“What?” I asked.
He leaned down and held up the empty pregnancy test box I’d dumped in there two hours before.
“Oh, shit!” I exclaimed. “I totally forgot about that!”
“Come again?”
“I took a test when I woke up,” I said, and headed to our bedroom, Hatch hot on my heels. “Morning pee is the best time to take it, so I took it when I woke up, but then I got distracted with you sticking your face between my legs, and then having to actually get up and be a functioning member of society.”
“Are you complaining that I stuck my face between your legs?”
I ignored him as I walked to my bathroom vanity where I’d left the pregnancy test and picked it up. Spinning to face him, I squealed, “It’s positive!”
“No shit?”
“We’re going to have a baby, Hatch!” I threw my arms around his neck and kissed him.
He grabbed my bottom and lifted me so I could wrap my legs around his waist, and then carried me back to bed. “You’re gonna have my baby.”
“Are you happy?”
He kissed me. “Yeah, baby. I’m happy. You happy?”
“Beyond happy. But you’re gonna have to get busy so I can have another one,” I bossed. “Us old ladies have been talking and we want lots of puppies. We’re raising up the next generation of Dogs.”
“No one’s gonna call my kids puppies, Sunshine.”
“Oh?”
“Wolf pack, yeah. Puppies, hell no.”
“Then you better howl at the moon, love.”
Hatch laughed as he tugged my shorts off and buried his face between my legs. I wove my fingers in his hair. “This is a good start, darling.”
Eight months, three weeks later, Parker Connor Wallace arrived healthy and happy with his father’s feisty bellow, dark hair, and blue eyes. He was perfect.
Sneak Peek!
Maverick & Lily’s Story
Coming Soon!
* * *
PROLOGUE
Lily
A BLOODY NOSE.
Never in my wildest thoughts could I have ever imagined that something as simple as a bloody nose would be the beginning of the end of “Liverick.” We were forever.
I had just started my senior year of high school and my boyfriend, Maverick, was off fulfilling his first year of a full-ride athletic scholarship playing football for Notre Dame. We were miserable, but we’d concluded it was one year and then I’d join him next year and we’d be back on track. There was never any talk of me not moving to Indiana to be close to him, even my parents were on board. If I didn’t get in, then I’d go somewhere else close to Mav. After all, we’d been together since I was five and he was six. This was it for us.
Well, until…
It was a Wednesday. It was raining and school had sucked. I ran through the front door, yelling, “Hi, Mom, bus was late, sorry, gotta Skype Mav,” and rushed up to my room, powering up my laptop. Our black lab, Rex, followed, so I greeted him quickly, then I peeled off my wet clothes and changed into dry pajamas while I tried to connect Skype.
Maverick answered on the second buzz. “Hey, gorgeous.”
“Hi, Möosh.”
He chuckled. I’d given Maverick that nickname one night when we’d been out at Frenchman’s Bar, lying on a blanket and making out like crazy. He was always saying the sweetest things and I always found it funny how the men in my sphere of influence were the romantic ones, while the women…not so much.
“You’re so mushy,” I said, kissing him.
“Because I love you.”
“So, because I’m not as mushy, I don’t love you?” I challenged.
He grinned, the crater on his left cheek melting me. Seriously, tall and muscular with longish dark hair, blue eyes and dimples…Maverick Quinn was the hottest guy on earth.
“Mom and Dad are the same way,” he pointed out. “So are your mom and dad.”
“This is true.” I giggled as he squeezed me. “I do love how you get all mushy and then you smoosh me, though. I don’t think they do that. At least not in front of us kids.” I craned my head to look up at him. “You’re totally my moosh.”
Maverick laughed. “What the hell?”
“I’m over ‘babe’ and ‘honey’ and ‘sweetie.’ From this point on, you’re my moosh.”
He shook his head. “Well, if I’m your moosh, I want something cool. Something with umlauts in the spelling or some shit like that…like a bad European rock band.”
I giggled. “Like m-ü-s-h?”
“Huh-uh. I want m-ö-o-s-h. The second umlaut is silent.”
I laughed so hard, I snorted, which was always Mav’s goal.
“How’s practice going so far?” I asked.
“Easy. Which means the tough part’s coming.” He shrugged. “I’m ready.”
“I know you are.” I sighed. “I miss you.”
“I miss you, too. Less than six weeks and I’ll be home for Thanksgiving.”
“I’m crossing the days off on my calendar.”
“Me too, baby.” He leaned forward. “Lil, your nose is bleeding.”
I touched my lip and my hand came away with blood. “Oh, gross. Hold on.” I rushed into the bathroom attached to my bedroom and grabbed a washcloth. Rex followed me into the bathroom and sat beside me as I got the cloth wet.
“Press it against your upper lip, just under your nose,” Maverick directed from the computer. “Give it lots of pressure.”
I kept my head tilted back slightly and sat back down at my desk, peering at Maverick around the bloody washcloth. “So, video sex probably wouldn’t be attractive right now, huh?”
Maverick laughed, shaking his head. “Lily! If your dad heard you say that, he’d have my balls.”
I grinned. “He doesn’t know about us…you know.”
“I’m sure he suspects.”
“I’m sure he doesn’t,” I countered in a whisper. There’s no way my dad suspected we were doing the nasty, because if he did, Maverick probably wouldn’t be able to walk, let alone play football.
Maverick and I had waited a long time to have sex…well, a long time by teenage standards, really. It was my seventeenth birthday and we’d been given permission to take my dad’s boat out for the day alone, provided we were home in time for the big blowout party my parents had planned.
The whole day had been one of dreams. We’d made love, swam a little, made love some more. After that, I found it difficult to keep my hands off of him. Everything with Maverick was always perfect and I couldn’t wait until we could find time to be together again.
Maverick smiled. “Well, I’m not telling anyone.”
“Me neither.”
“How’s your nose?”
I pulled the washcloth away. “Seems good. That was weird.”
“Probably allergies.”
I nodded. “Probably.”
“I have to go grab dinner with the guys. I’ll text you later, okay?”
“Okay, Möosh,” I said, but it wasn’t okay. I wanted to keep talking to him.
He smiled. “I miss you, too, babycakes.”
“I know.”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
“I’ll text you before I fall asleep,” he promised.
He hung up Skype and I headed downstairs. Hunter, my eleven-year-old brother, was in the family room, playing some Disney Infinity game with Cash my nine-year-old brother, so I patted their heads (they did not like to be interrupted during play time), and walked into the kitchen. Rex was attached to my side, so I once again laid my hand on his head.
“Hi, Mom.”
Payton wasn’t my biological mom, but she’d adopted me when she and my dad and had gotten married. She was my mom in all the ways that counted, especially considering my bio mom was a druggy and total waste of space.
“Hey, honey. How was school?”
I wrinkled my nose. “Um, totally sucky.”
“Because it’s
school or for a specific reason?” she asked, sliding something that looked a bit like a pie into the oven.
“Because it’s school.”
“Sorry, babe.”
“Are you making a peach pie?” I asked excitedly.
She grinned. “I am. Your dad requested it.”
I clapped my hands. “I love your peach pie.”
She chuckled. “So does your dad.”
“Okay, gross. I did not need to know that.”
“How’s Maverick?” Mom asked.
I sighed. “Not here.”
“I’m sorry, honey. This has got to feel like forever, huh?”
I nodded. This was something I loved about my mom. She never minimized how I felt or told me things like, “It’s only a year, or a few weeks, or whatever.” She let me cry on her shoulder and validated every emotion, distracting me when things got really tough.
I heard her gasp and then a towel was pressed against my face. “Your nose is bleeding,” she said.
“Oh, yeah, that happened when I was talking to Mav,” I said. “It stopped for a bit. It’s probably just allergies.” I held the towel against my lip again and waited.
“Maybe. I’m going to have Macey have a look. If she thinks it’s allergies, then I won’t rush you to emergency wrapped in bubble wrap.”
I rolled my eyes, but couldn’t help but smile. Macey was Mom’s best friend and a registered nurse. She used to work in the emergency room at the hospital, but had started working labor and delivery part time after she had babies. Mom called her about everything more serious than a hangnail. It was the running joke, but Macey was really good at her job and could usually tell if an ailment was something minor, or if a doctor needed to do tests, so everyone trusted her.
I heard the garage door go up and then Dad walked in, throwing his leather jacket and cut in the closet. My dad, Alex ‘Hawk’ James, was Treasurer in the Dogs of Fire Motorcycle Club, and tonight was their club meeting, which they referred to as “Church.”
“Hey, baby girl,” he said, and hugged me as he walked into the kitchen, nodding toward the towel. “What’s up with that?”
“Hi, Daddy. Allergies I think.”
He released me and pulled Mom in for a grosser than normal public display of affection which I avoided by turning around and looking outside. I almost stepped on Rex who still hadn’t left my side. I settled my hand on his head again as I kept pressure on my nose with the other.
“You call Mace?” Dad asked Mom.
“She’s coming over to borrow a dress, so she can look at Lily then.”
“Gonna go say hi to the boys.”
“Okay, baby,” Mom said.
Dad headed out of the kitchen and I faced Mom again. “What time’s Macey going to be here?”
“I think she and Dallas are swinging by around nine.”
“Okay, I have some homework, so I’ll work on that before dinner.”
“Sounds good.”
I made my way upstairs and started on my homework. Dinner was pretty uneventful, the peach pie was divine, and then my world imploded.
Macey didn’t think it was allergies.
Macey was right.
Piper Davenport writes from a place of passion and intrigue, combining elements of romance and suspense with strong modern day heroes and heroines.
She currently resides in pseudonymia under the dutiful watch of the Writers Protection Agency.
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Road to Peace Page 22
