Page 78 of Doctor Daddy

“You will never marry my daughter!”

“I don’t need your blessing to marry her. I thought you would want to know.”

“Mark,” Karen said. “I think you need to leave.”

I didn’t need to be told twice. I strode from their house, slamming the door on the way out.

I threw myself into my car and pulled down the mirror in my car’s visor. It didn’t look too bad. I wasn’t bleeding, but I was definitely going to have a bruise, possibly a full-blown black eye. I touched the skin around my eye and winced. I couldn’t say I didn’t deserve that, and now that I had two daughters, I fully understood exactly why Peyton had done it. I probably would have done at least as much.

I texted my brother. “Where are you?”

“Home, why. Aren’t you supposed to be in Chicago talking about delivering babies?”

“Things changed. Need to talk. Heading over.”

“Come on in when you get here.”

I tossed the phone on the passenger seat and closed the visor. David didn’t live too far away. It only took a few minutes before I pulled into his drive.

“You home?” I yelled as I walked through the front door.

“Mark, what are you doing here? Oh my God! What happened to your eye?” Shelly looked at me in horror.

“David said—” I started.

“He’s in his man-cave in the garage. Let me give you something to put on that. Whose fist did you walk into?”

“Who said it wasn’t a door?” I shot back.

The look she gave me when she handed me a bag of frozen peas made me realize she wasn’t joking.

“I don’t accept that as an excuse from anybody. Did you at least deserve it?” She crossed her arms and glared at me. “You aren’t bringing that trouble in here to my family, are you?”

I shook my head. “No, Shelly, this was completely earned. And I’m not bringing any trouble to your family.”

I held the bag of peas to my eye as I crossed the kitchen and went out the side door into the garage. It wasn’t much of a man-cave. David did have a workbench set up where he could tinker and fix things.

“I see Shelly got to you,” he said as I walked in.

I lifted up the bag of vegetables. “This works surprisingly well.”

“So, who clocked you, and what does that have to do with me? I’m too old to riot, besides, I think Shelly would kick my ass first.”

I laughed, even though I knew he was serious.

“A lot has happened in the past twenty-four hours,” I started.

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“I found out I’m a father.”

“Holy shit! Really? I’m an uncle? Is this a good thing or not? Who is the baby mama?”

I let out a heavy breath.

“That sounds complicated,” David drawled.

“Complicated would be easy.” I blew another breath out. This was suddenly harder than telling Peyton I had knocked up his daughter.

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