okay.” Gladys stepped close and cupped Ally’s cheeks in her cool hands. “What happened that you didn’t hear the alarm, doll face? Were you sick again?”
She and Mark had agreed not to tell anyone, but... “I’m pregnant.”
The older woman’s eyes went wide. “Oh shit, whose baby is it?”
Ally gasped and swatted the woman’s hands away. “What do you mean whose baby?”
Gladys lifted both shoulders, her lips twisting uncertainly. “I don’t know. Rumor is that you and your new neighbor have gotten friendly.”
“Nick? Are you kidding me? Glad, you know I wouldn’t do that to Mark.”
Another shrug. “Hey now, I’m not getting any younger. Maybe I like to pretend I’m living vicariously through you from time to time. And that fire chief?” She whistled under her breath. “I wouldn’t mind helping him with his hose, if you know what I mean.”
Eew. “Are people really saying that he and I are messing around?”
Gladys nodded. “A few. Ever since you started living across the hall from one another. They’re saying he’s the reason you and Mark haven’t got back together yet.”
Unbelievable. But even more concerning was that Gladys had bought into the gossip. “I thought you knew me better than that.”
“Aw, sweetie, I do. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, but I’m not going to be the first person to ask when word gets around.” She glanced down at Ally’s still-flat stomach. “Does the sheriff know?”
“Yes. He stayed with me at the hospital last night.” Ally went to her bedroom and came back with her cell phone. She brought up the picture the radiology tech had forwarded to her email address. Mark had one on his phone, too. He’d dubbed the baby ‘the alien’, while she thought it resembled a bean. So that’s what she was calling it in her head. The Bean. “Wanna see?”
Gladys oohed and aahed over the black and white image that was barely discernible as anything other than a black circle with a grayish something-or-other floating in the middle. “So, I get to be Grandma Gladys, right?”
Ally snorted. “I don’t know. Five minutes ago, you thought I was banging my neighbor.”
Gladys grinned, but then the expression softened. “Are you okay with this, sweetie? Things have been so tough going for you and Mark.”
“I’ve always wanted children.” She stared at the image again, a warm and fuzzy sensation wrapping like a soft glove around her heart. “So, yes, I’m more than okay with this. I just need to find out if Mark feels the same.”
“How did he react?”
“He told me he loves me,” she whispered, because, dammit, there were those tears again. “And that we’ll be okay.”
“Okay as in together okay?”
She nodded. “But I’m scared he’s just trying to do the right thing. He’s never said the L-word before, so it’s hard not to wonder if...”
Gladys pulled her in for a hug, letting Ally cry big, fat tears into her shoulder. “I understand, honey. Stepping up to the plate no matter the circumstances is the sheriff’s nature. I can see why you’d question his motivation. But I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again—that boy really does love you. There’s no doubt in my mind.”
“But I need to know that,” Ally protested. “I don’t want to find myself in a shitty, loveless relationship—maybe even a marriage—five years down the road because he’s with me for the wrong reasons now.”
Gladys smoothed her hair back from her face and patted her cheek. “Give it time. You’ll see.”
That’s all she could do, wasn’t it? Wait and see.
She had time on her hands anyway.
Eight months, to be exact.
Chapter Eleven
Mark wasn’t afraid of much. He’d seen plenty of terrifying, crazy shit in his line of work and he’d lived through two dangerous deployments to Iraq. He’d had guns pointed at him more times than he could count and there were times he wasn’t sure he’d come out alive.
Sitting two chairs down from Hank at the Barrett family’s Thanksgiving Day meal was much the same.
For all the dirty looks the man had been giving him, it was like he’d developed some kind of sixth sense. A sense that knew exactly when and how Mark had impregnated his daughter.
“So, Sheriff, I heard you lost your witness in that drug investigation you’ve been working on.” Hank leaned back in his seat, his long arms crossed over his chest while he, Luke, and Mark waited for Ally and her mother to return to the table with pie.
“Unfortunately, yes.” The young woman, who’d been clean for several months, overdosed two days before the case was set for trial. “But we’ll still nail the guy to the wall. And her new dealer too.”
“This town’s too small for a drug problem,” Hank griped. “Should’ve nipped that in the bud a long time ago.”
No shit. Like he hadn’t been doing his damnedest since he joined the force ten years ago¸ fresh out of the academy. But it wasn’t like drugs were a new issue, and it had only been a matter of time before the dealers and users infiltrated Cameron County.
“Working on it,” was all Mark said. He wasn’t about to piss off Hank over something that wasn’t worth debating when there were much bigger issues at hand. Issues that, when they came out, Mark wanted to be sure and have the upper hand on.
Luke cleared his throat from across the table. “So, Sheriff, I hear you and Ally have been seeing each other for a while now.”
Mark met his friend’s amused gaze with a death glare. He and Luke went way back, and had been friends long before Mark noticed Ally. Not to mention, Luke had given Mark the quintessential brother-to-boyfriend talk the same night Mark and Ally had first hooked up. It was only fitting the guy would have to go and be a jackass about it now, just to rouse Hank and make Mark squirm a little more under the old man’s scrutiny.
“What?” Luke lifted his hands. “I’m just saying it’s taken you a while to make it to this table.”
Fuck you, Luke. Fuck. You.
“The sheriff and I discussed the same thing last week, didn’t we, Mark? The same night as the fire, actually. The same night he promised to keep Ally safe.” The disapproval rang loud and clear in the air and Mark had to dig his heels into the hardwood floor to keep himself from sinking lower in his
chair.
Yeah, he had promised that. And he’d failed miserably, right out of the gate. He’d beat himself up about it for the last six days, especially since Ally still wasn’t quite herself around him. Did she blame him for what happened that night? Because he certainly fucking blamed himself. If he hadn’t been such a self-righteous ass, she might’ve stayed with him and not gone to the coffee shop to bake her frustrations away.
“Leave Mark alone.” Eileen strolled into the dining room with a pie in each hand. Ally followed with a can of whipped cream. She narrowed her eyes at him and gave a subtle nod toward her father.
Crap. He hadn’t told her he’d talked to her dad, and he hadn’t planned on it either. That type of man-to-man conversation ought not to be repeated. Especially in the presence of the woman they’d discussed.
When she reclaimed her seat beside him, he kissed her cheek and whispered in her ear, “I’ll tell you later.”
“So, Mark, Ally just told me you two are going to Hastings to visit your mother this weekend.” Eileen smiled up at him as she served Hank a thick slice of pumpkin pie with a mountain of white cream on top.
“Yes, ma’am, we are. Tony and Brianna are going, too. We’ll be having a late turkey dinner with the whole family.”
Eileen’s grin stretched wide. “That sounds wonderful. Ally, have you been formally introduced to Anne yet?”
Ally shot him a sidelong glance at the same time she squeezed his leg under the table. “Um, no. Not yet.”
Hank grunted, and Luke snorted at the same time his mother set a plateful of apple pie in front of him.
“Ah, well, she’s a very nice lady. You may remember that she and Mark’s father, Evan, used to come over and play cards with your dad and I every Thursday night, when they still lived in River Bend. Kind, kind people.” Eileen reached across the table with a slice of pumpkin pie for her daughter and Ally lurched. Literally lurched in her seat, a hand slapped over her mouth as her face turned a pale shade of gray.
“You okay?” He rubbed a hand up and down her back and, after a moment, Ally nodded.
Behind her hand, she muttered, “I’ll have apple, please.”
Eileen frowned. “But pumpkin is your favorite.”
“I was baking pumpkin pie the night of the fire.” She shrugged and the gesture seemed to appease her family. Mark knew better, and that instigated a fine layer of guilty-as-hell sweat across his forehead.
Somehow, they made it through the rest of dessert and a couple hours of chit-chat over a few hands of cards around the coffee table in the living room. When Ally’s eyelids began to droop, he suggested they call it a night.
“Yes, I could use a pillow right now.” She smiled and got to her feet. “Let me grab the last box of things from my old room first.”
Eileen joined her and Luke excused himself to make sure the chickens were cooped up for the night. That left Mark alone with Hank.
“So,” the old man said as soon as the back door shut behind Luke. “You give any more thought to what I said the other day?”
“Yes, sir, I have.” A lot of thought actually, but it had little to do with Hank’s veiled threat. “That’s why Ally and I are headed to Hastings this weekend, and why I’m here tonight.”
“I’m not talking about courting her and you damn well know that.”
“I know you’re not, and neither am I. But the timing isn’t right.”
Hank gave a brusque, unamused laugh. “Yeah, well, clearly you’ve got an issue with that elusive ‘right time’, don’t you, boy?”
Hank had no idea.
“I promise you, I’m on it.” Mark rolled his shoulders and finished off the last of his coffee.
Footsteps on the stairs kept Hank from saying more and, after promising Eileen it wouldn’t be another year before he joined them again for dinner, he shuffled Ally out the door and toward his truck.
He’d no more than relieved her of the box in her arms when she spun on him with questions in her eyes. “When did you talk to my dad about me?”
“That’s not the kind of information a guy usually shares with his girlfriend.” He stole a quick kiss before he put the box in the backseat and opened the passenger door for her.
“Mark, seriously.” The wind whipped her hair across her face and that rich, reminiscent aroma of autumn at night gave his dick ideas again. Especially with her so near this time.
“Get in the truck, babe. Pumpkin pie is an aphrodisiac for men, haven’t you heard?” He wrapped his hands around her waist and lifted her into the seat, despite her gasp and feeble attempts to swat him away.
“All you think about sex, I swear.”
He made a not-so-subtle grab for one of her pregnancy swollen breasts, palmed it, and squeezed. She purred. Fucking purred.
“I hate you,” she exhaled, her face flushed. “In fact, I take back everything I said about loving you.”
“You won’t be saying that in about twenty minutes when I get you home”
“I’ll be sleeping in twenty minutes.”
He chuckled and shut the door.
Ally ended up being right—she was passed out before they reached her apartment. So he did what any red-blooded man would do—he kept driving and took her to his house instead. She murmured about nothing in particular when he carried her inside and replaced her clothes with one of his t-shirts.
He climbed into bed behind her, his stiffening cock snugged against her ass. He didn’t give in and grind on her like he wanted to, though. He simply placed his hand over the one she held across her stomach...and he let her sleep.
***
“You’ll have to excuse me if I smile too much,” Anne Dunn explained to Ally two days later. “Mark has never brought a girl home before, so you being here is very exciting to me.”
Ally bit her lips together to keep from laughing when Mark rolled his eyes and pretended to shoot himself in the head behind his mother’s back.
His cousin Tony snorted from across the kitchen island, where he’d cozied up with the bottle of beer Mark had handed him a few minutes earlier. Mark flipped him off and then quickly tried to cover up the gesture when Grace, Tony’s mom, strolled in from the living room with baby Brianna on her hip.
“I saw that, Mark Robert,” Grace scolded him, handing a freshly diapered Brianna off to her father.
Mark sidled up to Ally’s side of the island, wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and nuzzled her temple. She relaxed into him while she silently appreciated the difference in dynamic between his family and hers. The Barretts were traditional to a fault, whereas the Dunns were headed by two women. Mark’s father, Evan, and Tony’s dad, Elliot, had both passed away too soon, leaving their wives and sons—both only children—to fill in the empty space. When Anne let him, Mark seemed to take charge where his dad might normally have and that did a little something gooey to Ally’s insides. Would he be the same way with their family?
Hold up, chica—cart before the horse. Again.
“What was that?” Mark smiled down at her while his fingers tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.
“Oh, nothing. Just thinking this is nice.” And it was. Much more low-key than she expected, which helped her relax and keep the on-again off-again nausea at bay.
“Boys, why don’t you go watch football and let us girls chat for a bit?” Anne finished filling the tray of deviled eggs and waved her hand toward the living room.
Mark groaned. “You mean so you can play 20 Questions with my girlfriend?”
Anne batted her eyes. “Whatever do you mean?”
He shook his head and slugged Tony in the arm on his way out of the room. “Come on, man, let’s get away from all this estrogen.”
Tony grinned and glanced between his daughter and Ally, eyebrows raised. “You wanna go to Auntie Ally, Bri?”
Auntie Ally. Well, that certainly had a ring to it, didn’t it? She stretched out her arms and happily took the little girl. Tony had had a rough few weeks, since Nicole, his
love interest, had suddenly left town. At least he was spending time with family, and doing the guy thing for a bit would be even better for him. Besides, looking after Bri for a bit was no chore, since she was possibly the cutest child ever.
When Grace excused herself for a quick nap before dinner, Anne turned an expectant grin on Ally. “I’ve been dying to get you alone.”
“Oh?” Nothing in Anne’s demeanor made Ally nervous, like Mark had clearly been with her parents. Then again, she suspected her father had had plenty to say to Mark whenever they’d had the little chat neither man had been keen to tell her about.
“How are your parents? It’s been years since I’ve seen them.”
“They’re great. Dad had that bad fall a couple years ago and is finally back to one hundred percent again. Mom’s knitting up a storm and selling her stuff in a little shop in town. When she’s not baking or canning something, anyhow.”
Anne laughed. “You can’t imagine how excited I was to hear you were the young lady Mark was bringing this weekend. I feel like I had a front row seat watching you grow up.” She patted Ally’s hand. “How is it that you and Mark got together? I imagine you’ve probably hung out in the same crowd for years.”
“Um...” How to cast the beginning of and Mark’s relationship in a positive, morally acceptable light? “We were friends, yes. He also comes into the coffee shop I work at practically every day. We were both out one night and ended up talking for hours.” She shrugged. “It’s history from there, I guess.”
Anne studied her for a moment, her eyes sparkling beneath the kitchen lights. “Mark’s a hard nut to crack. I’m sure you know that by now.”
Ha. “Yes, that’s something I’ve learned the hard way.”
“Be patient with him, Ally. He means well, but sometimes that results in him taking life too seriously. He saw and probably did a lot more than we’ll ever know about during his deployments. He still carries that burden, you know? Probably will forever.”
Ally nodded. He never talked about his military experience, other than bits and pieces here and there about his monthly drills. Even then, he was tight-lipped. She didn’t push because she knew he’d talk when he was ready to. If ever.
