Page 101 of Knocked Up in Alaska

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Lilah steered the Jeep down the driveway slowly, to minimize the crunching of the shells, and drew to a stop beside the cottage. After putting the car in park and turning off the ignition, she rested there for a moment, hands on the wheel, head against the seatback, eyelids lowered as she listened to Shayla’s sleepy breathing from the backseat. Grannie Rose had tired her out tonight, bouncing her all around the inn, playing peek-a-boo, chattering to her constantly. Generally making up for lost time. Despite the quick, hard clench of her heart at the thought of Ford, she smiled. He had been right about her mom morphing into a heart-eyed baby boss whenever Shayla was in the vicinity. Mia kept scolding her—Rose, you’re taking my job! Lilah practically had to pry her own daughter away to feed her. After less than a week, her mom was already making suggestions about keeping Shayla at the inn during Lilah’s work hours instead of sending her to Little Cubs daycare once Mia started school.

Luckily, Ray had showed up at the inn that evening to whisk Rose away for dinner at Gino’s, so she’d been spared what was quickly becoming a nightly ritual of wrestling Shayla away from her doting grannie. More than once she’d had to bite her tongue to keep from suggesting that if her mother wanted a baby so badly, she ought to have one of her own. Smiling at the notion—and envisioning her mother’s sputtering reaction if she ever dared say it out loud—she raised her head. Accommodating her mother’s attachment to her first grandchild was a good problem to have, and she’d sort the logistics out. Maybe a part-time schedule with Little Cubs, or maybe she’d just hold off until Shayla hit six months. But for now, the only logistics to solve involved carrying her sleeping daughter from car to crib without waking her. She turned to the cottage, and…huh. Hadn’t she left the porch light on? She always left it on when she knew she’d be getting home after dark, but tonight only the faint glow from the hall lights she didn’t even remember leaving on provided illumination.

The porch light must have burned out. She added “change lightbulb” to her mental to-do list and leaned into the backseat to grab her bag from where she’d tucked it on the floor behind the passenger seat.

“Lilah…”

She jerked back in time to see Shay materialize in the passenger seat, extremely filmy in the dim interior of the Jeep. “Oh my God. I’m asleep.” She didn’t feel asleep. Her heart hammered in her chest. Her breaths puffed out fast and harsh while Shayla cooed quietly from her car seat.

Shay smiled at her—same old smile—and shook his head. “You’re not asleep. Listen, Lilah, you know how you’ve been wanting to punch someone since you were in labor, and I told you you’d get your chance?”

“What?”

“Now’s your chance. Go in swinging, slugger.”

She scrubbed her hands over her face. “I don’t under…”—and looked up— “stand,” she said to the empty passenger seat.

Good Lord, Lilah, you’re losing your mind.

She blamed Ford for that. Since he’d basically called her too young, cowardly, and foolish to run her own life and backed away from her, she tossed and turned too many hours every night replaying their argument in her mind, except in her replays she said all the things she should have said at the time but couldn’t seem to get her tongue around.

Yeah, she won their argument every dang time in her re-dos, but those victories were brief, because when she did finally manage to fall asleep, she invariably dreamed of him, of his voice and his touch and his body doing things to hers that left her sweaty and aching when she woke. Sweaty and aching and lonely.

Waiting him out was the right thing to do. The only thing, really, because as lonely and miserable as it made her, she absolutely would not throw herself at him, offer him her heart, and let him reject it on the grounds that she didn’t know what she was doing. She might not have his respect, but at least she had self-respect. Self-respect she’d lose if she stooped to sexual torture or any other tactic that didn’t involve him admitting he was wrong.

Resigned to another restless night, she took her keys, hauled the everything bag to her shoulder, then came around and lifted the baby carrier from its base. Balanced, but not burdened, she walked up the drive to the dark porch. On an evening like this, she wished she hadn’t promised Ford she’d lock her door. She missed the ease of just walking in, rather than fumbling to get the key in the lock without having the bag slide down her arm and…

What the heck?

As soon as she fit the key in, the door creaked open, like it had never been properly closed and locked.

But it had been. She remembered locking it on her way out that morning. Maybe Ray had stopped by to check the property?

Go in swinging, slugger.

She pushed the door all the way open and stood in the threshold, listening.

Nothing but quiet came to her from all corners of the house. The front room and kitchen appeared to be exactly as she’d left them. Okay, mystery solved. Ray must have come by earlier and neglected to lock up when he left. She closed the door behind her, dropped her keys in her bag, crossed the living room, and put the bag on the small kitchen table.

“Hi, Lilah.”

Heart leaping to her throat, she whirled fast enough to startle a cry from the daughter she’d just jostled out of sleep with her sudden motion. A figure sat on the living room sofa, shrouded in shadows, but she didn’t need light to know who it was. “What are you doing here, Trent?” Since it was within reach, she flicked the kitchen light on.

He stood, smiled his orthodontic perfect smile, and took a step toward her. He held a bottle of champagne in one hand and a bouquet of red roses in the other. “You know why I’m here. We never finished our date. We owe it to ourselves to do that.”

Translation? You owe it to me. What an ass. A spoiled, entitled, self-centered ass. “Now’s not a very good time,” she said over Shayla, who started fussing in earnest. Strangely, after the initial shock wore off, she wasn’t so much afraid as furious. Especially when he tipped his head to the side and smiled wider.

“I won’t take no for an answer. Here.” He held out the flowers. “Why don’t you put these in water?”

“I need to put her to bed before I do anything. She’s tired. It’s past her bedtime.”

“Yeah.” He winced at her irate scream. “I’m picking up on that. I’ll wait here.”

“You do that,” she muttered and stalked down the hall. “I’ll be right back.”

It took only seconds to transfer Shayla from carrier to crib. She hated leaving her there, upset and crying. She never did that under normal circumstances, but tonight’s circumstances were far from normal.

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