“I have to go to work, unlike you,” I told her. “And they still look for reasons to try and fire me.”
Her mouth turned up in a quick grin.
“That’s just too bad,” she murmured. “I’ve been trying to get you to stop working at the ER for months now. They don’t appreciate you enough there.”
“I know,” I told her. “But they have good insurance, I make good money, and it gives me what I need.”
Mainly the adrenaline boost I got from working cases that got my blood pumping.
If I just worked at the clinic—like she wanted me to—then I wouldn’t get that same type of stimulation. It was the same thing, day in and out, and I didn’t like that kind of predictability. I needed a bit more spontaneity.
“Go to work,” she whispered, tugging on my beard lightly with two fingers before pushing me away.
I looked down at my cock that was tenting the front of my hospital scrub bottoms, and growled.
“Have a good one.”
I wouldn’t.
Not knowing that Tally was going to her former best friend’s hearing to ascertain her ability to live on her own as a sane woman.
Something I honestly didn’t think she was capable of doing.
Last year, when she’d held that gun on Tally, she’d been on drugs.
After being thrown into jail, she’d been forced to get clean. That was when she’d been able to convince her therapist and anyone else who would listen that she was a good, but misunderstood person, that it was the drugs that made her make bad choices and decisions.
I saw right through it for the lie that it was.
It hadn’t just been the drugs she’d been on that had influenced her actions like she was trying to make it seem.
I knew it with every fiber in my being, and I hired the best lawyer I could find who would represent our interests in Hadley’s case. The woman was not well, she exhibited psychotic tendencies and she needed to be in a criminal facility that specialized in caring for someone like her.
I didn’t need to spend my life thinking she was around every corner, waiting to point another shotgun at my woman’s face…or worse, Tallulah’s.
“Go to work!” Tally announced on a honk as she backed out of the driveway, and then blew me a kiss.
I waved her off, trying to control my breathing from the scare, and started to back out of the carport where I parked next to her.
I coughed and sputtered as I drove behind her, but it was something we always did, and I always followed her all the way to our respective places of employment.
She worked in a doctor’s office—not mine might I add—four days a week, and at my clinic on Fridays. Her hours were short, only ten to four, and I loved it.
I liked coming home to her.
A happy, messy house with food on the table. Sometimes that food would be homemade by one of us, and sometimes it would be from the freezer section. And there were even the times when she ordered pizza or Chinese.
No matter what she did, I was happy. Even if she didn’t cook, and I had to bring dinner home, I was happy.
It didn’t matter because I had her to enjoy that meal with, and I was happy.
Something I didn’t realize I was missing until I met Tally.
Once she turned off into the parking lot of Tallulah’s daycare, I waved and headed to the ER, pulling into my normal spot right outside the staff door, before shutting my bike off.
The first thing I did once I got inside was announce that I had somewhere to be from two to two forty-five, and I would not take no for an answer.
No matter what.
Because Tallulah was not starting that fucking tumbling class without me being there to watch over her. No ifs, ands or buts about it.
***
Nine hours later, I was a freakin’ mess, but I was alive.
“I heard about what happened,” Tally said, trying not to grin. “It was awful, I heard, from them and not you.”
Her grin broke free, and became a full-blown smile.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I grunted.
“You don’t want to talk about the fact that you signed Tallulah up for every single gymnastics camp, mommy and me, daddy and me and tumbling class that they offer for the unforeseeable future??”
I stuck my tongue out at her, causing her to dissolve in a fit of giggles.
“Well, you know how my day went. How about you tell me about yours, and why the hell you refused to tell me about what happened today until we got home?” I ordered, crowding her against the counter.
Tally’s smile was wicked as she stared deeply into my eyes.
She brought one hand up, running the tip of her fingernail down the ridge of my sternum before saying, “She’s going to jail.”
I closed my eyes, relief pouring through me.
“Thank fuck.”
“And that’s not all,” she continued, moving her hands down so she could thread them underneath my scrub top.
My brows rose.
“Oh yeah?” I asked. “What else happened?”
“I ran into someone on the way to work, and I didn’t want you to hear this from them before I had the chance to tell you myself in person. That’s why I refused to talk to you, I didn’t want to blurt it out over the phone.”
I growled and pushed my hips in further, letting her feel the length of me.
“Okay,” I drawled, lifting my hands up when she pushed my top up. “Where were you when you ran into them?”
It came up over my head, and I took it from there, throwing it in the direction of the laundry room.
She bit her lip. The way she did when she was trying to find a way to tell me something without me getting mad.
“Tally,” I growled.
“I’m pregnant.”
I blinked.
“I was at the OB/GYN when I ran into Imogen and Aaron, who were there for the same reason.”
I kept blinking.
“I didn’t mean to!”
I stared.
“I fucked up, really. I was supposed to go in for my birth control shot, but I forgot about the appointment. Three times.” She raised her hands and covered her eyes. “I’m so sorry! I should’ve been more careful…”
I placed my hand over her babbling mouth.
“Shut up.”
Her eyes went wide and tears started to fill them.
I knew what she thought.
She thought I was upset. That I didn’t want this baby. That I was mad that she hadn’t told me.
But she was wrong.
I wanted this baby. I wanted as many babies as we could handle, as long as those babies came with her.
“When?” I rasped.
“Uhh, next year. About eight and a half more months. I’m only six weeks.”
That’s when I smiled.
“You’re going to have my baby?”
She nodded, hope filling her tear-filled eyes.
I picked her up around the waist and then carried her to the bedroom, thankful that she’d put Tallulah to bed before she’d told me the news.
Likely we’d only have an hour, at most, before she woke up.
She had a cold again. Then again, she always had a cold. But the pediatricians assured us she would grow out of her sickliness. In the meantime, we just had to learn to deal.
But I’d do anything for that girl. And her mother.
And soon, there would be another child added to our little family’s mix, who I would do anything for as well.