The Right To Remain Mine (22 page)

        She closed her eyes as if that could block the vision of him in her head. But she could still smell him on her pillow. Growling out a sound of anger, she sat up and ripped the case off the cushion. No way in hell was she going to sleep here all night with his scent torturing her. As she stripped the entire bed, ripping with a savage fury, and put on fresh sheets, she cursed Deputy Raith Malloy's existence.

        It didn't matter that she'd ordered him to leave, she hadn't wanted him to go anywhere. She'd wanted him to stay, to come back, apologize for being such a jerk, and tell her it was going to be okay no matter what happened. Why hadn't he freaking come back? She needed him here. She needed him to hold her hand through the scariest night of her life.

        Bursting into tears, she finally wept.

        God, why didn't the moron feel for her what she felt for him? ~ * ~

        Raith was half way home before he remembered the phone call. Cursing under his breath, he dug out his cell phone and called the station. Dispatch picked up on the second ring.

        "Who's working the road tonight?" he wanted to know. When the woman on the line gave him a list of names, he thought a second before saying, "Thanks," and hanging up.

        He dialed Carl Hinton's cell phone as soon as he disconnected. The young deputy answered in two rings. "Hey, Hinton, this is Malloy. I need you to check out a place for me every once in a while tonight."

        "Sure thing, Lieutenant. What's the address?"

        Raith rattled off Willow's address. "It's Willow DeVane's place."

        "The sexy lawyer with the legs that won't stop?" Hinton asked, suddenly interested.

        Raith gritted his teeth, not wanting to picture her legs at the moment and not wanting one of his deputy pals to either.

        "I wasn't aware you guys knew each other," Hinton murmured, obviously fishing for some news.

        "She's been getting some phone calls lately," Raith continued, not providing the deputy with what he really wanted to hear. "It's nothing big, but I'd still like someone to drive past her house every hour or so, make sure things look okay."

        "Yeah, no problem. I can do that."

        "Thanks a lot." He hung up and ground his teeth as he tossed his phone into the passenger seat.

        This was all DeVane's fault. If the blasted woman hadn't shoved him out the door, he wouldn't have had to call in reinforcements. He'd still be there, curled around her and finding his own comfort in her arms, soothing all this fear coursing through his veins.

        Had he knocked her up or not?

        He didn't know, but he didn't like the hope rolling around inside him, because he wasn't sure if that hope was rooting for her to be pregnant or not.

        A week and a half later, Willow found herself knocking on the front door of her very best friend in the world. When Camille opened the entrance, Willow pulled the box from her shopping bag and held up the First Response Early Result Pregnancy Test. "Will you hold my hand while I get the news?"

        Camille's mouth fell open. "Oh, Willow, no." She snagged Willow's wrist and tugged her inside and straight into a comforting hug.

        Willow shuddered out a sigh and closed her eyes as she rested her face on her cousin's shoulder. When the baby in Camille's belly kicked at the pressure against it, Willow quickly jumped back, wondering if there was going to something rooting around inside her like that in a few months. She lifted wide eyes.

        "I don't think I've ever been so scared in my life," she confessed.

        "Camy, who's at the—" Dylan appeared in the foyer and paused to smile at Willow when he saw her. "Hey, cuz. What—" He cut himself off again when he saw the look on both women's faces. Immediately alert, he straightened. "What's going on?"

        "It's nothing—" His wife started to answer, but Willow spoke over her.

        "I think I'm pregnant."

        Dylan paused, looking momentarily blank. "Preg—Oh, God. Who... Malloy?"

        Willow frowned. "Yes. Malloy. I'm not that promiscuous. God."

        His mouth opened but he quickly shut it. "I wasn't saying that," he defended. "I didn't mean to—"

        "This is one of those early warning things," Camille interrupted her husband, before he could talk himself into any more trouble. She snatched the box out of Willow's hand and studied it. "You must know exactly what day you think you conceived." Her face lifted as that realization struck her. "Good Lord, Willow. You didn't forget protection, did you?"

        Willow scowled. "No!" she said defensively. "Of course not." Then her shoulders slumped as she mumbled, "The condom broke," under her breath, hoping she didn't have to confess she'd bought Malloy outdated protection.

        "The..." Camille trilled out a startled laugh. "Goodness. Your Malloy must have some powerful—"

        "Camy!" her husband cried, utterly scandalized. He snagged the pregnancy test from her hand and treated her to a sour look, as if silently commanding her not to praise his enemy's libido. Then he lowered his gaze to the box before lifting a censorious scowl to Willow. "How long ago did this happen?"

        Embarrassed about the answer, she glanced guiltily away. "Eight days."

        "Eight days?" Camille scolded. "Why didn't you tell me sooner? You've been living with this for eight days?"

        "Are you sure you'll be able to tell so soon?" Dylan asked, turning the package over to scan the back.

        Willow nodded. "It says you can get an accurate response four days before your period. I'm at three days now."

        "Well, then, let's get started," Camille answered, ripping the test from her husband's hand and taking charge of the situation.

        Suddenly glad she'd come here for support, Willow grinned as she watched the woman who was eight and a half months pregnant open the pregnancy test and pull out the instructions. After scowling down at them a moment, she extracted the actual test stick.

        "Okay," she said and blew out a nervous breath. "Go pee on this."

        She shoved it at Willow, and Willow almost dropped it. Before turning in the direction of the bathroom, she glanced meaningfully at the Taggarts. Dylan had taken hold of Camille's hand and Camy was lifting her free fingers to show she had them crossed.

        "Good luck."

        Willow nodded and turned away. Good luck. Right. But what kind of luck was her friend wishing on her: that the test would come out positive or negative?

        As she shut herself inside the bathroom, she realized she wasn't sure which result she wanted either. She'd had a dream about having Raith Malloy's baby the same night the condom had broken, and it hadn't been a nightmare. It had been lovely, in fact. He'd been so attentive and seemed to adore the child.

        When she woke up, she'd gone directly to a pharmacy to look into Plan B. As soon as she realized she didn't need a prescription to buy it, however, the damn dream danced through her head. She'd found herself setting her hand on her flat abdomen and wondering... what if.

        She'd left the store without purchasing anything.

        But now, as she hovered over the toilet, trying to aim, she wondered what the heck she'd been trying to accomplish by refusing to buy the emergency contraceptive. She didn't really want a baby. She didn't want to give an arrogant, conceited jerk a child. And yet, despite all that, she didn't regret the decision she made.

        When she finally departed from the bathroom, she jumped when she found both Camille and Dylan loitering outside the door as soon as she opened it.

        "Are you sure you peed on the tip. On this end?" Camille asked, fidgeting.

        Willow pulled the test stick away from her cousin before Camille could touch it. "I'm sure." She glanced down at it, but quickly looked up before she could look at the results.

        "Well, what's it say?" Dylan demanded.

        Treating him to a dirty look, Willow muttered, "It says you have to wait three minutes."

        "Two pink lines means you're pregnant," Camille added. "One pink line means, 'Thank the Lord.'"

        Willow nodded. Okay, so she knew what result Camille wanted... and Dylan too. But she was still undecided about herself. They moved to the living room, leaving the test on the kitchen table so they wouldn't stare at it the entire three minutes.

        The trio settled onto the sofa and waited.

        It was the longest three minutes of Willow's life. She, Dylan, and Camille sat in stony silence. A clock ticked on the wall, and a car drove by on the street outside. A neighbor's dog started to bark. And only twenty seconds had passed since the last time she'd checked the time.

        Dylan surged to his feet to pace.

        Camille shot her nervous looks, but Willow phased them out, thinking of Deputy Raith Malloy. She hadn't seen him since that night.

        Eight days.

        She'd spent most of the time at her brother's house. With her father's big celebration approaching, they'd turned Chase and Allison's place into party-planning central. Willow had lingered late into the night the past four evenings, setting up last minute details. She and her sister-in-law, Allison, had compiled an assortment of pictures detailing her father's life. They'd spent most of their time scanning the photos into Chase's computer so they could create a video slide show to play after her father blew out the candles and publicly announced his impending retirement.

        One evening she'd lingered so late, Chase and Allison had encouraged her to stay the night in the guest bedroom. The next evening, she'd stalled on purpose, hoping they'd make the same offer again, and she wouldn't have to go home to memories of a certain jerk cop.

        But her brother was too smart for his own good. He'd tugged her aside and quietly asked, "What's going on?"

        "Nothing," she said, and pulled her elbow out of his grip.

        Chase had known her too long, though. He stared at her another

moment and said, "Did you and Malloy break up?"

        She scowled. "We weren't dating, so there was no way we could break up. There was nothing there to break." Just her heart.

        "You had a fight then." He used his assistant county attorney questioning skills to interrogate her. "Don't lie to me, Will. I know something's wrong."

        She sighed. "Something's only wrong when Malloy and I don't have a fight."

        "Then what'd you two fight about?" he pressed.

        Willow paused to smile at her big brother. He scowled moodily, obviously distressed by her distress. Finding it sweet that he cared so much, she stood up on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek. "I love you too," she told him. "But don't worry about me. I'm fine."

        He made a face and wiped the wet spot off his cheek as if irritated by her show of affection, but two seconds later, he pulled her into a hug and said into her ear. "I worry anyway." Pressing his mouth to her forehead, he added, "You can stay here again tonight if you want to."

        She had wanted to, but she didn't stay at her brother's again. She'd have to go home sometime. So she'd dragged herself back to her house and hadn't been able to fall asleep the entire night, wondering if he'd come crawling into bed with her sometime in the wee hours, the way he had before. Pathetic her, she'd even left the back door open in case he felt so inclined.

        But Raith never came.

        The timer Camille had set beeped and Willow jerked to the present. Three people surged toward the kitchen. Arriving in one lumped crowd, they stumbled toward the table and started to lean over the test stick.

        At the last moment, Camille pulled Dylan back to let Willow be the first to see the results.

        Holding her breath, she looked down. Then she blinked a few times as if to clear her vision and make sure she wasn't seeing double. Finally, she reached out and lifted the test to get a closer look.

        The results didn't change.

        Two pink lines stared up at her. She lifted her gaze to an impatiently waiting Camille and swallowed.

        She sent her cousin a smile and an incredulous laugh. A crazy kind of joy burst through her. The first thought to zip through her head was, he has to marry me now. Then reality returned. Marry her? Who was she kidding? This was the twenty-first century. Raith Malloy didn't have to do shit. And that's probably exactly what he would do. Absolutely nothing.

        She burst into tears.

        Camille rushed to her and hugged her, rocking her back and forth. Dylan strode forward, ripped the test strip out of Willow's hand and studied it for himself. He started to curse.

        "I'm going to have a baby," Willow sobbed and wilted against Camille.

~ * ~

        Raith settled into his office at the sheriff's department, intent to get some paperwork done. Staring at the cursor on his computer screen, he picked up a pen and tapped it against the armrest of his chair. He needed to finish filling out an incident report he should've started three days ago, but he only had the first line typed so far.

        All he could see, however, was her face.

        Taking up the stalking profession after all, he'd driven past DeVane's place every night. It'd been two weeks since he'd last seen her, and on six of those fourteen days she hadn't been home until after midnight. Two nights, she'd come pulling in right at ten. One night, she never came home at all.

        He clenched his teeth, wondering where in the hell she'd been. But he refused to ask her.