Home to Laura

by Mary Sullivan

  How could she have known when she bought this all of those months ago how things would have changed?

  At the time, she and Vin were getting married. She’d thought she would have a life partner to help her through the coming business challenges. Then their birth control had failed and she’d been thrilled and not the least bit intimidated. Vin would help her through.

  Only he hadn’t. He’d been freaked out by the pregnancy.

  “What did you expect?” she’d asked. “We’d both agreed that we would have children.”

  “Not so soon.”

  “When, Vin? When we were in our forties?”

  Both she and Vin had been fooling themselves. He’d never been father material. But he had been a lot of fun, a good bed partner and someone to talk to. She missed him more than she’d thought she would.

  Now she was pregnant again, this time entirely through her own fault. She’d become so lost in the moment with Nick, in the passion he’d set off in her like fireworks, she hadn’t paid attention to birth control. Now her baby would pay for her mistake.

  She pulled the curtains open and let morning sunlight flood the shop. She would have to get rid of the dusty old things. The ancient counters would have to come out.

  The walls needed washing and a fresh coat of paint. The former owners had closed up their floral shop to retire. Good thing. Their designs had become dated.

  Accord had made itself over into a town tourists would want to visit and money was starting to come in. They needed to keep the momentum moving forward. The little floral shop had been a holdout, refusing to change, to update.

  Laura opened the blueprint her architect from Denver had shipped to her yesterday. She loved the woman’s design, carrying it with her around the room as she paced off where things would go.

  Excitement flowed through her veins.

  Her next step was to call in contractors for quotes.

  The wall between the kitchen and the café next door would have to come down at some point, but not too early into the renovation. She needed to be able to serve customers. She’d get the contractor to do as much else as possible first.

  She’d have to work twice as hard with the expansion, and now with a baby in tow.

  She would have to hire day care, or a nanny, expenses that would have been mitigated by a husband’s paycheck.

  She patted her belly.

  “We can do this, little one.” If her voice sounded wobbly and more than a little uncertain, who could blame her? “We’ll get through this. Just you and me.”

  “Talking to yourself?”

  She spun about.

  Nick Jordan stood in the doorway, as handsome as on the day she’d first noticed him in high school, the boy three years younger than her who drew her attention away from his older brother Gabe. The boy who’d started to change and grow up and was no longer just Gabe’s pesky younger brother.

  His expression was as thunderous as on the day he’d left town. More so, now that he knew about the baby.

  As though to protect her child, she threaded her fingers across her abdomen. The motion drew his eyes.

  “I’m not going to hurt you.” He stepped into the room and shut the door.

  He could destroy her in so many ways. He could kill her with a look. He could devastate her with a carefully targeted word.

  She’d always been vulnerable to Nick. She just hadn’t understood how deeply until now.

  You picked a fine time to figure it out, Laura. You’re a couple of months too late.

  Hindsight wasn’t all it was cut out to be. It didn’t give a girl much protection from certain men.

  “I had you investigated.” Of all of the things she might have imagined him saying, that wasn’t it.

  “Why?”

  “Because you hadn’t been honest with me. You tricked me into sleeping with you.”

  “You have to be kidding. You mean when I was sitting in the graveyard minding my own business? You mean when you invited me to dinner?”

  He ignored her. “You picked up a new mortgage with this place.”

  “I’m expanding.”

  “Did you think if you said you were having my baby, I would give you money? I would keep you afloat?”

  She could see how he might be cynical. She’d told him he owed her.

  “I don’t need to be kept afloat. My bakery is going gangbusters. I don’t need money.” Well, child support would sure come in handy, but she could pay her own mortgage. “I need help with time, with people who will spend time with my infant so I can work and earn my own living.”

  “Is it mine?” he asked.

  “Excuse me?” Had she misunderstood him? He couldn’t mean...

  “Is the baby mine?”

  She held her temper in check, but barely. He was the second person today to question her morals. “How can you even ask?” Her voice sounded mean.

  “You took the morning-after pill. I watched you.”

  “You also heard the doctor tell us it wasn’t one hundred percent. Who else would the father be?”

  “Mike Canning.”

  She was across the room and slapping his face before she knew her own intention. Her hand stung. Her pulse pounded in her throat and drowned out all reason.

  “Get out of here.”

  He raised a placating hand, even while his cheek turned red with the imprint of her palm and fingers. “I’m sorry. You were with him. I thought—”

  “You thought I would screw anybody to get a baby. Is that really what you think of me, Nick Jordan?”

  He stared at her, his expression stone and flint. “You like sex.”

  “So what? A woman can’t? If she does, she’s a floozy?” She leaned close. “You like sex. Does that mean you’ll sleep with anyone who offers?”

  He didn’t respond, but her barb hit home. He looked as though he regretted his statement.

  “I had the same boyfriend for five years,” Laura said. “A man I thought I was going to marry. After I got pregnant, he would no longer sleep with me. I was pregnant for four months and then lost the baby. Five months later, I spent one night with you. I went out with Mike because I was lonely. I didn’t sleep with him. There have been no other lovers.”

  She strode to the door and yanked it open. “Get out of here, you bastard, and don’t come anywhere near me or my baby again.”

  “I’m sorry. I—”

  “Get out!”

  She slammed the door behind him and leaned her arms against it, breathing hard. How could he think that she would, that she could, that she was capable of foisting someone else’s baby on him? How could he think that her character was that low?

  How could he think that she slept around so easily? Because she was passionate? Because she enjoyed sex? She had a right to! That didn’t mean she was easy. Or devious.

  She’d never struck a person in her life, didn’t believe violence was any way to fix a problem.

  But he’d thought—

  She could strangle him.

  * * *

  NICK STOOD ON Main Street feeling, well, if he were going to be honest about it, as though he’d killed something small and helpless.

  Only Laura Cameron was not helpless.

  He rubbed his still-smarting cheek. It had been an honest question. He’d used to think that Laura was honest, but he didn’t know anymore.

  She’d tricked him into giving her a baby. He still couldn’t figure out how he’d so lost control with her that he’d forgotten about the condom. The woman was a witch.

  She said she didn’t want his money and that she could take care of herself. Judging by how successful the bakery was, it was probably true.

  So why did he feel as if he’d killed something small and not quite formed? It took him a while to figure it out through the twists and turns of what might be imagined and what might be real. When she’d told him he owed her a baby and then had managed to make him forget to use a condom, she’d broken his trust.

  B
y accusing her of fooling around with Mike and then trying to fob off Mike’s baby on him, he’d broken her trust.

  “What’s up?” Ty stood on the sidewalk in front of him. “You look like someone killed your kitten.”

  “Something like that. I just screwed up with Laura.”

  “Yeah? How?”

  “She’s having my baby.”

  Ty gaped at Nick. “When? How?”

  “On that Saturday night when you had dinner with Gabe and Callie?”

  “When I met Emily? You were here getting it off with Laura? I didn’t know you two had been in touch over the years.”

  “We haven’t. I saw her at the bakery and then later at the graveyard.”

  Ty leaned against the storefront and tucked his thumbs into his pockets. “And cemeteries being so sexy, y’all figured it would be fun to go a round together again for old times’ sake?”

  “No. We didn’t plan anything. It just happened.”

  “And you didn’t use protection?”

  “I told you.” Nick scowled. “It just happened.”

  “That’s an excuse for teenagers, not for smart successful people like the two of you.”

  “I know. I can’t explain what happens between me and Laura. It never ends happily.”

  “So what happened today that has you so blue?”

  “I asked if the baby was mine.”

  Ty’s jaw dropped. “Who else’s would it be? Laura doesn’t sleep around.”

  “The week I was here, I flew in my architect, Mike Canning. He went out with her one night.”

  “And you accused her of sleeping with him a couple of days after sleeping with you?”

  Nick nodded.

  “Jesus, Nick, for a smart businessman you sure can be clueless. If Laura says the baby is yours, then it’s yours. She’s a good woman. She doesn’t fool around with every Joe that wanders through town.”

  “I know that now,” Nick snapped. He scrubbed his hands over his face, wanting to forget this whole business, willing it to disappear for a while. “I’m heading back out to the ranch. You need a lift?”

  “I’ve got my truck here. I need to talk to someone and then I’ll head out. You want steaks for dinner?”

  “Sure. I’ll pick them up.”

  “If you go to the market, get corn on the cob, too. Then consider getting down on your knees and asking Laura to forgive you.”

  * * *

  TY ENTERED TAMMY’S gift shop and waited for his eyes to adjust. The sun was blazing full blast today.

  Looked as though the day after tomorrow was going to be a good day for a barbecue.

  Ty was tired of pussyfooting around. He wanted life ordered and settled and figured out. The Fourth of July seemed like as good a time as any to fix his family.

  Or die trying.

  Some people weren’t going to like what he had planned.

  Tough shit. He was tired of being a nice guy.

  Tammy came out from the back with her arms full of items to put on display.

  She looked good. Damn good. She’d obviously been taking care of herself.

  “Ty.” She hesitated when she saw him then straightened her spine, which made her hard round belly stick out. Lord. His baby was in there. He planned to marry Tammy before the child arrived. Not that she was helping much in that area.

  That changed today.

  “I’m having a barbecue in two days. I want you there.”

  She set the vases she held onto the counter. “I have plans, thanks.” Her voice never used to sound so crisp, or so hard. She used to have a throaty laugh he liked to trigger when they had sex.

  He wanted sex with Tammy again. He wanted love with her.

  He wanted to make her laugh again.

  “Please come. It’s important to me, Tammy. I want—” How best for a man without poetry in his soul to convince her? Maybe he didn’t need it. Maybe honesty was enough.

  “I want to have sex with you again.”

  Her beautiful bright blue gaze shot to his. She opened her mouth to object. He didn’t give her a chance.

  “I want to make love to you from sundown to sunup.”

  Her mouth fell open, ever so slightly.

  “I want to French kiss you anytime we can, anywhere we can find privacy. You know how to kiss better than any woman I’ve ever known. Any woman.”

  He wouldn’t reference Winona any further than that. He didn’t want her between them ever again, in any way.

  “I want you to laugh again. A lot. With me.”

  He stepped closer. “I want you in my home again. I want my home to be yours and our baby’s.”

  He took her hand and drew her from around the counter and against him. He kissed her, giving her no time to step away, seducing her with his lips and tongue.

  When he pulled back, they were breathing hard. “That’s what I’m talking about.”

  He settled his cowboy hat onto his head.

  “Come, Tammy. One o’clock.”

  He left the shop, barely restraining himself from taking her into the back room and loving the daylights out of her, convincing her with his body what he didn’t seem to have the right words for—that they belonged together.

  There wasn’t much else he could say. She would be at the barbecue, or she wouldn’t.

  * * *

  NICK FOUND HIMSELF looking forward to dinner with Ty, but he wasn’t easy with it. He’d never had a problem with Ty. That didn’t mean any peaceful coexistence with him would last.

  The next couple of weeks were fraught with pitfalls as long as he hung so close to family.

  Nick didn’t do family well, didn’t know how to be a family with his brothers. He’d always felt apart from them.

  He couldn’t escape the feeling, though, that it was time to change that, that it was time for him to put in an effort. Starting to make that effort with Ty was far, far easier than contemplating making a change with Gabe. His relationship with Ty had never been as complex as the one with Gabe.

  To make matters even more strange, Nick had brought Mort along with him, with Ty’s permission. Mort seemed to take to the ranch like a duck to water. As far as Nick knew, Mort had never been on a ranch before.

  When he and Emily left Seattle, he hadn’t been able to do it without Mort—and Nick hadn’t minded.

  In the past, he’d been rabid about keeping his business and personal lives separate, as much as he could under the circumstances, but somehow in the past couple of months, he’d thrown that concept to the wind. It had become apparent that Mort needed him and Emily.

  So, he’d taken Mort under his wing. After all, he was family.

  What was family? Was it merely shared history? Did shared memories make a family? Was it more? What and how was it? What did he have to do to make it more?

  He didn’t have a clue.

  He would rather have stayed in the B and B. If things got tough, Nick could pull away from his brothers and close the door of his hotel room. As it stood, if anything went wrong on July Fourth, Nick had nowhere to go but to leave and head back to Seattle, which would let both Emily and Mort down.

  He didn’t want to. Honest to God, he didn’t want anything to go wrong, didn’t want to have to leave, didn’t want to lose with Emily what they’d been slowly, tentatively, building.

  He heard voices on the veranda and then the two girls entered the house, chatting as though they’d always been friends. Mort stepped in behind them, with color high in his cheeks. Unless Nick missed his guess, that had nothing to do with alcohol and everything to do with being out of the city, away from work and in the company of a pair of bright preteens.

  When she spotted him coming downstairs, Emily said, “Dad, have you seen the bison yet? They’re amazing. They’re huge.”

  “Yeah, Uncle Nick,” Ruby said. “They’ve lost their winter fur and still they’re huge.”

  Uncle Nick. He hadn’t thought to work it out—Ruby was Ty’s daughter, which meant that Nick was an un
cle. He was collecting family. His relationship with his daughter was blossoming and he’d sat with Ty earlier and had a beer and conversation that had been downright civilized. And now he had a niece.

  And in two days, Gabe and Callie would come over for a barbecue. How would that go?

  Throughout dinner, Emily and Ruby talked nonstop about the bison and the paper Ruby wrote about them.

  After they’d cleared the table and washed up, Nick turned to Ty and said, “You’re lucky you’re involved in something that Ruby can relate to.”

  “You are, too,” Ty responded. “I had a great talk with Emily when you were out earlier. She loves what you’re doing with the Native American Heritage Center. Couldn’t stop talking about it.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, really.” Ty got them a couple of beers and they headed out to sit on the veranda.

  “Mort,” Nick called. “You want to join us?”

  “Don’t mind if I do.”

  When Ty offered him his beer, Mort stared for a long time then said, “You mind if I help myself to some of that lemonade I saw in the fridge?”

  “Mi casa es su casa,” Ty replied.

  Nick’s heart moved, so damn happy that Mort was making smart decisions.

  When Mort returned with his lemonade and they’d all settled into comfy chairs on Ty’s veranda, Ty said, “Emily’s crazy about you, Nick.”

  “I don’t know why. I spent her childhood years at work.”

  “Maybe now’s the time to back off on work.”

  “I’ve been trying. We spend more time together. It’s good.”

  “Company can do a lot more without you than it does now,” Mort said. “And me, too. You’ve done your job well. The company’s wildly successful. Well-organized. Spend time with your daughter. Spend more time here.”

  “This coming from a workaholic?” Nick asked.

  Mort chuffed out a laugh. “Yeah, from a man who’s seen his mistakes too late. You’ve got time to fix yours.”

  Nick would have argued, but the heat of his defensiveness waned the more he spent time with his daughter.