Some Girls Do (Outback Heat Book 1) (7 page)

A tear escaped and trekked down her cheek and she dashed it away, angry at herself for getting upset. She promised herself she wouldn’t do this, she wouldn’t cry.

“Where people would know what I’d been through and would stop and ask me how I was doing and hug me and tell me a story about my
mother
. Tell me how great she was and how much they missed her. Missed her like
I
did. I just needed time to grieve amongst people who understood, who loved Mum too. I needed my
brothers
.”

All Lacey’s old anger and unresolved grief bubbled to the surface and lodged in her throat, threatening to choke her.

“Oh quit it, Lace …” Marcus said, squirming in his chair. “You know we’re shit at that kind of thing.”

As a paramedic, Marcus was exceptionally good at
that kind of thing
but when it came to his emotional needs, to his family’s … not so much.

“Mum warned us you’d ask for time,” Jarrod said. “But she was worried you wouldn’t go at all if you didn’t go straight away. She didn’t want us to be swayed.”

“Well she was wrong,” Lacey muttered feeling shitty and disrespectful to be talking this way about her much-adored mother who’d known her daughter so well and had only had her best interests at heart.

But Elizabeth Weston
had
got it wrong.

“
Of course
I would have gone. I just wanted to grieve first. I just needed a year. Was that really too much to ask for? I needed that year to be sad but none of you would listen.”

“Okay fine,” Ethan said, scrubbing his hands through his hair. “We’re sorry, okay. We’re sorry we let you down when you needed us to be there for you. We thought we were doing the right thing.”

Ethan’s apology was unexpected but she believed him. She believed that he and Marcus and Jarrod had done what they thought was right even if they had been completely one-eyed about it. “But, there’s nothing we can do about that now, is there?”

“Yes there is,” Lacey said gently. “I’m coming back home and you could all be happy for me.”

“Lacey,” Jarrod placated again. “Surely it can wait another six months?”

“No. I’m done. I feel like …” Lacey thought about how much she’d screwed up these last few years. How she’d felt like she didn’t belong or wasn’t connected to anything. Not her studies or her friends or any of the guys she’d been with, apart from recently with Jeremy.

And Coop. Of course.

She knew she couldn’t keep going on like this. She needed an anchor. Jumbuck Springs was her anchor.

“I feel like I’m falling apart. I need to get my head right.”

“Jarrod’s right, you have six months and then you’re done,” Marcus said. “You can
get your head right
then. It doesn’t make any sense to quit now.”

Lacey gritted her teeth.
She wasn’t quitting
. “It makes perfect sense to me.”

Ethan shook his head in that chief-of-police-head-of-the-family way he had as he set his jaw.
Uh oh
. “The only way you’re coming home is if you’ve graduated, you’re dying or you’re pregnant.”

Lacey gaped at her older brother. He
had
to be kidding.

The serious set to his face told her he wasn’t. She’d forgotten how damn infuriatingly stubborn the man could be. Particularly about this promise he’d made to their mother. She glanced at Marcus and Jarrod, who seemed equally determined.

Her brain scrambled as rage spiked her pulse and flared her nostrils. Her promise to be calm disappearing in a haze of red. How freaking
dare
they dictate to her!

Screw
them.

This was the twenty-first century for fuck’s sake. But Ethan
had
given her an out and it served them all right that she was going to take it and to hell with the consequences.

“Okay … fine …” she said, her heart tripping as the lie formed remarkably easily in her head. “I wasn’t going to tell you this just yet, because I know how much you’ll freak out but …” she glanced at her hands, she couldn’t look at them while she lied. “I
am
pregnant.”

Coop’s eyes widened in her peripheral vision as a chair crashed to the floor. “
What?
” Marcus gaped, full of big brother indignation.

Lacey switched from Coop’s alarmed gaze to JJ’s. The other woman had been quiet, well used to Weston family disputes playing out over the dinner table, but she narrowed her eyes slightly. Her searching stare lasered straight into Lacey’s brain and she looked away from its intensity to face her brothers.

All three of them were gaping at her, a variety of emotions flitting across their shocked faces. Disbelief from Jarrod. Affront from Marcus. White-knuckled anger from Ethan.

Panic surfaced.
Crap!
She should take it back. She should take it back right now. She could do that. She could walk this back before any more damage was done.

“Lacey … no …” Jarrod muttered, clearly gutted by her revelation as he ran a hand through his wavy red-gold hair.

Guilt bit hard at her conscience. Jarrod’s disappointment was difficult to take. As a kid it was Jarrod she’d always sought out for good, considered, non-judgemental advice. He’d been her confidant. Ethan had been the one she’d always sought to impress, and she’d been Marcus’s little buckaroo going to footy games with him and up for any of his daring adventures; but Jarrod had been her touchstone.

Lacey couldn’t bear him looking at her like she’d betrayed him somehow and she opened her mouth to retract.

“Since when the fuck have you been having sex?”

It was Lacey’s turn to gape as Marcus’s angry interjection stopped dead any retraction she was about to make. Was he freaking serious? Did Marcus actually think she was going to stay a bloody virgin forever?

She wasn’t his little buckaroo anymore.

She stood, damned if she was going to let him tower over her. “Jesus. I’m
twenty-one
, Marcus.”

This was her fault. She’d let them dictate her life too long, happy to be the apple of their collective eyes. To know her big brothers had her back, that they loved and supported her unconditionally.

And this …
infantilising
was the flipside.

“I drink and I say
fuck
and I stay out late on a school night and I’ve smoked a joint and skipped classes and flunked an exam or two and yes … I’ve had sex. Lots of sex.”

Stunned silence followed. Obviously none of her brothers knew what to say to any of her revelations. She glanced at Coop who was also looking at her like she’d lost her mind.

“How far along?” Jarrod asked quietly.

“Just,” Lacey muttered, thinking on her feet, answering on autopilot as she dragged her gaze off Coop to look at her brother.

“Who’s the father?” Ethan asked, standing now too.

Lacey blinked. “What?” Trust Ethan to cut straight to the point. “Does it matter?”

“Oh hell yeah,” Marcus said, glaring at her.

“Why? What are you going to do? Beat him up?”

“I was thinking more along the lines of castration,” he said and looked like he could perform said castration with his bare hands right this moment.

“You can’t be serious?” she gasped.

“
Who?
” Ethan insisted.

“None of your goddamn business,” she snapped.

“Lacey …” Jarrod’s voice was full of reproach as he also got to his feet. “This is serious.”

Lacey swallowed. “You think I don’t know that?”

“He has certain responsibilities,” Jarrod said, calm and collected.

“What? You’re going to force him to marry me?”

Marcus nodded. “You bet.”

“Of for fuck’s sake,” Lacey snapped, switching attention to Marcus. “This isn’t Victorian England. My honour hasn’t been besmirched, and you’re all acting like Neanderthals.”

“It’s something to consider,” Ethan said, his face tight.

It was true Lacey hadn’t thought any of this through when she opened her mouth and blatantly lied but she’d have never thought her brothers could act like such
cavemen
. This was taking their whole over-protective thing too far.

“You’re joking right?”

“You think it’s
easy
being a single parent, Lacey?”

Lacey swallowed as Ethan’s face went from tight to grim. If anyone knew about the hardships and pitfalls of being a single parent it was Ethan.

“There’s financial support issues,” Jarrod pointed out, “and all kinds of forward planning. If you’re going to do this then we all need to sit down with the father and have an adult conversation with him about how this is going to work. We need to know that you’ll be taken care of.”

“I can take care of myself,” she insisted.

“Getting
pregnant
is you taking care of yourself?” Ethan demanded.

Marcus folded his arms. “Quit holding out on us, Lace and spill.”

Lacey held her ground. She’d forgotten how formidable her brothers could be when they stood together. She glanced at JJ whose gaze clearly said
your bed
.

“For God’s sake, Lacey,” Ethan said shoving a hand through his hair. “You can’t waltz in here and calmly tell us you’re pregnant and not expect us to want to know about the man who’s going to be in this kid’s life, in
our lives
, for the rest of time. You want our support? Then you’d better start answering some questions.”

All three men were looking at her with implacable expressions as they waited for her to answer.

Lacey bowed her head as she quickly sorted through her fake-baby-daddy options. Not Jeremy. Yes he was a total shit but she had no intention of embroiling him in this debacle. So, some made-up guy that she could be vague about? That could work.

She glanced at Coop, feeling completely overwhelmed by all the testosterone in the room. Their gazes locked. His seemed to say w
ell this a fine mess you’ve gotten yourself into this time
and she couldn’t have agreed more.

But she could also feel his support, sitting beside her like this, the only bastion of testosterone in the room still in her corner, and that gave her strength. Resolve to tell her bonehead brothers to back off.

“I’m not answering your questions,” she said, eyeing each one in turn, “like I’m on … trial. How about, as my brothers, you just support me
regardless
. I’m pretty damn sure Mum would have wanted you to do that.”

*     *     *

Coop glanced around
at the unhappy little gathering as a fraught silence descended. It seemed like none of the Weston brothers liked being called on their bullshit or having their mother used against them for a change. Still, he didn’t understand why Lacey didn’t just admit she’d been impulsive and retract her statement?

Unless … he glanced at her as the same sense of foreboding he’d felt last night when he’d woken to her knock returned. What if she
was
pregnant? Was that the real reason she’d been in such a state last night? He thought back to when she’d said she couldn’t stomach breakfast in a whole new light.

Had she been crying so hard last night because she
was
pregnant to that lying, cheating scumbag?

Crap.
He needed to talk to her. To get to the bottom of this.

To get to Jeremy before Marcus got out his shotgun.

Crap. Crap. Crap.

“Who is it?” Ethan asked again, his voice low and ominous and Coop knew none of them were going to stop badgering her until she confessed.

The scraping of a chair against the floor boards was loud in the tense silence. Coop was surprised to find it was his, that he was on his feet, that every head had swivelled in his direction.

“It’s me,” Coop heard himself say as he slid his hand onto Lacey’s waist. “I’m the father.”

There was stunned silence as Lacey tensed in his hold. “Coop,” she murmured, “no …”

He squeezed her hip reassuringly. Sure, he’d acted on impulse but the last thing he needed was for Lacey to mess it up. It was about to get messy enough. But if she really was pregnant to that Jeremy prick then Coop knew he was a far better option right now. At least until he could get to the bottom of it all.

“Are you
fucking
kidding me?” Ethan demanded, his voice an ominous growl as his eyes shot daggers in Coop’s direction. “You’ve been
sleeping
with my little sister?”

Lacey shifted in his hold but Coop kept a firm hand on her waist. “I’m sorry man, it just happened.”

And at least that was the truth.

Ethan shook his head. “I asked you,” he yelled, stabbing the table with his index finger as Lacey tensed, “to look out for her.”

“Ethan,” JJ said, also now standing, placing a hand on his arm again.

But Ethan shook her off and stalked towards him, and Coop braced for what he knew was to come. He let go of Lacey and met Ethan half way. “You think because someone shot you in the head that I’m not going to punch you in the face?” Ethan demanded.

“Nope,” Coop admitted. “I don’t think that at all.” In fact he expected it.

“Ethan,” Jarrod said, a warning in his voice as he and Marcus moved to avert what was coming.

“It’s not a good look, Eth, for the chief of police to be punching people in the face,” Marcus said as he and Jarrod each put a restraining hand on Ethan’s shoulders.