Chapter 14
I’m going to be a father. The words had rattled around inside his head all night. It was now the following day, and he still couldn’t grasp them.
Jay had gotten out his laptop in the early-morning hours and made notes. Things he needed to work through, plans that needed to be made for the future. Then he’d researched, which was what he always did if a speed bump was thrown into his path—hell of a speed bump.
Looking around his kitchen usually gave him a feeling of comfort. Today he felt only panic.
“I don’t know how to be a parent.” The words seemed loud in the silence. He’d actually thought seriously about not being a father after the crappy role models he’d had growing up.
He searched “learning how to be a parent” for information, but it didn’t calm him. In fact, it had terrified him.
After making a coffee, he sat on a stool and forced himself to check emails. Life had to continue, even with what now hung over him.
He found the DNA results.
“If you’re going to be a father, you have to face things,” he muttered but didn’t click on the attachment. Instead, he shut down his laptop and regained his feet.
Minutes later, he was moving to the door, grabbing his keys from where he’d left them on the side table, which Zoe had told him added a touch of class to the entranceway. Pulling out of his driveway, he started along the street.
He’d told Blue they couldn’t keep this a secret, and she’d agreed to that. Because soon everyone would know she was pregnant, and he’d told her she wasn’t facing that alone. Jay wanted people to know who the father was and knew that he’d have to talk to her family soon.
Heading out of town in a direction he could drive with his eyes closed, he decided his people should be told before anyone else.
When child services had decided his mother wasn’t fit to look after him, Jay had been sent to live with his aunt, who lived in Lyntacky.
Moving from a large city to here had been a shock, as had the woman who resented pretty much everything about him.
His aunt hadn’t mistreated him like his mother, but she hadn’t wanted him either.
She’d provided the necessities, but nothing more.
Though with Lyntacky had come the Dukes, and he’d be forever grateful for that. He owed them the truth before someone else gave it to them.
Heading down the road some locals called Duke Drive, he passed Sheriff Dans’s house and stopped at the next one.
He parked next to Dan’s cruiser and Robyn Duke’s—the matriarch of this family—sedan.
Turning off the engine, he sat and stared at the house.
This had been his first taste of what a home felt like.
Large, noisy, and filled with love and food.
Getting out, he ran a hand over his hair, realizing he’d forgotten to brush it. Blowing into his hand, he sniffed it. At least his teeth were clean. Not that anyone inside these walls would judge him.
He walked to the front door, gave a single knock, and then entered.
Jay had been in many situations in his lifetime that were dangerous, if not to himself then to those he was helping.
He’d been in the Pentagon and had kept secrets that some countries would love to know, but this, walking in here to tell them his news, was possibly the most terrified he’d been in a long time.
Not all time—his childhood had been one constant, terrifying moment.
A loud bark of laughter coming from somewhere in the house had his lips twitching despite his nerves.
Looking at the last picture framed on the wall, he saw his name at the bottom.
He’d given that drawing to Robyn when he was ten years old, and she’d said it deserved to go on the wall.
Jay hadn’t cried when he’d seen it up there in a frame.
He’d given up on tears because they got him nowhere, but he’d been proud.
Moving into the large kitchen that was the hub of the Duke family home, he found Robyn where she usually was, dressed in an apron and bustling about making things for her family.
Beside her, stirring something in a pot, was the second man to have infiltrated her heart, Callum Taylor, Leah Reynolds’s uncle.
It had taken time for the Duke siblings to accept him, but now that they had, the man was a constant here.
The love Jay had for this woman was of a son for a mother. She’d been there when he’d needed to tie his first tie and when he’d had his heart broken by Julie Brown in fifth grade.
“Jay!” She smiled, walking toward him for the hug he always got, no matter if he’d seen her an hour ago or two months.
He inhaled the familiar scent of baking and Robyn Duke and hugged her back.
“You sit now, next to my grumpy sons, and Callum will bring you coffee. I can see you have something on your mind.”
That was another thing about her—she could always tell when one of her people wasn’t right.
He shook Callum’s hand.
“Good to see you again, Jay,” the man said, smiling.
“What’s wrong with you, loser?” Dan said next. He sat with his girl, Leah. They’d found each other again after a break, which no one had known at the time was a big deal. He now lived with her and Hudson on the farm that had been in her family for years.
“Hey, Leah, and you,” he said, slapping his best friend’s hand and then bending to kiss Leah’s cheek.
Jay heard the front door bang.
“Brody,” Dan said.
“He always bangs the front door,” Robyn said.
The second-eldest Duke sibling wandered in, looking scruffy. He was holding his son, Leo. Every time Jay saw the kid, he’d grown. His hair was dark and stood straight up off his head, and he seemed to be a pretty chill little dude.
What would his kid be like? The thought terrified him. How the hell could he, a man who had been raised by the mother from hell, parent a child?
“Give him to me,” Leah said, holding out her hands.
Brody lowered Leo down to her and then went to kiss his mom’s cheek and slapped Callum’s hand.
“I need to tell you all something,” Jay said before he chickened out. “All of you,” he added, looking at Callum.
His tone drew all eyes. Brody slid into the seat beside him, and Robyn moved closer. Callum leaned on the counter, watching.
“Is everything all right, Jay?” Dan asked.
“Not so much,” he said slowly.
The silence that settled around him wasn’t filled with tension but worry—for him. He sometimes still found that hard to believe, even though he’d lived with these people in this life longer than he had his mother. But they cared, and that had saved Jay.
“Are you sick, Jay?” Brody asked, concern etched on his face.
“No, nothing like that. It’s hard to say, so I’ll just get it out.”
“Always the easiest way,” Leah said lowering Leo to the floor so he could go through the basket of toys his Nana kept for him in here.
Will my child play with those one day?
“I need you to keep this to yourselves for now, okay?”
They all nodded solemnly.
“So, I had a night with a woman when I was in New York a few months ago, and I just found out she’s pregnant.”
“Well, fuck me. I never thought those words would come out of your mouth,” Dan said. “You were always lecturing me on protection.”
“When did you find out?” Robyn asked, glaring at her youngest son for swearing.
“Yesterday.”
“She phoned you?” Brody asked.
Jay exhaled slowly. “No. She came to see me because she’s from here.”
He knew they were all trying to work out who.
“The woman you had a one-night stand with in New York is here in Lyntacky?” Dan asked.
Jay watched his cop brain working through the women in town. Only one was here who he could have met in New York. Someone he already knew.
“We’ve decided to come clean with people right off, as it will get out eventually, and I want to be in the child’s life,” Jay said. He needed to get this out—all of it.
“Who?” Brody demanded.
“Brody,” Robyn cautioned. “He’ll tell us when he’s ready. This is not just about him.”
“Blue Jay McAllister.”
He kept his eyes on Dan. His friend’s expression hadn’t changed since Jay started talking, and that was the cop training. But he was shocked—it was there in his eyes. Shocked that his friend had unprotected sex. That sensible, rule-following Jay had broken every rule and got a woman pregnant.
“I didn’t even know you guys spent time together away from here. As far as I knew, you were just two people who lived in Lyntacky. Not close, but you had that tie, which made you sorta friends,” Dan said.
“It’s a long story, but I saw her one night when I came back to the hotel after a meeting. We got talking, and then drank too much…” He waved his hand about after shooting Robyn a look.
“Well,” she said, reaching over Brody to hug Jay again. “We’ll get you two through this, love. You’re not alone.”
“Thanks, Robyn.” His throat felt thick with emotion because he’d known that would be her response.
Callum brought over a coffee and lowered it down in front of him. He then squeezed his shoulder before returning to the stove.
“You think you and Blue Jay could have a thing, bud?” Brody asked.
“By thing, I’m guessing you mean relationship?” Leah asked.
“That.” Brody pointed a finger at her. “And having been in this exact situation at a younger age, I can help you through some of this, Jay.”
“I don’t know—honestly, we don’t really know each other, even after what happened between us.”
But they had talked that night outside the Rollaway. Really talked, and it had felt right to be there with her.
“Is she staying in Lyntacky?” Dan asked.
Jay frowned. He hadn’t even asked her that.
“Her brothers are going to pay you a visit, bud. You know that, right?” Dan added.
“I do.”
“Those two may have been raised with peace, love, and understanding, but we both know how mean they can be when crossed.”
“Just like us,” Brody said, taking the coffee his mother handed him and sipping it.
“We’ll deal with all of it,” Leah said. “I know what it’s like to be the subject of gossip in this town, and while as a kid I hated it, with age, I understood that most of it was well-meaning worry.”
Dan leaned in to kiss the top of his girl’s head.
Did Jay want that closeness with Blue Jay? He doubted she wanted it with him.
“Blue’s tough,” Leah said. “She doesn’t suffer fools, and she has lived in New York alone for years. But, though she may appear as if she doesn’t need anyone, she does. You remember that, Jay.”
No one added anything to that, and they all sat drinking their coffee in silence.
“We have plenty of baby stuff, so there’s that,” Brody said when the silence had gone on too long.
“Really, bro? That’s what you felt needed saying right then?” Dan asked.
Brody shrugged. “Having a kid is expensive.”
“He’s rich. You haven’t worked that out yet? The man’s been doing secret stuff at a high government level for years.”
After Dan finished talking, Leah looked from him to Jay and back again. “I thought he was into real estate and investing,” she said.
“He’s in national security, but he could also be a spy and we’d never know,” Brody explained.
“Not a spy. Thanks, Robyn.” Jay took the plate with a wedge of carrot cake on it.
“Why does he get first plate?” Dan groused.
“Because he’s had a shock,” she said.
“There’s plenty of cake to go around,” Callum said, bringing more to the table.
“We got you, bud. This is going to work out okay,” Dan said, reaching over to squeeze his shoulder. “You’re not alone, remember, and Blue is a good person.”
He knew that and also that her family would support her, but what he didn’t know was how they were going to parent this child together when Blue lived in New York and he lived here.