The Deputy's Baby

by Tyler Anne Snell

  Henry lowered himself beside her and gently pulled her into his side. She didn’t resist. The smell of her shampoo once again filled his senses.

  In that moment all he wanted to do was to comfort her. “After the fire on the ranch, I was pulled from undercover work for a few months. I’d like to say it was for a lot of reasons, but mostly it was because I’d become difficult. All that work the task force had done, or I thought we’d done, and all I had to show for it was a few criminals behind bars and a dead partner. It didn’t seem right.”

  Cassie kept her head at his shoulder but tilted her face up to show she was listening.

  He continued. “I spiraled for a while. Drank some, then drank some more. Questioned life, my career, why I did what I did. Hit a low point and hit it hard. But, like I told you the night we met, I know what it’s like to be the baby of the family. To be told what I needed rather than it being suggested. That’s what my brother did. He drove eighteen hours straight out to my place, made me pack a bag and then made me drive the eighteen hours back.”

  He smiled. “In that time we talked about anything and everything. He didn’t take no for an answer and pushed me to talk about stuff that I hadn’t said to anyone. He made me face the pain of losing Calvin head-on. And then he made me face myself. You see, being undercover like we were wasn’t just about lying. It was about making people believe.” He fisted the hand not around Cassie. If she saw it, she didn’t say anything. “I did some things I’m not proud of to keep my cover and that’s just something I’m going to have to live with. But what had happened to Calvin was different. It changed me. So my brother asked me what I wanted out of life.”

  Cassie moved her head back to meet his gaze. Her eyes were shining but no tears stained her cheeks.

  “I told him I wanted to protect people,” he continued. “That’s all I’d ever wanted to do. Help people and get justice for those who couldn’t get it for themselves. And then he told me about a sheriff’s department that had been in the news that wasn’t too far from where I’d been in Tennessee.” He felt a smile stretch over his lips. “The next week I applied. The week after that I drove in for an interview.” He paused, wondering if he should keep going. But one look into those wide, clear eyes and he decided against it. This story wasn’t about absolving him, it was about comforting her.

  “I wanted and accepted the job at the sheriff’s department because the part of me that has always wanted to do good, to keep people safe, to get the job done, saw that that’s exactly what the Riker County Sheriff’s Department did on a daily basis. They do good. They keep people safe. They get the job done. No matter what, or who, tries to stop them. You got that?”

  A small but true smile lifted the corners of her lips. Cassie nodded.

  “Now, I also firmly believe you meant business about taking that bath. So I’m going to leave you to that.” He stood and grinned. “I’ve seen just how good a shot you are. I’m not about to tempt you to show me just how serious you are.”

  Henry went to the door, but Cassie spoke up.

  Her smile was gone. “You gave me a fake name, said you didn’t have a phone number, disappeared for seven months and then pretended not to know me when you showed up again.” There was no heat in her words. No anger. Just statements. It was more effective than if she’d yelled. “I know we’ve said we’ll talk about it later, but now that doesn’t seem as important.”

  For the first time Henry saw Cassie ball her fist.

  “I just wanted to say thank you for what you’ve done the past few days... But, honestly, I’m still mad. And I don’t think there’s anything you can say that will change that.”

  Kristen cleared her throat. Henry turned to see her outside the door, toothbrush in hand. She was frowning. Henry moved to let her by. She looked almost apologetic as she shut the door to the bedroom behind her.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The bath was getting cold, the bubbles getting low. Kristen had laughed when she’d found the kid’s bubble bath, but Cassie had been delighted. Sure, she liked soaking in the tub, but bubbles made it more fun. Or, at least, they had.

  She leaned back in the shallow tub and moved the suds remaining around her like a blanket. Her body might have relaxed because of the heat, but her mind hadn’t slowed.

  From the attack to Maggie being taken.

  From the fear of Henry being hurt to having to shoot a woman.

  From Henry opening up and then to her letting him in.

  Not to mention pregnancy hormones.

  It was already a lot to take in without those making her emotions go haywire.

  Part of Cassie wanted to cry in bed until she fell asleep.

  The other wanted to scream and jump into a car in search for Maggie herself.

  Another part, small but strong, asked for food. She’d eaten at the hospital, but that had been a few hours ago. It was now nearing one in the morning.

  A soft knock rapped against the door. It startled her out of her thoughts.

  “Come in.”

  The last person she thought would want to talk to her right now popped his head around the opened door. Despite her earlier flip from gratitude to anger at his speech, a thrill went through Cassie’s naked body. She slid down into the water. Henry kept his eyes on hers, not looking down.

  “I just wanted to check on you,” he said, voice tight. “It’s been a while. I was afraid you might have fallen asleep.”

  Cassie sighed. It moved the last of the bubbles across her chest.

  “I thought I’d be more tired, I surely was earlier, but now all I am is worried, mad and hungry. It’s like my mind and body won’t sync up. How can I take what’s going on seriously while all I can think of are doughnuts?”

  Henry held up his finger. “Maybe I can help with that.”

  He disappeared from the door frame. Cassie checked her bubbles again. Her stomach stuck out of the water an inch or so, but the rest of her was hidden. Unless he decided to come stand over her.

  Henry being so near her naked again sent a shiver of longing through her.

  Another thing she’d blame pregnancy hormones on.

  She wanted to be mad that he’d lied, left and lied again. She wanted to put distance between them so she could sort her thoughts and figure out how to move on from them.

  But was that even possible?

  Could she get over Henry Ward?

  Just the sight of him filling the doorway with his masculine frame was enough to send her body into another fit of yearning. His eyes so blue and so true lit up as he shook a bag in each of his hands. Cassie momentarily forgot to be mad.

  “Before we left the hospital I grabbed a few things from the vending machine. Suzy pointed out these are some of your favorites?”

  The man was holding a bag of chips and a pack of M&M’s and he had never looked so sexy.

  She could have cried.

  “I swear you have just answered my prayers,” she said, meaning it. Henry laughed and, keeping his eyes directly on hers, let her reach for the chips. She settled back into the water and opened the bag. Only after she smelled the chips did she feel heat crawl up her neck. “I bet I look like such a slob right now,” she quipped.

  Henry shook his head. “You look like a woman who’s had a hard day.” It was a smart thing to say. “Which you have. If there was a hot tub, I might be in there right now with these.”

  He shook the candy bag she’d left him and started for the door. Cassie didn’t like the thought of him leaving. It made her angry at herself. Then angry at him. Then angry at herself for being angry.

  “Wait,” she called. “If you want, you can stay in here for a little bit.” The blush already burning her cheeks became hotter. Still she pushed through it. “I wouldn’t mind the company.”

  Henry didn’t argue. He shut the door and sat on the floor, back a
gainst it. For a minute they both ate their snacks in silence. It was enough time to sort her thoughts out. She finished off the bag of chips and rested it against her floating belly. With a sigh that had been one of many through the last seven months, Cassie finally got to the heart of what was bothering her.

  All while sitting in the bathtub.

  “Okay, so I guess it was my fault.”

  Henry’s eyes found hers and held. His eyebrow arched high. “What was your fault?”

  “I was naive,” she started after a long exhale. She idly began to move a cluster of bubbles next to her belly with one of her hands. It weirdly helped her nerves. “See, my parents have been with each other since they were fifteen. During their life together they’ve had six kids. Of those six, four have spouses they’re mad about. I mean, over the moon, would do anything for, and two even have those tacky, matching tattoos. Being around them, you can just feel it, too. Like they’ve found their purpose in life within each other. Just like how our parents are. So, it sounds silly, but all I’ve known of relationships is true and unending love.”

  She gave him a wry smile, trying to let him know that she realized what she said probably sounded cheesy. As usual, his expression was guarded. She could no more tell if he thought she was crazy than if he was even listening to her at all. But what she knew of the man, she was sure he was. “Now, I’ve dated and been with men before. But there was never a connection. Never anything that was like what my family had talked about feeling. That is until the night I met you.”

  The courage that had filled her chest the moment before started to wane. She averted her gaze but only for a moment. “That night I felt what I thought was a connection with you. A spark. That’s why I came to your room, that’s why I gave you my number and that’s why I shared your bed. I broke character for the first time in my life because I thought I was following some kind of invisible road to what had made my family happy for decades. I didn’t care that I had only known you for a few hours. It didn’t matter.”

  A lump formed in her throat. Tears welled up behind her eyes. Cassie refused to stop for either. “But I...I was naive. And so I waited for a call, a text. Heck, I would have been happy with a friend request. But nothing came. That’s when I realized that my family wasn’t average. What they had was special and rare and beautiful.”

  The tears that had threatened now fell down her cheeks. “And that made me proud of them, of where I come from. But...but then I felt like a little girl who’d just been told Santa didn’t exist. That love was more complicated than some magical connection. And then...then I found out I was pregnant and the most extraordinary thing happened. The heart I’d just been worried would never find someone to love was stolen by someone I hadn’t even met yet.” She touched her stomach, feeling the love for her child radiate throughout her. She smiled through her tears. “During the next few months I realized that, while my life had taken a different, maybe unconventional, path compared to my parents’ and siblings’, it didn’t mean it wasn’t special in its own right.”

  Henry’s brows knitted together, his jaw hardened. “Cassie, I—”

  She shook her head. She wasn’t to the point yet. The real reason she realized she was so angry. “I also took that time to come to terms with the fact that I’d probably never see you again. I even got used to the idea. Then, all of a sudden, there you were. Walking into that diner wearing a shiny deputy’s badge. And just like that I was back standing at that pool table, laughing at your jokes.”

  Henry got to his feet and started to close the gap between them. Cassie couldn’t read his expression. She didn’t care. She had to say her piece. She had to let them both know what she was feeling because, soon, there would be three of them.

  “After everything that had happened, everything that was going haywire around us, and there you were. Smiling at me over that pool table with those baby blues. I guess I knew then I couldn’t deny it anymore.”

  Henry got to his knees on the tile next to the tub. If he wanted, he could see all of her by just glancing down. But she knew he wouldn’t. He wasn’t that kind of guy. He didn’t take without asking. Or, well, maybe he did.

  Henry was so close she couldn’t help reaching out. He let her trace the sharp line of his jaw as she continued.

  “While my son might have taken all my heart, there was still something inside me that just wouldn’t let go of you.”

  A breath barely stretched between the end of her admission and the beginning of their kiss. Henry moved over the lip of the tub so Cassie didn’t have to move an inch. Not that she could. She hadn’t been fishing for affection from the man. She’d just wanted him to know what she felt. With the madness of everything that had happened, it had been nice to say something certain.

  Now what was certain was the hardness of his lips against hers. The prickle of his facial hair against her fingers. Her mouth parting so his tongue could delve deeper.

  The way one kiss could somehow touch every fiber of her being.

  Henry moved his hands to either side of her face and softened the kiss until he broke it. He was smiling.

  “Cassie Gates, I want to show you something.”

  He released her, to Cassie’s utter surprise, and pulled out his wallet. She couldn’t stop her eyebrow from shooting straight up toward her hairline. He opened the worn leather and pulled something out from behind the plastic protector that held his license. It was a piece of paper. A small piece, ripped from the corner of a hotel notepad.

  Cassie knew this because she’d been the one to do it.

  Henry held the paper up. “The day you gave this to me, I interviewed for a job and was offered that same job on the spot. I accepted it and went straight home, resigned, and had to start tying up loose ends. I gave you a false last name on the off chance you tried to track me down before I could finish because I didn’t want you to get tangled up in my old life. I had decided that after I was finished, and got a new number and officially was done with that life, I would call you.”

  His smile wavered. Cassie hung on his every word.

  “But then my boss pulled me in for one last job that he said needed Gage Coulson. He told me it would be quick. It wasn’t. I finished it up a month ago.” With one hand he reached out and moved a wayward strand of her hair behind her ear. Then he was looking at her like she’d never been looked at before. “I should have still called or done something or said something when I did finally see you. But, Cassie Gates, I was a damn idiot.” That smile found its footing again. “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, and even though I’m an idiot, I kept this piece of paper with your number on it because I’d always hoped I’d see you again. If only to kiss you at least one more time.”

  Cassie dropped her gaze to her handwriting across the paper. He’d really kept it. For seven months. He’d kept it in his wallet.

  “I know you said there isn’t anything I could say to make you not be angry with me, and that’s fine,” he continued, voice lowering. “I just was tired of being quiet about something I should have already said.”

  Henry’s face, for once, wasn’t closed. The walls that he’d been guarding himself with were all gone. He’d opened himself up to her, finally, and now was waiting for her to set the new tone for them. His baby blues searched her face, his lips slunk downward and just when he looked like his was about to move away, Cassie decided what that tone would be for them.

  “So,” she started, trying to keep her expression neutral. “After seven months of waiting, you decided the best time to kiss me was when I was naked, sitting in a cold tub, surrounded by strawberry-scented bubbles, completely hormonal, and with an empty bag of chips sitting on my swollen belly? I have to say, Deputy Ward, I know we might have done this relationship a bit backward, but in the future I wouldn’t mind some romance in my life.”

  Henry’s smile resurfaced and then turned into a grin. �
�Yes, ma’am.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  The rain was a fine mist outside, cooling the ground but not hurting the view. Henry was like a sullen child, pouting as he stared out the window. He’d been in the same state for almost twenty minutes, just watching the wooded area surrounding the cabin. It gave Cassie the time to watch him in turn.

  Broad shoulders nearly blocked the window’s width, filling out his flannel button-up to the point of where it was tight across his biceps. Whatever he had been doing in the last several months, she would bet lifting weights had been a part of his routine. Just as wearing those jeans must also have been on his docket. You just didn’t get that shade of faded denim store-bought. That was true wear and tear. It was amazing it even kept that tush of his in.

  Cassie’s gaze had traveled over that very tush and down across his thighs and calves. She knew them just as intimately as the rest of the man. Taut, muscled and hard from an active lifestyle.

  In fact, she didn’t know if there was a spot on the man that was soft.

  She traced his profile back to the line of his jaw where stubble had sprouted. Then her eyes went to the last feature of the man she hadn’t admired yet in detail.

  There was a softness to his lips. After they had shared their feelings in the bathroom, they’d taken to the couch in the living room. There they’d touched on almost every topic under the sun. There he’d given her more than a fair share of gentle, sweet kisses. Ones that filled her with hope, comfort and had eventually made her feel safe enough to fall asleep.

  Now, an hour or two after she’d woken, he had his eyes outside and his mind somewhere else. She wished she could make him feel better. Just like she wished she could help the men and women of the department who, according to him, hadn’t had any luck in finding Maggie or the rest of the culprits.

  Cassie kept her sigh close to her chest and let her eyes dance across the man who could put fire in her body just by standing still.