“What’s going on in … here?” It was Heath, and had he been wearing shoes you would have heard them screech on the linoleum floor. Instead his socks slipped, and he nearly crashed into fridge. His eyes darted back and forth from Brock to their mother to Krista to their mother’s hand on Krista’s stomach.
Krista swallowed. “Hi,UncleHeath.”
“So are you guys getting married then?” Chase asked gruffly as they all sat around the dining room table a little while later, playing Risk and eating pizza. As was tradition, each brother had their own large pizza sitting in front of them. Obviously, Krista was free to have her own as well, but she chose to split one with Brock’s mother. Seemed both women liked the idea of chicken, mushroom and spinach. Brock had shaken his head at their order. He went with meat and plenty of it. Always.
“I’ve asked,” Brock grumbled, tipping back his drink and draining it. “She said no.”
Krista rolled her eyes at him, and he snorted. “It’s complicated.”
Chase picked up the dice from the board and started shaking them in his meaty palm. “I don’t see the complication. You’re having a baby together. You have sex. Makes sense to be married.”
Brock’s mother joined Krista in another eye roll. “It’s the twenty-first century, you big buffoon.” She snorted. “Family styles are always changing. Would Ilikefor my grandchild’s parents to be married and in love? Of course. But let’s let Brock and Krista figure out how they want to raise their family, okay?”
God, Brock loved his mother. A family therapist, she’d had nothing but patience for her sons as they grew up. When Brock’s dad had died, Brock had been only twelve, and his mother was in the middle of getting her master’s degree. She had planned on quitting to get a full-time job and just raise the boys, but Brock wouldn’t allow it. Instead he took odd jobs on the weekends and after school to help make ends meet, and his mother alternated between part-time school and a night-shift job on a cleaning crew. It had taken her a little longer to complete school, but she’d never just quit. And eventually, she’d gone on to get her PhD as well and was now Dr. Joy Hart. There wasn’t a woman in the worldhe was prouder of or admired more. And the way she had embraced Krista and her and Brock’s unorthodox relationship just proved his mother was one hell of a woman.
“You asked her to marry you?” Heath asked, shaking his head in disbelief.
Brock lifted his shoulder. “It’s the right thing to do.”
His mother scoffed. “The right thing to do is be in that child’s life. Whatever becomes of the two of you,” she pointed her finger between Brock and Krista, “would just be a bonus.”
Truth be told, though, he was beginning to have feelings for Krista. He was just total shit at showing it. Then she’d ask questions, and the fear would settle in and he’d clam right up. He’d never lived with a woman, never let a woman get this close, and for some reason, it scared the living shit out of him. But Krista, despite how much they butted heads and both seemed to be control freaks, made him want to open up. He just didn’t know how.
“Are you going to find out what it is?” Rex asked, diving into another slice of pizza.
Krista shook her head. “Brock doesn’t want to, and I kind of like the surprise aspect of it.”
Heath laughed. “Well, for your sake, I hope it’s a baby and a girl and has your size head. Brock’s head was enormous! And all Hart boy babies weigh at least ten pounds or more at birth, right, Mum?” He continued to chuckle as he elbowed Brock in the ribs before devouring a piece of pizza in four bites.
Brock and his mother both winced at the same time. It was true. He and his brothers had been big babies.
“If they offer you the drugs, take the drugs,” his mother started, “that’s all I’m saying. Harts make big babies with big heads. I don’t know about a girl, because I never had one, but if it’s a boy, chances are he’ll come out looking like a toddler.”
Brock glanced over at Krista. Fuck, the woman had gone white as a sheet.
Krista yawned and then yawned again as she helped clear the table after dinner and board games. The clock on the mantle said it was closing in on eleven. She hoped the Harts weren’t early risers on Christmas. She was exhausted.
After a rousing game of Risk that had Heath coming out victorious and Chase and Brock red in the face with steam coming out of their ears, they played Hearts (how fitting), dominoes and then finished the night off with poker, which saw Chase and Brock getting redemption from their baby brother and fleecing him of nearly three hundred dollars. The boys were busy putting the board games away and stoking the fire, so Krista joined Joy in the kitchen to help put away dinner.
“I just wanted to say thank you for opening up your home to me,” she said shyly, opening up the dishwasher and putting the dirty glasses inside. “And for being so cool with the fact that your son is having an illegitimate baby with a woman he hardly knows. Believe me, this was not how I saw my life going, either.”
Joy stopped what she was doing and turned to face Krista. “No matter whether you two love each other or not, that baby will be so,sovery loved. And Brock will be so, so very loved by that baby. He needs that. He’s spent his entire life making sure that our family didn’t fall apart after his father died. Making sure his brothers succeeded and didn’t fall off the rails, making sure that I was always taken care of, that I could continue with school and finish my degree. He is the most responsible man I know. Almost to a fault. He made his family his life. So whether you’re married or not, in love or not, I know that this baby is going to have the best daddy in the world. And that makes me incredibly happy.”
Krista swallowed and then bit the inside of her cheek. “He’s a good man.”
“He’s an amazing man. He spent nearly his entire life taking care of everyone else. He put his emotions aside to get the job done, and now his shell is extrahard. Extra tough to crack.” Her eyes twinkled with mischief. “But I think you might be just the woman to crack it.”
Krista pulled back the covers on the bed. Those big plush pillows looked so good. Her body was positively screaming to be horizontal.
“Hope you don’t mind sharing a bed tonight,” Brock muttered, pulling back the covers on his side of the queen-size bed in the spare room that used to be his old room. Unlike Krista’s old room at her parents’—which was still a shrine to her younger self—Backstreet Boy posters and No Doubt concert tickets still tacked to the wall—Brock’s room had been redone and was now just a soft muted brown with teal accents and a camel-colored bedspread.
She lifted one shoulder and climbed under the covers, sighing with pleasure at being off her feet. “We’ve done it before.”
He snorted. “You mean that first night?”
“Mhmm.”
“You snore, you know.”
