“You’re going to be a good father.”
He straightened, smiling. “I’m going to be exactly like my dad, the best father in the world.”
Her heart hitched again, and a surprising sting burned behind her eyes. “Oh, Kenny.”
“Only you,” he joked softly, taking a step closer, making the boat rock. He reached over to touch her face, to graze his knuckles along her jaw, silent. “Can get away with that nickname.”
“What are we going to do?” she whispered.
“We’re going to talk things through and get to know everything about each other. And we’re going to make joint decisions when they affect our child. We’re going to work on your house together, keep you safe and healthy, and then we’re going to have a baby.”
She waited for another stab of resentment, ready to react at his list of things they were going to do. Except, there was no resentment. Because he was right.
She closed her hand over his, turning to press a kiss on his palm. “I’m sorry I jumped down your throat,” she said.
“I’m sorry I tried to run your life.”
She smiled up at him. “You make everything sound easy, you know that?”
“What do I keep telling you? Nothing is impossible. That’s going to be our motto, baby. Nothing is impossible.”
He stepped closer, lowered his head, and kissed her. The boat rocked again, but Beth held on, stayed steady, and kissed him right back. The kiss felt solid and sure, despite the way the world and water swayed under her feet. His lips were warm, his hands strong, and at that moment, Beth started to believe that maybe nothing was impossible.
Chapter Twelve
Beth woke to an empty house, sensing even before she was fully awake that Ken and Sally had left already. She turned in the double bed, waiting for her first morning thought.
I’m pregnant.
And another thought, which made her smile. Nothing is impossible.
What do you know? They had a motto.
The sunset cruise had been a visual overload of the beauty of southwest Florida on a warm May night. By mutual agreement, they avoided land-mine subjects and talked very little, the sound of the engine and the rock of the waves lulling their problems away for a few hours.
It had been dark by the time they got back, and she could tell Ken was exhausted, and facing a twenty-four-hour shift that started—she glanced at the clock at her bedside—half an hour ago. She’d slept in the guest room, and she appreciated that he didn’t even suggest otherwise. And now he’d be gone until this time tomorrow, which gave Beth a full day of the time and space she swore she craved.
But, damn it, she missed him already.
And based on the sweet note he left next to the coffeemaker, with a K-Cup of decaf coffee and a clean mug waiting for her, he’d miss her, too, and promised to call or text. Holding the note, her gaze drifted out to the blue morning water, taking in the sunrise that seemed to hold more promise and hope than anything she’d ever seen.
Could it be that easy? Could they start a life together…backward?
She touched her belly and whispered their motto, saying a silent prayer that he was right. She was nearly eight weeks now. Four more and she’d be home free.
Although, she’d been almost fourteen weeks the last time.
She closed her eyes and tried to push the memory away, not wanting to think about the stab of pain, the blood, the broken sensation of utter loss…and the decision that had followed.
She put her hand on the counter, bracing herself as the unwanted memories flooded back, frightening her with the possibility that history—and her stupid incompetent uterus—could repeat itself.
And every minute that passed with Ken Cavanaugh, that possible loss would hurt even more. She really enjoyed being with him, but she knew that the only reason she was in this house was because of the baby inside of her.
What would happen after this child was born?
What would happen if it wasn’t?
On a sigh, she shook off the what-ifs, took a shower, and forced herself to think about the day ahead, which would include the meeting at EDC. Would Landon be there? Would Josie? She suddenly realized she had zilch in her tote bag that was suitable to wear for a meeting at the corporate offices.
So, on her way to her father’s office, Beth took a detour to check on her house and change.
Inside, the rooms were cool and as noisy as an airfield, with the seven industrial fans the water damage guys had left running in the dining room and kitchen. Everything appeared to be dry, but wrecked.
The kitchen, in particular, hung in that horrendous state of half demo, most of the cabinets gone and the holes under missing countertops gaping and dark.
All she wanted to do was finish and sell.
Yet, here she was, dressing for a serious meeting that might mean taking over a serious company and running some serious business. And she’d told Ken the truth about it last night: As much as she wanted that kind of stability and security for her child’s future, running a multimillion-dollar, many-faceted business didn’t hold as much appeal as ripping a house down to its studs and starting over. She even liked buying and selling property. But the heavy business end? The big developments, the financial wrangling, any non-residential real estate was not her cup of tea at all.
She walked down the hall to her bedroom, frowning at the sight of the open door. She never closed the door normally, but the water damage guys had recommended she close every door inside the house to facilitate the drying out, so she’d shut the door to the second bedroom and the office and the hall bathroom.
And her room.
But it was open, and the other doors were closed.
She had been the last person to leave the house yesterday; she was certain. Or was she certain?
She’d been certain about the water valve, too, so maybe she had pregnancy brain.
Walking slowly and trying to ignore the slight chill that raised the hair on the back of her neck, she stepped into her bedroom and sucked in a breath at the sight of the sheer curtain fluttering.
She rushed to the sliding door and swore softly when she found it unlocked and open an inch. Had she left it that way? It had been a crazy morning with all those firefighters traipsing around. Yes, she could have stupidly left it that way and left her bedroom door open even though she distinctly remembered walking down the hall to close it.
Had she checked the slider then? She pressed her fingers to her temple and cursed softly. The pregnancy hormones were attacking her brain. That was the only explanation.
But if she had closed and locked the slider…then someone had been in this house after she’d left.
Her heart thumped as she turned slowly to examine the room, which looked utterly untouched. No drawers open, the jewelry box on her dresser still closed and, under examination, still holding the few pieces of good jewelry she owned.
Biting her lip with a little trepidation, she whipped open the closet, half expecting to find a dead body in there.
Nothing but her clothes, shoes, and, way up on the top shelf, her storage boxes. But… “Wait a second.”
She flipped on the light and stared at the shelf that held three clear plastic bins of important papers she didn’t want to keep in storage somewhere.
Something was different.
They were stacked…in the wrong order.
She peered at the bins, a crystal-clear memory of the last time she’d had them down. A month ago, maybe, after getting some bank paperwork. But she’d glanced at them a hundred times and could have sworn—would have sworn—they were in a different order.
She distinctly remembered bringing the storage bins down, because the step stool had been wobbly and she almost fell getting them, but she wasn’t sure which bin held work stuff and which held personal.
Would someone actually break into her house and rifle through her papers and photos and…what else was in there? Closing documents on this house, a divorce decree, and….sh
e gasped softly.
The paperwork on John Cavanaugh’s fatal accident on EDC property.
Her heart flipped. Would someone be looking for that? Why? Who?
Who would even know it was there? Her heart turned over again, but this time, it fell into her stomach with a thud.
Ken. He knew she had the paperwork. She’d told him about it yesterday, and he….
“No, he didn’t,” she said out loud, trying desperately to talk her brain out of the direction it was going.
But who else could it be? Who else knew exactly how to get in and out of this house? The firefighters who had been here? Could they have moved the bins?
No, they hadn’t been in her closet. But Ken? She hated that the thought even planted itself in her head.
She marched to the garage, got the step stool, and brought it back to the closet, carefully climbing up. She held on to the clothes and, this time, to be safe, brought one bin down at a time. Only one was particularly heavy, but she very gingerly leaned it against her clothes and had them all on her bedroom floor in less than a minute.
All the while, she was thinking about that white envelope her dad had given her. If it was unsealed, or missing, then she had a problem. A big, fat problem.
With shaky hands, she snapped off the plastic lid and right on top was the envelope, as she’d put it in this bin nearly two months ago.
A punch of relief hit her. At least no one had taken it. But had they opened it? Read it? She remembered the seal; she’d run her fingers along the flap before she’d tossed the packet aside to be filed.
Very slowly, she lifted the envelope, which wasn’t that thick. Please be sealed, she thought. Please be sealed.
It was taped closed.
“What?” She stared at the tape, shaking her head. Had it been taped before? Or had it been sealed? She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to remember. Once again, pregnancy could be blamed for her less-than-stellar memory.
Turning, she gazed at her desk in the corner, seeing her tape dispenser right where it always was.
But she could have sworn…
No, she couldn’t swear to anything. It was lunacy to think someone broke in here, opened this envelope, and read its contents—because it was just about the same weight as when her dad gave it to her, so nothing was taken. She hoped. She wondered.
She let out a noisy breath, rocking back on her heels. This was crazy. She could have easily put those bins back up there in the wrong order.
The envelope was still here, and it had probably always been taped, and she didn’t have a big, fat problem.
Except, the first person she’d mentally accused was the one person she needed to trust most in the world.
So maybe she did have a big, fat problem after all.
* * *
By ten o’clock, it was clear that today would be merciless. Two callouts already and he was down a man until eleven a.m. Ken barely had time to suck down some coffee and review a report log in between a kitchen fire and an old man with chest pains.
He’d sat down to concentrate when Pookie waltzed in and gave a treat to Sally.
“Is that all you wanted?” he asked. “Does Chief Banfield need something?”
“Chief Banfield needs a vacation.” She dropped into the guest chair uninvited. “And he could probably use a little smashup from Mrs. Banfield, if you catch my drift.”
Ken looked up at her. “Your drift is so highly unprofessional, it hurts.”
“Pah!” She flicked her hand at him. “Speaking of smashups…” She lifted a graying brow. “How’s Beth?” she asked in a singsong voice.
“You know, I really think you’re a thirteen-year-old boy trapped in a middle-aged woman’s body.”
“Oh, honey, I’m past the middle and into the final quarter. So, why should I bother with professionalism? You don’t look happy enough to have gotten laid last night, but I could be wrong.”
“You could be.”
She crossed her arms and stared at him. “Soooo?” She drew the question out. “How serious is it?”
“I’m not helping you win that bet.”
She leaned forward. “Hon, you know you’re my favorite.”
“Moonshine said you told him the same thing.”
“He’s too much of a redneck for me, to be honest, though he’s sweet and single. When you’re no longer single, he’ll be my favorite.”
He had to laugh and abandon any hope of finishing the email he was trying to write. “You’ll give up any chance of our finally being together, then?”
“Reluctantly. Plus, there is Fred, my sadly still alive husband.” She cracked a ravaged knuckle that looked like it had been on the receiving end of that action for many years. “But you could be my third, if we knock him off.”
“I’ll put it on my to-do list.” He narrowed his eyes. “Which is long. If you’re done flirting with me and prying into my personal life, Pooks, I need to get back to work.”
“Almost done. I have one more question—”
The alarm screamed, silencing her.
“Station one-six, engine five-five, squad two, respond to an accident with injury. In the intersection of Colonial Boulevard and Fowler Street. Map number 18-41. Time out, ten-o-six.”
“I’m going.” He was up in a flash and around his desk, his ears tuned for any more information from dispatch.
“Bystander reports victim is female, conscious, still in vehicle, and pregnant.”
He stumbled as the word hit, and swore under his breath.
Aware that Pookie stayed by his side, he bounded to join his crew as they turned the corner to meet at the rig.
“What was your question?” he asked before Pookie slipped away to the chief’s office.
“Never mind. You just answered it.”
He forgot about the conversation before he had his gear scooped up and thrown into the rig. They’d need to dress for an extraction, but dispatch hadn’t said it would be anything but an MVA with injury.
They’d beat the ambulance by at least three minutes, which could mean life or death for the victim…or the unborn child.
The rig blew out, full siren, before he even had his seat belt on.
His whole being hummed. It always did on every call, but the words victim is pregnant sucker-punched his chest like they never had before. He shook it off and grabbed the radio mic to deliver a departure time and get more information from dispatch.
“Victim is conscious and speaking,” the dispatcher said. “There’s a state trooper on the scene who reports that the victim is still in the vehicle, airbag damage.”
To her baby. He squeezed his eyes shut, only able to see Beth behind the wheel of her Ford Explorer. No, he couldn’t go there. He, along with two of the men in this rig, were EMT2 certified. He had to think about this woman and this baby, not his woman and his baby.
Irish took a wide turn fast, shaving precious seconds off their arrival time, as the radio crackled with more information.
“Trooper reports that the vehicle was hit on the driver’s side, traveling south on Fowler.” He processed that, pictured the intersection. “Two cars involved, second driver and passenger not injured.”
Just the pregnant woman.
“Victim is hemorrhaging… Lee Memorial ER has been alerted.”
About fifty feet ahead, he saw a bottleneck, with someone in a red van refusing to move to let a compact car get out of their way. The screaming siren apparently meant nothing to that jerk.
“Come on, come on.” Ken tensed and growled out the words under his breath as their speed slowed and Irish navigated around a bus that had pulled over. “Get the fuck out of the way, asshole.”
Irish threw him a look. “I got this, Captain.”
Damn it, he never showed emotion on the job. Never. It wasn’t even in his DNA.
But now that that DNA had created another human being? He felt…different.
Irish blew past the van, whipped onto Colonial, and had them on the scen
e in seconds. Ken snapped on latex gloves and leaped out of the cab, two men close behind, already knowing he was going in as the lead medic until the EMTs arrived.
He approached the vehicle, which was totaled, as the state trooper stepped aside to let Ken reach the victim.
He took a deep breath and looked at the bloodless, wrecked face of a woman he already knew was losing her baby.
If only he could save that baby…if only nothing really was impossible. But he knew better. Every single day in this job, he knew better.
Chapter Thirteen
The mood in the Endicott Development offices was tense. Beth didn’t get the usual bright smile from Jenny at the front desk, and no happy music played from her desktop speakers. In the back offices, most of the doors were closed, including her father’s.
Beth checked her watch, confirmed that she was on time, and turned the corner toward the conference room, nearly slamming into her stepbrother, Landon.
“Whoa there, sis,” he joked as they narrowly avoided a collision. “Are you that anxious to get to the meeting?”
“You’re here for the same meeting?” she asked. Then it couldn’t be about Ken or a twenty-five-year-old accident, she realized with a surprising amount of relief.
She greeted him with a quick hug, seeing a spark of humor in his hazel eyes and…something else. A pull and a tug. Maybe a few hair plugs in his thinning, but still dark, hair. Always striving, that was Landon.
“Looks that way,” Landon said.
“Anyone else?” she said.
He shrugged. “Not sure. He’s behind closed doors, and everyone seems to be breathing doom and gloom around here.”
“I noticed that,” she said, following when he gestured toward the still-empty conference room where she and Landon would no doubt engage in the only kind of conversation they ever had: small talk.
“So how are you?” she asked, already digging for something in common to talk about.
“Busy.” He was always busy. Landon ran a small investment firm over in Naples. He had four kids and was a soccer coach, Cub Scout den leader, and first in line for every recital. He collected old cars, golfed regularly, traveled extensively, and showered his wife, Rebecca, with nice jewelry and newly renovated rooms in their giant house on the mainland.
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