Page 46 of Be My Baby

No. Not if. He wouldn’t acceptif. All Millie’s medical results had come back within perfectly normal parameters. So had his. It was a case ofwhen.

A huge grin split his mouth. Sure, it might take a while, maybe even a long while, but they were healthy and the likelihood of her falling pregnant at some point was high.

They would end up with a baby. A new little life to love and cherish. Something they’d created.

A family.

He settled into the sheets and closed his eyes. A family with Millie. He couldn’t help the surge of happiness that flooded him at the thought. If something long-term did materialise, he honestly didn’t think it would come as a great surprise to any locals who knew both of them. Now all he had to do was convince her thathewas worth risking her heart on, as well, and removing the ring was the first step in that direction. It would show Millie he was serious, and had indeed put the past behind him. His mother’s misgivings would decrease in time, particularly if Millie did want something romantic. She’d realise what he already knew—that Millie, while perhaps not conventionally, did care about him and not the Jameson name.

The steady reverberation of the compressor from the refrigerated trailer beneath his bedroom window invaded his headspace.

Max frowned. Simon had plugged it in to cool it down overnight to make sure it worked properly before they actually needed it next week. Max hadn’t realised how damnedloudthe thing would be, chugging away so close to his room.

He yanked the pillow over his head, preferring to settle into sleep with his previous thoughts. Thoughts about Millie, and the possible future that was so close he could almost taste it.

Vague noises from outside his open French doors peppered Max’s consciousness as he drifted toward the comforting bliss of nothingness. A loud thump startled him. He sat up and listened, but it didn’t repeat. Shaking his head, he lay back down and pulled the pillow back over his head, emptying his mind as sleep reached for him.

*

A high-pitched squealhad Max tumbling out of bed, stumbling. He stopped and stood in the middle of his bedroom floor, confused and blinking as he tried to see in the dark.

The fire alarm above his head started to scream, making him jump. A bright LED light flicked on from inside it.

“Oh shit.”

All the fire alarms in the Cow were linked. When one went off, they all did. The alarms were also linked to send notification to the local fire department only two streets over.

His pub was on fire.

Max bolted to the side of the bed and grabbed his phone, then whirled and grabbed his sneakers from where he’d toed them off before showering. He slid his feet into them as he hopped out the bedroom door, pulling them on. He slammed his hand on the light switch in the short hallway that led to the landing and ran toward the stairs that led down to the bottom hall between the kitchen and the private dining rooms.

Smoke billowed toward him as he stumbled the last few steps down. A grim orange glow flickered from the wide kitchen doorway, thick smoke rolling out of it, curling high against the ceiling and the top of the doorway.

“No.Fuck!”

He spun and grabbed a fire extinguisher from the wall leading to the bar, one of the many he’d placed throughout the pub when he’d renovated. He rushed to the kitchen doorway and stumbled back at the fierce heat that blasted him, his arm raised in front of his face to protect it. He yanked the tag off the extinguisher and aimed it through the doorway, pulling the lever. Thick, choking smoke curled down the walls and mushroomed across the ceiling in all directions. It clawed its way into his lungs with each breath he took. He stepped backward and coughed into the crook of his arm and emptied the extinguisher into the flames.

The sprinklers sprayed out their water but all it did was splatter fire around further. Desperation flooded his veins as the last few spurts of foam spat out of the extinguisher.

It hadn’t done a thing.

A massiveboomand Max was slammed against the opposite side of the hallway, flung by the concussive wave of heat and debris. He clambered to his feet and shook his head, ears ringing.

The whole kitchen was on fire. Possibly the whole rear of the building. Fragments of plaster and wood littered the hall. He looked up and out toward the back doorway.

There wasn’t one. The whole wall had exploded.

The gas bottles.

He needed to get out.Now.

Hacking and choking on the smoke, he turned and ran for the closest side door, then skidded to a stop as he rounded the corner. Flames licked the walls and floor, blocking his escape.

He spun and ran back the way he’d come, toward the front doors of the dining room.

Glass shattered, spraying all over the booth table to his right.

Sirens screamed closer and closer with every heartbeat, clearer through the now-smashed window.

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