“For what?” Porter braced his forearms on the table. “Did you and Ivy have a fight already?”
It hadn’t occurred to Ty that the problem could be something with Harrison’s new wife. As the only single one among them, Ty figured he’d do better to keep his mouth shut.
“No. No. We’re great.” Harrison scrubbed a hand over his face. “She’s pregnant.”
Sebastian’s mouth split into a wide grin. “I called it! Pay up, y’all.”
“Neither of us actually took that bet,” Porter pointed out. “This is a helluva piece of good news to get right before Maggie and I head down to Mississippi. Congratulations.”
Ty had no idea what to say to this announcement. He knew military life and law enforcement. The whole marriage and family thing was so far out of his wheelhouse, he might as well be jumping out of a plane without a parachute. But he couldn’t just remain silent while Harrison sat there looking scared shitless.
“What does Ivy think about all this?”
Harrison took a pull on his beer. “I mean, she’s kinda freaking out. So, I had to be all cool and collected and pretend like I’m not losing my shit. But I’m totally losing my shit. I’m not ready to be father!” The whites of his eyes showed in the dim light, and his hand fisted the longneck bottle like a lifeline.
Ty felt the corner of his mouth twitch. Now that he knew nobody’s life was in danger, he was starting to recognize the humor in the situation. Not that Harrison would appreciate it. “Dude, you can navigate a HALO jump from thirty-five thousand feet. I think you can handle a kid.”
He turned panicked eyes in Ty’s direction. “But…but…what if it’s a girl? I don’t know the first thing about what to do with a girl.”
Porter sat back in his chair, a sappy grin on his face. “Love her, hug her often, and don’t let her date until she’s thirty. Easy. That’s my plan.”
As he’d just welcomed his own daughter to the world a few months before, he was certainly the most qualified to offer up advice.
“Do you and Ivy want kids?” Almost as soon as the question was out of his mouth, Ty wanted to pull it back. It was too late for that discussion. Ready or not, a baby was on the way.
“We’d talked about it in that far off, someday kind of way. But we’ve been enjoying being just us, you know? But…yeah, we do. I mean…that’s the dream, right? When we were out there in one hellhole after another. To someday come home to have a wife and family. This just moves up the timetable by…a lot.”
Sebastian snorted. “I’m gonna really enjoy imagining you sweating your way through diaper duty.”
“Your time is coming, pal,” Porter promised. “When are you gonna marry Laurel?”
Sebastian leaned back in his chair. “I’ve got plans. But we’ve got to line some things up first before we can set a date. We just got word back on another of the grants we applied for. It’s enough to build a bunkhouse, so we can expand to a proper residential equine therapy program and serve more people.”
As the three of them continued to talk about the lives they were building with the women they loved, Ty stayed quiet. His friends deserved this kind of happiness. They’d been through hell, and now was their chance to follow better dreams. He lifted a hand to signal the waitress. Once she’d brought a beer for each of them, Ty raised his glass. “To Harrison’s impending fatherhood and our latest competition.”
“Competition?” Sebastian asked.
Ty clinked his bottle to theirs. “May the best uncle win.”
“That’s not the only thing we ought to be toasting,” Sebastian insisted. “Our boy Ty is finally joining the land of the living. He was out Friday night on a date. I saw with my own two eyes that he was smiling.”
“Oh, shut the hell up.”
“Really? That’s awesome, man. Who is she?” Harrison asked.
Sebastian continued as if Ty wasn’t sitting right there. “I’ve been wanting to ask if you know her. Paisley Parish. She said she was a friend of Ivy’s.”
“Oh yeah, I’ve met her a couple times. Bold, fun, and funny. Great laugh. I think she’ll be good for you.”
Ty never imagined himself being happy like the rest of them. He didn’t deserve happy. So what the hell was he doing with Paisley? He wasn’t the marriage and family guy. She hadn’t asked for that, but he hadn’t exactly been faithful to the casual spirit of the agreement she had asked for. What if, by indulging this…whatever it was, he was giving her expectations? That would be downright cruel, and she was the last person he’d ever want to hurt.
He’d asked her to stay.
Shit.
He’d made a huge mistake.
Needing to escape the happiness and the teasing and the attention, he shoved back from the table. “I gotta go. Congrats to you and Ivy.”
“Oh now, come on, we were just joking,” Sebastian protested.
Ty threw down some bills to cover the tab and shook his head. He needed to go do damage control.
Chapter 6
She hadn’t been looking for the book. She hadn’t been deliberately poking around Ty’s place at all beyond what was necessary to find a wooden bowl for the fruit that would ruin in that bag on top of the microwave or the basket she’d found for the pretty greenery and pinecones she’d gathered on her afternoon walk. And, okay, she’d needed the extra blankets she’d finally located in a chest because the wood stove had gone out and she didn’t know how to relight it. But how was she to know his library, such as it was, would be in the cleverly concealed drawers beneath the sofa? And why shouldn’t she have looked? She was an author, a reader. She loved books. He had several of Ivy’s thrillers, some of Harrison’s sci fi, an assortment
