The Plan (The Hillers of Barratt County #4)

Chapter 18

18

The Value IGA's fluorescent lights cast a harsh glare across the nearly empty parking lot. She had escaped George—and ended up here. It was that whole eat thing. Her cabinets were completely bare right now—she’d been trying to save up some money to fix the car and everything.

Anthony had taken one look at her cabinets and started lecturing—before he’d even noticed the pregnancy books in her kitchen. He’d given her a couple of twenties out of his wallet and told her to buy food for herself—or he would scoop her up and take her home with him. To Olivia.

Talk about a fate worse than death. Spending even one night with Olivia would result in Ronnie committing a homicide. She knew herself quite well, after all.

George materialized out of nowhere. She had half-expected he would. The man had driven his truck right beside her the entire time she’d walked down the road from the office to the IGA. To make sure she was safe. Sigh. She just wasn’t going to escape him.

He had been driving her crazy—and he hadn’t even been around all day.

Damn hormones.

And damn the man causing them. She'd tried to escape him in the parking lot, planning a strategic retreat home... through the back streets... after buying food. Because apparently growing his alien offspring meant needing actual sustenance. Eat, pee, eat, pee, eat, pee…

How did anyone do this incubating thing more than once? Her mother had done it five times. Five. Insane.

"I can shop by myself." She navigated around a display of seasonal peaches, pretending she didn’t have a Hiller-shaped shadow following her everywhere. There was a look in his eyes—he’d come back from the courthouse that morning, with a look in his eyes she had never really seen before. And he’d refused to talk about what had happened in the courtroom today. But when he had turned to her she had known—George was intent on her now. Talk about giving a woman the shivers there. “I’m not plotting a daring escape between the lettuce and the tomatoes, you know. Though now that I think about it..."

"Can't help it." His voice held that new soft tone that made her stomach flutter—or maybe that was just their alien-baby doing somersaults. "I missed you today. Knowing you were back at the office waiting for me drove me insane.”

“You always know all the right words, don’t you, Georgiano?” Well, she had missed him, too. It was probably his alien-seed taking over her brain power. And…she’d had Giavonna drive her to Dr. Lewis’s office today. He’d had a cancellation that had coincided with her lunch break. An hour later and she’d confirmed it.

She had officially been taken over by an alien life form.

There was no question now. She was an alien-baby incubator. And…there were the pickles she was looking for right there. She reached for them—and found herself almost chest-to-chest with her baby daddy.

Oh, he smelled so much better than chocolate.

Damn it. Ronnie didn’t even like pickles that much. And weren’t pickles such a cliché? She could do better than this.

She was not going to be a walking cliché.

Then again, getting pregnant by her boss—wasn’t that a cliché itself?

He had infiltrated her life in every way. The thought made something twist in her chest. She added bread-and-butter pickles because... well, because. Alien-baby apparently wanted what Alien-baby wanted, and right now Alien-baby wanted all the pickles.

This kid was probably all Hiller through and through. Probably wouldn’t even look like her or anything. Alien-baby would be all George everything through and through and eat nothing but pickles. Her kid would smell like a pickle constantly!

George reached past her for fancy olive oil, his chest brushing her shoulder. His cologne wrapped around her—spice and hot and pure male. The same scent that had driven her crazy that night in the conference room. The night that had changed everything.

Oh, he still smelled so good…

Much better than pickles. And she was a total idiot here.

"I'm making you dinner tonight." He just looked at her, with that look in his eyes.

Like they were the only two people in the store. Which was ridiculous—there were tons of people in the store right now, from Mrs. Fields in the lettuce all the way over to sexy-as-sin Deputy Addy getting himself some frozen burritos.

Lots of people. Lots of them. Ronnie was seriously going to have to behave herself here.

“Are you?” She knew he could cook—he’d fed her his leftovers before. He’d started after she’d said money was a bit tight one night early in their…career association.

The words had just slipped out that night. She’d still been paying off that paralegal program she’d just finished, and money had gotten really tight.

He’d had fajitas in a Tupperware container the next day. And he’d fed her. Taken care of her. Damn him. Maybe that night was when things had first changed between them? She’d called him Georgie for the first time that night, too. And…started working more overtime.

Damn him. He’d tricked her with fajitas, hadn’t he? He’d been seducing her all along. She was apparently a bit slow on the uptake here.

“Real dinner, not takeout.” His fingers played with her hair, almost like he wasn’t aware of it. She shivered, remembering those fingers in her hair as he’d held her still for his kiss that night. “And we can look at paint samples for the house. Make a list of updates you want me to make, and in what order. It still needs work, but it’ll be a beautiful house when I’m finished with it.”

She was going to end up wedded and bedded and tucked in tight here while Georgie nested all around her, if she didn’t do something. Of course, he’d already taken care of the pregnant part. She still had on her shoes—but barefoot and pregnant seemed to seriously be in her future. Fast.

And damn him, he was warm and tempting and made it all sound so perfect.

Even if she knew it was insane. He just wanted the baby. That was all.

Twelve weeks and six days had just proven that.

She needed chocolate. The good kind. The kind that helped a girl forget the boss who had driven her crazy from day one. The good stuff that melted properly. There had to be pretzels around here somewhere, too. She needed sweet and crunchy to go with her pickles. She needed them. Badly.

“We need to talk about the house tonight,” he said. Blocking her path again. Didn’t he know not to get between her and the good stuff like that?

“What house?” She wasn’t a fool. She knew what he was plotting in that man-brain of his. He was going to carry her back to his cave and just keep her!

"Our house." He followed, a warm shadow she couldn't shake. Didn't want to shake, if she was being honest. Which she wasn't. "Since you're carrying our?—"

"Don't." She dropped two bars of dark chocolate in the cart. Added a third because the baby clearly had expensive taste. Like father, like alien. “We are not discussing Alien-Baby here.”

People could be watching. That hottie Clay Addy was eyeing her suspiciously. He was around Cam’s age and she had always enjoyed watching that man. He and George in the same room together was often enough to get a woman’s temperature rising.

She supposed she could tell Deputy Addy that George was up to no good. She could get rescued by a seriously hot man in uniform here…

Rescued by the man in uniform, from the seriously sexy villain in a silk tie. Either man would be very complicated. Better to stick with the devil she knew best. And…that tie was hanging a little crookedly. Her fingers itched to fix it.

What had her life become?

"Wasn't going to. But pretty soon the entire town is going to know. I can’t wait. My mama is probably telling everyone she knows already. That woman has wanted a grandchild for a long time. I’m the favorite child now. Not that I’m not almost always…but sometimes one of the girls will do something a little bit cute…and she’ll like them a bit more than she does me, but just for a little while.”

They rounded the corner into the beer aisle, and everything changed. Especially George. He tensed.

And just reacted.

George grabbed Veronica and pulled her closer the instant he recognized the man in the middle of the beer and hard liquor section. Junior Tolben. And it looked like he’d already been in the beer. He always smelled like he had. And…now was no exception.

“Junior.”

“I don’t know what you’re aiming at, Hiller. Leave my father alone. You lost. He lost. Move on.” He slurred his words. That told George all he needed to know.

“Something’s wrong with what happened.” George was certain of it. What had happened in the Tolben case didn’t make a damned bit of sense from a legal perspective. To him, to other attorneys he’d consulted. Apparently, it had made sense to Judge Holland Felner, though. But that man—George had his reservations about that judge. He’d been sitting the bench in Barratt County for thirty-something years. And no one ever voted him out. But this was a screwup of major proportions.

George just had to tread very carefully here. And Jim Tolben had to be willing to take it to the next level. And the older man just wanted to give up. If Jim didn’t want to fight it—George really couldn’t. “What happened goes against established case law. If your father would just talk to me about an appeal?—"

Junior said a two-word phrase that had Veronica flinching right there. George wrapped an arm around her without thinking, and pulled her closer.

Junior just looked at her, his expression darkening instantly. George knew what he saw—Veronica was a very beautiful woman. Her hair was down—he’d been responsible for undoing the twist she’d had it in that morning. It just shone in the light, making her unusual eyes look even bigger, brighter now. A man couldn’t look away. “Who’s this?”

“Ronnie Lake,” she said firmly. “I believe we spoke on the phone a time or two when you’d call for your father. I am George’s paralegal.”

“Thrown your lot in with the devil.” Junior just stared at her. George stepped in front of her when she took an involuntary step back. “You proud of that, lady?”

“George isn’t the devil—well, he’s my particular demon, actually—but he did his best for your father’s case. If George says he should appeal—your father should appeal.”

“Whatever. It’s not going to happen. I talked to him, he’s not interested.” Junior looked right at George again. “Be glad for what you’ve got, Hiller. Hate to see you lose it all someday, starting with her.”

George nudged her more fully behind them. And faced the other man full on.

“Is that…a threat?” a cool voice said behind George.

George turned. To see one of the three stooges from that morning standing right there.

The snarly one.

“Who the fuck are you?” Junior snarled at him.

Snarly snarled right back. “ Her brother, actually. Officer Murdoch Lake, TSP out of Wichita Falls. And I don’t like the tone you just used with my baby sister. You are?”

“None of your fucking business. I ain’t done nothing wrong.”

“Maybe not, but your words sure sounded like a threat to me. Might want to work on that.” Snarly turned to his sister as Junior slithered off. “I came to get you. Take you home with me tonight.”

“I am being railroaded into going to Georgie’s for dinner tonight. He has promised me real food. I’m…apparently really easy…that way.” She shot George a look out of those beautiful eyes. One filled with concern. “Tolben is really angry with you.”

“I shouldn’t have lost his father’s case; Judge Felner was wrong. On all counts. He knew it, too. He would barely look at me today. And every argument Atkins brought up was weak—but Felner agreed.”

“I’m sorry.” She pressed a hand to his chest, then rested her forehead against his heart. Snarly snarled. “You’ll figure it out, Georgie. I know you will.”

“Just not tonight.” He turned to her brother. “Good to see you again, but I am making your sister dinner tonight and we are going to discuss the baby. Otherwise I would invite you to come over, see the house I’m remodeling for her. I’m sure you understand.”

Please go back under the rock you have crawled out from, Uncle Snarly. That was what George wanted to say. But his mother had raised him better than that. He just waited.

If Veronica wanted to—she could walk right out of this store with Snarly. And there was nothing George could do to stop her. Maybe. He needed to plan. Fast.

He was not letting his woman get away from him tonight.