Beside Kerry, Bailey sighed. Whatever caused Lore to hustle after the man was none of Kerry’s business, and she was quite good at minding her p’s and q’s. Bailey, on the other hand, clearly wanted to talk. “That’s Owen Kincaid,” she whispered. “Lore was in the army reserve for a couple of years, and he was her platoon sergeant.”
The military was a big part of life around here. Kerry had clients from the training base around the bay. “Nice that she read his mind.”
“Mmm.” Bailey nodded toward the back room. “They have some pool tables back there. Do you want to play a game?”
On the one hand, Kerry liked the two younger women and was looking forward to getting into a sports league. But she wasn’t interested in stalking a man she didn’t know around a bar she’d never been to before, no matter how big and burly and shiver-inducing he might be. She wiggled her mug of wine. “I have to drive home, so this is it for me. Can I have a rain-check for another time?”
“Sure.” Bailey was craning her neck now. “I might…just…you know…”
No skin off Kerry’s nose. “Go. I’ll wait here for Lore and then settle up.”
As soon as she said that, the bartender returned. She caught sight of Bailey and pointed to the bar stool. “Stay!”
“What?”
“You were going to perv on Owen, and you know he’s off-limits. Becca would kill you.”
Bailey laughed. “If I’m going to crush on any of the Kincaid brothers, it won’t be the grumpy old man, don’t worry.”
The guy who stalked by was hardly old. He couldn’t be much older than Kerry, but not her circus, not her monkeys. This conversation was probably her cue to not overstay her welcome. She pulled a few bills out of her wallet and set them on the bar. “I’m going to head out now,” she said. “But I’ll be back in a few weeks. And I’m going to sign up for the soccer league as soon as I get home.”
Bailey punched her fist in the air. “Yessss!”
Lore laughed. “Welcome to the peninsula, Kerry. It’s never boring here.”
Chapter Three
The days leadingup to Christmas were somber and quiet. And then Becca decided, on Boxing Day, that she was going to keep the pregnancy.
Which meant that on the stretch of down time between Christmas and New Year’s Day, Owen’s house became ground zero for Processing Feelings About the Pregnancy. He’d prefer to live in denial, but it didn’t matter. Constant processing was what the women in his life needed.
“Mom is so mad at me,” Becca said one morning after a rapid-fire text exchange with Rachel.
“She’s not mad.”
“I just want you to remember you have options,” she read off the screen.
Owen rolled his eyes, which made his daughter huff. “What? That’s not anger I’m hearing in those words, it’s concern. She’s worried you don’t know what it will really be like—and before you say anything, let me remind you—”
“That you two know what it’s like,” Becca said, cutting him off. “I. Know. I was your mistake, right?” She jumped up. “I don’t know why you need to take her side.”
Because nineteen years ago, he’d made Rachel a promise that no matter what, that was exactly what he would do.We’re in this together, through thick and thin.
“This” had turned out to only be parenting, although they’d given marriage a try. But that required love, and what did two eighteen-year-olds know about that? Not enough. When they broke up, he made her the same promise again.We’re still in this together, no matter what. You’re her mom, and I’m her dad, and nothing will ever change that.
He’d kept that promise. It had been damn hard at times, and there were moments—scary in hindsight—where he could have lost Becca. Could have made the wrong decision and wound up all alone with nothing but regrets.
Sometimes parenting required more patience than humanly possible. He stood and got in front of Becca, setting his hands on her shoulders, making her look at him. “You are not—were not, would never be—a mistake. Got it?”
“Got it,” she mumbled.
“I’ll talk to your mom. But I want you to remember that because we’re your parents, we are allowed to worry about you.”
“Tell her—”
Lord save him from a bossy eighteen-year-old. He turned Becca around and pointed her in the direction of her room. “I don’t need you stage managing this conversation. Leave what I’m going to say to me.”
After texting Rachel, who leapt on his invitation to come over later and have a team meeting, he paced around the house for a bit, looking for something to do, but everything annoyed him. Finally, he knocked on Becca’s door and told her he was going to the station to get a quick workout in before her mom was coming over. He needed to burn off the nervous energy zinging through him. It was making his bark worse than usual.
