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He shrugged. “Why not?”
“We...wedon’t... I’m...you’re old.”
He laughed. Because the little termagant was so fierce she wouldn’t back down even when she was being helped. “I’m thirty-five.”
“I’mnot.”
That sweet little,angrylittle, sharp little thing. “I’m aware.”
“Why...”
“It doesn’t have to have anything to do withus, Alaina. You want to save face, you want your baby to have a father, I can give you those things. I can do it with a marriage license. That solves all your problems.”
“Except the ones where I’m having a baby and we’re married.”
“You said you were having the baby.”
She looked enraged he’d pointed that out.
“Remember when you were five and you fell in the pond?” he asked.
Dark fury mottled her cheeks. “I don’t see what...”
“I fished you out. And you hissed and spit like a mean little ferret the whole time. You said you didn’t need help.” He looked at her profile. Proud, angry. Familiar. “You needed help, mite. You need help now.”
“I don’twantto need help.”
“I know. You never do.” He sighed. “You gonna accept it or not? The people who know you best won’t talk. They’ll protect you. And hell, maybe they won’tknow. Or won’t be able to be sure. If it’s mine or his.”
“People are going to...have a lot of questions. And I don’t think my sisters are going to be very happy with you,” she said.
“Because of me being thirty-five? And you not being?”
She shot fingers guns at him. “That’s it.”
“Or maybe because they think I’m a murderer?”
He watched her face when he said that. Those rumors about him...they were convenient sometimes. They let him keep people at a distance.
They weren’t real, so why not use them?
“They don’t think that.”
“Do you?” he asked.
“No.”
He could tell she wasn’t sure.
“Your call, Alaina.”
“I have to decide right this minute?”
“Well, Fia knows.”
She bit her lip and looked back toward her sister. “Fine. Fine, Gus. I’ll marry you.”
Here he was, cleaning up the mess. That was typical. And he didn’t know what he felt over her agreement. But then, he didn’t make a business of closely examining his feelings. What the hell did feelings matter? Feelings were what drove men like his father.
