Perfect Bastard (Mason Creek)

Mom had transferred the money dad had given her to me. It wouldn’t make me rich, but I’d be able to not work for a few months after the baby was born and still have a little left over to start a college fund for my son or daughter.

“Do I have a say in this?”

I lifted my chin. “I don’t want you to think I’m trying to trap you. I’m not. I was going to get rid of it, but I can’t. I won’t do it just to save your precious feelings.”

“Fine. Let’s go.”

I shook the arm he’d taken hold of. “No. You let go.”

He did, but crowded my personal space. His words weren’t spoken loudly, but I heard them all the same. “You want to go in there after your name has been linked to me and give some underpaid workers a chance to make some cash by violating your HIPAA rights?”

Crap. I hadn’t thought about that.

“Exactly,” he said. “You’ll come with me. We’ll fly to Chicago and have a doctor make a house call.”

“What if I don’t want to?”

He held out a hand toward the door that was fifty feet away. “Then, by all means, go in there and let the world know you’re pregnant. I’ve dealt with worse said by people who don’t know me. But I remember a woman who didn’t like being stalked. What do you think will happen if anyone finds out you’re having my kid?”

He had a point. “Fine.” The word left my tongue as sharp as a knife. “But my car…”

“Fine,” he repeated. “I’ll follow you back to my place.”

“Fine,” I said for again. I marched away, grumbling about bossy men.

When we arrived, he parked behind me in the front of his house. He was there to help me out of the Jeep. I slapped his hand away. “I’m pregnant, not an invalid.”

He chuckled, breaking the tension. “Funny, my dad didn’t want me helping him out of the car either when I brought him home.”

I stopped and asked, “Will you tell me what’s wrong with him?”

“I didn’t tell you for several reasons. Part of it was not wanting to admit that he has early dementia. Part of it was not wanting you to have to deal with his memory loss if he failed to recognize you later. And honestly, a part of it was because you’d refused to introduce me to your father, so I didn’t want to put pressure on you by introducing you to mine.”

“No. It’s fine. I was afraid to fall in love with you. I haven’t exactly grown up in a household with a shining example of what a loving couple looks like.”

“It seems we both made mistakes,” he said.

When I thought he might kiss me, he straightened. “So let’s meet Dad.”

Nate called for him when we went into the house. His father was spry for a man who needed twenty-four-hour care as he popped around the corner. “Oh, there she is.”

Nate stopped whatever he might have said next. “Dad, this is Avery. Avery, this is my father, James Bowmen.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said.

“Nicer to meet you. Nate wasn’t one to bring girls around. His mother worried he’d end up alone. I never had any doubts. It was just a matter of time before he succumbed to the pull of a beautiful woman like yourself.”

There was that wink again. I didn’t get it. His dad seemed fine to me, but what did I know?

“Dad, we’re going upstairs to talk, alone.”

His dad only chuckled. “Talk. Is that a code word for—”

“Don’t say it,” Nate warned and waved me toward the stairs.

I’d been in Nate’s room before and went directly to it. He closed us in. “I’ll see when we can get a flight and have Jean work on getting us a doc.”

I didn’t know who Jean was, but didn’t ask. “Can’t we do it here?”

He gave me the ‘are you kidding me?’ glare. “Mason Creek rumors are quicker than social media.”

That was true of my town as well.

“Give me a minute to make a call.” He got on the phone and moved further into the room. I spotted the shirts I’d returned to him. He hadn’t opened the bag.

Then my attention turned to his conversation, the one side of it I could hear with Nate’s back to me across the room.

“Jean.” Pause. “Yes, I’m back in Mason Creek.” Pause. “No. What I need is to get back to Chicago.” Silence. “Just make arrangements with the pilot who brought me home. See if he can do a quick return.” Pause. “Eight hours’ downtime? Are you sure? I just need to get back. And I’ll need a doc at my place. An obstetrician and one of the scan machines.” More silence. “Yes. Sonogram, and I’ll explain later. Just get it done.”