Chapter Twenty-four – Wicked Game #2
“Wylee has lost his mind if he thinks you’re involved. He needs to pull his head out and start doing his actual job of protecting you,” she snarled, but it dissolved into an unexpected smirk. “Although, with a Navy SEAL staying in your house, I’m not sure you need more protection.”
I shoved her shoulder.
“Too bad we couldn’t figure out a way for your mom’s room to be off-limits. Then, we’d have the perfect, one-bed, forced-proximity situation I love in romance novels.”
I laughed. “What would we do with Theo? Lock him in a closet?”
She smiled. “Kids sleep. How do you think married couples make more than one baby?”
We were laughing when a soft rap on the door was followed by Parker entering the room. He had a plate in his hands. “Did Nurse Maisey approve dinner?”
She grimaced. “I hate my name sometimes. Nurse Maisey sounds like a bad cartoon. Or like I’m going to go all Nurse Ratched and lobotomize someone for standing up to me.”
Parker chuckled.
He handed me the plate, and in response, my stomach growled at the scent of a perfectly toasted grilled cheese. He’d included a scoop of freshly cut fruit salad with it, but the sandwich was what I dove into. Every molecule in my body seemed to rejoice.
“Theo’s right. You do make a mean grilled cheese,” I said after inhaling several bites.
Parker’s eyes bounced between Maisey and me. “Would you like one, Maisey?”
She shook her head. “No, I ate before I left the house. Working in the ER, you never know if you’ll get a chance to breathe, let alone eat. ”
“Do you have to get back?” He crossed his arms over his chest, darting a look at me that said he wanted to finish our conversation from earlier.
“I called off. I’m spending the night,” Maisey said, and I almost laughed at Parker’s barely masked disappointment. “No way I’m leaving Fallon here without a trained medical professional looking over her. She’d try to convince everyone she was fine and start baling hay.”
Parker chuckled, and it landed low in my belly as always.
“Okay, then. I’ll just leave you two to catch up while Theo and I do all the guy things.” He looked around the bed. “Do you still have Dog? He’ll never get to sleep without it.”
I pulled up the covers and found the stuffed animal tucked by my side. I handed it over. “Make sure he knows how much it helped.”
Parker stared at me again for a long moment, as if he wanted to say something else, but then headed back toward the door. “Let me know if either of you need anything. I sleep light these days.”
As soon as he was gone, Maisey whispered, “Holy hell. The heat vibrating between the two of you has grown in epic proportions. If I trusted you more, I’d leave you two to your own devices.
But seeing as you’re both the strong and muscly type, your sex life would be way too active for your concussion.
I’m doing you a favor by staying so you don’t end up prolonging your recovery and have long-lasting side effects. ”
She was right. It was for the best—but for an entirely different reason than she’d given.
I had to figure out a way to make him retract all his enticing offers without telling him the truth.
And that wasn’t anything I’d ever been good at—keeping things from him.
Or Maisey. They were the only two people on this planet who’d always seen through my pretenses.
I stabbed a piece of watermelon, and I’d barely put it in my mouth before my body objected. The grilled cheese had gone down fine, but even the smell of the watermelon had me barreling for the bathroom. I tried to go slow, but everything spun.
I landed on my knees by the toilet with Maisey right behind me.
I heaved, but nothing came up.
“Shit!” Maisey said. “I expected some nausea, Fallon, but I’d rather not see actual vomiting.”
I sat back, leaning against the cool wall. Everything hurt. My body and my soul.
“It isn’t the concussion causing the nausea,” I told her, and my hand involuntarily went to my stomach.
“What do you—” She cut herself off and sank to the floor beside me with a flabbergasted look. “Holy shit. That asshole. That asshole!” She pounded the floor.
Maisey was the only person besides those in the interrogation room who knew what JJ had done, partly because I’d been too humiliated and angry to tell anyone, and partly because I’d thought it hadn’t mattered since I’d had a period.
But now, here I was with a life I couldn’t yet feel growing inside me. A life I was incredibly protective of already.
I wanted to shelter it from the knowing looks it would get from people around town, just like the ones I’d gotten growing up.
I didn’t want them to know their life had started with an act of betrayal, like mine had.
I also didn’t want them to have a dad who’d use them as a bargaining chip if he found out about them.
And yet, how would I ever keep the baby from knowing the truth?
When they asked about their dad, what would I tell them? A lie?
“You know what’s worse?” I whispered to my best friend.
“What could be worse than being impregnated by an asshole poking holes in your condoms, being shot at, and being accused of the attempted murder of your own mother?”
“Thanks for summing up the shittiness of my life so thoroughly,” I said dryly. Then, I looked at her, and the tears leaked out. “Parker… Parker finally let his guard down and kissed me. He admitted he wanted me.”
“Oh my God, he kissed you ?”
I nodded. “Twice.”
“And?” she asked breathlessly, knowing—as only a best friend for life could—just how much I’d always wanted him to initiate a kiss, to not back away from the electricity burning between us.
“Universe-spinning, life-altering good.” Just thinking of our kisses made my entire body light up, pushing away the nausea until the truth crashed back down.
“I’m jealous. I’ve never had that kind of a kiss,” she said mournfully.
“Don’t be jealous. I have to walk away from it.” It hurt more than I could ever have imagined anything could.
“What?” She looked at me, flabbergasted. “Why?”
“I’m pregnant with another man’s baby, Maise,” I told her sadly. “What am I going to do? Date Parker while I grow to the size of a basketball? Expect him to massage my feet while I grow another man’s kid inside me?”
Realization hit, and her face turned red with anger. “That fucker. I want to kill him with my bare hands.”
“Me too. At least if JJ were dead, he’d never find out about the baby. I can’t let him know he succeeded, Maisey. He can never, ever know,” I said fiercely.
Maisey and I just sat shoulder to shoulder, contemplating life as we had many times growing up. Finally, when the cold of the tile started to eat its way through us, she helped me up and back into the bed.
We turned on the television, and knowing me as she did, she pulled up a streaming service and found my old comfort show.
The one I’d returned to over and over through the years.
Buffy’s face on the screen eased the tension in my body.
If she could save the entire Earth from devastation as a teenager, I could certainly figure a way out of my current troubles as an adult.
“You could marry him,” Maisey said.
I jerked my gaze from the TV. “No fucking way am I marrying the asshole who got me pregnant and is going to prison for drug dealing and identity theft.”
Maisey’s mouth dropped open. “As if I’d ever suggest you marry that loser. No. I’m talking about Parker.”
I snorted. “Just because he’s decided he wants to have sex with me doesn’t mean he’s changed his mind about love and marriage and kids. Parker has always been clear he didn’t want any of it.”
She frowned and then shrugged. “But he already has a kid now. What’s he going to do with Theo when he’s deployed?
Is he resigning his commission? If you married Parker, like ASAP, and JJ ever came sniffing around, you could tell him it was Parker’s baby.
You know he’d believe it. He always thought you were sleeping with Parker anyway.
And you could keep Theo while Parker was off on assignment. ”
“You’re suggesting I offer Parker some kind of fake marriage, like in a romance book?”
She raised a single eyebrow. “I’m not sure how much ‘fake’ there would be in the ‘fake marriage.’ The steam between the two of you is real.”
I barely stopped myself from shaking my head, knowing it would hurt too much.
“Thanks for suggesting it, Maise, but I promised myself I wouldn’t continue the cycle the women in my family are known for.
I won’t marry someone just because I’m pregnant.
” When she started to say something, I talked over her.
“I don’t want my kid growing up wondering, if they hadn’t been born, if our lives would have been different.
Look at my dad. All he wanted was to breed and train horses, and I ruined that for him.
I know too painfully well what it’s like being the reason your parent didn’t get what he wanted. ”
Maisey squeezed my hand. “That’s one way to look at it, Fallon.
But you weren’t the reason your dad left.
He left because your mom married Spencer.
And when I see your dad, I don’t see a man wallowing in lost dreams. Sure, his dreams changed, but I think that’s normal.
It’s the rare person who actually follows the path they decide on when they’re a little kid.
If you asked him, I think your dad would tell you he’s happier now than he could have been staying here on the ranch.
He built an entire empire, married his soulmate, and created two more beautiful babies.
Even more, following that path has allowed him to give you your dreams, and I think he’d say that was worth it.
What parent doesn’t want to help their kid get everything they want? ”
Her words settled hard in my chest just as the ones Parker had said about JJ did.
Had I allowed myself to hold on to responsibility, to take blame, to feel regret, for things that I never should have shouldered?
Worse, had I misjudged both my parents? Maybe Mom hadn’t worked her ass off on the ranch as some attempt to reclaim her Hurly family legacy, but simply because she knew how important it was to me.
But twenty-four years of baggage wouldn’t let me toss all my previous convictions aside that easily.
Still, long after my friend had fallen asleep, my mind continued to whirl with all the implications of Maisey’s talk. The concussion care instructions the ER doctor had given said to keep both thinking and activity light for the first few days, but it was impossible to stop my brain.
And the worst of Maisey’s comments refusing to be banished was the one about Parker.
Because the longer I thought about it, the more marrying Parker seemed like a real solution to both our troubles.
I’d already fallen hard for Theo. I could adopt him and give him a good home on the ranch.
He’d have all the dogs and animals he wanted.
And Parker could remain on the teams. Sure, he’d have a family waiting for him like he’d never wanted, but he already had Theo anyway.
Life had already taken some of his choices from him.
No. It was a ridiculous idea, wasn’t it?
When I finally fell asleep, it wasn’t the deep and dreamless one I’d had that afternoon. Instead, it was full of taunted wishes and happily ever afters that couldn’t come true.