“I need to grab a few things at the store. Can I borrow your car keys?” With a frown, he agreed. “Could you be back by six? I need to put in an appearance at a restaurant downtown tonight.”

With a nod and a gutful of relief, Kimber escaped the quiet house—too packed with memories for comfort—and drove.

It didn’t take her long to pick up some supplies. Picking out the get well/I miss you card for her dad was easy. Securing a new cell phone didn’t take long, either.

She called Logan and Hunter to check in, and they said Dad would be released day after tomorrow.

She even had the opportunity to talk to him for a few short minutes.

Ecstatic about his quickly recovering health, Kimber picked up the rest of the items on her mental list, trying to push away the reality of it all.

Kimber returned to Luc’s house a little after five.

Looking sinfully sexy with his long hair loose, charcoal slacks, and a long white linen shirt, he pressed a lingering kiss to her cheek. “I won’t be gone long. Can you wait up? I think we should talk…”

She didn’t love the man the way she loved Deke, but the feel of Luc’s hand cupping her cheek was somehow such a comfort. “He’s done with me, isn’t he?”

“What happens next is really up to you.” He kissed her again, this time a sweet press of his lips over hers, a soft slide of tongue—then he was gone.

With a huge sob, she sat on the sofa and unloaded again. Tear after tear streamed down her face, hot and annoying and creating the mother of all headaches. When had she ever been this emotional? All the crying was exhausting her. And the sex.

The two happening multiple times a day, it seemed, was making sleep her new hobby.

At least she hoped that’s all it was…

Damn, she had to leave this pity party. Get some answers, get her head straight, talk to the guys, figure it out. Things just couldn’t go on like this. She couldn’t go on like this.

Picking herself up, she made herself a bowl of soup and flipped a few channels, trying to think about nothing. Staged laugh tracks didn’t work. She drifted off to sleep.

A car pulling up into the driveway awoke her. Deke had returned. Dark had fallen. Kimber didn’t think she was ready to handle conversation, ultimatums, or hard choices. She grabbed her shopping bags and her newly charged cell phone and headed to the bathroom.

What a fucking nightmare, Deke thought, sliding into the house. An afternoon conferring with Jack about business—and personal—matters. Business was fine.

Healthy, in fact. Jack had done a great job at keeping everything running while he’d been protecting Kimber from the psycho-bomber. It was the personal stuff he couldn’t seem to untangle.

Now he had to wait for Luc to come home, so they could hash it out. And hope they didn’t come to blows over it. Luc called to say he was on his way home. He’d be there by nine. Still plenty early to get all this shit out in the open. Great.

He was looking forward to it—about as much as he would castration with the jagged lid of a tin can.

Sucking up his jangled nerves, Deke went in search of Kimber. Before Luc came, he needed to say a few things. She was smart, so he didn’t doubt she’d already figured out that he needed a crowd to get down. In order to make choices for her future, she needed to know that might never change…along with the other thing he couldn’t give her. And why. Time to rip open the scar of his past. Oh, goodie.

Trekking down the hall, Deke heard her talking and followed the sound of her voice. Who the hell was she talking to? One of her brothers? Her father? A girlfriend?

“It’s good to talk to you, too.” Pause. “I agree we have some things to talk about.” Frowning, he leaned against the wall outside the bathroom and listened as she sighed, crossed the room. Deke supposed he should have some compunction about eavesdropping on her. He didn’t.

“I know. I’ve had to protect myself, which is one reason I was hiding and not available. But the guy who set the bomb at Dad’s house” —she broke off, only to start again—“He’s fine. I’m fine. Just really tired. Maybe we could talk tomorrow.” Deke scrubbed a hand across his face, a sneaking suspicion sinking into his gut.

“No, I’m not trying to blow you off. I’ve just had a hell of a day.” A pause. Then a giant sob. “Please, let me go. You don’t love me, Jesse. You want redemption or saving or something, and I can’t do that for you. I can’t even manage to help myself.”

So his suspicion was right. Jesse. The fucking pop star pretty boy was still calling her? And wanting what? He ground his teeth. The prick was making her cry.

Deke prepared to charge into the bedroom, grab the phone from her hand, and tell Mr. “MMMBop” to get fucked.

Before he could, Kimber screamed. “Damn it, not now! Stop!” He’d never heard her so out of control. Never heard her so close to hysterical as he had today. He’d also heard enough.

Charging into the bathroom, he saw red again as he grabbed the phone and growled into it, “You keep calling and upsetting my woman, and I’m going to break every fucking bone in your body, you pansy-ass falsetto son of a bitch.” Resisting the urge to throw the phone against the wall, he stabbed a button with his thumb to end the call. Then he powered it down and tossed the phone on the counter. In a lunge, he grabbed

Kimber and pulled her into his arms. Shit, she was shaking. Not a gentle tremble, but an all-over body shake, shoulders rattling, breath hitching, body jolting.

“Kitten. Baby…”

He stroked her hair as gently as he knew how. Tough when he wanted to go find Jesse McCall and pound on him until his face was as flat as a slab of concrete. Deke was much better at fighting than soothing. But Kimber needed gentle right now.

In the distance, he heard Luc pull into the driveway. For the first time today, he thanked God for his cousin’s presence. Luc would know how to deal with her emotions. His cousin could calm her.

“Let me get Luc…”

“No.” She clutched him tighter. “Deke, I’m scared.” He was both relieved and anxious that she wanted him. If she wanted him, rather than Luc, she had to still care about him, despite the hard truth they still hadn’t faced.

“Don’t be afraid of Jesse. If I need to personally talk sense into the bastard—”

“That’s not it.”

She started sobbing, again so uncontrollable, he freaked. If she didn’t stop, she was going to pass out or throw up or something. He sat on the edge of the tub and pulled her into his lap, his thoughts racing.

“Then what? If it’s about this morning, I’m sorry, kitten. Really sorry. Take a deep breath and—”

She lifted tear-drenched, frightened hazel eyes to him. That look stopped him cold.

“I’m pregnant.”

Her words were like a battering ram to the gut. He jerked out from under her and bounced to his feet. And he stared. The blood left his head in a sick rush. Had he heard…?

God, please. No!

“Pregnant?”

Slowly, Kimber stood and reached into the pocket of her shorts, withdrawing a plastic white test stick. With two blue lines running right down the middle.

Swallowing, Deke backed away. This couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t. He was going to puke everywhere.

“How the fuck…? The pill. You— How?”

“The doctors at the hospital gave me antibiotics in case my stitches got infected. I forgot they weakened the pill’s effectiveness… Oh, God. You look green.” He felt green. So sick. His worst fucking nightmare come to life.

His past all over again.

“I can’t do this.” He shook his head. “I should never have taken your virginity. I knew better…”

Deke turned away and darted out of the room. He heard Kimber’s cries behind him, fading in the distance. Before he could get out the front door, he saw Luc standing there.

One look at his cousin, and Deke knew Luc had heard every word.

Luc grabbed him by the shoulders. “Take a deep breath.”

“You fucking heard her. She’s goddamn pregnant!” Of all people, Luc should get it. Why did he look so freakin’ calm?

The urge to hurl rose up inside Deke again. Pregnant. Why the fuck hadn’t he worn a condom? Because he knew from past experience, they didn’t work. What was he going to do now? Keep watching her day and night? How could he be assured everything was okay when he wasn’t even sure himself?

“I know.” Luc spoke in his most soothing voice. “Deke, I know you’re upset. But it’s a blessing—”

“Yeah, it was such a fucking blessing for Heather.”

“Who’s Heather?” Kimber asked from the threshold, wrapping her arms around herself like she was clutching her stomach.

Deke whirled to her. Her eyes were so red in her ghostly pale face. Her haunted expression ate at his gut. For chrissakes, that look…it was as if he’d struck her.

Luc sighed. “Heather—”

“She’s the reason I’m no good for you—or any other woman,” Deke cut in. “The reason I can’t fuck a woman without another man in the room. And I’m the reason she’s dead.”

With unseeing eyes, Deke groped around and found the couch. Shaking, he sank down into the leather and cradled his head in his hands. “And now history is going to repeat itself, and it’s going to be all my fault again…”

“What do you mean?” she whispered.

His head snapped up and he stabbed her with a sharp stare.

“I was going to tell you the ugly truth tonight, anyway. But not like this.” Kimber backed away to sit in a chair across the room, her face hesitant. Now she was unsure of him. Too bad she hadn’t been before the damage was done.

Deke took a deep breath, sinking down into the past, drudging up his pain.

“Heather was my girlfriend in high school. We started dating when she was a freshman. I was a sophomore. We’d been dating a little over a year when”—Damn, this was hard. Really hard—“When we started having sex. She was barely sixteen.

A virgin.”

“She got pregnant.” Kimber didn’t have to guess.

“Yeah. I was scared shitless. Not even eighteen. Her father was the local sheriff.

He’d never liked me.”

“So she died. Giving birth?” Kimber’s horrified whisper barely crossed the room.

“No.” He folded his hands. Unfolded them. Forced himself to look at her. “She committed suicide.”

With a horrified gasp, Kimber covered her mouth. But he could still see the shock in her hazel eyes. Was she condemning him? Probably. He deserved it for knocking her up, then not knowing what to say. For not being a whole man.

“Sleeping pills, a whole bottle full of them. In her suicide note, she said that her family hated me and she’d been stupid to let me touch her. Said I’d be a terrible father.” He choked on the words. Fucking choked.

“Deke, no. You were both so young—”

“But she was right. Me and my stupid Energizer Bunny dick might as well have poured the whole bottle of shit down her throat.”

“She made a choice,” Kimber insisted.

“Yeah, after I got her pregnant. I swore to myself this would never happen again.

And now look.” He tossed his hands up in the air.

Hell, his life was going to shit faster than he imagined possible. And he had no idea what to do.

“Never? You were never going to have children?” She looked appalled. “Deke, you can’t imagine that every adult woman was going to react the same as Heather. I certainly… Are you freaked out because you thought I might end it all now that I’m having a baby?”

Yeah. The thought had crossed his mind. More like stomped in, camped out, and took a pickax into his soul.

“Kimber, you only just found out. How are you going to feel in a few weeks when you’re retching up your toenails? Or in a few months, when your shape changes and your body isn’t your own anymore?”

She looked…betrayed. There was no other word for it. And Deke was totally confused.

“Pregnancy isn’t the end of the world. I’ll deal. If you think for an instant that I’d do a damn thing to endanger myself or this baby in some fit for attention, then you don’t know me very well. At all.” Tears squeezed from her eyes, down her cheeks.

“You say that now—”

“I’ll say that until the day I deliver,” she vowed. God, he wanted to believe her.

But after the hysteria in the bathroom, all the drama of tonight… What if it caught up to her? What if she decided she didn’t want the baby, him, or life? Heather’s death and the guilt had crushed him. He’d been a walking zombie for at least two years. Barely finished high school. If it hadn’t been for Luc and the army and his introduction to ménage…there’d been times he was tempted to join Heather in her fate.