“Stop.”
“I’m just saying…she had a lot going on. Maybe she’s coming to Trouble for Hire because she wants answers to the questions that plague her.” Questions you won’t answer. But he didn’t say that part. Jinx figured it was understood.
Ramsey’s nostrils flared. “She…she came to my bar.”
This was news. “And…?”
“And I escorted her out! She doesn’t belong there! She doesn’t belong—” He broke off.
But Jinx knew where he’d been going. “With you?”
A grim nod.
“Keep telling yourself that,” Jinx advised. “Maybe one day, you’ll actually believe it.” He heard a creak to the right. Ali was coming down the hallway. “Or maybe…” His voice deepened. “You’ll wake the hell up. You’ll realize that there are some people in this world worth fighting for. People who will love you and trust you and say yes when you ask them the most important question ever…”
Ali slipped from the hallway. “Hi, Ramsey.” No shock. No surprise. “Came to make sure Jinx was all right?”
An inclination of his head. “Jinx…and you.”
“That’s sweet. Thank you.” A beaming smile. She hurried toward Jinx. Wrapped her arms around him. “We’re great. Did you hear the news? We’re getting married!”
Over her head, Jinx met Ramsey’s stare. “You will be at the wedding.”
“Of course, he will be.” Ali turned in his arms and stared at Ramsey. “He’s family.”
Yes, he was.
Ramsey inclined his head, then hurried out.
“That was a yes, wasn’t it?” Ali asked.
“I think it was more of a ‘Hell, yes, I’m thrilled and will be there’ reply.”
She laughed.
He loved her laugh.
Once more, she eased back around to face him. “I missed you,” Ali confessed. “The bed was empty and cold.”
“Oh, no,” Jinx said dramatically. He scooped her into his arms. “We cannot have that. We must both jump in the bed right away and make it very…” A kiss. “Very.” Another kiss. “Hot.”
And they did just that.
***
“Jinx.”
“Five more minutes.”
“Jinx, I need to tell you something.”
His eye cracked open.
Damn but she was beautiful in the morning. Even when she was frowning.
“You don’t have to make me laugh.”
She was beautiful and…confusing?
“You don’t have to tell me jokes or give me smiles that you don’t mean.”
It was still dark outside. Definitely not morning yet. He’d been wrong about the time.
And Ali seemed nervous.
“You don’t have to do any of that,” she rushed to say. “When you’re mad, be mad. When you’re sad, be sad. I will take you any way that you are. I need you to know that.”
Dammit. She was back to being freaking adorable. He smiled at her.
She’d turned on the nearby lamp, so he knew she could see his smile.
“I just told you that you don’t have to do that,” Ali whispered. “I want you to know that I love you no matter what.”
“And that’s why I’m smiling. Because you make me happy.” Because with Ali, the jokes and the laughter and everything else—they were all real. She made him feel good. Complete. He didn’t have to pretend with her. With Ali…
He was home.
“Oh.” Now she smiled. “You make me happy, too.”
He pulled her down on top of him. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
And those were words that he would never ever grow tired of hearing.
Epilogue
Odin stared at the blonde woman who sat with her back perfectly straight in the chair before him. Whitney Augustine had arrived at his office just after nine. Her tension was apparent, and her fingers trembled every few moments—or, they had trembled, before she’d clenched them in her lap.
He’d been waiting for her to explain why she’d come to Trouble for Hire. So far, he’d gotten nothing.
Carefully, he cleared his throat. “Is there anything in particular I can do for you?”
“Yes.”
He waited. There was no more.
Well, well. Usually, he was the one with the one-word responses. Being on the receiving end was new. His fingers drummed on the desktop.
“Maisey said you were the best.”
Maisey was the love of his life, so she was hardly unbiased. She was also Whitney’s closest friend. “Did you tell Maisey that you were coming to see me today?” Odin asked, trying to feel his way through this conversation.
Whitney shook her head.
“Why not?”
“It’s…private.”
“Well, we are a private investigation firm.”
His joke fell flat. Her lips did not lift at all. Dammit. Jinx would have done a way better job.
More silence. More tension. More…
Screw it. “I can’t help you if I don’t know the problem.”
One of her clenched hands went to her stomach. Opened. Pressed…protectively?
Uh, oh. His eyes widened. “Whitney?”
“I’m pregnant.”
Before he could speak, she jumped to her feet and whirled for the door.
“Stop!”
She froze.
“Whitney, let me help you.”
She turned back to him. Tears were in her eyes. “It’s a miracle. After what happened to me…the baby was safe all that time. The doctor said that’s what the body does. It protects the baby. A perfect design.” She licked her lips. Took a step toward him. “Then I came back here, and I thought—surely the father will make an appearance. He has to be someone in my life. Someone I-I knew, but the attack made me forget him.”
It was a good thing he was sitting down.
“But no one showed up. No man came to tell me that we were involved or that—that we…” She crept closer. “It could have been a one-night stand.”
“I don’t think so,” Odin said automatically because he knew—
“Um, why do you say that?”
Because I know who fathered your baby. Or, rather, he had a very, very strong suspicion.
But she shook her head. “Look, that’s why I’m here, okay? Because I’m pregnant and I can’t remember who is the father of this child. This child that is so tiny and precious inside of me and… I just—can you help me?” Her eyes begged him. “Can you help me to figure out what was happening to me during that period of my life that I forgot? Help me to find the man I forgot?”
“I can do better than that.” He didn’t normally make promises to clients but in this case—special circumstances. “I’m taking the case. Pro Bono.”
“But, no, I will pay—”
The hell she would.
“I’m taking the case.” Grim. “And I think I may know the father.”
“Already?” Her eyes seemed to double. “How?”
This wasn’t going to be an easy talk. Then again, nothing about Ramsey Hyde was ever easy. “You might want to take a seat…”