Authors: HelenKay Dimon
“Me throwing up the birth control pills.” She’d been so sick. Like, days and days of being sick, until she threw up yellow bile. Little did she know those days draped over the toilet would be good practice for the pregnancy to come.
“Me sleeping on the couch so I didn’t catch it and miss work.” He set the water bottle down. “Yeah, I remember how wound up I was and how much I wanted you by the time you felt better.”
“Me, too.” He’d been all over her, and she’d welcomed every kiss, every touch. Those first few times amounted to a frenzy of hands and mouths. Kissing, rolling across the mattress, slumping onto the floor and she took him in deep.
Yeah, she knew exactly
how
this happened.
“What are the chances . . . ?” His control never faltered. He just sat there talking and shaking his head and generally looking like he’d been hit by a runaway truck even as his voice stayed steady. “Fuck me, I couldn’t hit the lottery if I tried, but we scored this jackpot.”
“At least you’re not insisting it’s Walker’s.” That had been the big fear. Denial.
Callen opened his mouth then snapped it shut. It took another few seconds before a sentence popped out. “I’ve been a dick on that score, but I know the baby is mine.”
The last of the tension left her body. Emotions bombarded her. First gratitude, then confusion. They came faster than she could separate them or process them. “Thanks for not fighting me.”
He turned so his knees aimed in her direction and he met her eyes face-to-face. “Are you okay?”
“Yes.”
He frowned. “Grace, tell me.”
“I threw up for something like ten solid weeks, but I finally turned a corner and now I want to eat anything high in salt, fat or sugar.” Emotionally she was a great big bumbling mess, but she kept to the easy-to-explain stuff. “Be forewarned, I may weigh nine hundred pounds by the time this kid pops out.”
“Alone.”
Not really a comprehensible response in her head. “What?”
He picked up her hand and wound his fingers through hers. “You did it, the hard shit at the beginning, without me.”
There was no way to sugarcoat it. And, really, maybe a part of her wanted him to realize how his actions had consequences, and how she had to face all of them without him. “Yeah, all alone.”
“Why didn’t you—”
She pulled away from him then. No amount of touching could soften this accusation. “Do not ask me why I didn’t tell you sooner or I will lose my mind and cause a scene that Declan and Leah will be talking about when they’re eighty.”
“Right.” Callen didn’t exactly sound convinced she’d do it but smartly backed off.
“For the record, I tried. I called and texted. You’re the one who changed telephone numbers.”
He blew out a breath, then did it again. “In retrospect, not my finest hour.”
“I looked for you. Tried talking with the guys you worked with and for. Even went to the old bars you used to frequent.” The words spilled out of her, and with each one she relived the dragging loneliness and utter panic that came from being in such a vulnerable place without a safety net. “Nothing.”
“I’d already left.” His gaze searched her face, and it looked as if he was struggling to find the right words. “If I wasn’t going to be with you, I wasn’t about to stick around and see you with anyone else.”
“So you ran.” Her least favorite Callen trait.
“I didn’t—” She just raised an eyebrow when he started to wave her off. “Fine. Okay. Yes, I ran.”
Maybe that counted as progress. The Callen she lived with wouldn’t have accepted that charge. This Callen looked resigned.
“I called in some favors at the FBI and . . .” She stopped, because this part sounded like stalking or investigating or something that might tick him off and send this whole civil conversation spiraling down the toilet.
“What?”
“You wrote a check to pay off the outstanding mortgage payments on this house, and everything fell together after that.” She closed one eye and waited for the explosion.
“But you didn’t come right away.”
“Intel said you were living with a woman.” The words made her ache. She rubbed a hand over her stomach but really needed to put pressure on her chest and every other part that felt like it might rip open and spill something on the porch.
He shifted, and the water bottle fell. Tumbled right down the steps. He didn’t bother running after it. “What are you talking about?”
The confused reaction looked real, but Grace had seen the photos and read the reports her friend and former colleague had collected. “I couldn’t really handle seeing you move on so quickly, not while I heaved up every meal. So, the plan was to feel better, then come find you.”
He leaned in closer. Desperation poured out of him. In his jerky motions and the pleading in his eyes. “There was no other woman, Grace.”
“I saw photos.” Not exactly how she wanted to deliver that information, but Grace figured she was committed now. “Yeah, the FBI keeps a file on you and your brothers. Don’t act surprised. It’s standard operating procedure when so much property and money is still missing thanks to your dad.”
Callen shook his head. “I don’t care what the file says. It’s wrong.”
The pale face and stress playing on every line of his face had her doubting, but . . . “A brunette. Long hair, and really pretty. Younger than you.”
His expression changed in a flash. Color flooded back in, and he smiled. “Sophie.”
Little did he know he was two seconds away from a hard shove down the stairs. “So there was a woman. Good memory there, slick.”
“Sophie as in Beck’s girlfriend.”
The words didn’t go into Grace’s brain at first. She had to turn them over and think it all through. “Beck?”
“He was pretty much all over her from the first day.”
The words finally sunk in. A dizzy relief hit her. Grace tried not to smile. Tried and failed—so she looked at her hands where they were folded on her lap. Then she switched to a conversation guaranteed to suck the life out of her. “While you settled in here and your brothers paired off—”
“That was pathetic to see.”
“—I made the important decisions.”
“What does that mean?” The amusement seeped out of Callen’s voice, and the wariness crept back in.
“Deciding whether to have the baby and if I could be a single mother. All the money questions and trying to wade through the realities of what my life would be like with a baby to take care of.” Grace tried to race through this part. Those days had been so long and filled with so many questions. Keep the baby, give it up for adoption, end the pregnancy. No answer had sounded right and she fumbled her way through it all. “If I could raise it when you hated me and refused to talk.”
“I never hated you.”
She wasn’t ready to believe that. “Felt that way.”
“Is that why you debated even telling me?” There was no judgment. No comment on her decision either.
She had no idea what to make of that, but he did get this last part wrong. “No, that never happened. I didn’t hide this.”
“I don’t blame you. I really don’t.”
He wasn’t begging, but the intensity of his tone and the way he leaned forward with every word made her believe. “Good, because I’m not apologizing for any decision I made. But the truth is once I decided I was keeping the baby I doubled my efforts to find you. There was never a point when I thought to keep the baby from you.”
He dropped his head and massaged the back of his neck with one hand. “Shit, I can’t believe this is all happening.”
“We messed up, but that’s over, and we can’t take it back.” She was about to touch his hair when his head popped up again.
“You mean I messed up.”
“Don’t be a martyr. We were both in that bed, Callen.” They shared the blame. Them and the birth control, the world and the stupid flu, but they were in this together, and she refused to see it another way.
He did smile then. “Oh, I remember the sex part. Figures we’d just stopped using condoms and relied on the pill alone when this happened.”
“Not our brightest decision.”
He nodded. “But fun at the time.”
The heated gleam in his eye threw her off for a second, but she couldn’t let her mind wander there. Not until they got through all of it. “You’re taking this better than I expected.”
“How did you take it?”
“Lots of throwing up and cursing. Some feet stomping and a lot of denial.” That was the short version, but she really didn’t want to relive all of it.
“Sounds reasonable. It’s not that different from how I’m doing on the inside.” He gaze went back to the yard. Raced across the wide expanse and into the trees.
“Want to share?”
“I can’t even process it.” He stretched his legs out and down the steps.
“But something is scratching at your insides and you’re not telling me what it is.”
He winced. “Do you have any idea what my gene pool is like?”
Grace had seen this one coming. “I like your mom.”
He wiped a band through his hair. Brushed the palm back and forth as if lost in thought. “Yeah, that’s a whole different disaster.”
As if she knew how to parse that sentence. “What does that mean?”
“What happens now?” he asked, ignoring her question even as he turned all his attention on her.
Grace wanted to go back and make him explain. There was so much. The holes in the yard. The comments about his mother. Grace wanted every question answered and no more confusion between them.
But she decided to deliver the final piece of information instead. “You’re not going to like this part.”
“You need to work on your delivery, because I’m already jumpy and that intro is loaded.”
Yeah, there’s a reason for that
. “Now that you know you’re going to do exactly what I expect you to do—be responsible and loving and help me take care of the little one.”
“Uh . . .”
“I’m serious.” She rubbed her stomach because it felt wrong not to. “We’ll know if it’s a boy or a girl in another month, then figure out names and those sorts of things. Together.”
His eyebrow lifted. “Well, damn.”
She shifted her feet on the steps and winced when her heel hit harder than intended with a loud
thunk
. “If you don’t want to be near me, fine.” Her voice bobbled and she fought for control. “I’ll figure out how to accept it, but you will be in this baby’s life. I am not giving you a choice or an option, so don’t even think of running.”
He crossed one ankle over the other. “I’m not.”
Strangely enough, he didn’t seem to be. He’d sat there and handled every bit of news she’d thrown at him. “I’ll move into town and we’ll work out something.”
“I don’t get this.”
So much for thinking they were on the same page.
She bit back a sigh. Time to back up and take a second run at this. “We had sex and then—”
“You really want me involved?”
The question had her sputtering. “What?”
“Me?”
“You’re the father.”
“But Charlie—”
The haze cleared. Every string, every line and every doubt, traced back to him. “Is not a factor in this.”
Half the time she wanted to dig the guy up and shake him. The other half she wanted to shove him back in the hole. In no part did she want anything but pain for the guy. The bloodthirstiness thing was new to her but she didn’t have one ounce of guilt over it.
“How can you say that?” Callen asked with doubt echoing in his voice.
“He is dead and not my problem. You are very much alive and going to be a dad, so you need to buckle in and get ready because appointments and ultrasounds, the birth, painting the baby’s room? You’re up for all of it, big guy.”
There. Lecture delivered.
“What if I say no?” he asked without any emotion in his voice.
Doubt slammed into her but she refused to be derailed or fall over. “You won’t.”
“Okay.”
She had to believe that was true. “You are not as complex as you think you are.”
“Every guy wants to be complex.”
He sounded like he was joking, but her emotions kept misfiring, and every sensation and feeling was magnified and distorted. Concentrating on the branches waving in the breeze in the distance kept her focused. “Really?”
“Not even a little.”
She gave into the pull to rub a hand over her stomach again, not something she did very often yet. “I know you, and I am betting my entire life and the life of this child that you won’t let me down.”
He visibly swallowed. “That’s a lot of pressure.”
Only a guy could say that and think it proved anything. “Try living with the constant pressure of a tiny human on your bladder, then we’ll talk.”
They’d talked, but Callen wondered if anything had been settled. Even now his hands shook and the idea of a baby, a crying little scrap of a thing who needed him, refused to settle in his brain. He tried to picture it, to see Grace holding it . . . thinking of the baby as something other than an “it” would be nice, but he couldn’t get there.
She’d run off for an early dinner with Leah, as planned, and he still sat on the back porch. He’d heard Declan and Leah talking and watched Grace go. A truck drove up and Tom got out. Callen didn’t even know how many people were in the house right now. It took all of his energy to just breathe. To sit there and stay calm and keep sipping on that water.
The door banged shut and heavy footsteps thudded on the porch.
With a groan that sounded far older than his thirty years, Declan sat down next to Callen. “You okay?”
“No.” He was amazed he got that word out.
Declan chuckled as he reached over and handed Callen a second water bottle. “Didn’t expect an honest answer. Interesting that I got one.”
Without thinking, Callen took the bottle and set it on the deck next to him. “If you want to try again, I can lie.”
“Not likely since you look like you’re on the verge of puking up a lung.” Declan twisted the cap off and took a long swig, acting as if it were beer or something else a hell of a lot more interesting than water.
Callen waited until Declan tipped the bottle the whole way back. “She’s pregnant.”
Declan spit out the mouthful of water he had just tried to swallow. A stream ran over his cheek and splashed on his shirt. It took another second or two to get the coughing under control and wipe his mouth. “What did you say?”
“Oh, I think you heard me.” That reaction was clear. Probably pretty normal, too. And it made Callen ache to be able to feel something other than bone-chilling panic.
“Grace?”
Callen stopped watching the bush thirty feet out shake as something four-legged and furry crawled in there, then he glared at Declan. “Who the hell else would I be talking about?”
“Dude, you’re not exactly an open book when it comes to your love life.”
“Grace is the only one.”
Jesus, that statement said everything. Callen wanted to be immune to her, to not care. Before he found out about the baby, he thought he could push her out of his life and move on. What a lie. He loved her when he didn’t even know what the feeling was and fought it off long after he should have hated her.
“Uh, right.” Declan made a clicking sound with his tongue. “You mean she’s the one for you?”
To Callen it sounded as if Declan was as scrambled as he was. “How many conversations are we having here?”
“Okay, I’ll drop that part for now.” Declan lifted the water bottle, then put it down again. He didn’t take a sip and didn’t seem to notice when the cap fell out of his hand. “And the baby is . . .”
Yeah, Declan definitely had trouble keeping up. That almost made up for every other emotional shot Callen took in the last few minutes. “Mine. The baby is mine.”
“You’re sure?” Declan winced as he asked.
Much more of this and Callen would start to feel something—anger. “Don’t be an ass.”
“Right.” Declan moved the bottle, and water splashed on his jeans this time. “So.”
“Yeah, so.” Seemed like the right thing to say. Noncommittal and useless, kind of like how Callen felt at the moment.
“You do know about condoms, right?”
“I will punch you and not feel bad for one second.”
Declan held up a hand. “Fair enough.”
“Just trust me when I say be careful about birth control and Leah getting sick and not counting days and doubling up and all that. And get a flu shot.” That would go to the very top of Callen’s yearly to-do list from now on. Not that it would help the current situation.
“You are one of the most controlled men I know.”
“Apparently not.”
Declan laughed. “I’ll refrain from making a joke.”
Called did it for him. “One time in my entire life and—boom—I have something to do on Father’s Day forever.”
It was a damn nightmare, but then, in some ways, it wasn’t. Callen wished his brain would catch up with the news so he could find an honest reaction and stick with it. His thoughts jumbled and mixed, each one contradicting another.
“My, aren’t you the fertile one?” Declan had the nerve to laugh as he said it.
The unlucky one
was more like it. “Scary, right?”
“I hope to hell that trait doesn’t run in the family.”
Every other shitty thing did, so why not this? “You’ve been warned.”
“Kind of makes me want to use two condoms at a time from now on.” Declan frowned as if he were calculating the chances of having this happen to him.
“You’re not alone.”
“Yeah, well. You’d be a little late to use them now.”
Sad thing was, Callen would celebrate if this happened for one of his brothers. Leah and Declan made sense. So did Sophie and Beck. In both cases, they would work together and raise a great kid.
Callen envied that. The only good thing his kid would have was Grace, and up until two days ago, he wouldn’t have thought that was such a very lucky draw either.
“Is she doing okay?” Declan asked.
‘Yeah.” She seemed rock solid, like she’d thought through the angles and come up with a solution that worked for her. “She’s keeping it. Moving here. Making me be a dad no matter what I want.”
Declan set his bottle down and leaned back on his palms. “Speaking of that, what do you want?”
Another chance to get this right. “I’m not Charlie.”
Declan’s eyes narrowed. “Where the hell did that come from?”
“I’m not abandoning my kid.”
“Never thought you would.”
“Neither did she.” They were all showing a lot of faith in him. More than Callen had in himself.
When she confirmed his suspicion about her pregnancy, he expected that familiar need to kick in. That he’d be packed and trying to explain his need for freedom to Declan, all while insisting he wasn’t a runner when, in truth, he was exactly that.
It happened before. Many times. His life would implode and the walls would crumble. A whirling sensation would set off inside him and the anxiety would rise until he got out. Used to be he medicated with alcohol. Turned to the bottle as a way to calm the voices and ease the stress. That was no longer an answer.
But this time he hadn’t needed a way out. Whether because of his brothers or the house or even Grace, Callen didn’t know, but he wanted to stick around and figure his life out. That included sorting his way through impending fatherhood, loving a woman he didn’t trust . . . and trying to figure out how to forget the hand he’d been dealt.
Declan leaned back and tilted his head up toward the fading sunlight. “It’s pretty clear Grace knows you.”
“She sure has faith I’ll step up.” Callen didn’t know how or why, but she did. He didn’t want to analyze it. He just wanted to accept it.
“You will.”
“That doesn’t really match with people saying I’m a runner.” Even the voice in his head chanted the accusation.
“Not from responsibility. You run from emotions and attachments.” Declan sat up straight again. “Or you did—but I don’t even think that’s true anymore.”
“I can’t be sure of anything at the moment.”
“Really, though. How is she doing? This had to be a wallop of a surprise for her as well.”
Guilt bombarded Callen. Crashed into him from every angle until he had to swallow a gasp. The realization of what his stubbornness caused hit him with the strength of a five-round boxing match.
“I left her alone to deal with this.” There was the harsh truth. The awful reality of how his kid came into the world.
“You didn’t know.”
“She tried to tell me.” Callen had thought about holding this part back. He had a hard time accepting it and didn’t expect Declan to take it very well. “Remember when I changed my number? That was so she couldn’t find me.”
Declan whistled. “Admittedly, that sucks.”
“Father of the Fucking Year.” Only good news is that he should be able to go up from here.
“But still the best man I know.”
He had to be kidding. There was no other explanation. “Yeah, right.”
“You’re stubborn and a total pain in the ass sometimes, but underneath I don’t know anyone more solid than you.”
Callen started to laugh, because there was no way that was real. He stopped when Declan stared at him, all serious and waiting, as if daring Callen to challenge the comment.
He went with a joke, even though it had more than a touch of truth in it. “You need to meet more people.”
“Nah, I don’t like people that much. But you? You saved this house so we could all be together. You’re mad at Mom, but you love her enough not to want her to go away.” Declan ticked off the list on his fingers, his voice growing louder and more confident with each sentence. “You fix things and put everyone else’s needs before your own.”
“And I suck at using condoms.”
Declan barked out a laugh. “Apparently, yes.”
Some of the tension bouncing between them disappeared. “I might still punch you just so I can feel better.”
“You have a girlfriend and soon will be a dad.” Declan shrugged. “Seems to me this kid is damn lucky.”
“You’ve fucking lost it.” One more comment like that and Callen would start to worry about his usually stable brother.
“I’m not joking.”
“I wish you were right.” But Declan wasn’t right. Callen knew the darkness that lingered. He knew what he had done when he was on the road with Charlie and how it didn’t take much coaching from Charlie to get Callen to wade into that life.
“Trust me. I know things.”
Time for a little rough honesty. Callen didn’t know why he was pushing or why he wanted Declan to learn that his belief was so misplaced. “Do you know why I drink water all the time?”
“Something about staying hydrated, I’d guess.”
“Because I used to drink whiskey.” Anything, really. If it would knock out his brain cells, he’d downed it. “For breakfast, for lunch, before bed. Woke up in the middle of the night and took a swig. Stayed half out of it.”
Declan turned to face Callen, almost in slow motion. “What are you saying?”
“That detox dried me out, but sometimes I wish I could drink again and wipe it all away—Charlie, the thing with Mom, the doubts about Grace.”
Declan’s gaze shifted to the water bottle by Callen’s leg, then back to his face. “You’re an alcoholic?”
“I don’t know if the description fits or not. I just know when I drank I didn’t feel, so I drank a lot.” He didn’t fight the daily cravings others talked about. He was able to stop without falling back on old habits or diving into a bottle when things got hard. For him it served more as a crutch and welcome loss of control than an addiction, but he didn’t really know.
Declan’s gaze locked on his brother. “What made you change?”
“Her.”
Declan exhaled. “Grace.”
“With her I wanted to feel something. The hollow emptiness wasn’t okay.” It was that simple. That pure and uncomplicated, when nothing else in Callen’s life ever was.
“So, this is recent.” Declan stammered his way through the thought. “She helped you.”
She’d saved him. “She gave me an ultimatum.”
“Fuck.” Declan repeated the word a few times. “Well, I like her even more now. Now I owe her.”
“I owe her.”
“And I’m still saying I’m right. In fact, knowing you beat the alcohol makes me even more sure.”
“How can you say that?” Callen shook his head. Only Declan could spin bad news into something positive.
“I know you, big brother.” He turned each word into a sentence.
Funny, because at the moment Callen couldn’t claim to know anything. “Then how long do you think it will be before the numbness leaves my arm and I stop wanting to cough up that lung?”
Declan pretended to think. “From everything I’ve read, when the kid turns eighteen.”
A rush of emotions finally hit Callen. He expected worry. He got nausea. “I was afraid you’d say something like that.”
***
“I can’t believe Callen is going to be a father.” Leah repeated the sentiment for what felt like the fiftieth time.
Grace sat in the booth at the diner across from Leah and Mallory and let them work it all out between them. They asked about the sex and Grace ignored it. They asked about birth control and she gave a public service announcement on being careful after getting sick. They looked bug-eyed but she figured they finally understood a portion of what she’d been feeling for the last few months.
In the rush of disbelief about Callen being a dad they kept forgetting one key point. “And I’m going to be a mother.”
Mallory signaled for the waitress. “That part will be fine.”
Of all the words Grace could pick,
fine
was not one she’d apply to this situation. It was messed up and turned around and, thanks to Callen’s odd response, flipped inside out. “How do you figure that?”
“You seem solid and smart and strong—all the good things. And Callen.” Mallory grimaced. “Well, he’ll come around.”
Grace lowered her voice in case Leah’s father or someone equally offensive was hovering around. “He went all weird on me.”
“Was he a jerk? Because I will go commando on his ass.” Leah said as her gaze shot from Grace’s face to the cell phone buzzing on the table.
Grace looked down and saw Declan’s name flash across the screen. “Not at all. He was actually pretty reasonable and didn’t balk when I told him he wasn’t allowed to run. That was the weird part.”
“Well, then.” Mallory smacked the table. “There you go.”
“Yeah, you’re fine,” Leah said at the same time.
“You guys aren’t talking in complete sentences. I’m getting pieces here.” Grace was even more confused than when she walked in the door and this conversation was not helping.
She thought spilling her secret would make her feel better. Callen would tell Declan, who would immediately tell Leah anyway. Grace decided to control the message and tell her new female friends first. That allowed her to ignore most of the how-could-you-be-so-stupid questions, even though neither Leah nor Mallory had asked that yet.