But that was just biology. Gina was gorgeous, although I did my level best not to even acknowledge she was a woman. That wasn’t what we were about. So what if she had a killer rack and hips made for gripping while—
Yeah, in my mind, she might as well have been a dude.
Ahem.
Anyway, in theory, telling Gina shouldn’t be that difficult considering we’d been close for several years now. I’d gotten friendly with her when I stopped into the diner for lunch. From there, we’d discovered a mutual love of college basketball. What had begun as occasional nights at The Spinning Wheel eating barbecue wings while we watched the game had turned into so much more.
Fuck, Bonnie. Complication number two-thousand.
I didn’t want my dispatcher to find out about this. She was a traditionalist. If she learned I’d made a baby while having what amounted to a work vacation hookup in the city, she’d look at me differently. She probably wouldn’t want Gina spending time with me.
It had been enough of a trial to convince her early on that we were just friends. Bonnie had been wary like any other mom when her barely-of-age daughter started hanging out with a guy almost a decade older. My being the sheriff had only somewhat mitigated things.
I’d told Bonnie I had no interest toward Gina, and she didn’t have to worry about me hurting her baby. After that, she’d even started working dispatch at the station—which I was certain wasn’t so she could keep an eye on how friendly I was with Gina.
Almost certain.
Now I was bringing an actual baby into the mix.
I glanced at the boat. The little girl was still sleeping. Sadie was still yipping halfheartedly upstairs. I should go sit with her, even if I wasn’t quite ready to risk waking the baby by letting out the dog.
The front door burst open on a rush of cold air and a whirl of snowflakes. “Brooks, you’ve got some serious explaining to do—” Gina began, breaking off at the sharp cry that split the silence, followed by a deafening howl from my normally sweet-natured Retriever.
Her mouth fell open as she noticed the boat sitting on the living room floor—and the baby nestled within it.
Gina’s gaze shot to mine. Somehow I could feel her accusations without her saying a thing.
“What did you do?” she whispered.
But it was too late for soft words. The baby was screaming again, and Sadie was going nuts upstairs.
And I was staring at my best friend, feeling guilty for reasons I couldn’t explain. Guilty and regretful and…anguished. There was no other way to put it, even if I didn’t have the faintest clue why.
I hadn’t ever even really thought much about having kids. And I’d definitely never imagined I would be anything but happily married if I somehow had a family of my own in the far off future.
My reality was now very different.
“Shut the door.”
Gina didn’t move. If anything, she grew even more still. She might as well have been rooted to the floor, her flyaway dark hair half up and half down and her beautiful dark eyes wild. Her apron from the diner was still hooked around her neck but bagged loose in the front as if she hadn’t had time to remove it all the way before she drove to my place.
She was always by my side. Always.
I went to the door and closed it, leaning hard against my hands on the heavy wood. I drew in a deep breath and turned back to her, unsurprised she’d shifted just enough to meet my gaze once again.
“Bee, I have a baby.”
Three
I’d never had an out-of-body experience in my twenty-four years. Despite their prevalence in the spooky shows on the supernatural channel I liked to watch with Luna and Ryan, I had to imagine they were fairly rare among the general population.
Yet I was having one right now without the aid of scrying mirror or crystals or so much as a witchy thought.
I was possibly going to hyperventilate too, just to add some fun to the night’s events. Could someone lose the ability to breathe when they weren’t even in their body any longer?
Let’s find out, folks.
Since Jared was a trained officer of the law—and since he was more familiar with this whole baby concept than I was, apparently—he saw my distress and hurried forward to guide me past the boat to the couch.