Emergency Delivery (Love Emergency) (16 page)

“But?”

So much for reasoning with herself. She swallowed and looked into Hunter’s eyes. “But he gets in over his head, with scary-bad people. I don’t know them, and I don’t want to know them…and I don’t think any of them would do his dirty work for him and call it even. I do think they’ll start breaking his bones if he doesn’t come through with the cash he owes.”

Hunter linked his fingers through hers. “You think he owes ten grand?”

She reviewed their conversation in her mind, including how he originally tried to lowball her for five thousand. “Uh-uh. I think ten grand buys him some breathing room. He probably owes way more. Ten grand was his bottom line.”

“All right.” He planted a kiss on her forehead. “We’ll be extra cautious for a couple weeks.”

“Until the fingerprint results?”

“Honey, if he owes scary-bad people way over ten grand, the fingerprint results are irrelevant. He’ll either find a way to pay them in the next week or so, or they’ll…well…let’s just say, he’ll default. Permanently. Loan sharks don’t offer deferments, or extended payment plans, or forgiveness programs.”

Cold vines twined up her spine, despite the heat coming off Hunter’s body. “Oh.”

“Got any plans for February 29th?”

The sudden shift of topic left her blinking, and then her stupid heart soared. He wanted to make plans. With her. Like people in a real relationship did. Maybe she was more to him than a damsel in distress? “Um, it’s a Saturday, right?” She pulled the following weekend’s schedule into her mind. “Aside from work that morning, not really. You?”

He folded an arm behind his head. “I do, actually.”

Her soaring heart nosedived. “Oh.”

“Beau’s wedding.”

“Oh.”
Pick another response
. “They’re getting married on Leap Day? How romantic.”

“Try cheap and lazy. He only has to deal with his anniversary every four years.”

She smacked him on the shoulder. “It’s romantic.”

“Yeah, well, I’m glad you think so, because I’m hoping you’ll come with me. You and Joy. She should be up to a little interaction by then.”

Her heart took flight without requesting clearance for takeoff. Again. Had he really just invited Joy and her to join him for an important event, packed with his closest friends and their families? A man didn’t ask a woman to a wedding out of a sense of duty, or because she happened to be living in his house and sharing his bed, for the moment. He genuinely wanted them there with him. “We’d love to.”

“Good.” He grinned down at her and looked strangely relieved. “That takes a load off my mind, because it’s an out-of-town wedding, and I don’t think now’s the time to leave you and Joy alone overnight…

He went on about logistics, but she didn’t hear him over the sound of her heart shattering upon impact with the cold, hard truth. He wasn’t looking for a perfect occasion to introduce her and Joy to his friends, or send her a sign he wanted to expand their…
arrangement
to something ongoing. This invitation sprang from a sense of duty, after all. He didn’t want to leave Joy and her alone in the house for the better part of a weekend. This was Hunter Knox in rescue mode. No good. She couldn’t do it. “I-I can’t.”

He paused in the middle of whatever he’d been saying. “Can’t what?”

“I can’t go. I have to work that Saturday morning.”

He sat up higher in the bed, which she read as him preparing to get his way. Not going to happen. Not this time.

“Talk to your manager. Get the weekend off.”

She sat up, too. “I need my shifts, Hunter. I need the money. You’re not the only one with goals around here, you know.” Okay, that landed in left field like a big ball of psycho. His wary expression said as much.

“Madison, I’m not trying to interfere with your goals. I know how important it is to you to stand on your own two feet. I’ve been there.” He leaned in, fearless as a lion tamer, and kissed her temple, her cheekbone. “I understand.” His mouth wandered to her earlobe, and she felt her resolve draining away like bathwater. Against the underside of her jaw, he murmured, “I just want my girls with me.”

My girls
. Oh, God. She was going to give in. Even if the invitation sprang from his deep-seated need to ride to the rescue—the temptation to be “his girl” for a few precious hours proved too hard to resist. She wanted to be his girl, forever, but realistically, forever wasn’t in the cards. Their trajectories were moving them apart, not together. They had the here and now, and she didn’t have the strength to forfeit it.

“If Nelle’s available to babysit, I could leave Joy with her Saturday morning, work my shift, and then pick her up and drive to Magnolia Grove. We’d make it just in time for the ceremony. What do you think?”

He smiled against the side of her neck, and his rough jaw tickled her skin.

Dangerously charming
.

“I think I’d better save the first dance for you.”

Chapter Eighteen

“Any news on the ex?”

Hunter swallowed a handful of fries and shook his head at Beau. “Nope. Atlanta PD won’t have fingerprint results until next week, at the earliest, but Madison hasn’t seen or heard from him.”

His partner nodded, took a drag of his soda, and stared through the windshield at the Monday lunchtime traffic on Peachtree Road. “Good. Although part of me wishes he’d try something, so you can kick his ass, the cops can haul him off, and Madison can have some peace of mind.”

“Not that I don’t welcome the opportunity to kick his ass, but I don’t think it was him who broke in. If so, I doubt he has the balls to try again.”

“You’re probably right. Speaking of balls, I can’t believe you finally grew a pair and asked Madison to be your date for the wedding.” Beau managed the insult around a mouthful of burger.

“Do not talk to me about growing a pair, Beauregard. There wouldn’t even be a wedding this Saturday if it weren’t for my balls of steel.”

Beau choked on his burger then pounded his chest and sucked down some soda to clear his airway. “How do you figure?”

Hunter crumpled his burger wrapper and tossed it in the bag. “When I picked up my phone at the ass-crack of dawn Christmas morning to hear Savannah’s little sister outline, in gory detail, every inhumane punishment she planned to inflict on your—and I quote—‘worthless dick,’ I had your back. A less steel-balled man would have told the furiously imaginative Sinclair Smith to do what she had to do to, and hung up. Not me. I stepped up and told her I’d talk some sense into you.” He folded his arms, sat back in the passenger seat, and smiled. “And I did.”

Beau made a disparaging noise. “You got me drunk.”

“I work in mysterious ways. You don’t always appreciate my genius.”

“That’s for sure. I guess Madison appreciates something about you, since she accepted your invitation.”

He shifted in his seat, suddenly restless. “I don’t know.” Even he heard the frustration in his voice. “She almost turned me down because she has to work Saturday morning. When I suggested she ask for the weekend off, she accused me of not caring about her goals. Like I’m trying to sabotage her plans to get her own place.” He kicked the floorboard.

“Okay.” Beau turned and leveled a steady stare on him. “Time for a reality check, Knox. You don’t want her to move out. How about you get a grip on your big steel balls and tell her how you feel?”

The restless feeling kicked up a notch. “We’ve been over this. She needs to prove to herself she can stand on her own two feet, and I need to clear my plate so I can concentrate on school this fall. I’m not going to lay out time, effort, and money to fail again, and that means there are certain distractions I can’t afford right now, no matter how much I want to—”

“I agreed, originally, but after seeing you two together on a night when you definitely were not at your best, and listening to you talk incessantly about her and Joy, I’ve realized a couple things. First”—he extended a finger—“you’re not some overwhelmed, eighteen-year-old kid. You’ve learned how to juggle your fucking priorities. Second, and more importantly”—he put up a second finger—“Madison isn’t some frightened, knocked-up teen trying to cling to you so hard she drags you down. She’d be nothing but supportive of your efforts, and you damn well know it. You’re running scared, plain and simple, but instead of admitting as much, you sit here painting Madison and Joy as distractions—insulting, by the way—and justifying your cowardice as prudence.”

“Jesus Christ, all I did was show up to work today.” He crushed his fast food bag to keep from pounding his fist on the dash. “I don’t remember signing up for a personality profile, but thanks for diagnosing me as a chicken-shit bastard, Dr. Montgomery. Your expert opinion means a lot.”

“It should.” His partner turned and pinned him with a serious look. “Because I am an expert on fear, and I know a thing or two about behaving like a bastard. I recognize the signs well enough. What I can’t figure out is whether you’re afraid of failing, or afraid of how you feel about Madison and Joy. Or both.”

Fuck. Why was it so cramped in here? And hot? A headache dug into his frontal lobe like a backhoe. He hit the button to lower his window halfway and breathed in the fifty-degree air. “If Ashley doesn’t get off her ass and write me a rec letter, I don’t have to worry about failing.”

“Don’t change the subject. She’ll write the letter. She’s just making you sweat. Besides, her letter is only for the local school. You applied to, what, four out-of-state schools? You’ll get accepted to one of them. You can take your balls of steel and your fear of failure to Durham or Nashville.”

“I’m not going out of state.” The words came out fast and irrational, considering he’d spent time and money on those applications. He hadn’t even realized he’d crossed the possibility off his list until this moment.

Beau’s brows shot up. “Kind of a late-breaking decision. Why not?”

“Because…fuck…I don’t know.” He lowered the window the rest of the way. “Why are you being such a relentless bitch about this? My life is here.”

“Really? Your have zero family here. You rent your house. You won’t have the job when you go back to school. Your life seems pretty portable to me. In fact, I’d say you’ve done your best not to sink your roots too deep, so why the sudden unshakeable attachment to Atlanta?” He gestured outside the window of the ambulance. “What’s here that you can’t live without?”

“Not you, that’s for damn sure.”

“No.” His partner folded his arms and leaned against the door, as if he had all the time in the world to spend on this ridiculous conversation. “Not me. Who?”

His heart kicked in his chest. Hard and sharp, like a boot heel to his sternum. He opened his mouth to say nobody, because that was the right answer—the answer best suited to both their plans—but a different response clawed its way out of his throat. “Madison.”

Holy shit
.

But true. The truth vibrated in his bones. His soul. He drew in a deep breath and his headache backed off a bit. “Madison and Joy. I can’t imagine my life without them, and they’re here, in Atlanta.”

“Not just in Atlanta, Hunt. They’re in your house. Under your roof. Even if you stay local, do you really want them in an apartment across town?”

Hell no. Somewhere between the side of the I-75 and the umpteenth three a.m. feeding, he’d gone and done the one thing he couldn’t afford to do. He’d fallen in love with them, and no amount of sticking to his plans would undo it. He wanted them with him, but… “It’s what she wants.”

Beau swept that aside with an impatient hand. “Uh-uh. Moving into her own place is one means to an end. She
wants
to feel needed, not needy. She
wants
to respect herself and feel like she brings something important to the table.” He shoved Hunter’s shoulder. “Find a way to get her there without loading up her car.”

Hunter shoved him back. “Beau, the woman is stubborn. I can’t just sit her down and tell her how it’s going to be.”

“Like I don’t know a thing about stubborn women? You’ve met Savannah, right? I didn’t say sit her down and tell her how it’s going to be. Try telling her how you feel. Here’s a helpful hint, Romeo. Women love weddings. It’s a perfect time to bare your heart.”

And left him four days to prepare, so he could do it right.

…

“She looks adorable in this one.” Nelle danced Joy in front of the mirror above the dresser, admiring the way the skirt of the red velvet dress swirled.

Madison smiled up at them from her place on the guestroom rug and folded another of the little outfits Rachel had given her. “You said the same thing about the last dress, and the one before.”

“Can I help if she looks adorable in everything? Anyway”—she sat on the bed and gestured at the selection of tiny dresses and shoes scattered around on the comforter—“Joy’s got plenty of clothes to choose from. I’m more curious to see what you’re planning to wear to this wedding.”

Yeah. Me, too.
She picked a fuzz ball off her baggy black V-neck sweater and then plucked the frayed edge of a worn-to-threads tear at the knee of her jeans. “I’m not sure yet.” Her belly was almost back to pre-pregnancy proportions, but thanks to breastfeeding and pumping, she still couldn’t pack her tits into her old clothes. Even if she could, her options were limited. Madison Foley wasn’t normally on the fancy wedding guest list. She didn’t want to embarrass Hunter by showing up in something inappropriate, but she found the expense of a new dress hard to justify.

“Show me the short list,” Nelle said.

Madison managed a laugh and got to her feet. “It’s a very short list, consisting of two choices.” She opened the closet and pulled out her black maternity button-down dress—a twin to the blue one she’d been wearing the day Joy arrived. “I know this is kind of casual, but I thought with a belt, some dark tights, and my black heels… Maybe?”

“Hmm.” Nelle tipped her head to the side and considered the dress, a slight frown tugging the corners of her mouth. “What’s the other option?”

Right. No amount of accessories would turn a button-down into a ball gown. She hung the dress back up and reached deeper into the closet. “There’s this.” She pulled out a short, sleeveless, pearl gray dress in a shimmery fabric.

The older woman’s frown faded. “That is definitely the one you should wear. It’s perfect. The color sets off your eyes, and the cut flatters a young figure like yours.”

“Ha.” She held the dress up to herself. “That’s nice of you to say, but the truth is I’m not sure it fits anymore. I got this when I first arrived in Atlanta. I didn’t even realize I was pregnant yet. Cody told me to buy something pretty so he could take me out on the town, and I fell in love with this. I thought it was so classy and sophisticated.”

“And you were right on both counts. We’ll make it fit. That’s what Spanx are for. Try it on.”

She stripped in the bathroom and shimmied into the dress. It fit through the hips and middle, which encouraged her. She worked the zipper as far up as her reach would allow and then walked back to the bedroom. “Can I trouble you to zip me?”

“Sure thing. Here.” She handed Joy over. Madison turned to face the mirror, held Joy so they were back-to-front, and then smiled and waved to the baby’s reflection. Nelle ran the zipper to the end of its track and stepped back.

Madison exhaled. “Holy sh—moly. It fits.”

“It fits like a dream. How does it feel?”

“Good. Not too tight. Maybe a little snug in the”—she shifted Joy to her hip, and her eyes dropped to the neckline—“oh my God. I can’t go out in public like this.”

“What?” Nelle’s brow furrowed. “Why on earth not?”

Seven months ago the fitted neckline displayed a tasteful glimpse of cleavage. Now it displayed…too much. She turned and faced her neighbor. “I look like a reject from
The Real Housewives of Atlanta
.”

“You look amazing. Sophisticated, classy, and sexy. Sure, your figure is different now, but trust me, when you’re my age, you’ll look back on these days and wonder what you had to be self-conscious about. You’ll wonder why you didn’t celebrate everything you had going on.”

“I don’t want people to be whispering behind their hands about the best man’s date.”

Nelle put her hands on Madison’s shoulders and turned her back to the mirror. “All they’ll say is, ‘How’d he get so lucky?’ Look at you. Hunter Knox won’t know what hit him.”

She fiddled with the neckline and considered the dress again. The idea of blowing Hunter away held appeal. Was it so wrong to want him to see her as sophisticated, classy, and sexy? To pretend he’d asked her to be his date because she beguiled him, and not because she was a sex-starved single mama with a heap of troubles who happened to tap into his hyperactive sense of responsibility?

Yeah, right. As if the right dress would magically transform her into a woman who had her act together—the kind of woman Hunter belonged with. She sat heavily on the bed and bounced Joy on her knee. For the billionth time, she wished they’d met under normal circumstances—nobody as the rescuer, nobody needing rescue—just a cute paramedic who’d walked into the coffee shop one morning and flashed his sexy smile at her. She shook the pointless fantasy out of her head. “Nelle, I’m the lucky one in the Hunter-Madison dynamic, and we all know it. We also know this is not some big romance. He’s helping me out. It’s temporary.”

She was helping him, too, in her own small way, assuming the envelope she’d put in the outgoing mail earlier this week counted for anything.

Nelle rested her hands on Madison’s shoulders and met her eyes in the mirror. “I want to give you something to think about, honey. Hunter’s been my neighbor quite a few years. In that time, I’ve seen a steady stream of women come and go, and you know what?”

She already spent too much time thinking about Hunter’s steady stream of women, but Nelle seemed to expect a reply, so she said, “What?”

“You’re the only one who
hasn’t
been temporary.”