by Meli Raine
“What does that mean?” Drew asks.
“LINDSAY!” Mom screams. “ARE YOU PREGNANT? DID YOU RUN OFF AND GET MARRIED BECAUSE YOU HAD TO? BECAUSE THAT WOULD EXPLAIN SO MUCH.”
I’m dumbfounded.
Mom has robbed me of speech.
Daddy’s face appears as Mom recedes, mumbling to herself. I see they’re in Daddy’s office at The Grove, to-go trays littering the small table by his desk. He looks haggard and tired.
“Sweetie, are you? Pregnant?” he asks.
“No,” I answer honestly. “I’m not.” I open my mouth to mention that I’ve been home from the Island for barely three weeks, so how in the hell could I be pregnant?
Mom appears again, edging Daddy out. “Well, thank GOD -- ”
Drew pulls me close. In the tiny little window on the screen, I see how we appear to them. Drew’s shirtless, my shoulders are bare other than the covers up to my armpits. I have a raging case of sex bedhead. Drew grins like a fiend.
He kisses my cheek. “But we can get right on that, Monica! Thanks for the suggestion!”
Mom looks flustered. “Get right on what?”
“You seem really eager for us to start producing grandchildren for you.” He looks at me with wide, joking eyes. “Can you imagine ‘Grandma Monica’?”
“Oh, I can imagine it, all right,” I choke back.
“Harry! Harry! Say something to them! Dear God, Harry, I’m too young to be a grandmother. And besides, if you’re going to time a grandchild during an election, there’s a protocol for this. For maximum positive press, you need to...”
Mom’s voice fades out as Daddy looks at the screen, deadpan, shaking his head.
Drew leans toward me and whispers, “I can turn this off whenever you want.”
“No. It’s okay.” I smile at Daddy, who smiles back, his eyes full of love.
“We can get this sham marriage annulled!” Mom shouts in the background. “We can undo this! For God’s sake, Harry, step in! Don’t you have anything to say to Drew?”
One corner of Daddy’s mouth tips up, and he looks at me, then Drew, eyes narrowing as he stops and really studies my new husband.
“What do you want me to say, Monica?” he asks in a weary voice, giving her an epic eye roll only we can see.
“Something to fix this!” she shoots back.
Daddy smiles, fixated on Drew, who stares back, matching him, unwavering.
And then my father says:
“Welcome to the family, son.”
:)
Want to read more about Drew and his buddy, Mark? Find The Coming Home Series boxed set to get Mark and Carrie’s romantic suspense story.
When a mysterious job offer brings Carrie Myerson back to the town where her father was set up for a federal crime, she returns—to face a past more dangerous than she ever imagined.
And a love more passionate than she ever dreamed.
Drug crimes, kidnappings, set-ups and betrayal all unfold as Carrie and her ex-boyfriend, local police officer Mark Paulson, untangle the complicated web of deceit at the heart of her past.
Nothing is what it seems.
Including Mark.
About the Author
Meli Raine writes romantic suspense with hot bikers, intense undercover DEA agents, bad boys turned good, and Special Ops heroes -- and the women who love them.
Meli rode her first motorcycle when she was five years old, but she played in the ocean long before that. She lives in New England with her family.
Visit her on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/meliraine
Join her New Releases and Sales newsletter at: http://eepurl.com/beV0gf
She also writes romantic comedy as Julia Kent, and is half of the co-authoring team for the Diana Seere paranormal shifter romance books.
http://www.meliraine.com
@meliraineauthor
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