Charlize slept all night. She didn’t toss and turn. Didn’t have any dreams that she remembered. Didn’t even wake up once before dawn. She’d expected to lie awake, at least until she heard Riley Colton come upstairs, and then to fight memories of the night they’d spent several hours in bed together. Expected to have to fight off her mind’s attempts to re-create the fantasy world she’d grown up in and had thought he’d completed.
Instead, she’d lain down just before nine, with her plugged-in phone in hand and a puzzle game pulled up, and had woken ten hours later with her phone on the mattress beside her.
She’d never heard Riley come upstairs. Didn’t know if he was up yet.
And didn’t want to run into him in the hall on her way to the shower. But she had to pee. Grabbing a couple of the saltine crackers she’d brought from home and laid on the nightstand beside her before crawling into bed, she munched as she slipped out of her nightie and back into the light blue pants and white shirt she’d had on the day before, grabbed her toiletry bag and a pair of light blue skinny jeans and another short-sleeved, tailored white top, along with undies and, arms full, peeked her head out the door.
Silence met her. Hoping Riley was already downstairs, and not lying naked in all his sexy gloriousness in bed just a few doors away, she slipped quietly across the hall, into the bathroom, and locked the door behind her.
As it turned out, she didn’t see Riley until five minutes before they had to leave for the doctor’s appointment. She’d heard his voice coming from a room just off the huge main office area as she’d made herself some toast and poured a glass of juice for breakfast. And she’d smiled at Ashanti, who was sitting at a huge L-shaped desk with multiple computer screens, her long braids hanging over the shoulders of her pantsuit.
The CI tech expert hadn’t seemed surprised to see her. Which likely meant that Riley had filled in his colleagues and siblings on her temporary presence in their abode. Had he told his employees about the baby, too?
Or the woman’s smile could have meant that she was used to seeing female strangers coming downstairs in the morning...
Already dismissing the thought, she was distracted from it as Riley came out of the room off the main office.
“You ready to go?” he asked. His beard was looking a little tamer than usual—maybe because he’d recently come from the shower?
The thought brought images of his naked body that she most definitely couldn’t ponder over, and instead, her gaze was caught by the vivid intensity in his bright blue eyes. The man lit her up. Whether he was naked, or fully clothed and heading out the door.
Not a comforting realization.
One more thing to deal with.
She glanced behind him. “What’s in there?” She hadn’t even walked into the office portion of the house. Just passed it.
“My office. It used to be my father’s study,” he said as he led them through the kitchen and out to his SUV.
The comment brought her up short again. For as much as Riley Colton didn’t see himself as a family man, he seemed to have planted himself right in the very core of all the family he’d ever known.
How did you hate a guy like that?
Or even continue to resent him?
The couple-mile ride to her clinic was quick—and passed uncomfortably as she kept a close eye out for any activity that looked at all suspicious. A person sitting in a parked car. Or someone scary-looking walking on the sidewalk.
For any black trucks at all. New. Old. Big. Small.
Riley asked her to stay seated as he parked next to the building, and then came around to stand guard at the door as she got out of his SUV. He kept himself at her back, with only the building in front of them until they were inside, and then still stood behind her at the desk, listening as she gave her name, watching as she signed in.
And when they were asked to take seats, he chose ones in the corner, with the backs to the wall, away from the one set of windows farther down the room. He seemed at ease. Nonthreatening. Had even untucked his polo shirt, leaving it loose to cover the gun he wore.
“How’d you sleep?” He asked the first personal question of the day.
“Great,” she told him, still marveling at how she’d just dropped right off and slept all night. The bed was comfortable, but it had been more than that. It was like all of her worries and responsibilities had just slipped away for those hours.
Because Riley was there to watch over them? And her?
He seemed restless once they sat down. Lifting his ankle across his knee. Then dropping it. Smoothing his hand down one thigh. Then the other. Leaning on one side of the chair with his elbow, then the other. He didn’t pull out a phone. Didn’t occupy himself as the two women in the room, farther down and out of earshot, were doing.
He was making her nervous. The exam itself wouldn’t be comfortable, and she’d probably need a prenatal vitamin prescription, too. And the ultrasound...her entire body buzzed with nervous energy every time she thought about it. Her stomach started to churn and she wasn’t sure how much longer she could just sit there.
Was she having twins? They ran in Riley’s family.
“I’ve always wanted kids,” she finally said, needing to feel relevant, like the moment wasn’t time out of time, but her new reality. Like she belonged in that room with two other pregnant women.
“Kids?” he asked. “As in plural?”
She nodded, knowing he wouldn’t get it, wouldn’t agree. But not at all apologetic for how she felt. With all that she was going through, that they were facing, so much of it out of her control, speaking her own truth, being completely honest, was paramount.
“I was an only child,” she told him. “And while I was greatly loved, and always felt safe and special, I was also lonely a lot, too.”
Twins would take care of that.
And be double the work for a working single mother.
Still...
“Because your mother wasn’t around,” Riley inserted, more statement than question.
“And because I never knew my father,” she pointed out. “But I had my grandparents to fill those holes, at least in large part. And my aunts, too. But there was never anyone like me at home, you know? No one to play with, tell secrets to, or get in trouble with. Christmas morning I was the only kid, the only one antsy with excitement...”
He groaned. “I was, too, for a long time.”
She looked over at him. Wondered what he was thinking. And really thought about how his life had changed so drastically when he was more than halfway grown up. Tried to remember herself as a teen. Would she have welcomed a baby then?
She was pretty sure she’d have been overjoyed...
He hadn’t said anything more. And she wasn’t okay with the silence.
“Didn’t you ever get lonely?” she asked him. “Those first thirteen years?”
He shook his head. “With my dad’s career, and politics...my folks were always so busy. Back then I got to go with them a lot of the time...”
“A kid living in an adult world.” Sounded lonely to her. “What about at home?”
A shrug was his only answer.
“I don’t want my child to grow up lonely.” It mattered that he know that. At first, she didn’t get why, but when she sat there, nervous and being oddly calmed by his warmth next to her, too, she figured it out.
No matter what happened between her and Riley, even if they were able to co-parent their child somehow, no matter how much they might be attracted to each other, there was no future for them. He wasn’t a man who’d want more kids in the future.
Of course, he might not be attracted to her at all anymore. He hadn’t given her any real indication that he was.
But something told her that he wanted her. A vibe. A sense. Something.
Self-preservation, most likely. The knowledge was there to warn her of the danger.
If she didn’t want her heart stomped on a second time, she had to stay away from him.
Riley waited while Charlize went back for a physical with her doctor. He kept a trained eye on the room. On what he could see of the parking lot outside. But didn’t figure any of Charlize’s clients would figure her for an OB/GYN appointment.
He was confident they hadn’t been followed to the clinic.
But he wasn’t going to get complacent. Not for a second.
He’d lost a loved one once to the evil in society. He wasn’t about to lose his child, or its mother, to them. Marisol had lost a lot, too, before she’d been killed.
He’d spoken with Iglesias that morning. There was nothing new to report on Charlize’s case. The bullet they’d pulled from her town house was too common to trace, from a make of gun that was sold commonly all over the state. Michigan was a hunting state. Guns were as prevalent as ice cream. Iglesias had expressed again his relief that Riley had Charlize at his place, and told him to watch his back.
“We’re dealing with a firecracker,” Iglesias had said. “Someone with anger issues acting on a surplus of emotion. Someone who’s not too smart, who won’t probably weigh the consequences of a stupid action.”
Riley knew the type.
In terms of Wes Matthews and Capital X, the detective had spoken with Police Chief Andrew Fox, and everyone was frustrated with how little there was to go on. All the investors who’d already reported to the police had provided cash transfers that couldn’t be traced. Riley had Ashanti trying, anyway.
And Brody... Riley pulled out his phone. Checked both email and text. Nothing from Brody. But there were a couple of pertinent pieces of information from Ashanti and Bailey regarding the cold case.
He’d avoided the group chat with siblings. Hadn’t opened it to read any of the seven responses he’d received. He’d said he’d get to them when he had answers and he would.
But it was a new day. And they used that same thread sometimes to check in with any updates on current CI cases. Most particularly if they were engaged in day job activities and couldn’t make phone calls to everyone.
He pushed to open the thread.
The first four replies were emojis only. A thumbs-up. Two that had hearts. And one with a worried-looking face. Or maybe it was consternation. Frustration. Who could tell with those damned things?
The fifth was a message from Griffin.
We’ve got you.
That was unexpected.
Pushing back against a surge of emotion he didn’t know how to handle, and most particularly not in a semi-public place, he scrolled down to the most recent two messages, coming in back to back that morning.
Sadie hadn’t found anything on the scientist yet.
And Griffin was going to be in court all morning, so out of pocket.
While he’d been debating whether to respond to any of the texts, or continue to hold his silence until he had something pertinent to say, the door had opened and his name had been called.
He had no reason to be uptight walking down that hall. The medical procedure was information gathering only. They knew there was a baby. He assumed it was healthy. And yet, he was sweating as he walked into the dimly lit exam room, and took his place up by Charlize’s left shoulder as instructed.
If nothing else, she was safe there. The thought calmed him.
And then he glanced toward her exposed, still flat, stomach. Remembering...way, way too much. The scent of that skin. The taste of it. How it had cradled his penis as he’d slid down her...and again, later, as she’d slid up him...
“This is going to be cold,” the technician, a middle-aged woman, said.
And Riley finally looked at Charlize’s face, saw her looking, not at the tech, or the blank gray screen off to their left, but at him.
Their gazes locked. With a peculiar recognition he couldn’t explain or deny, he suddenly realized he knew her. Really knew her. And accepted that she knew him.
Not just physically, though there was definitely that, too. Intimately. Emotionally...
And then, the technician directed their attention to the screen.
“Twins run in his family,” Charlize blurted, her voice filled with emotion he couldn’t decipher. The words brought a fresh wave of cold sweats and he stared at the moving gray shadows on that screen, trying to pick out anything that looked human among them.
“There’s the head.” With one hand controlling the camera she’d been gliding along Charlize’s bared midsection, the technician touched the screen with the other.
He saw it. A head. Heart pounding, he stared. Clearly saw the head. And from there he could make out the neck. And legs and...
“How big is it?” he asked, completely stupefied at the moment. If his mother had ever had ultrasounds, he didn’t remember hearing about it. Or seeing the film.
The tech had been zeroing in on different things. Seeming to take separate images. “Three and a half inches,” she said.
How could a human possibly measure less than four inches?
“Your doctor will give you the full report as soon as we’re done here and she’s had a chance to look at the imaging,” the technician continued. “And I’m making copies for both of you to take, as well.”
He opened his mouth to say that he wouldn’t need any. But didn’t get the words out. His sisters might want to see them.
Or...he didn’t know. Just kept staring. Watching the movement. Trying to figure out how that tiny little being could move. Wondering who would protect it if it got picked on when it started school...
An inane thought...
“There’s definitely only one,” Charlize said. She sounded disappointed. And he remembered her conversation from earlier. Wanting more than one baby.
“Yep,” the technician said.
He wanted to tell her she had a lot of time to have her other children. Didn’t like how that felt when he thought about it. Looked at the screen again.
Just...wow. He couldn’t get over how small that being was, and imagined how much work it had ahead of it in the coming months.
“Can you tell if it’s a boy or a girl?” he asked. Not his gig, really. He was only a bystander at the moment. With some sort of commitment. And sisters and a brother who...
What?
How could they all be a family? He and Charlize weren’t even a couple...
“Your doctor will discuss all that with you,” the woman said. “But just from personal experience, I don’t see anything that tells either way. It’s usually eighteen to twenty-two weeks before an ultrasound will show. You’re at what? Thirteen weeks?”
Riley drew his eyes from the screen for a quick glance to see Charlize nod. And then resumed his suddenly panic-filled viewing.
He didn’t want to take on fatherhood. Not now. Not with...
“Okay, let’s get the heartbeat up here...”
Before he’d had time to compute, to follow along, the room filled with sound. Rapid tattoos. Kind of a heartbeat rhythm, but much more rapid than he’d expected.
A whole new panic suffused him, making him almost nauseated. The baby’s heart wasn’t right. Oh, God, no. That tiny little thing...
Why wasn’t the technician running for help? Sounding alarm bells. Poised to leave the room himself, to yell for someone to come running, he heard Charlize’s voice as though through a muffle. Or far away.
“It’s so fast...”
“Yeah, that’s normal,” the technician said and Riley felt so weak he could hardly keep himself upright.
He did. Riley Colton didn’t give in to weakness. Of any kind.
But he had to stand still for a second or two. Breathe.
And let the relief wash over him.