Authors: Erin Nicholas
“
More
clothes on. You need to wear more clothes period.”
“It’s probably Kat.”
“It might be Luke.”
She froze and her eyes flew to his.
His words seemed to echo off the walls.
It might be Luke.
Marc wanted her more dressed in case it was the man who had proposed to her—who she had said maybe to. The man who, if she said yes, would have the right to see her dressed in anything—or nothing at all.
Marc felt his gut tighten at the thought and gritted his teeth. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
“You might want to untuck your shirt too,” she finally said, glancing at his crotch—and the still very present erection—before she turned and took the steps two at a time.
He took a deep breath as the doorbell rang.
So it wasn’t Kat.
Marc strode across the foyer to the door and yanked it open. If it was Luke he was going to tell him to back off. Sabrina needed some time to think about things.
It wasn’t Luke.
“Marc? Hi, son. What are you doing here?” Bill Cassidy pushed in past him. “I’m here to see Sabrina.”
“I’m here helping her get settled,” Marc said, shutting the door behind Sabrina’s father. “She just moved over here.”
“Yeah, I heard.” Bill turned a huge grin on Marc. “’Course she’ll be moving again soon. Hope you didn’t unpack everything.”
“Moving again?” Marc asked, glancing at the steps, hoping Sabrina would stay up there. “How about coffee?” Maybe if they were in the kitchen she wouldn’t hear her dad’s voice and come down.
Bill needed to not know about the baby and the proposal. He would be thrilled with Luke and Sabrina being together and if he knew there was a baby he’d likely insist on the wedding being tomorrow.
“She won’t move in until after the wedding,” Bill said. “But we’ll do that ASAP. So no sense in her getting too settled here.”
Marc scowled. Apparently he’d been right on with the thrilled and the wedding-tomorrow stuff. “I take it you’ve talked to Luke?”
“I just left The Camelot. He told me all of it.”
“Did he tell you she didn’t give him an answer?” Marc was surprised by how much he hated that Luke was talking, by how much Bill loved the idea and by how sharp his own words sounded.
Bill frowned. “What do you mean? He said he proposed.”
“He did. But she didn’t answer.”
“Why not?” Bill shook his head and sighed. “That girl has
never
had any sense.”
Marc clenched and unclenched his fist. He knew from Sabrina’s story that Bill had pushed his daughter out of a sense of not being quite good enough himself. Marc understood that. But Bill had always wanted more than whatever she gave. She was more than good enough—she was amazing. And that was true with or without Bill pushing her. In fact, it seemed true in spite of Bill.
“She’s thinking it over. That’s smart, don’t you think? It’s a big decision.”
“It shouldn’t be. This is Luke. She should say yes and drag him to a church before he changes his mind.”
Marc shook his head. “Sir, I don’t think you have any idea who your daughter really is.”
Sabrina stood at the top of the stairs listening to Marc and her father.
Her father.
Of course he’d talked to Luke. They talked every day and Luke would never think of keeping her arrival in town a secret. Or his proposal. Dammit. Her father would think this was fantastic. Just like he’d said to Marc.
What was keeping her rooted to the spot instead of stomping down the steps was Marc. He sounded angry and was defending her.
She’d never had anyone defend her to her father. Luke had kept him calm. Luke had distracted him. But he’d never outright told Bill that he was wrong.
In fact, she wasn’t sure Luke had ever thought Bill was wrong.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Bill asked Marc.
“If you think any man, could change his mind about being with your daughter, then you don’t know her very well.”
“I know that Luke is successful, well-liked, smart, secure and an upstanding member of this community. Exactly the kind of man Sabrina should be with.”
Her dad sounded mad. Which she was sure Marc knew he would be. But he’d said it anyway. And what he’d said was amazing.
He kissed like a god, had made her come within five minutes of touching her—a definite record—and was now telling her father that any guy would be lucky to have her.
She’d just fallen a little bit in love with Marc Sterling.
“And you’re here to…” Marc trailed off.
“Talk to my daughter about her upcoming wedding,” Bill said firmly.
“She’s sleeping and not feeling well. You should wait until later.”
“I haven’t seen her in four years,” Bill protested.
“Part of that’s on you, Bill,” Marc said, his voice firm but calm.
“She was in California.”
She could hear Marc’s sigh from the second floor.
“Seattle, actually.”
Her stomach flipped hearing him say Seattle, even when it wasn’t as the nickname he’d given her. She loved that he called her that. She wanted to hear it every day.
Luke wouldn’t like that.
Her chest felt tight at that thought.
“Wherever,” Bill said.
“Wherever?”
She could hear the tension in Marc’s voice.
“Like it doesn’t matter?” Mark asked.
“It doesn’t matter now. She’s back.”
“It shouldn’t matter where she is and what she’s doing only when she’s where you think she should be and doing what you want.” Marc’s voice was low and clearly angry.
Sabrina put a hand to her mouth. She couldn’t believe Marc had said that. He couldn’t know that she’d tried calling Bill once and had been hung up on. He didn’t know that she’d sent postcards to Bill like she did to Luke.
“I don’t know what this is, but you’re overstepping,” Bill said tightly.
“Maybe,” Marc agreed. “But I guess I’m not done. She’ll be coming in to work tonight at the restaurant. You can see her then.”
Sabrina barely muffled another gasp. Marc was throwing her dad out.
And he’d decided to give her the bartending job, apparently.
Seeing her dad in public like that the first time would be so much easier. How did Marc know that? Or did he?
She couldn’t hear Bill’s answer but could hear the displeasure in his voice and she would put twenty bucks on the fact that he was going to go straight to Luke and tattle on how Marc had treated him.
And Luke would likely side with Bill.
Luke had always seen things Bill’s way. She believed that he truly cared about her dad. In fact, she’d often believed that he cared more about Bill than he did Sabrina. Taking care of Sabrina had pleased her father. Luke had taken some of Bill’s burden, truth be told.
She heard the front door shut and held her breath, waiting. Would Marc come upstairs?
If he did, would she be able to keep her clothes on?
And if she didn’t, was that a bad thing?
But a minute later Marc was not climbing the stairs. In fact, she heard no noise on the lower level at all.
She heard her dad’s car start up. Then another engine start as well.
She ran to into the bedroom that overlooked the driveway and saw her father back out, then Marc.
He was
leaving
? He gave her a hard and fast orgasm up against the wall in the hallway, stood toe to toe with her father for her, then left without a word?
Sabrina backed up and sat down on the edge of Kat’s bed.
He’d given her a hard and fast orgasm up against the wall in the hallway.
She’d never been that hot, that turned on, ever. She’d wanted him, all of him, more than she’d ever wanted anything. She would have given him anything he wanted in those moments.
She dropped her head to her hands.
No one had ever had that effect on her before.
Certainly not Luke.
The man she’d said
maybe
to earlier that day.
Marrying Luke was a smart thing to do. It was. It made sense. He was everything she should want. Everything any woman should want. He was all of the things her father said, along with good-looking, sweet and willing to marry her in spite of the baby that wasn’t his.
He’d be a fantastic father. A wife and family to raise in Justice was as much a part of Luke’s dreams as The Camelot.
She’d had a chance at her dream and it hadn’t worked out.
Maybe it was time to focus on a dream she could make come true—even if it was someone else’s.
She put her hand against her stomach.
She could make everything turn out right for
two
people.
Luke and the baby who she was completely responsible for. The baby she wanted to do the right things for. The baby who needed her to make a series of very important, very right decisions.
It was all on her shoulders.
Another life.
A child.
Her
child.
Marrying Luke was the logical, sensible, smart, reasonable thing to do.
It was time for her to be logical, sensible, smart and reasonable.
Rather than go back to The Camelot, Marc found himself headed for the Hamiltons’. Karen would be there and he suddenly had the urge to see her.
As he let himself in through the front door he passed the wall display of family photographs and he stopped, as he always did, to look at his favorites. He was in many of them but his favorite by far was the family portrait they’d had taken for Christmas when he was twelve.
His parents had been killed in late April that year. He’d been a part of the Hamiltons’ family since early May. They’d been loving, accepting, supportive from day one, but when they’d all gathered for the family picture that would be on the front of their Christmas card that year, he’d been amazed. They’d put him right in front with Luke, Karen and David around him—literally surrounding him with their love and bringing him firmly into the center of their family in the same way they’d done figuratively all along.
He’d never felt like an extra. He’d been a Hamilton as of May third even if the adoption papers said August. He’d felt it.
That meant everything to him. It still did.
Without the Hamiltons he would have been alone in the world. He wouldn’t have been in the photographs that he kept and preserved almost obsessively. He wouldn’t have treasured mementos like the rocks he and Luke had collected on a family vacation to the Black Hills, or the ticket stubs he’d kept from the major league baseball games David had taken them to, or the watch Karen and David had given him on his sixteenth birthday. He had memories and keepsakes and gifts because he’d had a family. Because of the Hamiltons.
He’d never do anything to hurt them.
Being with Sabrina would hurt Luke, which would hurt Karen and David. Sabrina was probably the most amazing woman he’d ever met, but he couldn’t risk it. Not just because he loved them, but because he needed the family dinners and holidays, the phone calls checking on him when he had a cold, the fishing trips with David and helping Karen redo the linoleum in the kitchen. He needed to be needed, to belong, to have people who cared where and how he was. Not wanting to hurt them wasn’t purely selfless.
“Mom?” he called as he headed for the kitchen. “You here?”
“Of course,” she called back.
The smell of cinnamon led him. The house always smelled like cinnamon. Karen baked three times a week and her specialties were apple pie and snickerdoodle cookies.
It was no secret to Marc why cinnamon was his favorite flavor and scent. It reminded him of home.
“How are you, honey?” Karen paused in her mixing to kiss his cheek as he hugged her.
“I’m okay. Been a long couple of days. Thought I’d come by for some TLC.”
“I’ve got plenty of that,” she said with a laugh, motioning for him to sit at the table. “Anything I can help with?”
Marc knew she meant it. If there was something she could do to make things better for him she would. “Nah. Just need to sort through some things.”
Like wanting the pregnant woman who might be marrying his brother.
Just for instance.
Karen put cookies and milk in front of him and Marc didn’t even pretend to be too old or mature. He dug in.
“I have a strange question for you,” he said after the first cookie was gone.
“Okay, I’m intrigued,” Karen answered, sliding another full cookie sheet into the oven.
“What do you like best about being a mom?”
She turned with a funny look on her face. “That’s a great question. Just a little out of the blue. Any special reason why you want to know? Are you okay?”
Dunking a cookie, he tried not to make eye contact. He had a hard time lying, or even bending the truth, with Karen.
Karen was going to say that being a mom was wonderful, but he wanted to hear specifics. He wanted to know that the baby was going to be good for Sabrina and that it would give her some of the things she hadn’t had before. Some of the things she needed. Love, trust, acceptance, someone who thought she was wonderful.
He couldn’t put his finger on the moment when he’d started caring so much about how she felt, but he did. Talking with her father earlier had only reinforced that. Her dad had always wanted more from her than what she gave. Luke had always wanted something different from her than what she gave. Her mom hadn’t even been around. But Marc knew from personal experience that a child would look at her with stars in their eyes. He or she would believe that Sabrina had super powers and could do no wrong.
And in many ways they would be right. Moms had special powers, for sure. And he was glad that Sabrina was going to have someone who believed that of her.
“I just found out a friend is pregnant,” he said, stretching the truth only slightly. He and Sabrina hadn’t been friends for long, that was certain, but he could honestly say he that he no longer disliked her. “So it’s been on my mind.”
Karen seemed to sense that this was more than a casual conversation. She took her apron off and joined him at the table with a cup of coffee.
“Okay, what did I like best about being a mom?” She sipped her coffee, thinking. “Well, first of all the question sounds a little past-tense. What I liked about being a mom in the past is the same thing I like about being a mom now. I like seeing my children happy.”