Her Two Billionaires and a Baby (26 page)

She what?

“You two lied badly enough – twice – to crush my best friend's heart. The best friend I've been with now through the first half of a pregnancy.” Her voice rose. “Were you there when she cried her eyes out over you two? When she started to get morning sickness? How about when I went out to get the tests and we went through them, one by one, and they all read positive – where were you?”

“We didn't know – ”

“I know you didn't know, Dylan. Why do you think you didn't know?” Nostrils flaring, hands on hips, she looked like a miniature Joan Jett doing a SpongeBob imitation, all yellow fury. “Because she thought you didn't tell her about your money because you didn't
trust
her. She was fucking overwhelmed and confused. And by the way – use a damn rubber sometimes, you two!”

OK, she had him there. He should have. Mike didn't? A side glance at Mike, who imperceptibly shook his head. So it really
could
be either of them.

“Forgive me,” she said bitterly, as if asking for anything but forgiveness, “if I seem overly protective. Someone has to be, though, because the greatest threat to Laura – and her baby – so far has been fire, and
you
.”

Wham
. As if struck between the eyes by a hot ball of lead, Dylan nearly sank to the floor. Fuck all. He resented the hell out of what Josie was saying but he had to admit she was right. The wince on Mike's face said she'd struck his target, too. Bullseye.

Double bullseye. She walked off, fast and efficient, just like a nurse. Except they weren't her patients. Quite the opposite. They were her wounded, her words meant to hurt, to get the point driven home.

And she had succeeded.

Shoulders slumped, he sighed. Ah, man, he had to get back to the station to do reports and go through debriefings. Mike looked at him and pointed to the hallway toward the parking garage. A slow walk to the elevators was rote enough that he just kept moving forward, brain turned to mush.

“What now?” Mike asked as they waited for the elevator.

“You'll drive me back to my place?” They'd left Dylan's car in the apartment garage and come in the Jeep.

“I'll drive us back to our place.” Dylan closed his eyes and leaned against Mike, nodding.

Sometimes it didn't have to be so complicated.

Thank God.

Chapter Nine

Mike held the smartphone's camera up and surveyed the soot-covered room slowly. Laura's apartment building had just been opened for him and Dylan to come down, the fire investigation completed enough that they permitted residents to remove vital items. The conclusion: an electrical fire that started in the breaker box in the basement, directly under Laura's place.

She was damn lucky. A few more minutes and...well, he wouldn't be holding a camera streaming live video to her on her smart phone, her sweet face asking questions and giving directions as she rested under a down throw on his couch, looking relaxed and healing nicely.

His couch. At the cabin. When the fire investigators told her she wouldn't be able to go back to her apartment for weeks, if not months, the structural damage too great for people to live there, the news had seemed to crush her. Quick to offer help, he and Dylan had both tried to get her to move in. Cabin vs. apartment?

She'd chosen the cabin. Who knew why, and he didn't care. Josie was with her, helping to acclimate her, and now he and Dylan were on a mission to bring back whatever she wanted. Life as he knew it was over. Not just the past four painful, grueling months, but the time before that as well. He and Dylan would never be the same again. It was less about hiding the truth from Laura (
twice
) and more about what seemed to be a strange role reversal, with Dylan calmer, more reserved, more mature and Mike more emotive, charismatic, and, well –

Alpha.

“Not my circle chair!” Laura groaned as Mike pointed his phone at it. Black. “That used to be a really nice mauve.”

“It's toast now,” Mike muttered.

“Laura, a restoration and cleaning company should really get in here before you take anything home,” Dylan interjected, arms crossed, brow furrowed, voice uncharacteristically stern and bureaucratic. “You shouldn't inhale any of the soot from the fire.”

“Mike said he'd wash everything three times before I wear it,” she answered, voice echoing from the tinny speaker. Dylan shot him a look of pure evil. Mike's saucy grin was his only answer.

“Suck up,” Dylan hissed.

Mike thought that over for a second. “I'll own that.” Deeper grin. Dylan's eyeroll felt like a victory.

Two hours later he and Dylan were straining to carry out a slew of choices Laura had made, from clothing to heirlooms to the cat beds, although he had repeatedly offered to buy her whatever she needed.

“Why does she want all this?” he asked Dylan as they crammed it into the back of the jeep. “Her coconut shampoo? Seriously?”

“It's comfort. Control. Fire victims need it, so it's good to do this for her. I've seen people cry over a dirty seventy-nine cent can opener. When your house catches fire and you survive, things take on more meaning.” Mike eyed a hand-knitted lap throw Laura had screamed about when found intact. Her grandma had made it. She wanted it for the baby's crib.

“
Her
things, you mean.”

“Right. It's not the same if you swoop in and just replace it all with a four-figure trip to Target.” Surveying the load, Mike started to understand. Laura hadn't asked for appliances or expensive electronics. She wanted photo albums and video cartridges and clothing. Personal stuff you couldn't really replace easily.

And the damn gallon jug of coconut shampoo.

“Gotcha.” Mike relished the drive back to the cabin, knowing she was there. Dylan had put dinner in the oven before they left, a slow-cooking roast, and tonight would be the first night they would all spend together.

As a family?
The thought went through his mind so fast, like a blink, that he didn't dare dwell on it. If he did, it might not happen.

Please let it happen.
For the first time in months, the drive up the mountain felt like he was really coming home, Dylan singing along to some '80s Christmas song, the late-autumn sun warming his skin as the prospect of creating a true home with Dylan, Laura and their baby warmed his heart.

“I still think you are nuts. And not warlock waitress nuts. Crazy.
Cray cray.
The baby needs to have a father on the birth certificate.”

Laura sat on the sectional sofa, butt sinking deep into the soft leather, a warm red down comforter keeping her toasty. Getting up would be harder than getting comfortable, but she had Josie to help. And, soon, Mike and Dylan. Snuggles moved a foot along the top of the sofa, chasing a patch of sun.

“Well, hello to you, too, Miss Merry Sunshine,” Laura cracked. She gratefully accepted the cup of decaf Josie offered.

“They'll be here soon and this is the first chance I've had in a week to talk openly with you. Those two seemed to have had a schedule for making sure one of them was always there in the hospital.”

“They did.”

Josie's face was agog. “All so I couldn't talk alone with you?”

Sip
. “I don't think that's why.”
Sip.
“Just, you know, because we're – ” What words were supposed to come out next? Together? Were they back together? Laura didn't know where they stood, actually. Five days in the hospital had been long enough to learn that she was fine. The baby was fine. The polyhydramnios had actually improved a bit, though it wasn't gone. She would need constant monitoring for the rest of the pregnancy, but they hadn't found any problems with the baby that explained it. Being extra-big with added fluid would make it harder to move around, and could make the delivery a bit risky, but they'd ruled out birth defects.

Which had been the best news Laura had received in – well,
ever
. Diana had reviewed her chart with Sheri and the supervising obstetrician, Dr. Kalharian, and they'd agreed on a schedule for follow-up care.

Her orders: go home, rest, hydrate, recover.

Easier said than done, because she'd had no home. Until Mike and Dylan had offered her one. Josie, too. Deciding had been hard and easy at the same time. Josie was the easy choice, and her friend seemed to assume Laura would pick her.

But her heart, her gut – her
womb
– told her to go heal in the mountains.

She figured out pretty quickly that the guys would respect her, would treat her like a queen, and would wait on her hand and foot if she stayed at the cabin. Dylan had told her, with a quiet serenity and troubled demeanor that was so unlike him, about his and Mike's...fight? Breakup? What word do you use when there isn't one to describe the relationship in the first place?

So many strands of the relationship between the three of them had been snapped by someone deciding not to tell a simple secret, the kind of information that really wasn't a deal breaker, but that can become one if withheld for too long. Dylan and Mike really cared about her – she knew that, and knew that by screaming at them that day at Josie's months ago, she'd created a rift that needed mending.

And yet she absolutely was not the only one with some guilt to work through. The guys hadn't told her they knew each other, and she was still uneasy, in a tiny place deep inside, about how they had come to her, orchestrated that wonderful first night. Getting over that had been hard, but not impossible. Could she find a place for their other secret?

Staring around the room, she suspected she could. The vaulted ceilings, the knotty pine, the startling view of the snow-covered ski trails, and the cozy fire burning in the fireplace all made her feel like she could –

“ – eat shit?”

“Huh?”

Josie stared at her. “I still don't get why you didn't tell Mike and Dylan they could just go and eat shit, but I respect your decision.” Her tone of voice made it clear she did not. “How's little Josie today?”

“You mean little Laura?”

“Whatever.”
Bzzzz.
Laura found a text from Mike: “
Need anything at the store? Ice cream and pickles?
”

She read it aloud. Josie softened. “That is really sweet.”

Laura typed back: “
Nope. Thanks! <3
”

“You're going to regret that at midnight when you want salted caramel ice cream.” Josie stood and reached for her purse.

“You're leaving?” Panic fluttered in her chest. Or was that the baby kicking again? Touching her belly, she shook her head slightly, to herself. Nope. Panic.

“Four – er,
five
,” she pointed to Laura's midsection, “is a crowd.”

Reckoning. This would be it. Mike and Dylan would come back and they'd wash her things and she would need to find a rhythm here as she recovered, the three of them settling in to – what? What, exactly, were they to each other? And then there was the issue of –

“ – who the father is.” An expectant look covered Josie's face.

“Huh?”

“The baby is sucking your brain right out of your head, Laura.” Josie laughed. “It's like you're not listening to anything I say.”

“And that's new because...” she joked.

“Ha ha.” Josie shrugged into her leather coat. She looked like Captain America when he was little. “You'll talk to the guys about the birth certificate issue?” They'd cooked up a scheme they thought the guys would accept. Even Laura realized that as sweet as it was to share the baby, and for whichever man wasn't the bio dad to act as if he were, the practical legalities needed to be respected. Someone's name needed to be on the birth certificate.

“I will. I promise.” The two hugged, Laura clinging a bit longer than she normally would. As if crossing over into a new life, a new world, she felt unmoored, time starved, and unsure. The baby grounded her in that moment by kicking her, hard, in the cervix.

“See you tomorrow.”
Click.
The front door closed and Josie walked out on the porch, the same porch where, nearly five months ago, Laura had slunk out, Mike bringing her her purse, her fear so overwhelming it had almost crushed her heart.

Almost. And then...why hadn't they told her? Why? They were billionaires. Her baby's father was a billionaire. Josie had joked about child support (“
You could get more than you make in a year. Hell, in a decade, per month. Can I get the other one to impregnate me?”
) and Laura reeled from the implications of all.that.money.

Some dish Dylan had in the oven simmered and filled the cabin with a luscious aroma that made her belly start to eat itself. She was hungry.

The guys were on their way. Her stomach dropped. Because this time she'd be alone with them and it was time for some long overdue conversations.

Why was it always, indeed, so complicated?