The baby kicked and she rubbed a hand over her belly. “I know,” she murmured. “I can’t believe it either. But there will be a price for this. There always is.”

Chapter 5

It’s rude to interrupt my anxiety with your positive thoughts.

By the time Mark finally dragged his sorry ass home from work several days later, it was six in the morning and he was dead on his feet after a disastrous, tragic pileup on Highway 5 that had left fifteen dead. He walked in the front door of the huge Capriotti family home and went straight to the kitchen.

He needed food, sleep, and some mind-numbing sex. Since only the first had any chance of actually happening, he opened the fridge and hit the mother lode.

The one bonus about coming back here to live so his girls would have family around during his crazy work schedule was that his mom and sisters loved to cook. And since they also seemed to think that the way to show love was through food, even more so since his dad had died a few years back after a shockingly short battle with cancer, there was always, always more food in the fridge than an army could consume.

He started pulling out containers, shifting mental gears from work to the state of affairs of his life. Being back here had never been part of his plan. He’d been career military, thriving on the danger and adrenaline. He’d been away from home for long stretches of time, but he knew that it’d been exactly that that kept his family intact.

His absence.

But that’d actually been just an illusion, one that had come crumbling down around him.

So here he was. Back in Wildstone. There wasn’t a lot of action going on around here—unless you counted the occasional bar fight at the Whiskey River Bar and Grill, or the even more occasional ghost sighting at the B&B up the road.

The ghost actually made sense. Wildstone had been through several reincarnations in the past century and a half. In the 1890s, there’d been clapboard sidewalks and local silver mines, which had brought in a row of saloons and whorehouses. By the mid-1900s, the town had attempted to legitimize itself and had done away with most of the whorehouses, though the saloons had stubbornly remained. Then the county had discovered winemaking and ranching, and the hills had become dotted with ranches and wineries, including his family’s.

When the economy had taken a dive, the town had played up its infamous past, marketing the place as a Wild West ghost town, using the historical downtown buildings to draw in tourists. The stunning rolling hills and hidden beaches helped some, but being three and a half hours south of San Francisco and four hours north of Los Angeles put a damper on the place hitting it big.

In other words, Wildstone was still a sleepy town, emphasis on sleepy. And if he was very lucky and played his cards right and kissed all the right asses as deputy sheriff, maybe, maybe, he could become sheriff of Wildstone. Someday.

Be still, his beating heart. He shook his head at the disparity of being sheriff compared to what he’d hoped for and kept digging in the fridge. Maybe nothing about the way his life had turned out was what he’d planned, not even close, but his girls needed him here. He wouldn’t, couldn’t, stay his course and let them be parentless. Which meant he’d deal with it. This was his life now. Being Dad.

Alyssa came into the kitchen, a diaper bag slung over one shoulder, Elsa’s baby carrier balancing her on the other side, and her two boys, Chase and Tanner, bringing up the rear. The boys flashed Mark a fast grin and ran off to play. Alyssa set the baby on the kitchen table and turned to him. “There’s an interesting rumor about you and Lanie.”

Quiet but not shy, pretty in a girl-next-door sort of way, smart, and talented Lanie. “Is there?”

“That you’re . . . interested.”

He kept his mouth shut.

“So is it true?” Alyssa asked.

Growing up in this family, he’d long ago learned to curb his emotional responses. Denials or admissions, it didn’t matter, his family would think what they wanted. So he didn’t even blink, just paused in his food mission to bend over Elsa and give her a kiss on the top of her soft, downy head.

The baby spit out her pacifier and gave him a drool-filled smile that caused one of his own—smiles, that is. Not drool. And then he went back to pulling out leftovers from whoever had cooked dinner last night. It could’ve been any of them—they all cooked like five-star chefs. It was a point of Capriotti pride.

But though Mark could cook too, he much preferred to eat.

Gracie, hearing the fridge, came running, expression hopeful.

“You deaf?” Alyssa asked when Mark grabbed a fork from a drawer and began to eat standing up, leaning against the counter.

“Nope,” he said, flipping a bite to Gracie, who caught it in midair with an easy snap of her jaws. The overgrown puppy couldn’t turn a corner without running into a wall, but if food was involved, she had the grace and skill of an Olympic athlete.

“The vet said she’s getting fat,” Alyssa said.

“She’s just right,” Mark said.

Gracie gave him a look of pure adoration.

Alyssa looked on in disgust as Mark continued to inhale the cold food. “Dude, there’s a microwave just behind you.”

He shrugged. He was way too hungry to wait two minutes for the food to get heated.

Alyssa sighed, grabbed another plate, loaded it up, stuffed it into the microwave, and when it dinged, she took his plate, exchanging it for the hot one.

“Thanks,” he said.

“Ulterior motive,” she said and grabbed a fork and proceeded to share the goods.

“You okay?” he asked when the hunger had slowed down some and no longer threatened to eat him whole.

“I’m great,” she said. “Now you.”

“I’m fine.”

She slid him a look. “You know Mom taught us to think before we act, so know that when I slap the shit out of you for lying to me that I thoroughly thought about it first.” Setting down her fork, she drew in a deep breath. “Now I’m going to ask you again. Are you okay?”

He closed his eyes against the worry and concern in hers. “Working on it.”

She sighed and set her head on his shoulder. “What can I do?”

“Nothing. You’re already doing it.”

“If I could kill Brittney, I would.”

“Lyssa—”

“I would,” she said fiercely. “For what she did to you. To your adorable babies.”

“Stop,” he said gently. “We’re okay.”

“You’re not. You won’t get serious again.”

“And that’s not a bad thing,” he said. “It’s about the girls now. Not me.”

“So you’re going to abstain from love until what, they turn eighteen?”

At the yes she saw on his face, she made a soft sound of distress and her eyes filled.

“Lyssa,” he said again, pained.

“Ignore me,” she whispered. “It’s mostly baby hormones. I’m driving Owen insane.”

“Just Owen?”

She made a half-hearted attempt to slug him, but since he’d been the one to teach her how to hit, it still hurt. “Owen’s never going to stop loving you,” he said. The guy had loved her since they’d met in second grade, although every time Alyssa had a baby, her emotions went haywire for months afterward, driving them all a little insane.