“Because you told me you were going to ask my girl out!”

“Which I didn’t have to do since she asked me out!”

They tried to jump at each other again but the bartender grabbed for them and the three went down in a tangle.

The front doors opened and Mark strode in, hair still wet, in a sweatshirt and those board shorts, and put himself right into the fray.

“Oh my God,” River gasped.

“It’s okay,” Alyssa said. “This isn’t his first bar fight.”

Still, Lanie stood up in alarm, but in the next breath the fight was completely over. Mark had grabbed each of the idiots by the backs of their shirts and given them a shake. He then pulled them in closer and said something that had them both going still. He held on to them for an extra beat, holding their gazes with his quiet, badass, steely one before finally letting them go.

The two men slunk to the door, heads down.

“Oh my God,” River whispered again.

Yeah, and . . . holy cow, Lanie thought. The man was sexy as hell, which was something she already knew, but seeing him in action was . . . yowza. She looked over at River to make sure the level of hotness hadn’t put her into labor and realized River wasn’t impressed—she was horrified. And maybe a little scared. “Hey, are you okay?”

“Yeah.” She shook her head. “It’s the uniform. I mean, he’s not wearing it right now, but it doesn’t matter because he’s still all badass don’t-mess-with-me cop, you know? Makes you nervous as hell, doesn’t it? Like, he could decide to arrest you at any moment and lock away the key.” She paused and then grimaced at Alyssa’s and Lanie’s brows-up expressions. “Just me?”

“Cops make you nervous,” Lanie said carefully, not wanting to scare River off from talking about herself, but the truth was they were all insanely curious about her, as she’d said next to nothing about her background.

Not that Lanie was any better . . .

“Very nervous,” River said.

“My brother would never do anything to scare or hurt you,” Alyssa said, bouncing up and down a little as she talked, trying to soothe a now-irritated Elsa. “Well, unless you ate the last of Mom’s brownies. He really likes those.” She was obviously teasing and just as obviously trying to put River at ease.

But River didn’t look quite there yet.

Since Elsa was still fussing, Alyssa pulled her free of the wrap. “Here,” she said to Lanie. “Hold this a sec.” And then she thrust the annoyed little wiggleworm at Lanie.

Lanie automatically took her and then tried not to panic. “Um, I don’t know what to do with a baby.”

Alyssa looked amused. “Well, you pull her in closer to you, for one thing. She’s not a stink bomb.”

Right. Lanie did just that, settling the baby against her chest and shoulder like she’d seen Mark do.

Elsa stared up at her, not sure if she was pleased or pissed.

Alyssa grabbed a wing. “You’ve had bad experiences with cops?” she asked River.

River reached over and patted Elsa’s back with a soft smile for the baby. “Where I grew up, a cop sniffing in your business was nothing but trouble.”

“Was it just you and your mom growing up?”

“Yeah.”

“I can’t imagine how tough that was when she passed away,” Lanie said quietly.

“It wasn’t all bad. I waitressed at the truck stop and the other waitresses were really nice to me. I had all the food I could want and they let me couch surf when I needed.”

“And when you didn’t couch surf?”

She looked away and Lanie’s heart sank for the girl River had been. “You don’t have to tell us.”

River gave her a small smile. “It’s funny how easy it is to remove those memories from my mind right now with a great job and a roof over my head, you know?”

Lanie had never suffered for money like River had. Things had been tight after leaving home. She’d had to get loans for college and there’d been months and months where she’d lived paycheck to paycheck. But even so, she’d never worried about not having a bed or food.

“Things are really good right now,” River said softly, her hands on her baby bump.

Lanie had to smile at that. The girl—and she really was just a girl—was pregnant, with apparently no one at her back, and she thought things were good. Optimism. Something she herself was missing. She looked down at a now sleeping Elsa and felt a totally unfamiliar ache in the region of her ovaries.

Kyle hadn’t wanted kids. She’d told herself she’d been okay with that and maybe she’d believed it at the time, but right now, at age thirty, her ovaries were definitely starting to say otherwise.

Mark had turned to the bartender, offering him a hand, pulling him up off the floor, clapping him on the back. They spoke for a moment and then Mark eyed the crowd. His sharp gaze found them, and with one last word to the bartender, he headed right for their table.

His gaze was on Lanie and Elsa, eyes soft. “You look like a natural.”

Oh boy. That look combined with the warmth of the sleepy baby against her chest was probably potent enough to make her pregnant. Because she couldn’t help herself, she pressed her nose to Elsa’s neck and inhaled that unique sweet baby scent.

And there went her ovaries again.

“She’s cute, right?” Alyssa asked. “It’s not just me?”

Mark laughed. “Are you kidding me? They have big, suck-you-in eyes and they smell good. It’s a scam.” He set himself to the task of untangling the sleeping Elsa’s fist from Lanie’s hair, then gave the baby a quick hug. Talk about being a natural. He rubbed gentle circles on the baby’s back and then handed her off to Alyssa.

He then pulled Lanie upright—in a much nicer fashion than he had the fighting idiots. He slid one arm around her waist, buried his other hand in her hair, and kissed her hard and with quite a bit more tongue than she would’ve expected in public before he pulled back.

“I’m an ass,” he said quietly, pressing his forehead to hers. “I don’t always think to pretty up my words before I speak.”

She felt like she had whiplash. She’d just seen him as the tough, impenetrable, stoic cop, and now she was back to dealing with the sexy, alpha man who’d kissed her on the beach before reminding her he wasn’t going to ever fall in love again. “I don’t want you to pretty up your words for me,” she said.

“I appreciate that, but I’d still like to try. After I deal with the dicks outside. Will you wait?”

She hesitated and then for some reason nodded.

He gave her a small smile. “Later?”

“Later,” she whispered and watched as he strode outside to make his perps regret their most recent life choices. Then she sank shakily back to her chair.

“That was the hottest thing I’ve ever seen,” River said. “If I didn’t hate men so much, I’d start dating again just to get kissed like that.”

“It was a pretty great kiss,” Lanie managed.

They turned their attention back to the platter of wings, splitting a pitcher of iced tea in deference to the baby. Not what Lanie had come for, but it worked.