To Tame a Wild Firefighter (Red Hot Reunions Book 2) (18 page)

But he was never going to be safe, and he was never going to be free of Bridget. She was pregnant with his baby. Mick was going to be a father, and Faith was still a dumb virgin who had dared to dream of an uncomplicated future with the man she loved.

As they trudged back into Mick’s apartment, where only moments ago he and Faith had kissed without a care in the world, Faith was filled with the horrible, crushing certainty that her happily ever after had just become a trashy soap opera. Of course it had, because messed up people like her attracted messed up shit like a bug light attracted mosquitos on a muggy summer night.

Faith sure as hell wasn’t ready to be a mom, but she wasn’t sure she was ready to be a stepmom, either. Or a step-girlfriend, or whatever. God only knew what stunt Bridget would pull next, or how the woman might use her innocent child to try to get what she wanted from Mick…whatever that was.

You know what she wants. She wants him back, and he might end up going. He said he’d always be there for his child, and he has to know Bridget isn’t capable of taking care of a baby alone.

Faith bit her lip and fisted her hands at her sides, doing her best to ignore her panicked inner voice as Maddie finished wiping Bridget’s tears with the hem of her apron and the girl turned her attention Mick’s way.

Bridget’s big blue eyes lingered on Mick for only a moment before sliding to focus on Faith, who stood a few paces behind him. “I’m sorry, but who are you?” she asked in a chilly voice.

“She’s my girlfriend,” Mick said before Faith could answer. “And she stays. Anything you can say to me, you can say to her.”

He reached back to take Faith’s hand, but she couldn’t seem to make her fingers work. She wanted to give his palm a comforting squeeze, but her hands felt cold and stiff, as if rigor mortis were setting in.

Despite Mick’s words, it felt like something was dying in this room, something beautiful Faith hadn’t realized how desperately she needed until Bridget showed up to take it away. Faith had known she loved Mick and treasured what they’d found together, but she hadn’t realized that losing him would feel like something vital was being ripped from inside her, leaving her unfit for life without him.

She wasn’t sure she’d have the strength to move on without Mick, a fact that scared her nearly as much as the thought of trying to help raise a crazy woman’s baby.

“This is private, Mickey,” Bridget said, eyes filling with tears again and her full bottom lip beginning to tremble. “I don’t want to discuss our baby’s future with a stranger in the room.”

“She isn’t a stranger,” Mick said, his grip on Faith’s hand tightening.

“She is to me.” Bridget pulled in a wobbly breath. “And I think I’ve already been through enough without having to talk about the night the condom broke in front of the woman you’ve been sleeping with while I’ve been trying to figure out how to raise a child all by myself.”

Bridget dissolved into sobs again as she turned to sag against Maddie, her pale cheek resting on the taller woman’s chest while Maddie stroked her shiny hair.

“Let’s try to calm down.” Maddie cast Mick a wide-eyed look over Bridget’s head that silently begged him to take control of the situation. “Getting upset isn’t good for anyone, especially the baby.”

“I’ll go downstairs,” Faith said, squirming her hand free of Mick’s.

“You don’t have to,” he said, voice dropping as he spun to face her. “Seriously, Faith. I don’t have any secrets from you.”

“But you have a baby on the way,” Faith said, throat so tight she could barely get the words out. “That changes everything, Mick. You know it does.”

Mick shook his head, the panicked look in his eyes making Faith suspect he could feel their dreams dying too, that he could sense all their sparkles being extinguished by the tears of the woman he was going to be bound to for the rest of his life.

Bound. Like a shackle around his ankle he would drag behind him forever, ensuring he and Faith would never have the same easy, uncomplicated relationship again. The thought made Faith’s chest ache and her eyes sting as she turned and fled down the stairs alone.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Mick

Mick watched Faith go with a horrible sinking feeling in his stomach, struggling to ignore the voice in his head that said she was never coming back, that Bridget had ruined what Mick had with Faith the same way she’d ruined his senior year of college and now there was no way to reclaim what had been lost.

But losing Faith would be so much worse than losing a carefree, final year of school. A future without Faith in it was unthinkable, intolerable, so terrifying and rage-inducing that when Mick turned back to face Bridget, it took all his self-control to keep from yelling for her to stop the damned crying and tell him what it was going to take to get her out of his apartment.

He understood Bridget’s tears were convincing to people who didn’t know her well—Maddie was obviously worried for the girl sobbing on her chest—but Mick had seen Bridget turn the waterworks on and off like a faucet. Tears were simply another weapon in her arsenal, a tool his ex used to manipulate people.

Mick wasn’t sure Bridget was capable of feeling sadness the way other people felt it. Their final months together had made it clear she had no empathy, only the driving desire to get what she wanted, no matter what the cost.

Even if the cost was another person’s will to live.

By the end of their relationship, there had been days when the thought of checking out was preferable to the thought of living another day under Bridget’s reign of emotional terror. But he had never seriously considered that final, permanent escape. Deep down, he’d known that he’d find a way to be free of Bridget, that one day he’d find a way to leave her behind him and never look back.

But now she was here. And she was having his baby and he hated himself for letting his dick make decisions and continuing to sleep with Bridget when there had been nothing but resentment in his heart. He hated that condom for breaking and hated fate for its fucking lousy timing.

Now, he would never escape Bridget, and soon she would have another person to terrorize, a tiny, innocent person who deserved so much better than a mother like Bridget or a father who wished he or she had never been born.

The thought made Mick’s throat close up with shame, but it was true. He didn’t want this baby. He didn’t want his ex to have an excuse to sink her claws into him again, or face a future worried for the safety of a child who would never have a stable home life so long as Bridget was in the picture.

“Okay, let’s take a deep breath,” Maddie said, rubbing Bridget’s back as Bridget wiped the tears from her cheeks with trembling hands.

The trembling is probably an act, too
, Mick thought, his contempt for Bridget so intense there was no room in his heart for compassion.

“Why don’t I go make you something to drink,” Maddie continued with a pointed glance Mick’s way as she stepped over to the dining table and drew out a chair. “You two can sit down and talk this out, and I’ll be right back with warm milk. It will help you calm down.”

“Thank you so much, Maddie,” Bridget said, sniffing as she beamed up at Mick’s sister. “You’re as sweet as Mick always said you were. I appreciate your support so much.”

“Of course,” Maddie said, as she got Bridget settled at the table. “Mick, you want something? Tea or coffee?”

“No, thank you.” Mick’s jaw clenched with reluctance, but he forced himself to circle around the table and sit down across from Bridget, meeting his ex’s watery gaze as Maddie crossed the room to the kitchenette to fetch the milk and a pan to warm it in.

As soon as Maddie was out of earshot, Mick said softly, “I don’t know what you want from me, but if it’s anything more than child support and my half of the childcare duties you’re going to be disappointed.”

Bridget’s bottom lip started to tremble again, but Mick cut her off before she could get started.

“Save your energy,” Mick said. “Tears won’t work on me anymore.”

Almost instantly, Bridget’s eyes stopped shining and her features shifted. Mick would have said she dropped her mask, but that wouldn’t be accurate. There was nothing real at the heart of Bridget—Mick ought to know, he’d hunted for it long enough. There was no authentic person to uncover, only a series of masks Bridget employed with such proficiency most people never realized there was nothing but emptiness underneath.

“I’m not the bad guy, Mickey,” Bridget said, using the nickname Mick had always hated, even at the beginning when he’d been so smitten with his beautiful new girlfriend he’d been willing to forgive a multitude of sins. “You’re the one who left without saying goodbye, without even a note to explain why you ended a two year relationship.”

“You know why,” Mick said. “And you know it wouldn’t have been a two year relationship if you hadn’t blackmailed me into staying with you.”

Bridget frowned, seeming genuinely confused. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about threatening to kill yourself if I broke up with you.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “What? I might have said it felt like I would die without you because I loved you so much, but I never—”

“Don’t. Just don’t,” Mick said, rage that she was playing dumb warring with the ugly suspicion that Bridget didn’t remember things the way he did.

He’d noticed her propensity to rewrite history before. He’d assumed she did it consciously to make herself feel better about that class she’d failed, or why she didn’t make the varsity cheer squad, but maybe that wasn’t the case. Maybe Bridget was even more out of touch with reality than he’d assumed—which meant she was even more of a danger to their unborn baby.

Thoughts of lawyers and custody battles and other assorted ugliness Mick didn’t want to think about rushed through his head, making his heart beat unhealthily in his ears. He didn’t want to be a dad right now—certainly not a single dad—but he might end up fighting for the privilege in order to protect his son or daughter.

“Mick, please,” Bridget said, fingers twining together on top of the table. “I know this isn’t the way either one of us planned to start a family, but this baby needs you.
I
need you, and I know we can all be happy together if you’ll give it a chance.”

Mick shook his head. “We will never be together again, Bridget. I’m with Faith, but even if I weren’t, you and I are over. For good.”

Bridget’s forehead wrinkled, but the determination in her eyes didn’t waver. “You can’t mean that. We’re meant to be, Mick. Deep down, you know that.”

“No, I don’t,” Mick said, voice rising.

“You do,” Bridget insisted. “You feel the connection between us, I know you do. And our child is more important than a crush on some girl you barely know. You’re a good man, Mick, and in the end you’ll do what’s right.”

Mick ran a frustrated hand through his hair, wondering what it was going to take to prove to Bridget that what she wanted was never going to happen. It wouldn’t be right for him to marry her when he was in love with someone else, and seeing his or her father trapped in a loveless marriage certainly wouldn’t be doing Mick’s unborn child any favors.

But before he could think how to frame his thoughts in a way that would hopefully penetrate his ex’s thick skull, Maddie appeared with the cup of warm milk.

“I put a little cinnamon and sugar in it,” Maddie said as she placed the steaming cup in front of Bridget. “Careful, it’s hot.”

“Thank you so much.” Bridget smiled at Maddie, looking so innocent and lovely Mick couldn’t blame Maddie for being drawn in.

Bridget brought out the protective instinct in almost everyone—until they got to know her better and realized there was a will of iron hidden inside the petite brunette and the only thing she needed protecting from was her own stubbornness.

Even her parents knew she was a handful. The one time Mick had gone home with Bridget for a long weekend, the sympathetic glances Mr. and Mrs. Betts shot him across the dinner table as Bridget told him exactly what they’d be doing for the rest of the weekend had chilled Mick to the bone. He had never felt more like a captive than he did that night, going to sleep on the Bettses’ living room couch with pictures of Bridget throughout the years staring down at him from the fireplace mantel, seeming to condemn him to a life lived jerking to attention every time she tugged his strings.

But he wasn’t a puppet, and it was past time to make that abundantly clear.

“I intend to do the right thing,” Mick said. “But that doesn’t include us getting back together. I’ll be there to do whatever I can to help with the baby, but—”

“Assuming it’s yours,” Maddie cut in, shocking Mick.

Shocking Bridget, too, judging from the startled, offended sound that burst from her lips. “What are you saying?” Bridget demanded, tone harder than it had been up to this point. “Of course this is Mick’s baby.”

“And if the paternity test proves that, then I know my brother will be there with financial and parenting support,” Maddie said in a calm tone. “And Naomi and I will be the best aunts any kid could hope for.”

“We don’t need a paternity test,” Bridget said, anger flashing in her eyes. “I’m due any day, exactly nine months from the night Mick and I last slept together. I haven’t been with anyone else, and he knows I’m telling the truth about the broken condom.”