The ER's Newest Dad

Vann just stared straight into her soul, the same way he had at any point in her life when he was waiting for her to do what he considered the “right thing”.

“This isn’t taking a tube of lipstick back to a department store, Vann.”

He didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to. Just as he hadn’t had to when she’d gotten mixed up with the wrong crowd back in the ninth grade and had made a stupid mistake. He’d been right then. Yes, returning the make-up she’d taken had been a horribly humiliating experience, but the right action. However, this was her son’s life they were talking about. Her life.

“I tried to tell him,” she reminded him, hating it that her voice whined, that she sounded so defensive.

Vann didn’t blink.

“He said he didn’t want anything to do with me.” Saying the words out loud ripped scabs off wounds best left untouched. “I tried to tell him, and he wouldn’t listen.”

“Maybe he wasn’t ready to hear what you had to say.”

Brielle’s jaw dropped at her brother’s calm tone. “You’re defending him? Really? Why would you do that?”

Vann took a deep breath, ran his fingers through his dark hair, which was graying slightly at the temples. “All I’m saying is that maybe he’s ready now to hear what you have to say. Maybe that’s why he’s here.”

Brielle’s chest swelled with—was that frustration? Anger? Hurt? “What about me? Who says I was ready to have an unplanned pregnancy thrust on me? To sit week after week in NICU, praying my premature son lived while he went off to build his career? To chase other women?”

“He didn’t know about Justice, Brielle. If he had, he would have married you.”

“Oh, yes, every girl’s happily-ever-after dream. To know the man she loves is only with her because she got knocked up.” Oh how the thought of that hurt. Like mother, like daughter. “That’s so not what I wanted and you of all people should understand that.”

“Don’t be crude and don’t compare yourself to our mother,” Vann scolded, then drew his brows together in a slight scowl. “Loves? As in present tense?”

Brielle rolled her eyes. “I was speaking about in the past. Until this week I hadn’t seen the man in five years.”

“Yet in the few days he’s been here he’s put you in a major whirlwind.”

“Of course he has. I’d be foolish if I wasn’t upset. What if he tries to take Justice away from me?”

Vann’s expression darkened. “He wouldn’t do that. You’re a good mother.”

She stared at her brother. “Can you guarantee that? Because I’m not willing to risk losing my son to that man.”

“That man is his father.”

“Yes, but...” Oh, how she hated it when Vann made sense, when he was logical, when his voice remained calm but his words delivered thunderous blows, when he was right.

She collapsed back into the fluffy cushions on her sofa, closed her eyes, and faced the inevitable.

She had to tell Ross about their son.

As if the devil heard her thought and mocked the decision she’d been going back and forth on from the moment she’d first seen Ross in Bean’s Creek, Brielle’s doorbell rang.

When she opened the door, a distraught Ross stood on her doorstep.

CHAPTER FIVE

ROSS STARED AT Brielle’s shocke

d expression and tried to recall what argument he’d given himself on why he had a right to follow her home, to drive around aimlessly mulling over all the things they’d said, on why he now stood on her doorstep.

“Can we talk?”

“I...” She glanced over her shoulder, as if looking at someone, then glanced back at him. “We can.” She closed her eyes. “We need to.” She swallowed hard. “But now isn’t a good time.”

Ross glanced at the expensive luxury sedan in her driveway, realization dawning. “You have a man here?”