Page 31 of Refuge for Ailsa

For some reason, a question crossed his mind. “How old are you?”

She snorted. “How old areyou?”

“I’m thirty-nine. I’ll be forty on my birthday.”

“Which is…”

“December twenty-ninth.”

“Oh. Okay. So I’m… I’m forty-four.” So softly he could barely hear her, she added, “I hope that’s okay.”

“It’s fine. I’m perfectly okay with it. But that means I have to ask you something else.”

“Since we seem to be playing twenty questions, go for it.”

“If you’re forty-four, do you want to have kids?”

“Yeah, actually, I’d love to have at least one. And I know what you’re thinking. My biological clock is ticking. But if I can’t have one, I can adopt. I’d actually been thinking about adopting as a single mom.”

“Would you be open to having a baby? I mean, one of your own?”

She smiled. “Of course?with the right person.”

Tavish’s mind spun. That house… He could fix it up as a family home. They could raise a child or two there if they got busy fast enough.Whoa! I’m going a little fast!he told himself, then shut it down. He loved this woman. Whatever she wanted, he had every intention of giving it to her. Didn’t matter what it was.

If she wanted it, he planned to make it happen.

* * *

“Doyou want me to go with you?”

Tavish shook his head as he put on his dress uniform. “Nah. Besides, that would only stir her up.”

Ailsa sat down on the edge of the bed, watching him. “Maybe she should be stirred up. Maybe the judge should see how she’s been behaving.”

“You have the store to run. It’ll be fine.” Right in the middle of the tie was his tie pin from the academy. He’d always been proud of it. It meant he’d done something right in his life. “I’ll be back before lunch, I’m guessing.”

“I hope so. Bring something and I’ll eat with you. You have to work tonight, right?”

“Yeah. Gotta be on patrol by three.” He leaned down and gave her a sweet little kiss right on the lips. “I won’t be gone long. I love you, Ailsa.”

“I love you too. Give ’er hell, boy!” she said, laughing, and punched his shoulder.

“Owww! You pack a wallop!” When her jaw dropped, he started to laugh. “Just kidding. Gotta go, babe. See you later.”

“Drive carefully, please.”

“Yeah, yeah, blah-blah-blah.” Every time she told him to be safe or drive carefully, he said the same thing, and he wondered how she felt about it. Maybe he should start saying, “Yes, dear,” and see what happened. He made a mental note to try that the next time.

There was a parking space right out in front of the courthouse in FayetteCounty, so he parked there and headed inside. He was pretty sure there would be no one he knew there, but he was shocked to see Conor and Morris. “What are you guys doing here?”

“Moral support. Come on. She’s third on the docket,” Conor said as he led the way.

Sure enough, she was sitting on the bench in the front of the courtroom sans handcuffs, and he hated that. Seeing those bracelets on her wrists would’ve given him a sick, twisted satisfaction. Two men were called forward and dealt with before the bailiff read off, “The court calls BridgetGilchrist.” She and a woman he had to assume was her attorney stood.

The judge picked up a paper from his desk, then shoved his glasses down, read it, and pushed them back up. “Ms.Gilchrist, it says here that you went into a restaurant and caused a scene. Is this correct?”

“No, sir. My boyfriend caused a scene. He was there with another woman.”

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