Night with Sole Regret

TELL ME XIII

“It was Christmas Eve,” he said. “We were far from home and trapped on the bus together in a blizzard with Lindsey and her friend. Things got out of hand. I honestly don’t remember much about it. I do know that I never have s*x without a condom, but I was completely trashed that night. So like I said, I’m pretty sure it’s not mine, but I can’t guarantee that it’s not.”

Melanie was too stunned to form a response. Should she berate him or console him? She couldn’t decide.

After a long tense moment, he reached for her hand. “If it is mine, will you turn your back on me?” he asked.

Would she? That was a pretty big question to ask so early in their acquaintance.

“Would you want to be with the mother if it’s your baby?” she forced herself to ask, not sure if she could handle his response. She liked him so much. She didn’t want anything to come between them.

He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles. “No,” he said. “I want to be with you, but I can’t lie. I would feel an obligation toward the child. Not just financially. Emotionally.”

And she wouldn’t want him to feel any other way.

“I want to be with you too,” she said. “I want this to work even if…” She took a deep breath. “Even if the baby is yours.”

He smiled. She saw the flash of his white teeth in the headlights of a passing car. “But I’m pretty sure it’s not.”

And secretly she really hoped it wasn’t. She wasn’t thinking about marriage and having a family just yet, but if she did fall in love with this man and have his children, she selfishly wanted all of his babies to be hers.

“I can’t help but wonder why Lindsey’s convinced that the baby is Owen’s. Maybe she knows he didn’t use protection or something.”

“She’s convinced because she likes him and wants it to be his. Owen used protection. He does have his c**k pierced though, so if one of us was going to compromise the integrity of a rubber, it would be him. Still, no guarantees that’s what happened either.”

“So we won’t know who the father is until the baby’s born?”

“You planning to stick around that long?” He looked at her and squeezed her hand. His hopeful smile was barely illuminated by the dashboard lights.

“I’d like to.”

“So we cross that bridge when we come to it.”

She paused to reflect on his suggestion and then nodded. “Agreed.”

There was nothing they could do about the situation now anyway. Best to not let the slim possibility that Gabe was an expectant father ruin their time together. Her shoulders sagged as the tension drained from them. If they were still together in three months, they would get through this together. She could handle that. She was used to dealing with other people’s drama.

They turned off the highway and travelled almost a mile on a bumpy gravel road. When the truck entered a driveway and Gabe’s house loomed out of the darkness, Melanie’s breath caught. A spectacular A-framed log cabin sat at the end of the long, paved lane. The entire front of the house was an expanse of windows, blocked only by a huge porch and a smaller deck on the second level.

“It’s beautiful,” she said.

“It’s not as big as Jacob’s place, but I like it.”

If she’d have tried to guess what his house would be like, a log cabin in the country would not have been her first guess or even her twentieth but now that she’d seen it, she knew that it fit him perfectly.

“You’re a country boy at heart,” she accused.

“What?” he said. “Naw, I’m pure metal, baby.”

He turned on the truck stereo and blasted her ears with loud music. He banged his head and roared with the vocalist. She knew he was metal; she’d watched him punish a set of skins before an audience of thousands not five hours ago. It was the country part that she’d completely misidentified.

He turned off the stereo and leaned across the truck cabin to steal a kiss. “Would you prefer if I was all country?”

“I prefer you to be exactly who you are.” And she wasn’t just saying that. His mix of traits was fascinating. She doubted she’d ever get bored with him. She just hoped she could keep his attention half as well as he kept hers.

“Want to see the inside of the house?” he asked. “Or are you planning on sleeping in the truck?”

“I’m tired enough to do exactly that.”

“So I won’t be getting any tonight?”

“Is that all you think about?”

“When you’re around?” He grinned. “Pretty much.”

“I guess we do have something in common,” she said.

“We have plenty in common,” he said, “and we have all weekend to figure out what.”

She was looking forward to spending time with him more than he could possibly realize. They talked on the phone a lot, but those conversations always quickly turned to s*x and them spouting their attraction to each other. She was ready to get to know him on a deeper level. He never said much about himself, and she couldn’t help but wonder about him. She was naturally nosy.

He opened the truck door and Melanie climbed out her side, practically collapsing from weariness when her feet touched the ground.

“I hope you like to sleep in,” she said, stifling a yawn behind her hand.

“My second favorite thing to do.”

She had a suspicion as to what his first favorite thing was and that it also involved a bed. Sometimes.

She weaved her way toward the front porch, glad she was responsible for carrying only herself and her purse. She doubted she could have lifted her poorly packed suitcase. She appreciated Gabe being her baggage handler.

When she stepped on the porch, a security light blinded her and a deep, loud woof, accompanied by a second, less terrifying bark, boomed from the house. Heart thudding, she froze. Gabe nudged her in the back with his shoulder.

“I hope you aren’t afraid of dogs,” he said.

“Are they vicious?”

“Only if you touch me,” he said with a grin.

“Then I’m bound to be mauled to death.”

He set their luggage by the door and unlocked it. As soon as he turned the knob and pushed the door open, two giant blurs of fur—one blond, one black—knocked Gabe flat on his back and commenced to give his face a thorough cleaning. The two Labradors didn’t even notice Melanie standing to the side of the door giggling at their tail-wagging enthusiasm.

“Beau,” Gabe said in a tone that didn’t sound the least bit authoritative with all the laughing he was doing. “Heel, Beau. Sit.”

The larger of the two dogs—the yellow Lab—released one deep, loud bark that made Melanie jump and began to clean Gabe’s ears. The smaller of the pair—a sleek black Lab—was bouncing on Gabe’s chest and belly as if he were a trampoline.

“Lady,” he gasped. “Settle down.”

The dog whined loudly and wagged her tail. Only she didn’t wag just her tail—she wagged her entire body. And when she could no longer contain her glee at seeing her master, she began to jump up and down on him again.

Breathless, Gabe laughed. “I missed you too, Lady.”

“Do you need help?” Melanie asked, wondering if she dared to grab the dog’s collar. The animals didn’t know her, and she was rather fond of her fingers. They didn’t look like mean dogs, but most dogs weren’t mean to their owners. Strangers on the other hand…

Gabe struggled to rise to his knees on the large wooden porch. When he finally managed to get his legs under him, his face got another thorough licking by two wide pink tongues, and Melanie couldn’t help but laugh at the way he cringed, squeezing his eyes tight and clamping his lips together with comic exaggeration. He wrapped an arm around each dog and forced them to sit on either side of him. Beau licked his nose and sat panting. If dogs could smile, he was smiling. Lady was trembling with her efforts to contain her exuberance, but she managed to keep her haunches mostly on the ground. Her tail thunked loudly against the boards beneath her.