But my even suggesting that had pissed him off. He wasn’t the kind of guy who bailed on his responsibilities. Hell, he faced them head-on.
I didn’t want to be aresponsibility.If I was going to be with him, I wanted to be his everything, just as I would want him to be mine. Devoted. In one hundred percent for love. Not responsibility.
So even though I’d land and he’d tell me we’d raise the baby together, I didn’t even know what that meant. What it would look like. Because I knew it wouldn’t look anything like love, no matter how I felt. It would be obligation.
My father had wanted children and a family. He’d been devoted, in his own way, but the Navy was like a second family and had put the heavy load of raising four kids to my mom. Hell, they’d have stopped with my brother Trent if he’d been an accident.
I had to face Kennedy and his feelings on this. Let him come to terms with it and then make a choice. Me… all of me… or nothing at all. Because I would go to San Diego if he chose nothing.
* * *
KENNEDY
“You giving up sugar or something?”
“Huh?” I asked Taft, who was in my seat in the command center. I dropped into Mrs. L’s armchair, and I picked at one of the doilies. I shifted the lollipop in my mouth to the opposite cheek.
“What’s crawled up your ass?” He had on comms head gear to talk to Quincy, but pulled one ear muff off and looked me over.
I set my hands on my thighs, and I blinked. I was a little stunned. And angry. And lost. And freaking out. And pissed.
Quincy was pregnant.
We’d made a baby.
She’d told me she’d had the birth control shot. It wasn’t like I didn’t believe her, but wasn’t that supposed to actuallystopa baby from being made?
Then I thought about my powerful sperm that got to her egg. Yeah, those boys wouldn’t be stopped by fucking birth control. The one and only person I hadn’t used a condom with and bam! Pregnant on probably the first go.
I had to admit, I felt a little virile and proud of that, that Quincy would grow round with my kid.
My dick throbbed in my jeans at the idea. Damn, Quincy pregnant was a fucking turn-on.
But we hadn’t had time to talk because she wasn’t happy about it. In fact, she’d been afraid of my reaction. She’d said it was her fault. Her fault? I’d had my dick so far up in her it couldn’t be a surprise at all she got pregnant. Still, she dropped that bomb and then flew off into the sunset. Completely freaked out.
She assumed I’d be mad. That I’d hate her for… what? Trapping me? For a mistake? An accident?
She was having mybaby.We were making a person. A little boy who’d blow shit up and survive in the woods with a pencil. No. Fuck that. That little boy would be tucked in safe in his little bed with lasers for a security system making sure he was protected.
And if we had a girl? With Quincy’s dark hair? I was totally, completely fucked. Lasers wouldn’t be enough. I’d have to camp out beside her bed with a K-bar and an AR locked and loaded.
Any child we made wasn’t a mistake. Sure, it hadn’t been planned, but it wasn’t anaccident. An accident meant something went bad, and that had not happened.
It was fucking good. Amazing.
Holy shit. We were having a baby.
I pushed out of the chair and grabbed the second comms unit. I put it over my ears and growled, “Get back to base.”
I had plans for her. In bed. I’d tell her how I felt about oursituationand show her my opinion of it. And her. If she’d only get her ass back here.
“Lay off, Kennedy,” Quincy snapped. “I got this. The guys were dropped off and are on their way to the lost hikers. I’m a mile off the targeted landing area but no issues.”
“You’re not out of there yet,” I reminded, impatient.
“I’m well aware of where I fucking am.”
“It’s not just you at risk this time,” I reminded. I trusted Quincy as a pilot and knew she could fly and fly safe. But she had my baby up there with her, and I couldn’t protect either of them.