Brock had been disappointed when Krista was forced to rush off to work the following morning. He had the day off and hoped they could spend the majority of it in bed. Lord knows he’d grown to love nothing more than hammering her into the mattress until she passed out from exhaustion with a smile on her face.

She’d loved the nursery, loved the star for their baby and had agreed to move into his bedroom. Despite the fact that he knew she’d be seeing Slade today at work, he was in a pretty decent mood. His mother had also confided in him, as he and Krista were leaving the house the night before, that she was smitten with his new “roommate” and couldn’t imagine a better suited woman to “exorcise the miserable” out of him.

Jeez, thanks, Mum.

Chase came by shortly after Krista left, and the two spent a couple of hours downstairs in Brock’s home gym, neither of them saying much, which was how they both preferred it.

Afterward, he showered, shaved and then spent the rest of the day cleaning the house. He had a housekeeper, but Marlena was on vacation, and shit still needed to get done, so as much as he loathed it, he knew Krista would appreciate it. Then he moved the rest of her things into his room. If she was going to live in his room, she was going to do it properly, girlie shit and all. After all her clothes were put away, he chucked out some of his own shit, tossing it into storage under the stairs. He made a new stir-fry from his cookbook and then sat and waited for her to come home.

Brock drummed his fingers on the armrest of his La-Z-Boy as he tipped up a bottle of beer into his mouth with his other hand. He glanced at the clock above the mantle. Where was she? She only worked until five, and it was almost six. Was everything okay? Was she okay? Was the baby okay? There was still a fair bit of snow on the roads, and in their neck of the woods, the plow only bothered clearing one lane. What if she’d been in an accident?

Fear, anger, frustration and worry gnawed at the back of his neck like a rabid badger until he felt it all the way down his spine. Where the fuck was she?

It wasn’t until he heard the lock in the door that he realized he’d been gripping the armrest so tightly, his hand was cramping and his heart beat wildly in his chest.

“Get a fucking grip,” he murmured, not wanting her to see him sitting here waiting for her like some lapdog. He was no fucking lap dog.

“Hello?” she called, the sounds of her hanging up her coat and ditching her boots following her greeting up the stairs.

He grunted and pushed himself up from his seat, wandering over to the top of the stairs to look down at her. She looked exhausted.

“You’re late,” he said with another grunt.

Ascending the stairs, she rolled her eyes. “So? It’s snowy out there, and I had to finish processing someone. Just because the clock strikes five doesn’t necessarily mean my day is over. If I’m in the middle of something I finish it.” She lifted her head and wrinkled her nose. “Mmm, something smells good.”

Damn her fucking cuteness. He turned away from her and glanced at the news on the television. “Call next time.”

Her exasperated sigh niggled more frustration at the back of his neck. Why did everything have to be a fight? Why couldn’t she just do what she was told?

Would you like her half as much if she did?

“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir,” she replied with a yawn, appearing bored with him and his tyranny. “I’m going to go have a quick shower.” She glanced at him, mischief twinkling in those gorgeous blue eyes. “That is, if I’m allowed.”

He simply grunted again, turned his back and walked into the kitchen.

“Missed you too, baby,” she called back, her voice already down the hall. “So happy to be home.”

Unable to throw anything or pound the wall, Brock gritted his teeth and turned on the wok, angry, but why?

Because you care about her. Worry about her, and she’s turning you into a sap with feelings.

“I’m not a fucking sap,” he grumbled around fifteen minutes later as he scooped rice out of the rice cooker onto two plates.

“Who said you were a sap?”

Her voice made him practically jump out of his skin, though thankfully he was able to hide his surprise and simply shrugged.

“Hmm?” she asked, coming up behind him and resting her hand on his back for a moment. “Who said you were a sap?”

His entire body responded on instinct to her presence, her scent, her touch. His balls tightened and his dick lurched as heat flooded his veins.

“Nobody.”

She leaned over the wok and grabbed a piece of broccoli, popping it into her mouth with a pleased hum. “All right then, Mr. CrankyPants.”

He thrust a plate into her hands. “Go eat.”

She saluted him. “Yes, sir.”

Moments later, they were sitting across from each other at the dinner table—for some reason, Brock had decided that they were going to eat dinner at the table, rather than in front of the television—and he felt his foul mood slowly disappear with each bite. And that’s when it hit him: He’d been so busy all day, cleaning and moving Krista’s shit into his room, that he hadn’t eaten. Had he even had breakfast? He didn’t think so. He was “hangry,” as his mother called it.

Son of a bitch.

Now he just felt like an ass.

Wanting to make amends and not ruin his chances of getting laid, or having Krista reconsider having moved into his room, he decided he needed to make peace. He needed to give her something she wanted, and that was a bit of communication and genuine interest.

Taking a sip of his beer and clearing his throat, he asked, “So how’d your parents take the news about the baby?”

But she didn’t respond. Instead, she quickly shoved more food into her face, her cheeks puffy like a chipmunk.

“Krista … ”

Slowly, she swallowed, and with the same speed lifted her eyes to his. “I, uh … I didn’t tell them.”

What the hell?

“Why not? I heard you talking to them on the phone yesterday, but then it was dinnertime and I didn’t get a chance to ask you.”

Her lips twisted, and she dropped her gaze back down to the wood grain of the table. “Because I’m just not ready, okay?”

“You have to tell them.”

Was she ashamed? Embarrassed? Embarrassed of him?

Her head snapped up, and she glared at him. “I don’t have to do anything. They’re my parents, and I’ll tell them when I’m good and ready. You have no idea what our relationship is like. How they’re going to take the news. So just back off.”

Wow! Where’d the sudden bitch switch come from? Hormones? He certainly hoped so. She’s been so happy, albeit tired when she got home, this was like night and day.

Maybe she was feeding off his lousy mood?

He needed to lighten the mood and handle this, handle her delicately. So even though his killer stir-fry was calling to him, he didn’t flinch, didn’t pick up his fork. He didn’t even breathe.

“Then tell me,” he finally said, his voice calm. He wasn’t letting her off the hook that easily. He wanted to know why she hadn’t told her parents.

“Tell you what?”

“About your parents. Your relationship with them. How are they going to take the news that you’re having a baby?”

She reached for her glass of water and took a sip. “Not well.”

“Why?”

“Because … because I was the wild child. The rebel, the … the screwup. I was the one that dicked around in university for years, took off traveling to go and ‘find myself.’ Something that people in Tanner Ridge, the Matthews family in particular, just don’t do. We’re workers. We live to work, not the other way around.”

She rolled her big blue eyes, clearly already fed up with the conversation topic.

Too fucking bad.

She went on, though it seemed painful to do so. “Compared to my brother, Vince, I’m a family embarrassment. He finished school with scholarships, both athletic and scholastic. Got accepted to numerous universities and then graduated law school with countless offers. He moved home and started working at my dad’s small practice. Picked right back up with his high school girlfriend, who’s a pharmacist, and the two are planning their wedding for next summer.”

She shot him a sarcastic look. “Let’s just say that if I called them up right now and told them I was knocked up from a one-night stand, they’d be disappointed but not necessarily shocked. This behavior is almost expected from me now. Hell … ” She snorted. “They thought for sure I was going to get knocked up in high school.”

He couldn’t see it. No, she wasn’t as responsible as he was, but few were. But she certainly didn’t strike him as the town bicycle or a careless person. Was it all in her head or did he really not know a damn thing about the woman he was having a child with? “What did you do that was so horrible that made you the black sheep?”

She rolled her eyes for the umpteenth time. “For starters? I didn’t marry my high school boyfriend. Curt and I were together for three years, since we were fifteen.”

Oh, good. Not the town bicycle. He didn’t think she was.

Brock didn’t say anything but simply nodded, encouraging her to continue.

“Then I went away to university, and he stuck around Tanner Ridge. We tried to do long distance, but it didn’t work. So eventually we broke up. I had some boyfriends and partners in university, hooked up a bit while I was traveling.” She must have caught his eyebrow rise. “I wasn’t a slut, if that’s what you’re thinking. I’ve had fewer partners than you, don’t forget.”

Shit. Fuck. Damn. He needed to work on his blank face.

Brock raised his hands in the air in surrender. “Sorry. I never said or even thought you were a slut. Please, continue.”

She grunted, made a face, but then went on. “Anyway, after traveling I came back to Canada. Finished university but still felt lost. I moved home to Tanner Ridge for six months. That’s when I went to an RCMP information session. It lit a fire under my ass, and I finally discovered what I wanted to do. I spent those six months preparing for the police academy. Curt and I picked up again, and it was like no time had passed. He thought I’d apply for a posting in town or at least near Tanner Ridge, but I wanted to move. We broke up again. My parents were devastated that I moved. Devastated that Curt and I broke up. Devastated that I wasn’t going to be like every other girl in Tanner Ridge and marry my high school sweetheart, work for a few years before hopping on the baby train express.”

He shook his head and picked up his fork, finally feeling like the conversation wasn’t so intense that he couldn’t eat and talk at the same time. “That doesn’t sound like a screwup. That just sounds like you didn’t follow their plans.”

Her shoulders slumped, and she let out another big, tired sigh before cramming more food into her own mouth and tucking it into her cheek to speak. “You don’t know them. In their eyes, that is me screwing up.”

“Have you actually heard the words ‘screw up’ from your parents or brother? Do they call you that?”

She looked down at her plate. “Well, no, but that doesn’t mean they don’t think it.”

“Uh-uh,” he tutted. “Sounds to me like you’re putting words in their mouth. Maybe you’re the one that thinks of you as a screwup; they just think of you as Krista, their wonderful daughter who graduated university and became a cop. And you’re just projecting your feelings of insecurity onto them. Because it’s easier to blame others. Because in my opinion, you’re not a screwup. You’re a free spirit who decided to do things her own way. But you’re still a college graduate, a well-traveled person, and now you’re an officer of the law. How on earth could anyone consider you a screwup?”

She gaped at him. “What the fuck, Dr. Phil?”

His lip twitched. He was happy that she seemed to have ditched a bit of the bitchy mood. Hormones were the devil. “My mother’s a therapist, don’t forget. That shit was bound to rub off on me at least a little bit.”

“Little bit,” she murmured.

“You need to tell them.”

“You need to back off.” Oh fuck, her hackles were back up. For some reason, the woman wanted to fight, needed to feel the heat and passion of an argument coursing through her veins. Even though Brock had been pissed off when she got home because she was late, he wasn’t looking for a fight.

He looked her calmly, squarely in the eye. “How would you feel?”

She sneered at him. “About what?”

“If this was our baby having a baby, and he or she didn’t tell you?”

Those damn rolling eyes. He was going to have to take her over his knee pretty soon. “You’re really grasping at some hypothetical straws. And I will tell them. Just not right now.”

“When?”

“When I’m good and fucking ready!” She pushed her plate away, growled at him, stood up from the table and left. Seconds later, a bedroom door slammed.

Brock really hoped it was their bedroom door.

She definitely needed time to cool off. Something, a bee, a hornet, a wasp, something was in her bonnet. It would do nobody any good for Brock to follow her down the hallway and demand she continue their conversation from earlier. He chalked the majority of it up to hormones and the rest up to her feeding off his bad mood. He really needed to work on that.

So instead, he finished his own dinner, wrapped hers up for later, did the dishes and then waited.

It was nine o’clock and he was watching the news in the living room when he finally heard the bedroom door creak open.

Good. She’d locked herself in their room. At least there was that.

Quiet as a mouse, she padded her fuzzy slippered feet down the hallway. He glanced up to find a pillow-creased, tear-stained face with wild red hair frizzed out as if she’d stuck a fork in an outlet. She looked sad and beautiful and so damn tired.

He turned off the television and popped the footrest back into his recliner, inviting her to move into his lap.

With no hesitation, she perched her strong, petite frame on his thighs. Fuck, she smelled good.

“You okay?” he asked.

She nodded.

“Care to tell me what that was about?”

She lifted her gaze from where she’d been studying her intertwined fingers. “Shit at work.”

His back stiffened.

Slade.

She ignored him. “And then I come home and you’re all grumpy. I plastered on a happy face even though I wasn’t happy, and then you get all Mussolini on me about telling my parents.” She wrinkled her nose and glared at him. “Not cool.”

“What happened at a work? Was it Slade? What did he do?”

She rolled her eyes again. Now he really was going to have to take her over his knee. A sigh escaped her. “Nothing … to me. But I ran into Wendy and Marlise, and we’re all going to go for coffee tomorrow. I asked them about their one-night stands with Myles, thinking I could get some information for our case, and they got all weird, said they didn’t want to talk about it at work. I know something’s up. Something happened when they slept with him.”

Damn it. He’d told her to leave the digging to him and his brothers. He unclenched his jaw and rubbed her back. Now was not the time to get all tyrannical on her.

“You think it was rape?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. I mean, we both saw him put that pill in Ingrid’s drink at the Christmas party, which means he’s obviously not above drugging a woman to get laid.”

The man shouldn’t be above anything. He should be fucking six feet under.

“You’re going to meet them in a well-lit, heavily occupied public place, right?”

There was that fucking eye roll again. “Yes.”

“Good.” He ran his hand up and down her back, squeezing the nape of her neck until he felt the tension begin to dissolve. “Now, about your parents … ”

Another sigh.

“Just hear me out.”

Her petulant look was just screaming to be dealt with. “I get how you feel. But this is their grandchild, and they have a right to know. If they’re as disappointed with you as you say they will be, I will fly to Tanner Ridge myself and deal with them. But I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised with their response.” He continued to knead the back of her neck.

She glared at him. “You were in a dickish mood when I got home. What was so terrible about your day that made you grumpy? Did someone switch your beer for piss?”

His lip twitched, and he wrapped her soft, rebellious hair around his hand, pulling until her neck tilted and she looked into his eyes. Her gaze softened, and that glimmer of defiance that he was coming to love so much returned. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I was worried about you. About the baby. I don’t like you driving in the snow. Or going to work when I know Slade is going to be there.”

Those big blue eyes batted thick lashes at him. And a slow, knowing smile flitted across her lips when she felt his cock jerk in his jeans. “Get over it, man.”

A low growl rumbled deep in his chest. “Do you have any idea how many times you’ve rolled your eyes at me today?”

Her lids sank to half-mast, and her nostrils flared. “At least three spanks’ worth?”

“Try six.” And his mouth crashed down on hers.