Zeke

I pushed through the office door and strode down the hall to Hunter’s office. Van had called me in from a job with no explanation. I didn’t have time for this. And if it was about the other night, if he’d decided to conduct some messed-up intervention to force me to go to a shrink, we’d have a serious problem.

The door to his office was open and I walked on in without knocking . . . then pulled up short.

Everyone was there, crammed into one room. Neco, Ruby, Jude, Hunter, and walking toward me, expression blank but tense, was Van. I’d only been half joking about the intervention, but now I wasn’t so sure.

Ruby moved in, closing the door behind me, and Neco moved to block it. Every muscle in my body locked up tight. I looked at Van. “What the fuck is this?”

“Something happened this afternoon,” Ruby said.

And I knew—as soon as the words left her lips, I knew it was Sunny. “Tell me.”

A muscle in Van’s jaw jumped, and Ruby touched his arm, stopping him from speaking. “I’ve got this, Van,” she said then she looked back at me. “Someone tried to run Sunny down outside her shop this afternoon.”

A lightning bolt shot down my spine and the fucking earth shifted beneath my feet. “Is she okay, is she hurt?” I forced out past the fear trying to choke me.

Ruby shook her head. “Yeah, she’s okay. Seriously shaken up, though.”

I shoved Van out of my way and paced to the end of the office and back, trying to keep it together. When that failed, I walked to the other side of the room and plowed my fist into the wall, once, then twice. The plasterboard gave way, dust raining down. Van and Jude started toward me, but I pulled away, sucking in a ragged breath. “Where is she now?”

“She and Julia are in the holding room with Lulu,” Hunter said.

I wasn’t ready to see her, not with the way I was feeling. I’d scare her, I’d drag her home to my place and never let her out of my sight . . . never let go. “Did we get any of this on camera?” I asked Ruby.

“Yeah . . . but it’s through the shop window, so it’s not that clear . . .”

“Show me.” If there was anything, anything that could help me ID this fucker on the video, I wanted to see it.

Ruby crossed her arms. “Zeke, we’ve got this. I think that you should talk to her . . .”

“Show me the goddamn footage.”

A look past between Van and Ruby.

“What?” I barked.

“Do it,” Van said to Hunter.

Hunter tapped at a couple keys then turned his laptop to me.

The video started. I could see Sunny walking toward the shop. Yeah, it was grainy and she was still quite a way away, but you couldn’t miss her. Walking, talking sunshine.

I watched a car speed toward her, Sunny dive out of the way, fall hard to the pavement.

So fucking close. I shoved my fingers through my hair. Jesus, they’d almost hit her. No way was that an accident.

Julia rushed out, led her inside, and sat her down.

Sunny’s hand dropped to her belly. “I hit the ground hard. My baby. What if I hurt the baby when I fell?” she said, her voice ringing out from the laptop speakers.

Blood rushed through my ears.

What? My heart started pounding in my throat. Had I just heard what I thought I had? Had she actually said those words?

I carried on watching, as they called Sunny’s doctor, filling her in on what happened to Sunny, asking if there was any risk to the baby. Then the call to Ruby. I didn’t look away until the end, frozen.

She was pregnant? Sunny was having a baby. My baby.

“Did you know?” Ruby asked gently, tearing me from my thoughts.

I looked down at her and shook my head.

She grabbed my forearm and gave it a squeeze.

I looked down at her, still struggling to process it, all of it, then looked to Van. “What else do we know?”

Van stared at me for several long seconds, and I knew he wanted to ask more, dig deeper, but instead said, “Not a fucking thing.”

Jude crossed his massive arms over his chest. “I’ve got Connor on it. He’s going through CCTV footage, trying to get a number plate, maybe a clear shot of the guy’s face. The direction he was headed. Anything that could give us a location.”

Jude had worked with Connor before he left the force. Connor was still a detective, but they’d stayed close. The guy helped us out a lot at the agency. I nodded, not really there, not in that room anymore. All I could hear was Sunny’s voice in my head saying those words over and over again. “My baby. What if I hurt the baby when I fell?”

I headed for the door and Van grabbed my shoulder, stopping me. “What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

He let me go and I walked out the door, down the hall, then down the stairs to the lower level. Neco’s office was down here, a gym, as well as the holding room. I stopped outside the door and stared at it. What the hell am I going to say? This wasn’t supposed to happen. This wasn’t in the cards for me, not anymore. It’d been taken out of the deck and burnt to ash when Diane did what she did. It’d been for the best. Punishment for what I did in Afghanistan.

That’s what I always believed. The universe righting itself, Karma or whatever.

If that was the case, how could this be? How could Sunny be having my baby?

How the fuck could I be what she needed? What a kid needed?

“Oh . . . hi.”

I turned at the sound of Julia’s voice. Lulu was beside her and they were carrying coffee cups.

“Where’s Sunny?” I asked them, not recognizing my own damn voice.

“She’s resting,” Lulu said, motioning to the holding room. “I was just going to show Julia around. You can give Sunny this if you’re going in.” She handed me a cup and ushered a frowning Julia back the way they’d come.

I gripped the door handle, pushed it open, and—stopped dead.

Sunny was lying on her side, hands curled up by her face, eyes closed, fast asleep. Her hair was pushed back from her face, spread over the pillow. There were dark circles under her eyes. She looked exhausted. The sight warmed a spot behind my ribs. I wanted to lift her into my arms and take care of her, never let her out of my sight. She was wearing jeans and she’d kicked off her boots. The shirt she was wearing was green, loose, that drapey kind of fabric. It clung to her breasts and hung off one shoulder, the skin there smooth and pale. It took everything in me not to sit beside her and run my lips over that delicate skin, taste her, soak in her warmth, breathe in her scent.

Her eyelids quivered then fluttered open, and she glanced over at me.

“Zeke . . .” She shifted, pulling herself into a sitting position, eyes still heavy from sleep. “I . . . um . . .”

I handed her the drink Lulu had given me and she accepted it and put it on the bedside table.

“Thank you.” I hated how pale she looked.

“So it wasn’t the stomach flu?” I said into the silence, not able to make myself say the words.

Her full lips parted and she drew in a quick breath, then she let it out, shoulders losing some of their tension and she shook her head. “No.”

“That’s what you wanted to tell me tonight?”

“Yes.” She bit her lip and started twisting that ring on her thumb. “I didn’t plan this . . . I hope you believe that. I didn’t think . . . I didn’t think I could get pregnant . . .”

“How long have you known?” I said.

She started chewing on her bottom lip. “I found out the day Bobby came to my house . . .”

“The phone call?” I fucking knew there was something wrong.

“Yes.”

“And you didn’t tell me because?” I bit out. I wasn’t angry with her, but I hated that she’d felt she couldn’t tell me, that she’d been trying to deal with it on her own. Sunny was good at that, keeping her emotions locked up tight. I didn’t want her to do that, not with me. Yeah, that made me a hypocrite, but that’s how I felt.

“I was . . .” She blew out a breath. “I was in shock. I know this isn’t what you want . . .”

“Sunny . . .”

“I’m keeping it,” she said, finality in her tone. “I’m keeping this baby.”

The way she said it, the way she was looking at me, like she was waiting for the worst, expecting the worst from me, was a knife to the gut. It was understandable, of course. I’d made it clear I wasn’t interested in becoming a father, in having a relationship. But the baby was growing inside her, not me; the decision was hers. I took her in, that blank look back in her eyes, locked up tight again, and I snapped, lost my goddamn shit. “Stop it,” I gritted out.

I took the steps separating us and grabbed her shoulders. “Do not lock me out, Sunny, not about this. Don’t give me your blank looks and fake fucking smiles. Don’t pretend you’re fine when you’re not. Not with me. I need to know what you’re thinking, you understand? I can’t deal with this if I don’t know what you’re thinking . . .”

“I’m scared,” she said, voice breaking. “I’m so damn scared.”

I slid my fingers under her chin and tilted her head back, pulse hammering at the side of my throat. “I want you to move in with me,” I said, surprising the shit out of myself.

She tried to pull away, eyes slicing up to mine. “What?”

“It’s where you should be. Where I need you to be.”

She blinked up at me. “But . . . why? We don’t need to . . .”

“You’re carrying my baby, Sunny. It’s my job to keep you both safe.”

She bit her lip again and I wanted to suck it. I wanted to thrust my fingers in her hair and kiss that maddening mouth until she spilled all her damn secrets. Yep, total hypocrite.

“You’re okay with it, with me keeping the baby?” she said.

I had to clear the tightness from my throat before I could speak. “It’s your decision. You want to have it, I’ll support you.” And I would, in whatever way I could. I’d make sure she had every damn thing she needed.

She hugged herself. “And I appreciate that, I do, but I don’t need to be living with you for you to do that. I’ll shut the shop for a while, stay at Julia’s apartment until we know . . . who was driving that car.” She shook her head, and I got a whiff of vanilla. Christ. “I don’t want you to put yourself out, or make any big changes for me. I have money, I can support this baby. You never asked for this, I’ll understand if you don’t want to get involved.”

I brushed her hair back from her face, tucking some of the wild strands behind her ear, unable to help myself. She’d just found out she was pregnant, to a man who said he didn’t want kids. She was scrambling, scared. Now was not the time to keep what I was feeling close to my chest, no matter how much those feelings terrified me. “I care about you, Sunny, you know that, and I sure as fuck haven’t stopped wanting you. I don’t know what happens next, but I want to be there for you, for both of you.” She started to shake her head and that fist in my gut tightened. “You don’t need to make any decisions now, about your future . . . our future. But until we catch this guy, I want you at my place, with me. Any farther ahead than that, we’ll discuss when all this shit has calmed down.”

“What are you suggesting? You and me . . . a relationship?” she whispered.

I paused. “Maybe.” Fuck, I couldn’t do that, could I? Have that, with her? Right then, I could admit I wanted it, and this baby. And as shitty as it sounded, I’d been given the excuse I needed to take that for myself. To have that with her. My heart started beating faster.

She swallowed, her slender throat working. “I . . . I care about you, too, which is why I’m not sure this is a good idea. Right now, we get along, and if you decide you want to be a part in this baby’s life, we need a good relationship. What if we try for more and it doesn’t work out, what if it ends in a disaster? We could destroy that . . . we could . . .”

“Let’s not think that far ahead,” I said, throat still tight as fuck. “Let’s just keep you safe, then go from there,” I said again. Sunny may have some reservations, but it was the right thing to do. Sunny, the baby, were my responsibility. I didn’t deserve her, but turning my back on her and our baby because of that fact, hurting an innocent child, wouldn’t help absolve the sins I already carried around on my soul. There was no choice. I had to be what Sunny needed, what our kid needed.

Even if that meant pretending to be the kind of man I wasn’t.

Something curled around the icy fist still gripping me, warm and strong, easing the pain in the pit of my stomach, a pain I’d been living with for over a year. It was so foreign, it took a minute to figure out what the hell it was.

Happiness.

I took a startled step back, suddenly needing to get out of there before the guilt suffocated me. “I have some things I have to do,” I choked out. “Ruby will take you home. I’ll be over to pick you up tonight.” Then I shut the door behind me and headed for the elevator.

I needed some fresh air, then I needed to beat the shit out of something.