Chapter One
The car stuttered… “No, no, no” …gasped and choked and bucked… “No, no, no” …and kept going.
“That’s it baby.” Covington rubbed a hand on the dash and prayed her beat-up Cavalier Z24 would make the last few miles. “Just a little more. It’s not far now and I promise when we get there you can stop, fall apart or die. Whatever you want. Just give me a little more. Please,” she begged.
When the car continued up the road she let out a slow breath and tried to focus on the positives—the car was still moving and she was getting closer to her destination with each mile—but it was hard to keep an upbeat attitude when nothing had turned out the way it was supposed to.
For one thing, she was freezing. The aged heating system and flimsy roof of her convertible couldn’t compete with the cold seeping through every nook and cranny.
There was also the fact she was thousands of miles from home looking for a man who more than likely didn’t want to see her.
Oh! And the kicker. She was four months pregnant.
With twins.
Sniffling, she turned the heater nob another notch and hoped the change didn’t cause the car to quit. The engine didn’t die but the air blasting through the vents didn’t get any warmer either.
“He probably hates me,” she muttered, the white cloud forming in front of her face growing bigger with every word.
She hadn’t seen Tristan Harding since the morning she’d kicked him out of her bed.
Four months ago.
By the time she’d gotten over the fact she’d slept with him. Over the fact he wasn’t the man who’d put a ring on her finger. Over the fact she’d felt far more for Tris than she ever had for Dirk. Over her own stupid embarrassment and shame…
Tris was gone.
She didn’t dare ask anyone where he’d disappeared to though.
Especially not Dirk. After catching her fiancé screwing one of her fellow dancers Covington hadn’t said anything to the lying cheating scumbag. Nope. She’d taken off his ring, left it on his dining room table—along with the key he’d given her to his apartment—and driven home.
Where she’d promptly set about ridding her place of every little piece of Dirk and the plans he’d shattered by dumping all his stuff out her third floor window.
That’s when Tris showed up.
She’d been leaning out the window with a bundle of Dirk’s clothes in her arms ready to let them drop when he climbed out of his truck. Tris had looked up at her, looked down at the growing pile of crap already on the lawn, then brought his gaze back to hers and smiled.
She had to admit he’d made her tummy flutter more than once in the year and a half they’d known each other, but that smile, the way his eyes creased at the corners, the light breeze ruffling his blond hair and the scruff covering his chiseled jaw…
Damn, she’d fluttered in places lower than her belly.
Covington couldn’t say why she did it. Why she let him in, let him help her purge her life of the scumbag, or why, after a shared pizza, a couple of beers and some great conversation, she let him into her bed—into her body.
That was a lie. She knew exactly why.
The man had moves. His lips and hands had her pulsing with arousal with the barest touch. And he’d touched her.
Everywhere.
Not that he’d been the only one. Nope. She’d gotten her fair share of groping in before they’d stripped naked and engaged in the best, most mind-blowing sixty-nine she’d ever been part of. Her sex clenched with the X-rated memories flashing through her head, a tremor quaking her from head to toe as her core temperature rose without the help of the car’s ancient heating system.
He’d done things—she’d done things—that put every other sexual encounter she’d ever had in the amateur’s league. Covington couldn’t explain why she’d allowed Tris to touch her in ways she’d never trusted any other man to do. And that included her cheating, lying scumbag fiancé.
“Goddammit!” She slapped the steering wheel with a gloved hand.
The car jerked and shuddered. Firmly wrapping her fingers around the wheel again she hoped she didn’t hit a patch of ice. She’d heard that could be treacherous.
Born and bred in Miami she hadn’t been prepared for the cold. Or the snow. There was no escaping it. It was everywhere.
When she’d stopped in Tahoe for gas and munchies, and gloves for her freezing fingers, the old guy behind the counter had chatted away about the lack of ‘inches’ on the ground for this time of year and the unseasonably warm temperatures. But if her frozen body and what she’d seen on the drive up the mountain were any indication there was already way too much of the white stuff covering the ground, and Covington wanted to turn right back around and head for places warmer—head home.
Her lips quivered. “I don’t have a home.” She sniffed back the sting of tears, blinking furiously to ward off another crying jag. “Damn stupid hormones.”
She’d given up her lease. Sold everything she could, donated what she couldn’t and piled the few possessions she’d decided to keep into her twenty-two-year-old car and headed for California.
The other side of the country.
Another world away.
Up a godforsaken mountain covered in snow!
When that little blue plus sign had appeared in the teeny tiny window on the plastic stick, Covington hadn’t been able to breathe. It had taken her a very long, very angst ridden day to come to terms with the fact she was pregnant.
After the initial shock wore off she’d been okay with the idea. More than okay. She’d been thrilled to know she was carrying Tristan’s baby.
But then morning sickness set in and dancing had become difficult. She lost her balance as well as her lunch and a couple of one-day jobs along with them, and as she headed into the third month, and her weight dipped to an all-time low, she panicked more than a little.
Surely it couldn’t be normal to lose weight while growing another human being?
Her doctor had assured her she was fine—the baby was fine—but scheduled an ultrasound ‘just to be on the safe side’ and put her mind at ease.
There was no ‘safe side’ for what that scan revealed and no easing of the mind.
Two miniature hearts beating fast and furious as two perfect little bodies formed and grew.
“Oh god.” Her fingers clenched on the wheel as her stomach clenched around two bags of chips, three cans of soda, and one and half bags of gummy bears.
The rush of fear and excitement and panic shot through her as quickly and sharply as it had two weeks ago when she’d first seen with her own eyes the teeny lives she and Tris had made.
She’d stumbled out of her doctor’s office, vaguely remembered thanking him and paying the bill, and somehow found her way home while her world spun and tilted all over again.
She couldn’t do it alone.
One baby would have been manageable and she’d had every intention of hunting Tris down to let him know he was going to be a father, but two babies…
Covington might pride herself on her independence and know she could, if push came to shove, do anything she set her mind to. But raising two babies while working in an industry that required she stay in peak physical form when in all likelihood she’d be forced to rest later in her pregnancy not to mention most singers didn’t want a pregnant woman in their music video, and there would be night feeds once the babies arrived…
Well, there really was no way she could do it alone.
She sighed.
She’d been deluding herself.
She didn’t want to do it alone.
Hadn’t from the moment the situation had sunk in and the reality of having Tris’s babies had taken root in her mind as firmly as they had in her belly.
Finding him had become a priority.
Ironic that it was Dirk who’d revealed Tris’s whereabouts.
Her ex-fiancé had turned up on her doorstep accusing her of sabotaging his friendship with Tris and blaming her for Tris’s decision to relocate to that ‘godforsaken mountain’ miles away.
It took a while to get the details out of a clearly drunk Dirk, and even longer to fend off his sloppy advances, but once he’d clued in to the not so obvious swell of her belly—she’d had to spell it out for him—he’d escaped her apartment as though his ass was on fire.
A little more investigation and Covington had all the info she needed on Tris’s new home and made the decision to pack up and move there too.
She had to admit she was excited to be going to Karina Black’s hometown. And she knew Karina’s trusted choreographer also lived there and maybe, just maybe, she could get some work to see her through until the babies were old enough to go to daycare and she could return to work fulltime.
The plan made sense. Even if it was vague and didn’t take into account Tris’s reaction to seeing her.
“Lord, what if he won’t even talk to me?”
The car drifted as she rounded a bend on the slippery mountain road and her fingers flexed, her hands tightening on the wheel as she eased off the gas.
Driving in snow country definitely required full concentration. The last thing she needed was to end up in a wreck. At this point, the Cavalier was her only means of shelter and crashing it would put her in an even worse position.
“I am such an idiot.” She wanted to thunk her head on the steering wheel.
She’d given up her home and most of belongings and driven three thousand miles with no place to land. Not exactly the best decision she’d ever made. She should have called. Except telling Tris he was going to be a father over the phone felt wrong and she’d already denied him the first few months. Not that that was her fault, it wasn’t like he’d even told her he was leaving.
Okay, sure, she’d kicked him out of bed then out the door and she couldn’t remember exactly what she’d said to him but Covington had no doubt it wasn’t good because the man had left town!
Hell, he’d crossed the country to get away from her.
With another deep sigh she accepted the fact the next few hours would be some of the most difficult of her life.
She had to tell the man who’d fathered her children he was going to be a dad. Convince him she hadn’t kept him in the dark on purpose and hope he let her stay with him until she worked out some other arrangement.
Up ahead a sign at the side of the road made her a teeny tiny bit optimistic. As it flashed past she smiled. Surely everything would be okay when she was heading into a town called Hope Falls.
***
Tris fell onto his bunk at the stationhouse, his body limp with fatigue, every muscle screaming with pain after his session in the gym where MMA champion, Lucky Dorsey, had done exactly as Tristan had asked and delivered a punishing workout. But it didn’t help, nothing Lucky put him through helped. Tris’s mind remained alert and spinning around the one subject he’d tried every day for the last few months to erase.
Covington Valenti.
No matter how hard he worked or worked out or drank, he couldn’t remove the images of Cov naked and writhing beneath him from his head.
One night and she’d marked him for life.
He’d known he was hooked on the woman the second his friend had introduced them, but with Dirk’s ring on her finger there was no way Tris could make a move. For over a year he’d watched the man he’d once called friend demolish any respect and loyalty Tris had for him.
Keeping his mouth shut about Dirk’s cheating had been torture. Tris had struggled with the dilemma every day until he’d finally had enough and gone to Cov’s place with the intention of telling her everything.
Except she’d already known.
God, he wished he could have spared her that heartbreaking discovery.
Although he had to admit he hadn’t seen one tear. Anger, frustration, embarrassment, they were all there, but not for one second did she appear heartbroken by Dirk’s behavior.
It was why he’d made a move.
And fucked everything up.
He’d never forget the look of pure bliss on her face when she’d come apart in his arms. Never forget the sheer joy of joining his body with hers and pushing her over the crest once more, this time going right along with her.
Nor would he forget the slumberous eyes, smokey with satisfaction, that blinked awake the next morning. Or the rush of dismay and horror that stole away her contentment as she’d registered who was in bed with her.
His plan had been to let her wake slowly before loving her all over again.
Except Cov had other ideas, and all of them were filled with shock and shame and embarrassment.
He’d tried to argue. Tried to get her to see reason but by the time she’d pushed and shoved and maneuvered him to her front door, his clothes a bundle in his arms, she’d been in tears and Tris had known there was no way to get through to her in that moment.
Yanking on his pants, he figured he’d give her some time to settle then they’d talk, except her parting words had sliced through him as though she’d thrust a dagger into his chest.
“Tell that lying cheating worthless scumbag I fucked you for revenge. Tell him how I swallowed. That’ll give him a kick in the nuts knowing you got what he never did.”
Her laughter had followed him into the hall as he’d flung open the door and left.
“Jesus.” Clenching his abs, Tris curled off the bed into a series of sit-ups in an attempt to banish the latest round of memories.
The bunk wasn’t the best surface to work on. It gave beneath him, squeaked in protest as he ramped up the speed and drove himself deeper into the pain and sweat of pushing his body beyond its limit.
“Harding!” A hand slapped down on his shoulder stopping him from rolling up again. “Shit man, give yourself a break before you break.”
Tris blinked sweat from his eyes and the grim face of Dylan Williams came into focus.
His friend and workmate shook his head. “I don’t know what the hell is up your ass but you need to get a handle on it. You’ll kill yourself at this rate.”
Shoving his friend’s arm away he sat up. “I’m good. Just cooling down.”
Dylan laughed. “Yeah, tell that to someone who doesn’t know what a hard workout looks like or that Lucky Dorsey just whipped your ass in the gym.”
Tris watched as his childhood buddy sat on the bed across from him. He could tell Dylan was winding up to say something and really didn’t want to be on the receiving end of whatever it was, but he owed Dylan. Owed his friend for getting him in the door of Station 8 and in front of Chief Maguire when Tris had made the decision to move into the house his Great Aunt Jane left him in Hope Falls. So he waited.
“Look.” Dylan ran a hand down the back of his head, gripped his neck. “I know something chased you up here and I’ve let you stew, hit the bar with you in those first few days, tagged along on more workouts than I need in my lifetime, never mind a few months, and it has to stop. Whatever you’re running from is eating you alive and you need to deal with it some other way.”
Tris smiled. “You get a psychology degree when I wasn’t looking?” he asked.
“No. But I know you. And at the risk of taking a fist to the face I’m going to go out on a limb and say it’s a woman who has you all in knots.”
He glanced away. Couldn’t look his friend in the eyes and lie to his face. “Nah, just had enough of the hot weather. Needed to feel some snow under my board.”
“Bullshit.” Tris’s gaze snapped back to Dylan who held up a hand. “I don’t want any details so you can keep your lies. Just stop killing yourself. It’s killing me watching you.”
Tris could see the genuine concern in his friend’s eyes and vowed to pull his head out of his ass. But he couldn’t do that without closure and this thing between him and Covington would remain wide open until he dealt with it—with her.
The minute his shift ended tomorrow morning he would call Cov and see how she was doing. He knew through his limited conversations with Dirk that the two of them hadn’t gotten back together, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t moved on with someone else.
Even if she was still single he’d moved on—started a new life. He might still be crazy about the woman and if she turned up on his doorstep he’d definitely invite her in, but that didn’t mean he’d change his mind about relocating to Hope Falls.
The small town in the Sierra Nevadas had been an oasis in the middle of his chaotic childhood and the minute he’d driven down Main Street he’d known this was where he was meant to be.
“Come on. The chief wants us to dig up that area out front where Tessa wants to put in a garden bed.”
Tris groaned at the idea of shoveling dirt.
Dylan got to his feet and grinned. “That’ll teach you for pushing yourself too hard.”
“He saw me come in didn’t he?” Tris’s thigh muscles protested as he stood.
“Yep.” Dylan thumped him on the back. “Who do you think sent me in here?”
Great. The last thing he needed was for the chief to think his head wasn’t in the right space or he couldn’t pull his weight.
He had two more weeks of probation then he’d be on the payroll permanently. Tris didn’t want to screw this up.
He’d fucked up enough in the last few months so in spite of his aching body he hauled ass outside and started digging up the hard-packed earth beside the stationhouse driveway.
They were halfway along the roped-off section when the chief came out and stood behind them. Maguire didn’t speak and Tris wasn’t about to open his mouth and invite conversation.
He shoveled and tossed. Shoveled and tossed.
The hiss and grind of an engine in bad need of servicing echoed up the street breaking his rhythm for a moment. Tris shook his head and kept shoveling. Someone was in for a world of hurt if they didn’t get that thing to a mechanic soon.
“What is that?” Dylan asked as he straightened and leaned on his shovel. “Jesus. It looks like a Cavalier.”
A Cavalier? Tris’s head swung towards the road. He blinked several times but the snot-green vehicle continued to limp its way up the street. “Cov?”
Dropping his shovel, he jogged to the curb as the car jerked to a stop in front of the station, steam billowing from beneath the hood as the engine coughed and died. Jesus. She’d driven the thing all the way from Miami.
He raced around to the driver’s door and yanked it open.
“H-hi.” She smiled up at him sheepishly.
“You drove this piece of shit all the way across the country? What the hell were you thinking, woman?” They weren’t the first words he’d thought he’d say after months apart, but right now all he could think about was Cov stranded on the side of the road somewhere in the middle of nowhere.
“Um…”
“What are you doing here?”
“Well, um.” She glanced behind him and he realized they had an audience. “Can we talk somewhere private? Somewhere warm maybe?” she asked, her voice soft and wobbly.
Crap. She was bundled up like an Eskimo with three hoodies, scarf and gloves, and it wasn’t even cold enough for him to put on a jacket over his department issued t-shirt. Even with all those layers her cheeks and nose were bright pink and she was shivering.
“Yeah. C’mon, let’s get you inside.” He offered her a hand and she placed a gloved—tag still on—one in his.
“I can’t believe how cold it is up here,” Cov mumbled, her teeth clicking together, as she swung her legs out of the car to stand. She’d barely lifted her ass off the seat when she sucked in a breath. “Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh.”
“What’s wrong?” he asked, as she snatched her hand back and wrapped her arms around her waist, hunching forward.
“I have to pee.” She looked up at him with panicked eyes. “Now. I have to pee now.”
“You can use the toilet inside,” Tris offered.
“Where? How far?” Her gaze darted to the station entrance.
“Right inside the front door and down the hall.” Tris gripped her elbows and pulled her out of her seat and against his chest. Except she didn’t press into him like she should have. He didn’t have time to contemplate the situation before she pulled away.
“I gotta go.” On her feet now, she crossed her legs and bent at the middle. “Where? Where’s the bathroom?”
“Inside, to the left—”
“Move.” Cov pushed him aside and dashed around the open car door before racing in an ungainly fashion for the front door of the stationhouse. He’d never seen her move so awkwardly. She was a dancer. Every move she made was fluid, graceful.
“What the hell?” Dylan muttered behind him.
Tris turned to look at Dylan then Chief Maguire, and shrugged. “I have no idea.”
Maguire laughed. “Nothing more dangerous than a pregnant woman who has to pee.”
“W-what?” Tris choked out.
The chief tipped his chin in the direction Cov had taken. “ Pregnant women. It’s life-threatening to get in their way when they have to go.”
Tristan opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out. His gaze shot to the door Cov had disappeared through.
Pregnant?