Page 102 of The Moments You Were Mine

“Give it one more day, Ducky,” I said softly. “You still look like hell.”

She shoved at me with her shoulder. “You sure know how to charm the pants off a girl.”

Our eyes met, and she bit her lip as if realizing what she’d said. It drew my gaze to the soft, pink flesh. I wanted to taste it again. Wanted to devour it. Wanted to burn myself into her in ways that left us both scorched. Marked. Branded.

Even more, I wanted the flashes of family I saw when I was with her to be permanent. I never wanted to come home to a stale, silent apartment again. But could I really leave her and Theo for months at a time, knowing every moment I was gone they were worrying about me? Knowing the worst could happen with one tiny slipup? Knowing they could end up at yet another funeral after they’d already been to one too many? Worse, knowing I wouldn’t be here if and when they needed me. Not just for protection from unseen killers but to soothe hurt feelings and help with the day-to-day chores of life.

I cleared the emotions clogging my throat and looked toward the television while I passed along the latest update I’d gotten from Cranky. “Video footage puts JJ at the coffee shop the same day as the receipt left in the car that ran your mom off the road.”

She muted the show. “You really think this is JJ?”

“Honestly, not nearly as much as I think this could be Ace. Even if JJ is pissed at you for breaking up with him and turning on him, what does he get out of ruining the ranch?”

“He didn’t want me to keep it,” she said.

“What?” My eyes jerked back to her.

Fallon swallowed, suddenly seeming nervous. She twisted her fingers around her thumb before running it along the edge of the comforter. “He wanted me to sell the ranch and build a life with him in San Diego.”

I scoffed. Anyone who knew Fallon realized she’d never leave the ranch for good. San Diego had simply been a means to an end.

“So you think he’s trying to, what? Ruin the ranch, run it into the ground so you’ll go running back to San Diego? Even now? With him going to jail?” It seemed ridiculous.

“What if he put it all into motion before the police arrested us?” she said.

“He had to know there was no way you’d stay in San Diego forever.”

“That’s exactly what he thought. He assumed if I was pregnant, I’d choose him and marriage and San Diego over raising a child on my own. He knew I’d hate everyone in Rivers looking down on my kid like they’d always looked down on me.”

My stomach turned cold, and my lungs squeezed so tight it was hard to grunt out, “You were trying to have a baby together?”

Fallon laughed, but it wasn’t light and humorous. It was dark and pained and raw. “No. I didn’t want a baby, but he did.”

I frowned. I couldn’t follow the dots she was trying to connect for me any more than I could connect the dots about who was doing all this. It pissed me off because I was usually the guy my team relied on to do just that. “What are you saying?”

She looked at me quickly and then darted her gaze away. “He was sabotaging our condoms.”

Instant, hot rage washed through my veins. I had an uncontrollable urge to destroy him. An urge that would be difficult to contain if I ever ran into the asshole again.

“What the actual fuck?” I growled.

“He rented an apartment in the Kleindyke building and filled it with brand-new furniture, including an entire nursery.”

I stared at her, disbelief and hate and fury mixing in.

“You see,” she said, swallowing hard before continuing, “if I was pregnant, if I hadhiskid, and we got married, he’d be ableto sink his hooks into my money. He’d always be entitled to some of it via alimony and child support. He’d finally have the wealth he’d always wanted just so he could rub it in the face of everyone who’d put him down growing up. He didn’t want an actual kid—I really don’t think he did—but he wanted what would come with it.” She was accelerating as she talked as if she was speeding up a ramp before getting onto a freeway. But then she stopped, took a huge breath, and said, “That’s why he can never, ever, ever find out that he succeeded.”

She placed a hand protectively over her stomach.

And every thought went out of my head except one.

She was pregnant.

Fallon was having a baby.

Chapter Twenty-seven

Fallon