She moved, burrowing into my body.

Instinctively, I wrapped my arms around her shoulders and pulled her into me, her feet finding their way to in between my calves as she liked to do every night.

“Bennett,” she said after a few long minutes.

“Hmm,” I asked, well on the way to dreamland.

“How many kids do you want?” She asked.

I ran my lips over the top of her head. “One. Two. Three. Whatever. I don’t really care. As long as you want to keep having them, I’ll keep planting them inside of you.”

She snorted. “How chivalrous of you. And are these babies going to be legitimate, or just fruits of your loins?”

I smiled, knowing I had her.

“Oh, if I have my way, they’ll be legitimate,” I informed her.

Her lips pressed against my bare chest.

“When do you plan on making them legitimate?” She continued.

I didn’t answer.

Mostly because my eyes were too heavy, and my mind was already shutting down.

Though I did think it.

Soon, Lennox. Very, very soon.

Chapter 17

I’m not funny. I’m mean and people think I’m joking.

-Lennox’s secret thoughts

Lennox

Legitimate.

He was going to make babies with me. Legitimate babies.

Babies.

Holy shit.

Babies had never been on my agenda before. Not with my hectic schedule.

With Bennett, though, I questioned nearly all of my old agenda.

I’d already taken a significant decrease in hours so I could spend more time with Bennett and Reagan.

While it hadn’t been on purpose, I still liked the outcome, and planned to keep it the way it was.

I liked it.

I got to see the two of them every night, and if anything happened and Bennett had to be called out, then I was there and Reagan never had to be woken up.

It’d been three weeks since the night Corrinne had wrecked me as I’d been driving home from work with Reagan in the car. And two weeks since I’d last seen her.

I’d gone to the police station, per Bennett’s request, to press charges against her for not only vandalizing my house, but also handing my phone number and other personal information to the rest of my neighborhood.

My parents and I had had to change our phone numbers due to the hundreds of calls a week I got.

Apparently, not only had she given my phone number out to the residents in my neighborhood, but she’d also placed an ad for ‘a good time’ on Craigslist and other dating websites with pictures she’d secretly taken of me.

That latest event had taken place about a week after she’d tried to run me off the road, and I was honestly tired of it. It was really putting a toll on my happiness, which I guess was what she’d been trying to accomplish.

Bennett hadn’t been doing well thanks to her, either.

Especially when Corrinne tried to accuse him of raping her nine years ago, then forcing her to give up rights to the baby he’d made with her as a consequence of said rape.

Everybody knew it was bogus, but Bennett was still getting weird looks from the citizens of Kilgore, and even some of his fellow cops who didn’t know him or how Corrinne was a lying, vindictive whore.

“Are you nervous?” I asked Bennett as we walked hand in hand into the courthouse.

He squeezed my hand slightly before shaking his head. “No. There’s no reason for her to get custody of Reagan. In fact, this is all just preliminary. The papers have already been signed, sealed, and dated. The only thing that happened was that it wasn’t filed through the state. It’s a done deal.”

Shockingly, we found out that it wasn’t a done deal less than an hour later when the judge’s gavel rang out like a shotgun blast shooting through the courtroom.

“Court dismissed,” the judge roared.

She had to roar because everyone on Bennett’s side of the courtroom was screaming in outrage.

The only two not screaming were Bennett and Todd.

Bennett looked like someone had knocked him over the back of the head with a crowbar.

Todd, Bennett’s badass lawyer, looked deadly quiet.

In fact, if I didn’t know any better, I would’ve said he was plotting murder.

Corrinne, the fucking bitch, was sitting across the aisle from us with a smile the size of Texas on her face, and I wanted nothing more than to slap the stupid bitch across that big mouth of hers.

I was seething mad, and if looks could kill, Corrinne would be a puddle of brain matter, blood, and guts on the floor.

Her husband, Buck, the spineless bastard, sat in his seat looking like he’d just been beaten with the same crowbar that’d taken out Bennett.

He was looking down at his hands that were twisting in his lap, and I couldn’t figure out what the hell he was doing with her.

I couldn’t figure it out when I was in college, either. Which was why I’d been accused of cheating with him in the first place. I’d been trying to save him, and look where that’d gotten me!

“I can’t believe she gave her partial custody,” Payton breathed beside me. “She’s going to kill her.”

“She won’t get her,” Max mumbled from her other side. “The boys and I…we’ll make fucking sure of it. She won’t touch another hair on that baby’s head.”

No, she wouldn’t.

I’d make sure of it.

I didn’t know how, or when, but I’d make sure of it.

Even if I had to kill the bitch.

I’d do it for Bennett and Reagan.

Okay, I probably wouldn’t kill her. But I’d maim her.

“Did she pay the judge off?” Shiloh asked softly. “Why would any sane person do that? She has tons and tons of evidence in front of her. Seriously, either that judge is mentally challenged, or she was paid off. There’s no other reason for what she’s done.”

I agreed.

One hundred and ninety percent.

“Everyone leaves a trail,” James said cryptically.

“Bennett,” Michael said, standing behind him. “Let’s go. We’ll get home, figure this all out.”

Bennett stood, not looking at anyone, and left without looking back.

My heart ached.

And it really ached when I got to the parking lot to see Bennett gone.

“Shit,” I murmured.

Everyone got on their bikes, or into their prospective cars, and started motoring away, and I was left alone before I even realized that I needed a ride.

So I called a cab and had the driver take me to Bennett’s.

Only when I got there, it was only for Bennett to meet me at the door with a frown.

“I need some time to talk to her. Alone,” he murmured, eyes void of any emotion.

I nodded.

“Okay,” I nodded. “I’ll just leave you alone. Call me when you want me to come back over?”

He nodded. “Thanks, Lennox.”

Not Nox like he’d been calling me for the last couple of weeks.

Lennox.

My heart hurt for him as I watched him close the door on me, and ached even more as I started the long walk home.

I didn’t call a cab this time, instead settling on a long walk in hopes of clearing my brain of the cobwebs and any lingering doubts that my brain was trying to shove upon me.

But I couldn’t shake them.

Had I been the one to bring this all on Bennett?

Would Corrinne have pursued this had I not been in the picture?

She hated me. Seriously hated me.

For something I’d never even done, but she’d thought I’d done, nonetheless.

Did he blame me?

By the time I’d gotten home, I’d worked myself into a major depression.

All the assurances that Bennett didn’t blame me, from his own mouth no less, were now gone.

In their place were disturbed thoughts.

Ones that wouldn’t go anywhere.

That’d stay and fester if Bennett didn’t banish them.

But he didn’t banish them.

He was gone.

And had no plans of ever coming back.