Cease Fire (Blackbridge Security 9)

Me: Help her with what?

Beth: Cleaning out her spare room to make it a nursery.

I chew the inside of my lip, wondering if Jules would even want to see me, but I also don’t want her lifting anything heavy.

Me: Do I need to bring one of the guys to move furniture?

Beth: No. No furniture. It’s filled with her mom’s things.

“Where are you going?” Jude asks when I stand suddenly from the sofa.

“Home,” I lie as I rush to the elevator.

From conversations I’ve overheard between my sister and mom, Jules has never really dealt with her mother’s death, and I know anything to do with her mother’s belongings is going to be hard for her. As much as I want her to change her mind about announcing me as the real father of her baby, I won’t continue to freeze her out while she’s doing something like this.

Chapter 16

Jules

I shake my head as if the person knocking on my door can see me.

I don’t have anything being delivered, and my best friend canceled on me today, even though she’s the one who made the plan to be here for such a big moment in my life.

The knocking continues, and I keep ignoring it. Whatever sales or religious person outside will eventually get the hint and leave.

When a key slides into the lock a second before the door opens, I don’t even turn around to acknowledge Beth, knowing she’s the only one with another key to my place. I’m still mad at her. I’ve been stressed all week, knowing this day was coming, and then she had the audacity to cancel. I may never forgive her for it.

“Go away,” I tell her, my stomach clenching once again.

I’m miserable, and it’s not just this week either. Pregnancy is awful. I don’t dislike this child growing inside of me, I’m just not very impressed with its efforts to destroy me.

I’ve considered more than once that it’s retribution for the lies I’ve told, but leave it to Kit’s spawn to make me miserable twenty-four seven.

Beth doesn’t respond as she approaches, instead laying a warm palm on my back. I know what it looks like, what she’s seeing. I’m sitting right at the threshold of the spare room, and she probably doesn’t even realize the effort and strength it took to even open the door.

I take a deep shuddering breath, and the scent of him hits me.

The first time I noticed Kit’s cologne was the night he comforted me when my mother died. I breathed it in for hours as I cried against his chest. I committed it to memory despite knowing just how dangerous that was.

He kissed me that night, turning a teasing joke about his crush on me into reality. I could ignore it up until that point. I could smile and tell his siblings to leave the boy alone, but after having his lips on mine, after his tongue swept inside of my mouth, it was no longer a joke, no longer something to ignore.

“Baby,” he whispers, his hand still warming my skin through my t-shirt.

“What are you doing here?” I ask, unable to pull away from the comfort he’s offering even though I know I should.

He doesn’t verbally respond as a sob rolls up my throat. He simply picks me up and carries me to the couch before settling me in his lap. It only makes me cry harder. In a different world, in a different lifetime, this would be okay.

I cling to him, desperate for attention and human interaction other than what I’ve been getting from text messages on my phone.

“Are you okay?” he asks, his voice rumbling against the ear I have pressed to his chest.

I manage to shake my head.

“It’s a hard day,” he says, somehow understanding exactly what I’m feeling without having to ask a million questions.

I sort of love that he’s not Beth. My best friend, having the best of intentions, would bust in, see me crying on the floor, and would try to make light of the situation. She’d be peppy and cheerful, trying to make me smile and laugh.

Kit just lets me be sad, and sometimes it’s exactly what I need.

The scent of him, the way his hand rubs slowly up and down my back, are all too familiar, and it’s crazy how certain things can take you back to an exact moment in time. My tears and sorrow were about the exact same thing fourteen years ago. The loss of my mother has never gotten easier for me, and I doubt it ever will. She was my rock and my biggest cheerleader. I had no time to prepare for losing her, but I doubt a long drawn-out illness would’ve made things less painful anyway. There’s just something about losing the person you love most in your life that just rocks you to your core.