Close Range Christmas by Nicole Helm (best free ebook reader .txt) 📕

“The cops could take her. We could hide her, you know? Sneak her out to the cop car so no one who might be watching would even know.”

“No,” Dev said. “I’ll be going.”

The room went silent, those speculative glances they’d gotten earlier increasing with real interest. Sarah knew there was no way to avoid this. No matter the danger. Her family deserved to know and unless Anth Wyatt had planted some kind of listening device...

“You don’t think we’re being listened to, do you?” she asked Cody.

Cody shook his head. “I’ve swept this room in particular up and down and sideways. I can’t find any evidence he can hear us. Him knowing which bedrooms we’re in would have been easy enough to determine by watching through the camera he had pointed in the hallway window upstairs. I think if he could hear us, we would have been ambushed any of the times we’ve gone outside.”

Sarah nodded, then shared a look with Dev. She didn’t have to say anything for him to incline his head. A silent go ahead. “I’m going with Sarah because I’m the father.”

There was nothing but silence at first. Even Duke was silent though he already knew. Everyone looked downright shocked, except maybe Grandma Pauline who’d always had an excellent poker face. Surely even she couldn’t have predicted this news.

“As in...” Nina cleared her throat. “Like you’re actually the father, or you’re stepping in to play—”

“I’m actually the father.”

Cecilia let out a gasping noise. “Oh my... You had sex at our wedding.”

Sarah didn’t consider herself someone who embarrassed easily or almost ever, but heat stole over her cheeks and she got the feeling she was bright red.

“I don’t think we need to go into the details,” Dev said dryly. “Now. It shouldn’t be just the two of us. Nina, did you want to go in and get checked out?”

Nina shook her head as if needing the physical movement to change topics. She cleared her throat again. “Right. Yes. Cody made an appointment for me, though it’s later than yours.” She shot her husband a disapproving look, but she’d placed a protective hand over her still-flat stomach. “But Cody should come too.”

“I agree,” Sarah said before Cody or Dev could argue. “We’re all in this house because we believe there’s safety in numbers. We should go to town and back in more than just a duo or a trio. Four is good.”

“And a police escort,” Jamison said authoritatively. “I’ve already talked to the department. The weather is stretching them even thinner, but they’ve called in some road help from neighboring departments. They’ve agreed the best course of action was to have a marked police car following you guys.”

There were a few more practicalities, but before Sarah could really study Gage’s note to her liking, she was being ushered out the door to head to her doctor’s appointment.

Cody was driving, and they’d decided to take Brady’s truck since he’d yet to get a note with his name on it. Though it was only a matter of time, it seemed smarter to avoid a vehicle specifically owned by someone who’d already been “sentenced.”

Once Cody drove out onto the highway, a cop car pulled behind them. Following them toward town.

Sarah sat in the back with Nina, who she could all but feel studying her. Sarah didn’t know what to say, so she kept her mouth shut.

Until Nina broke the silence. “You really...slept together?”

Sarah gave Nina a doleful look. “That is how babies are made.”

“Why didn’t you tell anyone? For nine months?”

Dev’s gaze met hers in the rearview mirror. She didn’t know what to say. Sure, she could give the truth. He probably wanted her to. But it wasn’t exactly the whole truth, no matter how she’d convinced herself it was.

Turned out, with the actual possibility of Dev as a father to her child, as a partner, she could admit to herself she’d convinced herself of the insane plan because she’d hoped for this. She just hadn’t dared plan for it.

“It’s complicated,” Dev said before she could think of what to say. “And we have a few more complicated matters to focus on.”

Nina frowned at the back of his head, but she didn’t press the matter. They finished the drive in tense silence, all eyes on the world around them as they drove. Wondering if something would jump out and harm them.

It was a terrible way to live. Sarah wished she could be doing something, but instead she had to walk into the medical building and wait for what felt like eternity to be led back to one of the exam rooms. There was the weighing, the peeing in a cup and then more waiting.

Dev looked large and uncomfortable in the small chairs in the exam room. He kept adjusting his weight.

“Honestly, you’d think you were the one nine months pregnant in a paper gown.”

He glanced at her in the paper gown, then looked up at the ceiling. “You’re not exactly covered up very well.”

“That’s because she’s going to shove her—”

A knock cut off what Sarah had been going to horrify Dev with. The doctor stepped in, then stopped short at the man in the chair. “Well, hello. I’m Dr. Marks.”

“Dev. Dev Wyatt.” He shook the doctor’s hand. “I’m the father.”

“Well, lovely. Let’s get started then, shall we? Everything looks good with your weight and blood pressure and sample. We’ll do the heartbeat, then do an internal.”

Sarah had to bite back a laugh at the way Dev paled. Her humor faded, as it always did, when the doctor put the monitor on her stomach and the quick, mechanical womp womp filled the room.

“Heart rate is good,” the doctor said.

Sarah hadn’t noticed Dev had come to stand beside her, she’d been so focused on the heartbeat. His fingers intertwined with hers and she looked up at him. There was sheer awe on his face—she knew because she felt it every time. But it was bigger, more emotional with him here to share it.

She