Text copyright ©2015 Lani Lynn Vale
All Rights Reserved
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
businesses, places, events, and incidents are
either the products of the author’s imagination or
used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to
actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is
purely coincidental.
Dedication
To my mom. Thank you for reading my sex
scenes and not gagging. Love you.
Acknowledgements
Dearest FuriousFotog, you are a blessing.
Thank you so much for taking these photos for
me. They’re unbelievably beautiful.
Andrew England- when I first started writing,
you were the first person that I really took notice
of…I always said that one day I would have you
on the cover of one of my books, and here you
are, lucky number 18. <3
Dearest readers,
I know you’ve been waiting a long time for
Michael’s book, and I hope you enjoy reading
about him as much as I loved writing his story.
As you know, this is the last in this series, but
don’t fret. You’ll see more of them in future
books such as Kilgore Fire Department and a future spinoff series of all the ‘Free Kids.’
<3 Thank you so much for reading this book,
and all of my earlier work. Just know that it is
you right now that made this possible for me.
Lani
Chapter 1
I licked it. So it’s mine.
-Fact of life
Michael
“You’ll need to make sure you get to the
house by six if you want to make it on time for
dinner,”
my father said tiredly. “You know
how your mother gets when you don’t show up
on time.”
I winced.
I did know how my mother got.
Irrational is what she got.
It’s as if she hadn’t been married to a doctor
for the last thirty years.
I can’t name one single time that my father
got to any event on time, whether it be a birthday,
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vacation, sporting event, graduation, or hell, even
a fucking birth.
Not one time had I seen her lose it over my
father being late, but her baby boy was late and
suddenly the whole world stopped.
“I’ll try to be on time,” I told him. “But I’m
not promising anything. I have to work until five
thirty; it takes nearly thirty minutes to get to
your house from the station. And that’s if I
leave on time. I told her to make sure she held
the party later, but she wouldn’t listen.”
“Joslin wanted six,” my father told me hesitantly, opening the door to his office. “And that’s
when Dean could be there.”
I squeezed my hands tightly into fists, trying
my hardest to not punch a hole in the wall with
my fist.
I had no earthly idea why my mother continued to invite my ex-wife.
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Dean was at least my fuckin’ brother, and I
could understand why he’d have to be there.
It was as if my mom didn’t care that Joslin
was no longer married to me. Usually the family
chooses the child over the child’s ex.
We were together for a little over a year and a
half when I found out she’d cheated.
Granted, the reason she’d cheated had been
my fault, or so she’d said, but that still didn’t
give her the right to do that to me.
We’d taken vows. And I’d at least meant
them.
Refraining from saying, ‘Fuck Joslin,’ I
walked to the side doors of the hospital and to the
ambulance bay with my father.
“I see,” I settled on.
My father’s face looked pensive, as if he
wanted to say something, but didn’t know how to
say it.
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“Michael, I need to tell you something…” my
father started.
I would’ve stayed to listen, but the mic at my
shoulder started squawking.
“The nearest unit is needed at 5543 Pleasant
Circle. Possible double homicide,” the dispatcher
ordered.
Sighing, I turned and offered my hand to my
pop.
“Gotta go, dad. I’ll try my hardest to get there
on time, but I’m not promising anything,” I told
him.
He nodded, looking for the world like he was
upset that he hadn’t said what he had to say, and
shook my hand before saying, “Be safe.”
My father, like my mother, hadn’t liked that
I’d chosen to go into law enforcement.
They’d spent thousands and thousands of dollars to get me through medical school only for
me to quit to join the Navy.
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Once in the Navy, I’d continued my schooling. After I’d finished, and then got medically
discharged due to some slight nerve damage in
my left foot from a bomb exploding, did I decided that the medical field wasn’t really
something I was much interested in anymore.
Which had pissed both my mother and father
off.
Immensely.
But I’d hated it.
I’d only done medical school because it was
expected.
None of my family could understand why I’d
quit.
My mother was a nurse. My father was a doctor. My brother was a doctor, and my sister was a
nurse.
They couldn’t see past the fact that I was
happy. They could only see the millions of
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dollars I was flushing down the drain to be a
SWAT officer.
Not to mention they were hardcore Democrats, and I was most definitely not.
My mind, however, screeched to a halt as I
saw her.
Nikki.
She had long, rich brown hair, beautiful
brown eyes, and stunning caramel skin.
Today, she was in her scrubs.
A dark gray color that, although it should
look incredibly ugly, didn’t.
She was a phlebotomist and on the IV team.
A licensed paramedic that worked as a tech in
the ER. She went around doing IVs throughout
the hospital, but mostly stayed down in the ER
where she was needed the most.
She was also studying to be a midwife, and
from what I’d learned from Nico, her brother and
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another member of the SWAT team, she was
well on her way to graduating.
I was in love with the woman.
No if’s, and’s, or but’s.
So in love with her that I could barely be
around her.
She was in love with me, too…or had been
when we’d first met.
But I’d ruined that, like I always ruined
every-fucking-thing.
See, I was an asshole.
A diagnosed
nonetheless.
asshole,
but
an
asshole
I was bi-polar.
I take my meds religiously.
Yet, there were times…like when I told Nikki
that I didn’t want to have kids with her… that the
asshole slipped through, and took hold of
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innocent people, tearing apart relationships as
collateral damage.
I’d not meant it to come out that way.
I’d actually meant it to come out the opposite
way entirely.
I didn’t want to have kids fathered by me.
I didn’t want my children to suffer from what
I had.
Being bi-polar was only the tip of the iceberg.
I battled with depression during the winter
months.
I had ADD.
And swear to Christ I didn’t want to put a kid
through that.
I was a prime example of a person that
shouldn’t have kids.
But I was Nikki’s, even if Nikki wasn’t mine.
At least not anymore.
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She would forever have my heart, but I’d
never hold hers.
It was better this way.
I was so fucked up that I literally couldn’t
handle anymore.
And I didn’t want a woman like Nikki,
someone so pure of heart, to have to deal with
my shit. Because there sure the fuck was a lot of
it.
Watching her until she went inside, I finally
pulled out of the parking lot and responded to the
suspected double homicide.
And once again it reemphasized the fact that
some people really shouldn’t have kids.
Pulling into the yard that housed a double
wide trailer, I walked up to the front door where
an elderly couple was standing.
The old man had his hands wrapped around
the old woman’s shoulders, and he was holding
her comfortingly.
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As if, if he were not careful, she might very
well fall apart.
Stepping out of my cruiser, my feet crunched
in the gravel.
As I made my way to them, I took a survey of
my surroundings.
The land surrounding the trailer was clean
and well kept.
Flowers lined the sides of the mobile home
with red bricks surrounding the flower bed.
A bass boat sat to the side underneath an
awning, with a trailer that had two four wheelers
on the back ready to ride to the dear lease at a
moment’s notice.
An infant swing swung on the front porch,
being pushed by nothing more than the wind.
And I got a really, really bad feeling.
The moment I got within speaking distance,
both of them started speaking at once.
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“They’re dead!” The woman cried, covering
her mouth with her hand.
“Shot her, and then himself,” the man said
gruffly. “The baby too. We didn’t touch
anything.”
Bile already making the climb up my throat, I
said, “Please go stand next to my cruiser.”
They both readily complied, and I was
thankful.
I could tell that the man was a hard man.
He had a Marine Corps tattoo on his right
forearm, and what distinctly resembled a knife
wound just above that.
His eyes were hard and his demeanor even
harder.
But whatever he saw inside had rocked him.
Taking a deep breath, I stepped over the
threshold of the mobile home, and immediately
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turned around to lose my lunch over the side of
the porch.
I’m not ashamed I have a heart.
But any man would’ve lost it over what I’d
just seen.
Taking a few deep breaths, I said a silent
prayer, and once again stepped over the
threshold.
This time I was able to take in more of the
scene.
Earlier I’d stalled over the child.
This time I was able to move past the child
that was in front of a sliding glass door across the
room to the man that crumpled against the far
counter.
He was on his ass, a revolver had fallen just
to the right of his hand.
He had a large hole at the top of his head
where the bullet had exited.
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Moving past him, I saw the legs of a woman
on the other side of the island.
Walking carefully into the room, I skirted
around the island and closed my eyes the moment
I saw the woman.
She was beautiful. Long blonde hair laid
around her in a halo. Cute skirt and skin tight
top clinging closely to a very pregnant belly.
“Fuck me,” I breathed, dropping down to my
knees.
Although I knew it was futile, I checked for a
pulse on each of the parents.
But Rigor Mortis had already set in; I knew
they were gone the moment my fingers met their
skin.
Really not wanting to check the child, but
knowing I had to do it anyway, I walked carefully over to the baby.
He was dressed in a red onesie that had little
puppy dog prints on it.
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His little feet were covered in a tiny pair of
red socks, and I found myself thankful.
It masked the sheer amount of blood that was
surrounding him.
His and his mother’s were mingling, and you
couldn’t tell whose was whose.
But as my fingers met his cool skin, and I felt
the rapid beat of his pulse, my whole body froze
in shock.
He was alive!
Mother fucker.
He had a gunshot wound to his face, but he
was alive!
Scooping him up, I placed him gently over
my shoulder and started sprinting out the door.
I was thankful as hell to see that Bennett, another member of the SWAT team and fellow officer, was pulling into the driveway.
He saw me coming and his eyes flared.
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I didn’t waste a second, however.
I ran to his passenger side door, fell inside,
and said, “Drive!”
He drove, and the last thing I saw before I
turned my attention to the little boy in my arms
was the horrified looks on the two elderly people
as we peeled out of the driveway, spraying dirt
and gravel in our wake.
“Why aren’t we waiting for the ambulance?”
Bennett yelled, taking a corner going way too
fast.
“Because we’re two minutes tops from the
hospital, and it’ll take the ambulance at least five
to get to where we are. It’s easier and faster to
drive, and this baby may not have that long,” I
told him honestly.
He didn’t say another word, and I didn’t
either.
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Chapter 2
Damaged women are strong.
And crazy. Don’t forget crazy.
-Coffee Cup
Nikki
“Nikki!” Lennox called from the nurse’s
station.
I looked up from the man I was currently getting an IV on, and raised by brows at her in
question.
“Nikki, Paxton’s going to get that IV for you.
I need a hand. Now,” Lennox ordered.
Her eyes were haunted, and I swallowed at
the look.
What the hell was going on?
I’d felt it the moment that the trauma had
come in.
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The entire room had gone into overdrive.
Not one to usually participate in trauma’s due
to my lack of credentials, I stayed out of the way,
helping where I was needed.
Handing off the IV for Paxton to tape and finish up, I patted the man’s hand and hurried
around the foot of the bed.
My first indication that something was seriously wrong was when I walked into the room
and saw a man’s black booted feet at the end of
the exam table bending over the foot of the end
of the gurney.
Then I followed it up to see the cargo pants
that KPD wore.
But what really gave me pause was the fact
that the man wore long sleeves.
Nobody, and I mean nobody, wore long
sleeves in the middle of a Texas summer.
Unless your name was Michael ‘Saint’ Perez.
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“What do you need?” I managed to ask Lennox, looking away.
I’d yet to see what was on the gurney, but I
knew it was bad.
Michael’s entire body was shielding whatever
it was, and I knew it would be bad before I rounded the end of the gurney.
“I need you to get an IV in him,” she said
softly.
That’s when Michael moved, and I nearly lost
my legs out from under me.
“Sweet Mary mother of God,” I whispered in
devastation.
Michael’s eyes were blank.
No emotion in them whatsoever.
But I could tell he wasn’t doing it because of
me.
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He was doing it because he knew that if he
showed even the least bit of emotion, he’d lose it.
Just like I was about to do.
Taking a page from his book, I steeled up my
defenses and said, “22 gauge.”
Then I went to work on getting an IV in a
baby less than ten months old, with quite a bit of
blood loss, and a gunshot wound to his head.
All the while Michael, the man I’d been in
love with for over two years, watched me, holding a kid in his arms and talking to him like he
was his father.
Heart panging, I found a vein, and started an
IV.
I’d done it many times, and it was rare that I
missed.
Once the access was started, I backed away,
watching as the trauma team descended in mass.
Michael, though, didn’t leave.
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Even when his ex-wife showed up and
pressed her entire body against his to get a fucking gauze pad when she could’ve gotten one out
of her pocket.
Bitch.
God, she made my life a living hell.
Literally, day after day she made it a point to
torture me, and I didn’t know why.
She didn’t know that I liked Michael.
Hell, only a few people knew that I even
knew him.
What Joslin didn’t like about me was the fact
that everyone liked me.
I was, by nature, a nice person.
I got along with everyone. I was a team player, and I could work with damn near anyone.
Her, though, I couldn’t work with.
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Not only because she refused to, but because
she hated me and I refused to torture myself.
So when she started to push in close to Michael, I wanted to smack the hell out of her.
But, as the professional that I was, I backed
out of the room, and turned to see where I was
needed.
I was the newest ER Tech.
I was a licensed paramedic.
But a paramedic that couldn’t be in an ambulance because I got motion sickness.
Something I’d not figured out until I’d taken
my first job.
Lucky for me, I was starting with another licensed paramedic to watch over me, because I
spent my entire time puking, effectively ending
my career before it’d even started.
I’d completely disregarded the medical field
after that, going back to my father’s office where
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I’d been a secretary, with my tail tucked between
my legs.
But when my best friend, Georgia, came back
into town, she convinced me to give it another
chance, and here I was, on the IV team and being
a helpful person in any way I could.
“What happened?” I heard asked from behind
me.
I saw Paxton, a PA that worked with us, looking at the room that I’d just managed to get the
hell out of.
“Gunshot wound to the head,” I whispered,
trying really hard to forget, yet not managing to
accomplish that very well.
“Fuck me,” Paxton breathed.
I liked Paxton.
He was a very sexy man with dark brown hair
that curled over his ears, and a beautiful blue set
of eyes that could make any person’s heart start
to flutter.
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His heart only fluttered for men, though.
Specifically, his significant other that he’d
met just a few months ago through a mutual
friend of the two.
“Yep,” I said, turning away and washing my
hands in the sink that sat right next to the exit
that the paramedics used to transfer patients in
and out. “I’m going to run to Starbuck’s. Want
anything?”
Paxton shook his head.
“Nah, I just had a candy bar. My ass can’t
take any more calories today,” he said
sheepishly.
I rolled my eyes.
My ass definitely couldn’t take it either, yet I
couldn’t find it in me to give a shit at the
moment.
I definitely took after my curvy mother.
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I had what my sisters liked to call ‘child bearing hips.’
Big boobs, big hips, toned thighs (that, might
I add, were still on the bigger side of acceptable)
and a chin that was questionably close to what
they called ‘double.’
My friends and family didn’t see what I saw,
the imperfections.
They said I was beautiful.
I said I was chunky.
To-ma-toes. Tom-a-toes.
Don’t ask me why I did what I did next.
It could’ve been because I was crazy. Or it
could’ve been because I knew he needed it, but I
did it with no ulterior motives.
“I want a twenty ounce amaretto latte, and a
twenty eight ounce black Americano,” I ordered.
She young teen smiled, busying herself
steaming my milk and shaking cinnamon
33/544
sprinkles on my frothy milk that collected at the
top of the drink.
“That’ll be eight fifty,” she said, holding out
her hand.
I shoved a ten in her hand and said, “Keep the
change.”
She smiled. “Thank you.”
Taking my two coffees, I walked back down
the hallway to the ER. When I turned the final
corner that would take me into the ER, I ran
straight into a brick wall of flesh.
Instinctively, I lifted my hands up to save the
coffee, and inadvertently padded my collision
with my breasts which pressed up against a hard,
well defined chest. They instantly pebbled.
“Oh!” I said in surprise.
“Fuck,” a deep voice hissed out, hands moving to my hips to keep me steady.
34/544
That voice always had the capability to send
shivers down my spine.
“Michael,” I breathed, smiling timidly at him.
“Nik,” he sighed. “Sorry, I wasn’t watching
where I was going.”
Bringing my cups down, I stepped back, and
instantly regretted the loss of his heat.
I knew, though, that the longer I stayed there
touching him, the harder it’d be to move away.
“I got you this,” I said, shoving the coffee in
his direction.
He caught it before I could spill it all over his
chest, but to be honest, his shirt really couldn’t
get much worse.
Not with the massive amount of blood I could
see soaking it.
He’d have to throw this one away.
It may be black, but there was no way he
could get the blood out of this one.
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The white lettering that designated him a
KPD officer was stained red, and I had a feeling
that it wouldn’t come out. Not with any amount
of scrubbing.
“Thanks,” he said, sounding surprised.
“You look like you needed it,” I muttered,
walking around him to the door that led into the
ER.
He smiled sadly.
“‘Preciate it,” he muttered, staring at the coffee like it was the answer to all of life’s
questions.
Seeing him like that made me remember the
last time he’d done that.
It’d been at a SWAT meeting that’d turned
into an impromptu party when I’d shown up with
a box full of tamales from my mother.
***
Two years ago
“Holy crap that man’s freakin’ hot!” I said to
my best friend in the whole wide world.
Georgia was freakin’ beautiful. Just as beautiful now as she had been when she’d left.
And I’d missed the absolute crap out of her.
Georgia smiled over at me.
“Which one?” She asked cheekily.
I knew that was right.
They were all overly hot.
Except my brother. He was just my brother,
and eww. That was just wrong to think of that…
on so many levels I couldn’t even list them all.
“Everyone but Nico. He’s ugly,” I told her.
She gave me a roll of her eyes. “Your brother
is beautiful, and you damn well know it.”
37/544
I shrugged.
“I was talking about Michael,” I stated,
watching as he leaned forward on his chair and
laced his fingers between his knees.
Georgia rolled her eyes.
“Why are you always going for the bad
ones?” She asked, forcing a beer in my hand.
I blinked.
“I don’t like beer,” I said, extending my hand
to her, as well as the bottle.
She gave me a pointed look. “Go take it to
him. He asked for it.”
Butterflies started to churn in my belly, and I
smiled at my best friend. “I love you, you know.”
Georgia’s eyes sparkled with unshed tears.
“Don’t make me cry. Take it to him before I do.”
Sticking out my tongue, I walked across the
space separating Georgia and me from the men.
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I knew he’d clocked me from the moment I
left Georgia.
He wasn’t so much as watching me, as he
was aware of me.
When I arrived at his side, he turned his face
up to me and looked at me, not smiling.
“Your beer?” I offered it to him.
He took it from me carefully. So carefully that
he didn’t touch a single piece of my skin in the
transfer.
“Thanks,” he muttered,
heartedly. “’Preciate it.”
smiling
half-
I had seen him before. Noticed him at SWAT
events. Watched him while visiting my brother.
That was the night I became aware of him.
That I became obsessed with him.
That was the night that my world changed,
and I wished upon a star, while standing under
the star-lit sky with Michael next to me.
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Hours after handing him that beer, he told
me about his ex-wife. About his job. About how
his wife blamed him for not wanting kids, as for
why she’d cheated on him.
That was the night I fell in love with him.
Head over boot heels.
***
“Do you need some clothes?” I asked softly.
He shook his head. “No. I’m gonna go
straight to the station and change into my
workout gear. Thanks for the offer, though.”
Smiling, I punched in the code that would get
me through the door, but stopped when Michael
called my name.
“Nikki?”
I turned to find him staring at me.
His eyes full of pain.
“You…you want to catch dinner and a movie
this week?” He asked hopefully.
I blinked, then a small smile split my face.
“Yeah, I think I’d like that.”
He nodded, turned, and walked out of the
building. Not once glancing back.
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And there I was left in the hallway, practically bouncing on my toes in excitement.
Then I turned around, and the smile slowly
fell from my face when I saw Joslin standing
there, her eyes full of fire.
Choosing to ignore her, I walked past her
with a muttered, “Excuse me.”
But I knew that wouldn’t be the end of it.
Not even close.
Chapter 3
Friday. My second favorite F
word.
-Coffee Cup
Michael
Needless to say, I was very late showing up
to my mother’s party.
By over an hour.
I was wearing a white t-shirt and black jeans
that had so many holes in them that they could
technically qualify as shorts.
And my tattoos were showing.
Something my mother was definitely not going to like.
But it couldn’t be helped.
I could either go home and change, and make
her happy because I was covering my tattoos and
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be later. Or I could be late-ish and come
uncovered.
It was a lose-lose situation, and I really could
care less at this point.
I wanted to have this dinner about as much as
I wanted my nuts cut off.
Alas, I loved the hell out of my mom, and
would suffer greatly for her happiness.
Kind of like having to share a fucking dinner
with my ex. She was the worst mistake of my
life, yet my mother refused to tell her to fuck off.
Pulling up to my parent’s house, I got out and
dropped to my feet.
I drove a jacked up Ford F-150, much to my
parent’s consternation.
We were a car family, pure and simple.
Or at least they were, not me.
I loved my truck.
44/544
I could get it dirty and not worry about the interior because that was what trucks were for.
Shoving the keys into my pocket and turning
to grab the pie I’d had in my truck since this
morning, the coffee cup that I’d downed the moment I got into my cruiser fell to the floor.
My eyes lit on it, and I smiled, thinking about
how Nikki had given it to me.
She knew me well.
Or as well as I let her know me.
She knew me better than my entire family,
and she’d only ascertained the information in
about ten total meetings.
She’d gotten more from me in one night than
Joslin had gotten from me in a year and a half.
“About time you showed up,” my brother,
Dean, said lazily from the glider in the middle of
my parent’s yard.
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Bending down, I picked up my coffee cup
and placed it gently into the cup holder of my
truck before gripping the pie and slamming the
door.
“Yeah,” I muttered, walking up the front
walk.
“Heard about your day. Sorry man,” my
brother said sincerely, blowing out a breath of
smoke he’d just inhaled from his cigar.
My brother and I weren’t what you would
call ‘close.’
We were family, of course, but that’s where
that ended.
He was the prodigal son. The one who did
everything right, while I did everything wrong.
And sometimes it was hard not to resent that.
Really hard.
“Thanks,” I muttered, opening the door once
I came to it.
46/544
The first thing I noticed was that no one was
in the living room where they usually were, and
that I could smell dinner wafting from the
kitchen.
The smell turned my stomach.
Eating was the last thing I wanted to do right
then.
Not with the memory of Baby Nathan’s blood
pouring out of his body as I held him on the way
to the hospital.
“He’s not coming, I think we should just eat,”
Joslin said huffily.
I rolled my eyes as I made my way down the
darkened hallways that would lead to the kitchen
and formal dining room where I assumed they
were all gathered.
“He’s coming. He texted me when he was
leaving the hospital,” my sister, Hannah,
defended.
Hannah and I were the closest in age.
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Irish twins.
She was born ten months before me, in the
same year.
Me, being the baby, was the surprise that
everyone still liked to point out was the accident.
“Thanks, Hannah,” I said, walking into the
kitchen and placing my pie on the countertop.
“I’m here, so the party may begin.”
The last was said once I was in the dining
room, which meant everyone turned to watch me
walk in the room.
My father and Hannah didn’t bat an eyelash
at my attire.
My mother and Joslin, though, did.
Not that I cared.
Nor was I surprised.
Taking the seat to the right of my dad, and
directly next to Hanna, I placed both hands in my
48/544
lap and waited, like the good boy I was, for dinner to be served.
Which only happened once Dean made his
way back inside from his smoke break.
All the while, I spoke with my sister about
her daughter, Reggie.
Reggie was a boisterous two and a half year
old that was with her ex-husband for the night.
“Reggie told me I was to ‘watch my step’
today because I was telling her what to do. Can
you believe that? I bet Joshua taught her that one,
too,” Hannah said snottily.
I snorted.
Needless to say, Hanna and her ex didn’t get
along.
Not even a little bit.
“Actually,” I amended. “That was me. I’m
sorry. I said that to her two days ago when I was
watching her.”
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Hannah sighed. “I guess I should be happy
you didn’t teach her how to say cuss words, I
suppose.”
My father snorted. “You and Michael were
cussing by the time y’all were three and four.
Mainly because your Uncle Paddy thought it’d be
funny to teach you them. It was real exciting to
slam on my breaks to avoid hitting a car and have
the two of you say ‘fuck you’ and ‘what the fuck’
respectively.”
Hannah giggled while I laughed.
My mother, on the other hand, didn’t.
Apparently, she didn’t find it funny.
“Alright, we can eat now,” Joslin cooed as
Dean made his way into the room, breaking the
silent death glare I was getting from my mother.
Once grace was said by my father, he started
to serve himself, and passed the dish around the
table.
50/544
Once I dished up two pieces, I passed it to my
sister, and then so on.
We didn’t do a sit down dinner often, but
when we did, we were expected to actually sit
down at the table instead of in front of the TV
like we wanted to.
“It’s good, Beth,” my father said around a
mouthful of food.
My mother smiled. “Thanks.”
I looked down at my untouched food, and
couldn’t say the same.
It reminded me of the gore from the double
wide.
What I’d later learned was a cop from a
neighboring city, and his wife, who was a stay at
home mom to their ten month old.
And as I picked at my food, I couldn’t help
thinking about the cop.
What had happened?
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Had he slipped through the cracks?
Had he needed help, and no one noticed?
Would I have noticed had he been my friend?
If someone had intervened, would the mom
still be alive? Would that baby growing in her
belly still be sheltered in her mother’s womb?
“Michael, Joslin tells me you had an interesting day,” my mother said, bringing my attention
from my plate to her.
I shrugged. “Yeah, I guess so. Nothing
special.”
Joslin, never one to let something go, sat
forward.
“You saved that baby’s life. You’re the reason that he’s alive! You’re the talk of the hospital,” Joslin crowed.
I shrugged, not answering.
I really, really didn’t want to think about it
anymore.
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Like really.
So much so, that if she continued not to catch
the hint, I might have to leave.
“Well, I have some news,” my brother said,
breaking the awkward silence.
I turned my attention to him, and saw him
watching Joslin weirdly.
“We’re engaged!” Dean smiled, holding
Joslin’s entwined hand up with his.
I blinked, surprised.
My mother, who loved Joslin to pieces, stood
up and clapped loudly.
My father and Hannah, though, turned to me,
watching me for a reaction.
I shrugged again.
I didn’t care.
I should warn Dean, though.
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They didn’t know why Joslin and I had
broken up.
They only thought that the dissolution of our
marriage had happened because we’d fallen out
of love. Joslin had practically begged me not to
tell them because she and my mom had grown so
close.
“Congratulations!”
excitedly.
My
mother
crowed
“You okay?” My father asked worriedly.
That was when I realized he’d known.
That was what the hesitation had been about
earlier.
“Fine, why?” I asked.
Hannah looked at me, almost as if she was
waiting for me to break apart.
“You’re sure?” She asked persistently.
I nodded. “Yeah. It’s good for them,” I lied.
54/544
I really should’ve told them why we’d split.
Yet, I couldn’t because Joslin had acted
like…well…Joslin.
“Mom,” I said, standing. “Do you mind if I
have a sandwich? After today, this isn’t
very…appealing.”
I had to eat no matter what. My medication
couldn’t be taken on an empty stomach or it
wouldn’t be absorbed correctly. And if it wasn’t
absorbed correctly, then we’d be in a very different situation than we were now.
My mom looked at me, and I mean really
looked at me, and she saw right through my flippant attitude and immediately dropped Joslin’s
hand and started hustling to the kitchen.
I followed her, keeping my eyes on my mother’s back instead of on Joslin’s annoyed face, and
Dean’s pissed off one.
Whoops.
Spoiled their big reveal. My bad.
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She may love Joslin and Dean, but she loved
her baby boy more. Tattoos, disappointment, and
all.
“They told me about today,” she whispered
once she was in the kitchen.
“I…I don’t like it. I feel like I should’ve done
more. Been faster. I don’t know. He was a police
officer,” I told her.
That tid-bit hadn’t been released as of yet.
So when she gasped and whirled around, a
block of cheese in one hand, and a Tupperware of
cold cuts in the other, I realized I’d surprised her.
“What?” She asked in horror.
I nodded. “The murder suicide was with a
cop and his wife,” I confirmed.
“God, that’s horrible. And I heard the doctors
talking. The baby will live, but they’re not sure
about what cognitively was effected yet, correct?” She asked, placing the food on the counter
and making me a sandwich.
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When she would’ve reached back in for the
tomatoes I stopped her. “None of those, please.”
She looked at me, looked at the tomato that
she knew I loved, and nodded, placing it back on
the shelf in the fridge and closing it with her
backside.
“And yes, that’s what I heard when I called to
check on him earlier. They’re keeping him in a
medically induced coma until they’re sure the
swelling is down to a manageable level. They’re
contacting the paternal grandparents, too.” I
knew that would be her next question.
My mom had a bit of a soft heart for those
who didn’t have family.
Which was why Joslin was so loved by her.
Joslin’s parents weren’t what one would call
‘quality’ people.
They both smoked weed and neither had a
job. I wasn’t even certain how they funded their
extracurricular activities.
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Then again, I’d never asked seeing as I was a
fuckin’ cop.
She smiled at me.
“That’s good. Is he on the ped’s floor or in
ICU?” She asked.
My mother worked on the pediatric floor.
That’d been where she was working when
she met my father, who was a pediatrician, thirty
five years ago.
My sister worked on the ICU floor, and Dean
was a general surgeon.
“ICU for now. Ped’s when he gets better,” I
answered, accepting the sandwich she offered
me.
Her nose scrunched when she caught a closer
look at my tattoos, and I barely restrained the
urge to roll my eyes.
What was the big fuckin’ deal about the
tattoos?
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I thought they were fuckin’ great.
She, on the other hand, thought they were
ugly.
Whatever.
“So, when did Joslin and Dean start dating?
I hadn’t realized they were even together,” I
asked, taking a bite of my sandwich.
It felt like a mouthful of sand as I chewed and
swallowed.
I washed it down with a large slug of sweet
tea that my mother handed me, and finished the
sandwich in three bites while my mother worked
the corner of her lip with her teeth.
“Well?” I asked again.
She sighed. “They’ve been seeing each other
for going on a year now, Michael.”
I blinked. “No shit?”
She narrowed her eyes. “Michael, you know
how I don’t like when you curse.”
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Being on the ped’s floor really kept my mother from using bad language day in and day out.
She rarely, if ever, used them. And hated when
her family did.
“What’s the big secret?” I wondered aloud.
My mother pursed her lips. “Joslin said you’d
be upset, and she’d like to keep it quiet until they
were ready to share the news, and I went along
with it.”
I raised my brow at her. “You do realize,
right, that I’m your child and not her. She was in
the family for less than a year if you want to
count the amount of time we spent separated.
Why keep her secret from your own son? It’s
not that I’m torn up about it, I’m just disappointed in my family for keeping it from me. I’m not
going to fucking break.”
“Language!” She snapped.
I threw up my arm.
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“Thanks for dinner, ma. Maybe you can let
me know when you’d rather put me ahead of my
ex. I’ve got some awesome stories that I think
you’ll find extremely interesting,” I said, walking
to the back door.
“Mikey,” my mother said worriedly.
I held up my hand. “Save it.”
With that, I left and didn’t look back.
Chapter 4
I hate you. Not in an ‘I hope
you die’ kind of way, but more
like I hope you develop an allergy to chocolate and cheese
kind of way.
-Coffee Cup
Nikki
“Hey there, Nikki!” Joanna said from her position behind her desk at the Pediatric ICU nursing station. “How have you been?”
I smiled. “I’m good. I just came up here to
check up on that little boy. How’s he doing?”
She smiled sadly at me. “Lonely, I’m sure.
But I’m short two nurses and we’re nearly at
capacity.”
I brightened. “Do you mind if I sit with him
for a while?”
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“I think he’d like that,” she smiled.
Taking her words to heart, I followed the directions to his room, and walked in on a starkly
white room with a crib in the middle of it.
Well, a hospital bed, crib.
It really wasn’t much of a crib.
It didn’t have that homey feeling like most
cribs had.
This one was cold, metal, and bland.
And the tiny boy in the middle of it, hooked
up to hundreds of tubes and wires, broke my
heart.
I loved children.
I loved them with a passion and fierceness so
powerful that I could barely see straight.
And I’d never have any of my own.
So I soaked it up by spending time with other
people’s children.
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And it looked like this little guy could use a
friend.
Walking over to the crib, I took a seat at the
chair, just to the side of it, and watched him.
His little head was wrapped in gaze from
about the nose up, only one eye revealed.
His hands were taped to little boards so if he
were to move, he wouldn’t pull out the IV lines
they had in both hands.
His feet had monitors attached to them with a
bright green wrap, and his body was veiled in a
bright red hospital gown made for tiny humans
such as him.
Picking up one of the books that was on the
shelf across from my seat, I leaned back in my
chair and started reading to him.
I must’ve gone through five or six books before I realized I wasn’t alone.
64/544
I looked up from my book I was reading to
see Michael leaning against the doorframe,
watching me.
“Hey,” I said, surveying him.
He looked better than he had before.
His white t-shirt stood out starkly against his
tattooed skin.
I’d never seen his arms bare before, now that
I thought about it.
“Hey,” he said carefully. “I was just bringing
him some of his things…you know, so he
wouldn’t be alone.”
“That was nice of you,” I whispered softly.
“Come in.”
He did, albeit a little reluctantly.
When I noticed, I stood, offering him the
chair.
65/544
“It’s about time I went anyway. I just wanted
to come check on him, see how he was doing,” I
whispered softly.
Michael, who’d been surveying the boy,
looked up.
His beautiful eyes pierced me straight
through every time he gave me the full force of
them.
“You don’t have to go,” he said softly. “I’m
not staying long. I have to go.”
Wasn’t he being nice?
You see, Michael and I had a long history.
Well, it was more like four months total of
history, but that history was enough to last a
lifetime.
I patted him on the forearm, a little bit of
smartass filling my tone. “Well, then I guess you
can walk me out.”
66/544
After placing a kiss to the tips of my fingertips, I pressed it against the boy’s hand, and
looked at him longingly.
How could someone ever shoot their own
child?
What kind of monster was capable of that?
Saying a silent prayer, I walked out of the
room, very aware of Michael watching me the
entire way.
I’d convinced myself he wasn’t going to follow me, but the moment I walked into the elevator, the doors closed, and he was there.
Ninja much?
“You like kids,” he muttered, settling himself
in the corner of the elevator by the numbers.
A statement, not a question.
One he knew the answer to already, seeing as
that’d been the thing that’d drawn our relationship to a sudden rocking halt.
***
18 months ago
Nervously, I looked into the mirror and inspected my attire.
Today would be my eighteenth date with Michael, and I felt that it was the one.
The one that would change everything.
Today would be the day that I gave myself to
him.
Lock, stock, and barrel.
We’d only been dating for a little over four
months, but it was enough.
I would be breaking my rule of twenty dates
before I slept with him, but that was only because
I knew.
I knew I was about to sleep with the man I intended to marry.
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A knock sounded at the door, and I hurried
through my room to my front entranceway, and
threw open the door.
Michael was standing there, long sleeved button down shirt, as always, and a smile on his
face.
“You look beautiful,” he breathed.
I smiled at him and opened my door.
“I made your favorite,” I told him as he
walked through.
I’d found over the last four months that Michael had a love for Mexican food. A great love
for it.
And he really liked home cooked Mexican
food.
I’d gone through my mother’s entire cookbook making him food and, over time, we’d discovered that his favorite was one of the most
simple.
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Fajita’s, rice, and beans.
“Score!” Michael said as he made his way
through the living room and headed straight towards the kitchen.
“The rice and beans are done. The only thing
I’m waiting on is for you to grill the meat,” I informed him.
He turned around and grinned, pinning me to
the spot with those baby blues of his.
“So we have time,” he murmured, “for me to
do this?”
Then his body crowded mine against the
counter, and I forgot how to breathe.
“Do what?” I asked breathlessly.
He chuckled, then his mouth was on mine.
He tasted like heaven, mint with a hint of the
Dr. Pepper he’d just finished drinking.
My hands went underneath his shirt as I said,
“I’m ready.”
70/544
He blinked, then abruptly circled his arms
around my lower legs, and lifted me off my feet.
“Jesus,” he breathed, turning around and
walking quickly to my bedroom.
He didn’t bother with the lights, only laid me
down on the bed before following me down.
“Are you sure? Because I’m about to lose
control here, and I don’t want you to regret anything. Regret me,” he whispered.
In answer, I started stripping his shirt from
his body, and then started working on his pants.
He lifted up and resumed his own disrobing,
allowing me to shimmy my dress up and over my
head.
All my careful planning for the night that included my outfit, down to the straightness of my
hair, was out the window once his naked body
pressed against mine.
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“I’m so sure I can’t even stand it,” I told him,
widening my legs to allow his hips to slip
between them.
He growled against my mouth, hand moving
up to cup my breast.
“Good,” he rasped, moving up to his knees.
When I heard the sound of a package ripping
open, I stopped him.
“I’m on the pill,” I breathed, arching up to
him. “And I’m clean.”
He continued rolling on the condom. “I’m
clean, too. But I always wear a condom. No matter what. Less chance of having kids that way.”
I nodded, slightly upset that I’d wasted all
that money going on birth control when he
wasn’t even going to utilize the benefits of it.
Then I was filled completely with him, and I
forgot to be disappointed.
Because he was anything but disappointing.
***
That next day, in my brother’s kitchen, had
been the showdown that had ended our
relationship.
I wanted kids. He didn’t.
Well, that wasn’t exactly what he’d said.
More like he wanted kids…just not with me.
That simple.
“You…would…would you be willing to adopt?” He asked softly.
I blinked.
“What?” I asked in surprise.
He looked down at his hands, inspecting his
fingers as he said, “Would you be willing to adopt? Or have kids that weren’t mine? Maybe by a
sperm bank or something.”
I considered that for a moment, letting what
he was saying sink in.
73/544
“Are you asking me if I’d be willing to adopt
a child and still be with you?” I confirmed.
He finally looked up at me, and my breath
caught.
His pupils were dilated and I was fairly positive it wasn’t because he was on drugs.
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“I miss you.”
Three simple words that had the power to defeat me.
“Michael, us breaking up…it wasn’t over
something minor. It was huge. Pivotal. But it
wasn’t even just the fact that you said you didn’t
want kids with me. It was the fact that you were
so final about it. You wouldn’t talk to me. You
wouldn’t share your feelings with me. Hell, but
you fucked me with your t-shirt on, and
wouldn’t let me in! Then you just shut down
and didn’t even explain,” I said fiercely.
74/544
He let all that he was feeling seep into two
words. “I’m sorry.”
I just shook my head. “It’s going to take a lot
more than just ‘sorry’ to make everything
alright.”
“Will you…will you come with me. Somewhere? I want to show you something,” he said
softly.
“I have to go to a meeting tomorrow at eight.
I can’t stay out late,” I tried.
He shook his head. “I’ll keep you there as
long as you want to be there. The minute you
want to go home, I’ll take you.”
“My car’s here,” I countered.
“I’ll drive you back up here in the morning,”
he said pleadingly.
I looked at him for a long while before I came
to my decision.
75/544
“Fine. Just…don’t hurt me again, Michael. It
hurt enough the first time to last me a thousand
lifetimes. I don’t think I could survive it a second
time,” I whispered hoarsely. “Promise me.”
He made a sound in his throat that hurt my
heart, but I didn’t relent.
I watched him and waited for him to promise
me, and promise me he did.
“I swear on my life that I will never intentionally hurt you again. I promise.”
Chapter 5
Life’s a bitch. Oh, no. Wait,
that’s you. My mistake.
-Secret thoughts of Nikki Pena.
Michael
“This is my favorite place in the world,” I admitted softly as I pulled my truck up into the
front row parking spot of Peek’s Tattoo Parlor.
“It’s a tattoo parlor,” she said in surprise.
I tossed her a grin as I opened the door to my
truck and dropped out.
I didn’t know what the fuck I was thinking.
All I know was that this day had been complete shit, and I’d had to do a lot of thinking. Something I’d been avoiding doing for quite a long
time now.
Nearly a year and a half to be exact.
77/544
From the moment that I let Nikki misunderstand why I didn’t want kids, I knew I’d made a
terrible mistake. But, at the time, I thought I’d
been doing a good thing.
She would have a terrible life if she stayed
with me, and there was no one on earth that I’d
want to have to deal with my shit.
But then I’d held that boy, while he’d drained
his lifeblood on my chest, and I knew that I
couldn’t deny it anymore.
I loved her. And I’d do anything to have her.
Even have a child with her if that was what it
took.
I was tired of being lonely.
And when I walked in on her reading to the
baby, I knew I’d make her mine again.
No matter what it took.
It all started with letting her into my world.
Letting her see me. And that started here.
78/544
“So, I guess I need to start by telling you
why I do the tattoos,” I started, swallowing convulsively before I flayed myself open. “When I
was twelve, I started cutting myself.”
She gasped in surprise and whipped around to
stare at me.
I put the tailgate of my truck down, and
hopped up, holding out my hand to her.
She took it, no reluctance whatsoever, and
that bolstered me to say what I had to say next.
She came in between my legs and leaned into
me, looking up at me with her heart in her eyes.
I leaned my head against hers for a long moment before pulling back and looking up at the
stars.
“That was the first time my parents realized
something was wrong with me. I didn’t try to kill
myself, per se, I just knew that something was
wrong, and pain made it feel better,” I explained,
not looking down into her eyes. “That was when
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I was diagnosed with depression. Three weeks
after that, I was diagnosed with bi-polar disorder. Bi polar two, to be exact. By the time I
was fourteen, I was diagnosed with ADD. Right
now I’m on medication for my bi-polar disorder
and ADD since they believe that those are the
two causing most of my problems.”
When I finally got the courage to look down
at her, it wasn’t horror that I saw, but
understanding.
So I felt like I should continue.
“Surprisingly, none of that affected my
schooling. The manic side of my bi-polar disorder kept me from falling behind with the other
things affecting me. I always strove to be the
best. The depression kicked in when I wasn’t the
best,” I explained.
“My youngest sister is bi-polar,” she said,
surprising the fuck out of me enough to look
down at her again.
80/544
And the understanding in her eyes about
killed me once again.
“When I turned eighteen, I got a job in a tattoo shop to help fund my schooling. My parents
paid for nearly all of it, I only had to cover the
books,” I explained. “That’s when I found that
the pain of the needle fed that need for pain in
less destructive ways, and I haven’t looked back
since.”
“Schooling? I thought you were in the Navy,”
she said.
I curled a sliver of her hair that’d fallen free
of her bun behind her ear, cupping her neck once
I did.
“I went to school for my medical degree
when I was seventeen. Graduated with that when
I was twenty five. Joined the Navy when I was
twenty three, while finishing that up. Then realized that I hated being a doctor, so I just…quit.”
81/544
I knew the next thing out of her mouth before
she even said it.
“And what made you not want to be a doctor
anymore? Seems like a lot of schooling on your
part for you to just give it up,” she whispered,
laying her head against my chest and looping her
arms around my waist.
I held my breath, and tried to hold the pain in,
yet it didn’t want to be held anymore.
“I witnessed an abortion that changed the
course of my life and also ruined me for the medical field,” I said woodenly. “If someone could
just kill an unborn child in that way, one that had
fingers and toes, and clearly defined features,
then how could they say they were an upholder
for human life? Wasn’t what they were doing
the exact opposite?”
“Oh, Michael,” Nikki breathed. “Do you
want to tell me about it?”
I knew Nikki was catholic.
82/544
She went to church religiously every Sunday.
In fact, as a way to get closer to her, I’d started going to conversion classes, and attending
Sunday mass at the very church that she went to
just so I could breach some of the gap between
her and me.
The fact that abortion would never be uttered
from her lips really held great appeal to me.
Because abortion had been a determining
factor in how I’d live my life from the moment I
turned twenty three.
Even now, twelve years later, I can still remember what that baby looked like.
I looked at it every day in the mirror.
“It’s gory. And not a good story,” I warned
her.
She pressed further into my arms, and said
what I needed to hear. “Tell me.”
So I did.
83/544
“I was asked if I wanted to, and since I’d never witnessed one before, I thought ‘sure, why
not.’ Well, the why not became a ‘what the hell
have I done’ pretty fuckin’ quickly. I’d heard
about abortions during one of the many lectures.
Knew the basics of it. So I go in there, and
there’s this woman already on the table with her
legs high and wide in the air.” I cleared my
throat. “She was asleep, and it was then I realized that the baby they were doing the abortion
on was a viable fetus, but the mother just didn’t
want her.”
“I watched as they hooked the vacuum up,
maneuvered the small hose up her vagina, and
started to suck away.” I coughed. “Instantly,
there was blood, and that’s about when I turned
around and refused to watch anymore. I’d just
witnessed a child murdered right in front of my
eyes.”
“God,” she breathed, a sob catching in her
throat.
84/544
“That was the first tattoo I got,” I said,
grabbing her hand with my own and moving it to
rest over my heart. “That’s when I met Peek.”
She moved away, placing distance that I
didn’t want between us, between us, and held
out her hand. “Show me your Peek.”
And that’s what I did.
Hopping off the truck’s tailgate, I made my
way inside, hand in hand, with Nikki.
The first person to greet us at the front
counter was Alison, the woman that’d been
working the front desk for as long as I could
remember.
She was also Peek’s old lady.
Peek was a member of an unofficial motorcycle club, and one of the grumpiest men in the
entire world.
Yet, he respected a man who could speak his
language. And Peek’s language was the art of
tattoos, and I had a lot of tattoos.
85/544
“Mikey!” Alison said happily. “You ready to
get that blank spot on your back filled in?”
Before I could answer, Nikki spoke up.
“Actually, he’s bringing me here to get my
first tattoo!” Nikki said excitedly, as if we’d actually planned for that to happen.
When I went to say something, she placed her
hand over my mouth and shook her head.
“Really? Mikey’s never brought anyone here
before! I’m so excited to meet you! You’re
Nikki, right?” Alison asked with a happy laugh.
Nikki turned curious eyes to me before returning her attention to Alison.
“Yeah, I’m Nikki. I hope you’ve heard good
things,” she said honestly.
I knew I should stop this before it went any
further, but I decided to let it be. What was said
was said, and I didn’t have anything to hide.
86/544
Nikki would find out soon enough what I’d
done even without Alison’s help.
Alison smiled. “Oh yeah. Michael told us all
about you when Peek was doing the piece on his
back.”
Nikki blinked and turned to me, but Alison
didn’t notice. She was too busy going on and on
about all that I’d said that night a year and a half
ago.
The night I’d been drunk out of my mind.
“What’d you do?” She asked warily.
I shrugged and turned around, giving her my
back.
“Right above my belt,” I told her.
Slowly I felt my shirt lifted, and then she
gasped.
I knew what she saw.
It was kind of hard to miss.
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“You have my name tattooed on your ass!”
She squealed.
I snorted and turned around, giving her a dry
look.
“It’s on my waist, not my ass. I don’t have
anything on my ass. I can always get one if you
want,” I offered suggestively.
She wiggled her fingers at me.
“Turn back around,” she said. “I wasn’t done
looking.”
I did as I was told, and felt her tracing the letters of her name that was inked into my flesh
with her fingers.
“Why?” She asked softly.
I shrugged.
“Seemed like a good idea at the time,” I said
lamely.
She laughed, making my heart soar.
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“I’ve heard of women putting their man’s
name right there, so he can, ya know, see it when
he does her from, ya know, behind. But I’ve
never seen a man do it,” she tittered.
I let my shirt drop and turned back around to
see her eyes now fixated on my crotch, and I
barely resisted the urge to cover it with my hand.
“So,” I said teasingly. “What are you getting
on that virgin skin of yours, Nik?”
We’d talked about it once, a lifetime ago, but
times changed. As did opinions.
Nikki, though, was predictable, proving to me
she hadn’t changed a bit.
“Have you seen those huge eyed stuffed animal Ty Beanie Babies?” She asked Alison.
Alison nodded. “Yeah, who hasn’t?”
Nikki smiled.
“That’s what I want.”
I shook my head.
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That woman.
On our first date together, I’d won her one
from one of those machines where you used the
claw to grab the stuffed animal out of the overpriced machine.
She’d fallen in love with it, and I’d started
calling her ‘Owl’ later that night as I saw the resemblance between the owl’s eyes and Nikki’s.
When she’d joked that she was going to get a
tattoo of the owl, I’d called her on it, and we’d
made a bet that she wouldn’t.
But then, as time went on, we’d forgotten
about it.
Then things had gone down, and suddenly
there was no more Nikki and Michael.
Well, I’d forgotten about it.
Nikki, apparently, had not.
“Do you have a specific one you had in
mind?” Alison asked.
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Nikki smiled and dug into her bottomless pit
of a purse for her phone, unearthing it after
emptying not only her wallet, keys, and a makeup
bag, but also a pair of flip flops, onto the counter.
I could do nothing but shake my head.
“That woman.”
“Oh!” Alison said excitedly. “I love it!”
Alison was a forty four year old woman with
graying blonde hair, but right then, with the way
she was giggling like a teenage girl, she could’ve
passed for one of the young girls that Peek had
just shown out the door.
“What are you squealin’ about, woman? You
know how that hurts me ears,” Peek growled
teasingly.
Peek was fourth generation Irish.
He had a thick accent, but when he was talking to his wife, the accent got thicker and thicker
as he crooned his sweet words to her. Or yelled at
her.
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“How ye doin’, boyo?” Peek asked slapping
me on the shoulder with his large hand.
Peek was a six foot four inch powerhouse that
towered over my six foot two frame.
I wasn’t skinny by any means.
I had muscle on top of muscle.
Peek, on the other hand, was a bull where the
rest of us were most definitely not.
He was a volunteer firefighter for the Uncertain, Texas Fire Department as needed, and he
worked at his tattoo parlor in Kilgore, Uncertain,
and Gun Barrell City on a rotating shift. He was
also a member, and president, of the Uncertain
Saint’s MC.
Peek had started the MC a long time ago after
the death of his and Alison’s one and only son.
Apparently it’d been due to drugs, but I’d
never broached the subject any further than what
he was willing to give.
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I’d met him that first night, twelve years ago,
and he’d helped me cope with my decision to
leave medicine, as well as my parent’s outrage
over the fact.
He’d also introduced me to the Chief of Police, Chief Rhodes, on my next shore leave.
We’d hit it off, and I’d found myself a job
with Kilgore Police Department the minute my
feet met even earth once again.
“I’m doing well, Peek. This,” I said, holding
out my hand to Nikki, who ignored me as she
showed Alison pictures of nephews. “Is Nikki.”
Peek smiled, moving closer until he was directly behind Nikki with his body turned towards
me, remembering just as Alison had. “I’m glad to
hear that, boyo. What’re ye doin’ here?”
Nikki turned when she heard Peek at her
back.
Eyes wide in wonder she said, “I’ve never
met an Irishman before.”
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Peek turned to her and gave her a leering
grin. “Would you like to?”
Rolling my eyes, I moved until my arm was
around Nikki’s neck. “She’s spoken for, big guy.
And I’m fond of Nikki’s eyes,” I said looking
pointedly at an innocent looking Alison who had
the grace to look chagrined.
A few months ago, Peek had been working
on a client, a young female who was getting one
of the most-hated-by-Peek tattoo’s ever, a butterfly, when the young client had grabbed Peek’s
crotch.
Alison, having witnessed the incident,
flipped. Then threw the girl and her half-finished
butterfly out the front door.
I’d been the one to take the call when the girl
had called to report the apparent ‘assault,’ which
were actually just a few scratches on her face.
“I can’t help that that girl was a dumbass who
thought it was appropriate to grab a man’s, a
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married man’s, crotch,” Alison said stubbornly,
before tossing a glare in her husband’s direction.
“I can’t help that me package is irresistible!”
Peek said in his Irish brogue.
Nikki laughed, covering her mouth to contain
her giggles before turning laughing eyes on me.
“You ready to get that tattoo done, Owl?” I
asked softly, ignoring the two bickering people to
our sides.
She nodded. “Yeah, I think it’s time.”
Chapter 6
If she even looks at me I’ll fuck
her face up…with my killer
glare, and hellacious cold
shoulder.
-Nikki to Lennox
Nikki
“Hello?” I answered my phone. I sounded
tired.
I’d literally been in bed for less than four
hours, tops, and I was dying to go back to sleep.
“Nikki?” Lennox whispered softly. “Where
are you?”
My eyes blinked open tiredly, and I rolled
over to look at the clock.
“In bed,” I moaned. “Why?”
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“Uhh, because you were supposed to be here
thirty minutes ago. You told me you switched
with Damon, and neither you or Damon is here,
and Joslin’s on a fuckin’ rampage,” Lennox said
hurriedly. “She’s telling everyone she can that
you’re not here yet. I’ve been stalling, but you
need to hurry!”
“Crap,” I whispered, jolting up out of bed.
“I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
Pulling a brush through my hair as I went to
the bathroom, I hurriedly pulled on clothes and
rushed through my morning routine that would
normally take forty five minutes, condensing it
down into five.
Which meant my hair was curly instead of
straight like I usually styled it.
It meant that my makeup was non-existent
and my clothes were wrinkled because I’d had to
pull them out of a pile of clothes on the foot of
my bed that my cat loved to knock down when
she could. And it also meant that I was wearing
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the wrong colored tennis shoes, because I
couldn’t find my work pair.
I was sure I’d get reprimanded for it, but if
I’d known ahead of time that I’d get written up
for it and nearly lose my job, I would’ve called in
sick.
My phone rang again, and I nearly panicked.
I was religiously late.
To everything.
Birthdays, work, parties, dates.
If it had a possibility for me to be late, I was
late.
Luckily, it was just my sister, Noel.
“Nik-Nik, can I borrow your car? I have to
have the brakes fixed on mine, and I need to
drive to Tyler for school,” Noel said pleadingly.
I rolled my eyes. “As long as you fill it back
up with gas, and bring it back in time for me to
drive home from work later.”
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“Deal,” she said. “I’ll come get it from your
work in about ten minutes.”
I closed the front door to my apartment behind me and started to hurry down the hall to the
stairs. “Make it fifteen. I’m running late.”
She laughed. “Why does that not surprise
me?”
“Watch it,” I teased. “See you later. Be careful today.”
With that, I hung up and started to run down
the stairs.
I was going to be later than I’d said.
Twelve minutes later, I was pushing through
the doors of the ER with my bag over one
shoulder.
Since I didn’t have any food in my bag, because I hadn’t had time to make anything last
night nor this morning, I stored my bag underneath the nurse’s station and made my way up to
Bryan, the charge nurse.
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“Bryan,” I said, catching his attention. “I’m
sorry I’m late. I had a really long night.”
I didn’t tell him why I had a long night,
however.
And he didn’t ask.
He nodded. “Don’t make a habit of it, Pena.”
I nodded, then winced when the movement
pulled the skin at my back, reminding me once
again of the tattoo I’d gotten just hours ago. And
Michael.
“Bryan, when have we become allowed to
wear colored shoes?” A snotty female voice belonging to Joslin, asked.
Bryan looked up from his charting to Joslin.
“We’re not allowed to wear colored shoes.
You know the rules, white only,” Bryan said,
sounding slightly annoyed.
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I walked away, knowing where this was going before I’d even had time to process the fact
that Joslin was aiming for me today.
“But Nikki’s wearing shoes like that,” Joslin
tattled like a two year old.
Bryan’s eyes turned to me, taking in my
shoes.
Then quickly turned back to his charting.
It was the soft throat clearing from Joslin that
had him sighing and looking at me.
“Go change them, Pena,” Bryan said tiredly.
What the fuck was that?
“You want me to go home to change them?” I
asked for clarification.
He nodded. “Yeah. Now.”
I shrugged. “That’s fine with me, but it’s
gonna take me another hour or so to get back. I
lent my car to my sister for the day. I’m sure
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she’s already picked it up by now. So I’ll have to
call her for a ride home.”
Bryan growled in frustration.
“Nikki,” he said, standing up. “Follow me to
the break room. We need to talk.”
Stomach clutching, I followed Bryan out the
double doors and down a side hallway that led to
our break room, all the while Joslin’s laughing
eyes followed me out.
I refrained from flipping her the bird, but
only just barely.
I was already in trouble, and I was fairly positive Joslin would just tell him what I’d done
anyway. So I put on my big girl panties and followed dutifully behind Bryan.
Once we were in the break room, he sat on
the edge of the table and crossed his arms.
“I’ve already had to talk with the director
about your constant lateness,” he said without
preamble.
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I pinched my lips closed.
I had no reason.
I was late.
End of story.
And always would be.
“I’m sorry,” I said sincerely.
And I was.
Not for just past incidences, but for future incidences as well.
He sighed and rolled his head up to the
ceiling.
“You need to get your ducks in a row,” he
said. “I have a feeling that the only reason
they’ve kept you is because you’re such a good
worker. You’re always staying late, always picking up shifts and willing to move when we ask
you to. But that doesn’t make up for the fact
that you’re constantly late, and you need to try
harder to get that fixed, otherwise I’ll be
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obligated to report this to the director, okay?” He
asked, sounding tired.
I nodded, uncrossing my arms and placing
my hands in my pockets of my scrubs. “Sure.”
I wouldn’t make any promises, though.
That was just me. I was late.
“I’ve also had a complaint about you from a
few of the staff members for going off on coffee
breaks too often,” he said carefully.
A few staff members my ass!
It was only one staff member!
And that was because she’d just come back
from sucking some man’s cock!
Whore!
“I see,” I said carefully. “And does this staff
member happen to have a vendetta against me or
something?”
He blinked.
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“Um, no,” he answered lamely.
Liar!
“Well, I only went on one coffee break yesterday, Bryan. And that was right after I had to
put an IV into some kid who’d just been shot in
the head!” I all but snarled. “Excuse me if I can’t
handle that and needed a fucking break!”
He blinked, surprised at my outburst.
“I wasn’t aware that was why you’d gone
yesterday. I’d only heard what she said to me. I
apologize,” Bryan said truthfully.
Ah-ha!
She!
Well that could only be one person!
“Stupid cunt muffin,” I muttered as I turned
around to leave. “Fucking her way to the top.”
I stomped my way down the hallway, passing
the entrance into the ER, and then came to a dead
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stop when I saw Joslin’s fucking hand on my
Michael.
He was looking at her with concern as she
wiped a fake tear from her eyelid, and I lost it.
It’s hard to say where I came by my temper.
My papa liked to say that it was my mom’s.
My mom liked to say that it came from my dad.
Wherever it came from, it was legendary.
However, legendary temper or not, I needed
my job, so I had my tantrum in the bay where the
ambulances parked instead of in the hallway in
front of the stupid bitch.
“Stupid son of a whore. Puta needs her
brain scanned if she thinks she can fuck with
me. I’m a Pena, goddammit! And that pendejo
has another think coming if he thinks I’m going
to stand for this after last night. Motherfucker!”
I hissed loudly as I marched out of the sliding
glass doors.
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And right into a group of bikers that were
looking at me funny.
In their lead was Peek, and he had a mocking
smile on his face that was perilously close to being slapped off.
“What are y’all looking at, fools?” I snapped,
pushing through them.
They moved, I’m sure some of them trying
not to laugh.
Others, like the tall dark and handsome one
with the caramel skin and the laughing green
eyes, as well as Peek, didn’t bother to hide the
laughs that bubbled out of their throat.
“What’s got your panties in a wad, Owl?”
Peek laughed from behind me.
I flipped him the bird as I stomped across the
parking lot, not missing the fact that through the
glass walls that lined the back hallway I could
see Michael standing with Joslin, in much the
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same position as before, but now he had his
hands on her head.
I made it all the way to the parking lot before
I realized I’d forgotten that I didn’t have a car.
Then I saw the shiny Dodge diesel with the
black rims and electric blue paint job that Michael had gotten sometime in the last year, and
bad Nikki came out to play.
Let’s just say that my brother taught me a
thing or two in his time, and with nothing else
better to do, I’d honed the skills until I could get
into anything, and drive anything.
The newer vehicles were equipped with keyless entry, and you had to have a remote in the
vehicle to start it.
Michael, though, had made a whoopsie
yesterday.
He’d told me about a spare key he kept in his
toolbox.
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I’d never thought that I’d need to know
that…but right now it came in really fucking
handy!
Reaching under the wheel well, I ducked my
head above the tire and looked for the black box,
finding it within seconds.
The box came off the metal it was attached to
easily enough, but the entire thing was covered in
dirt and grease, effectively making my hand completely covered in the gunk.
Not that I cared.
I was on my way home.
I’d take my time and come back dressed,
really dressed, and take it from there.
Although I’d probably abandon Michael’s
vehicle a couple of blocks over from my
apartment.
It wouldn’t do to have him knowing it was
me.
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Pressing the unlock button, I opened the door
and hauled myself inside.
“Is there a reason a man has to lift his truck
so big?” I muttered to myself, slamming the
door.
Pressing my foot on the brake, and punching
the start button, the diesel motor rumbled to life
with a quiet purr.
Looking left and right, as well as at the door
where I guessed Michael would come out of if he
knew his truck was leaving him, I pulled out of
the parking spot that Michael had so nicely
backed into for me.
Then I was on the road and two minutes from
where I’d decided to park my newest acquisition
when the red and blue lights lit up my mirror.
“Son of a bitch!” I said, cursing myself and
my stupidity. “You’re always doing this, Nikki.
Always with the bad decisions.”
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To make matters worse, it was my stinkin’
brother behind the wheel of the cruiser that was
pulling me over.
His surprise was as great as mine when he
saw me behind the wheel.
It took him a few minutes to speak, but when
he did, it wasn’t nice.
Not that that was unusual for Nico.
He was a major dick sometimes.
“You are one stupid bitch,” he sighed.
I took the nearest thing to me that I could
reach and threw it at him, which happened to be a
water bottle half filled with Gatorade.
He easily caught it and glared.
“You do know, right, that half the force is
now looking for his truck?” He asked with a
raised brow.
I shrugged. “I was mad.”
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He blinked. “You were mad…so you thought
it’d be a good idea to steal a man’s truck?”
“I didn’t steal it. I borrowed it,” I said
stubbornly.
He just shook his head. “Get out.”
“No.”
“Yes,” he said through clenched teeth.
“Make me!” I countered.
I was sitting in the back of Nico’s police car
when Michael pulled up twenty minutes later.
Nico was leaning against the hood, tired of
hearing me yell at him, and I was mad.
I’d probably be fired, too.
I knew I wouldn’t be arrested for ‘borrowing’
Michael’s truck, but Nico was an ass and put me
back here because he wanted to, not because he
had to.
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Michael dropped out of another cruiser that
pulled up nose to nose with Michael’s truck, and
got out.
That’s when I closed my eyes and got
comfortable.
Leaning my back against the door, I crossed
my arms over my chest and stretched my legs,
with my forbidden colored shoes, across the seat.
I was trying not to think about what I would
find on my clothes if I had a black light.
The inside of this cruiser was disgusting, and
if this never happened again, it’d be great.
It even smelled bad.
Tapping on the window across from me had
my eyes snapping open, and then shutting just as
quickly.
The door opened and Michael’s deep, sexy
voice said, “Get out.”
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I shook my head and closed my eyes. “Nope,
sorry. Can’t. My brother’s the arresting officer.
I’ll have to deal with him from now on.”
Michael’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not going to
say it again, Nikki.”
“And what are you going to do if I don’t
listen? Sit there and stare at me? Yeah. No,” I
said, closing my eyes once again.
Then my ass was sliding across the seat by
way of Michael’s massive hand wrapped around
my ankle.
I screamed, turning over onto my belly as he
got my legs out of the car, and then latching onto
the door as I was pulled all the way out.
Michael’s hands went to my hips as he pulled
harder, and my grip on the door started to give.
“Let me go, you big douche bag!” I yelled.
“Help!”
We were on a deserted street in the middle of
downtown, so the fact that I was yelling ‘help’
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when there was no one around was quite comical,
and apparently Michael thought so.
He laughed. The bastard.
“Let me go! I hate you!” I yelled, starting to
kick when he tossed me over his shoulder.
He smacked my ass, and I screeched.
“You bastard!” I snarled.
“You already said that,” he said laughingly,
walking past my brother and the other officer
who brought him, which happened to be James.
My brother’s mouth twitched as I passed, and
the bottle he’d handed back to me as he shoved
me into the car sounded like a great thing to
throw at him again had I had it.
Except Michael had made me lose it with his
caveman tendencies.
When he got to the passenger door to his
truck, he unlocked it with the keys in his hand
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and yanked the door open forcefully before depositing me unceremoniously on the seat.
I gasped in surprise, and then glared at the
closed door that had just slammed in my face.
“Pendejo.” I muttered, then tried to open the
door.
It didn’t open, mostly because my brother
was there to stop me.
I flipped him off and he laughed.
“I’ll get you back for this,” I said, pointing at
him warningly.
He lifted both hands and shook in fake terror.
I narrowed my eyes, and then smiled as I
pulled out my cell phone.
“Hello?” My best friend answered.
“Georgia,” I said when she answered. “You
know last week when you asked Nico what he
had for lunch, and he said salad? Yeah, it was
really a burger from Jucy’s. He lied to you.”
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Her outraged gasp, and then the click of the
phone in my ear, followed by the instant ringing
of Nico’s had me nearly laughing in hilarity.
“Karma’s a bitch!” I yelled when he
answered the phone.
Georgia was on a diet, which meant that Nico
was on one, too.
Except Nico didn’t want to be on a diet, and
every day he was on shift he ate out because he
was so hungry.
He paid in cash because she could see their
bank account, and I’d caught him at Georgia’s favorite restaurant just last week where he’d made
me promise not to tell.
Like the good sister I am, I didn’t tell. Until
he put on his bastard hat. Then all bets were off.
“That wasn’t nice,” Michael said from my
side.
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I’d heard him open his door, of course, but I
was ignoring him so I didn’t bother acknowledging him.
Crossing my arms over my chest, I stared
straight ahead and refused to even think about
him.
“Put your seatbelt on,” he ordered as he started the truck.
I ignored him.
“Nikki,” he said with a sigh. “Put it on.”
I didn’t.
Growling in exasperation, he unbuckled his
own seatbelt, reached across me.
His forearm caressed my breast, and my
nipple tightened.
The traitorous bitch.
Once he had a hold of the belt, he reached it
around me and buckled it into place next to my
hip.
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He smelled good. Not that I would admit that.
And my nipples were still tingling.
Michael went back to his seat, rolled down
the window, and started backing up.
“Thanks!” He yelled at the two men watching
us leave.
I snorted.
Screw them, too.
I’d be talking with James’ wife, too. I was
fairly sure I could find some dirt on him to wipe
that smirk off his face.
“What crawled up your ass?” He asked once
we were on the road.
I turned my head to look out the window and
stayed silent.
“Stop being childish and talk to me. What
you did today could’ve turned out a lot different.
You’re lucky it was your brother to pull you over
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and not someone that didn’t know you. Things
could’ve gone to shit easily,” he growled.
I turned to him then.
“You wanna know childish? How about your
wife telling everyone at work that I’m a piss poor
employee, and then tattling on me because I’m
wearing the wrong shoes. The same ‘rule,’ and I
say rule with the upmost reluctance because
nobody follows it, that everyone breaks. Which
I then get sent home for,” I snarled.
He blinked. “She’s not my wife.”
“Well, you fucked her and you were married
to her. Nearly the same thing,” I told him.
“It’s not nearly the same thing. I’ve been divorced from Joslin for way over two years. We
have no relationship whatsoever, and she’s marrying my brother,” Michael said matter of factly.
I tried hard not to react to the fact that she
was marrying Michael’s brother, but failed.
“She’s what?” I yelled.
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Well if that didn’t take the wind out of my
sails, I didn’t know what would.
Michael shot me an amused look, and it only
made that fire burning down in my belly become
hotter.
He was so sexy.
His black hair was shaved tightly to his head
on the sides, and had about a half inch on top,
and his face was clean shaven, though it hadn’t
been last night. He was back in his trademark
black t-shirt, and a pair of jeans covered his legs.
“Yeah, you heard right,” he nodded.
I blinked and turned back towards my
window.
She was such a hoe!
Bryan. At least three doctors that I knew. And
Michael’s brother? For real?
How did the woman have that much energy?
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“I thought you had to work today,” I said accusingly, not turning away from the view.
“I do. At twelve. It’s only nine thirty in the
morning,” he answered. “I was up there to come
see you, when I didn’t find you at your apartment, but Joslin was telling me you were sent
home.”
I clenched my hands into fists.
“She is such a bitch,” I snarled.
He snorted. “And you’re just now figuring
this out?”
I snorted. “You were touching her.”
He sighed. “There’s something wrong with
her. She doesn’t understand the word ‘no.’ She’s
devious and vindictive. I’ve learned over the
years that the easiest way to deal with her is just
let her have what she wants. Or, at least, let her
think she got what she wants. Gentleness seems
to throw her off, so that’s why I do that. I’ve
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learned to be just as manipulative as she is out of
necessity.”
I rolled my eyes. “Well, I think if you want to
continue this relationship, you are going to need
to figure out how to not touch her, because I
don’t like it. Not even a little bit.”
He smiled, revealing brilliant white teeth.
“Noted,” he agreed immediately.
Then he turned back to the road, and I was
left contemplating my brashness of stealing his
truck.
“I sometimes don’t think before I act,” I admitted softly, looking at my hands.
He snorted. “That’s an understatement.”
“I’ll try not to steal your truck again,” I said
softly.
“You won’t have the opportunity to steal my
truck again,” he laughed.
I raised my brow at him.
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“You think?” I asked.
He smiled. “I know.”
When we pulled up to my apartment, I pulled
out my keys and offered them to him.
He took them, thankful that he hadn’t asked,
and started up the stairs.
I’d realized over the course of our four month
dating life, and again last night, that Michael
liked to be cautious.
It didn’t matter if we were gone ten minutes
or five hours, when we got back to my place, he
was going to take a look through the house to be
sure that everything was fine before he left me.
I followed behind him, bemused, and walked
into the door just as he was coming out of the kitchen and disappearing into the bedroom.
I had a one bedroom apartment that I loved to
hate.
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I was on the top right of a four apartment
unit, and I hated every second of it.
The neighbor to my right stole my parking
spot. The neighbor to my bottom left liked to take
my clothes out of the shared laundry room. And
the neighbor directly below me liked to have
loud, wall banging sex. Not that I knew how he
did it since I was above him, and I was fairly sure
he couldn’t fuck on the ceilings.
Regardless, he did it, and I was impressed.
But also a little sleep deprived at times.
The interior of the apartment was nothing
special. White generic walls, beige carpeting.
Plain crappy countertops and appliances that
should’ve been updated last decade.
My furniture, however, was nice.
I spent a lot of time at home, and I wanted to
be comfortable while I did it.
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Which was why I’d spent nearly an entire
paycheck on my couch, and the next paycheck on
my TV.
My bed wasn’t as nice as my couch, which
was why I found myself sleeping on the couch
more often than not.
“What’d you get sent home for?” Michael
asked, breaking into my thoughts.
I turned to him and crossed my arms over my
breasts.
“I couldn’t find my ‘appropriate’ shoes for
work this morning, so I wore my regular tennis
shoes, which Joslin immediately brought up to
our boss, and I got sent home to change them.
Although that was over an hour and a half ago, so
I might not have a job to go back to,” I admitted.
He moved forward, running his hand along
the back of the couch.
Visions of our one single night together started to filter through my brain, and I barely
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restrained the urge to cross my legs to try to circumvent the throb between my legs.
“You’ll have a job to go back to,” Michael
told me. “As for your shoes, those are in my
truck in the backseat. You took them off last
night and forgot to take them in with you. Which
was what I was bringing back to you when you
stole my truck.”
I laughed.
That man! How freakin’ funny he was!
“That would’ve saved me a lot of time and
heartache,” I told him. “Why didn’t you just text
me?” I asked.
“You told me to lose your number, remember? Since I’d never memorized it, and you deleted it from my phone, I didn’t have it. Unless I
wanted to call Nico, and today was his day to
take a standardized test with the department,
athough it was canceled, thank God. So I
wouldn’t have been able to do that. So I brought
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them to you instead,” he explained, his eyes eating me up.
I sighed.
Turning to my kitchen, I put my bag down on
the table and went to the fridge to grab my lunch,
which I’d forgotten and shoved it into my bag.
“Well I guess you didn’t have to bring me all
the way home then. I’ll just have to go change
my clothes now because I feel like I swam in a
cesspool after being in the back of Nico’s cop
car,” I said, heading to my bedroom.
Stripping my shirt off on the way, I tossed it
to the floor of my bedroom and went to my closet
for a new one.
I stepped out of my shoes and pushed my
pants down my hips when I felt a pair of hands
settle on either hip.
“I’m pretty sure that I should’ve stayed in the
living room,” he whispered against the back of
my neck.
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Tingles started to run down my spine, and
this time I didn’t try to stop my thighs from rubbing together.
Just the sound of the man’s husky voice had
me replaying our one night, remembering what it
felt like to have him inside of me. The way his
rough hands felt against the sensitive skin of my
breasts.
The way his beard tickled the lips of my sex
as he pulled his cock from me and ate me to completion right before slamming back inside of me
and coming hard in two rough strokes.
“Why?” I asked breathlessly, widening my
legs when his hand started to move between my
thighs.
“Because you’re about to be even later.”
Chapter 7
You’re too short to be that full
of shit.
-Michael to Nikki
Nikki
I gasped in surprise when he spun me around
and moved forward until my back met the shirts I
had hanging in my closet.
Hangers screeched in protest as our bodies
forced them to press against the wall.
One of my hands went around Michael’s
shoulders as the other went to the pole currently
holding up every shirt I owned.
“I’m gonna be picking these up later,” I
gasped right before Michael’s mouth met mine.
I moaned as his tongue swept inside, rubbing
teasingly along mine as he forced his mouth
down harder on my own.
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When I felt his hands move between us, I lifted my hips slightly, allowing my aching core to
rub against his hard abs as he unbuckled his pants
and let them drop to his ankles.
I gasped when he took hold of my hips and
forced them back down.
His cock ground against my panty clad pussy,
and I couldn’t help the involuntary jerk of my
hips as pleasure ripped through me at the simple
touch.
“Michael,” I gasped, throwing my head back
to pillow in my shirts.
His mouth skimmed along my collarbone,
and moved down until his lips glided over the
swell of my breast.
I had on a modest white bra that was the
single one that I found comfortable to wear all
day while working, and I was fairly sure it probably wasn’t what one would call attractive.
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Yet, I forgot to care when he tugged the cup
of the bra covering one breast down with his
teeth, then followed that by sucking the tip of my
nipple into his hot, wet mouth.
“Oh, Jesus,” I breathed, hips moving jerkily
as tiny sparks centering in the tip of my nipple
coursed through my body.
My stomach clenched and I moved both
hands from his shoulders down.
One hand went to my panties as the other
grasped the hard length of his cock.
Pulling my panties to the side, I lined the
head of his cock up with my entrance and waited.
Michael didn’t disappoint.
As he switched breasts, pulling down the other cup with his teeth and nipping the tip of my
nipple with his, he surged inside of me.
My pussy convulsed as it tried to adjust to his
size, but he didn’t give me time.
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Once fully seated inside, he pulled slowly
back out before sinking back inside of me
roughly.
I bit my lip and moved my hands up to the
side of his head, watching as he let the tip of his
tongue circle the diameter of my nipple.
He started thrusting in and out of me, filling
me to the point of pain, before he retreated once
again.
Hangers snapped and shirts fell all around us
as his hips powered into me, his cock kissing the
entrance to my womb with each thrust.
“Please,” I said, needing more.
I opened my eyes when he stopped, and my
eyes widened when he pulled out completely and
dropped us down to our knees.
I turned around as he urged my hips to the
side, presenting him with my ass.
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My hands were resting on my pile of shoes as
I looked over my shoulder and watched him pull
my panties down over my hips.
My pussy clenched with need at the look on
his face as he devoured the sight of my core.
I could guess what he saw.
My pussy lips red and puffy. My entrance
leaking with need as it begged him to fill me
once again. My panties down around my knees
where he’d hastily yanked them. My ass round
and full.
I wiggled my hips and pressed back slightly
as he continued to look for too long.
“Michael,” I whispered. “Please.”
My pussy clenched when he looked up, my
eyes catching his.
They were on fire.
The blues nearly completely black as his pupils dilated.
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He moved forward on his knees until his cock
met my entrance, and unhurriedly he sank inside.
I moaned and dropped to my elbows as he
pushed his hips forward until every last bit of
him was buried in my channel.
This position allowed him to sink deeper inside of me, and I swear I could feel him in my
belly each time he filled me.
His thumb brushed over the pucker of my asshole, and I practically came with just the single
taboo touch.
I clenched down so hard on him that he let
out a strangled groan, and finally lost the control
he’d been trying desperately to hold on to.
I screamed when he pulled out and thrust into
me so hard that my knees left the carpeted floor.
Not in pain, though.
In pleasure.
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“Yes!” I keened, pushing back with my own
hips to meet his powerful thrusts.
He growled at the way my pussy clenched
down on his cock and gave me a small smack on
the ass when I tried to reach between my legs to
help my orgasm along.
“No,” he said sharply. “That’s mine.”
I didn’t bother to argue with what was his.
I remembered how he liked it.
It’d been a very long time since I’d last had
his cock, but I knew he only wanted my pleasure
to come from him.
He wanted to be responsible for bringing me
to orgasm.
He wanted to make me come so hard that I
screamed so loud I aroused the neighbors.
My hand dropped and I let the side of my
face rest along the length of one of my house
slippers as he pounded inside of me.
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My orgasm was just around the corner, and
he could feel it.
“Come,” he ordered.
I laughed. “You can’t just tell me to come.
You have to make me.”
So he did.
By inserting his thumb into my ass.
I shot off like a freakin’ bottle rocket, surging
so high and far into oblivion that I couldn’t see
my way home again.
Distantly, I was aware of him pulling out of
me and roughly fisting his cock against my back
as he shot his come down the length of my back,
but I was too busy coming to wonder why.
His thumb twisted inside of me and my orgasm, which I’d thought had been on the downhill slide, started to move forward again.
By the time I was back in my own skin, I was
in a boneless heap where I’d collapsed, shoes
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digging into my upper torso and not one single
care in sight.
“I think you broke me,” I told him, feeling
him withdraw his thumb.
He snorted as he stood, and I watched as he
drug his pants that were still around his ankles,
back up his legs and over his hips.
He zipped them, but didn’t button them as he
walked away, leaving me in my indecent position
in a pile of sexual haze.
He came back short moments later with a
wash cloth, and started cleaning my back free of
his release.
Once done, he shoved his hand underneath
my hips and lifted me up and back.
When my back met his front, I leaned my
head to the side, exposing my neck for his seeking mouth.
“Thank God you’re on the pill,” he said in his
gravelly voice.
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I looped my arm around his neck.
“How do you know I’m on them?” I asked
curiously.
I wasn’t surprised that he knew I still was.
He was a cop for God’s sake.
If he wasn’t observant and smart, he wouldn’t
make a good cop.
And there was one thing I knew of for sure,
Michael was a damn fine cop.
“Because I saw them in your purse last night
when you were handing your phone to Alison,”
he explained. “Just remember to take them, because after fucking you bare like this, I’m fairly
sure I’ll never be able to do it again with a
condom.”
His admission made me smile widely.
Then my smile died as I heard my phone
ringing from the kitchen.
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“Shit,” I said, standing up and yanking my
panties up as well.
The new position placed Michael’s face right
at eye level with my ass, and he took full advantage of it as I looked down at the mess we’d made
of my closet.
“Shit,” I said, bending down to look through
the mess.
I found a shirt, followed by a pair of pants,
and threw them on, all the while Michael massaged my ass and inner thighs, working me into
another tizzy before I realized it.
“Michael,” I said pleadingly. “I’m already
late. Please.”
He growled in frustration as he said, “I have
to get to work shortly too. Goddammit.”
I smiled as he let my hips go and stood, but
only to replace his fingers with his cock.
He ground his hips into me.
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I was thankful that he was still wearing pants,
because had he been naked, I’d probably be asking him to fill me once again.
“Michael,” I pleaded once again.
He sighed and stepped back.
Immediately, I missed his body heat, but I
had a job and commitments.
“Thank you,” I told him, turning around as I
settled the shirt onto my body.
He smiled.
“Anything for you,” he said painfully, rearranging his cock in his pants as he buttoned and
buckled his belt.
A smile curved the sides of my lips as I
walked into the bathroom to inspect my face.
Where I then decided that the ‘just fucked’
look looked good on me.
And it wouldn’t hurt to allow Joslin to see
just what she was missing.
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“Ready?” Michael asked once I exited the
bathroom.
At my nod he led me into the kitchen where I
grabbed my bag and headed out the door.
***
Thirty minutes later, with Michael’s essence
still leaking out of me, I ran into work, throwing
a kiss over my shoulder at Michael as I sped
inside.
He caught it and waved, making me smile.
I’d asked him to wait for me to make sure I
still had a job, and he gave me an ‘okay’ sign as
he leaned back in his seat and finished programming my number into his phone.
I still can’t believe he ever listened to me.
Hell, it seemed surreal…all of it.
Just a few days ago I was puttering along, trying to stay afloat with classes, work, and
studying.
Now here I was, blowing off study time so I
could go on a date with a man I never thought I’d
have a chance with again.
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“Good, you’re back!” Lennox cooed, rubbing
her hands together in excitement. “There was a
lot of excitement here an hour or so ago. Cops
were everywhere, and then there was this man,
Michael, I don’t know if you’ve met him but he
has brown hair and blue eyes. He was yelling at
someone about his truck being stolen. Then he
forced the security guy to go through the camera
feed, but the feed was down because the security
guard spilled coffee on the hardware last week
and completely fried the whole system.”
I blushed. “Did they find out who stole the
car?” I asked innocently.
Lennox shook her head. “No. They didn’t, or
at least we didn’t see who it was. They ran out
of here like their asses were on fire earlier when
they got some call about a BOLO, which I later
learned was a ‘be on the lookout’, and we haven’t
heard anything since.”
Whew!
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That would’ve been bad to have the hospital
know what I’d done.
I was already on shaky ground as it was!
“Well, that sucks,” I managed to say lightly
while squirting a large dollop of antibacterial
soap into my hands. “You heard why I had to
leave?”
Lennox nodded and we both looked to where
Joslin was standing across the room.
She was with a new intern that I’d never met
before, leaning into him and patting his arm
while fake laughing.
God that woman was such a hoe!
And I still hadn’t forgiven Michael for touching her earlier.
I didn’t give a shit if that was the only way to
get her unsettled. He needed to find a different
way.
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“I wonder what her problem is? She usually
only reserves that kind of treatment for the women who try to steal her thunder,” Lennox
wondered.
“That’s ‘cause Joslin is a show hound that
likes to have all the attention on her,” Melissa,
one of my favorite nurses, snarled as she threw
down a chart on the counter next to my hand.
“I’m dating Michael,” I told Lennox by way
of explanation, completely ignoring Melissa’s
pissed off mutterings.
Then a fountain of understanding welled in
Lennox’s eyes.
“Well, that’s going to be interesting for you,”
she managed to say.
“You can say that again. That woman needs
the stick that’s lodged up her ass removed,”
Melissa grumbled. “She just told Bryan that I
was flirting with a patient, and that I needed to
learn to be more professional. Motherfucker, but
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I was just telling him he had cute kids! I didn’t
say he had a cute cock or anything!”
We both looked at her in surprise at her
outburst.
“That woman needs to go,” I muttered.
“Surely there are enough people around that can
complain about her to someone she hasn’t
fucked.”
The three of us fell into a fit of giggles at the
thought.
There probably wasn’t a single man…or married man for that matter…in the entire hospital
that she hadn’t had some of. Which was the entire problem. For all of us.
Chapter 8
You touch my tats, I touch your
tits.
-T-shirt
Michael
Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.
Bang.
The sound of my Glock echoing off the cavernous walls of the gun range made me feel at
peace.
Almost as good as I felt when I had Nikki
wrapped in my arms, in fact.
Shooting was a peaceful feeling.
One that let me shut my mind down and just
have fun.
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I had to log so many hours in the gun range a
month anyway, so it worked out well that I loved
doing it.
What I didn’t love was the man at my back
whining about the dirt he was getting on his
clothes.
“I didn’t tell you to come,” I grumbled to my
brother.
“No, but you didn’t react like I thought you
would at dinner when we told you. I expected anger and you gave us nothing. Then left. I just
wanted to make sure you were okay with this,”
Dean said stubbornly.
Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.
Bang.
Placing the gun on the table in front of me, I
took the magazine I’d just ejected from the gun
and started to reload it.
“Michael, are you even listening to me?”
Dean asked in frustration.
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I ignored him.
I didn’t really know what he wanted me to
say.
I’d already told him exactly what I thought
about the matter: mostly that I didn’t care.
Not one single bit.
And he refused to think that I didn’t.
So we were at an impasse.
I didn’t care.
He cared too much that I didn’t care.
“Michael! Focus!” Dean roared.
I slammed the magazine into the gun, cocked
it, and let off eight more shots, trying hard as
fuck to ignore him.
Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.
Bang.
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“Michael! Get out of your fucking head and
talk to me!” Dean snarled, yanking my arm with
the gun in it around so I faced him.
I holstered the empty gun and exploded.
“I am out of my fucking head, you moron!
I’m not that fucked up mess I was when I was fifteen. I’m not ever ‘in my head’! Now keep your
fucking hands off me, and for God’s sake, don’t
yank a man’s arm when he has a gun in his
hand!” I yelled back, getting into his face.
Dean stood his ground.
We were both the same height.
I was bigger, but only because I lifted
weights.
Dean was in shape. Excellent shape. But he
wasn’t me.
So when he raised both arms, reared back,
and pushed me, I only went back inches.
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Whereas when I did the same, he fell flat on
his ass.
“What the fuck do you want from me?” I
snarled, looking down at Dean.
Dean glared and stood up, brushing off his
ass and his ‘brand new suit’ he just got.
“What I want is permission. I want to make
sure this won’t cause any contention when she
marries me,” he insisted.
I sighed and raised my hands up to my face,
letting my fingers curl into what little hair I had.
“It’s not a bone of contention, Dean. I don’t
love her and I haven’t for some time. When she
cheated on me, that was it. Any and all love I
felt for her was wiped off the face of the earth,” I
said tiredly.
I never should’ve let Torres have my shift.
I should’ve taken the overtime and stayed at
work.
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This was bullshit.
I’d rather be doing anything but this right
now.
He’d ruined a perfectly good day with his insistence that I wasn’t ‘okay.’
Dean looked stunned. “You’re lying. She told
me you wouldn’t have a kid with her, that’s why
y’all got divorced.”
I laughed humorlessly.
“I wouldn’t have a kid with her, that’s true.
But what made me divorce her wasn’t that she
wanted kids. It was because she slept with about
fifteen men while we were married, and I only
found out because she was sloppy and let some
new doctor call her at home. He left a voicemail
telling his ‘girl’ that he couldn’t make dinner,
and that they needed a raincheck. Which got me
curious since she was supposed to be at work at
the time,” I told him honestly.
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And damn but it felt good to get that shit off
my chest!
I’d been holding that inside for a long time
now.
It was hard to let my family think I was the
bad guy for not wanting kids.
My mom resented me for that, I could tell.
But I didn’t know how else to not tell anybody
what had happened without Joslin being shunned
from the family, so I kept my mouth shut.
“You’re lying,” Dean said without venom.
I could tell he believed me.
“Want the private dick’s files? I’ve got
about two hundred photos of it happening in real
time, too,” I offered.
He narrowed his eyes. “Why would you not
tell us this? Why let us think badly of you?”
I smiled without humor.
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“Mom loves Joslin. And Joslin has nobody
else. I was just being nice,” I told him.
He sighed. “Goddammit. That’s not what I
wanted to hear.”
I shrugged. “Sorry man.”
He looked at me for a few long moments before he said, “I love her, man.”
I nodded. “If you want to be with her, that’s
good with me. I don’t care. Just be aware of her
faults. And I won’t tell you I told you so.”
He flipped me off. “Fuck off.”
I smiled and patted him lightly on the back.
“Now get the fuck out of here and let me enjoy
the rest of my day.”
Grudgingly he left, and I couldn’t help but
smile at the big brown stain on his ass from
where he’d fallen in the dirt.
Served the fucker right for pestering me.
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Turning around, I loaded my gun once again
and started firing off shots at the piece of paper
floating down range.
I was having a damn good time until I got a
call, and what I heard made my stomach nearly
drop to my feet.
***
“What’s going on, Luke?” I asked him as we
walked, side by side, down the hallway to our
conference room.
Luke opened the door and ushered me inside
ahead of him.
I came to a stop just past the entrance when I
was faced with multiple men in suits.
“What’s going on?” I asked again.
Luke walked past me and had a seat next to
Chief Rhodes, who I was surprised to see was
also in attendance.
“Take a seat, Perez. We have some things to
discuss with you. Nothing you did wrong,
though, so stop looking at me like that,” The
Chief grumbled.
Smiling slightly, I walked to the chair on the
other side of the chief and took a seat, leaning
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back in my chair and crossing my arms over my
chest.
The chief pushed over a file folder that was
nearly an inch thick, and I took that to mean that
he wanted me to open it and have a look.
And when I did, I wished I’d at least braced
myself first.
“Goddammit, chief. Fuck you,” I said, pushing the file away from me and closing my eyes to
control my urge to vomit.
“He’ll do,” the man I sat across from said.
He was in his early fifties and had brown hair
peppered with gray throughout.
He was a thin man, and probably didn’t reach
much over five and a half feet tall.
The other man at his side was burly with
black hair and a deep tan. He was in his mid to
late thirties with green eyes and a goatee.
I glared at the two of them.
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“What the fuck is going on?” I growled.
I hated fucking games.
Just tell me what the fuck is going on already.
“This is Special Agent Troy Palmer, and
this,” The Chief said, indicating the black man.
“Is Special Agent Dane Elliott. They’re here to
speak with you about the Cox case.”
The Cox Case was the murder suicide I’d first
responded to.
“Yeah, so?” I asked tiredly.
Hell, was I tired. I was living off of only
hours of sleep, and I could really use a few hours
of shut eye before I had to deal with them and
their shit.
Crime, however, didn’t wait for it to be convenient for all those involved.
Which Agent Palmer explained in the next
second.
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“We’ve discovered a few similarities in about
ten murders throughout the Ark-La-Tex involving cops and their pregnant wives,” Agent
Palmer said without preamble.
I blinked. “What?”
He pushed the file back to me, and I looked
down at it, only now realizing what I’d thought
was the murder I’d walked in on just two days
prior wasn’t the one I’d thought it was.
It was a different one.
“Holy shit,” I said, surprised. “Are they all
positioned this way?”
It was nearly identical.
The only thing different was the color of the
tile floor they were laying on.
“We have reason to believe that you might
have seen the man who did this on your way to
the scene. We’ve had three witnesses saying
they saw a man walking his dog down the street
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just down the road from the crime scene. Black
hoodie. Black jeans. Black dog.”
I thought back to the day I’d driven to the
crime scene.
Remembered passing the mobile home park
sign, then seeing a black dog off to the side of the
road that I passed.
I remembered thinking that the owner needed
to get the dog the fuck out of the way when he
heard lights and sirens blaring.
“Yeah, I saw him,” I confirmed, thinking
back to the man in question. “Black hoodie.
Black pants. Red shoe strings in the shoes. Dog
had a red collar with black lettering on it. Black
lab.”
Agent Elliott took notes on his pad of paper
as I spoke.
The other one just watched me closely.
“Any cars in the area?” he asked.
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I shook my head. “Actually, no. I passed
four houses before I got to theirs and hadn’t seen
a single one. The couple had two cars in the
driveway as well as a red mid-sized sedan belonging to the elderly couple. I did pass an abandoned car with hazard lights on pointing in the
opposite direction I’d been going, but I also saw
a man walking away from the car in a white
t-shirt and khaki pants.”
The agent nodded. “Good. Thanks.”
“We have reason to believe that the man’s a
practicing doctor in the area. Or a nurse. Or a
midwife. Possibly a registrar at the hospital.
Each woman that’s been killed, their only connection, is them being in the same doctor’s office that practices in the Ark-La-Tex. It’s a large
one that has over eight offices and seven doctors
serving it. Only four of the doctors travel over the
state line, and we’ve made a note of those four in
this chart,” Agent Palmer said, sliding the three
of us a stack of papers.
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I scanned the names on the list as well as the
pictures.
I didn’t recognize any of them.
“So what do you need from us?” Chief
Rhodes asked bluntly.
They both shook their head, but Palmer was
the one to answer.
“Nothing. Not yet anyway. We’ve already
been privy to the reports, photos, and crime scene
data. We just ask that, if you encounter another
one of these, you call us. We’ve been working
this case for a little over two years now, and so
far we have just as much now as we did then. A
bunch of nothing,” he said simply.
I looked down at the papers in front of me,
recording the faces of all the four doctors into my
memory bank so I’d have it later if I had need of
it.
“As for why you’re here, Officer Perez, it’s
just so that we can congratulate you for saving
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that child. He’s our first survivor, and I never
wished more that a baby could talk than I do right
now,” he said dejectedly.
I completely agreed.
I’d wished the same thing.
I didn’t know what kind of heartless person
could shoot an innocent baby like that, but
whomever it was needed a single shot to the heart
as his final coup de grâce.
“So is it a coincidence that all these men are
cops?” Chief Rhodes asked as he looked through
his own folder.
I flipped to the page behind the one I’d
stopped looking at and saw what he was talking
about.
Longview Police. Kilgore Police. Shreveport Police. Gun Barrel Police. Gilmer Police.
Bossier City Police. Benton Police. Tyler Police. Waskom Police. Hallsville Police.
“What the fuck?” I exhaled.
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Not only did they kill pregnant women and
babies, but the fucker was a cop killer as well.
“So you have nothing, is what I’m understanding?” I asked carefully.
The two of them nodded. “Nada.”
I linked my fingers together, and steepled
them while tapping the first two together.
I was a fidgeter.
Like major.
I couldn’t sit still for anything, something I’d
learned to live with.
It drove my friends and family nuts. It was
what it was, though. Nothing I could do to
change that.
“I have a couple of people that might be able
to help us, and Luke’s brother in law is a part of
The Dixie Wardens MC. They’re in the town of
Benton, Louisiana. One of the cities you named.
He can talk to them and see what he can dig up. I
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can do the same through my resources. Go from
there,” I offered.
Both men looked at me, moved their eyes to
Luke, then settled them on Chief Rhodes.
“You vouched for them. If this gets leaked to
the press, there’ll be a public outrage. You understand that, right?” Agent Palmer confirmed.
Agent Rhodes nodded. “My boys wouldn’t
give this kind of information to just anyone. I
trust them implicitly.”
Finally, the two nodded and stood to leave.
“Keep us informed, and we’ll do the same.”
With that they left, and the three of us sat
there silently for a few long moments.
“If this gets out, I’ll kick both of your asses,”
The Chief rumbled.
I smiled down at my hands before standing.
“I’ll get it done on my part. Luke, you gonna talk
to the Wardens?”
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Luke nodded and stood, pulling out his
phone. “Yeah, I got it.”
With that, we all split up, me heading to Free,
and Luke heading to Louisiana.
It was going to be a long rest of the day.
Chapter 9
Dear teenagers, complaining
about life is like a toddler complaining about nap time.
You’ve only seen the tip of the
monster’s dick. Just fucking
wait!
-Michael’s secret thoughts
Michael
“Get up off the floor or I’ll make you get up,”
I growled at the stupid teenager who’d tried to
boost my truck.
I’d had that bastard stolen twice, or nearly, in
the same fuckin’ day, and this time I was not
amused.
“I didn’t do anything!” The boy yelled, refusing to move.
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With no other options, I moved the boy myself, all under the crowd’s watchful eyes as they
watched the entire thing take place.
Rolling him over onto his back I stared down
at him in contempt.
“What did you think you were going to do?
How far did you think you could get? You nearly
stole a police officer’s truck,” I hissed. “Not to
mention I have GPS on it that I could’ve activated. Then there’s the fact that every cop in the
city would be looking for you because you don’t
steal something from a cop without consequences. You’d have every single cop in the
state looking for your dumbass. Not get the fuck
up off the ground and go sit on the fuckin’ bench
like I asked you.”
He did.
Reluctantly.
Very reluctantly.
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The boy was fifteen, at most, with an attitude
that said he usually got whatever the fuck he
wanted.
Well not fucking today.
I’d walked into the convenience store to get
my receipt, but decided that I could use a Gatorade while I was in there.
When I turned the corner of the snack aisle, I
came upon the fifteen year old shoving candy
bars down his pants.
He wasn’t even being conspicuous about it.
They were so full already that you could see
the large bulge, as well as the orange wrappers
sticking out the top of his pocket.
Then he ran.
I had to give it to the boy, he was quick.
He’d made it past me and into the parking lot
before I’d even pushed out the door toward him.
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Lucky for me, and unlucky for him, I’d
caught him at my truck.
All he’d seen was a truck running with the
windows down.
Sadly, I still had the keys in my hand and had
turned the truck off before he could even get it
into drive.
He’d looked at me like I was the grim reaper,
as he should since he’d been sitting in my truck.
Then he tried to bail out the other side’s window, but only managed to fall on his face.
“Why’d you steal those?” I asked, gesturing
to the pile of candy bars and bottle of milk that
was in a pile at his feet.
He shrugged.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
A cruiser’s chirp-chirp of the siren going on
and off quickly had me looking up as Miller, another member of the SWAT team, pulled up.
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He stepped out of the cruiser and moved his
glasses up to the top of his head.
“Saint,” Miller said, nodding his head.
I nodded back, choosing not to call him on
the use of the nickname that I hated.
I was not a saint.
Far from it, in fact.
Now wasn’t the time or place for it, though.
“What’cha got, Saint?” Miller asked, taking
in the scene.
“Fifteen or sixteen year old male stealing
candy from the 7-11. I caught him red handed,
and he ran. Tried to get away fast by taking my
truck, but he didn’t make it far. And here we are
now. He was just about to tell us his name,” I explained lightly.
Miller nodded. “What’s your name, boy?”
The boy glared at Miller with all the heat and
venom a fifteen year old could muster.
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I could’ve told him that he was wasting his
time, but teenagers didn’t seem to have that comprehension when they were mad.
When the boy refused, I shrugged and told
him to stand.
He didn’t.
“You know, this can go one of two ways.
One,” I said holding up a finger. “You can just
cooperate. Stand up, tell us your name, let us
check you, and we’ll get you booked downtown.
Or two, you can refuse to do all of those things,
we can force you to do them, and you still go
down town.”
The boy glared at me, and then moved his
gaze to a car at the far corner of the parking lot.
Following his gaze, I narrowed my eyes when
I saw what he was looking at.
“Who’s in that car?” I asked, glancing back at
the boy.
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He closed his lips tightly, then looked down
at his feet.
A shared glance with Miller had me walking
over the pile of candy bars and milk to the car
that was parked underneath the 7-11 sign.
The closer I got, the more worried I became.
Because I could see a car seat in the car.
Two car seats.
Holy shit.
I opened the door with suddenly shaking
hands, scared to death at what I’d find.
I’d seen some bad shit in my time, but the
moment I opened that door, I knew nothing could
be worse.
Two starving children looked up at me from
hollowed eyes.
Neither was crying, and neither looked particularly scared of me.
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Interested. Hopeful, maybe. Scared? No.
“Miller,” I called loudly. “Put him in your car
and get over here.”
Miller tossed a look over his shoulder at me.
I stepped back to allow him to see the closest car
seat, and his eyes widened.
His mouth dropped open and he turned back
to the kid that looked defeated.
Now I understood why he’d stolen the candy
bars.
And the milk.
I had no doubt in my mind now as to the
character of the kid.
Desperation makes a man do funny things.
I picked up the smaller baby first.
She felt extremely tiny in my hands.
So tiny I couldn’t even gauge how old she
was.
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Miller joined me as soon as I fit the baby into
the crook of my arm, sidling up to my side.
“What the fuck?” He asked in denial at what
he was seeing.
I nodded. “Yeah.”
It was more than obvious that the children
hadn’t been well cared for.
Their clothes were dirty.
The car itself smelled horrid.
The little boy in the car seat looked at the two
of us with a smile, but that smile didn’t meet his
eyes.
The deep circles under his eyes, as well as the
hollowness to them, showed that he was anything
but healthy.
“Get the other one,” I ordered.
Miller circled around the car and picked up
the boy from his car seat.
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The boy wrapped his skinny fingers around
Miller’s mic cord, and smiled so brightly that it
hurt my heart.
The little girl in my arms cooed and I looked
down in awe.
As a police officer, there are times that you’re
not going to experience nice things.
Although this wasn’t the ideal situation, they
were both alive, and had a fighting chance that
they didn’t have before.
Something I counted as a check in my win
column.
I felt like I was carrying air as I walked back
to the police cruiser.
Miller didn’t look like he was carrying much
more as he got on the mic.
“I’ll need a bus here. Got two babies in need
of some medical attention,” he said quietly, smiling down at the little boy who made a grab for
his mic.
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The boy looked scared shitless the closer we
got to Miller’s cruiser, and by the time I opened
the door to the cruiser he looked like he was
about ready to bail out. Straight through the glass
window.
“Alright son,” I said, dropping down to my
knees beside him. “Tell me what’s going on.”
He looked sort of green, but it was then that I
noticed that his heart was in his eyes as he looked
at the children.
“They’re mine,” he croaked.
I blinked. “They’re yours?”
He nodded.
“Yeah,” he rasped.
“How old are you?” I asked.
He swallowed. “Fourteen. Fifteen in two
months.”
My heart started to race.
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“They’re yours,” I stated for clarification.
He nodded again.
“Yeah,” he confirmed.
I looked up at Miller, then back at the boy.
“What’s your name?” I asked softly.
He looked down at his hands.
“Madden,” he said quietly.
“Madden, you’re not even old enough to be
on your own yet. How do you have two kids?
And why are you on your own? Where’s the
baby’s mother?” I continued.
He bit his lip, and looked up at me with eyes
that were shining with tears.
“I stole them from her. She wasn’t taking
care of them,” he cried. “Not like they needed to
be taken care of.”
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I refrained from saying that he wasn’t doing
too good of a job either, and nodded my head.
“Who’s the mother?”
“She’s…she’s my stepmother. And I stole
them away from her while her and my father
were high. They were…doing stuff that I didn’t
like. And she was smoking around the baby. I
didn’t like that. I had to get them out. I had to.
They would’ve died. She would’ve killed them,”
he insisted pleadingly. “She already smoke and
drank throughout her pregnancies. She didn’t
even go to the hospital to have them!”
I looked down at the baby in my arms, saw
the frailness to her, and started to get mad.
Not at him, no.
But at the situation.
“When did you take them?” I asked softly.
He bit his lip. “Last night.”
Jesus, so this was how they were from her,
not him.
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“Alright, Madden. How about you come take
a ride on the medic with your kids. From there
we’ll figure this out, okay?”
He nodded, wiping his eyes with the back of
his hands.
“Thank you,” he croaked, voice cracking like
all adolescent boys do at that age.
Jesus, this was one sick, fucked up situation.
Fucked Up. With a capital F and U.
Chapter 10
My brother has the best sister
ever.
-Coffee Cup
Nikki
“Go get your newspaper!” I said hurriedly the
moment I pounded through Nico’s back door.
Nico glared at me, still holding the door
open. Georgia, being Georgia, did what I asked
and ran to the front walk to get the newspaper.
“Why didn’t you just get the newspaper on
the way in?” Nico asked.
His hair was a freakin’ mess.
“The twins keep you up all night?” I asked
cheekily.
He glared.
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“Maybe you should take them for a night.
Give me a little break,” he muttered.
I blinked. “I’ve offered no less than thirty
times since they were born. I’d love to watch
them. You’d only have to convince yourself to
let them go.”
My brother was attached to his family.
No matter the bitchin’ he did, he refused to
let the twins, or Georgia, out of his sight.
A few years ago, before he’d reconnected
with Georgia, he’d gotten into a spot of trouble
with a mafia boss.
So much trouble that to save Georgia, he’d
faked his death with the help of the CIA and the
Texas Rangers. While he was ‘dead,’ he’d continued to search for the man responsible for putting his life and Georgia’s in jeopardy, finally
finding him around the time the twins were born.
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Georgia, though, as well as the rest of our
family, hadn’t been able to get over the fact that
he’d ‘died.’
We still had nightmares.
Georgia and I spoke about that quite a bit.
Nico wasn’t without his own nightmares,
either.
Although we all talked a good game, the entire leaving thing was hard on us all, something
that showed with the way Nico clung to his kids
and wife and refused to let them get too far out of
his reach.
“Oh, my God! Saint’s on the front page!” Georgia squealed in excitement, jumping up and
down in her nightgown.
I jumped too, clapping my hands.
“Isn’t that the cutest thing ever?” I asked in
excitement.
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Georgia laughed and spread her paper out on
the table.
Nico leaned forward to study the picture.
“Nice,” he said, laughing.
Michael, the ultimate ‘I’m not cut out to be a
father,’ was on his ass on the back of the cop car
holding the tiniest of babies in his arms.
The baby didn’t even look to be a month old,
at most.
He was gazing down at the little girl holding
a pacifier in her mouth.
His eyes were gazing at the small bundle,
looking for all he was worth like a devoted
father.
Something I knew he’d be if he ever gave life
a chance.
“Was this not something you could’ve called
for?” Nico asked after he read the story.
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I shrugged. “Sure I could have. But then I
couldn’t annoy the shit out of you like I’m doing
right now.”
He lowered his eyes into a glare, and I
plopped down into his lap.
He grunted as my weight hit him.
“Jesus, I think you’ve gained weight,” Nico
teased.
I wrapped my arms around his fat neck, although it wasn’t really fat, and squeezed for all I
was worth.
“Ackk!” He said as air escaped his lungs.
I smiled down at him.
“Now what were you saying?” I asked with a
raised brow.
He curled his lip at me.
“Alright, Nik. Let me get dressed and we’ll
head up there to see these babies,” Georgia said
as she hustled out of the room.
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“Hey!” Nico said, standing.
I held on for dear life, causing him to come
down with me.
Nico grappled for purchase, but I succeeded
in pulling him down with my unexpected move
of holding on while still going down.
Nico landed beside me with a grunt, and I
wrapped my arms around his neck from behind,
wrapping lightning and thunder (my legs) around
his upper torso and squeezing the life out of him.
“God! You’re such a shit!” Nico growled, effectively knocking the wind out of my sails by
rolling over onto his back and pinning me to the
floor with his body weight.
I didn’t let that stop me for long, though.
Instead, I anchored myself even better, let go
of his neck, and started attacking his armpits with
the tips of my fingers, ticking him like a lunatic
while he writhed and shook with laughter on the
ground.
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“God! Stop!” He yelled loudly.
I was like a tick, though.
I stayed and stayed until I had no strength left
to hold on, then, like any smart woman, I ran.
Like the wind.
I pushed off of him with inhuman strength
that resembled a lumbering donkey, and sprinted
for Nico and Georgia’s door.
I made it, too.
Slammed it right in Nico’s face and locked
the door before he could reach me.
Then I promptly fell on their bed that was
littered with clothes and other baby
paraphernalia, and collapsed in exhaustion.
“Y’all fight all the time,” Georgia said from
the closet.
I nodded. “Yeah, we do.”
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“I don’t know why y’all can’t just be normal
siblings,” she said observantly.
Nico was the only boy with six girls…it was
bound to happen.
I wasn’t a bad sister. I was a normal sister!
“You’re just jealous that your brothers won’t
give you the time of day,” I teased.
I was lying.
Georgia’s brothers loved the hell out of her.
They just had a different relationship than
Nico, my sisters and I did.
It didn’t mean it was wrong that they tried to
baby her.
It was understandable, really.
Especially how Georgia held their family together after the death of their two youngest
brothers.
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“So what’s going on? Why do you want me
to go to the hospital with you?” Georgia asked.
I gave her a droll look.
“You’re a social worker, Georgia. Why the
hell do you think I want you up there?” I
laughed.
She flipped me off and took a huge step over
her Saint Bernard, Hamburger, that was taking up
half the closet.
“You know we’re not just ‘assigned’ these
things. They have to come to us. You’d have
more luck calling in Shiloh,” Georgia explained.
Georgia was a social worker with an adoption
agency that placed children in their forever home.
Shiloh, James’ wife, on the other hand, was a
child protective service social worker with the
state of Texas, working in Gregg County.
Which was why I’d invited her to come as
well.
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“I already called her. We’re picking her up on
the way,” I told her.
Georgia smiled.
“Good,” she said solemnly. “Tell me what
happened?”
I sighed.
“From what I got from Michael, as well as
what I got from the hospital yesterday, a lot
happened. The boy, who’s also the father of the
two children, is fourteen. His step-mother raped
him repeatedly over the years, and then got pregnant with his babies. She then had said babies,
and used them to keep the boy quiet about it all.
The father was none the wiser to it all, but basically that was because he was high out of his
mind,” I told her. “After the second child was
born at home, addicted to God knows what
drugs, and then totally failed to be cared for, the
boy took it as his cue to get the hell out. He
stole their car, took the kids, and had been
parked in that gas station parking lot for about
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twelve hours before Michael caught him trying
to steal candy and milk for the kids.”
Georgia stopped and turned half way through
the story, but by the time I was finished recounting it, tears were in her eyes, as well as in my
eyes.
“Holy crap, that poor boy,” she said, voice
devastated.
I nodded. “That’s where the SWAT team was
last night. Doing a raid on that house. The judge
who’s overseeing the case is the son of a man
that abused him, so he wasn’t tolerant at hearing
what happened to Madden.”
“Madden is also the name of the boys father?” Georgia clarified.
I nodded. “Yeah, that’s him.”
“What’d they find at the raid last night?” Georgia asked.
Nico came through the door, shoving a lock
pick into his pocket as he threw the door opened.
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He walked past the bed and pushed me hard
enough that I fell backward, causing me to laugh.
He shot me an ‘I’ll get you back’ look, and
turned to his wife.
“If you were interested in that, why didn’t
you just ask your husband?” Nico asked cheekily.
Georgia sat down on the bed beside me and
slipped her socks on before shoving her feet into
tennis shoes.
“Probably because I’m still mad at you,” she
said, tossing him a fake glare.
I snorted.
“I told you I was too tired to change that diaper! I didn’t steal your hamburger, and I didn’t
pour hot sauce in your tea! It was a freakin’ diaper! One!” He said, raising his hands in the air
for emphasis.
Rolling my eyes, I got up and tugged Georgia’s hand.
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“We’ll be back, brother dear. Take care of the
babies and the diapers, until we get back,” I
ordered.
Then we left, all under the very annoyed
glare of Nico.
“So, what’d they find?” Georgia picked up
where we left off.
I closed the front door behind me and walked
with her to my car.
My beautiful baby.
It was a sky blue Volkswagen Beetle
convertible.
Georgia got into the passenger side, and I
dropped into the driver’s side before I told her.
“A lot, actually. Drugs. Enough drugs that
they think they were dealers. Dirty needles. Cocaine and weed. Horrible living conditions. Both
parents were high as hell. Neither one of them
even knew the kids were missing - that’s how
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gone they were,” I told her, backing out of the
driveway and turning left to head to the highway.
Georgia hummed.
I looked over at her.
“What?” I asked, moving my eyes back to the
road in front of me.
A tractor was taking up three quarters of the
road, and I contemplated passing him on the
shoulder when he finally moved over, allowing
me to pass.
And in all that time, Georgia stayed silent.
“What?” I asked again.
“They’re going to split them up, I can see it
now,” she said softly.
I winced.
That’s what I was afraid of.
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Madden was a good kid, but he was in no
way, shape, or form, ready to raise two kids, seeing as he was only a kid himself.
“That’s why I’m bringing in the big guns,” I
replied.
She frowned.
“I’ll try, honey. But I can’t promise a single
thing,” she explained.
“I can’t make any
promises.”
I nodded in understanding. “I know. I just
want you to try the best you can. Work with
Shiloh. Anything is better than what they had. I
just feel so horrible about the situation.”
She patted my hand as I stopped at the
stoplight that would lead us to the hospital.
“And what about that other little boy?
How’s he doing?” She asked.
I smiled happily.
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“Much better, actually. They said he opened
his eyes yesterday. I was going to stop in and see
Nathan since I’ll already be up on the ped’s
floor,” I informed her. “But we have to be back
at your house by twelve so I can make my one
o’clock class. Okay?”
Georgia nodded. “Yeah, that sounds good.
Then I can be there in time for Nico to go to
work, and we won’t have to call your mom to
watch the kids.”
I held up my thumb in a ‘good’ gesture, and
opened my car door.
I blinked at the cop cars that were lined up at
the front entrance of the hospital.
“What’s going on?” I asked the woman that
was standing in front of my parked car.
The woman turned and shrugged. “I don’t
know. They’re not letting anybody in or out.”
Picking up my phone, I called Michael.
“Hello?” Michael answered.
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He sounded distracted, but that wasn’t going
to stop me from getting inside.
“Hey,” I said. “We’re outside the ER entrance and there’re a bunch of people outside the
doors. What’s going on?”
He cleared his throat.
“There was another murder,” he said softly.
“Give me a few minutes to come down and I’ll
escort you inside.”
Chapter 11
Don’t make fun of a woman
with big lips. She’s probably
thick and tired of it.
-E-card
Michael
“Where was this one from?” I asked Agent
Palmer gruffly.
Agent Palmer offered me a file folder, and I
steeled myself before opening the offending
folder.
What I saw did not disappoint.
“Goddammit,” I said, clearing my throat.
“Why another one so fast?”
“All of these have happened within the last
three weeks. Roughly every three days. This is
correct with that timeline,” he admitted softly.
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“Well that would’ve been news you
should’ve shared yesterday seeing as this
happened today and here I am again,” I muttered,
staring at the scene in front of me.
I wasn’t a detective.
I didn’t have the patience to be one.
Being a detective took dedication, time I
didn’t have, and serious patience and
perseverance.
I had the dedication and the perseverance, but
not the other two.
Which was why it was confusing to me that I
was here at a crime scene looking at the carnage
that was left behind.
There weren’t any bodies left because those
had gone to the hospital the moment the first responders arrived.
The man, the killer, had fucked up.
He’d done them in a good neighborhood.
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The type of neighborhood that, if they were
to hear gunshots, the cops are called almost
immediately.
First responders had arrived within minutes,
and both the woman and the man that’d been shot
had been rushed to the hospital.
They weren’t expected to live, although the
last I heard they were both rushed to surgery.
There wasn’t much they could do when the
couple was shot in the head, but they still had to
try.
“Who is this one with?” I asked, surveying
the scene.
“Wolfgang Amsel worked for Karnack Police
Department. His wife, Abby Amsel, was an accountant for Roscoe and Rush Accounting firm.
Abby was eight and a half months pregnant with
her first child,” Agent Palmer informed me.
I nodded.
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The name sounded so familiar, but I couldn’t
place the name with a face.
“What doctor’s office do these women go
to?” I asked, the thought suddenly occurring to
me.
“The Women’s Center of East Texas for this
one. The others are various ones of the Ark-LaTex,” he said. “But all of their systems interconnect since the doctors float throughout the
offices.”
I turned my head to look to the kitchen
counter.
On the counter was the officer’s service
weapon, badge, and various accessories he wore
on his utility belt, car keys, and his phone.
But the thing that drew my eye was the
badge.
When a law enforcement officer has fallen,
there’s a tradition that other officers wear a thin
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line of blue over their badges to commemorate
the fallen life.
It’s usually only worn during the period of
mourning, but over the years, it has come to be a
show of respect for all law enforcement officials,
civilians and public servants alike.
“You see this?” I asked Palmer.
Palmer looked over and pursed his lips at the
sight. “Yeah.”
The badge had two strips of black duct tape
arranged in an X across the badge, as if he was
saying he took care of that particular officer.
“Asshole,” I growled in anger.
“I concur,” Palmer agreed.
Then a thought occurred to me.
“Did you check the tape for prints?” I asked.
Agent Palmer nodded. “Yeah.”
“What about the back of the tape?” I asked.
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I wasn’t a crime scene tech, but that would be
a place that I’d look for prints.
Agent Palmer pursed his lips.
“They’ve already collected the evidence, but
I’ll just take that to the techs and see if they can
find anything,” Palmer said as he took an evidence bag out of his pocket, then used the tip of
his pencil to hook the badge and drop it into the
bag.
Once zipped, he said, “That’s why I wanted
you here. I noticed the other day you had a good
eye. Nobody else could tell me much about the
suspect, but you did.”
I shrugged, uncomfortable with the flattery.
Palmer’s phone rang, and he pulled it from
his pocket before answering it with a muttered,
“Yeah?”
“You’re fucking shitting me,” Agent Palmer
said in surprise. “No fucking shit? Alright, we’ll
come down now.”
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Palmer was already headed out the door, and
I followed behind him quickly.
The officer at the door, who was guarding the
door for us, nodded as we passed.
When Palmer hung up the phone he looked at
me with elation in his eyes.
“The cop,” he said nodding to the house.
“Made it through surgery and is talking. He
wants to speak with us.”
Us?
Why would he want to talk to me?
I didn’t question it, however, only got into
my truck and followed him to the hospital.
When we arrived, the entire hospital was
swarming with cops.
Since the shooting had taken place, everyone
and their brother was here, reporter wise, which
meant that my fellow men in blue had to be here
to take care of crowd control.
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“Are you with the FBI?” One reporter asked
as we started pushing through the crowd.
“No comment,” Agent Palmer muttered
darkly.
“Are you the officer who responded to the
Baby Cop Killer?” Another reporter asked.
That question was directed at me.
But I acted like I hadn’t heard, and kept pushing through right along with Palmer.
Agent Elliott met us at the ER’s doors and
held the door open wide as we crossed through.
“Talk to me,” Palmer ordered Elliott.
Elliott started hurrying to the elevators as he
spoke.
“He’s awake, first and foremost. He woke up
viciously the moment the anesthesia wore off, but
he can’t speak per se,” Elliott explained. “The
bullet missed his brain completely. Apparently,
at the last moment, Amsel jerked to the side.
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The bullet passed through the base of his neck
and came out his mouth just perfectly. He lost a
few teeth, and has a quite a bit of tissue and
muscle damage in his neck, but he’s expected to
make a complete recovery. Had to tell him that
his wife died on the OR table. The baby didn’t
make it either.”
I shook my head.
That didn’t sound good, even with him saying
he would make a full recovery.
His wife was dead. His kid was dead. His life
was forever changed.
How could he ‘recover’ from that?
I knew I couldn’t.
If I lost Nikki, I’d be so fuckin’ lost it
wouldn’t be funny.
Even though I hadn’t had her the last year
and a half, I still knew she was okay.
Amsel, though, didn’t have that gift.
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He would forever live knowing he couldn’t
protect his woman and child.
Then I berated myself.
Amsel may not have those problems.
I just knew I would if our situations had been
reversed.
If it was Nikki carrying my child.
Then I shivered.
Nikki wouldn’t be carrying my child.
No matter how much the idea of it turned me
on.
“This is him. I got him a pad of paper to write
everything down. I also had them fax the copies
of all the members who work for The Women’s
Center,” Elliott said, shaking his hand that had a
thick pile of papers in it.
When I made to wait outside, Elliott jerked
his head. “You too. He asked for you.”
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My brows rose. “Me?”
He nodded. “Yeah, apparently he knows
you.”
“How would he know I’m working on this
case at all?” I asked.
He stopped and turned. “He was the best
friend of Darren Cox.”
My mind shut down.
Mother fucker.
That guy. The murdered father in the crime
scene that started this case for me.
“Holy shit,” I breathed.
Elliott nodded. “Yeah, needless to say he’s
not doing too good.”
***
An hour later, with more information than
Agent Palmer had in months over multiple cases,
we walked out of Wolfgang Amsel’s hospital
room.
We still didn’t have a name.
We did, however, have a hair color.
Black.
Which seemed to be the man’s trend.
Amsel had explained that he’d just gotten off
work and was in the kitchen eating the breakfast
his wife had just cooked for him when someone
had knocked at the door.
She’d gone to answer it, and he’d looked up
when she started backing up.
He’d said that he heard ‘Turn around or I’ll
shoot her!’
His service weapon had been at the island,
half a room away from him, so he’d turned.
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And was promptly shot in the back of the
head.
He looked over in time to see his wife gunned
down moments later by a man with black hair.
Then he was gone.
And he was left to watch as his wife fought
for her life.
My phone rang when we made it to the waiting room, and I smiled when I saw it was Nikki.
A little bit of happy in a big bowl of oh fuck.
“Hello?” I answered the phone.
“Hey,” she said worriedly. “We’re outside the
ER entrance and there’re a bunch of people outside the doors. What’s going on?”
I cleared my throat.
“There was another murder,” I said softly.
“Give me a few minutes to come down and I’ll
escort you inside.”
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I’d known she’d be here.
She couldn’t help herself.
She’d been by to see Nathan Cox multiple
times since he’d been there.
And with what I’d told her last night about
Madden and his two kids, I knew she’d be here
as soon as she could.
I’d planted the hint to call Shiloh and Georgia, though.
Madden didn’t deserve that lot in life.
He deserved to live a happy, easy life.
Something he couldn’t do anymore.
Not with two kids.
Two kids he was adamant he was not leaving.
And he was most definitely not giving up.
In the eyes of the law, a child is solely your
child, no matter what the age.
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Although it got a little hairy when you
couldn’t take care of your children.
Something Madden couldn’t do by himself.
The best way to make this happen was to
place all three within a home that was willing to
take them on.
And that was where Nikki, Shiloh, and Georgia came in.
“I gotta go let my girl in,” I told the two men
in front of me. “She’s stuck outside the ER with
a shit ton of cops and reporters.”
They both nodded.
“That’s fine. We’re leaving anyway. We’ll
walk down with you,” Elliott said.
Nodding, I hit the down button, and the elevator doors swung open.
“Do you think what you got today will help?”
I asked the two as the doors closed and we started
to descend.
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Elliott shrugged, but Palmer nodded.
think so, yes.”
“I
I felt a relieved breath pour through me.
“That’s good,” I told them. “Really good.”
And it was.
Cops didn’t deserve to have even more
people against them.
They deserved unity and support from the
public, and with all the cop related shootings going on lately, it wasn’t looking good for us.
“You know my number,” I said when the
doors opened.
The two of them nodded and exited the ER
with me.
Once outside, they went left, and I went
straight to where I could see Nikki and the two
women at her sides.
“Hey,” I said, pointing towards the gap in the
saw horses the police had erected.
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They all nodded and started pushing through
the last of the crowd until they arrived at the gap.
When Estevez would’ve stopped them, I put
my hand on his back.
“They’re with me,” I informed him.
He winked. “Gotcha.”
Both girls came around the barrier and I
pulled Nikki against my side with my arm around
her shoulders. “I need a hug that’ll turn into sex,”
she whispered against the skin of my neck. I
squeezed her shoulders tightly, pulling her even
deeper into me. Then, like a boss, I said, “I could
give that to you…if you want.”
Chapter 12
Hello, my name is Nikki Pena,
and I’m a liar. I’m also going
to hell.
-A liar’s secret thoughts
Nikki
“Hello?” Michael answered his phone with a
large bite of hamburger taking up the majority of
his mouth.
Michael grinned, and I could see chunks of
food in his mouth, causing me to turn away in
disgust.
My stomach roiled, and I looked down at the
barely eaten plate of nachos I’d ordered for
lunch- one hundred percent sure that if I tried to
eat them I’d be barfing in no time.
It’d been four weeks since all the business
with Madden and his children had gone down,
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and a little over four weeks since little Nathan
Cox had been admitted to the hospital for a gunshot wound to his head.
All four were doing fine, and Madden was
with his children at a temporary foster home until
we could figure out a more permanent situation.
Nathan, however, wasn’t home.
Although he was doing much better, he still
wasn’t where he needed to be to be allowed release from the hospital.
Then there was the murderer out there killing
cops and their pregnant wives.
That was the worst.
That part was so scary because I worried for
my friends and family, since all of them were
cops.
Nausea started to slither up the back of my
throat, and I hastily grabbed my cup of tea before
taking several sips in a vain attempt to keep it
down.
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“I told you to buy a four wheel drive,” Michael said, taking another bite of his sandwich.
I closed my eyes as a ball of food and stomach contents started coming up my throat, and
swallowed convulsively to get it to go back
down.
“Yeah, I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” Michael said with a laugh. “Don’t dig it down any
more. I’ll be there.”
I opened my eyes when I felt the table cloth
move from him standing up.
I raised an expectant brow at him, all the
while trying not to let on just how badly I felt.
“My sister’s stuck in her front yard. I have
to go pull her out. Do you want to go or are you
going home to study?” He asked hopefully.
I immediately started to feel bad.
Although I’d spent time with him over the
last month, I’ve not spent much time with him.
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We were together…just not together. I was
there physically, just not mentally.
I’d been studying for my final exam that
would hopefully lead to me being a certified midwife in the state of Texas.
A test that I was taking next week if all
worked out as planned.
I had been ignoring him, though, and I was
regretting that.
The only time we actually spent together,
without me studying, was when I was laying in
his arms at night.
“I’ll go,” I said softly, standing up.
A wave of exhaustion hit me the moment I
stood and I swayed.
Michael caught me by the elbow and asked,
“Okay?”
I nodded. “I’m really tired.”
His brows raised.
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“That’s ‘cause you’ve been studying into the
wee hours of the night, working so much you get
overtired and waking up at the crack of dawn for
more studying,” he admonished, helping me
around the table and easing me into the aisle.
He didn’t let go of my hand until I was fully
ensconced in his truck.
“Buckle up, baby,” he whispered, running the
rough palm of his hand up my thigh.
I shivered at the familiar touch, and my core
started to clench in anticipation.
“Okay,” I said quickly, plugging my seatbelt
in and squeezing my legs shut tightly to circumvent the need that was slowly starting to course
through me.
Nausea completely forgotten now that I could
only think about how his cock would feel inside
my…Nikki! Control yourself!
I was a walking horny machine.
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At any given time of the day or night, I was
ready to go.
So horny, in fact, that I now masturbated in
the shower to thoughts of Michael when he
wasn’t there to take care of me.
“What are you thinking about?” Michael
asked, the look on his face comically knowing.
“Nothing.” I muttered, trying my best to
make the whole horny feeling go away.
But it wasn’t of any use.
It was there to stay, and would be until either
he, or I, took care of it.
Jesus, I was becoming such a slut puppy!
We’d driven about two miles and were just
turning onto a dirt road when he suddenly pulled
off into a corpse of trees, the truck bouncing
awkwardly on the grass and gravel before he
rocked to a stop.
“Michael!” I gasped.
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Then I was being pulled across the seat,
dragged into his lap until I was facing the
windshield.
I could feel the hard column of his cock digging into my ass, and I squirmed in excitement.
“Do you know,” he murmured against my
neck, “What it’s like to see you like this?”
I shook my head and arched my body when
he started to move his fingers from my hips, up
my rib cage, to come to a stop at my distended
nipples.
Nipples that had become so sensitive lately
that I could barely breathe when he touched
them.
Even the minutest of touches had me soaring
in seconds.
“N-no,” I said, gasping for breath.
He growled against my neck.
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“I can always tell,” he told me. “I could tell
two years ago, and I can still tell now. You have
a tell, baby.”
I moaned when his mouth moved up the
column of my neck to dip his tongue slightly into
my ear before licking around the outer shell.
“A tell?” I asked breathlessly.
My eyes closed as his other hand went down
until he reached the hem of my skirt and slowly
started to work it up.
It wasn’t long before my ass was bared, and
he noticed I wasn’t wearing panties.
“You rub your legs together and flip your hair
from side to side. Your nipples get hard, and your
eyes start to dilate,” he informed me, moving his
hand until his fingers zeroed in on my pussy.
Three fingers coasted through the lips of my
sex and immediately found purchase inside me.
“So wet for me, too,” he growled.
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I nodded, lifting my hands to play with my
other breast.
“Yeah, all of it’s for you,” I told him honestly. “All I can think about is having you inside
of me.”
He chuckled against my neck. “Do you know
what it’s like to have a boner in the same room as
your woman’s brother? It’s not fuckin’ easy, and
it happens all the time with all the dirty texts you
send me day in and day out.”
I laughed breathlessly. “Yeah, I’m really
sorry about that,” I lied.
He snorted at my lie. “Yeah, I’m sure you
are.”
Then his hands went to his belt behind my
back, and I felt his belt being released from its
clasp, and his pants pulled down over his hips.
When his cock popped free of its confines, it
rubbed deliciously against the cheeks of my ass
before he said, “Sit up.”
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I nodded, lifting up until he could position
himself at my entrance.
Then he pulled me down, filling me so
swiftly and quickly that I immediately started
coming.
I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but even
the idea of him taking me so roughly had me seeing stars.
“So fuckin’ responsive,” he growled as he
took my hips and started roughly pulling me
down on him.
I made a keening noise in my throat in agreement, and he laughed.
“Lean forward so I can watch you taking me.
Hold onto the steering wheel,” he ordered me.
I did, leaning forward until my breasts were
pressed up against the horn and swiftly picked up
the pace again, working fast to bring him to
release.
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“So perfect,” he whispered, running his hands
over the expanse of my ass.
I moaned again.
“Yeah, you fill me so good,” I said, slapping
my ass against his thighs, taking his big dick as
far as I could get him.
His hand ran up the length of my spine to
settle on my shoulder, then slammed me down
using the purchase he had, urging me to go faster
and faster.
On one particular thrust he started to come.
I felt his belly tighten, then his cock started to
jump as he shot his release into my waiting
channel.
And that was all I needed, once again, to
come.
My eyes crossed, and I threw my head back.
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Michael fisted my hair as it tickled his belly,
holding me steady with it when I finally came
down from the high he’d just delivered to me.
“Fuckin’ beautiful,” he whispered fiercely.
I smiled and leaned back until my back rested
against his front.
He wrapped both hands around me and buried his face into my neck.
“You’re killing me lately,” he whispered
laughingly.
I snorted.
“I can’t help it. That’s all I think about. Your
cock,” I teased.
He chuckled and leaned forward to grab the
stack of napkins we’d gotten from Chick-Fil-A
the night before.
Handing half to me, I placed it on the front of
my vagina while he took the back, doing his best
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to catch the come that started to leak from my
pussy the moment it was free of his cock.
I fell to my side in the passenger seat and did
my best to clean myself of his come before retaking my seat.
He’d already tossed his napkins in the little
bag hanging from his steering column.
“Here,” I said, offering the soiled napkins to
him.
He gave me a ‘yeah right’ look and took the
bag off his steering column, offering it to me.
“There.”
I smiled and shoved the napkins into the bag
before handing it back to him.
He took it reluctantly and replaced it before
starting the truck up once more and backing out
of the makeshift driveway.
“We’re going to be late,” I told him.
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He tossed me a look. “We’re not going to be
late. You can’t be late to somethin’ like this.”
Instead of answering, I stayed silent and
watched the trees pass by, my nausea starting to
return now that the horniness wasn’t there to
overwhelm the nausea.
“You can be late to something like this if
your sister’s been sitting in the driveway for the
last hour waiting on us to get there,” I retorted.
He rolled his eyes, not that I could tell that
he’d done so.
I, at least, heard the derision in his tone.
“My sister can wait as long as it takes, seeing
as I told her not to buy the house in the first
place because it was in a flood zone. Then I told
her not to wait on getting a driveway because if
she did, the whole thing would flood and she’d
tear up her yard. Then when she didn’t get the
driveway, I told her to get a four wheel drive.
Do you know what she got? A two wheel drive
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Jeep. Who the fuck gets a two wheel drive
Jeep?”
I could tell that he really wanted to know, and
I didn’t have an answer for him.
The answer was: nobody.
What was the point of a Jeep if it didn’t have
four wheel drive?
Not that I’d side with him.
Women needed to side with each other, otherwise men would take over the world.
Or, at least, Michael would get a fat head
thinking he was always right.
“She lives out in the boonies, too, which
means it’s a drive from wherever I’m at,” he told
me as he turned down a dirt road. “And it’s a fixer upper, so I’m there every other weekend, it
seems like.”
He wasn’t there every other weekend, which I
told him.
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“You’re not there every other weekend. Because you’ve been with me for a month now, and
I’ve never met her, and you spend your weekends
with me,” I told him dryly.
He winked at me, and I felt shivers race down
my spine.
But then we hit a pot hole causing the truck to
dip down low.
And the nausea welled back up my throat.
“Pull over!” I pleaded, hand going to my
mouth.
He read the state I was in quickly with a
quick scan of his eyes, and pulled over. Not that
it was much.
But it was enough.
He stopped the truck quickly, and I had
enough time to throw my door open before I lost
the lunch that I’d barely eaten.
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My head felt like it was a million times too
big as I threw up everything I had in there, then
started dry heaving.
I guess Michael was worried about me falling
out of the truck because his hand went to the
waist band of my skirt to hold on while I violently puked.
Head pounding, I lifted up.
Only to come face to face with a cow.
He was on his side of the fence, but still, the
surprise of it all had me squeaking in surprise.
“You okay?” Michael asked.
I turned to him, then back to the cow.
“Yeah, I’m okay now. I’ve been nauseous
since breakfast,” I told him.
“Stomach bug?” He asked worriedly.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe. We have
so many sick people come through the hospital
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every day that it’s possible. But I haven’t a clue. I
just hope it goes the hell away.”
Reluctantly, he let my skirt go, and turned
back to face the front of the truck.
“Maybe we should take you home,” he said.
“It wouldn’t be good to pass whatever you have
to Reggie.”
I waved my hand. “I’ll stay in the car. You’re
all the way out here, and I’ll be fine as long as
you don’t mind.”
He shook his head. “No, I don’t mind. Just
don’t spread your cooties to me.”
I snorted, and pulled the door closed, tossing
a glance at the cow who looked a little bit sad to
see me go.
I leaned my head back against the seat, and
closed my eyes as Michael started moving the
truck back down the road. At a much slower pace
this time.
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“I won’t spread my cooties if I can help it,” I
laughed.
His hand captured mine, and he held it on top
of the middle console for another two miles.
Then he pulled into a…yard.
There wasn’t any driveway.
None at all.
And with all the rain we’d been getting over
the past two months, her yard resembled more of
a lake rather than a yard.
“She drives a jacked up two wheel drive
Jeep…” I said unsurprised. “Why would she lift a
two wheel drive?”
Michael burst out laughing.
“Exactly!”
He tried carefully, but the moment he pulled
into her yard, his tires sank and started to spin.
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“Gonna have to put it in already,” he
muttered, doing something on the floorboard that
I couldn’t see.
I couldn’t see it because the woman that was
coming out of the little brown house was
beautiful.
I could clearly tell she was Michael’s sister.
She had the same beautiful brown hair, and
even from this distance I could see that her eyes
were the same translucent blue.
“She looks just like you,” I observed as he
pulled a u-ey in her yard and started to back up.
Mud splattered and slammed against the windows, causing me to laugh at the situation.
I’d been mudding before.
Hell, I was raised in East Texas.
If you hadn’t been mudding, that was because
you hadn’t lived here long.
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But I hadn’t done it in so long that I’d forgotten the way you slipped and slid.
Mud had zero traction.
It helped that Michael’s truck was so big.
And his tires were so mean looking.
He rolled the window down and placed his
hand on the window’s ledge while he lined up to
his target.
Because he had it backed up to Hannah’s
Jeep in no time, and was bailing out before I
could ask him if he needed me to do anything.
I was studying the horses across the street
when Michael’s voice yelled for me.
“Nikki!”
I stuck my head out the window and turned
around until I could see him.
“Yeah?” I asked curiously.
Hannah and Michael were standing close,
both of them looking at me.
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Michael’s was teasing, and Hannah’s look
was calculating.
She was sizing me up.
I waved to him, and she cracked a smile.
“He told me to stay in the truck so I didn’t
spread my pukey cooties to you!” I informed her.
Hannah smiled.
“Appreciate that. If I catch it, it’ll mean Reggie will catch it!” She thanked me.
“Are y’all
impatiently.
done?”
Michael
snapped
I blinked, but wisely kept my mouth shut.
But I did nod my head.
“Good,” he muttered. “Now get into the
driver’s seat and back it up a little more.”
I saluted him, and he narrowed his eyes at
me.
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Scrambling over the seat, I scooted the seat
up to where I could reach the pedals easily, and
backed the truck up.
Promptly saturating them both with mud.
I slapped my hand over my mouth.
“I’m sorry!” I yelled.
Michael didn’t laugh, but Hannah did.
Great guffaws that had her doubled over in
hilarity.
“Do you want to pull yourself out?” He
growled to his sister.
She shook her head and stood up, but she still
had streaks running down her face where the
tears from her laughing washed the mud away.
“Jeez,” she said, walking to her Jeep’s door.
“You’re no fun.”
“That’s right, I’m not.”
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I raised my brow at him, but he couldn’t see
me because he was busy attaching the chain he’d
produced from his toolbox to both vehicles.
I contemplated Michael’s sudden change in
demeanor.
He’d done that quite a few times in the month
I’d really been spending time with him.
Three instances where all of a sudden his
mood would just snap from one extreme to the
other.
Going from really happy, to pissed off at the
slightest thing in a matter of seconds.
Quite frankly, it was fascinating to witness.
Not that I’d tell him that I found his disease
fascinating.
I’d learned to roll with it, though.
I had sisters.
Enough said.
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Also, it was easier not to call attention to it
and act like nothing was wrong.
That was the fastest way to get him back on
track, and I knew he was grateful that I didn’t
heckle him about it.
“Alright, Hannah. I want you to give it some
gas when you start to feel the tug on the chain,
okay?” He confirmed.
She nodded, and he started to the driver’s
side door, so I moved before he could ask me to.
I was in my seat when he opened the door,
and I had to look the other way so he wouldn’t
see the smile on my face.
“I know you’re laughing at me,” he growled.
“I’m not laughing,” I lied.
He snorted and threw it into drive.
The tightening of the chain sounded, and both
of them started giving it gas.
Then, all of a sudden, Michael stopped.
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“She’s going forward,” he said, covering his
face with his hands. “Please tell me she’s not.
Because I’ll be embarrassed to call her my
sister.”
I hopped out of the truck, and my white tennis shoes immediately sank into the mud.
It came all the way up to my lower calves,
but I got out to circumvent the argument I knew
was about to ensue.
“Hannah!” I whispered loudly.
She turned and let off the gas.
“Backwards!” I whispered again.
Her eyes widened, and then she covered her
mouth with her hand. “Shit!”
With pink cheeks, she pushed it up into reverse and started to go backwards.
Michael then started to go forward, and immediately pulled her out of the dirt with little to
no effort at all.
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He drug her all the way to the road where he
pulled over and parked just to the side of the road
and got out.
“You need a driveway,” he growled.
Hannah fell out of her Jeep because she was
parked on the incline that lead to a ditch, causing
her to trip and nearly fall on her face.
Her baby brother, though, saved her before
she could even make it to her knees.
“You’ll need to keep parking here where it’s
packed ground, otherwise you’ll keep getting
stuck,” he told her, setting her on her feet.
I crossed my arms over my chest and turned
to look at the dog that was peeking out the door
behind me.
“Hey big boy,” I said to him.
He was old.
He was a black lab that had a white mask
covering the entirety of his face.
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He moved slow as he made his way to me.
I went down to my haunches, holding out my
hand for him.
He nudged my hand, and I started to pet his
head.
“You’re a sweet baby,” I told him, scratching
behind his ears.
“That’s Mogley,” Hannah said from behind
me. “He’s a sucker for some lovin’s.”
I smiled. “He’s sweet. I used to have a black
lab like him named Nike. My dad had to put him
to sleep when he was fifteen because he couldn’t
walk anymore. Too many Frisbee tosses, I
guess.”
“Mogley’s a whiz with a tennis ball. He used
to be my ex’s, but Joshua didn’t want to take care
of him anymore when he started to lose his desire
to duck hunt,” she said sadly.
What a dick.
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How could you just get rid of a dog who was
too old to do what you asked of him?
Certainly not me!
I’d kill for a puppy, but my apartment’s pet
deposit was outrageous, and you couldn’t have a
dog over twenty five pounds.
And, although I loved small dogs, I couldn’t
handle the high pitch barking that came with
them.
I much preferred a dog that would protect me.
Play with me. And genuinely have fun with me.
I’d have that again someday.
“He’s a sweetheart,” I told her.
Michael came up to the porch and offered
Mogley a scratch on the head before he started
stripping off his boots, followed quickly by his
pants.
“Got anything I can change into?” He asked.
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I blinked when he stripped right down to his
boxer briefs.
“What would you do if I didn’t?” She asked
laughingly.
He glared at her.
“Drive home in my underwear,” he said
simply.
Of course he would.
Although, men could get away with that.
They could get away with almost anything.
Whereas, if a woman had tried to drive home
in nothing but a bra and panties, she’d get into
trouble for it.
“I have some of Joshua’s old clothes in the
spare bedroom. They won’t fit you well, but I’m
pretty sure there’s a pair of old shorts and a tshirt or something,” she told him.
He grunted and walked into the house, completely ignoring me.
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“Hmmm,” I said once he left.
“He’s in one of those moods,” she explained
softly.
I nodded. “He’s fine.”
She looked at me carefully.
“You know,” she said simply.
I blinked. “Know what?” I asked innocently.
“That he’s bi-polar.”
I nodded. “Yeah, he told me.”
Her eyes widened in understanding.
“He loves you,” she whispered. “And you
love him.”
I blinked.
“Well…” I did. I just didn’t want his sister to
know.
I was waiting.
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I sensed that that was somehow crucial to our
budding relationship.
If I spooked him, he would run.
Which was why I was denying, with
everything I had, what I sorely suspected wasn’t
food poisoning or a stomach bug.
I was pregnant.
Very pregnant.
Because since I’d hooked back up with Michael, I’d not had my period.
I was so regular with my period that I could
set a timer to it.
I could tell you within the hour of when I was
going to start, because it started at the same time
every month.
Which meant that the first time we were together we’d conceived a child.
A child that he didn’t want.
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A child that I had to convince him that he
could have. Who could be healthy. Who could
be a good person, just like he was. Whether he
wanted to admit he was a good man or not.
“You love him,” she confirmed, nodding her
head. “Good. He’s a good man.”
See? I knew he was.
“I know,” I told her. “He’s a really good
man.”
“He’s a sap for a little kid, though. As you
can see, he’s collecting them once again,” she
said with a snicker. “A year or so ago, he saved a
little boy from a car crash, and stayed with him
for four hours while he was cut out of a car.
Now Jackson is Michael’s biggest fan. They
still hang out with each other every once in a
while. Hell, he’s Reggie’s best friend. He’s all
she talks about sometimes.”
That knowledge that he loved kids gave me
hope.
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I’d already known that, of course, but it was
good to have it reiterated.
“How old is Reggie?” I asked, gathering up
Michael’s clothes and boots and putting them into a trash bag that Hannah had magically produced out of a planter/secret hiding spot between
two chairs on her porch.
“She’s two and a half, going on eighteen,”
Hannah laughed. “She’s Michael’s little mini-me.
Imitates everything Michael does, and it drives
my ex-husband bonkers. I love it.”
I laughed with her.
Which was how Michael found us.
He wasn’t in a bad mood any longer.
No, he was in a great mood.
Which he proved when he said, “I like it
when my two favorite girls get along, smiling
and laughing.”
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I gave him a thumbs up. “Well, we were
laughing at you. Does that make you feel any
different?”
He shook his head in the negative.
“No, it doesn’t. As long as you’re getting
along,” he announced.
I raised a brow at him, studying his attire.
He was in a black pair of jogging shorts that
were seriously too tight on him, mostly because I
could make out the outline of his cock through
the shorts. And although it was a very nice outline, it wasn’t something I wanted the world to be
seeing.
His shirt wasn’t much better, but at least it
was something.
I was happy to see his tattoos in the daylight,
though.
Normally, I only got to see him when we
were at his house or mine. And it was only in the
privacy of our bedroom.
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Michael wasn’t like normal men.
He didn’t go without a shirt. He always had
one on. Always.
Unless he was going to bed or getting out of
the shower.
“Why wouldn’t we get along?” I asked
curiously.
Hannah was the one to answer.
“Joslin and I didn’t get along. At all. She was
selfish and stuck up. She also hated the fact that
I called her on her shit when I picked up ER rotations. Something she really, really didn’t like,”
she answered.
“Ahh,” I said. “That makes sense. She hates
me because I do that, too.”
Hannah grinned. “Looks like we have a ton
of stuff in common. And guess what! We can
gang up on her at family dinners and Christmases! Because my big brother is being stupid
and marrying the cheating hoe!”
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Michael’s head tilted to the side. “How’d you
know she cheated?”
Hannah looked at him as if he were stupid.
“Michael, baby brother dear, I’m not stupid. I
work in the same hospital she does. And her stink
doesn’t just stay on the ground floor. It permeates
to all the floors. Trust me.”
I had to agree.
Joslin was somewhat famous.
She was the hoe of the hospital, and everyone
knew it.
They may not know her by sight, but they
knew her by name, and that name wasn’t really
pretty.
“They call her Whoreslin instead of Joslin,”
Hannah informed him.
He blinked.
“And she’s alright with that?” He asked in
disbelief.
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My eyebrows shot up.
“She doesn’t know she’s called that,” I told
him.
He blinked. “If everyone calls her that, she
has to know. The woman is far from dumb,” he
told me.
I shrugged. “No matter. Whatever she is, is
not dumb. But she also has no care of what others think of her. She’s going to do what she does
without another thought on what anyone else
thinks.”
“So will you be on time for dinner tonight?”
Hannah asked, changing the subject.
I was glad.
That subject always had the ability to make
me depressed.
A year and a half of working with her, and I
still hated it.
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The fact that I was about to meet his parents,
though, wasn’t much better.
In fact, the nausea was back full force at the
thought of meeting them.
I’d met parents before, but I never knew what
to say.
I wasn’t a very outgoing person.
I could talk to someone, of course, but I always said or did something to make myself look
stupid.
“We’ll be there on time, I think. Unless
something with the team comes up,” Michael
said, lifting his arms high above his head to rest
on the lip of the porch’s roof.
His way too short shirt rode up exposing his
taut belly, and my mouth started to water.
His belly was covered with tattoos, but I
could still see the defined ridges of his abdominals peeking out.
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The man was seriously ripped.
And it never hurt to see his tattoos. Something which made me so happy to see on display since they were made for people to see.
Not that he agreed with me.
It’d been the subject of many discussions, and
I’d finally decided to just let it be.
He could do what he wanted to do, and I’d be
there to support him.
“Well, it’s not like you have any control of
when you get a SWAT callout. It is what it is,”
she said, waving her arm at the idea that he’d be
late for that. “Mom will get over it.”
I sensed that this was also a sore subject, him
being on the SWAT team, and I made a mental
note to ask him about it later.
“Alright, Hannah. I’ve got to run. We’ve got
a lunch with the boys, but I’ll see you later this
afternoon,” he said to his sister.
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Hannah walked forward and hugged him, effectively getting him muddy once again, but not
nearly as much as he’d been before.
He scrunched her hair and kissed her forehead before he let her go.
“Be careful,” he whispered to her.
Hannah nodded. “I will.”
Then, before I could think or say anything to
the contrary, I was picked up.
One of his arms swept my legs out from under me, and the other went behind my shoulders
to catch me as I fell.
I squealed and looped my arms around his
shoulders, hanging on for dear life, even though I
knew he’d never drop me.
“I’m too heavy!” I protested.
He snorted.
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“You’re not heavy. You’re petite. Which is
the opposite of too heavy,” he said with that annoyingly sweet tone of his.
I could hear the way his feet sank into the
mud with each step, and I couldn’t help but
object.
“Michael, my feet are already covered in
mud. Why are you carrying me?” I asked.
He laughed.
I leaned my head down to rest against his
neck.
“Whatever,” I said teasingly.
He squeezed me tighter, and I’d never felt
safer or more content in my life.
Chapter 13
Don’t put off tomorrow what
you should’ve done today.
Maybe I will…tomorrow.
-Fact of life
Nikki
“Michael!” I gasped, my head going back as
he roughly pulled my hair, exposing my neck to
his mouth.
He ran his tongue from my collarbone all the
way to my ear lobe, which he sucked into his
mouth, running his tongue along the outer shell.
“We’re going to be late,” I said desperately.
He wasn’t listening, though.
He was already pulling my jeans down my
thighs, pushing them down with both hands as he
bent me over the side of the bed.
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“I’ll be quick,” he rumbled deeply, making
my eyes roll back in my head when his bearded
cheeks ran down my slit as he traced the length
of my sex with his tongue.
“God,” I breathed, pushing back involuntarily
as he thrust his tongue into my waiting pussy.
The scratchy beard covering his chin dug deliciously into my clit, and I was on the verge of
coming when he pulled back so abruptly that I
cried out in frustration.
“Alright, we can go now,” he said sternly.
I looked over my shoulder at him, saw the
gleam in his eyes, and knew he was joking.
Narrowing my eyes I gave him the stink eye.
“You’ve already got me on the brink. How about
you just finish the job?” I asked, wiggling my ass
for effect.
He grinned and slowly worked the zipper of
his jeans down, unbuttoned them, then lowered
his pants from around his hips just enough that he
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could free his
maneuvering.
erection
without
much
I licked my lips causing him to grin at me.
He knew how much he affected me, and I
didn’t care one bit.
“Michael,” I urged, pushing my hips back
against him.
His eyes darkened, and he lined his cock up
with my entrance before slowly easing inside.
I gasped and threw my head back.
My hair flipped over my back, and Michael
caught it, fisting it into his hands as he pulled
back his hips.
Then he sank back inside, pulling my hair to
urge me to move back against him at the same
time.
I obliged, throwing my hips back so hard that
a loud smack filled the room where our hips
collided.
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He grunted.
“That’s the way you want to do this?” He
asked casually, as if he wasn’t driving me crazy
with his slow movements.
“Yes!” I screamed.
He obliged that, too.
Pulling his hips back until the meaty head of
his cock stayed notched in my entrance, he
rammed back inside of me so hard that my knees
lifted from the bed.
“Ahhh,” I moaned, lightening coursing
through my veins as the erotic staccato of his
movements lit me up like a firecracker.
Pleasure was building in my core.
My previous orgasm barreling back towards
the finish line as he slammed into me, harder and
harder until the only thing I anticipated was the
delicious pain that shot through me each time he
sank inside of me.
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His free hand, that wasn’t pulling back on my
hair, found a home on my ass, squeezing it tighter and tighter until I was sure he’d pull my ass
off.
But soon I didn’t care because I was coming.
The erotic pain, the pure pleasure, and the excitement smashed through me all at once, and I
spontaneously combusted.
Or so it felt like.
Maybe it was an orgasm.
But I wouldn’t call what I had with Michael
‘normal.’
What we had was fan-fucking-tastic.
“I’m coming,” I gasped. “Please!”
He knew what I wanted.
His hand left my hair, and the other left my
hip.
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One traveled to my clit while the other went
to one of my breasts: pulling, plucking, and
tickling.
My personal bottle rocket exploded into a full
blown fireworks finale as I clamped down on him
so hard I heard him curse and pump his hips impossibly faster.
“Jesus,” he grunted.
Then I felt the hot splash of his come pouring
into me, filling me up, and marking me as his.
He pushed forward one final time and stayed
planted, panting with exertion.
“You know,” he said. “I don’t even muster up
this much sweat when I run.”
I groaned.
“I can’t complain.”
And I couldn’t.
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If I had to deal with the sweat to get the
pleasure I just had, then I’d take it every day of
the week and twice on Sundays.
He pulled out of me, leaving me feeling
bereft.
I was on my belly on the bed, and I could feel
his essence leaking out of me in a gush.
Yet I didn’t have the energy to care at that
moment.
“Get up, woman,” Michael slapped my ass.
I flipped him off, no doubt leaking come all
over the bed.
I’d change the sheets when we got home.
There was no way I could move right now.
Well, that is unless Michael were to pick me
up.
Which he did only seconds later, wrapping
his big hands around my waist and standing me
up.
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“Clean up, pull up your pants, and let’s go. I
can just hear my mom screeching now,” Michael
teased.
Horror filled me.
“What?” I said frantically. “Are we late?”
Of course we were late.
We’d just had sex when we should’ve been
leaving, Nikki Pena!
“Gah!” I said hurriedly, placing the palm of
my hand between my legs to catch any stray
drops that might leak out as I hobbled to the bathroom, my pants still around my ankles from
where he’d left them earlier.
Michael laughed as he watched, sitting down
on the bed to holster his gun and tie his shoes.
Twenty minutes later, and only ten minutes
late, we pulled up to his parents’ house.
It was gorgeous.
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It was one of those plantation houses with
white paint, huge white pillars, red shutters, and a
large front porch that housed rocking chairs.
“This is nice,” I said in awe.
I’d grown up on a farm.
We’d lived in a five bedroom house with seven children.
My brother, being the only boy, had gotten a
room by himself while my sisters and I all had to
spilt into three.
It looked like this house had no less than ten
bedrooms.
Plus a maid’s quarters.
And a pool house.
“Yeah,” he agreed, opening his door and hurrying around to mine. “It was good.”
I hopped out when he offered me his hand,
and started up the front walk.
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“I’m nervous,” I whispered to Michael.
“And we’re late!”
He patted my hand. “It’ll be alright.”
I knew it would be.
He’d make it so.
But that still didn’t help the nervousness that
was tearing up my insides.
Or was that the nausea that hadn’t gone away
for three days?
Because I felt like I was going to die.
Of nervousness. Or maybe anorexia since I
was so stinkin’ hungry.
I’d met his parents on the ped’s floor, of
course, but only long enough to chat with them
since they’d both been working at the time.
Meeting them at their house, in their territory,
on their baby boy’s arm, was a different thing
entirely.
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“It’s going to be okay, I promise,” he told me,
as we walked up the front walk of his parent’s
house.
“Are you sure my pants aren’t too tight?” I
asked worriedly.
His eyes went from the front door to my ass,
and I could see his pupils dilate.
“No baby, they’re fuckin’ perfect,” he murmured, licking his lips. “Maybe we should go
home. Call and tell them you’re still sick…”
I laughed, knocking him with my elbow in
the ribs.
“We did that before we came,” I teased
lightly.
Then the door in front of me opened, and a
beautiful woman, with Michael’s blue eyes,
opened the door, and at her back was a man with
Michael’s brown hair. With a few gray hairs
that only added to its awesomeness.
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“Michael, you’re late,” his mother said reprovingly. Then her eyes lit on Michael’s bared
arms, and I winced.
That’d been me begging him to wear a t-shirt.
I should’ve let him wear the long sleeve one
he wanted to wear.
“Ma,” he said, walking in with me behind
him. “We were held up trying to find a matching
shoe.”
And we had been.
That’d been what had started the whole thing
tonight.
I’d been looking under the bed, and he’d been
looking at my ass instead of for my shoe.
“Nikki!” Hannah called from further beyond.
“I’m glad you could make it!”
I smiled genuinely at Hannah, then melted
even further as the little girl in her arms launched
herself at Michael.
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“Uncle Mickey!” Reggie screeched.
Reggie was a ball of sunshine and happiness
wrapped up in a hot pink dress and brown curls.
I wanted her!
How cute was she?
“Uncle Mickey! Spin!” Reggie screeched
again.
The rest of us watched as Michael spun Reggie in a circle, arms extended out in front of him
while he held her suspended in the air.
She screeched and yelled, hollering and hooting as she did the ‘airpane.’
“Alright, children. That’s enough. How about
some dinner?” Elizabeth chastised them gently.
Michael swung one more time, then came to
an abrupt stop.
He placed Reggie on the floor, and we all
watched as she started to stumble as her equilibrium came back to her in slow increments.
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Michael caught her before she could face
plant, and laughed at her.
“You did better, Reggie-Roo,” he said,
pulling her tightly into his chest.
I could tell he loved her.
Dearly.
And I couldn’t help a pang of sadness at the
sight.
I wanted that to be our kid together.
“What’s for dinner?” Another voice called
from the living room.
I looked up, startled to see another man there.
He resembled Michael in color.
He had the same tanned skin and brown hair.
But that was where their similarities stayed.
This man had a more ‘baby’ face with a very
lean build to him.
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He didn’t look much like the rest of the family, like Hannah and Michael did.
“I made lemon pepper chicken and garlic
mashed potatoes with asparagus and a pound
cake for dessert,” Elizabeth smiled, happy that
someone had asked her what she’d made.
I noticed how the man nodded, and the woman plastered against him grimaced.
I’d forgotten that Joslin might possibly be
here.
Or more like shut it out.
I really didn’t like the woman, and I must’ve
unconsciously protected myself from thinking
about it all day, because until just now, I’d completely forgotten she’d be here.
Michael wrapped his arm around my
shoulders, pulling me into his side as he said,
“Smells great, mom. I hope you made some
sweet tea, though. I’m thirsty.”
Elizabeth gave her son a droll look.
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“What do you take me for, a Yankee?” She
jeered.
I snorted, and covered my mouth with my
hand at the jab.
Joslin was from up North.
I knew that because she always liked to say
how Texas ‘wasn’t New York.’
Well, thank God for that!
“Well, lead the way, ma. You’re complainin’
about how I was late, yet here you are lolly-gaggling,” Michael teased.
Elizabeth narrowed her eyes at her son.
“Watch it,” she waggled her finger at him.
Dinner was excellent. And not a thing went
wrong the entire time.
I kept my eyes on my own plate, smiled at
everyone, and acted like I was comfortable.
But the whole time I wasn’t.
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Joslin did nothing but glare at me the entire
time, and I lost patience with her about thirty
minutes into the meal, and started glaring right
back.
“More chicken?”
I looked up to find Dean holding the chicken
dish out to me, and I shook my head. “No, thank
you.”
His eyes narrowed when I wouldn’t take the
dish, and I looked down at my empty plate.
“I’m filled to the brim, promise,” I told him.
He sighed.
“Dean doesn’t like it when the women in his
life don’t eat as much as a small horse,” Michael
mumbled around a bite of bread. “I keep telling
him to get over it, but he has a phobia.”
I blinked.
“A phobia?” I asked in confusion.
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I really was stuffed, so it didn’t matter if he
wanted me to eat more or not. I wasn’t going to.
Not with the way my stomach had been roiling on and off lately.
“A girl he dated in high school used to be anorexic. So he thinks every girl he knows is,”
Hannah muttered, smiling at her brother in
humor.
“I do not!” Dean denied.
“You do,” Manuelo laughed from the end of
the table.
“So, Mom,” Joslin interrupted the conversation with her normal awesome self. “What are we
doing for the holidays? I really want to go to Colorado to ski again.”
I hated skiing. So hopefully Michael didn’t
expect me to go with him.
“We tried that last year and it didn’t go well;
that’s off the table for this year,” Manuelo
muttered, making me love him in that instant.
275/544
“Plus, now we have another person to add to the
mix we’ll have to start syncing our schedules
now.”
My heart warmed at the mention of me, and
when Manuelo smiled at me, I knew he’d forever
have my heart.
If anyone can take on Joslin like that, then I
was all for him!
“But last year the boys picked. This years the
girls pick,” Joslin whined.
Michael made his mouth busy by shoving another piece of bread in it, but I could tell he
wanted to yell at her.
Hell, so did I.
I didn’t, of course.
Surprisingly, it was Dean who said it.
“How about we talk about this when it comes
closer to time? It’s only April,” Dean offered.
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“Alright, well since everyone’s done, I’ll
clean the dishes. Nikki, Joslin, how about you
two help me?” Elizabeth asked nicely.
I refrained from grimacing.
Cleaning the kitchen was my least favorite
thing to do in the world.
Give me a mop or a toilet brush all day long,
but the thought of touching food and smelling it
really made me want to gag.
Michael looked at me, gauging my willingness to do it, and started to say something, but I
stayed his hand.
“Okay,” I said brightly, standing up and
reaching for Michael’s and my plate.
When I started to pull Michael’s plate away,
he held onto it until I looked into his eyes.
What I saw there was concern.
For me.
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Smiling at him, I leaned down and kissed him
softly on the lips, whispering, “I’m okay.”
He looked into my eyes, studying me for long
moments, then nodded. “Bring me some pie on
the way back out.”
I winked. “Yes, sir.”
“See, that’s what I like to hear! Lizzie, when
are you gonna learn how to obey like that?”
Manuelo asked loudly.
Laughing, I followed a grumbling Elizabeth,
and an even more unhappy Joslin, into the
kitchen.
“Makin’ us look bad, my dear,” Elizabeth
said once the door swung shut behind us.
They had one of those swinging doors that I’d
only seen in movies, and their kitchen was state
of the art.
“Man, I could knock out some tamales in
here!” I said in awe.
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“You’re welcome to make them anytime you
wish, as long as you share,” Elizabeth offered
graciously.
“Deal,” I said, stopping by the trash to dump
what remained on the two plates in my hand into
the trash before walking them to the sink where
Elizabeth was rinsing the dishes.
Joslin took a seat at the table and started leafing through a magazine, leaving Elizabeth and I
to fill the silence, which was surprisingly easy,
considering.
“So, what made you want to be a midwife?”
Elizabeth asked, offering me a rinsed off dish to
load into the dishwasher.
“I’m a paramedic. The first call I ever took
when I was on my own was a forty week pregnant woman having her baby in a closet in her
bedroom. It was during one of those storms that
threatened to hail and damage everything in the
affected area with its high winds. They’d just
rung the tornado siren when we showed up,” I
279/544
told her. “So we get there, and she’d already
moved to the closet with her freaking out husband at her side. That’s where we delivered her.
And I’ve been hooked ever since.”
“Those are the types of stories I love to hear.
As you know, I work on the ped’s floor. It can be
depressing at times to hear some stories,” Elizabeth said, handing me a handful of forks.
“Dean and I have decided to try invitro fertilization,” Joslin announced from her spot at the
table.
I froze, as did Elizabeth.
“Y’all haven’t really given it that long,” Elizabeth hesitated.
“We’ve been trying for over a year, so Dean
went to get tested and they discovered he had a
very low sperm count. They suggested invitro,
but even then they’re not sure that he’ll be able
to fertilize my eggs. We’re going to ask Michael
if he’d be willing to donate sperm…”
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I dropped the plate I was holding and stormed
out of the room.
I was so mad that I could spit nails, and when
I found Dean and Michael in a tense huddle in
the corner of the living room.
“Michael!” I yelled, storming to him.
He turned around to look at me in concern,
then his eyes narrowed when he saw Joslin’s
smiling face at my back.
“What?” he asked worriedly.
“We need to talk. Outside … now,” I told
him quickly.
“I told her that we’re going to ask Michael to
donate sperm,” Joslin announced to the room as a
whole.
Michael turned stiffly and stared at me, ready
for what he knew was coming.
Because let me tell you a little something
about me.
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I’m a hothead.
I react first, speak second, and think third.
It’s gotten me into trouble my entire life.
“You will not have a kid with anyone but
me!” I yelled loudly, punctuating my point with a
finger jab to his chest.
Michael’s eyes glittered.
“I’m not having kids with anyone, so it’s a
moot point,” Michael said, crossing his arms over
his chest.
“But Dean, you said he’d agree!” Joslin
whined.
“My baby brother is not having a kid with
you. That’s fucked,” Hannah put in her two
cents.
“But it wouldn’t be his kid and mine, it’d be
mine and Dean’s,” Joslin continued to whine.
“Yeah right. You know damn well and good
that if it’s Michael’s DNA, he’ll have a
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responsibility to that kid, even if you want him
not to,” Manuelo said seriously.
“It’d be our kid! He wouldn’t have any say to
it!” Joslin dug herself deeper.
Michael’s body became tense, and I knew he
was about to say something harsh.
“Michael and I are serious, and I’m really
not comfortable with having a child of his running around with y’all. Not to say that you
wouldn’t be capable parents,” I told Dean. “But
what’s a part of Michael is a part of me. So
would y’all be comfortable with sharing this
child with me and Michael? Because I know I
wouldn’t be comfortable doing that with y’all.”
“I think that we need to talk to Michael
without you here,” Dean said softly. “Joslin, why
don’t you go finish cleaning the kitchen with
Nikki and…”
“No, she’s right. I won’t be having any kids.
But if I were, it wouldn’t be with Joslin. Sorry,”
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Michael said, shoving his hands into his pockets
and looking around the room at all the occupants.
Manuelo and Hannah, I could tell, were
firmly on my side.
Elizabeth, I could tell, was conflicted.
She wanted both of her boys to be happy.
And I knew I’d made an enemy out of Joslin
first and foremost.
There wouldn’t be any turning back from
that.
Dean, however, looked oddly happy.
Like he hadn’t wanted to have children with
her. Nor her to have any children with anyone
else.
Beep-Beep-Beep-Beep.
I glanced at Michael as he pulled his pager
out of his pocket.
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“Gotta go,” he muttered, looking at the
readout. “Nikki, come on. Let’s go.”
We left within seconds, and I was so happy I
could scream.
“I cannot believe,” I said, plugging my seatbelt in, “That she asked you that.”
Michael snorted. “She always wanted kids.
And I think Dean was in the process of telling me
he didn’t want kids either, when you burst
through the door like a hot fire poker was shoved
up your ass.”
I winced.
“That sounds painful,” I admitted.
He shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. I’ve no
doubt that it would be, though.”
He pulled out of his parents subdivision, flipping the lights on that I hadn’t realized were
there.
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“Wow,” I said, looking up at the flashing
lights that were mounted to his rearview mirror.
“Does it make sounds, too?”
He hit a button on his steering wheel, and the
sound of a loud air horn, followed by the distinct
buuuurp-burrrp most police cars used filled the
night air.
Surprisingly, people moved out of our way
fairly quickly.
“You can take my truck back to your house,”
he muttered. “I’ll get someone to drop me off at
my place.”
I blinked.
“You’re not coming back over?”
Was that a whine I detected in my voice?
Yuck, I hated whining.
“No, there’s no telling when I’ll be back,” he
told me as he pulled into the station.
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Then, without another word, he disappeared,
leaving the truck running and me surprised and a
little bit hurt.
He’d always come to my house after his calls
before. Why was this time any different?
Had what I said been out of line?
Surely not. But hell, what did I know?
Chapter 14
Show me your kitties.
-T-shirt
Nikki
“Where are you?” Michael asked.
I looked at the doctor’s office where I was
currently waiting for my appointment, and lied
through my teeth.
“I’m at the store. Do you need anything?” I
asked sweetly.
He grunted. “No. I was just hoping you were
home so you could bring me my spare pistol. Something is wrong with mine and I guess I need to
take it in to get it fixed.”
“No, I’m not there. I’m sorry,” I told him
honestly.
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“Damn. I can’t get away. I’m about to go into
a meeting, and I have a SWAT seminar in
Longview at twelve,” he sighed.
“I can bring it to Longview for you, as long
as that’s okay. I have to go to the mall anyway,” I
offered.
He made a sound of contentment. “That
sounds good. What do you need at the mall?”
Pants because mine don’t fit anymore, was
what I was thinking, but what I said was, “New
pants. Mine have something defective with the
button.”
Not totally a lie.
The defectiveness with the button came up
because I couldn’t get the button to meet the hole
that was designed for it.
I’d had to use a hair tie to hook the two together, and eventually Michael was going to notice that I could no longer button my pants.
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I was going to buy myself some time, though,
by buying some bigger jeans.
It’d been three weeks since I’d gone with Michael to pull his sister out of the mud.
Three weeks since I’d met his parents.
And three weeks since I’d finished school.
But I’d been busy.
I’d ‘graduated’ just two days ago, although it
was just a formality.
I’d taken my certification test that was required in the State of Texas, and I was now a licensed certified midwife.
“Ms. Pena?” A young woman’s voice called,
making me look up from the contemplation of
my fingernails, which were sorely in need of a
manicure.
Sadly, I knew that wasn’t going to happen
any time soon.
I didn’t have time.
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And when I did have time, I’d rather nap.
This pregnancy that I wasn’t announcing was
really draining the hell out of me.
I stood and walked over to the woman.
“Are you ready?” She asked with a smile.
I nodded. “Yep.”
I was.
There was no denying it anymore.
None.
If all my calculations were correct, I was well
past the ‘I just missed my period’ stage.
Which was normally when women felt it safe
to announce their pregnancy to the world.
Something that I hadn’t, nor wouldn’t, find
the courage to do anytime soon.
“Alright, we’ll get your weight and blood
pressure, then you’ll take that cup right there,”
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she indicated the cup on the counter. “And fill the
cup up to the…”
“First line, yes I know. I’m a midwife,” I told
her, smiling happily.
It never got old, saying that.
“Oh! I want to do that!” The woman crowed.
“I’ve been thinking about it. Is it hard?”
I smiled. “It’s tough, yes. I think the ‘hardest’
part though, is waking up in the middle of the
night when the women start giving birth. But I’m
not going to go that route with the home births.
I’ve already got a position lined up with Good
Shepherd. I’ll be assisting the doctors there. I’ll
be on twelve hour shifts, ready to play catcher if
the doctor’s cannot make it in time,” I told her.
Her eyes lit.
“I didn’t know they had that option,” she
said, gesturing to the scale. “I’ll seriously have to
look into it. I took this job because of the baby
aspect. I just love meeting the little ones.”
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I could relate.
Delivering babies never got old.
I’d helped deliver a baby in the parking lot of
the ER.
The woman had pulled to a rocking stop in a
big, jacked up Chevy truck with her frantic husband at the wheel.
The husband had been white as a sheet, and I
could see why the minute I opened the door to
the truck and saw a baby practically on the verge
of being born, staring at me from the woman’s
vagina.
The baby was literally staring, too.
His head was in the sunny side up position,
which meant the baby was coming into the world
facing the sky rather than the ground like he was
supposed to.
It also meant that it hurt a lot more.
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Which the woman that’d been birthing the
boy was letting us know with her eloquent play
on words.
I’d lifted my arms just in time to catch the
boy as the woman had given one valiant push.
The baby slid from the mother’s birth canal
into my outstretched hands, and there’d been no
looking back since.
“Okay, you can step down,” the woman said.
“Sit here, please.”
After checking my blood pressure, and filling
the dreaded plastic cup, she showed me to a
room.
“I’m sure you know by now what this little
gem is!” She said, holding up a Doppler.
I nodded, sat down, and lifted my shirt.
“Sure do. Have at it.”
“You said you were twelve weeks, so that
should be more than enough time for her to develop and allow us to hear the heartbeat.”
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I closed my eyes and listened to the sounds of
the Doppler at work, amazed at how different it
was from this end.
“Ahh,” the woman said. “There it is.”
I smiled, and tears filled my eyes, as I
listened to mine and Michael’s baby for the very
first time.
And I fell in love.
Hopelessly devoted to this little life inside of
me.
“One forty two. Perfect perfect!” She said.
“Alright, my dear. My name’s Dalia if you need
anything. The doctor should be in with you in
about ten to fifteen minutes,” Dalia explained as
she headed to the room’s door, and then closed it
quietly behind her.
Well, at least I didn’t have to sit here naked
while I waited.
This visit was late.
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Most women usually went in when they were
four to six weeks pregnant.
Seeing as I was twelve, I wouldn’t have to
have the normal vaginal ultrasound. I could have
the one that would run over the outside of my
belly.
Which also meant I wouldn’t have to get
naked.
I busied myself with a magazine on birthing a
child, all the while I tried to tell myself to calm
down and not freak out.
Freaking out had been a major part of my life
as of late.
How did I tell Michael?
Would he be okay with it?
Would he ask me to abort it?
I knew one thing, though, and that was that
this baby was mine, and I loved it already.
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And if I had to give up my relationship with
Michael because he couldn’t see past his fears,
then I’d do it.
It’d be hard as hell, but I’d do it.
And I planned on telling him tonight after we
had dinner with our families.
Maybe I’d pour a few drinks into him, too.
Maybe that would help him stay calm and
help him realize that having a child wasn’t the
end of the world.
The door to the room clicked open, and I
looked up into the eyes of an older man in his
mid to late sixties.
“Hello,” Doctor Jones said, offering his
hand. “I’m Doctor Jones. It’s nice to meet you.”
I smiled at him and offered him my hand, too.
The moment my hand touched his, I felt a
little zing of discomfort pulse down my arm, but
I hid it with a smile. “Nice to meet you, too.”
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He took a seat on that little rolling chair, and
I was never more thankful that I wasn’t naked
than right at this moment.
Because if this man would’ve been doing
stuff between my legs, I might very well have
screamed.
There wasn’t anything that I could put my
finger on that made me so nervous and
uncomfortable.
He was normal looking for the most part.
He did have a slight bald spot at the very top
of his head, and he had too much of a leer in his
smile.
But other than that, he was a normal man for
that age.
There was nothing that truly stuck out about
him, but I knew I wouldn’t be coming back to
this doctor if I could help it.
The way this practice worked, though, was
that I had to see all of the doctors in case of the
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event that my primary OB/GYN was busy with
another patient or out of town.
I had to meet with them all, and this doctor,
Dr. Jones, was the first one available.
So I’d taken the appointment, even though he
wasn’t the doctor that I wanted to speak with.
Luckily, I wouldn’t have to take another appointment with him.
“Alright, well your pregnancy test came back
positive, so you are indeed pregnant. Today we’ll
be doing a sonogram on you to double check the
dates, but with what I heard about you being a
midwife, I’m fairly positive that your calculations on your gestation are correct,” he grinned.
I hid my wince once again with a smile.
“Yeah, I’m fairly positive myself.”
He nodded. “What does your husband do?”
Instead of telling him that I wasn’t married, I
just smiled and told him, “He’s a police officer.”
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Something in his eyes flared, but was gone
just as quickly as I saw it.
“Well that’s nice, I bet y’all are excited,” he
said, standing up and walking to the sink to wash
his hands.
I leaned back and lifted my shirt when he
came back to me, his hands moving to my belly.
He pressed into my abdomen, and I had to
clench my core tightly when the movement made
the state of my bladder go from bearable to Defcon One.
“Everything feels alright,” he said, moving
back until he was standing at the sink. “I’ve written a prescription for prenatal vitamins, as well as
some nausea meds if you feel that you’ll be needing some, since I read in your chart that you’ve
been experiencing quite a bit of nausea and
vomiting.”
I nodded, and he smiled, that leer tilting up
just the corner of his lips once again.
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“Alright,” he said, standing up and heading to
the door. “If you have any questions, please don’t
hesitate to call if need be. Do you know where
the sonogram room is?”
I nodded, and he winked. “Alright little lady,
you’re more than welcome to go! See you next
month.”
I held my shiver in check until he’d closed
the door, and I let out a breath of air.
Then an irrational rage swept through me.
If that bastard boyfriend of mine didn’t have
to be so irrational about children, then I wouldn’t
be freaking out right now alone. I’d have him
holding me, telling me we’d never see that fucker
again.
Because I knew damn well that Michael
would’ve felt the same coming from him as I
had.
I left the little room, waving at Dalia as I
headed in the direction of the ultrasound room.
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I found the room, and immediately realized
that I’d fucked up.
Because Memphis, the wife of another member of the SWAT team, was smiling brightly at
me.
“I just knew it!” She crowed happily. “I knew
it!”
I blinked.
“Knew what?” I asked carefully.
“When I saw your chart. I bet Michael’s so
happy!” She cheered happily.
Wrong. Michael didn’t even know!
“Umm, Michael doesn’t know,” I told her
softly.
Her eyes cleared of their happiness.
“What?” She asked.
I was sure that was a shock to her.
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Downy, her husband, was a really good man
who’d been over the moon at hearing that Memphis was pregnant.
She probably didn’t even realize that some
men didn’t feel the same way that hers did.
“Yeah, I haven’t told him yet,” I informed
her. “And I’m not sure I want to…or how to.”
She blinked. “But why? He’s Saint. He’s the
baby whisperer. He loves children.”
Yeah, I could see this going really wrong.
“Michael doesn’t want kids,” I finally said. “I
don’t know how he’ll react to hearing that I’m
pregnant, nor if he’d be happy about it. If I’m being honest, I’m fairly sure he’s going to flip out
and leave me.”
“Oh, Nikki. I’m sorry,” she whispered
forlornly.
I shrugged.
It was what it was.
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I’d deal with everything else once it
happened.
Tonight, though, I’d tell him. I didn’t want
him finding out from a friend when it should be
coming from his woman. At least I could give
him that.
Chapter 15
Nobody cares about your problems. We’ve got enough shit of
our own to deal with.
-Michael to a suspect
Michael
“Surprise!” I said, throwing the door to the
restaurant that I’d rented for the night open, revealing all of our family and friends.
Nikki’s mouth dropped open in surprise.
“What…why…what…”
flabbergasted.
she
stuttered,
I smiled.
“Congratulations on your certification, best
friend,” Georgia said, wrapping her arms around
Nikki and hugging her tightly.
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“Oh, my God!” Nikki jumped up and down,
then turned and barreled into me, knocking me
off balance. “You are the best man ever.”
I huffed out a laugh and let her go when her
parents made their way over to us.
“Mom, dad!” She cried in happiness.
And that’s when I knew.
I did all this just to get that very smile on her
face.
“You did good, suck up,” Nico said, slapping
me on the back.
I snorted and turned, offering him my hand.
He took it and narrowed his eyes on me.
“I can see now that you’ll try to worm your
way into my parents’ hearts. But it won’t work.
I’m the favorite,” he deadpanned.
I blinked.
He was serious as far as I could tell.
306/544
Or maybe he was just that good at holding
onto his composure.
“No you’re not!” A young woman that
looked a lot like Nikki, but had yet to develop all
the luscious curves said. “I am!”
Nico glared at her. “What the fuck are you
wearing, Nila?”
She looked down at the short skirt that clung
to her toned thighs. “A skirt. What’s wrong with
it?”
“Uh,” Nico said, slapping his head and looking to me for direction. “I know you have a sister.
Does she dress like a harlot?”
I shook my head. “No. Not anymore, at
least. She had a baby at sixteen, though.”
Nico’s eyes turned murderous. “You will
not have a baby! And ruin your life! Pull your
skirt down.”
“Our babies ruined your life?” Georgia asked
with laughter filling her voice.
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Nico’s ‘babies’ were now one year old’s, but
Nico still acted like they were born yesterday.
“Yeah, when was the last time we had se…”
Georgia slapped her hand over Nico’s mouth before he could finish your sentence.
“…you will watch your mouth around our
friends, you randy bastard,” Georgia hissed at her
husband.
I cracked up and turned to Nila. “It’s nice to
meet you, finally, Nila. I’ve heard a lot about
you.”
Nila smiled. “And I you. Although all that
Nikki and I have spoken about is the fact that
you can give it to her…”
“Not you, too!” Georgia kept right on hissing.
“What is wrong with you Pena’s? Obviously,
Nikki has the right way of it, finding a man to get
her the hell out of this fucked up family.”
Nico laughed, as did Nila.
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I, though, froze. Was she talking to Georgia
about getting married?
I hadn’t actually thought much past the summer, but the thought of being with Nikki forever
really made me happy.
Like, manic happy.
Which also worried me.
I didn’t want to marry her yet.
We needed time to get to know each other.
She’d never even witnessed any of my manic/
depressive episodes.
I, at least, needed to get through this winter
with her, then I could think about marriage.
Right now, I was just happy having her in my
arms, knowing she’d be there when I woke up.
“Michael?” Nikki called to me.
I looked over to see her parents and her
studying me.
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I turned and walked away from the arguing
siblings, offering my hand to Sol, once again.
“How’s it going?” I asked.
He smiled.
“You did a good job, keeping this from her. I
was just telling her that you were the one to organize all of this,” Sol said.
Nikki looked from her father to me.
“You’re good at keeping secrets,” she
teased. “I’m usually the first one to talk my family into opening the presents. Next time I’ll have
to pay attention for the signs of you hiding
something.”
I snorted. “You’d never figure out if I was
hiding something from you. You, on the other
hand, are an open book.”
Her eyes widened. “Really?”
I nodded.
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Then her eyes narrowed. “I’m good at keeping secrets, though.”
Then Memphis and Downy walked up, effectively ending our conversation.
“Lolita! Did you bring me some tamales?”
Downy asked loudly.
Lolita blushed. “No, my Downy, I didn’t. But
I’m making some tomorrow, so I’ll be sure to
bring you some by the station.”
Downy grinned.
“Score!” he said, pulling his arm down
quickly from head height. “Make ‘em hot! You
know how I like ‘em!”
Lolita rolled her eyes, and I turned to Memphis, only to see her looking at Nikki oddly.
She was staring at the glass of champagne in
Nikki’s hand like it was a viper.
“What?” I asked her.
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Memphis turned and looked at me with wild
eyes.
The first thing I noticed she saw was my bare
arms, causing her eyes to widen further.
“Holy shit!” She announced loudly. “You got
a new one!”
I looked down at my bare arms and grimaced.
I’d gone without the long sleeves tonight for
Nikki.
I knew she liked when I showed them off.
And, although I did it for her, I wasn’t comfortable with it.
I didn’t like explaining why I had so many
tattoos. Because with that explanation came the
explanation of the fact that I suffered from depression and I was bi polar.
Which only launched into more conversations
that I didn’t want to have.
312/544
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Nikki turn
to place her champagne glass down on a nearby
table and turn to me.
I raised a brow at the move, but she only
winked and walked away, talking to even more
of her friends and family, leaving me to explain
to Memphis something that I didn’t even want to
get into.
***
Two hours later, the champagne dilemma was
brought up again.
“Nikki, why aren’t you drinking any champagne? I bought it specifically for you!” Georgia
asked, thrusting yet another glass at her.
Nikki once again waved it off. “No, I’m not
interested in champagne tonight. I want to enjoy
this night, not forget it.”
Somewhat mollified, Georgia took the drink
to her lips and sipped, keeping her eyes on Nikki,
studying her.
I studied Nikki, too.
She’d not had a drink in a very long time,
now that I thought about it.
Why?
Making a note to question her later, I turned
back to the conversation at hand.
314/544
“So they’re making budget cuts? Where? Are
they going to take away our new body armor?
The vehicles that they promised? The overtime
pay that they force us to take?” Nico asked in
outrage at hearing what Luke had just said.
Luke shook his head. “I’m only telling you
the rumors I’m hearing, and explaining why I’ll
be attending the town hall meeting.”
“Well, how about they lower the amount of
pay the mayor makes, or some of the city officials? Why not take the budget cuts out of the
fuckin’ flowers that they plant in the middle of
the road. Or the new red lights they keep putting
up that only do more problem than good,” Nico
muttered darkly.
Luke held his hands up in surrender.
“That’s why I mentioned it. I want y’all to go
to the meeting with me this Friday,” Luke said.
After a few grunts of confirmation, Luke
turned to me.
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“I’ve also wanted to talk to you today, too,
but I could never get you. Have you heard any
more about those murders?” He asked.
We all knew which ones he was talking
about.
Everyone did.
It was now public information after the fourth
one in forty square miles and two weeks
happened.
“Wolf is up and talking, but he’s only been
able to give the minutest of details. He can attest
to the black clothes, the black hoodie, and the
black boots. We know he had black hair, and he
was about five foot nine or ten. Whipcord lean.
About one hundred and eighty pounds,” I told
them. “But y’all already know that. Parker and
Elliott aren’t sharing much else yet. Wolf is getting released on Monday, though. And, hopefully, he’ll be approved to adopt Nathan like he’s
looking to do since he has no other family,” I informed them.
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Luke nodded.
“I heard the boy’s finally doing better,”
Downy said around a mouthful of cake. “When’s
he get to go home?”
I shook my head. “Only time will tell with
him. He’s got some swelling on his brain that’s
causing him to act a lot differently than he was
before, so they’re waiting for that to go down
some more before they make any plans of him
getting released.”
“Fuck,” Miller said, pulling his beer up to his
lips and taking a sip.
My sentiments exactly.
“You’re pregnant!” Noel crowed. “That’s
why you’re not drinking.”
My heart froze in my chest at the declaration
from Nikki’s little sister, and I started to pay a
little more attention.
“What? No! I’m not!” Nikki shook her head
savagely.
317/544
Even though she denied it immediately, I
started to connect some dots.
Throwing up.
No period that I’d seen as of yet.
And I would’ve noticed any of the million
times we’d fucked in the past month and a half.
Weight gain.
Why she needed new pants at the mall today.
Why her nipples were so fuckin’ tender
lately.
I’d barely brushed them in the shower this
morning, and it had her begging for me all over
again.
“’Scuse me,” I muttered, eyes connecting
with Nikki’s.
Her eyes widened slightly, flaring with
something I couldn’t read, and then disappeared
before she schooled her features.
318/544
Then she excused herself from her friends
and followed me out of the restaurant, then further outside.
I didn’t stop until we were in the shadows
along the side of the building.
I could hear Nikki’s flip flops flapping
against her feet as she walked behind me.
The wind from the impending storm flapping
her skirt as she hurried to catch up to me.
But my strides were too fast for her.
She didn’t catch up to me until I stopped in
shadows so deep that I couldn’t tell she was
standing in front of me before I moved my arms
out to catch her before she slammed into my
front.
“Now’s not the time for lying, Nikki,” I said
breathlessly.
I was breathless because I was freaking the
fuck out.
319/544
I was a doctor for fuck’s sake.
I knew the signs.
I was also smarter than I’d been acting.
I guess I wanted so bad to give Nikki the benefit of the doubt that I ignored the signs.
I never looked to see if she was taking the
birth control.
Mother. Fucker.
“Michael,” she said, pressing her hand
against my abs.
And I suddenly forgot what she and I were
fighting about.
Mostly because her mouth was on mine, and
her hands were wrapping around my neck.
She held on tight as I started to fight her, but
then she pressed those delicious hips against my
raging cock, and I forgot that I was mad.
Forgot that my life had just changed.
320/544
Forgot that she was trying to distract me.
Because she did distract me.
And I took the bait.
Hook, line, and fucking sinker.
My mouth slammed down on hers as I
gathered her up into my arms.
The slinky skirt that reached her ankles
tangling up in her legs as I tried to lift her up.
She and I both shoved the skirt up until it rested up around her hips, then I moved until I
pressed her against the brick wall of the building
we’d just exited.
“Nikki,” I growled, grinding my dick into her
pussy.
“Yeah?”
voice.
She asked, need evident in her
She rocked her hips against my cock, and
keened when I hit her clit just right.
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“Please…just don’t lie,” I begged.
She didn’t answer, which I guess that was answer enough.
“Nikki,” I said, reaching between us to rip my
cock free from the dress slacks and place it at her
entrance. “Why?”
She shook her head. “I did everything right. I
swear on my life, Michael. I did everything
right.”
My eyes closed, and my heart felt like it was
breaking as she sank down slowly onto my cock.
Her heat fisted my dick, covering each and
every single inch of skin covering my length.
My eyes closed, not that it mattered anyway
since it was pitch black outside now.
The lone light we’d been using for the minimal lighting it gave went out when a hard burst
of wind screamed between the buildings.
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Nikki gasped, and I couldn’t figure out if it
was because of the pure darkness, or the way I
rammed into her, taking my frustration about the
entire situation out on her pussy.
“Michael,” she gasped, clinging tighter.
“Take it,” I ordered.
She leaned down and bit my neck, hard.
And I exploded.
It was all too much.
The way she clenched around me.
The way she smelled.
The thought of her carrying my baby.
A baby that was a miracle in it’s own right,
but would probably grow up to be just like me.
“I finished without you,” I murmured into her
hair.
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She petted my head, running her nails along
my scalp and making shivers chase down my
spine.
“That’s okay,” she whispered softly. “Just
don’t do it again.”
I laughed humorlessly and pulled out of her,
letting her feet fall back towards the ground.
Once I knew she was steady, I let her hips go.
Her skirt fell from my grasp as I did, and we
sat there in an awkward silence.
Me with my head against her shoulder, and
her with her arms still around me.
“What are we going to do?” I rasped, eyes
clenching tight.
A sob caught in her throat, and I knew that
she didn’t do this on purpose.
I knew it with all my heart and soul.
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And when she whispered, “I don’t know, but
I love you,” I knew that I would do whatever it
took to come to terms with this.
Because I had just as much of a part in the
conception of this child as she did.
And that’s what a man did.
Stepped up to the plate.
Chapter 16
So tell me what you want, what
you really, really want.
-T-shirt
Nikki
I knew he wouldn’t find me here.
It was the one place I could go without anyone finding me.
Salsarita Mamacita’s.
My family wouldn’t be caught dead here.
It was the poorest quality dancing place in
town.
Plus, Michael didn’t dance.
He’d told me so.
Many, many times.
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When I’d be dancing around the kitchen making dinner, he’d just roll his eyes at me in exasperation when I tried to get him to join in.
Something about attending too many dances
when he was younger or some bullshit excuse
like that.
It’d been two months since I’d told Michael
that I was pregnant.
Two months since he’d fucked me, stayed
with me throughout the rest of the night, and then
disappeared without a trace.
Well, not without a trace.
I knew where he was.
He called me, updated me on what was going
on, but he wasn’t there.
He was seeing a therapist.
He was ‘coming to terms’ with the baby, as
he said.
He’d been on a case.
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I knew it was a bad case.
I also knew it was a worthy case for him to be
on, but I didn’t understand why it was taking him
away from me like it was.
And I was fairly sure he was just using it as
an excuse to lick his wounds. Wounds that he believed I delivered against him.
I was on birth control. I didn’t know what
else to do to prevent a child other than abstinence…and that wasn’t going to happen with
Michael.
I hadn’t been on antibiotics, so it wasn’t anything stupid on my part.
Nor had I forgotten any pills. I knew he
didn’t want kids. I would never trap him into
keeping me, nor give him a child he didn’t want
on purpose.
So, needless to say, I was in a mood.
A lonely mood.
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Because he wasn’t there.
He wasn’t with me, and I needed him so bad
that I could barely stand it.
I’d been ducking his calls for three days now
And I knew he either would plain old stop
calling, or he’d pull his head out of his ass and
come see me.
Either one was a desired effect at this point.
I knew he loved me.
Knew it so deeply that I felt it with each call
he made to me. Heard it in the tone of his voice.
I took a gulp of my water, enough that I could
technically say I was done with it since there was
no way I’d be touching it when I got back to my
table.
I wasn’t going to be roofied.
Plus, I wasn’t stupid.
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“Want to dance, mamacita?” I heard called
over my shoulder.
I turned from where I was swaying my hips
along with the beat to find a very beautiful man
at my back.
He was tall.
He had a black leather vest over a red t-shirt
with black jeans and a pair of black boots.
I knew he spelled T-R-O-U-B-L-E.
Did I care?
Fuck no.
Because I was a single lady, and single ladies
had needs.
No, not that kind of needs.
Needs that made me want another human’s
touch. Crave it.
Needs that Michael should be fulfilling right
now. Not leaving me to my own devices.
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Jesus, now I was depressing myself again.
I turned, and the man’s eyes immediately
went down to my stomach.
Something I made no effort to hide.
I was proud of this stomach.
I was one week shy of four months pregnant,
and I was definitely showing.
My previous flat belly was now gently
rounded.
And my jeans that I was wearing hugged my
legs and hips like a glove.
I had on black spiky heeled boots that came
up to mid-calf, and a skin tight black, low cut
tank top that showed off the girls.
It was an outfit that I knew would drive Michael wild if he saw.
He wouldn’t, but I still hoped.
“Yeah?” I asked sharply.
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His eyes moved up from my belly to my face
and he asked abruptly, “You got a man?”
I laughed. “Yeah, I have a man.”
His shoulders seemed to slump. “Shit. I was
hoping you’d say different.”
I smiled genuinely at him.
“Life’s a bitch like that,” I offered him my
hand. “My name’s Nikki.”
He took my hand, shook it twice, then let it
go.
“Name’s Dane. Can I get you another
drink?” He asked, looking pointedly at the near
empty glass.
“Sure, but I’m going to dance right now. You
may want to wait because if it sits there too long,
I won’t drink it,” I told him, taking a step away
from him.
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He smiled. “I’ll do that. But I have a meeting
that’s supposed to start in about fifteen minutes.
I’ll have to take a raincheck.”
I tossed a laugh over my shoulder and then
disappeared into the crowd onto the dance floor.
Shaking my ‘bon bon’ to some Ricky Martin,
completely forgetting about the man and his
‘meeting’ by the time the fourth song, Pitbull this
time, rolled around.
***
Forty five minutes later, I came off the dance
floor with one thing in mind.
A bathroom.
Quick.
I barreled through the door to my destination,
and came to a sudden halt when I was faced with
the most gorgeous woman I’d ever seen.
And she was pregnant to boot.
Flowing blonde hair that came down to her
ass. A black skirt pulled up to just underneath her
belly, a sky blue tank top, and gold gladiator sandals rounded out the outfit.
She looked hip and trendy, something I never
managed to do.
My curves were too generous to look nice in
what she was wearing.
“Hello,” I said, skirting around behind her to
go into the stall behind her.
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“Hi!” She answered back immediately.
I did my business, but heard her leave before
I made it back out of the stall.
Washing my hands and fixing some flyaways from the bobby pins holding my hair out
of my face, I smoothed my hands down my jeans
and made my way out to the mouth of the
hallway.
I tried to decide whether or not to grab a
drink from the bar again before going out to the
dance floor once again when I saw them.
And my heart stalled in my chest, coming to a
slow, pounding stop before it started beating
again at a rapid staccato.
Because there, in front of me, was Michael.
He had his arm around the blonde woman
from the bathroom, laughing with her.
Dane was across from them on a bench by
himself, watching the two interact with crude
eyes.
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He said something to them, and made his way
to the bar.
Where he ordered a water, and turned to
smile at me.
I didn’t smile back.
Instead, I walked to him, dread in my every
step, and took the glass from him.
I’d never in my life wanted a drink as bad as I
did right then.
But, alas, I was pregnant.
And that was a no-no.
Fuckers.
“What’s wrong?” Dane asked as he took in
the set of my shoulders, the way my eyes were
flat without any emotion.
“How do you know them?” I asked pointing
at Michael and the mystery lady.
“Colleague,” he answered.
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Wonderful. Dane was another cop.
With a sigh, I walked to the dance floor,
knowing Michael would see me as I walked past
his table.
Then I found the first person I saw, remembering that he’d wanted me to dance with him
throughout the time I’d been there, and grabbed
him.
Startled at first, the man smiled when he saw
who it was.
Then started to grind into my backside.
And dammit, I hated it.
I wanted to want it so bad that I didn’t pay attention to my surroundings.
I totally missed the man that was staring at
me as if I’d just stolen his heart straight from his
chest.
Missed the way Dane caught it all, and the
way understanding lit his eyes.
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I also missed the way the woman watched
me, knowing I was the one for Michael.
When the man’s hands moved up to cup my
hips, I slapped his hand away.
Michael missed that, though, because he
turned to talk to the woman, and hurriedly she
moved out of the booth allowing him to head
straight to me.
***
Michael
“This has to look real,” Dane said to Lisette
and me.
I rolled my eyes.
“We’ve already gone over this a million
times, Dane,” I growled.
“You aren’t even touching her. In fact, you
haven’t touched her all night. How convincing
is that?” Dane laughed.
I ignored him, scooting closer to Lisette and
putting my arm over her shoulder. “Better?”
Dane studied the two of us. “Yeah, I guess.”
I felt like I was betraying Nikki.
Even sitting here, just like this, wasn’t good.
I knew it.
I should call and explain.
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But I was a coward.
“What time do you want us to meet up at the
doctor’s office tomorrow?” Lisette asked Dane.
Dane shrugged.
appointment?”
“What time’s your
I ignored them, pulling my phone out of my
pocket once again, disgruntled when I still had no
reply texts or returned calls from Nikki.
I laughed when Elliott said I texted like a girl,
and watched when he got up to leave.
“You don’t really want to do this,” Lisette
observed.
I shrugged. “It needs to be done. I just wish I
didn’t have to lie to my girlfriend about it. She’d
be devastated if she ever…”
I watched as the woman I’d been dreaming
about walked past me without a glance in my
direction.
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Eyes down at the floor and a look of devastation on her face, I knew she’d seen me.
Hell, how could she not?
We were in the middle of the dance floor under the fucking lights for Christ’s sake.
“Fuuuuck,” I groaned, turning my head to
watch Nikki as she walked up to some punk of a
kid, grabbed his arm, and started grinding her ass
against him.
I was stunned still, for long moments, and
only came unstuck when the punk’s hand went to
Nikki’s hips.
She slapped his hands away, but he didn’t
take the hint, grinding his dick into her ass and
holding on when I knew she didn’t want him to.
“Move quickly please,” I urged Lisette.
She’d seen the altercation, had followed my
eyes to the dance floor and Nikki, and chose to
move.
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Smart girl.
I walked purposefully up to Nikki and her
new friend, and roughly yanked him away from
her.
“Go find your own woman,” I hissed at the
boy.
The boy’s eyes narrowed, and I yanked my
badge from my belt and held it in front of his
face.
“Now do you really want to try it?” I asked
him honestly.
I didn’t think he would, but I’d give him the
option. I was itching for a fight.
He shook his head frantically. “No.”
Didn’t think so.
I nodded my head. “Good boy.”
When he stayed where he was, waiting for
my next direction, I cocked my head towards the
exit and said, “Why don’t you go ahead and go?”
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He went.
And I was left with Little Miss Trouble
Maker.
“Really, Nikki?” I asked, amusement clear in
my voice.
She narrowed her eyes.
“Go fuck yourself, pendejo,” she snarled.
There was my little Spanish hellcat. The one
that only came out when she was well and truly
pissed.
I raised a brow at her, and then took in her
attire.
I liked the way her spiky heels brought her up
to me.
I liked the way she stared me in the eyes, all
fire and innocence with a hint of prissiness.
“Take it outside, buddy,” Elliott said from my
back.
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I looped my fingers around Nikki’s wrist,
noting that she’d gotten more delicate since I’d
last seen her, and made a mental note to speak
with her about that as well.
First on the agenda, though, was setting her
straight.
I’d gone long enough keeping her in the dark.
It was time to bring her into the light.
Let her know what all she was about to get
into.
Because I’d just given my notice, so to speak.
I wouldn’t be the FBI’s guinea pig.
I would be my own man and I’d have my woman at my side.
“Let go of me,” Nikki yanked her arm out of
my grip before we’d made it outside.
I stopped, then pushed her into the handicap
bathroom, slamming the door closed before she
could protest.
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“Michael! Let me out!” She shrieked.
I moved forward, until my body was pinning
hers to the door, and she started to squirm
viciously.
Her shirt rode up, and I looked down, feeling
the new hardness of her abdomen.
Before it’d been soft and yielding. Now it
was hard and round, causing me to lose my train
of thought.
I moved my hand down until it rested on the
side of her belly, my hand cupping the small life
inside her tummy.
“You’ve gotten big,” I murmured softly.
She froze.
Then smacked me upside the head.
“You don’t tell the woman you knocked up
that she’s gotten big!” She snarled.
I chuckled, then dropped down to my knees
in front of her.
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I moved my hands up, catching the hem of
her shirt, and pushed it over her belly as I slid my
hands up to her ribs.
My eyes feasted on the sight before me.
Her gently swollen belly popped out over the
top of her pants.
A black hair tie looped around the hole of the
jeans, and then over the button, holding them
closed.
Her belly button was a little less concave, and
I assumed, by the end of her pregnancy, it’d be
an outie instead of an innie.
I leaned forward, pressing my lips against the
soft skin of her belly, and said, “I’ve been a
fool.”
Her hands found my hair, and I looked up to
see tears streaming down her cheeks.
“I’m so sorry, Nikki,” I told her. “I’ve only
been thinking of you, though.
This
guy…whomever he is…he’s good. He’s gotten
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fifteen couples to date, and out of his thirty five
kills, only two have made it. We have one witness, and he hasn’t been able to give us a fuckin’
thing to go on beside the build and color of the
man’s hair. He never went to any of the appointments, so we’re all hanging on by a fricking
thread.”
“Why haven’t you come to see me?” She
asked, devastation clear in her voice.
I shook my head.
“At first,” I said. “It was because I was trying
to get my head on straight. Then I started seeing
a therapist that the department recommended.
Then another murder happened, and well, I’ve
been a fucking coward. I should’ve come to you.
I actually have every night since I left you in bed
that night two months ago…I just don’t come
inside.”
She glared.
“Who’s the woman?” She snapped.
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“An FBI agent. She’s going to help us catch
this man. She’s been posing as a new patient who
moved here because her husband was transferred
to another police department…but I’m not sure
that’s going to work too well now since I was
supposed to be that police officer,” I told her
honestly.
She glared.
“And what does being a fake husband make
you have to do?” She asked, clearly not happy
with my answer.
I shrugged. “Go to doctor’s appointments. Be
seen with her in public. Stay in the same place at
night.”
Her eyebrows rose to her hairline.
“And what about my appointments?” She
asked.
I saw where she was going with it, and I
knew she wouldn’t like my answer.
“I can’t go to them.”
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And I couldn’t.
Not if this was to be authentic and believable.
“What about the birth of our child…will you
be able to come then?” She asked calmly.
“If he’s caught,” I said carefully.
She dropped her hand from my face and
stood there, looking up at the ceiling.
Her tears had never abated, and I felt about
six inches high.
“Please get off me,” she said. “Please.”
“We can have each other at night,” I told her.
“I love you.”
Those words seemed to make her snap.
She pushed me away from her with enough
force that I fell backwards, my ass planting on
the ground solidly.
And I was also far enough away that she almost had the door open.
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Almost.
“This doesn’t change anything,” she growled,
yanking on the door.
I slammed my hand down to stop her
progress.
“It has to look real!” I yelled at her.
“You want to have real, use me! I’m real!
You put this baby inside of me, maybe you
should use me since I’m actually yours!” She
yelled, waving her hands in the air in true Pena
Tantrum fashion.
My eyes narrowed, then I moved forward until I could only make out the whites of her eyes.
“I can’t use you. Because you’re mine, and I
don’t ever want you on that man’s radar,” I
hissed, crowding her into the dirty, grunge
covered wall once again.
She pushed at my shoulders, but I didn’t
budge.
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“Get off me!” She screamed, drawing the attention of the entire bar I was sure.
I pulled back and let her escape, and immediately saw Dane.
Dane had taken my place on the Lisette’s
arm. He looked at me in concern, but he didn’t
intervene.
Nobody did, in fact.
I followed Nikki out of the bar.
Then followed her to her car.
Then followed her straight to her apartment.
When I got to her front door, I tried the
handle, and was surprised to feel it unlocked.
So she wasn’t too mad at me, otherwise she
would’ve locked the door.
Right?
Wrong.
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When I pushed the door open to her apartment, I was startled by what I saw.
She was on her knees in the middle of the living room.
She was facing away from me, her chest up
tight to the coffee table as she looked at
something with such focus that I wasn’t sure
what to think.
“Nikki?” I called, walking up behind her
slowly.
She looked over her shoulder at me, and I
read the determination there.
The understanding.
The resignation.
“Come look at this, Michael,” she said softly.
As I made my way up to her side, I looked
down, and my knees went weak at what I saw.
“Are you kidding me?” I asked softly, dropping down to my knees beside her.
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My knees sank down into the plush carpet.
The pretty purple carpet that Nikki just ‘had
to have’ when we were at Lowe’s one weekend
looking for paint thinner.
And I thought to myself, ‘this’ll look good in
the baby’s room.’
“You need to choose, Michael. The killer and
your duties, or me. Because I can’t do this anymore. I can’t put my life on hold, wondering how
long it’ll be before you come back. Wonder if
you’ll make it to the birth of our little girl. Wondering if this killer will take you from us. I just
can’t Michael. So choose. Them, or us.”
I closed my eyes, and made the easiest decision of my life.
“I gotta go.”
Chapter 17
Run like Dean just saw you
crash the Impala.
-T-shirt
Nikki
My emotions were swirling around me like a
black funnel cloud of doom.
I’d given him my ultimatum, and he’d
chosen.
It hadn’t been what I thought he’d choose,
but he’d chosen, nonetheless.
I walked up to the elevator from the parking
garage, and depressed the button that would take
me down to the ground level, allowing me to the
cross the breezeway to my destination.
Another doctor’s appointment.
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This would be my four month checkup, and
the gender reveal.
Even though I’d technically had that two
weeks ago when I’d gone to Georgia who’d insisted on doing an ultrasound.
See, it turned out, that we saw each other
quite a bit, working in the same hospital.
I’d started my job on the labor and delivery
floor a little over a month ago, and I’d had a
freakin’ blast doing it.
So far, I’d delivered twelve babies.
All of them happy and healthy.
The elevator dinged when the doors open, but
I was in my own little world thinking about my
job, which meant I didn’t see the man standing in
the elevator until he spoke.
“Going down?” An amused male voice
asked.
I looked up, and my heart started to race.
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“Michael,” I breathed, tears starting to form
in my eyes.
He smiled, and held out his hand.
“Come on, or we’ll be late,” he said
laughingly.
I blinked, but took his hand and made my
way into the elevator.
“How’d you know where I would be?” I
asked softly.
My eyes stayed firmly planted on the floor,
though.
Because I didn’t want to believe he was here,
and look up to see that I’d imagined it all.
That would be cruel, but life was a bitch like
that.
“Your best friend,” he said.
I could hear the smile in his voice, and if Georgia had been in the room with me right then,
I’d have punched her for not telling me.
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We rode the elevator in silence.
Me not saying anything because I just didn’t
know what to say.
Him not saying anything because I was sure
he was waiting for me to flip out on him.
Something I wouldn’t do at my place of
business.
When the elevator doors opened, I made my
way out with Michael directly at my back.
I could feel his warmth from the top of my
shoulders to the backs of my thighs.
“Nikki, wait,” he said softly.
The pain in his voice had me turning sharply,
looking at him in worry.
“What?” I asked.
He closed his eyes, and I realized just how
tired he looked.
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“I told them I couldn’t do it. And I’m sorry. I
knew if I stayed there with you last night, I’d put
it off, and I needed to get it done,” he answered.
“Michael, I wouldn’t say what you did didn’t
hurt, but I understand. I gave you the night to
think it over, and I meant it. I knew you’d make
the right decision,” I told him.
He nodded, his eyes shifting from my eyes to
my lips where I was currently worrying the bottom one with my teeth.
“I love you,” he said again.
My heart melted at those words.
The same ones that had come out of his
mouth last night.
The ones I hadn’t returned because I couldn’t.
Today, though, knowing he would be staying
with us. Giving us a chance.
I said it back to him.
Meaning it with all my heart.
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“I love you more,” I said simply.
His rumbled laugh warmed my insides when
he pulled me into his arms.
“I’m gonna fuck up,” he promised.
I snorted.
“You and me both, big boy,” I shot back.
“I don’t know anything about kids.” He informed me.
I looked up into his eyes and said, “Really?
You’re pulling that card?”
I turned on my heel and started walking inside, very aware of the man at my back.
“Yeah, that card. I don’t, though. I really
don’t,” he said.
I rolled my eyes.
“Michael, you make it your mission in life to
save kids. Trust me, you know how to handle
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kids even if you think you don’t,” I told him
gently.
Michael smiled.
“Whatever. So tell me about your doctor. I
feel like I’ve missed a lot,” he changed the
subject.
I smiled. “Dr. Mead is my doctor, but we’ll
be seeing the PA, Joanie Dooley, today. I have to
see them all just in case my doctor is out of town
or at a birth or something when I go into labor.”
Michael nodded, but his eyes had clouded
like he did when he was concentrating on
something.
“What?” I asked.
He shook his head, and when the elevators
dinged, signaling we’d arrived at the floor I
needed for the doctor’s office, he froze.
I’d already walked out and turned the corner
before I realized he wasn’t following me.
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“Michael?” I called, turning around and looking for him.
I found him still inside the elevator, his hands
on the doors to hold the door’s open.
“What doctor’s office do you use?”
hissed.
He
I reeled back at the vehemence in his tone.
Blinking, I said, “Women’s Center. Why?”
Michael yanked me to him, then further
pulled me to the stairwell.
“What, Michael? What is it?” I asked in
alarm.
He didn’t stop until we were three floors up,
and I was breathing hard from exertion.
He yanked the door open to the sixth floor,
and pulled me right along with him.
Once he saw that the coast was clear, he visibly relaxed.
361/544
He let me go almost immediately, then pulled
out his phone and placed a call.
“Yeah, my woman’s been going to the Women’s Center for months now!” He hissed quietly
into the phone, looking around him as he inspected the empty hallway. “Why didn’t one of you
fucking catch that?”
I blinked in surprise.
“Yes, she’s fine. And no, you told me you
had the place under surveillance. You should’ve
known!” He half yelled.
I refrained from saying, ‘You should’ve
known.’
Instead, I kept my mouth shut and pulled out
my phone, taking a seat at a small chair that was
next to a potted plant.
I immediately saw that I’d be late if he didn’t
hurry up, but I figured whatever it was was important if he had reacted the way he had at realizing I was going to a certain center.
362/544
Then realization dawned.
He’d only care about where I was going if the
place was dangerous.
And there’d only been one case he’d been
working on lately that would’ve made sense to
warrant this reaction from him.
And I had a feeling I knew exactly what it
was.
And I was nauseous again.
Mother fucker!
A cold sweat started to pepper my skin, and I
visibly started to shiver as I jumped to
conclusions.
Michael continued his seething conversation
with the person on the other end of the line, and I
started to let my mind wander.
Had I let some killer get close to my baby?
What would happen to us now?
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Would the baby and I be in danger?
Could I switch doctors?
I’d have to drive out of town to go.
The Women’s Center dominated the entire
Ark-La-Tex. There was only one company in
the area that worked with my insurance, and I
had a feeling I’d be finding out what panic felt
like very soon.
Then sorrow started to fill me.
Had all those women come here, given their
trust to one of the doctors or nurses, then had
their faith ripped away when they’d shot those
poor women and their husbands?
“This is it. We do this today, and tomorrow
she finds another doctor. Do you hear me? I’m
being one hundred percent serious. If anything
happens to her, there’s not one thing on this goddamn earth that’ll save you from me. And no, I
don’t fucking care that I’m threatening an FBI
agent,” Michael growled.
364/544
Then slammed his phone shut.
When he turned to me, his eyes immediately
went soft.
“I’m so sorry, Nik. Had I known, I would’ve
never let you come. I swear on my life I’ll protect
you,” he promised, dropping down to his knees
beside me and wrapping his arms around my
midsection.
I moved my head, resting it on the top of his.
“What’s in the past is in the past. Let’s look
forward from now on. You, me, and this baby,” I
told him.
He squeezed me a little tighter, and I felt the
now familiar flutter in my belly signaling our unborn child’s movement.
“I love you,” he said, looking up at me with
his heart in his eyes.
I leaned down and smashed my lips against
his.
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Our tongues dueled as he thrust his tongue into my mouth. His tongue slid along mine as his
hands moved up my back, burrowing under the
loose shirt I’d stolen from him.
The one I wore to every doctor appointment
because I liked to think that he was there with
me.
“You’re wearing my shirt,” he said against
my mouth.
I leaned my forehead down to his.
“Yeah,” I said simply.
“It’s a little big on you,” he surmised.
I laughed.
“Yeah, you could say that,” I agreed.
It was big.
Really big.
I’d tied it into a knot at my waist, at least
making it somewhat flattering.
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I didn’t really care what I looked like, though.
It was all for sentimentality.
And by the look in Michael’s eyes, he knew
why I wore it, too.
“You ready to get this shit over with?” He
asked quietly.
I nodded.
“Michael,” I hesitated. “There are some
good doctors in this office. I’ve seen a doctor
and a nurse practitioner so far, and my regular
doctor, well he’s a sweetheart. His name is Doctor Mead. Him and his wife are the creators of
this practice. Even Memphis works here.”
His eyes widened.
“Does Downy know Memphis works here?” I
asked carefully. “The place that y’all are
investigating?”
He shook his head. “Nobody knows. But he’ll
know within ten minutes of me leaving the
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office. And I’m taking Memphis with me until
they’ve discussed it.”
I snorted.
“Yeah right,” I laughed. “She won’t go with
you.”
“We’ll see about that,” he muttered, tugging
me along to the elevator.
Thank God.
I didn’t think I could do those stairs again.
Even if I was only going down them.
***
“Michael!” Memphis said, clapping excitedly. “You’re here!”
Michael grinned at Memphis, his face lighting up with pleasure.
“Yeah, I’m here,” he nodded.
“Well, how’d the appointment go?” Memphis asked, patting the table.
I handed Michael my purse, and he tossed it
onto the chair. Something I could’ve done.
“I had a coke in there,” I muttered darkly.
He winked. “You shouldn’t be drinking coke.
That’s what the doctor just said.”
“Michael, you’re not my doctor. Dr. Mead is.
He hasn’t said a word about my caffeine intake,”
I growled.
He was insufferable!
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He’d been going on and on, contradicting the
nurse practitioner about damn near every piece of
advice she’d given in the hour and a half we’d
been here.
Not one single thing had happened, thank
God.
But Michael must’ve been trying to provoke
the woman.
Whatever his reason, he’d done it.
I could see the usually sweet tempered woman losing her cool before my eyes, so I’d put a
stop to the questions and smiled apologetically at
her before I’d left.
“Well, I am a doctor. There’s no reason you
can’t listen to my directions,” he said
sarcastically.
I shrugged and hopped up onto the table,
leaning back and exposing my belly.
“Michael, today we’re doing a scan to make
sure the baby is growing alright. Come stand
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right here,” she said, indicating a spot near my
head. “You’ll be able to see this screen or that
one.”
She pointed at the large flat screen on the
wall, and Michael took them both in before he
looked down at me.
“Does he know what you’re having?” Memphis asked happily, squirting a generous amount
of lube on my belly before she started to run the
wand over my belly.
I looked at the screen where the black and
white grainy picture filled it.
“Yeah, he knows,” I informed her. “He still
wants a boy.”
Memphis laughed.
“Weellllll, it’s most definitely a girl!” Memphis said, gesturing to a point on the screen.
“Hamburger means girl. And she wants you to
see that she is.”
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Michael became transfixed with the screen as
Memphis went along taking measurements, and
showing us different parts of the baby’s anatomy.
Then they showed the face, and I looked up
to Michael to see his face avidly focused on the
screen.
His eyes scrutinizing her every feature.
“She’s perfect,” he mumbled, knowing I was
looking at him.
He looked down, and I could tell he was on
the verge of something big.
Some huge emotion had a hold of him, and I
had a feeling it was joy.
“Well, let’s turn it to 3D,” Memphis said excitedly. “I can’t wait until mine’s big enough to
see like this…oh shit!”
Memphis eyes were wide.
Downy! I haven’t told him yet!”
Michael laughed.
“Don’t tell
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“He already knows. He’s told everyone he
can that you’re expecting again, darlin’,” Michael
teased.
Memphis’ eyes narrowed. “You’re kidding.”
Michael shook his head. “No, we’ve known
for weeks.”
She turned back to the screen, clicked a few
buttons, and then replaced the wand to my belly.
“Oh, I’ll be getting him back. He’s such a shit!”
Michael snorted, and I burst out laughing,
making the screen flip with my belly’s
movement.
When I finally settled down, she ran the wand
over my belly once more.
The orange screen was captivating as we saw
our child in more detail.
“It looks like an alien,” I surmised. “Like a
weird alien.”
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Michael’s mouth met mine, and I couldn’t
help the butterflies that filled my insides at his
unexpected touch.
I was happy that he was happy.
And right now, that was all that mattered.
Thirty minutes later, we were out the door,
with Memphis in tow.
“I can’t believe you’re making me come,”
Memphis said in awe. “I didn’t think anybody
but Downy was that stubborn.”
Michael, who was driving, pulled into the police station’s parking lot and parked in the back
of the lot near the rear exit.
“Believe it. This is beyond your capacity.
And I have a feeling I’m about to be ripped a
new asshole for not sharing this information before,” he muttered grumpily.
Now that the excitement at seeing our baby
had worn off, Michael was in protect mode.
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His sole focus was on the two of us, and what
was about to come.
He’d practically taken Memphis by force, and
when Downy met us at the back door; I knew Dr.
Mead had called him.
Just like he’d said he would.
Although Memphis had assured him that
everything was alright, Dr. Mead still wanted to
follow up just in case.
Which was another reason I knew he was a
good guy.
I slid out of the seat, bending my knees to
help with the impact as I dropped out of Michael’s massive truck, and landed on the balls of
my feet.
That wouldn’t work for much longer.
I could just see myself now falling on my ass
when I had another twenty pounds of baby added
to my frame.
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“What the fuck’s going on?” Downy asked,
holding out his arm for Memphis.
Memphis walked into his arms, burrowing
her face into his neck and hugging him tightly.
Michael had given her the bare minimum of
what’d been going on to get her to leave with
him, and she was obviously freaked way the hell
out about the prospect of her employer being involved in something so vicious.
“Inside. To home base,” Michael ordered.
Downy’s brows rose, but nonetheless turned
and followed Michael and I to what I later
learned was the SWAT team’s shared offices.
The first person I saw was my brother with
his legs propped up on the long table in the
middle of the room.
I walked up behind him and hugged him hard
around the neck.
“I love you,” I said to him.
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He raised his arm up and circled it around my
back as best he could do from his current
position.
“Love you,” he said. “What are you doing
here?”
I gestured to Michael.
“They’re killing our women.”
Chapter 18
Whiskey is my spirit animal.
-T-shirt
Nikki
That announcement dropped like a bomb in
the quiet room.
“I need to call Trance. And we need to get
Sam in here,” Michael announced.
Trance was a police officer for Benton,
Louisiana. And Sam was an ex- Army Ranger
who lived in Kilgore with the rest of us. He was
a badass, as was Trance. I couldn’t figure out
why they needed to be here, though.
“How about you tell us how they’re killing
our women, and then we’ll go from there?”
Downy asked shortly, curling Memphis into his
body.
I sighed and took a seat.
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I was sort of interested in hearing what Michael had to say.
I’d gotten bits and pieces, but I still wasn’t
fully up to par with what Michael knew.
And apparently, the boys in front of me weren’t either.
Which pissed them off.
Greatly.
Michael started talking, and by the time he
was done, not just Downy was fuming.
They all were.
“What the fuck, man? My woman works
there!” Downy roared.
I reeled back.
Downy was normally such a good natured
man that it was a complete and utter surprise to
see him get so worked up.
It shouldn’t have surprised me, though.
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Memphis was Downy’s world.
Anything that put her into danger would be a
bad thing in his book.
Downy shook his head. “We’re not even
sure that’s where the threat is coming from. We
only know that there is one. And that the connection is the women. I didn’t know until today,
though, that that was where Memphis worked.”
Downy calmed down slightly, taking a deep
breath before he said, “Fuck me.”
“Not now, darling. We’ll get to that later.
After you rub my feet and brush my hair like the
princess that I am,” Memphis said soothingly,
rubbing Downy’s belly like she was coaxing a
big beast into sleep.
I snorted out a laugh, then turned in my chair
to face my brother.
He’d been awfully quiet, his face a mask of
shadows as he studied the wall behind Michael’s
head.
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Then my eyes narrowed on the awful, heartless man and my mouth opened so I could roar at
him in outrage.
“You didn’t tell me!” I yelled loudly. “Why
wouldn’t she tell me? I’m her best friend, and
you’re my favorite brother!”
Nico didn’t even flinch as he turned his eyes
to me.
“It’s been rough. She wasn’t sure she was
pregnant at first,” he said simply, shrugging in indifference. “Still not sure.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “I can’t believe
you wouldn’t tell me. I tell you everything!”
He gave me a droll look.
“You tell me nothing,” he retorted.
“I tell you what you need to know! You’re
delicate!” I countered.
He laughed, which was what I’d been trying
to accomplish.
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Turning back to the room at large, I realized
my mistake.
These men didn’t find me and my mouth as
funny as my brother did, and I could tell by the
looks of annoyance on a few of their faces.
I closed my mouth and inadvertently scooted
closer to Nico, because mean, lying, betraying
brother or not, he’d always have my back.
Which he proved in the next moment by
wrapping his arm around my shoulder and kissing the top of my head.
Have I mentioned I love the hell out of my
brother?
“Alright, well how many of you have used
this particular doctor’s office?” Luke asked,
pinching the brow of his nose.
“All of them,” I muttered under my breath.
“It’s the only one in Kilgore.”
Silence.
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I closed my eyes when I realized the silence
was back and they were all staring at me.
Shit!
I pulled out my phone and kept my eyes
glued to it, leaning my head against Nico’s
shoulder as I listened to them talk, trying my
hardest not to butt in where I wasn’t wanted.
A text from my sister, Noel, came in while I
was in my latest level of Candy Crush.
Noel: I got a really weird call from your
mother.
Me: She’s your mother unless it was
something awesome. Then she’s my mother.
Noel: She wants to know why you aren’t paying your doctor’s bills.
My brows furrowed.
Nico’s phone buzzed, and I looked over at
him to see his eyes furrow.
“What?” I asked him.
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“I just got a really, really weird text from
mom telling me she wanted to know why you
weren’t paying your doctor bills. She asked if
you were low on money,” Nico said.
Michael, who’d been talking up until that
point, stopped and turned to me.
“You didn’t tell me you were having trouble
paying your bills,” he left that hanging, and my
face flushed in embarrassment.
“I’m not having trouble. In fact, I’ve already
pre-paid for the hospital as of last visit!” I replied
huffily. “What the hell? Why would anyone call
my mother? That’s like against the law or
something…isn’t it?”
Silence fell among the room, and something
huge in the air started to radiate around me.
Testosterone paired with fury started to fill
the room, and I looked around at the men surrounding me as they comprehended something I
hadn’t.
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“What?” I asked, settling on Michael whose
eyes had gone flat.
He blinked. “Call your mother. Ask her who
called.”
Surprised at the way he’d spoken to me, with
zero emotion at all, I did just that.
I called my mama.
Dialing her number, I put it on speaker phone
and set it on the desk in front of me, keeping my
eyes focused on Michael.
He didn’t look right.
In fact, he looked like he wasn’t my Michael
at all.
“Nikki?” My mother answered. “What is this
about you not paying your bills? You told me
Michael was helping you pay when I offered to
help you. Why would you lie about that? I only
wanted to help you.”
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A blush rose to my face and I dropped my
eyes from Michael’s flat ones the moment she
called me on my lying ways.
No, Michael hadn’t helped me pay.
In fact, I’d paid all eight thousand dollars that
I owed out of pocket myself, and I hadn’t asked
him for a thing.
Something I was regretting right now if the
fury that was coming off of him was anything to
go by.
Shit!
“And you know, I’ve supported you even
though you sinned. I will always support you.
Which is why when you get the bill in the mail, I
want you to bring it to me and let me pay for it,”
she chastised me sternly, the only way a mother
knew how. “And I told them where you and Michael worked, as well as Michael’s home address because you shouldn’t lie about something
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like that. Bill collectors are not fun to deal with.
They’ll call you any time of day.”
I rolled my eyes.
Why wouldn’t she have just asked me herself,
instead of sending a text to every one of my
sisters?
“Why would you have given them my work
address? And Michael’s? He’s not even on the
chart at all. They shouldn’t even know his name.”
Had she been hoping that I wouldn’t hear it
from my siblings?
“Lolita, this is Michael. Nikki’s paid up in
full as of last week. Was it a man or a woman
who called?” Michael asked abruptly.
“Oh, Micahel! I didn’t know you and Nikki
were together. How are you?” My mother asked,
her Spanish accent getting a little thicker with affection now that she wasn’t yelling at her
daughter.
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“I’m okay, Lolita. Now was it a man or a
woman who called?” He asked again, a little less
polite this time.
My mother didn’t notice, or if she did, she
didn’t care that he was being short with her.
“It was a man. He said he was the doctor, believe it or not. I couldn’t believe it when I spoke
with him, but he seemed to be a really nice man,”
Lolita chattered.
That’s when things started to make sense.
This wasn’t about any bills at all.
This was about a killer.
A killer who’d just put his sights on me.
Chapter 19
What do we want? Coffee.
When do we want it? Right the
fuck now.
-Coffee Cup
Michael
“Got a warrant to search his place yet?” I
asked Luke.
Luke shook his head. “Not yet. Judge Maddox is out of town, and we had to go to Bender.
He’s not our team’s biggest fan since the last
warrant that was served was the one where that
old lady broke her hip.”
I winced.
That had been a complete clusterfuck and a
half.
We’d served an arrest warrant on a kid who’d
been selling drugs out of his home, and we’d
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served it flawlessly, arresting the boy within
seconds of breaching his home.
Then the old woman had come out using her
walker, and promptly tripped over her grandson
who’d been lying on the floor in the middle of
the living room, breaking her hip and arm in the
process.
It’d been horrible, and I’d felt horrible, but in
our defense, we had told her to stay where she
was until we could get the boy out.
She hadn’t listened, and now we were still
hearing about it three months later.
My eyes moved from Luke to the corner of
the command room where Memphis and Nikki
were on a computer looking at baby shit, of all
things.
I smiled slightly, but it just as quickly fell
from my face as I thought about how bad this all
could’ve gone without my knowledge.
All because I was trying to protect myself.
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Well, look where that got me.
My woman in trouble.
My child in danger.
Me in danger because I was fucking around.
Not to mention all of my colleagues and their
wives.
I didn’t deserve to live sometimes.
I was a failure at life.
Then I shut those thoughts down, realizing
them for what they were.
I’d forgotten my meds.
Shit!
“I need to go run by my place. I forgot to take
my meds,” I told Luke. “I’ll be back in about ten
minutes.”
Luke nodded.
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“Got it,” he replied, keeping his eyes on his
phone.
I got up, walking out without saying a thing
to anyone else.
They were all pretty mad at me.
As they should be.
I was no good.
Fuck!
Stop!
By the time I’d arrived at my house, I’d gone
through quite a bit of self doubt before I got to
my meds.
I had the bottle in my hand and had just
popped the pill when I realized that I wasn’t
alone.
Rookie mistake.
Turning stiffly, I found myself faced with a
man in all black.
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“Where’s the wife?” He snarled.
That’s when I thanked my lucky stars that I
hadn’t told Nikki where I was going, and hadn’t
asked her to go with me like I’d contemplated.
Thank Christ!
The gun pointed at my head didn’t instill any
fear in my heart like the thought of the gun pointed at Nikki’s head.
I’d had this feeling before. The thought that I
was going to die.
Nineteen times.
Each of those times I remembered with picture perfect clarity.
And I was sure, if I made it out of this alive,
that this time would be no different.
“Call her,” he ordered.
“Fuck you. I’m not calling her,” I told him,
crossing my arms across my chest.
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I knew if I could stall him, Luke would figure
something went wrong.
I wouldn’t have left and stayed home with the
chance of that warrant coming in.
John, our computer expert, had already traced
the calls to Lolita’s phone, and come up with the
Women’s Center.
There were six people on duty at the Women’s Center at the time of the call, and only two
of them were men. And one of them had been in
the room with a patient for the entire time it took
to place the call. So we’d done our research.
And had come up with one man.
We’d applied for the arrest warrant for Stan
Jones, M.D.
And I had a feeling that was who this man
was in front of me.
“So, Stan. What are you going to do to me?” I
asked, crossing my arms across my chest.
Stan froze.
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“How do you know my name?” He asked
stiffly, re-gripping the Glock in his hand.
I shrugged. “You fucked up.”
Simple words, but they really pissed him off.
“I did not fuck up!” he snarled. “I did
everything right!”
See, serial killers had a certain way they did
things.
They didn’t deviate.
Which was why I knew he wouldn’t shoot me
until my ‘wife’ was here.
“What do you have against cops?” I asked
calmly.
Stan’s eyes narrowed.
He had a hoody on, and it was covering his
head, but since he was facing me, I could still get
a pretty good indication of what he looked like.
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About five foot ten, hundred and eighty five
pounds. Brown or really dark green eyes.
Brown hair. Tan skin. Small hands with no wedding band.
Black pants. Black lace up boots. Black
hoody.
“You don’t need to know why. Just suffice it
to say that this earth should be rid of you and
every one of your kind,” Stan hissed.
My brows rose. “Really?”
He sneered. “Really.”
I laughed.
“Got it. How about I take a guess?” I asked.
I recalled the notes in the case.
The details of each doctor.
Stan’s page listed him as widowed.
Also listed him as not having any living
children.
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“Did we kill your wife?” I asked.
It was heartless, yes, but it was effective.
“Don’t you say her name!” He bellowed.
I refrained from saying that I ‘didn’t say her
name at all.’
Bingo.
“Did a cop take your kid, too? Or did your
kid take his own life because your wife died?” I
continued cruelly.
Stan shook his gun at me, waggling it around
as he started to scream at me.
“It was all you! You! She did nothing to you!
All she did was get pulled over, and then one of
you,” he hissed. “Shot her because he thought she
was going for a gun. She didn’t even know how
to shoot a gun!”
He ended that explanation on a shrill scream.
I felt sympathetic.
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Of course I did.
Accidental shootings happened.
It sucked, extremely, horribly bad, but it
happened.
Cops, on a daily basis, had to deal with so
much shit from everyone that, at times, we expected everyone to be bad.
When we pulled someone over, we aren’t
happy to do it.
We’re wary.
When we pull you over, are you going to be
accepting of why we pulled you over?
Will you rant and scream at us for doing our
jobs?
Will you pull your gun on us? Pull out a knife
from some hidden place inside your car and stab
us with it. Will your passenger do something?
A car to most people is just that, a car.
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A car to a police officer is a weapon.
It can run over us. It can hide larger weapons.
It can get you away from us and put other people,
innocent people, in jeopardy. It can house more
than one person who could potentially harm us.
So you see, there are multiple facets to look
at when a police officer pulls someone over.
All of this is running through our brain.
We have to be extremely cautious, doing
what we do.
Whether this was what happened with Stan’s
wife or not, I would never know.
But even if it was or wasn’t, that didn’t give
him the right to take out his hurt and pain on
every single police officer that he came into contact with.
“I’m sorry, Stan,” I said seriously.
And I was.
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I was sorry he had to experience something
like that.
I would hope had the same thing happened to
me that I would find the strength to move on.
To make this world a better place.
I wouldn’t, however, start shooting and
killing innocent people.
Especially ones that were carrying our next
generation like these innocent women were
doing.
“You can shove your sorry’s up your ass,”
Stan snarled. “Sit down in that chair right there.
We won’t have to wait much longer. I called
your woman’s mother. I know she gets home
around this time.”
I closed my eyes very briefly, thankful that
this time wouldn’t be one of those times.
She was safe at KPD headquarters.
Thank God.
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Stall. That’s all I had to do.
It’d been thirty minutes since I left.
And I knew Luke had seen right through my
hasty exit.
He was very aware of my shortcomings, and
I’d made sure that he was up to date on my state
of mind.
He was aware that something wasn’t right,
and I knew he’d come to check on me if I was
gone longer than thirty minutes.
My disease and conditions were all about
checks and balances.
I was very open with everything about
me…to the right people.
I needed those people in my life to keep me
on the straight and narrow.
Luke. My parents. My sister and brother. A
few doctors.
Nikki.
401/544
I smiled slightly.
She had no clue just how much she helped.
“Why are you smiling?” Stan asked, ruining
my good thoughts.
I shrugged. “No reason.”
His eyes narrowed.
And to keep him talking, and me breathing, I
continued to ask questions.
“Why the cop’s wives. Why babies?” I asked
carefully.
He sneered.
“Why would I want to bring more of those
bastards into this world? Not by my hands, no
sir.” He shook his head. “I wasn’t aiding in any
more births to people like you.”
I shook my head.
The degree of his hate was staggering.
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To take his problems out on innocent children
was just jaw dropping to me.
“What would your wife think about all of
this?” I asked softly.
Stan’s eye twitched, and it was long moments
before he answered.
“Well, I’m not sure why she would even matter anymore. She’s gone, and I’ll never need to
know what my wife thinks about any of this,”
Stan’s voice broke. “Because she’s so gone.
Gone, gone, gone.”
“She’s not gone,” I said softly. “She lives on
in your memories.”
Shit, now I was quoting Big Hero 6!
I knew I shouldn’t have watched that movie
with Reggie!
“She tells me I should think before I act. I
don’t know how to do that,” he admitted, looking
down at his hand and dropping his gun to the
floor.
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I didn’t move.
Not time yet.
My heart rate picked up when I saw the
movement in the side window of my place.
A distinctly blonde head popped into the side
window before disappearing just as quickly.
Luke.
Good.
Only a little bit longer now.
“Women have a way about them. They think
they’re right…but most of the time they are
right. I’ve found that out myself just the other
day,” I told him, thinking back to the night Nikki
saw me with Lisette. “They’re smart creatures,
women. They instinctively know what is best
for us, and they move heaven and earth to make
us happy.”
And Nikki did do that.
Every day.
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I saw that now, with the threat of my life being taken from me from a man that felt such pain
over the loss of his own woman.
Stan’s eyes moved to the table, and my breath
caught in my throat when I caught sight of the
sonogram picture that I’d dropped there when I
arrived home.
I’d seen it in the cab of the truck, and on instinct had grabbed it to make sure it wouldn’t get
ruined.
Now the man that wanted to take her away
from me was staring at it like it was the lowliest
of life forms.
“Cops don’t deserve to have a happy life,” he
muttered darkly. “You don’t deserve to live.”
He dropped down scooping the gun up off the
floor and pointing it for real this time and I knew
my time was up.
He wasn’t going to wait, and if I didn’t do
something, I’d be lying in a pool of blood.
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“May you rot in he…”
Boom!
I closed my eyes, sick to my stomach.
The smoking gun still in my hand.
Stan was dead before his body even met the
floor.
“Shit!” Luke said, rounding the corner of the
back hallway with his gun in his hand. “You
scared the shit out of me, man!”
I raised my head and looked at my boss, and
one of the best friends I’ve ever had.
“I don’t think we need that warrant anymore,” I said softly.
Luke’s face lit in a brief smile before he
moved around the table where I was sitting and
took a knee on the floor beside Stan’s prone
body.
“Dead,” he confirmed, standing up. “Gotta
call this in.”
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With that, he put his phone up to his ear and
reported the shooting.
Slowly, I placed my gun on the table by my
right elbow, and moved to stand.
Blood was slowly filling up the floor beneath
Stan’s body and I had to step over it in order not
to track it throughout the house.
“Want me to go outside?” I asked.
Luke shook his head.
He was the assistant chief as well as the
SWAT team leader; so, as the more superior officer, I wanted to make sure I was where he
wanted me, seeing as I’d just shot a man.
“We always miss all the fun!” James, with his
sniper rifle in tow, whined.
“Sorry I couldn’t provide that for you,” I said
with semi-amusement.
“He fucked up. His usual MO is to make the
cop empty his pockets and get rid of the sidearm.
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Had he done that with you, he might still be
alive,” Luke muttered, arms crossed across his
chest as he glared at the dead man at his feet.
“Fuckin’ paperwork. Did you get anything out
of him?”
I nodded.
“It was because of his wife. She was killed by
a police officer during a traffic stop,” I explained
what I knew.
“Fuckin’ A,” Miller growled.
“You found me faster than I thought you
would,” I admitted to Luke.
“Put a BOLO out on his car. Stan drives a
shiny Maserati. It’s hard to miss something like
that driving down the road. Officer Lyons saw it
the moment he pulled into the RV park to turn
around. Was parked off to the side, as if he was
broken down,” Miller explained. “Luke called
you to tell you we had the warrant, you didn’t answer. He started to head this way because he said
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you didn’t look right, and then passed the same
RV park where the car was found. Put two and
two together. Made twelve. End of story.”
I shook my head.
Amazing.
“Two and two make four, not twelve, dumbass,” Foster tittered from the front door.
Neither had breached the front door since
they knew it was a crime scene, and I was talking
through the screen door.
The entire team was occupying my patio
furniture.
James was kicked back in the lounger. Miller
and Foster on the couch. Bennett, Nico, and
Downy were on the final three chairs with the
umbrella over their heads, eyes closed.
And I had an irrational desire to tell them
how much I loved them.
Would that be weird?
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To have their support, and to know they were
all there for me when I needed them was exactly
what I needed in that moment.
All my self-doubts were gone.
And it its place was relief and thankfulness.
Relief that I had lived to breathe another day.
And thankfulness that I’d have good friends
and a good woman around to do it with.
***
Later that night
Nikki walked into her bedroom, glanced at
me, and went straight to the bathroom.
She was mad at me.
Hell, I was mad at me.
I’d left her thinking I’d be right back, and she
hadn’t known where I’d gone. I hadn’t said
goodbye. I didn’t even wave.
She also hadn’t known that my life had been
in danger.
She only found out two hours later when I’d
arrived back at the station and had promptly been
whisked into questioning to answer a shit ton of
questions.
I’d been put on administrative leave, pending
an investigation, but I knew nothing would
amount to that seeing as I had Luke to back me
up one hundred percent of the way.
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Nikki had been told by her brother what had
transpired, and let’s just say that she hadn’t been
happy. Not even a little bit.
When I’d gotten out of questioning, I’d found
that Nikki had been taken home by Georgia.
By the time I arrived home, it was four hours
later and pushing ten o’clock.
She hadn’t been asleep, though.
Far from it.
She’d been sitting on the couch watching the
news. Which happened to have me as the breaking story.
“Michael?” Nikki asked, removing her shirt
from her body.
My eyes took in the bounty before them.
Nikki had always been beautiful.
But right now, with the moon at her back
streaming through the blinds, and her hair a curly
mass falling down her back and draping over her
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shoulders, I’d never thought she was more
beautiful.
She had the beginnings of a belly, and the
pink belly button piercing had a star attached to
it, resting on the soft swell...a belly button ring
I’d never seen before now.
“Yeah baby?” I asked, swallowing tightly.
The next thing to go was the black bra.
Although nothing special, it held up her
breasts perfectly, placing them up and together,
allowing my eyes to feast.
And when Nikki lost it, her breasts bounced
free, making my semi-hard erection full blown as
all the blood rushed to my dick.
Her panties were the last thing to go.
When she bent over, her breasts hung,
swinging enticingly as she slipped the panties
free of her feet and stepped out of them, one by
one.
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I about lost my ability to speak as she put one
knee into the bed and started to crawl up between
my legs, stopping when she met my hips.
“Make love to me,” she ordered.
Swallowing thickly, I sat up slowly and
gathered her face into my hands, placing my lips
softly on hers.
“Okay,” I whispered, before breaching her
lips with my tongue, curling mine around hers.
She moaned and leaned forward into the kiss,
giving me her weight.
I rolled with her until we were on our sides.
My hands still in place against her cheeks, I
let one slip down, tracing down her shoulder,
curving around her breasts, following the line of
her side until it came to a rest against the back of
her thigh.
She moaned when I let my hand move further
back to flatten around the curve of her ass, fingers dipping into her overheated core.
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“I’m sorry, baby. I never dreamed that would
happen,” I told her.
A sob caught in her throat and she kissed me
harder.
“You scared the shit out of me. I thought you
were going to die,” she said desperately between
kisses.
I moaned when her hand found my throbbing
erection.
“Guide it inside you,” I said, spreading the
lips of her ass with my fingers and pushing forward with my hips.
She angled my cock to let the head rest at the
entrance of her sex, and we both flexed towards
each other the moment our skin met.
She gasped into my mouth as my cock filled
her to the breaking point.
“You fill me completely,” she whispered
fiercely. “Don’t ever leave me like that again,
okay? Always say goodbye.”
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I promised her, and then continued to promise with my body. The way my hands ran along
her skin.
The way my cock thrust in and out of her.
Our lovemaking was slow, steady, and
beautiful.
Something we both needed right then.
And long minutes later, when I felt her pussy
start to clench around my cock, I let go, too.
Shooting my essence into her waiting heat,
filling her up with cock, my come, and my love.
“I love you, Nikki. I promise not to leave
without saying goodbye…as long as you promise
me something in return,” I panted against her
lips.
Her eyes opened, and I stared into her beautiful brown orbs as she asked, “What do you want
me to promise?”
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I leaned forward, ran the tip of my nose along
the bridge of her nose.
“That when we’re married, you’ll forgive me
like this every time,” I told her sweetly.
She laughed, and I rolled until she was once
again on top.
My flesh, that was still seated inside of her,
started to throb once again at the new position,
but what she said next had my entire focus, not
the state of my dick.
“Are you asking me to marry you, Michael
Perez?” She smiled happily.
Her hair spilled over her shoulders, tickling
my chest.
I shook mine. “No.”
Her eyes, which had been happy, veiled
slightly, so I hurriedly explained.
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“I’m telling you that you’re marrying me,” I
said, reaching under my pillow to pull out a hot
pink velvet covered box that I’d picked out.
Her eyes widened as she watched me open
the box, and then continued to widen as I pulled
out the ring for her and held it out to her.
She raised her hand, offering me her finger.
It fit her perfectly, sliding over her knuckle
and coming to rest just right.
“You will marry me, Nikki Pena.” I ordered
her.
She leaned forward and placed her lips
against mine.
“I thought you were never going to ask,” she
teased.
I smacked her ass, causing her to jump in
surprise.
Inadvertently making my hard cock ram into
her to the hilt.
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Her eyelids lowered slightly and I smiled.
“Not sure about the asking part yet…It’s just
a formality. I only expect one answer, and one
answer only,” I informed her.
Her eyes narrowed. “Is this what I have to
look forward to for the rest of my life?
Bossiness?”
I grinned.
“Yeah, that’s what you have to look forward
to. Plus loving all night long. Babysitting
whenever you need it. A hug when you want it.
Kisses in the middle of the night. Gas in your
tank. Your groceries brought into the house.
Pants put into the hamper. Steaks cooked on the
grill,” I listed out my attributes, purposefully
making them sound really enticing.
She narrowed her eyes. “It’s not babysitting if
it’s your own kids,” she countered.
I snorted. “Whatever you say, darling mine.”
“As long as you know that, I’ll marry you.”
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I laughed and rolled with her once again,
pushing my cock into her and grinding my hips
against her.
“I’ll remember that.”
“You bet you will, big boy.”
Chapter 20
For fox sake.
-Coffee Cup
Nikki
“Alright,” Memphis said, laying on the
lounge next to me. “How did we all end up in this
predicament?”
I laughed.
There was no other recourse.
Seven women were in attendance with me
today, and all but one were pregnant.
Georgia, Memphis, Lennox, Mercy, and
Blake were all in different stages of pregnancy.
Although, I was on my first pregnancy while
the rest of them were on their second.
Seemed the men of Kilgore SWAT liked to
keep their women barefoot and pregnant.
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Fighting crime during the day and making babies at night.
I laughed and rolled over onto my side to face
Memphis and the other ladies.
Today we were having a spa day.
I was getting married in less than four hours,
and the SWAT ladies were having a pamper day
while the men did some fishing.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I
said, running my hand over my belly.
Two months had passed since Doctor Stan
Jones had been formally charged for killing fifteen officers, their wives, and three of those officers’ children.
“You know exactly what she’s talking about,
hoe,” Georgia said, stretching and wiggling her
toes.
I smiled.
Yeah, I did.
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“Guess maybe one of us needs to learn control,” I surmised, sighing in appreciation when
the man at my feet rubbed a particularly good
spot on the heel of my foot.
“Hey, I noticed that Dr. Jones name was
scraped off the paint at the door this morning
when I went to my appointment,” Reese said before she took a drink of her Dr. Pepper. All eyes
turned to hers, and her eyes widened in alarm.
“I’m not pregnant! It was just my yearly pap, I
swear!”
When all eyes stayed on her, she held up two
fingers. “Scout’s honor.”
“Scout’s honor is three fingers, not two,” I
replied helpfully.
“Well, whatever it is, I just had my yearly. I
got my tubes tied after the little hellion arrived,”
Reese promised solemnly.
That was the truth.
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Her son was a little hellion. Just like his
daddy, that boy was.
“Yeah, they took his name off of
everything,” Memphis said. “Printed new business cards. Changed the signs out front. Painted
over the wall with his face on it. Updated the
website. Anything with ‘Jones’ on it was probably burned.”
I didn’t doubt that.
After Dr. Jones was killed, they found evidence linking him to nearly every crime scene in
his house. The clothes that he wore. The gun that
he used. Hell, even the dog that he took with him.
He sure was arrogant, but in the end, justice
was served for those officers, their wives, and the
children.
“That’s not a surprise. They’d had to do a
lot of ass kissing to keep most of their clients.
The only thing they had going for them was that
they dominate the area. We’d have to drive to
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Dallas to find a doctor in our network,” I told
them all.
Mercy made a sound of agreement. “Same
here. We’re using Miller’s insurance, and they
wouldn’t accept anyone else unless we wanted to
pay nearly twice as much for out of network.”
I grimaced.
“Let’s change the subject to something better.
Nikki doesn’t need this on her wedding day,”
Blake yawned loudly.
I snickered.
“Tired, Blake?” I asked teasingly.
She rolled her head in my direction. “Yes.
That man of mine doesn’t care that my hours
aren’t the same as his. He only sees my ass in
the air and wants to touch it. Then touching
leads to other things. And then I’m out two
hours of sleep. Sleep that I needed because his
baby seems to think I’m a superhero, demanding
all this energy, food, and drink.”
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“You’re not having a boy. Boys are horrible,”
Reese said, closing her eyes and smiling fondly
at something only she could see.
“Boys aren’t horrible. But, I do feel fine,”
Lennox said.
We all rolled our eyes. Lennox thought that
everything was ‘fine.’
She loved being pregnant…most likely because her first pregnancy was a breeze, despite
the complications from when she was hurt by a
deranged woman.
She just had no clue how bad a pregnancy
could be because she was always floating on
cloud nine with the unicorns, her glowing skin,
and ample energy.
She was still in the ‘I have a positive pregnancy test’ stage. The stage where she was floating on air, and loved to put on pregnancy clothes.
Clothes she didn’t need yet.
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“Hey, what color are you doing?” The man
between my legs asked.
“Purple and pink,” I said. “Alternating.”
He rolled his eyes.
Pietro was used to my quirks.
I’d been seeing him every two weeks for a
year now.
He knew all about Michael. Knew all about
my family. Knew about my love of color. My
job. The new home Michael and I were building.
A home that should be done very, very soon,
in fact.
“Why do you always get the muscled guy
who has good hands?” Georgia asked, narrowing
her eyes.
I shrugged. “I found him first.”
“Ladies, ladies. No need to fight over me. I’m
just loyal to my girl here,” he teased.
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“Nikki delivered his baby. That’s why he
loves her so much,” Georgia informed the rest of
the ladies.
I did. He was my second baby.
Him and his wife, Trudy, had been contemplating a home birth over a hospital birth for over
six months before they’d finally decided to call
my mentor, Annalise, in for an evaluation.
And three months later, I’d delivered my
second child ever as a midwife with Pietro at my
side.
Twenty minutes later, I was done and heading
to get my hair and makeup done when I was
called by our contractor.
“You’re officially done!” Alex crowed.
I screamed. “Yes!”
We weren’t sure if it’d be done in time, seeing as I’d been so nitpicky about everything.
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I’d had to choose the tile, the paint, the stain
for the wood floors in the kitchen, cabinets,
counter tops.
I’d wanted to be a huge part of everything,
and I was.
Which annoyed the hell out of Michael.
He was all for customization, but I didn’t
think he knew what he was getting into when he
offered me the huge book of paint chips.
But he knew now.
“That’s great!” I exclaimed. “What do you
need from me?”
“Nothing. I just dropped it all off at your parent’s place. The keys are yours, my dear!” Alex
informed me.
I smiled. “Wonderful. I’m so happy, thank
you so much, Alex.”
After hanging up, I immediately called
Michael.
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“Guess what!” I said, bouncing up and down
in excitement. “They finished!”
Michael’s smooth, deep voice sent shivers
through me. “That’s good, baby. He said he’d
do it.”
I closed my eyes and enjoyed the way it felt
to listen to his voice.
The way joy spread through me. The way I
couldn’t wait to wrap my arms around him.
My fiancé and soon to be husband.
“You catching anything?” I asked after I
composed myself.
“Sun. That’s about fucking it,” he growled.
“But that’s the way of it, isn’t it?”
I agreed. I hated going fishing, just for the
sheer fact that we never caught anything.
Or maybe we would had I any patience.
“Well, I just wanted to tell you that. Go back
to catching your sun,” I said softly, as Pietro
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made his way into the room with his huge package of bobby pins, hair rollers, and other odds
and ends to start fixing my hair.
“Okay, baby. Love you,” he murmured.
“Love you more.”
***
The moment I saw him as I walked down the
aisle, a smile burst over my lips, and my hand
came up to cover my mouth.
“Oh, my God,” I said, turning to Georgia
with wide eyes.
Her eyes were filled with her own tears of
laughter as she caught a look at my man as well.
“Jesus,” I said, shaking my head. “What the
hell is wrong with that man?”
He wasn’t lying about catching sun.
He caught a whole lot of it.
Georgia snorted, and my father gave out a
strangled laugh of his own.
“Let’s get you to him, honey. He’ll think you
can’t handle him for better or for worse if you’re
not careful.”
Georgia was the final one to leave, and I was
left with my father.
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“You look beautiful, baby,” he said softly.
I smiled at him, seeing the truth in his eyes.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I told him. “I’ll
still see you every Sunday for lunch after mass.”
He smiled. “I know. You’re just my first little
bird out of the nest,” he said, running his hand
over my hair and smoothing back a stray curl
that’d fallen from a pin.
“Nico was your first little bird,” I said
laughingly.
He shrugged. “Nico can take care of himself.
You’re my first girl. And you’ll no longer have
my name. You’re the first bird I’m setting free.”
Hugging him tightly, I let him go and turned
to face the now closed door.
“Alright, I’m ready,” I said with a nervous
sigh.
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“He’ll be good to you, baby. You’ve tamed
the beast,” he said before the attendants opened
the doors to the church.
I looked up at him, and I caught the first flash
of a camera as it captured the moment forever in
time.
“I know. But he tamed my beast, too. Let’s
do this.”
With a smile, he offered me his arm, and I
placed my hand delicately on his sleeve.
“I love you, papa,” I told him.
He leaned down and kissed my forehead.
“Love you too, baby.”
I could already hear my mother crying, as
well as my bridesmaids.
“Jesus,” my father said in despair. “It’s like
an estrogen fest in here. It’s choking me.”
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I brought my flowers up to cover my snorted
cough at those words, and turned to face my future husband once again.
Man, these would be some horrible pictures.
But I’d cherish them for the rest of my life.
We finally made it to the end of the aisle, and
my eyes connected with Michael’s.
I barely caught the words as the priest asked
the words, “Who gives this woman to this man?”
My father’s deep voice said, “Her mother and
I do,” and suddenly I was in Michael’s arms.
“Michael,” I said trying not to laugh. “Why
wouldn’t you wear any sunscreen?”
He shrugged, grinning unrepentantly. “I was
just worried about which fishing poles I was going to take. Not about anything like sunscreen.”
I raised a brow at him. “What exactly did you
expect to happen?”
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He shrugged and fell silent when the priest
started to give us a blessing.
I looked shyly at the man I was seconds away
from pledging my life to, and I knew this would
forever be one of the best memories in the world.
“I love you, Michael,” I said soft enough so
that only he could hear.
“I love you, too,” he replied back, uncaring
that the pastor gave him a dirty look.
He didn’t have anyone to please except me,
and the same went for me.
We no longer wanted to worry about anyone
but ourselves and what it would mean to each of
us.
And that’s the way we would do it from now
on.
Nobody needed to know why Michael was
tatted up head to toe.
Because we only lived by one motto now.
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And that was to live and let live.
***
Five hours later
“Michael! I’m too big!” I yelled as Michael’s
hands went around my waist as he opened my
door. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”
He ignored me, sweeping me up into his arms
and walking steadily towards the house.
“You forgot to close the door to the truck,” I
said lightly, wrapping my arms around his neck
and leaning my head against his face.
“I’ll get it later,” he murmured.
“Later…like tomorrow later…or later like
later this night later?” I teased. “Because we live
in the woods now. There’s no telling what’ll be
in the truck come morning.”
Michael knew I was right.
He’d had this new house of ours built in the
boonies with absolutely nothing around.
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Literally, the closest Wal-Mart was forty minutes
away, if that tells you anything.
“Fuck,” he growled, turning on his heels and
walking back to his truck.
“You could put me down,” I suggested lightly
when a light sheen of sweat started to dot along
his brow.
“I’m fine, Nik. Quit worrying,” he muttered
just before slamming the truck door closed with
his boot covered foot.
It slammed closed with a bone shattering thud
and he turned on his heel to head back towards
the house.
“You really don’t look fine,” I said
laughingly.
“Nikki,” he gave me ‘the look.’ “I’m fine. I
can bench press three hundred and fifty pounds
and squat twice that. Trust me, I’m okay.”
“You can squat seven hundred pounds?” I
asked skeptically.
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“Yes,” he answered.
“With your legs?” I countered.
He shot me a look, and I shut up.
There was no way he could squat seven hundred pounds. That was unheard of.
He was in a good mood, though, so I
wouldn’t pester him about it…today.
“How are you going to get the door open?” I
asked once he reached the front door.
A set of keys fell into my lap from where
he’d tossed them from his hand across my back.
“It’s the pink key,” he said, a smile in his
voice.
It was indeed pink. With purple flowers on it.
I assumed that one was mine, but whatever.
“Why didn’t we just go in through the garage?” I asked while I unlocked the door.
He grunted.
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“Because I’m supposed to carry you over the
threshold. It doesn’t work the same way if I carry
you through the garage,” he muttered, sounding
slightly breathless.
“Okay,” I said slowly, drawing the word out.
“Whatever you say, my dear.”
He pinched my ass just as I swung the door
open, causing me to jump and squeak, followed
by him cursing.
“Hurry up and carry me over before you
break your back,” I squealed.
“I’m not going to drop you!” He roared.
I had to smother a laugh as the moment he
walked through the door, he unceremoniously
dropped me to my feet and walked off towards
the kitchen.
“Hey!” I said indignantly. “You were supposed to carry me up to our room and ravish
me!”
Wasn’t that how it worked in movies?
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My husband must not have gotten the memo.
“Where are you going?” I asked, following
behind him.
“To get something to eat. That dinner we supposedly had was shit,” I heard him mutter from in
front of me.
I smiled as I ran my hands over the walls.
They were beautifully done.
As were the floors and ceilings.
We’d gone more ‘home and country’ rather
than modern.
We wanted our house to be warm and inviting, and our contractor accomplished that to a T.
When I breached the door to the kitchen, I
found Michal standing at the fridge with his head
stuck in it.
“We don’t have any food in there,” I
muttered. “What do you think you’re going to
find?”
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He backed out of the fridge with turkey,
cheese, mustard, pickles, lettuce, tomatoes, and
mayo, causing my brows to shoot up to my
hairline.
“Where’d that come from?” I asked in
surprise.
He shrugged.
“If I had to guess, your parents or mine.
Whatever, I don’t care. I’m just glad there’s food.
I can’t believe you expected me to live on so
little,” he muttered.
He was right.
The food we’d had catered had ran out because I hadn’t prepared for the sheer amount of
food that all of Michael’s friends would eat.
Turns out, muscles required about twice the
protein of a normal full grown adult.
Who knew?
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“Make me one?” I asked, pouting my lip for
added bonus.
He gave me a look that clearly said, ‘What do
you take me as?’
So I raised my hands up in a placating gesture
and walked around the counter.
“Love you, Mikey Mike,” I said before kissing his cheek and patting his ass.
He tossed me another look before kissing my
upturned lips.
“Why do you insist on calling me that all of a
sudden?” He asked with amusement.
I shrugged and circled the counter once again
to leave the room.
“I could call you hubby now, I guess,” I said
just as I was leaving the room.
“That’s not any better!” He yelled at my
back.
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I snickered as I made my way around the
house, checking to see if everything I wanted was
up to par.
It was.
The furniture had been delivered while we
were getting married, and while the rest of us
were celebrating at the reception, my sisters came
over here and made the beds, and I assumed
brought over a few staples for us.
God, I loved them.
Especially when I crossed the threshold of
our room and saw the bed already made, ready
for my tired body to crawl into it.
Which was what I did.
Falling asleep nearly instantaneously.
***
Michael
“Nikki,” I said, looking around the room for
my wife. “Here’s your sandwich….”
I trailed off as I spotted her curled up around
a pillow.
She had half the comforter covering her, seeing as she was laying on it, causing me to smile.
Guess I’d be sleeping with the sheet tonight.
Not that I hadn’t gotten used to it.
I loved sleeping with Nikki, although she did
move a lot.
I’d had to sleep a few times during the day
when she was gone, since I’d had a late shift, and
I’d slept like crap.
Placing the sandwich on the nightstand, I
went to the bathroom, stripped out of my police
dress blues, and brushed my teeth.
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Turning the light off, I walked slowly to the
bed, relishing at the way the new carpet felt
between my toes before I flipped off the lamp,
tugged the cord at the ceiling fan, and plunged
the room into darkness.
I crawled into bed carefully, as not to wake
Nikki, though I shouldn’t have bothered.
Nothing woke Nikki anymore short of a
freight train barreling down on us.
She slept anywhere.
In the car.
In my office chair.
Halfway through dinner.
It was actually quite endearing.
As I settled around her, curling her into my
body as best as I could, I closed my eyes and said
my prayers. A nightly ritual that I would repeat
for the rest of my life.
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Thank you God, for my wife and unborn
child.
Chapter 21
The only kids I want are
Sourpatch.
-Nikki during the throes of
labor
Nikki
“Alright, Jasmine. When you feel the need to
push, I want you to bear down, bring your knees
up to your chest, and push down from your bottom. Almost like you’re doing number…” She
held up her hand to stop me.
Jasmine nodded miserably. “I don’t know
why you let me say no drugs. I like drugs.”
I smothered my smile and started laying out
sheets.
My big ‘ol belly was in the way, but there
was nothing I could do about that.
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I’d been a married woman for a little over
four months, and I was nine months pregnant.
Our little girl would be here very soon, and it
was times like this, with other women giving
birth to their own little miracles, that I started to
feel envy for them.
I felt like I’d been pregnant for forever!
“I need to poop!” Jasmine yelled in alarm a
few moments later.
I smothered another smile and moved closer
to her on my stool.
“That’s the urge to push. Bare down,” I
instructed.
She narrowed her eyes at me. “But what if
I…”
She gestured with her hands.
I waved a dismissive hand. “Shit happens.”
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She burst out laughing, but then, just as suddenly, she started to scream as she curled around
her belly and gave it all she had.
My own stomach cramped right along with
hers.
“Okay, one more push and the head should be
delivered,” I told Jasmine. “Tony, do you want to
come catch the baby?”
Tony shook his head frantically.
Like all first time fathers, he was a nervous
wreck, and anything dealing with childbirth was
a very scary ordeal to him.
“Alright, well it’s up to you, Jasmine. Show
me what you got…”
***
Two hours later
“Pick up, pick up, pick up,” I chanted to my
phone as I called Michael once I was leaving Jasmine and her newest addition.
You got my voicemail, leave a message.
“Fuck!” I said, walking quickly to my car before it happened again.
‘It’ being those regular pains that signaled
that I, myself, was about to have my own baby.
I’d been having them on and off all day long,
but it’d only been since Jasmine started to push
that they began to become regular and consistent.
At least my water hadn’t broken yet.
Although, that wasn’t a good indication of
progress. There were some women that went all
the way up to delivery before their water broke.
My next call was to Doctor Mead, my OB/
GYN.
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Or his office, anyway.
Although I did have his home number, I’d
play the good little in labor mom and call the office like everyone else was instructed to do once
they were in labor.
“”Hello?” A bored woman’s voice came over
the speakers in my car.
“This is Nikki Perez, I’m in labor,” I said a
little breathlessly.
Another pain had consumed me, and I had to
pull the car over to avoid wrecking.
“How do you know you’re in labor?” The
woman asked with annoyance.
I clenched the steering wheel and said
through clenched teeth. “Because I’m having regular contractions, and I go breathless each time
one hits. Now, relay the message.”
“What did you say your name was again?”
The woman asked snottily.
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The pain finally loosened it’s grip on my
uterus, and I started moving forward again.
I knew I’d get a good two minutes of reprieve, which might get me all the way to the ER
before I had another.
“Nicole Perez, but my maiden name is Pena.
Sometimes they have to pull it up underneath
that,” I told her, pulling around an old woman
going fifty in her maroon Lincoln Towncar.
“I found it, Dr. Mead isn’t on call today, Dr.
Shepherd is. I’ll transfer you to…”
I interrupted her.
“No, call Dr. Mead. There should be a note in
my chart. My husband refuses to have anyone but
Dr. Mead take care of me. Trust me, he won’t let
Dr. Shepherd touch me if you call her,” I explained quickly, excited to see the red and blue
sign that denoted the emergency entrance of the
emergency room up ahead.
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I turned into the lot and parked before the
next pain hit.
“I’ll try, but that’s not protocol. He won’t
even answer if it’s not an emergency…”
I hung up on her.
“Fuck it,” I panted, pulling up Dr. Mead in
my contacts and pressing dial.
“This is Dr. Mead,” he answered three rings
later.
“This is Nikki Pena Perez. I’ve gone into
labor. I’m at the ER right now,” I told him
quickly.
“I’ll be right there. Tell the doctors I’ll be
there in twenty minutes or less,” he said quickly.
“10-4,” I agreed and hung up my own phone.
I grabbed my purse and bailed out of my car
before I tried calling Michael again.
Luckily, this time, he answered. “Yeah?”
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He was breathless.
“I’m in labor,” I panted, hoofing it all the
way to the ER doors before another pain nearly
took my feet out from under me.
“Where are you?” He asked sharply.
“The ER,” I told him, happy that my contraction had left me, but unhappy because another
one was right on its heels, which meant that I was
getting closer to delivery. “I’m less than a minute
apart.”
Something which I proved moments later
when another contraction slammed into me.
This time, I really did have to go to my knees
because I was sure if I didn’t, I would fall on my
face.
“Ma’am, are you alright?” A woman’s voice
called from the doorway.
I looked up into Lennox’s familiar eyes.
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“No, I’m pretty sure I’m having this baby,
and my asshole isn’t here yet,” I told her.
Then a commotion from the ER’s entrance
startled us both enough that we looked up only to
see Michael running out with a bandage covering
his eye.
“Michael!” I screamed, panicked now that
my eyes caught sight of all the blood staining his
shirt.
Michael dropped down to his knees beside
me, gathering me into his strong arms as he said,
“I’m okay.”
“Isn’t that something I should be saying to
you?” I asked, raising my hand to look at the
wound being covered by the bandage.
He grimaced and helped me stand by putting
both arms underneath mine.
“Suspect knocked me over the head with a
wrench,” he explained. “Now tell me about you.”
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I panted as another pain hit me and said, “I’m
having your baby.”
He laughed.
“Generally, that’s what labor usually indicates,” he teased as he helped me to a wheelchair
that Lennox pushed out.
“You have the entire emergency room in an
uproar, little lady,” Lennox crowed as she held
the chair as I sat.
“Why?” I asked with worry.
What had I done to warrant such a reaction?
“Michael here has everyone scared as hell of
him. Something he proved weeks ago when he
told the charge nurse that, under no circumstance,
was anyone but his parents, him, Dr. Mead or
me to touch you when you go into labor without
him being in the room. Not to mention he
threatened them,” Lennox laughed. “So guess
who your personal helper will be until Dr. Mead
arrives!”
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I shot my husband a look, but he shrugged as
if he could care less what everyone thought of
him.
“Please, ignore him. He won’t bother anybody,” I shook my head. “Plus, we’re heading up
to Labor and Delivery anyway. So we’ll never
even see anybody in the emergency room.
How’d you get to leave the ER for this?”
“Thank God,” Lennox said as she walked
with me to the elevators. “I got to help because
your husband decided to have a talk with my
boss. She agreed, so here I am!”
I just shook my head and closed my eyes as
another pain washed over me.
“Another one?” Michael asked, looking down
at his watch.
I nodded, too breathless to speak. “Yeah.”
“A minute and a half apart. Epidural or no
epidural?” He asked.
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I closed my eyes and tried to block out the
pain…but I couldn’t.
Which answered the question he asked rather
quickly.
We’d been fighting over the epidural or no
epidural question for months now, and I’d told
him that I’d have to wait and see.
He’d insisted on a birth plan, and I’d shook
my head, telling him that babies did what they
wanted to. There was no rhyme or reason. No
woman’s pregnancy was the same, and I couldn’t
base a birth that hadn’t happened yet on a hunch.
Now, I was sure.
“Epidural,” I insisted through gritted teeth.
I felt like my uterus was trying to force its
way out of my vagina.
God, it hurt.
And I was sure that Michael was only getting
one kid, because this motherfuckin’ hurt.
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“One kid, Michael. You better enjoy this
one,” I informed him.
He smiled. “We’ll see.”
“No, we won’t. We really won’t. I’ll never be
able to forget how this feels. It’s like razor blades
tearing through my uterus, and a pair of needle
nose pliers trying to rip the spasming organ out
through my cun…” Michael slapped his hand
over my mouth as the elevator doors opened.
I’d been screaming, and apparently he didn’t
want me to scream ‘cunt’ in general population.
Lennox had no problem laughing her ass off,
consequently forgetting she was supposed to be
pushing my wheelchair.
Michael, exasperated, took over the job and
pushed me to the nurse’s station where they immediately gave us a room.
“What? Did you threaten them, too?” I asked
with a narrowed eyed look over my shoulder.
Michael smiled. “You’ll never know.”
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I rolled my eyes.
The man was incorrigible, and he couldn’t
help himself sometimes.
“Are you going to let any of the nurses take
care of me?” I asked dryly. “You’re horrible.”
Michael helped me into the bed once he’d
locked the wheelchair’s wheels, and I sighed in
relief to have my feet up.
“Yeah, as a matter of fact, he is!” Hannah
crowed as she came into the room.
I rolled my eyes. “You know, it’s really,
really weird to have your sister in law’s hands up
your cooch.”
Hannah smiled. “We’re all adults here. If you
can handle it, I can handle it.”
I just shook my head. “I haven’t seen you on
this floor in a while. How perfect that you’re on
shift today,” I said dryly.
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Hannah grinned. “In reality, I wasn’t supposed to be on this floor today. But I’m scheduled on this floor for the time being until you’re
back from maternity leave.”
She gave me a pointed look that said she’d
known where I was today. Something I’d told her
but not my husband.
I blushed.
I was supposed to be on maternity leave.
But when Jasmine had begged me to continue
seeing her once I’d graduated school, I could do
nothing less.
Even if it meant I had to deliver her kid while
I was in labor with my own.
Something Michael hadn’t realized I’d done
yet, since I’d left while he was at work and conveniently forgot to tell him.
“That’s cool,” I said, changing the subject.
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“Alright, Hannah, check her out so we can
see where we’re at,” Michael ordered.
Hannah shot him a disproving look. “I know
how to do my job, boyo.”
His brows rose. “You’ve been talking to
Peek.”
Hannah grinned and lifted up her shirt to reveal her belly to us.
She’d gotten a tattoo of Reggie’s name on her
lower hipbone in bold, beautiful scripted letters.
“Wow, that’s awesome,” Lennox and I parroted at the same time.
Michael smiled. “It hurt, didn’t it. I told you
not to go there with your first tattoo.”
Hannah shrugged. “Hurt like a motherfucker.
But Peek gave me a shot of Jack Daniel’s to tide
me over. And kept them coming until it was
done. When I left I could barely stand. Had to
call a cab to take me home.”
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I gasped as another contraction tore through
me, bringing everyone’s attention back to me.
“Alright, you know the drill,” Hannah picked
up a gown and tossed it at Michael. “Help her in
that, and we’ll step outside the curtains. Let us
know when you’re done…and what the fuck
happened to your face?”
I coughed to cover up my laugh.
She’d just now noticed that after being in the
room with him for ten minutes?
Michael ignored her and swung the curtains
closed himself before walking over to me.
“You ready for this?” He asked softly, his
eyes taking in my every feature.
I nodded and started to strip my shirt over my
head, followed by my sports bra.
Michael’s eyes flared as he caught sight of
my swollen belly and big breasts, but managed to
stand still as I stood and pushed my maternity
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yoga pants over my hips, followed closely by my
panties.
I offered him my hands, and he slipped the
gown on over my chest, covering my nakedness
without one lewd touch or comment.
He must really be scared, I thought.
Which stood to reason.
I was scared to.
Really scared.
But the thing about Michael and me was that
we’d both gone through hell together, and had
come out the other side.
We had our scars.
We had our doubts.
But we also had each other, and as long as I
had him at my side, we could get through just
about anything.
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“I love you, Mikey Mike,” I whispered,
knowing it’d draw a smile from him.
And he didn’t disappoint.
He smiled, eyes sparkling.
“I love you more, Nik.”
“Impossible,” I whispered fiercely.
“Nothing’s impossible when it comes to you.
You showed me that,” he said just before pressing his soft lips against mine. “You ready for
this?”
I nodded and touched the side of the bandage
covering up the right side of his forehead.
“Have you had this taken care of?” I asked,
feeling another pain coming.
He nodded. “Ten stitches.”
I winced.
Not only because that was a lot of stitches,
but because it felt like this child of ours was
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trying to claw its way out of my vagina like a
tiny Hulk.
“Epidural,” I insisted.
He smiled and helped me sit back down before yanking the curtains open.
Lennox and Hannah turned from their discussion, hurrying up to my bedside.
“Alright, lay back and let me feel you up.”
I covered my face with my hand as Hannah
snapped gloves into place over her hands.
“Sit back, I’ll try to make this good.”
I huffed out a laugh as I moved until I was
flat on my back, moving my enormous beached
whale body until I was in position, then slowly
open my legs.
Hannah didn’t waste any time doing her
thing, and I was grateful.
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“You know,” Lennox said from her positon
by my head. “I’ve never seen a pregnant woman
so calm before.”
I didn’t say anything to that.
I was freaking the fuck out.
Michael, though, didn’t need that from me.
I was sure he was already nervous enough,
and I didn’t want him to regret having a kid.
He didn’t need yet another insecurity, and I
wouldn’t be the one to give it to him.
“Do you remember what I do for a living?” I
panted.
“You’re at six centimeters and fifty percent
effaced. Doing good. You can still have an epidural, but I’d recommend making that decision
quickly,” Hannah said, taking my gown and covering my knees.
Lennox sat the head of the bed up, and I
looked to Michael to see him staring at the wall.
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“What is it?” I asked him.
“I can’t tell you how disturbing it is to see my
sister’s fingers up your…you know,” Michael informed me.
I smiled at him.
“You’re better at it, if it makes you feel any
better.”
He made a gagging sound. “Disgusting.”
I snickered as Hannah tossed her used gloves
in the trash and washed her hands. “I’ll go get
the on call anesthesiologist. We’ll get your shit
knocked right out.”
“Should she be talking like that?” I asked,
eyes closed as I tried to breathe through my next
contraction. “Motherfucker, this hurts like a
bitch!”
The room stayed silent for long moments
while my question and subsequent comment
hung therein the air around us.
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“What?” I asked, opening my eyes to squint
at Michael.
He just shook his head. “Nothing.”
Lennox busied herself hooking up the monitor, starting an IV, and drawing blood while Michael and I watched the screen to monitor my
progress.
“That was a big one,” Michael said a few
minutes later.
I grunted.
I knew it was a ‘big one.’
Simply because I’d felt the motherfucker.
But I tried to be nice about it.
“Uh-huh,” I agreed tiredly.
Then Michael and Lennox started talking
about medical jargon that was too advanced for
my exhausted brain to process, so I ignored them
and tried to sleep during my contractions.
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Something I realized wasn’t working very
well.
Especially since two of my favorite people in
the world, under normal circumstances, wouldn’t
shut the fuck up.
“Go away,” I muttered.
The talking stopped, and I ordered my husband to do my bidding.
“Go call your family and mine. Let them
know what’s going on. And stop talking over my
body. It’s annoying,” I ordered them.
Michael chuckled as he bent down and kissed
my forehead. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Okay, Nikki. This is Amy Jones, the nurse
anesthetist. She’s going to do your epidural for
you. This is Eddie Gonzales, he’s the anesthesiologist that she works under. They’re here to answer any questions you might have. Okay?”
Michael froze on his way out the door, but
then I started having another contraction.
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“Get out so she can do her job,” I ordered my
ornery husband.
Amy’s eyes followed Michael’s progress,
brows raising to see what he’d do.
Michael chose correctly, though.
He offered his hand to the two of them, said,
“I’m going to call my family,” and left the room.
“Eddie and Amy,” Hannah said. “Is there
anything you need from me? I have another patient that’s in the final stages of pushing.”
Amy shook her head when Eddie looked at
her. “No, that’s all, thank you.”
I knew Eddie, and the moment Hannah left
the room he walked to my bedside.
“You ready for this rodeo to get started?” He
asked teasingly.
Eddie loved to tease me.
We worked well together, trading barbs back
and forth like two children in a play yard battle.
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He loved the Yankees, and I was a Texas
Rangers fan all the way. Which tended to make
us butt heads from time to time.
“Well, I was all ready to have you teasing me
while giving me the epidural,” I grunted, toes
curling when the next pain hit me. “But I guess
since you’re too good for me I’ll settle for Ms.
Amy.”
Amy didn’t smile, but Eddie did.
“I have a C-section with triplets in about fifteen minutes. I’m sorry, but she’s cooler than you
are,” he admitted openly.
I laughed. “Yeah, that’s what they all say.”
He winked. “I’ll check back in with you
later.”
I nodded and watched him leave the room.
As my face turned to Amy, I was immediately struck with just how different she looked
now that Eddie was out of the room.
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Like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde different.
“You okay?” I asked her worriedly.
She walked to the door and closed it slowly.
“Don’t you need a nurse?” I asked. “And
your stuff?”
She didn’t answer as she drew the curtain and
turned back to me, walking towards me with a
new purpose that set my instincts on edge.
“Your man fucked up,” the woman
whispered to me. “You’d think with how cautious he was being with the doctors that he’d pay
a little more attention to who was about to inject
all sorts of fun drugs into your spinal column.”
I looked at her nametag and realized with a
sinking feeling that she had the same last name as
Dr. Jones.
Her name was Amy Jones.
Wife or daughter?
I couldn’t tell.
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And why had I never seen her before?
I worked on this floor, and it was kind of a
rule that I saw everyone on it seeing as I was a
midwife. It was good business to know my
colleagues.
“Don’t you mean my epidural space?” I
asked worriedly.
My hands were sweaty, and my thighs
quivered as I prepared to launch myself from the
bed.
Only before I could, Amy Jones produced a
gun.
“Don’t move,” she hissed. “I don’t really
need your cooperation. I think I’ll just do it the
quick way.”
My body froze.
“There’s oxygen in this room, not to mention
my husband is right outside,” I tried to reason
with her. “Surely you know that you’ll never get
out of this unscathed.”
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She shrugged.
“I don’t really care. At this point, I just
know you need to be gone, as well as him, before I go. You’ll be my final couple. How does
it feel?” She said soothingly, bringing the IV
tubing that was going into my right hand up to
her stomach.
I could see the syringe in her hand, and knew
she was about to give me something.
Which was why I yanked my hand to the side
hard and quick, ripping tape, hair, and skin as I
forcefully removed the catheter from my vein.
She glared at me disapprovingly and shook
the gun at me for emphasis.
“I told you not to fucking move!” She
whispered forcefully.
I moved.
I couldn’t help it.
477/544
It wasn’t in me to lay back and take what was
coming for me.
“Hey, I just got word from Dr. Mead. He’ll
be here in just a few minutes. He got held up by a
train on 18…” Lennox’s voice trailed off as she
got a load of the situation she’d walked in on.
She looked to me, then back to Amy before
raising her hands up near her head. “Don’t shoot
her.”
Amy kept the gun pointed at me, but she was
glaring at Lennox, which was why she never saw
me move close to the emergency ‘code blue’ cord
and yank it from the wall.
The alarm in my room started to shriek.
And people poured inside.
Nurses, doctors, techs. Michael.
The sheer amount of people that’d entered the
room had overwhelmed Amy, but she was smart
and put the gun away before anyone could see
her.
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Michael’s eyes fell on me, and I started to
scream.
“She has a gun!”
Amy was quick, though.
Using the commotion to her advantage, she
ran, skirting past multiple nurses who were standing there stunned.
Michael, though, wasn’t stunned.
Far from it.
He was following her out the door almost as
quickly as she’d left it.
Lennox walked up to me, placing a towel to
the wound at my hand that I just now realized
was pouring blood onto the floor.
“You’re a mess,” she whispered soothingly.
A sob caught in my throat, and the pain that
I’d somehow been able to disregard in this entire
debacle hit me again tenfold.
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“God,” I slumped.
Lennox caught me and moved me towards
the bed, and I went willingly.
“You’re hand’s a mess,” she said, eyes scanning the wound.
I nodded. “Yep.”
“I should’ve done what Michael wanted and
not gotten the epidural. Then we wouldn’t be in
this mess right now,” I said worriedly.
Lennox started to clean off my hand with an
alcohol swab.
Which was ridiculous since I needed a lot
more than an alcohol pad to clean up this mess.
Maybe a towel or something.
Then I forgot all about the mess I’d made and
started focusing on the massacre that was happening between my legs.
It burned, but it didn’t hurt anywhere near as
bad as everything else attached to my body.
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“I feel like I need to push,” I said worriedly a
few moments later.
Lennox looked up into my eyes.
“Your doctor’s not here yet,” she said
worriedly.
I closed my eyes.
“Alright,” Hannah yelled. “This isn’t an exhibit. Everyone out.”
“But that psycho’s got a gun!” A nurse
replied worriedly.
I wanted to roll my eyes.
And I would have had I not been worried that
I might suddenly make a big move and the baby
would fall out of my vagina.
“I really….really need to push,” I urged insistently, ripping the blankets that Lennox had
just replaced, off my legs. “Either back off or
catch this baby, because it’s about to happen.”
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Hannah shooed out the rest of the people and
Lennox and her stared at me with worried eyes.
“I’ve never delivered a baby before,” Lennox
said helplessly.
“She’s in the custody of the police,” Michael
growled, throwing open the door and slamming it
shut behind him. It took him a few moments, but
it wasn’t long before he realized that my vagina
was out for everyone to see. “What?”
I pointed down to my vagina. “Your baby
wants me to push.”
He shook his head. “Dr. Mead isn’t here yet.”
If I could have, I would have beaten him.
“Well you tell that to this kid!” I screamed.
Michael’s eyes widened when something
between my legs caught his eyes, and I moved
my hand down between my legs and felt
something that most definitely hadn’t been there
before.
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“I’m crowning,” I said to the three of them.
I wished I’d had a camera to capture the
looks on the three of their faces.
“One of you need to come over here and play
catcher, or you need to go get a doctor. Now,” I
ordered them.
Still, none of them moved.
A doctor. A PA. And a nurse.
And all three of them stared at me with blank
faces.
I can’t believe I was having to do this all
myself!
My body started to do what it was made to
do, and soon I could do nothing but push and
hope they got with the game.
Because seriously, it fucking hurt!
“Ahhhh! Michael get your fucking head out
of your ass and catch this fucking kid!” I
screamed.
483/544
Michael finally came unstuck and put his
doctor hat on…or at least his thinking cap
anyway.
He moved between my legs, then asked the
stupidest question on earth at that point.
“Should I put on gloves?”
I would’ve kicked him had I not been holding
onto my legs.
Instead, I closed my eyes, pushed, and daydreamed about shooting our kid out of my vagina
and hitting him with her.
Which seemed good in theory, but probably
not good for real.
My mind didn’t really care at that point.
“How come nobody waited for your family to
arrive…ahhhh! My eyes!” Nico screamed, covering his eyes as he got a good look at my vagina.
I would be embarrassed…later.
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Right now, I couldn’t muster up the ability to
care, though.
“Move out of the way, hijo. I’ve got to get
in there!” My mother yelled.
I didn’t look at her either.
I couldn’t.
My eyes were on Michael as he did things
between my legs that I hoped he and I could both
forget later on.
Then I swear to you, he stuck his hand into
my vagina and I saw stars…and not the good
kind.
“Owww! What the ever loving fuck, Michael!” I shrieked.
“The cord was around her neck,” he rumbled
softly. “All better now. Push again when you feel
the next contraction.”
485/544
I pushed again at the next contraction. But
not because he’d said to. Because I needed to.
My body wouldn’t let me not do it.
“Owww, ow, ow, ow, ow,” I chanted over
and over again.
“Would you grow the fuck up, Nico?” Georgia asked, shoving him out of the doorway
where he was still covering his eyes and facing
the opposite direction of me and my ‘big ‘ol
vagina.’
Georgia came to my side and swept my hair
back off my face.
“You’re doing good, almost done,” she
soothed.
I nodded, panting as the worst pain yet
washed over me.
“Fuck!”
“Language, hija,” my mother admonished
from my other side.
486/544
When had she gotten there?
“The head’s out,” Hannah and Lennox said at
the same time, standing at the end of the bed and
looking at the humongous child that was trying to
come out and being incredibly slow about it.
“Your amniotic sac is still intact.”
Then, suddenly, in a great rush of relief, our
baby slid out.
Michael made a hook with his finger and
broke the amniotic sac, and suddenly I could hear
my baby, who was very unhappy with being
forced from her comfy, warm home. By her
daddy no less.
“Alright, Nikki! Let’s get this baby delivered!
Son, move out of the way!” Dr. Mead ordered
Nico.
Once Nico moved, though, he came to a stop.
“Well, I sure didn’t expect this! For your first
child no less!”
I laughed.
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What else could I do?
“I’ve never seen that before,” Hannah said in
awe.
“Me neither,” Lennox agreed.
“Oh, my God, she’s beautiful!” Georgia cried
softly at my side.
“Can I look yet?” Nico whined.
“Alright, let’s get this placenta delivered.
Daddy, are you going to cut the cord?” Dr.
Mead asked jovially.
I moved my eyes away from our daughter to
Michael, who was staring at her in awe.
“Yeah, I think I will,” he rasped.
Lennox handed him the hemostats to clamp
the cord, and then a pair of scissors once he’d
done that.
Then, with the utmost care, he carried our
little girl over to the warmer, where a team of
nurses were already set up waiting for her.
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When they’d arrived, I don’t know, but they
were there.
And I was so happy I could scream.
I delivered the placenta, and waited for them
to bring the baby to me.
But I kept waiting and waiting and waiting.
I could see them all looking back at me in
concern, then back at the baby.
Michael was busy washing up at the sink, so
he didn’t see what was going on, but I knew immediately something was wrong.
“What’s wrong with her?” I asked urgently.
“Tell me!”
The nurses all looked at each other, and one
of them, Lucille, broke off, picking up my daughter and carrying snugly in her arms.
She brought her over to me, and I reached for
her, pulling her into my arms like they’d taken
the most precious gift away from me without
489/544
plans of giving her back. They gave me teasing
bits and pieces of her until I was a whimpering,
needful mess.
The moment she was in my arms I felt at
peace.
She was absolutely perfect.
Dark brown hair like me. Cheeks like Michael. Long fingers and toes like Michael. A
heart shaped chin like me.
Then she opened her eyes, and I immediately
knew something was wrong.
Because the entire iris of her eye was covered
in a milky white, circular film. In both eyes.
“What’s wrong with her?” I cried, looking up
to Michael for help.
He frowned and walked over, eyes on our
baby, and immediately scowled.
490/544
“What it looks like is a cataract,” he said,
running his thumb over the baby’s cheek
lovingly.
His eyes met mine and they’d never looked
more serious.
“She’s fine,” he said soothingly.
“A cataract isn’t fine!” I cried. “It’s not fine
at all!”
My raised voice must’ve made the baby annoyed because she started to cry.
Michael immediately reached forward and
took her out of my arms, and I felt the loss like a
punch to the chest.
Michael brought our baby up to his chest and
cradled her, brushing his nose along the top of
her head as he breathed her in.
“Look at me, Nikki,” he ordered.
491/544
I peeled my eyes away from where his hand
was holding her under her bottom, and looked at
him.
He wasn’t worried.
Not even a little bit.
And that was what I needed to finally gain
some control.
“What do we do?” I asked softly.
He leaned forward and took a seat on the side
of my bed, running his hand along the length of
my cheek.
“We let the pediatrician look at her. We talk
to my father. My mother. But we do it all together. Because we can do nothing less,” he
whispered.
A tear slipped down my cheek, and I looked
down at my hands. Seeing them trembling, I took
a deep breath and said, “I love you Michael. I’m
sorry for freaking out.”
492/544
He pulled me to his chest, and my head rested
next to the entire length of our baby’s body, and I
just knew everything would be alright.
Why, you ask?
Because Michael said it would, that’s why.
***
Four hours later
“So you’re saying she’ll need to undergo surgery for this within the first three months of her
life,” I asked the pediatrician I’d painstakingly
chosen out of many in the East Texas area.
He nodded. “Having those taken care of is
imperative. If you don’t, it could become malignant. It could stay the same. Or they could
mean she’s blind for the rest of her life. And
this is an easy fix. It’s relatively painless, but it
is something she’ll have to be put to sleep for.
Which is always a risk.”
I closed my eyes as tears started to form.
“Thank you, Dr. Rush,” Michael said, offering his hand. “We’ll follow up with the doctor in
Dallas next Tuesday, like you said. We really
appreciate you coming out and seeing her on
your day off.”
I smiled through my tears.
494/544
That was awfully nice of Dr. Rush.
Most doctors didn’t do things like that.
Which was why I’d chosen Dr. Rush in the
first place.
Bringing my knees up to my chest, I moved
Carolina up until she was resting on my upraised
legs, and stared at her.
She was so beautiful.
And perfect.
And it broke my heart that she had to have
this done at such a young age.
But I didn’t have to worry about that now.
I had five full days with my little beauty, until
I had to see that doctor in Dallas with her, and I
was going to love her so hard.
Michael put his arms around me and hugged
me to his chest, pressing his lips against my
cheek.
495/544
“I’m going to go home and change my
clothes,” he rumbled softly. “And bring up your
bag so we can get little miss priss dressed.
Anything you need while I’m out?”
I shook my head. “No. Not unless you want
to grab me a number one from Whataburger.”
He leaned back and gave me a grin.
“I think I can handle that,” he teased.
Kissing me once more, he moved his lips to
our little girl and brushed his lips over her hair.
“The two best things that ever happened to
me,” he whispered, then left the room without another word.
Picking up my phone, I started to take a few
hundred pictures of my little beauty when a
knock sounded at the door.
I looked up, and smiled.
Because at the door was Wolfgang, or Wolf
as I liked to call him, and baby Nathan.
496/544
Although Baby Nathan wasn’t so much a
baby anymore. He was a toddler who was full of
mischief and love for all things furry.
“Wolf,” I said softly, smiling at him once he
breached the doorway. “Come in, come in.”
Wolf smiled. “I’d have waited to come see
you, but I have to be at work in a couple of hours,
and I didn’t know if I’d get to see you before you
got out. How are you doing?”
He smiled as he looked down at the baby in
my lap.
“He did good,” he rasped, a deep seated hurt
evident in his voice.
His own child would’ve been six months just
a few weeks ago.
“Would you like to hold her, Wolf?” I asked
softly.
He swallowed, and looked into my eyes.
“Yeah, if that’s okay.”
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I held out my hands for Nathan, and he
handed him to me.
Nathan immediately wrapped his chubby
arms around my neck.
“Take her,” I said softly.
Wolf did, reaching forward and scooping
Carolina up with nimble, practiced hands.
“She’s beautiful,” he rumbled, cradling Carolina to his chest.
“She is,” I agreed, turning away from the
devastated look that came over Wolf’s face.
“How ‘ya doing, Nathan?”
Nathan offered me a slobbery smile as he
played with my hair.
“Fish,” he babbled.
“Fish?” I asked him.
“That’s his new favorite word,” Wolf explained. “That and ‘cup’. Seems he only says
what he wants.”
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I smiled.
I remembered that with Nico’s twins as well.
“How’s work going for you?” I asked softly.
Wolf spoke
Carolina.
without
looking
up
from
“A lot longer than I realized it’d be,” he
muttered. “I find that I miss the hell out of Nathan while I’m there.”
I smiled.
That tended to happen when you had
children.
I’d witnessed it with all of the SWAT team,
as of late.
They all wanted to get home to their kids and
wives.
The parties had gone from all nighters to ‘we
need to leave by eight p.m. to get the kids in bed’
kind of parties.
499/544
Although, it was nice to see all these
reformed bad-boys turned family men.
That’s the way it was supposed to be.
“How do you like the new mayor of Uncertain?” I asked. “Michael said they got a Sheriff
and Mayor in the same day. He said it’s been
kind of crazy.”
Wolf nodded. “It’s been a clusterfuck. It’s
going to take some doing to get things settled.”
I wasn’t surprised.
Texas was a true Republican state, and to
have two Democrat officials in high positions in
the city was really getting on a lot of the city’s
nerves. I was still surprised that it’d happened in
the first place.
“Cup?” Nathan asked, tapping my face.
I looked to him and smiled. “I don’t have
your cup, big guy.”
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Nathan frowned, and my eyes were drawn to
the barely noticeable scar on his forehead.
He’d had plastic surgery done on his head
about eight weeks into his hospital stay. Then
four more reconstructions after that.
And they’d done a wonderful job. Such a
wonderful job, in fact, that you could only see
that something had happened when he frowned
or cried.
Wolf got up, drawing my attention to him.
He really was a big man.
Today he was in his leather jacket that I never
saw him without.
He had some extensive damage to the back of
his head and neck, which made him grow his hair
longer than I’d ever seen on any police officer
before.
He wore the leather jacket to cover up the
scarring on his back and neck.
501/544
Another thing I’d heard from Michael.
I’d never seen it myself, but it broke my heart
that he wore it.
“I gotta go,” he rumbled. “I just wanted to
come see y’all and make sure you were okay.”
So he’d heard.
“Don’t do anything, Wolf,” I reprimanded
him.
His eyes looked up to mine, and I could see
the determination here.
“We’ll see.” He placed Carolina into my
arms and reached for Nathan. “I can’t promise
anything, though.”
I looked into the sweet face of my little girl
once he left the room, and came to a decision.
I’d do everything in my power to help make
that man happy. Even if I had to throw one of my
sisters at him.
They were tenacious.
502/544
“You and me will get him there, little girl,” I
said, running my finger down the bridge of her
nose.
She stirred, and my heart filled with just a
little bit more joy.
I was so happy I could scream.
I had the man I loved with all my heart.
A baby with that man.
And a life that I loved.
And in a few months, when Carolina’s surgery was behind her, I would be complete.
I couldn’t ask for a thing more.
Epilogue
I missed you. Let’s have sex. A
lot.
-Michael’s secret thoughts.
Michael
“You left the toilet seat up again,” Nikki
grumbled from her bent over position.
She was loading the dishwasher and I winced.
I was supposed to do that last night. She’d asked
a million times, and I just plain forgot.
Fuck.
“And you forgot to take out the trash again,”
she continued.
I sighed.
The woman was a freakin’ mess.
I didn’t complain about her inability to put
things away.
504/544
Like the pitcher of tea. I hated drinking hot
tea. And I didn’t like the way ice watered it
down.
Yet did she make more of an effort to put it
away?
No.
So I drank my tea with ice now because it
was inevitable that she’d forget to put it away.
And don’t even get me started on her
makeup, hair products, curling irons, and God
knows what else.
The first thing on our remodeling agenda, if it
ever came to it, was a duel sink for him and her,
because I couldn’t tell you how many times I’d
wished I didn’t have to put away shit on the
counter to shave my face or brush my teeth.
I didn’t tell her any of that, though.
We’d learned, over the last four years, how to
pick our battles.
505/544
“I can’t fix the plumbing because you bought
a male end, and I need a female end.” I said.
“What do you mean? What’s the difference?”
Nikki asked, turning to study me.
I was a fucking mess.
I’d been under the house, fixing the plumbing
that’d decided to fucking combust last night.
And she’d been bothering the fuck out of me
for the entire morning to fix it so she could have
running water for the party we were throwing for
Madden.
Madden hadn’t had an easy life.
He’d had a lot of struggles, but in those
struggles, he’d come out on top.
After Madden’s children had been released
from the hospital, the three of them had gone to a
foster home with Dean and Joslin, of all people.
After the whole asking for sperm from his
brother debacle, Joslin finally gave up on ever
506/544
having a baby with Dean. She actually gave up a
lot of things, in fact.
Mainly other men’s dicks.
And with that new attitude on life, Joslin
turned into a half decent person.
Joslin and Dean had helped raise not only
Madden’s two children, Sophia and Tawny, but
also Madden himself.
They’d given Madden the opportunity to just
be a kid while helping him raise his children.
And as of this afternoon, he was officially a
high school graduate.
“Michael, are you even listening to me?”
Nikki yelled.
My brow rose. “Yes, I’m listening to you.
But you’re not saying anything that I haven’t
already explained to you. Five times, in fact.”
She narrowed her eyes at me.
507/544
“Well then, maybe you should enlighten
me…one more time.”
I grinned at her.
“You need an anatomy lesson?” I clarified.
She narrowed her eyes at me.
“No. I need you to explain to me how
plumbing parts have male and female ends.”
I charged forward and pinned her to the
counter, my sweaty body plastering up against
hers.
Nikki had put on a little bit of weight over the
last four years, but not one bit of that weight did I
not love.
In fact, I was fucking ecstatic to have a little
more of her to hold onto while I fucked her.
Something I was about to prove during the
anatomy lesson I was about to give to her.
508/544
“A female end,” I said, pressing my hands
against her. “Is wider. It allows the male end to
fit inside of it.”
I punctuated this comment by pressing my
erection into her hip.
She gasped and her eyes widened.
“You…you didn’t say that when I left,” she
stuttered.
I leaned past her and turned the water on,
picking up the bottle of soap and washing my
hands behind her back.
She licked her lips, and I knew she knew
what I was about to do.
“The kids are about to wake up,” she hesitated when I slapped the faucet down to stop the
flow of water once I’d was finished.
I grinned.
509/544
Then my hands went to her sides, and I ran
my hands up and under her shirt, pushing it up
and over her head in one fluid movement.
Her hair fell from the haphazard bun she’d
placed on top of her head, with a pencil of all
things, and tumbled down her back and over her
shoulders.
Just the way I liked it.
I didn’t bother removing the bra.
That’d take too long.
I knew the kids were about to wake up.
They only gave us a solid two hours at most,
and it was already going on an hour and forty
five minutes.
The next thing to go were her pants, panties
going with it for expediency.
“Michael,” she said breathlessly when I
turned her around and pressed her over the sink.
510/544
She grabbed onto the faucet for dear life,
looking back over her shoulder as I unzipped my
pants.
“Yeah, baby?” I asked, pulling my dick from
its confines and running the hardened length up
her pussy lips.
She gasped and pressed back against me,
helping me coat my cock in her juices as she involuntarily jerked her hips.
“See, to fix this plumbing,” I said, pressing
my lubed cock up against her entrance and pushing in. “I need a three and five eights male end.
You got me a female end. To get full satisfaction
on both ends, one won’t do without the other.”
I could tell she wanted to laugh, but she was
too busy moaning as my cock filled her to the
brim.
My eyes crossed when she clenched down on
me.
511/544
“Less talking, more fucking. We’re running
out of time,” she panted.
I agreed.
Picking up the pace, I grabbed a hold of both
hips and started to move in and out of her.
Faster and faster, I thrusted.
Each one harder than the previous.
We worked well together.
She knew what I liked, and I knew just the
right angle that would set her off like a bottle
rocket.
Moving my hand between the counter top and
her hips, I found the bud of her clit and started to
circle it as I ramped up my speed.
“Michael,” she moaned. “Yes!”
I gritted my teeth and closed my eyes as I felt
her pussy begin to convulse around the length of
my cock, meaning the end of me holding back.
512/544
She did that to me, though.
Undid me.
Tore me down to rock bottom and built me
back up again.
I growled when my release hit me.
Hot come poured from my cock and splashed
against her insides, coating the two of us equally
as I worked myself inside of her, until the last
dregs of my orgasm abated.
Then, right on cue, I heard the sounds of
Clayton as he started screaming at the top of his
lungs to be let out.
“Shit,” I growled, reaching forward and to the
side to yank the dish towel off the peg where
Nikki insisted we hang it.
“Not my good towels!” She cried.
But it was too late.
513/544
I’d already pulled out and placed the towel
over her entrance to catch my release before she
could protest.
“Dammit, Michael,” she growled, holding the
towel between her legs and glaring.
I raised my hands. “So now that you know
what I need,” I said, buckling my pants. “How
about you…fuck.”
My pager went off, and I looked at it over on
the table, then back to Nikki.
“Dammit!” She cried when I walked to it.
Wincing, I looked at the readout and sighed.
“I’m sure the rest of the ladies will be able to
come help you. Just remember not to run the water in the main bathroom,” I ordered as I started
walking to our bedroom.
Nikki followed me, moments later, with
Clayton on her hip and a hardness to her eyes.
514/544
“What are we supposed to do when we need
to wash our hands?” She asked.
I raised a brow at her.
“Wash them in the kitchen. Put a bottle of the
eighteen million bottles of antibacterial shit you
have lying around every surface of the house. I
don’t fuckin’ know,” I said, shoving my foot into
my boot.
She sighed.
“You better be here by eight or I’ll kick your
ass,” she growled in mock anger.
I knew she wasn’t mad.
She knew what she was getting into when she
married me.
She knew that the SWAT team was a huge
part of my life.
And she accepted it…and me.
“I love you, baby,” I said, kissing her softly
on the cheek.
515/544
She smiled. “I love you, too.”
With a final kiss on Clay’s head, I rushed out
of the house, only to come to a stop when my
father and mother pulled up with Carolina.
“Hey,” I called, veering around their car to
my truck.
They all waved, and Carolina’s baby blue
eyes followed me.
“Daddy, where are you going? I wanted to
show you my new cat!” Carolina held up a
stuffed cat with a huge, fluffy tail.
It was in a box that distinctly marked it as a
Build-A-Bear.
I narrowed my eyes at my parents. “Nikki’s
going to kill you.”
They grinned unrepentantly.
Rolling my eyes, I blew a kiss to my little girl
and said, “Daddy has to go to work.”
She pouted, but blew me a kiss nonetheless.
516/544
Just like her momma, she knew when daddy
had to leave to ‘go save lives.’
“Take care of my girls, pop,” I ordered my
father.
He winked and helped my mother out of the
car.
“Will do, son, see you tonight.”
I made it to the station twenty minutes later,
and was just in time to see Luke and Bennett
walking from their trucks.
I caught up to them at the door to the station.
“What do we have?” I asked them.
“A multi-city wide fuck up, that’s what.”
Wonderful.
***
Nikki
“Momma, I got a cat!” Caro called the minute
she made it through the front door.
I smiled and handed Clay off to Elizabeth and
caught Carolina just as she barreled into my legs.
I smiled and picked her up, looking at her
new cat.
“Oh, yay,” I said, looking up into her crystal
clear blue eyes. Every time I saw them up close
my heart clutched.
We’d had Caro’s cataracts removed from her
eyes when she was exactly one month of age, and
it’d been the most terrifying experience of my
life.
She’d gone through the surgery remarkably
well, but the sheer horror of having to watch my
baby be wheeled away from me was torture.
Now, though, she was healthy and happy.
518/544
And those eyes that looked exactly like Michael’s sure had a way of making my heart melt.
Each and every time.
“Yeah, Grammy and Poppop spent a hundred
dollars on her. They said I better like her. And
treat her well, because that was the last time they
took me there,” Caro continued.
I smiled and winked at ‘Poppop.’
They were such suckers.
I’d known, of course, the minute they’d said
that they were taking Caro to the Boardwalk, that
they were in for a rude awakening.
Caro was my child.
She could shop until she dropped, and did so
daily.
She could talk just about anyone into anything, which was why her room was filled with
all kinds of toys, clothes, and shit she didn’t
need.
519/544
“Hey! Let go of my kitty!” Caro screamed
when Clay latched onto the kitty and wouldn’t let
go.
“Caro,” I said sternly. “Clay is just a baby.
You can’t yank stuff out of his hands like that.
You could hurt him.”
Caro stuck out her tongue at her brother, who
was all of eight months old so the effect was lost
on him, and crossed her arms.
I smiled and looked down at my hands.
She looked so much like Michael when she
did that that I could barely stand it.
“If y’all wouldn’t mind watching them, I
have to go to Lowe’s…again…and get a coupling for the plumbing underneath the house. And
pick up the cake,” I said, trying valiantly not to
blush and failing miserably.
“Okay, dear. Don’t forget to pick up that prescription you made me call in,” Manuelo said.
The blood in my veins froze.
520/544
Motherfucker!
Shit!
Fuck!
“Okay,” I said shakily, walking to the front
table and clutching my keys in a tight fist.
I was out to the car when I managed to
quietly pull out my phone, open the door to my
Tahoe, and slide inside.
When I started the truck and started to back
out of the driveway, I hit the call button and immediately called Michael.
He didn’t answer, of course.
I didn’t expect him to.
But I wanted his voicemail anyway.
This is Michael, leave a message.
“Michael,” I said quietly. “If you managed to
knock me up again today, I’m going to fucking
521/544
kill you,” I growled, then slammed the phone
button on my steering wheel.
Ineffective but it made me feel better,
nonetheless.
I’d run out of birth control pills two weeks
ago, and had completely forgotten until just yesterday that I’d not been taking them.
Michael and I lived busy lives.
We both had some really odd hours, so on the
off chance that we had been able to find time to
do the deed, in the past two weeks, I’d forced Michael to use a condom.
Something he absolutely loathed doing.
Today, though, I’d completely forgotten.
And I knew, like I’d known with Clayton,
that he’d just knocked me up.
There was something about Michael and his
damn bad intentions that made me lose my mind.
Forget that I didn’t want to be pregnant.
522/544
But there Michael was with that ‘magic dick’
as my lovely friends liked to call it, and all my
inhibitions flew out the window.
And with it went my ability to drink.
Shit.
***
Four hours later, with all my family and
friends around me, I realized that maybe another
kid wouldn’t be so bad after all.
Especially not with Georgia and Nico’s
fourth baby in my arms.
“He’s just the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen!”
I said, rubbing my nose along Heath’s head.
Heath was all of two weeks old, and the very
definition of his father.
“You did good, big brother,” I said, smiling
up at Nico.
Nico winked. “I know.”
“And so humble,” Georgia laughed.
“Nico, humble?” Downy asked after taking a
sip of his beer.
The whole group laughed.
And I looked around at my extended family.
524/544
They were all there.
Luke and Reese with their three children.
Nico and Georgia with their four kids.
Downy and Memphis with their two children.
Miller and Mercy, with their three.
Foster and Blake with their two.
Bennett and Lennox with their two.
My sisters and their husbands and boyfriends.
The Chief and his wife.
My parents. Michael’s Parents.
Joslin and Dean.
Madden and his kiddos.
My husband and children.
Hannah and Wolf – although, that was a new
thing.
They’d spoken on and off for the last few
years, but with the way they were acting, looking
525/544
at each other but not going near the other, I knew
something had transpired.
I just didn’t know what, but I had a feeling
that something would break soon.
And then they’d be just as happy as the rest
of us.
And I was happy
Ecstatically so.
“Here you go, Mama,” Michael said, handing
Clay over.
He took Heath from my arms and handed me
my own little butterball, and I smiled as Michael
gazed longingly into Heath’s little face.
For a man that hadn’t wanted any children, he
sure was adamant about having more and more.
And as I looked around at all the children
running and playing happily in the yard amongst
their parents, I decided that just maybe another
baby wouldn’t be a bad thing.
526/544
As long as I had Michael, I could totally get
on board with another kid.
Because I loved him.
With my whole heart and soul, and I knew
he’d always be there for me.
He was just that type of man.
A man that always had his woman’s back, no
matter what it took.
That’s what true love was.
Coming Soon
Counter To My Intelligence
1-6-16
Prologue
Rules are meant to be
broken…just not quite like that.
-Coffee Cup.
Sawyer
“Bristol, please let’s not do this!” I pleaded
with my best friend.
Bristol looked over at me with a raised brow.
“Finals are over. You don’t have volleyball practice for two months. It’s time to stop being such a
hermit and just be a college freshman like the rest
of us.”
528/544
I shook my head. “I don’t think this is going
to be a good idea. I’m freaking out here, and I’m
not even there. I don’t want to go.”
Bristol looked unimpressed.
“I’m going whether you want to or not. The
decision is up to you,” she left that hanging in the
air, and walked out of our shared dorm, closing
the door quietly behind her.
“Shit,” I sighed.
I really didn’t want to go.
But it was more than apparent that Bristol
did.
I wasn’t one for parties. I was more comfortable curled up with a good book rather than going to a party or hanging out with friends.
I loved Bristol with all my heart, and I knew
she loved me right back.
529/544
We’d been friends for as long as I could remember, and I knew that she’d always be there
for me. Even if I wanted to be left the hell alone.
Bristol had done her best to ‘get me out of my
head’, as she liked to call it, but it would help if I
actually wanted to be out of it.
Which I most certainly did not.
I was a very shy person.
Between her and Isaac, my boyfriend, I was
doomed.
Something he proved in the next minute
when a text showed up on my phone.
Going 2 the party w/ Brooklyn. You better be
there.
Fuck!
I looked longingly over at the new book I
picked up at the grocery store before I walked to
my dresser and pulled out a pair of pants and a
black spaghetti strap shirt.
530/544
It wasn’t the greatest, but it’d do.
I wasn’t there to impress. I was there because
I was being forced.
***
“No, Isaac. I don’t want any,” I growled four
hours later.
I’d already had a beer, and it was one more
than I’d wanted.
I was a lightweight. After more than four, I
wasn’t gonna wake up for a very, very long time.
Which was why I always stayed with one and
one only.
Isaac, though, didn’t seem to care.
“Seriously, I don’t want one!” I said, shoving
it away.
After this night was over, so were Isaac and
me.
He’d tried to publicly grope me and have sex
with me, something we hadn’t done before, and
wouldn’t ever be doing.
532/544
He’d tried to get me to play beer pong, and
when I wouldn’t, he played with a couple of other college coeds.
When I drank the first beer I’d had, he
thought he’d won the lottery and kept trying to
force feed me more.
“You’re such a fuckin’ downer. Get the fuck
away from me,” Isaac slurred.
I wanted to nut punch him.
Repeatedly.
“Well, I think I’ll go home, then,” I hesitated.
“Do you want me to give you a ride?”
His eyes narrowed and he took a look around.
The party had been a ‘bust,’ or so he’d said. I
didn’t know if it had or not.
Seemed there’d been a lot of people there for
me, but they’d slowly drifted out of the main
room until there were about fifteen of us left.
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“Yeah, I’ll go home. Let me go get one more
drink.”
I wanted to tell him no, but I knew that that
was probably the only way I was going to get out
of here.
We were in his truck, after all.
“I’ll go get Bristol,” I said, wandering away
from him.
I found Bristol in the kitchen doing things
that I didn’t think were possible.
Mainly those ‘things’ being drinking upside
down with a tube shoved down her throat while a
few of the football players yelled, ‘chug’ over
and over. She even managed to look good doing
it, too.
“Uh, Bristol?” I called worriedly. “It’s time
to get going, are you ready?”
The football players looked up at me, curiosity in their eyes.
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They’d been doing that all night and I had no
clue why.
I wasn’t anything special, but they were staring at me like I was the biggest piece of juicy
steak they’d ever seen.
“Bristol?” I called again.
The closest football player finally lowered
Bristol’s legs, and she hit the floor with a spewing laugh.
Beer covered her from head to toe.
“I think it’s time to go,” I said softly.
Bristol nodded, so glassy eyed that I thought
for sure she was going to fall over any second.
With the help of the football players, I loaded
a very boisterous Bristol, and a very touchy Isaac
into his big three quarter ton truck.
Isaac’s truck wasn’t my favorite thing to
drive on the best of days, but it being night and
slightly rainy, I knew it wouldn’t be fun at all.
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Regardless of my apprehension, I got into the
driver’s seat, pulled the seat up so I could reach
the pedals and the steering wheel, and started it
up.
“Remember, it pulls to the left,” Isaac slurred,
leaning over the console to run his mouth along
my neck.
I cringed and pushed him slightly to fall back
into his own seat.
“Let me drive, please,” I said pleadingly.
Isaac laughed as he turned to Bristol who was
sitting in the middle of the backseat, staring at us
giddily.
“I knew y’all would make such a great
couple!” She cheered, clapping her hands like she
was a seal at Sea World.
I wanted to flip her off, but it took two hands
to maneuver Isaac’s huge truck.
Did I mention I hated driving it?
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He had huge tires on it.
They were so big that they came up to my
waistline.
His truck was the size of a tank on steroids.
His daddy bought it for him the day he turned
eighteen.
Now, two years later, it still looked brand
new because he took such good care of his ‘precious baby.’
Three years ago, when I got my first car at
eighteen, it’d been because I’d saved money,
since I started working at fifteen.
Although my parents were great, they weren’t
the richest.
In fact, they weren’t even middle class.
We were the ‘barely making it’ class.
Even now, with me out of the house, they
were still struggling to make ends meet.
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But they did have four other kids besides me.
So it was understandable.
But it was also probably why I’d be in debt
until I was fifty.
Paying for my bachelor’s degree in nursing
wasn’t very easy. Thank God for student loans.
Although they wouldn’t be my friends once I
graduated.
“Why are you going so slow, Sawyer? I feel
like we’re crawling!” Bristol yelled, leaning forward on the console.
“Put your seatbelt on or I’ll pull this truck
over,” I said with as much venom as I could.
Neither one of them ever wore seatbelts. And
it drove me nuts.
I heard two clicks, and I turned accusing eyes
onto Isaac.
He knew my rule!
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“Why is it so hard for y’all to follow that
rule? I mean, seriously, it could save your life if
we were in an accident!” I growled, turning back
when I saw lights flash in front of me.
I couldn’t stop.
The car that’d pulled out in front of me did it
at the exact wrong time.
Under normal circumstances, had he done
that, I would’ve missed him.
But I was in Isaac’s huge truck, which was
hard to slow since it was so big.
I was also driving at night. In the rain.
Which meant that, instead of stopping when I
slammed on the brakes, the truck didn’t stop.
It slid.
The brakes locked.
Tires squealed.
Isaac, Bristol, and I screamed.
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And we hit them with a deafening crash.
It was terrible.
I saw the whites of the man’s eyes before the
truck t-boned him.
Saw the woman in the front seat turn to
someone in the back.
Then nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
I couldn’t make my brain make any sense.
And I wouldn’t know it until days later... but
I killed every single person in the vehicle I hit.
And it would all be my fault.
***
Six months later
“After the evidence has been heard, and the
defendant’s testimony, we find the defendant
guilty of four counts of involuntary manslaughter,” the spokesman for the jury said.
My world came to a stop.
All my time.
All my dreams.
Gone.
Every one of them.
Four counts of involuntary manslaughter.
I looked to my mother with tearful eyes.
She looked back at me with the same.
And I closed them, a single tear slipping
down my cheek.
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“Sawyer Ann Berry, you’re sentenced to
eight years in Huntsville. Dismissed,” Judge Abbott declared, finalizing that statement with a
slam of his gavel.
My heart hurt.
I couldn’t breathe.
Eight years.
I’d be nearly thirty when I got out!
“Don’t worry, Sawyer. I’ll get you out. We’ll
appeal it. I promise you,” my father’s good friend
and my attorney, Donald Barber, promised.
I looked at him and shook my head.
“Just…just take care of my parents. They’re going to need you.”
He smiled at me sadly. “I will, pumpkin.”
My only hope, once the appeal was denied,
was that I’d make parole.
I looked over at my best friend, who understandably felt horrible, and my boyfriend…whom
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I hadn’t broken up with because he’d become my
rock.
Maybe not as much of a boyfriend anymore
as much as a huge support system.
The two of them had become my soul reason
for making it through.
They’d stayed with me, despite what I’d
done.
And I couldn’t thank them enough.
***
Four years later
“Parole denied.”
My eyes closed, and my heart ripped in half.
The last thread holding it in one piece was
gone.
Most likely forever.
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