live yours.”
“Knowing your child is mine.”
“Consider yourself a sperm donor.”
“I will not,” he said, managing to keep his voice as even as hers. It was a hard-won thing. “I don’t know if you’re trying to be difficult or if it just comes naturally, but this is not a small thing. It’s a huge, bomb-sized thing.”
“You seem pretty calm and collected to me,” she muttered.
“Years of practice,” he said through clenched teeth. The lies he’d told and the things he’d seen. Yes, he’d had years of practice in how to appear calm when he was anything but. In control of a world that would not bend to his will—here in Bent or out there where he’d lived his secret life.
Now this. He wanted to be angry, but every time it spurted up, this strange weight settled over him. Calm wasn’t the right word for it. There was something like a flash of her, from that night. Something he should remember and couldn’t. A softness. A rightness.
He shook it away, but he couldn’t shake away the realization he didn’t have a choice here. She thought he could walk away, turn his back on his own child, and he wouldn’t in a million years.
Which meant he had to find common ground with the one person in this whole town—and possibly world—he wasn’t sure he could.
There had to be common ground here though, whether he liked it or not. They had to find a compromise.
Something had changed that night, and not just the life it had created. The animosity between him and Vanessa had dulled. Or maybe it was watching Laurel and Grady these past few months. No matter how much grief they got from the town or Dad, they laughed and smiled and...didn’t care. Something had changed inside of them so they didn’t care.
Dylan had made a child. It was time to not care. “Vanessa.”
The distinct sound of a gun being fired jolted them both. It had come from the front. Dylan was on his feet in seconds.
“Stay here,” he ordered.
“Stay here?” Vanessa repeated incredulously. “You can’t... Was that a gun?”
But he was already striding out of his office. He made it not even halfway down the hall before he heard footsteps behind him.
He whirled on Vanessa. “I told you—”
“Was that a gun? We should call someone! Why are you running toward it?”
He didn’t have time to explain, but she could call. “Go back to my office, lock the door from the inside and dial 911. Tell them you heard two shots fired in the lobby. One employee inside, not sure about customers. Go.”
He nudged her back toward the office.
“Aren’t you coming with me?”
“I have to make sure Adele—”
Two masked men slammed through the door from the bank lobby. It was a robbery. Possibly the stupidest of all crimes in this day and age. Surely Adele had hit the alarm and these two men would be caught before they even tried to leave.
Dylan glanced down at the assault rifles they each carried. Unless they’d shot her first. He felt the horror move through him, but quickly pushed it aside. Compartmentalized and assessed the situation.
Two armed robbers in front of him. The Carson woman, pregnant with his baby, behind him.
And he’d thought it was going to be your average Monday.
Vanessa tried to think, but unfamiliar panic tickled the back of her throat. Masked men with guns. She’d faced a lot of bad crap in her life, but this was a first. Fear had turned her body to lead.
“Office,” Dylan said under his breath. He didn’t look back at her, just ordered her to move.
But she couldn’t. She was rooted to the spot by a mind-numbing panic that barely allowed her to suck in a breath. The guns. She wasn’t usually rendered useless by the sight of guns. She’d shot her fair share, sometimes even carried one, and had been in the presence of them her whole life.
But these were so big, and they looked more military than recreational. She was sure she and Dylan were dead where they stood, and all the fight she was so certain she had in spades deserted her.
“Who are you?” one of the men demanded, gesturing his gun toward her. “Supposed to be one,” he muttered to the other man. “Boss promised us it’d be one.”
“What have you done to Adele?” Dylan asked.
Dylan’s calmness was downright creepy. He didn’t shake or seem panicked. Vanessa managed to keep a decent mask of not freaking out on the outside, but Dylan didn’t seem to be acting. Easily, he stepped toward the two men, even as they aimed their guns at him.
Vanessa tried to swallow down the labored breathing that threatened to make too much noise in the quiet hall. She tried to move, but her body was still lead weight.
“Put the guns down and we’ll make sure this ends well for everyone,” Dylan said, still moving toward them, even as their fingers curled around the triggers. “Now, what have you done with my employee?”
Vanessa couldn’t catch a breath. She and Dylan were going to die here in this hallway. Not just them, but their baby too. Her balance swayed and she had to squeeze her eyes shut and lean against the wall to find it again.
“Take them both?” one man asked the other.
The other seemed to consider it. “Only set up for one.”
“Tricky business. Shoot her?”
Some awful sound escaped her throat, and she couldn’t open her eyes or breathe. She was going to die. Her baby was going to die. Dylan was going to die.
Fight. You have to fight.
“Boss’s got space. Rather take them both than get any blood on our hands till we know we can get away with it.”
“Wasn’t supposed to be two here. Boss’s fault if we have to kill her.”
Vanessa opened her eyes. She was still unaccountably dizzy, but she had to fight. For her baby. For herself. Dylan. “Are you seriously discussing whether or not to kill someone in front of said someone? What kind of criminals are you?” Vanessa demanded.
“Yeah, we’ll take her,” the bigger one sneered.
“Over my dead body,” Dylan seethed, moving forward.
“I can arrange that,” the sneering man said, jabbing the barrel of his gun right into Dylan’s chest.
Vanessa went cold all over, even as she
