Chapter Twenty-Two

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Ronnie’s day was off to a shitty start.

To begin with, she’d slept like hell. Mac had arrived home last night, which meant instead of sharing Claire’s comfy queen-size bed at Gramps’s and Ruby’s place, Ronnie had to choose between the couch in the rec room or the trundle bed in Jessica’s room. Both were lumpy. Neither offered her much peace and quiet.

In the end, Ronnie rejected the couch, because Henry was already asleep on it when she got there, and the spoiled beagle was snoring loud enough to wake the dead.

She tiptoed upstairs into Jessica’s room, only to find the girl still awake and reading. Unfortunately, Jessica put the book down after Ronnie set up the trundle bed and then the non-stop talking began. On and on in the dark, filling Ronnie’s ears with poppycock about high school crap, cute boys, college dreams, favorite new songs, and blah, blah, blah; until Ronnie buried her head under the pillow with the hopes of either suffocating to death or falling asleep.

Sleep had come first, but only in short spurts in between tossing and turning. By morning, Ronnie realized two things upon waking. One, she’d overslept, screwing up her pre-dawn plans to make solid headway on the bookkeeping, damn it. Two, Henry had relocated to her trundle bed at some point, and the bad dream she’d had about being trapped in a dumpster surrounded by rotting food had been spurred by the dog’s stinky breath.

“Gross, Henry.” She sat up, scrubbing her face with her T-shirt. A glance at Jessica’s bed found the pillow empty and covers thrown back.

Ronnie and her achy bones creaked and popped down the stairs and into the kitchen where coffee usually awaited, along with Ruby, and sometimes Gramps or Chester.

But not today. The kitchen was a ghost town.

What the hell? Where was everyone? More important, what lowdown, lousy bastard took the last cup of coffee without making more? Whoever had done it needed to be shot and left to hang for the buzzards to pick clean.

Ronnie prepped a new pot and hit the brew button. The lack of fresh coffee was probably her mother’s fault. Claire and Kate had warned her that Deborah was back from rehab. It would be typical for the sober version of her mother to want to torture her daughters for her own warped entertainment, starting with removing all caffeine from the premises.

While waiting for the coffee to brew, she headed down to Ruby’s basement only to find the door locked. So, she went in search of another human, finding Jessica minding the store.

The tired and grumpy teenager didn’t know where her mother was, only that she’d left with Gramps earlier and would be back late. Jessica also claimed to be clueless about a spare key, bemoaning the fact that everyone treated her like she was a kid and never told her anything. Jessica did know, however, that Claire was already out working at the birding platform with Luke. So, apparently, somebody had told her something at some point—a fact that Jessica didn’t like pointed out. The bag of pretzels that hit Ronnie in the chest shortly thereafter made the teen’s feelings clear.

After throwing the bag of pretzels back at Jessica, who dodged and giggled, Ronnie went out onto the front porch to call her sister or cousin. When neither bonehead bothered answering their phones, she jogged all the way out to the frickin’ platform. Once there, she learned that Ruby and Gramps had gone to Tucson for the day, and that a spare key to the basement office was hidden in a beer stein behind the bar in the rec room.

Back at the house, Ronnie found the spare key, smelling burning coffee coming from the kitchen. Figuring the pot had overflowed, she hurried into the kitchen and then screeched to a stop. A lake of coffee covered the counter. Below it, brown liquid cascaded down the cabinet into a growing pond on the floor. She reached over the mess and picked up the nearly empty pot. Upon closer inspection, she found several cracks across the bottom of the glass.

During cleanup, Jessica waltzed in the kitchen. At the sight of Ronnie mopping up the mess, the girl suddenly remembered a message for Ronnie from Ruby—something about not making coffee in the pot because Gramps had set the glass carafe down on the counter too hard this morning and cracked it.

No shit, Goofus McDoofus.

Rather than bite Jessica’s head off, Ronnie finished cleaning up, dried her hands, and headed to the basement to get to work on Ruby’s books. Unfortunately, running the register at the General Store was slow and “totally boring,” which meant Jessica kept dropping by to pick up where she’d left off last night—more chatter about school and boys, with some brain-curdling bits about nail polish and lip gloss thrown in for extra torture.

Just when Jessica finally seemed to be running out of things to talk about, Deborah came down the basement stairs. Dressed in a flowing white pantsuit like some kind of blond angel, she shooed Jessica back to work, planted herself in the chair across from the desk where Ronnie had bookwork spread out, and announced that her therapist suggested she have heart-to-heart talks with each of her daughters about their relationships over the years.

“Clear the slate,” Deborah told Ronnie. “So we can all start again fresh.”

Like hell they could!

The slate would need to be broken into pieces, ground to dust, and then shipped to the moon. After all that, maybe they could find a way to start up once more with less hostility about the past. But things would never be “fresh.”

At that point, Ronnie gave up on getting any bookkeeping done. While Deborah continued to paint rosy pictures about rehab and therapy, Ronnie crammed the paperwork back into the file drawer.

With a quick, “Gotta go, Mother,” she made her escape, pocketing the spare keys to Claire’s Jeep on her way out. She stopped in the General Store long enough to pay for a can of mocha-flavored coffee and to tell Jessica where she was going and in what vehicle, then she hit the road.

As she passed the Yuccaville city limits sign, she glanced at the time. She was running early—a little over an hour. A text from Butch had come in right after she’d left the RV park with his grocery list for the day. The list was short, thankfully, so she had time to swing by Grady’s for a cup of coffee—or something more invigorating, if he were up for it.

Last night, he’d mentioned heading out to his new place in the afternoon to see how the house building was going. He’d invited Ronnie to join him, if she had time. She’d been tempted then and still was, but she was wary of the hope-filled daydreams this might inspire about a future for her that still seemed very cloudy.

She turned onto Grady’s street, keeping her eye out for idling pickup trucks or other strange vehicles filled with shadowy forms. The sight of a sporty red Lexus pulling into Grady’s driveway made Ronnie tap the brakes.

Who was … The driver’s side door opened and a blonde climbed out.

Elizabeth!

Ronnie veered to the curb about a block away on the opposite side of the street, slinking low into her seat. From her sneaky viewpoint over the dash, she could see Grady clearly when he opened the door. He was dressed in the blue and black plaid flannel shirt Ronnie had given him for Christmas, along with a pair of jeans.

Elizabeth, meanwhile, was wearing a professional snake charming outfit—oxblood leather coat and matching boots, with skintight pink pants in between.

How would Grady react to his ex-wife standing on his front porch in her hoochie-mama outfit? Ronnie crossed her fingers he’d slam the door in her face.

But he didn’t. Instead, he held the door wide and waved the man-eater inside.

After the door closed behind them, Ronnie sat higher behind the wheel. Was this really happening? Was Grady inside his house with his ex-wife this very moment doing who knew what?

She pinched her forearm. Yep, this was no nightmare.

Jumping Jezebel! Now what?

Ronnie drummed her fingers on the steering wheel, reviewing the facts as she knew them.

Fact 1: Last night at The Shaft, Grady hadn’t mentioned anything about a breakfast meeting with his ex-wife.

Maybe this meeting was about more than breakfast, and you’re going to sit out here like a pathetic fool while she bonks your soon-to-be ex-boyfriend.

No. Stop. Ronnie wasn’t going to cruise down Jealous Avenue this morning. She wanted to give Grady the benefit of the doubt, which led to …

Fact 2: Grady loved her. He’d said as much several times. He’d shown her how much he cared about her in more ways than she could count. Something might be going on in that house, but knowing Grady’s reputation for being fair and just, it was probably nothing more than what Deborah had wanted earlier with Ronnie—to talk about their relationship woes and clear the slate so they could continue to go on about their daily lives in the same county.

Ronnie hoped this was the case. She truly did, but …

Fact 3: Elizabeth was a cold-hearted, calculating bitch who’d pretended to be pregnant with Grady’s baby only to screw him over royally after the birth. And now the femme fatale wanted him back.

However, the man behind the badge, whom Ronnie had come to know intimately, wasn’t going to forgive or forget about his ex-wife’s mistreatment merely because she claimed to have had a change of heart.

Fact 4: Ronnie was running early this morning. She had time to let the situation play out and determine how to proceed when Grady’s ex left.

Which had better be real goddamned soon!

Fact 5: There were more chickens in the world than humans, and Ronnie’s unwillingness to go up to Grady’s door and find out what the hell was going on inside added one more mark on the chickens’ side of the table.

Twenty loooong minutes later, Elizabeth strode out onto the porch. She turned back to Grady, her hands flailing as she pointed wildly here and there, stabbing at gnats for all Ronnie could tell. Meanwhile, Grady stood in the doorway in his wide-legged “I’m-the-sheriff” stance, his arms firmly crossed.

Neither party looked like their Saturday morning was off to a happy start.

“Excellent,” Ronnie said, taking a sip from her can of coffee as she watched the performance play out on Grady’s porch.

If only she could clearly see their facial expressions to know if …

Oh! Pause the scene! Claire had some binoculars somewhere in the Jeep, Ronnie remembered. They were actually Chester’s, but Claire had confiscated them after she’d caught the old buzzard scrambling halfway up a tree trying to peep on a pretty redhead who was sunbathing topless on the roof of her camper.

Ronnie reached under the driver’s seat without luck. They weren’t under the passenger’s seat either. She opened the console between the seats.

Bingo.

She extracted them from their case.

Binoculars in hand, she settled back in her seat to continue watching the show. Her toes were crossed that the climax was up next and despair would ruin the day for Elizabeth, bludgeoning to death all hope of reconciliation for the abominable cheating skank.

Ronnie focused on Grady’s face. His jaw was scruffy, so he must not have shaved yet. He looked tired, too. Like he’d had a rough night. Huh. Had he been called into work for some reason?

He wasn’t supposed to be on call officially, but that didn’t mean much. When Grady was needed, he went no matter if it were day or night. His dedication to the job and the people in his county was one of many things Ronnie admired about him. That dedication was also one of the main reasons she hesitated to move in with him.

Did she want a life with someone who worked 24/7 at a very dangerous job? Would she wonder every time he left in the middle of the night if he might not come home again? Did she want to have children with a man whose livelihood put not only him in danger, but also his family? She more than anyone had learned the hard way that criminals didn’t stop at killing just one person—family was fair play, too.

Hell, did she even want to have children? She was about to turn thirty-six. If she were going to have a kid, time was running out.

And maybe Grady didn’t want kids. Maybe Elizabeth had killed whatever interest he’d had in fatherhood when she’d jumped up and down on Grady’s heart—and pride—before leaving town with the kid and its biological dad.

Up on the porch-stage, Elizabeth stepped close to Grady, touching his chest.

Ronnie bristled behind the binoculars. “Keep your hands to yourself, two-bit tempter.”

She cheered when Grady removed Elizabeth’s hand as if it were covered with oozing pustules.

Elizabeth pouted up at him. She pointed at his face and then toward the house.

What were they arguing about? Him selling the house? Did she want a portion of the proceeds after it sold? Maybe it wasn’t about the house at all. For all Ronnie could hear from her vantage point, they might be arguing about if the moon were made of rock or cheese.

She cracked the Jeep’s window and put her ear to it, but she was too far away to hear anything besides a pair of loud-mouthed birds in a nearby paloverde tree and the rumble of a diesel pickup a couple of blocks over.

A jogger ran past on the other side of the street.

Ronnie did a double-take. Was it Sadie? No, it was a guy in sweatpants and a nylon jacket. He glanced up at Grady’s place as he started to pass in front of the house and then stopped, jogging in place while calling out something.

Elizabeth turned. In a blink, her pinched expression was replaced by a fake, sugary-sweet smile. She waved and laughed at whatever the jogger said, clearly overacting in Ronnie’s opinion.

Or was Elizabeth slipping back into the role of a lawman’s wife? Ronnie would need to work on perfecting that smiling-through-the-shitstorm look if she were going to shack up with the sheriff for the long term.

Grady’s ex tried to link arms with him, a possessive move. But Grady wasn’t having it. He untangled Elizabeth’s arm from his and took a step away.

Ronnie cheered, fist-pumping the air. “Ten points and a gold star for Sheriff Hardass.”

She lowered the binoculars slightly, reaching for her can of coffee. As she lifted the dew-dampened can, her focus still on Grady’s porch, the coffee slipped from her grip. She reached with her other hand to help stop the can from falling while still holding the binoculars, but she was too slow.

The can fell straight down. Lucky for her, it landed in the drink holder spot with only a few splashes of coffee escaping onto the console.

Whew! That was close. Claire would kill her if she spilled her drink on the Jeep’s carpet. Claire still blamed Ronnie partly for the pie catastrophe that happened over Thanksgiving.

Ronnie leaned across and forward to get one of the napkins Claire kept in the glovebox, bumping the horn with the binoculars.

Honk!

In the still morning air, she might as well have sounded a ship’s horn.

Fuck nuggets!

She slid down into the seat, her heart pounding. Maybe that had been louder inside the Jeep than it was out.

A peek over the dash made her groan.

Now she was the star of the show.

* * *

“Hey, Kate?”

Butch’s voice interrupted Kate’s erotic dream starring him without many clothes on, lots of heavy breathing, and a bag of dill pickle–flavored pork rinds.

She opened her eyes to find him standing in the bedroom doorway, dressed in blue jeans and a long-sleeve Route 66 T-shirt. He looked downright hunky in the early morning light. Or maybe it was just pregnancy revving her hormone-fueled sex drive to life yet again. Lately, she couldn’t seem to keep her hands off Butch. Or off pork rinds, no matter the flavor. Hungry and randy. Shamalama ding-dong! She really needed a break from this second-trimester rollercoaster.

But in the meantime …

“Howdy-ho, cowboy,” she flirted in a twangy voice while kicking off the covers. “You here for more bedroom rodeo fun? All I’m asking for is a solid, hard-riding eight seconds this time.”

He scowled, leaning against the doorjamb. “Woman, you’re tough on a guy’s ego. You know I kept things going for more than eight seconds last night, in spite of your burlesque striptease act.”

“Not the second time.”

“You barely gave me a chance.” He pointed at her. “Your tongue should be classified as an illegal weapon.”

Patting the bed next to her, she stared at him with wide, googly eyes. “Come play with us, Valentine,” she teased, mimicking the creepy dead twins in Stephen King’s The Shining.

“No.” He shook his head. “That’s not sexy, Kate. And neither is the lady in the bathtub scene, so don’t be reenacting that the next time we screw around in there.”

She pushed up onto her elbows and hit him with her best come-hither slow blink. “Mein Herr Carter,” she said, switching to a German accent, “please, von’t you bring me Herman von Longschlongenstein now? I vant to pet him.”

He snort-laughed. “That’s a new one.”

“You like? Ja?”

“No. You sounded like a German-dubbed Sean Connery for a second there, and he doesn’t light my fire. Although he made a good James Bond.”

She cleared her throat, this time aiming for the queen of England giving a Christmas speech. “How about Prince Everhard of the Nether Regions? I think that has a nice royal ring to it, don’t you?”

“Do you lay awake at night coming up with nicknames?”

“Maybe, baby.” She winked. “You don’t happen to have any chicharrones hidden in your pants, do you?”

“Pork rinds in my pants? Is that a pickup line?”

She slowly licked her lips, turning up the sex-kitten act. “Give me some pork rinds, Señor Stud. Your kid is hungry.”

“Pork rinds for breakfast?”

She nodded again, continuing in her breathy voice, “I do love me some fried pork skin.”

“Jesus, Kate.” He scrubbed his hand down his face. “You have me running hot and cold at the same time here.”

Welcome to her pregnant life. Kate tugged the comforter over her now-chilled feet. “So, I’m turning you on in spite of weirding you out? That’s interesting.”

“Not really. I’m turned on whenever you’re around. You drive me nuts.”

She patted her belly. “You made me nuts with your nuts, so we’re even.” She glanced at the clock. “Oh, bollocks. I’m late. Claire is going to bust my balls.”

“That reminds me why I came in here,” Butch said. “I got a call from Sophy Wheeler when I was in the shower.”

Kate froze. “You did?” Why was she calling Butch? “How strange.”

“I know. She left a message.”

Oh no! Sophy wasn’t supposed to tell Butch about Kate’s emails. Kate had made that clear from the get-go. “I thought you weren’t talking to her much anymore.”

“We haven’t really communicated since last fall.”

“What was the message?”

“She is considering selling her place and wondered what I thought she should ask for it.” He scratched his jaw, his face lined in thought.

“Are you going to call her back?”

He shrugged. “Maybe I’ll look into it. Right now, I need to get going. Have you seen the keys? They’re not where I thought I left them.”

The keys? Kate’s breath caught. She sat up in bed, something that was getting harder to do the bigger her belly grew. Did he mean Sophy’s house keys? The ones Claire still had? Dang it, why did Sophy have to pull this shit about selling her place right now?

“I don’t know anything about any keys!” she declared more vehemently than she’d meant to, judging by his wince. “Why are you blaming me?”

“I wasn’t.”

Panic shot through her, heating her from head to toe, making her heart race and her body warm again. “All I’ve done day after day is go to work with Claire and then come straight over to The Shaft, like you and Grady and Mac insist.”

Well, except for that side trip to the library … and then jail. Dang Deputy Dipshit. Butch would have been none the wiser about her library visit if that idiot hadn’t tripped her up during her grand exit.

“Mac?” Butch frowned. “He hasn’t even been around lately to—”

“I’m like some prisoner now, practically shackled to your side.” She shoved her bed-tangled hair out of her eyes. The anger and frustration that had been churning inside of her for weeks boiled to the surface. “You’re probably monitoring my comings and goings with some fancy tracking device.”

She could feel her emotions racing out of control. Her hold on the reins was slipping again. Oh, boy! Why was it so hot in here? She needed to get away from Butch before she did something crazy.

“Kate.” Butch held his hand out. “Calm down.”

Calm down? Now, there was a novel idea. Why hadn’t she thought of that? It was so simple. Never mind the hormones raging throughout her body, making her want to cry one moment and beat someone with a rubber chicken the next. Or the fact that none of her clothes fit anymore. Or that she’d found her first stretch mark yesterday morning. Or that her legs were often waking her up in the night with never-ending cramps while Butch snoozed away, skipping through dreamland with Mr. Sandman.

“Calm down, you say?” she snapped.

She rose onto her knees, pulling up her pajama shirt so he could see her burgeoning belly in the clear light of morning. The elastic waistline of her satin panties had slipped down again, unable to stay in place around her growing baby.

“I would love to calm down,” she told him. “But my damned underwear don’t fit anymore and they keep getting into a big, mad twist.”

“Kate, listen,” he said. The mollifying tone in his voice made her want to hit him with a pillow.

“What?” She tugged her sad underwear up over her stomach for the umpteenth time and let her shirt drop.

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing.”

Why did he have to be so damned good to her? Her anger deflated, her frustrations cooled. Oh crud, now tears were threatening. She knee-walked to the end of the bed, needing to escape before the pendulum finished swinging the other way and she turned into a silly snotty bawl baby. Stupid hormones!

“Everything’s fine, Valentine.” She avoided his gaze, swiping at her eyes. “It’s all peachy-keen and swell. Just out of this world wonderful.”

He met her at the foot of their bed, taking her by the shoulders and staring down at her.

“I’m not crying, dammit.”

He brushed away a wayward tear. “Of course you’re not. But your left eye is twitching.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I read that shifting hormone levels in the second trimester can cause rapid mood swings.”

Him and that freaking pregnancy book! She leaned her forehead against his sternum. “This is all your fault.”

“I know, sweetheart.”

“If you didn’t have such overachieving, insanity-inducing sperm.”

He chuckled. “You bring out the best in my boys.”

“Why do you always have to smell so good?” She breathed in his clean scent, kissing his neck. “How am I supposed to resist you?”

“All the extra blood flowing through the lower half of your body now can really up your sexual appetite.”

She pulled back, scowling up at him. “I sort of want to bite you right now.”

“Which explains last night,” he continued. “And the night before that. And the other morning when you jumped my bones in my office at The Shaft.” He gave her a wicked smile. “And last weekend when you joined me in the shower and got me all steamy and lathered up. That book is right. Your breasts have easily grown a cup size. I wonder—”

She held her fist up in front of his face. “If you don’t stop reciting shit from that baby book, I’m going to shove the damned thing up your ass sideways. And it’s a hardback, so you’re going to walk bowlegged for a while after I’m done.”

“Sounds kinky.” He grinned, his blue eyes raking over her. “You’re really sexy with your wild hair and pink cheeks. Maybe we should continue this conversation in the shower.”

Maybe they should.

No. Wait. Gah! She batted his hands away and shoved him back a step. “Stay away from me, baby maker. I don’t need you sexing me up this morning. I’m already late for work.”

He chuckled, taking her elbow to help her off the bed. “I’m sure your sister will let your tardiness slide. She has your cousin there to help now, too.”

“Claire’s a bossy bully on the jobsite. She takes after Gramps. Why didn’t you wake me when you got up?”

She pulled free of his grip and stepped gingerly across the carpet. Her feet were swelling up more often than not lately, especially after a busy shift like last night. Pregnancy was not for wimps, and she was only halfway there. Not to mention the grand finale when the watermelon had to push out through the tiny keyhole.

“Because you were up late giving me a hands-on demonstration of how wonderful it is that there is extra blood flowing south of your belly button.”

She scowled his way as she searched through her underwear drawer for some panties that actually fit, frowning as she cast aside all the sexy and lacey ones that she used to wear. “You don’t take me seriously anymore, Valentine.”

He came closer, picking up underwear from the floor along the way. “I take you whatever way I can get you, with or without underwear.”

“Hardy har har.” She took the underwear back and set them on the dresser to box up with her other clothes that no longer fit. “You read that book and think you have me all figured out, but there is more going on underneath my skin than what you read on those pages. I’m more than just an incubator for our child.”

That was something everyone kept seeming to forget.

When she tried to turn away from him, he stopped her. “Kate, wait.”

“What? I need to get dressed and head to the RV park.”

Claire and Mac had been going up to Sophy’s last night with those keys Butch wanted. She needed to know what they found and send it off to Sophy so she’d tell Kate how she knew Joe was still alive. And then Kate needed to sneak home at some point and put the keys back where she’d found them. Or at least close by so that Butch might think he’d misplaced them.

“Sweetheart, I promise to take you seriously if you’ll talk to me.” He framed her face. “Tell me what’s going on.”

She hesitated. She wanted to share everything, but he wouldn’t understand. Not her need to protect her family. Not her need to solve this mystery and feel like a viable, sane, contributing member of society still.

“Tell me, Kate.” His thumb caressed her cheek. “Worrying about you is making me—”

“I’m trapped,” she said, cutting him off with the truth. At least part of it.

His hands lowered to her shoulders. “Because you’re carrying our kid?”

“No.” She sighed. “I mean yes, but not like that.”

“Then like what?”

She poked him in the shoulder. “You are watching me all the time now.”

“Not all the time.” He had the decency to look sheepish.

“I have very little freedom anymore.”

“Sweetheart,” he started.

But she wasn’t done yet. “And as soon as our child is born, I’m really going to have to give up my independence, at least for a while, since I’ll be a mom. I’m not saying that parenthood is going to be a bad thing, it’s just that the ‘Kate’ I have been for the first thirty-plus years of my life—the one you fell in love with—will go away. Maybe for good. And that scares me.”

Heck, Kate’s own mom was still struggling with the loss of her “self” due to motherhood, and Kate and her sisters were long grown. Was she going to end up in the same mental boat? There was no way he’d want to be married to an angry, depressed version of herself.

“Kate, we’re in this together, remember.”

“Yeah, but you’re still going to go to car shows and do your man things out in the garage while I walk around with a baby attached to my boob.”

“Lucky kid.” He smiled down at her chest.

“Valentine.”

His gaze returned to hers, steady and serious now. “I told you before, Kate, I’m not going to any car shows without you and the baby. Either we all go, or I send someone else to buy in my place.”

“You say that now, but when the kid is teething and I’m pulling my hair out in frustration, ranting and swinging punches like a mad gorilla, you’ll want to get far away from us.”

He shook his head. “This baby is equal parts mine. We’ll tag-team when the times are exhausting. We’ll figure things out together.”

Her heart warmed at the sincerity in his eyes. “Okay, but we need to figure out now how to let me do my own thing. This constant checking up on me is archaic and patriarchal, not to mention insulting.”

He tore at his hair, leaving horns sticking up here and there. “Look at it from my perspective for a second. Two days ago you placed yourself in one of Grady’s jail cells.”

“That was for my own protection.”

“It wasn’t the first time. His deputy jokes about naming a cell after you.”

“He’s a clueless asshole.”

“So, you’ve taken on the task of educating him?”

She shrugged. “I am a teacher by trade.”

“Fine, Miss Teacher. But maybe you need to rework your lesson plan, keeping this particular pain-in-the-ass student in mind.”

Hey, that was a good idea. Kate needed to stop thinking that Deputy Dipshit was going to be anything other than a spoiled, egocentric brat and come at him from another angle for her “schooling.”

“I’ll take that advice into consideration,” she said. “Besides my problematic tactics of educating Grady’s deputy, what other reasons do you have for confining me?”

“I don’t like the word ‘confining,’ sweetheart.”

“Fine. Why else are you so overly worried about me?”

“You fell on the sidewalk.” He made it sound as if she’d fallen from a ten-story building into a pool full of hungry sharks.

“Dear Lord, Valentine. I’m not Humpty Dumpty.” Not yet anyway. “I won’t break that easily.”

“Do you know what it does to a guy when he hears his five-months pregnant woman fell?”

“Did you just call me your woman?” She raised one eyebrow. “Are we going back to caveman days?”

“What should I call you, Kate? We are way beyond boyfriend and girlfriend.” He huffed. “I’d like to call you my fiancée, but you won’t accept any of my damned proposals.”

“That’s because you don’t ask them right.”

“Well, I’m sorry, but I’m new at this.”

She rolled her eyes. “Valentine Carter, you haven’t been seriously trying and you know it.”

He blushed slightly. “It’s nerve-racking.”

“I would think that I’ve said ‘No’ enough times by now that it would be old hat for you.”

“You would think,” he grumbled, repeating her words. “Well, it’s not, Kate.” He walked away from her, flopping face-first onto the bed. “You’re complicated,” he told her in a muffled voice.

“Why do you want to get married so badly right now?” She moved closer, standing over him. “You know I’m not going anywhere.”

“Because I want to take care of you and our child.”

“You already are. Look how much you fret over every little thing.”

“So, sue me. I love you and don’t want anything to happen to you.”

“It’s one thing to worry. It’s a whole other thing to suffocate someone.”

He rolled onto his back. “You have to admit, Kate, you have a knack for landing in trouble.”

“Only when it comes to Deputy Dipshit.”

“Not only.” He frowned. “You also seem to have taken quite an interest in Grady’s ex-wife.”

“Elizabeth is a selfish, infected canker that won’t heal up and go away.” When his eyebrows raised, she added, “That’s only my medical opinion, of course. I’m sure she has some lovely qualities somewhere under all of those bitchy comments and spiky teeth.”

He stared at her for a long time, his frown lines growing deeper by the second. “What would you have me do, Kate? You’re asking me to back off and leave you alone to do what you want when you want, come what may. At the same time, Grady is in my other ear telling me that he can’t keep covering for you when his deputy has legitimate claims of crimes you’ve committed.”

“I only want a bit more breathing room before our child pokes its head out and takes over our lives.”

The baby kicked right then. Or elbowed. Or just twitched. The fluttering, almost tickling feel took her breath away. Kate gasped, touching her stomach.

“What is it?” Butch shot to his feet. “Are you okay? We should stop arguing. It’s not good for the baby.”

“Valentine, I told you, I’m not a fragile egg.” The fluttering continued, stronger. “And I have a feeling this kid won’t be either.”

“What do you mean?” His face paled. “What’s going on? Do we need to go to the doctor?”

“No.” She took his hand and placed it on the side of her belly where the fluttering was still happening. It was like she had a hummingbird trapped in there.

“Do you feel that?” she whispered, covering his hand with hers.

She’d told him about the fluttering the other day when it had first happened, but he couldn’t feel anything at the time, or even later that night. Nor hear anything with the stethoscope he now kept in his nightstand.

When the baby moved again, Butch’s eyes grew wide.

“There you go, big daddy,” she teased. “We probably need to start thinking about names before Chester picks one for us.”

He groaned, sounding sickly.

Kate stared at him, noticing the sweat lining his upper lip. “Valentine? Are you okay?”

“Feeling lightheaded,” he mumbled, his face now a sickly, ashen color. “Little dizzy.”

“Did you eat yet this morning?”

“No time.” He swayed slightly, his hand slipping off her stomach. “Busy working on the Zephyr.”

Damn it! Ever since he’d gotten that truckload of old clunkers in, he was forgoing sleep and food so he could spend time playing with his cars. The sooner Claire and Mac took over The Shaft, the better.

“How long have you been up?” she asked.

“Since five.” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he gulped several times. “I think I need to sit down.”

“You look like you’re about to …”

“Narg,” he blurted and slumped to the floor.

Faint.

She squatted next to him. He was still breathing, his skin now flushed pink. “Valentine?”

He let out a gurgled groan.

“You know you have to eat in the morning, darn it!”

Kate raced toward the kitchen, yelling over her shoulder, “Between my hopped-up hormones and your low blood sugar, I’m going to wind up with an ulcer.”