by Zoe York
“There are resources for single parents. We can talk more about that as you get closer to delivery.” It was a topic close to Kerry’s heart, and not just out of professional interest.
Every month, as she hit the middle of her menstrual cycle, she found herself googling sperm donation and egg freezing. She wasn’t ready to make the leap yet, but her biological clock ticked a little louder each month. It didn’t help that she was surrounded by babies and pregnant bellies all day, every day. Would she want to do that on her own? Her answer depended significantly on how annoying she found the partners who came in with her clients on a given day.
No partner was certainly better than a toxic one.
But then she would go out for a trail run, or to the Hedgehog, and she would think…this would be over. Done with. Maybe once in a blue moon she might stalk in for a grumpy beer, like Becca’s father had that first night she’d seen him—but he hadn’t been back. Being a single parent would mean no more extracurricular fun.
And Kerry liked her extracurricular fun. It had been a surprise to her when her biological clock had started ticking, ever so quietly, a year ago. All the way through school and as she started her career, she had thought that maybe babies were only professionally interesting to her—and then something started to change.
She still didn’t understand it, but she was going with the flow for now. Dreaming and researching, considering all of her options.
“You’re lost in your thoughts,” Jenna said over lunch one day. “Is everything okay?”
Kerry nodded. “I’m fine.”
“Do you want to talk about our cases?”
Once a week, they caught each other up on their patient files. It helped for when they covered each other off, for appointments. “Yes, absolutely.” She stood up and shook off her thoughts of babies and the future. Right now, in the present, they had work to do. “Who do you want to start with?”
“Dina Suarez is fully discharged now, we had our last appointment yesterday.” Jenna pulled out her phone, where she kept a running summary of her case notes. “I have two intakes this week. One is second trimester already, a transfer in from Dr. Malcolm because we have space on our calendar.”
“Excellent.”
“And the other is a nineteen-year-old from Tobermory. She doesn’t have a car, so I was thinking of offering more home appointments. I know that’s not standard care, but…”
Kerry nodded. “Yeah, no, I get it. If we can do that now, while we aren’t swamped, I don’t see why not.” She chewed on her lower lip. “That’s two teen pregnancies in our care at once. See if she might be interested in a peer session with Becca Kincaid.”
Jenna made a note of that, then moved down the list.
Kerry’s thoughts drifted again as they finished up their meeting. Teen pregnancy was a statistical reality. How many other young moms were there on the peninsula that they didn’t see in their care? She should touch base with public health. “What do you think about offering our space for a teen mom peer group? Not just for our clients, but a drop in for anyone?”
As soon as she said it, she knew what Jenna would say. The only space big enough was the kitchenette break room they were in, and it had a max capacity of ten people.
But her colleague surprised her. “If we can’t host it here, we can find the space. That’s a great idea.”
As the weather started to warm up, and soccer season loomed in her near future, Kerry made a resolution to make dinner for herself a bit more often and rely less on the easy and delicious takeout menu from Mac’s.
One night she drove over to Lion's Head to get groceries in order to stick with that personal pledge, and standing in front of the celery she wanted for her tuna salad was Mr. Broody himself, his back to her. She didn't care for the way she knew instantly who those broad shoulders belonged to. The unseasonably warm early March weather meant she had left her coat at home and only wore a sweater, but Owen had taken the wardrobe shift to another level. Instead of the long-sleeve layers she’d seen him in before, today he was wearing a black t-shirt that stretched snug across his back and rode high on his biceps. She was surprised to see he had a delicate tattoo that curved almost all the way around his upper arm. A filagree moon, jewels hanging from it. Since he was standing where she needed to be, and wasn't moving, she couldn't help but look at it. It was right in front of her.
It wasn't the kind of tattoo she'd have guessed he'd have. Or any tattoo, for that matter. The uptight paramedic was a grouch who she’d have pegged for a rule-follower. And if told that the man had a tattoo, she’d have guessed something simple, maybe a mistake from his youth.
The pretty moon with even prettier droplets hanging off it didn’t match her idea of him at all.
Those droplets shifted in front of her, Owen's arm flexing, the muscles rolling beneath the tattoo as he reached out and grabbed two bunches of celery at once. Kerry stood her ground as he pivoted towards her.
It wasn't really fair, the way she had advance warning that their gazes would collide and he didn't. She didn't care, of course. He'd proven to be completely unfriendly at every turn, so if her presence unsettled him, that was his problem, not hers. "Hi," she said brightly.
Storm clouds gathered fast and swift beneath his dark eyebrows. "Kerry."
"I need celery, too." She pointed past him.
He followed the line from her finger to the vegetables, then back again. With a grunt, he nodded, then turned on his heel and headed to the bakery at the back of the store.
"Nice to see you, too," she muttered.
It was exactly how every single passing encounter had gone. Eye contact, grunts, maybe a word or two, and then a quick retreat.
She didn’t like it.
And more to the point, she didn’t like that she didn’t like it. What did it matter if he didn’t have much to say to her? But it did matter, and that bothered her, too.
Owen Kincaid bothered her greatly.
The interaction lingered in her thoughts as she went home and made herself dinner.
Celery and shallots chopped. Owen's thick arm, decorated with a pretty tattoo.
Tuna and mayo added. The way he said her name, like the barest of acknowledgements. Kerry, the person in front of him.
Some dill, too, snipped up with kitchen shears. The tall stretch of him as he stalked away.
With a grunt of her own, she pushed away from the kitchen counter and grabbed a clean spoon from the drying rack. She was going to eat her tuna salad out of the mixing bowl and find something—anything—to watch on TV. Something, anything, to get her mind off Becca's father and the way he looked in a black t-shirt as he avoided any and all interactions with her.
Because Kerry recognized the discomfort deep inside her. Something about the paramedic chief had grabbed onto her imagination, and she was projecting on to him all of her typical desires. She had a type, after all, and if she squinted, Owen Kincaid could be molded into that man. Big, strong, capable.
She didn’t usually have time for grouchy and grumpy, and definitely not broody, that was the worst, but for some reason that wasn’t a turn off as much as it should be.
It should be a turn off because he’s a client’s father. It should be, but it wasn’t.
Kerry froze in the middle of her tiny kitchen. The spoon fell out of her hand and clattered to the ground with an angry, sharp sound.
No.
She needed to go the Hedgehog for a drink and flirt with literally anyone else, because she was horrified to realize that deep down, she was absolutely fine with having a secret little crush on Becca’s father.
And it wasn’t just the way he looked in a t-shirt. It was, perversely, a little bit the way he grunted and growled, like he might kill someone who looked the wrong way at his daughter—even if that person was her midwife, because he was clearly not okay with Becca’s pregnancy and the absent teenage father.
Kerry laughed out loud. He was projecting onto her, and she liked it because he
was conventionally attractive? Oh, boy. She needed to get laid and fast.
Chapter Seven
The new Pine Harbour Emergency Services building—which wasn’t actually new anymore, having been built almost two years earlier, but which would be known as the New Building for at least another decade—wasn’t technically a full firehouse. It was, primarily, an EMT station, with two fire trucks stationed there as well, for the volunteer firefighters who filled in the gaps in service on the peninsula.
But once a firefighter, always a firefighter. Owen had gone back to fire school after becoming a paramedic, to make himself more employable after his blink-and-you-missed-it marriage to Rachel burned out. That meant he was the right guy to supervise the whole building. Also the right guy to cook everyone dinner.
He did this once a week, at the volunteer training night. On the menu tonight was chicken thighs, dry rubbed with Korean barbecue spices, a celery and lettuce chopped salad, and oversized dinner rolls. As he prepped the salad, he replayed the conversation with Kerry in his head. Conversation was a generous word for the way he’d stared at her, said her name, then bolted.
God damn it.
“Need help?”
Owen’s chef knife skidded against the cutting board as the question interrupted his thoughts. He glanced at the doorway and found Adam leaning casually against the frame. “What are you doing here?”
“It’s training night.”
Owen scowled. “You’re not joining the team.”
“That’s not up to you.” Adam gave him an easy grin. He wasn’t wrong. It wasn’t up to Owen, because the volunteer fire brigade was their own thing, separate from the EMTs. Owen supervised the building, but not the firefighters themselves.
But they’d talked about this. Repeatedly. Owen shook his head. “You should listen to me.”
“I do. I listen to what you say, and I watch what you do. This is what I want to do with my life next. Trust me.”
He did. Sort of. But Adam had only been nine when Becca was born, when Owen had been thrust into being a parent, a grown-up. And even though he was twenty-seven now, this was his third declaration of what he wanted to do with his life. So Owen trusted Adam to make his own decisions in the same way he trusted Becca, and frankly, he worried about their choices in the same way.
Especially if their choices could be deadly.
Adam looked pointedly at the vegetables on the counter. “So? Need help?”
Owen took a deep breath, then waved him in. “You can make the salad dressing. And we can talk about your plans to go back to school.”
“The only school I want to do is fire school, and you know that.”
But Owen wanted more than that for his youngest brother. Adam had joined the army right out of high school, did a couple of tours overseas, and when his contract came up, he got out unexpectedly. They’d all been relieved, but when he moved back to Pine Harbour, the only job he showed any interest in was working with Warriors Moving. Owen liked the guys who ran it, but it was a stop-gap thing. An opportunity for veterans, like Stevie, who weren’t in the right headspace to look for a more permanent second career.
Adam wasn’t like that.
Owen wasn’t stupid. He knew there was always a risk of PTSD after deployment. He’d seen it in his own ranks, with Matt Foster, a paramedic who worked for him. But Adam checked out. He was happy enough, had a good social network, and his life stretched out in front of him full of potential.
And now the dummy wanted to be a firefighter.
No way was Owen getting into a fight with him over it, though. “Start making that dressing.”
“If I cook, I stay for training.”
He was staying anyway, Owen might as well get some kitchen help out of the deal. “Listen, when Will gets here, I need to tell you guys something.”
“That’s right, Will comes to fire training night. Will’s allowed to do whatever he wants.”
Will was a grown-up, Owen wanted to snap back, but so was Adam. But the difference between Adam and their middle brother was that Will was an elementary school principal by day. Sure, he volunteered on the fire team, but the chances of him actually running into a burning building and not coming out were low.
The chances of Will having a heart attack at forty-eight and leaving his family reeling were low, too.
God damn it. Owen forced that thought out of his mind and turned on the charm. Adam liked charm. He used it, but he was susceptible to it as well. “Look,” Owen said. “I know I have different rules for Will and Seth than I do for you and Josh. And I know—I know—that it’s not my place to have rules for grown men, period. But I do, because I’m your big brother, so humour me, all right?”
Adam chewed on his lower lip, then nodded. But he wasn’t going to let it go that easily. “Speaking of Will…” Owen waited while his brother paused for dramatic effect. “I was thinking of getting Kerry’s number for him, since you weren’t interested?”
Inside his head, Owen rose to the bait. He rose swift and angrily, in ways he didn’t want to analyze. But on the outside, he waited it out, stone-faced. Adam was a natural flirt, always had been, and that extended to match making. He would stop if he got the idea that Owen wasn’t interested.
“She’s really nice, you know. If you give her a chance.”
“Are you hanging out with her now?” Owen’s gaze narrowed despite his best efforts to appear unaffected.
His brother didn’t back down. “She’s come into the Green Hedgehog a few times.”
“Ah.”
“You should come out, too.”
“Maybe.” But they both knew he wouldn’t. “Listen, about Kerry—”
“I know.”
“It’s not about me.”
“Yeah. I know. Becca told me she’s pregnant,” Adam said. “That’s a hell of a secret you’ve been keeping since Christmas.”
“Wasn’t mine to tell.”
“Kerry won’t be her midwife forever.”
“Doesn’t matter. She is right now.”
“Is that why you’re so freaking rude to her?”
Nah, that was all on Owen’s darker side, which would never see the light of day. He grunted and let his brother take the noise as acknowledgement.
Will sauntered into the kitchen. “Are we talking about Owen’s parenting choices?”
Direct hit and his middle brother didn’t even know it. “Sure are.”
“No,” Adam corrected. “Did you get a text from Becca?”
She was telling people by text? Owen scrubbed a hand over his face. There were too many moving parts to the puzzle that was his family sometimes. She’d just told him and Rachel this morning that she was ready to start sharing the news.
“That’s what—ah, shit.” Will pulled up a chair. “You’ve been dealing with this all on your own?”
“I’m her father. And I’m not alone. Rachel’s been good. Mostly. We’re trying, okay?”
“Sure.”
Owen looked around the kitchen, then out to the hall, where people were gathering. “This isn’t the time or the place.”
“Yeah.” Will didn’t move, though. “Adam, shut the door on your way out.”
“Both of you, get going to training. I’ve got clean up to do, then I’ll be in my office.”
Will shrugged. “I can skip the first part of training. Or all of it.”
Owen wasn’t sure he was ready to talk. But the thing was, this had been coming for months. He was never going to be ready. “Yeah. All right.”
Will waited until Adam was gone, then kicked another chair out from the table. “Have a seat.”
Owen dumped himself onto the chair and leaned forward, resting his face in his hands.
“So we’re going to be uncles,” Will said slowly. “Becca sounds pretty excited.”
“She is.”
“And you?”
He lifted his head and rocked his jaw to the side. “It’s not about me.”
“It is right now.
In here, just between us. You carry the weight of the world on your shoulders, Owen. You always have.”
He never had a choice in the matter. “I do what any of us would do.”
“None of us were the oldest. You’ve been carrying the load since Dad died.”
“And now Adam wants to be a full time firefighter,” Owen hissed, flinging his hand toward the training room on the other side of the wall. “Everything’s…”
“What? Everything is what?”
Falling apart. Everything was falling apart, and Owen couldn’t stop it. He was watching his daughter and his youngest brother make the same mistakes of their previous generations, and he couldn’t do shit fuck all. “Everything is complicated,” he muttered. “And they don’t see the consequences of their choices.”
“They being Becca and Adam?”
And Josh, who was chasing his dreams around a race track and not getting anywhere. And Seth, flying all over the north. Owen was so tired. He shrugged. “You’re the only one who I don’t worry about on a daily basis.”
“I was thinking of getting a pet tiger,” Will drawled.
Owen didn’t laugh.
“Are you thinking about Mom and Dad?”
“I’m desperately trying not to,” Owen said dryly. But the muscles around his mouth twitched, betraying his attempt at humour as a cover.
Will always had been better about talking about them than Owen was. “Yeah.”
“You aren’t Dad.”
“Nah, I only had one kid, not five. And I was only a firefighter for a few years. I only work in a firehouse now, and I’m watching his youngest—who he never got to see grow up and join the army—want to follow in his footsteps.”
“You think Adam is following in Dad’s footsteps?” Will shook his head. “Not Dad. You.”
Owen groaned. “That’s even worse. I did what I had to do to stay close to Becca. Adam doesn’t have—”
“He has you. And me, and Becca too. Sure, he’s not a young father, but he’s as tangled up in family as you are. We only have each other, bud. You taught us that.”
