LITMIR.BIZ

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him about her intentions. She’d told him that she didn’t want any sort of a romantic entanglement, definitely didn’t even want any sort of physical encounter happening between them.

      “It’s not that I don’t feel attracted to you, Castro,” she’d said. “It’s just that I don’t like complications. Never have.”

      Seemed ironic, in light of all the complications he was facing now.

      She’d laid out the plan. It was all going to be very clinical, very professional. And once the process was in motion and the procedure “took,” Maggie made it clear that he was free to move on. She wasn’t going to ask him for anything further.

      Until she’d asked him for everything.

      Somewhere along the line, between agreeing to this antiseptic, clinical insemination procedure and acting as her coach in the delivery room when her actual coach couldn’t be reached in time, Jake had found himself really falling in love with Maggie. Hard.

      She’d seen it, too.

      Seen it in his eyes, heard it in his voice. Enough so that it had spooked her into asking for another partner once she went back to work.

      That, too, had been a bone of contention between them. She’d gone back to work a great deal sooner than he’d thought was prudent. He certainly wasn’t happy about it. He didn’t think she should leave Marlie so soon and secretly—or not so secretly—worried about the risks she’d be facing every day with that badge pinned to her chest.

      But he couldn’t talk her out of it. The more he talked, the less she heard. The upshot was that Maggie had gone back to work three months after bringing Marlie into the world.

      And three months after that, she was gone.

      He remembered how he’d felt when he’d heard the news over the dispatch radio. As if someone had shoved a blade right into his belly and gutted him. He remembered the speedometer reaching the other side of a hundred miles an hour as he’d raced to the hospital where they’d taken Maggie.

      She’d managed to stay alive long enough for him to arrive and see her. Long enough to extract a promise from him to take care of their little girl—as if he would have allowed anyone else to take the baby. Marlie was all he had left of Maggie.

      Maggie had died right after he’d said yes. Died with a smile on her lips.

      Died despite the fact that he’d been holding on to her hand so tightly, trying with all his might to pull her back among the living. He must have been crazy to believe that he could.

      All his efforts had naturally come to nothing. He hadn’t been able to save Maggie, hadn’t been able to pull her back. She’d died in front of him, leaving him to deal with monumental guilt. Guilt that had sprung from the very real belief that partner or no partner, he should have been there for Maggie, covering her back. Protecting her.

      But he hadn’t been able to and now Maggie was gone and he was here, trying to be what he’d been before a crack in the world had shaken his foundations, plus something new. Trying to be a father.

      Right now, in his opinion, he was failing miserably at both.

      Marlie began to fuss again, her displeasure growing louder. Jake recognized the cry. The infant was hungry. Did that mean he was getting better at this, or just lucky when it came to guessing?

      He didn’t know.

      Getting up, keeping Marlie tucked against his chest, Jake made his way into the kitchen.

      He already had a small saucepan half-filled with water waiting to be pressed into use on the stove. Heading straight for the refrigerator, he opened it and reached in.

      Like tall, innocent soldiers, bottles of formula were standing on the top shelf. Right beside equally tall bottles of beer. They clinked slightly as he pushed a couple aside to get at the milk.

      “That was your mom’s favorite brand,” he told Marlie, pausing to let her “look” inside. “Your mom liked to kick back at the end of the day and have one or two, just to unwind—before she was pregnant with you, of course,” he qualified.

      Jake closed the door with his hip, then leaned against it for a second, trying to pull himself together.

      He had to stop doing this to himself, had to stop connecting every deed, every detail he came across with something to do with Maggie. Weaving her into every single second of his life was not going to change anything.

      It wasn’t going to bring her back.

      Jake went through the familiar steps, steps he knew in his sleep now, then stood there, staring at the bottle he’d just placed into the saucepan, waiting for it to heat up.

      Three minutes later, he took the bottle out, testing the liquid against the back of his wrist. It was stone-cold.

      “Why isn’t this—?” The rest of his question evaporated as he looked down again at the burner. No wonder the formula hadn’t warmed up. He hadn’t turned the burner on.

      He needed help.

      Putting the cold formula bottle back into the saucepan, Jake switched on the burner and turned up the temperature. Only then did he reach for the cordless phone on the wall and call his sister.

      The phone rang five times on the other end. Jake was about to hang up and redial when he heard a sleepy voice answer, whispering, “Hello?” uncertainly.

      Even when she whispered, he recognized Erin’s voice. “Uncle,” he said, giving the universal word for surrender. “I give up. You’re right. I need help. I’m in way over my head.”

      “Jake?” His sister still sounded somewhat confused, but she was no longer whispering hoarsely.

      He heard a deep male voice in the background ask, “Who is it, Erin?”

      Jake heard a noise that told him Erin was attempting to cover the receiver in a semi-bid for privacy as she apparently turned her head away to answer, “I think it’s Jake.”

      “Yeah, it’s me,” Jake acknowledged. “How many other men do you know who are in over their heads?”

      “No one who would call this number at two in the morning,” she replied. “I thought that I was still asleep and dreaming.”

      “Damn—darn,” Jake corrected himself again, in deference to the infant in his arms. Curbing his words was turning out to be a lot harder than he’d thought. “I forgot about the time difference,” he confessed. He was calling from New Orleans. His sister lived in Thunder Canyon, Montana. “I’m sorry I woke you up. I’ll call back in the morning.”

      “No, no,” Erin insisted, her voice now clearer and insistent. “Don’t hang up.”

      It was half a plea, half an order. Erin knew her older brother. She knew he could very well not call back in the morning. He’d sounded desperate just then. Who knew how long that would last? But while it did last, she could use it to her—and more importantly to Jake’s—advantage.

      Jake could be incredibly stubborn at times and making him see reason was not always an easy matter—or one that was very readily accomplished. She couldn’t afford to allow this opportunity to slip right through her fingers.

      “My offer to help still stands, Jake. You and the baby can stay with Corey and me for as long as you need to,” she told him, referring to her brand-new husband. Like the rest of the family, he’d been there for the wedding, and then had gone back to New Orleans. “Lord knows we’ve got plenty of room here.”

      Jake laughed shortly. It wasn’t that he didn’t appreciate the offer—he did—it was just that he wasn’t so self-centered or desperate that he couldn’t put himself into his new brother-in-law’s position.

      “That’ll sure endear me to my new brother-in-law,” he told his sister. “Nothing like having a third—and part of a fourth—party around as you’re

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