Page 22 of With A Little Luck

Chapter Nineteen

Ridge

Q uincy sighs and weirdly raises a foot, stretching it from side-to-side and front to back.

“Everything okay?” I ask, squinting.

“Yeah, I think my feet are swollen, but it’s normal.”

Releasing her wrist, I plant a hand on King and shimmy to the side, making room on the long end of the couch. “Here. I’ll even share my pillow with you.”

She places the bottle of water on the floor and climbs onto the edge of the cushion, wiggling around. She gives up trying to get comfortable on her back and turns to face me.

Her pregnant belly has to add six to eight inches to her profile, so even though it’s an oversized cushion, it’s still a tight fit.

I scoot back to give her more space and end up half on the arm of the couch. Giving up on that, I turn fully on my side too.

King grunts, showing his displeasure as he slides down my chest. He lands with most of his chubby ass wedged on me with a little on the couch. His side presses against Quincy’s stomach, and I frown. “Is he too heavy?” He’ll be pissed if I move him to the floor, but he’ll live.

“No, he’s fine.” Quincy laughs, reaching over to run her hand down his back. “Sorry to disrupt your snuggle-fest.”

Her smile threatens to steal all the breath from my lungs.

She’s just as beautiful as I remember. Her face is a little fuller, as is her chest, but I figure that’s a side effect of baking a human being.

I barely got to feel around the belly earlier, and I want more time spent with my hand planted on her stomach. I’m sure the baby is big enough that I would be able to feel it moving, and I want to experience that as much as possible before she delivers.

“That morning I woke up…” She sighs, shoving her hair away from her face.

“I wasn’t supposed to be gone all night.

Donna, my grandmother’s care nurse, was doing me a favor by staying with her.

I panicked, climbed out of bed, and went to find a pen to leave you my number.

Only I had a bunch of calls and texts from Donna, then she called again while I was digging for something to write with.

It sounds so bad, but my brain just kinda shut down.

I had a bad feeling, and I walked out into the hall to answer the call.

” Her eyes fall shut, and she grimaces. “I could lie and say I tried to get back into the room afterward, since most hotel doors lock after you, but honestly, I was dazed and only focused on getting home. I found out once I did that my grandma passed away that night.” Her eyes meet mine as they pop open, and I start to feel like a real dick.

“I’m sorry about your grandma. Did you try to look for me once you found out about the baby?” I ask, and I don’t know why it even matters. It’s not like she would have found anything if she had.

What Leo and Shaw beat into my head is true. Even if she looked for me, she would have been up against Calder and his team’s tech skills. Easton keeps them on the payroll for a reason.

She never had a chance .

Not unless she would have woken me up to ask me to go with her.

If she had, I would have.

Then when Easton called, I would have told him to fuck off.

So many things would have been different if she had just woken me up.

“I did. I think I might have reached Trigg-levels,” she says, going on to describe how she went back to the bar and the hotel so many times they banned her from the hotel premises.

“I mean, if you need an inventory of anyone in Burlington named Ridge, I have a list. I even moved on to anyone with Ridge as part of their last name. I might have spent a month making sure to get eyes on each one to be sure it wasn’t you. ”

I bark a laugh. “You did a little stalking of your own.”

“Yeah, I really did.”

And I let myself be sent off from job to job, always telling myself that I’d find her when I made it back to Vermont.

“Shit, Quincy, I’m sorry. This isn’t all on you,” I admit. “As my friends so poignantly drilled into my head, I would have had a much easier time finding you than vice versa.”

“Did you look for me at all?” she asks, her voice small, almost like she doesn’t really want to know.

“I intended to,” I say, grimacing. “Only my boss sent me to Vegas that same day, and I kept thinking I’d dig around for you when I got back. But then the next job came up before I even got back home, and that happened over and over again. I should have put my foot down months ago.”

“That’s tough,” she says, focusing on King. “I bet it’s hard being away from him.”

I think this would be easier to handle if she just called me a hypocrite for not being out knocking on doors to track her down. Her disappearing that morning hurt my feelings, and my pride fucked me over real good.

“It is, but Knox stays here when I’m out of town, and King has his own dog sitter who comes twice a day to take him for walks.” Why am I still going on about my dog? “It bothered me when I woke up and you were gone. I thought we had a connection.”

“We did,” she says, grabbing my hand and giving it a squeeze. “I felt safe with you. I know it doesn’t mean much now, but before I even found out about the baby, I was hoping I would see you again.”

“Did you find out the gender?”

“I did, but if you want to be surprised, I can keep it to myself.” She frowns. “I’ll ask Hart and Trigg to do the same.”

I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from growling. It really irks me that they both know, and I don’t.

Dammit.

I can hold a grudge like nobody else, but I have to figure out how to let go of this resentment. If I can’t, it’ll destroy any chance I have of building a life with Quincy.

What Leo said was like a punch to the gut. I don’t want to only get to see the kid half the time or, even worse, only on birthdays and holidays and a month during summer break.

I don’t want Hartley fucking Adams there filling the role I’m supposed to be filling.

I got lucky with stepdads that love me, so I shouldn’t shit on anyone who steps up and takes care of a kid that isn’t biologically their own, and I’m not. It’s just hard to imagine him there in the baby’s day-to-day life while I’m out on contract after contract.

Although, if it comes down to it, Hartley is a much more viable option for a packmate than Trigg .

“I want to know.” My hand pulls from under hers as it rests on King’s back, and I bring it to her stomach like I have the right.

“A girl,” she says, and my heart stutters.

Jesus.

A girl.

Hopefully she looks just like Quincy, because I’m an ugly motherfucker.

She can only take after her mother… But if she does, I’m never going to be able to sleep again. At least, not once she starts dating.

Fuck me.

It couldn’t have been a boy first? At least then, I wouldn’t have to worry about ending up in prison once any little fuckers come nosing around. I could leave the boyfriend tormenting up to him and not even end up being the bad guy.

It’s what my dads did with me. They didn’t even have to spell it out, and I knew what my job was.

Not to mention, boys are safer than girls in our world.

That won’t matter .

I’ll be around to keep both Quincy and the baby safe. I’m going to need to buy stock in a tracker company. That way, I’ll always know where they are.

Fuck, maybe Trigg’s obsessive ass wouldn’t make for a bad packmate, after all.

“Are you okay?” Quincy asks, laughing. “You’re normally pretty tan, but all the color just drained from your face.”

“I have four younger sisters,” I admit, running my hand over her stomach.

“That must have been a wild ride, growing up with such a full house.”

“It was.” I also remember how much hell they gave my mom. “When is your next doctor’s appointment? I want to go with you.”

“The day after tomorrow.” Her adorable nose scrunches. “Actually, it has to be after midnight, so not today but tomorrow. And you’re more than welcome to come. Will leaving the house be a problem? I know you and Trigg mentioned someone is after you?”

“We won’t let anything happen to you or the baby,” I say, really regretting letting her in on the Costa Maloney threat.

The last thing she needs is additional stress, but lying isn’t going to do shit to build trust between us.

“Right, but you do private security…” That pert nose of hers wrinkles again. “Why would anyone want to harm you for that? Or did I misunderstand why I’m here in the first place?”

Fuck .

The burning in my gut must mean I’ve developed an ulcer at some point between this afternoon and tonight. No idea if it’s physically possible to have it progress that quickly, but my stomach is fucked.

No matter how I try to spin it, I’m going to have to take one of two paths. I can either sugarcoat my job to the point of lying, or I can be up front and leave out the grisly details, which I would never tell someone like Quincy, anyway.

“Have you ever heard of off-the-books military contracts?” I ask.

“I guess. Maybe on one of those conspiracy theory documentaries or something.”

“They’re not conspiracy theories. The CIA isn’t supposed to work on American soil…” I mean, it’s pretty much an open secret at this point that it does, but they have to be sneaky about how and when they act. “The FBI has laws and fail-safes that limit what it can do, but private companies do not.”

“Okay.” The look on her face says she has no idea what I’m getting at.

“That’s a portion of our jobs. Other contracts are for disposing of human garbage that has no right being around the general public.

The last is security contracts for high-profile businessmen or even politicians.

That includes domestic and international kidnapping retrieval services.

” Maybe if I sneak in that whole disposing of people between two that don’t sound awful, she’ll miss it.

“Why would someone need to hire your company to retrieve a kidnapped person here in the States? Wouldn’t the police handle that?”

Shit.

That is a valid question for someone who doesn’t understand how it goes.