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Book #1 in Wild Rose Mountain Bank Heist

Delivered by Wilder

Who falls for a woman who’s eight months pregnant?
Answer: Sands Wilder. Immediately.

I barely learn his first name before he’s shielding me from bullets.

I’d come to the bank to rescue my confused grandmother, the woman who rescued me when I found myself pregnant after stupidly swiping right, curious about intimacy. Oops.

Only I find a lot more than grandma mentally visiting the 1970s. 

There’s a new security guard in Wicked. A new talking parrot in the bank lobby. And contractions that can’t be labor. Absolutely, positively cannot be labor. Because I’m still weeks away from my due date, right? 

Then three gunmen storm the bank.

ACK!

Seems I’ve acquired my own personal security guard, an undercover ex-Marine with protective instincts bigger than Texas. Because he’s leaning over me, making me laugh even when it hurts, whispering promises that can’t be true. Not after we just met.

“Don’t care,” he tells me, and there’s more than baby feet kicking around my belly at the heat in his eyes. “You’re mine now. You and those babies. Mine to protect. Mine to take care of.”

So now I’m praying we make it out of this bank alive. All of us: me, my unborn twins, my grandma, and the undercover ex-Marine who just promised me forever in the middle of a heist.

I really hope he means it.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

REVIEWS

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

EXCERPT

Chapter 1 - WILDER

“Ma’am, you have a wonderful afternoon.” The words come out the same way they have several hundred times since Monday morning.

The middle-aged woman I’m holding the door for gives me a smile and passes through the vestibule, opening the second set of doors on her own and heading for the parking lot. I let the interior door ease shut and resume my station overlooking the lobby.

Day five of bank security detail, and I’m officially bored out of my skull.

This is what you signed up for, Wilder.

Not exactly. What I signed up for was protecting this bank—this town—from a crew of Desert Jackals prospects using small-town robberies as their ticket into the club. Intel said Wicked’s Texas Century branch was next. 

In truth, I volunteered for this particular post. Practically arm-wrestled Breaker for the privilege of stepping in while our regular guy, Jimmy, took his family up to Ruidoso for the week, when we all but insisted he get the heck out of Dodge.

Jimmy might be qualified for what he does, as are all our guys, but unlike most of the men on the Wilder Security payroll, he’s a family man from the word go, not one of the Mountain Kings. Not ex-military. If the Jackals are gonna hit, better to have someone here who’s prepared for a fistfight. A firefight. An all-out war, if the Jackals don’t back off from our turf.

Except nothing’s happened.

The excitement this week equaling my nondescript pewter-gray uniform.

Standing at parade rest all day is second nature after ten years of service. And the uniform itself fits well enough. The shirt’s got the red-and-white Wilder Security patch stitched above the breast pocket (Mom’s doing). My name’s embroidered above it in cursive: Wilder. Not Sands. Just Wilder. The way I prefer it. (Her doing as well.)

I run a hand over my jaw, feeling the scruff I didn’t bother shaving this morning. Overslept. Not my fault, not after the late night Odds and I pulled off. Half drunk on Lone Star and full drunk on bad ideas.

A loud squawk grabs my attention from across the lobby, a slight smile curling one side of my mouth.

“Your tits look great in that top,” the bird announces to one and all.

Maybe the idea wasn’t so bad after all.

Welcome to undercover operations, Wicked, Texas, style. Less high-stakes thriller, more paid opportunity to perfect the art of the polite nod.

At least Harry’s providing entertainment today, a substantial improvement from earlier in the week.

I pull my gaze off the African grey parrot and put it back where it belongs: the entrance.

Wrench and Rambler are in the parking lot, taking over for Breaker who headlined the morning shift. Cutlass is currently on his third loan application of the week—third—trying to charm the cat-eye glasses right off the loan officer’s face. Cutlass refusing to rotate out like the rest of the guys we’ve had coming and going all week, claiming his spot at Z. Simpkins’ desk for a third straight day. Odds and I betting on not how, but how soon those two are going to end up together.

Speak of the devil, the heavy exterior doors explode open, and not from an 80-mile-an-hour gust of wind which is one reason for the double set. It’s pretty calm outside. Still and hot. Nope, the exaggerated swing’s thanks to my kid brother, Ocean, a.k.a. Odds.

Typically, it’s the ever-present deck of cards one notices first. That or his gregarious, loud personality. Today, it’s the shirt that screams LOOK AT ME! The one he threatened Wrench with last night. 

It wouldn’t stand out on a beach. But here? An old-school, glamorous bank in West Texas? Cowboys riding T-Rexes amid tropical hibiscus draws attention, and not the good kind.

No, it’s the kind where I’m squinting and wishing I had sunglasses.

Arm outstretched, he pushes through the interior door I don’t move to open. “Fucker,” he whispers, locking eyes with me and shuffling the deck of cards with rapid-fire snaps. He gives me a subtle wink, a not-subtle nod of his head as he goes straight to the short line in front of the teller windows, flapping both elbows like a bird.

The private joke garners another smile. 

One I attempt to wipe free the second I notice the frowning countenance of Ms. Whitt, the bank vice president who’s in charge this week, aimed his way. She’s none too happy with the “shady sorts who keep loitering in her bank,” as I’ve heard her complain more than once since the Mountain Kings amped up surveillance on Wednesday. She’s got no reason to suspect I ride with them. And I haven’t seen any reason to tell her.

The no-nonsense lady probably has a decade on my thirty-two; she’s been taking her responsibilities seriously, even if she has seen fit to relax long enough to pass on several compliments from long-time Texas Century Bank customers, who’ve been vocal about appreciating my “chivalrous manners.” Mom’ll get a kick out of hearing that if I can find a moment to tell her when no one else is around. Don’t need to ruin my street cred with my siblings.

Boredom, along with thoughts of Mom and Whitt and every other female I might’ve met in the last two decades, blasts to smithereens when I notice the one approaching the exterior doors from the parking lot.

Without conscious decision-making, I’m sprinting past the lobby doors and into the vestibule, to get it for her.

Her, a young woman wearing a flowy, floral top that crisscrosses her chest and ties over the most enormous baby bump I’ve seen outside of a hospital waiting room (and tied beneath breasts I can’t help but notice either).

When did you become a lecher? Checking out a pregnant woman?

She’s got this runaway mass of wavy hair that can’t decide if it’s brown or blonde, streaked through with gold and tumbling over her shoulders like it air-dried this morning and hasn’t been chastised since. One hand’s braced against her lower back, the other clutching her purse strap, and she’s breathless, as though she ran here. 

You’ve been standing in this lobby for four and a half days. You’d find a potted cactus compelling at this point.

I straighten. Already straight—always straight; that’s the Corps for you—but I straighten.

“Ma’am.” The second she’s through the first set of doors, I race past her to open the ones into the bank itself.

“Thank you.” Her gaze sweeps the lobby—a flash of worry in her eyes—before landing on the benches opposite the teller windows, and she just sort of deflates.

I hear her inhale, watch her roll her shoulders up and back, and she slides on her flat-soled shoes to face me.

“Thanks for getting the doors.” She takes another audible breath, and I swear I can practically see her trying to stand down from some place of panic right before my eyes. Her hand rubs at the small of her back. She gives a little grimace she tries to hide. “I’m supposed to be rescuing my grandmother, but at this rate, she might have to rescue me.”

“You’re Mrs. Tucker’s granddaughter.” I know because Chrissy, the teller who started earlier this week, and seems to have captured the interest of my youngest brother, skipped over to me about twenty minutes ago, in between customers, quickly pointing out the gray-haired lady dressed like a working rancher’s wife—denim and worn cowboy boots, long-sleeve button-down shirt (despite the heat of summer), along with her cane and gray bobbed hair, old-fashioned purse snug in her lap—and told me not to let her leave. Said she was confused and reinforcements were on their way.

Jimmy had mentioned it to me as well. Seems Gale Tucker, a long-time Wicked resident and Texas Century Bank customer, has been getting more and more confused of late. For some reason, the bank calls to her, even if she isn’t sure what decade we’re in right now.

“That I am.” The young woman gives me a relieved smile, relaxing even more at my observation.

I can’t help but smile back. “Looks like you’re carrying some precious cargo there. I think you’re entitled to a rescue or two.”

She glances down at her belly, which practically takes up its own ZIP code. A light blush dusts her cheeks as she looks back up at me. 

“You’re not Jimmy,” she says, all soft hair, floral fabric, and weary grace.

I’m instantly, inexplicably captivated.

“That I am not. He’s on a well-deserved vacation.”

“So you’re his temporary replacement? I don’t recall him including door-opening duties.” Her avid gaze inspects my uniform, focusing on the embroidered Wilder over the patch, before returning to my face. There’s a teasing light in her eyes now that shoves the weariness aside. “Chivalry? Is that the ‘Wilder Special’?” 

Oh boy.

The Wilder Special. The way she says that? Accompanied by her bright smile? I hope the boys are hungry, because my goose is cooked.

Chapter 2 - WILDER

“It’s a new service we’re offering,” I say, striving for deadpan. “Wilder Security believes in diversifying. Plus, it keeps me from falling asleep on my feet. If I stand in one spot too long, I start counting the longhorns on the wall.”

She laughs, a rich, clear sound that echoes off the high ceiling. Because if there’s one thing locals all know about Texas Century Bank’s Wicked location, it’s the preponderance of longhorns. From the horns mounted along the perimeter of the ceiling, to Roger Emmett himself, stuffed, and standing sentry just a few feet away.

Both cattlemen and University of Texas grads love their longhorns. Lucky me, I’ve got a life-size, taxidermied one not ten feet in front of me, named after a couple of famed Dallas Cowboys over the years. Least the decorating committee left the cow patties out in the pasture and didn’t bring any of those, bronzed or otherwise, into the bank as they did ol’ Roger here.

“Well, I appreciate it,” she tells me sincerely. “The door. Learning that chivalry isn’t dead.” 

That potent gaze of hers roves up and across my shoulders, my recognizable haircut that hasn’t changed despite being home for a while now, down my torso to my work-booted feet. I see the moment clarity strikes. “You’re military.”

“Yes, ma’am. Marines. Ten years. Four years out.”

“My uncle and two cousins were Marines. Can’t miss that stance.” She pauses, and the little pinch around her mouth tells me what’s coming before she says it. “One of them didn’t make it back. So. Yeah. Thank you. For your service.”

The lobby noise keeps going—Harry click-click-clicking his beak, Odds laughing too loud at the teller window, the ordinary sound of a Friday afternoon—but right here, it’s quiet.

“I’m sorry for your loss, ma’am.”

“Thank you.” She tilts her chin up the smallest amount and then she puts her hand on my forearm—casual-like—and her fingers squeeze once. Don’t even think she realizes she’s done it, but it sends a jolt straight through me. “I mean it when I say thank you for your service. For all of it. I know people say it all the time and it starts to sound trite, but— I mean it.”

No ring on that left hand. Can’t help but notice, her fingers still resting against the gray fabric of my sleeve. Could mean nothing—fingers swell, rings get stored in drawers. But I notice. Curiosity rampages.

Doesn’t matter. She’s carrying someone’s baby, Sands Wilder. Means she’s not yours to wonder about.

“It was my honor, ma’am.” My duty. Protecting others. “Runs in the family,” I tell her now.

“You don’t have to keep calling me ma’am,” she says, pulling her hand back as if she just realized she’s still touching me. “Makes me feel like I should be knitting a doily or something.”

“Doily,” I snort, a sudden vision of my no-longer-with-us great-granny’s living room chairs, the tops all draped with the lacy things. “Not exactly a term you hear much these days.”

“Yeah, well, the way you keep ‘ma’am-ing’ me makes me feel like I’m forty, and I’m nowhere close.” 

“You’re not?” I bend my knees, lower my eyes to hers—traveling nearly a foot to do so—then I sweep my gaze side to side as though I’m the dastardly villain on the movie poster for a really bad, over-the-top black-and-white film from last century. “Shhh, now. Best not let that information get out, ma’am.”

Even though my henchman impersonation sucked, she laughs. “Not even close! You’d have to shave nearly twenty years off that accusation, sir,” she fires back, clasping her hands over her heart as though she’s in the same melodrama, acting the damsel in distress with every bit of awful talent I just showed.

“You’re only twenty?” The words explode out of my mouth, along with zero the amount of fun that just came before.

Way to spoil the moment, dipshit. You never ask a lady about her age.

Only instead of taking offense at my blurted astonishment, she abandons the playacting, fiddles with the long purse strap hanging over one shoulder and answers, back to her regular voice. “Not quite that young. Twenty-two in September, if I survive the rest of summer in this West Texas oven.”

“Where’s the husband?” The question slips out before I can stop it. 

“Out of the picture,” she says, tone a bit clipped. A lot wilted. “By choice.”

Her choice? Or his? I can’t help but wonder if she’s still carrying a torch for the idiot. “Whoever he is, he’s a fool of the highest order.”

Her cheeks take on a faint pink hue, and she swallows hard, looking back at my name patch. 

“Wilder,” she reads the cursive embroidery above my pocket out loud. “Is that a description or a name?”

“Both,” I say, the corner of my mouth twitching. “But mostly just the last name on my birth certificate.”

“Last name? Feel like sharing your first?”

I should not be so damn pleased that she asked. I shouldn’t. 

“Sands.” When her forehead furrows, I add, “Mom’s from California.”

That gets a light giggle. “I like it. Sands.” And the way she says that? Gah. It’s as though she just stroked straight up my thigh. “It’s unique.”

“That’s one way to describe it. Dad talked her down from Sandbar.”

She snorts a laugh, chokes on it, then grabs her belly with a groan. I step forward, my hand hovering over her shoulder. “You all right?”

“Sandbar.” Her delighted doubt can’t be missed.

“Really. Scout’s honor.” If she thinks that’s something, wait’ll I introduce her to my siblings.

Wait. What?

“Sandbar.” She makes a pondering hmm, oblivious to my tortured thoughts. 

I’m supposed to be watching for threats. Scanning the entrances and exits. We might have guys out on the perimeter, giving Rambler a heads-up if any Jackal suspects come close, but the goal is to catch them in the act, not scare them off before they can do anything arrest-worthy. Catch them while protecting our town. My infantry squad leader training is screaming at me to do my damn job.

But all I can do is watch her.

“Sandbar,” she says again with another delightful smile. “I may have to consider that.”

My attention zooms to where she’s drumming fingers on her belly. It’s hard not to miss, given how it’s comparable to its own celestial body, ready to grab everything in its orbit. “You got a name for the little one yet?”

“Done some brainstorming, made a few lists; nothing’s stuck.”

“I’ll loan you my mom. She’ll be in hog heaven, brainstorming along with you.”

“I’ll take her,” she says with a smile (a relieved smile?), then immediately adds, “Are you—”

She cuts herself off, slaps an open palm right over her mouth, and it’s killing me. 

What was she going to say? Am I...what? Taken? Available? Completely insane?

Not at all. Absolutely. Affirmative.

“Pretty tits!”

She gives a light yip and whirls toward the noise, the purse hanging down by her hip slamming into my leg when she stumbles. I reach out to brace her. “Heavens. That’s new.”

“That’s Harry,” I tell her, more than a little distracted by the silky feel of her pretty top against my skin.

“Gimme a handful, babe!” The bird hollers out, continuing his one-man show, amusing customers with near obscenities and his patented half-finished limericks.

She turns back to me, laughing, holding on to her belly. “He’s a riot.”

I force myself to release my hold on her shoulder, curling my fingers in on themselves at the lingering feel of her beneath my palm. “Yep, that he is. The most entertaining thing in the lobby all week which isn’t exactly a compliment to the rest of us.”

“At least now I know what Chrissy meant when she texted about a surprise.”

You’re the surprise, I want to tell her, but instead I go with: “You got a name I can use, or should I keep calling you ma’am before this child gets here?” 

“Ashlinn, with an I and two Ns.” She actually blushes. “Which is stupid. You don’t need to know how to spell it. Ack.”

Oh, but I do.

“Ashlinn,” I repeat, the taste of her name lingering like a shot of prime whiskey. “Pretty. You live local?”

Please say you’re not just visiting. Please, please.

“Moved in with my grandmother a few months ago.” She nods toward the row of cowhide benches across the lobby, glossy marble wall at their back. 

“And has that been for her to help you? Or for you to help her?” I trod right over personal boundaries, asking that, but can’t help myself. I’ve got to know more about mom-to-be Ashlinn.

“She’s been fantastic,” Ashlinn assures me, then ruins it with a sigh, worry clouding her eyes. “When she remembers what year we’re in. Ah!”

She gives a light cry and cringes. Instantly, I’m doing a 360, checking for danger. For anything I missed while my attention hasn’t been anywhere close to my job.

“Sorry,” she gasps, then forces a brief smile. “My back’s been killing me today. Might have overdid it cleaning.”

Your back’s been killing you because you’re about to drop that baby any second now.

I step around her to open the heavy glass door for an exiting couple, giving them a polite nod. 

“Chatting with you proved a highlight I needed today, thank you,” she tells me the moment the door closes behind them. “I’m going to check in with Grandma. See if I can get her home without forceful wrangling.”

“You need a hand, just ask. Mean it.”

And the way she flashes those tired eyes and bright smile my way, tells me my sincerity’s reached through.

* * *

The next few minutes prove an exercise in torture. And I made it through The Crucible at the end of boot camp, so that’s saying something.

Because she’s not taken. Not claimed nor committed.

But she’s preggers! Instant family, Sands.

Yeah. Wouldn’t that be something?

But even I’m not fool enough to be thinking forever after an eight-minute conversation.

You aren’t? So your focus is where it should be? Bank threats?

Uh. No.

Because I’m fixated on her. On her slow-moving progress first over to Chrissy’s teller window after Odds backs off. (I hope Ashlinn isn’t prone to morning sickness. Because the shirt’s enough to induce nausea—no pregnancy needed.)  Then she ambles over to her grandmother, Gale Tucker. Then on to Harry’s domain.

Eh. Eh.

Okay, I admit it. My concentration’s shot.

Vision’s consumed with her.

Thoughts—concern, more like, each time she frowns, grabs at her back—taking a one-way trip to Crazy Town.

Especially when Harry says something and she glances over her shoulder, catching my eye. Her smile hits me like a flashbang, momentarily scrambling all systems. I’m struck by the urge to wrap my arms around her, pregnant belly and all, and usher her to the nearest chair. Offer her water. A pillow. My soul wrapped in gift paper.

What the living hell, Wilder? Get a grip.

Then my eldest brother (yeah, there’re a lot of us Wilders in Wicked, and in the Mountain Kings MC), Wrench, storms in—wearing a scowl and his cut (so much for our incognito presence) demanding a word with Ms. Whitt, bank VP. Whoa boy.

Least the little red-haired thing that slips in moments later brings aromatic goodies with her, in the form of several bright pink Gimme Some Sugar bakery boxes, and a smile to my woman’s—

Er, to Ashlinn’s face, when the two ladies strike up a conversation near Harry.

Wrench and Whitt arguing.

Cutlass charming the loan officer (and after swearing off women the last few years, too).

Odds’s flirting.

And me? Whipped into someone I don’t recognize with a tired if bright smile and a few heartfelt words exchanged over families.

And here I thought surveillance Wicked, Texas–style was boring?

I am so fucked.

Chapter 3 - ASHLINN

I swear I can feel the touch of his gaze on my ass. 

Heating me up better than a long, bubbly soak in the tub.

Not nearly as relaxing, though.

Ugh. Don’t I have enough on my plate? Why waste thoughts on the sexy security guard, wondering if he’s watching me walk across the bank?

Walk? You’re waddling so much these days I’m surprised you haven’t started quacking. Cluck.

Yeah, like that’s going to give me confidence. I squeeze my toes in my ballet flats, hoping I’ve got decent grip across the glossy floor and—after a quick glance shows Grandma content as could be (and, sadly, no obvious recognition when her attention skitters my way)—head over to the teller windows.

Is he watching? Am I a fool for wondering?

I ought to be figuring out how soon I can get Grandma in the car, settled at home, and call my obstetrician about the nagging ache banded across my lower back that’s been stealing my attention since I woke up.

I do not need to be noticing anything about anyone. I don’t!

But—

Boy howdy.

Chrissy’s text had nudged me from an afternoon doze, startling me full awake right quick: ur grandma is here!! making a deposit and calling her ID a prank?? I’m keeping watch don’t panic also WAIT UNTIL YOU SEE WHAT’S DOING STAND UP IN THE LOBBY

Stand-up. As in a comedy routine?

Chrissy certainly hadn’t mentioned the new security guard who holds doors open with a smile that zapped across my middle like a static shock on a dry winter day, and who says yes, ma’am as though he’d been raised in a different century. A tall security guard with gorgeous posture, glittering eyes, and sandy-brown hair, kept military short.

Sandy! My inner self snorts.

Sandbar. Sandbar Wilder.

No, Sands Wilder.

Stop it, Ashlinn. You don’t get to think about hot security guards. You had your chance at romance and blew it on a dating app and a guy named Jason who ghosted you the second you told him you were pregnant.

Ahh, but what if I’d met Sands Wilder instead?

Not doing this. Not today.

A man in a most excellent Hawaiian shirt shuffles cards on the counter in front of Chrissy. She’s laughing, shaking her head at whatever he just said.

The second she spots me, she abandons all pretense of professional composure. 

“Ash!” Her face lights up and she makes a shooing motion at Hawaiian Shirt Man. “Sorry, I’ve got— She’s— Give us one second—”

He turns, takes in the entirety of my eight-months-pregnant self, and steps aside, gesturing me forward with a grin that suggests he’s incapable of being offended. “She’s all yours, darlin’.”

It’s her first solo day at the teller window, and she looks adorably competent in her casual Friday jeans, charm bracelet clinking against the counter. Her brown curls are doing their thing—all of them, concurrently, and in several directions—and her smile’s got the wattage of someone who’s had at least four cups of coffee and has zero regrets about it.

Ah, coffee. I do miss coffee.

“First things first,” she says the moment I reach the wood counter separating us, the decades-old black iron scrollwork going up the sides and over our heads. “Your grandma is fine. She’s just…well—”

“Out to lunch?” I say, which has become something of a commiserating, comforting joke between the two of us. Because the first time Grandma slipped out of the house while I was napping (a little over five weeks ago) and stationed herself at Cuppa Jolene, the local coffee shop, and Chrissy and I split up, tracking her down from two directions, Chrissy had been the one to stumble upon Grandma first. When questioned, Gale Tucker had simply responded that she was “out to lunch” and why in the world was Erica taking an interest in her eating habits?

“She thought her driver’s license was a prank,” Chrissy shares, then bites her lips as though it’s the last thing she wants to tell me. “Swore—and I quote—I do not look anything at all like this horrid picture.”

I close my eyes, inhale down to my swollen feet before opening them again. “What year does she think it is?”

“Seventy-three. Give or take.  She’s okay, Ash, really. And I’ll come over after I get off, spell you a while so you can rest. You saw her, right?” Chrissy aims a pretty red fingernail over my shoulder. “She’s sitting on the bench with her purse and cane, just people-watching.” Chrissy’s expression goes sympathetic-empathetic for a moment, before snapping back to cheerful. “I’m back to being Erica today. She wanted to know if I’d scared off any bears lately.”

Not a good day, then. More All My Children reruns playing inside Grandma’s mind. Erica Kane was always her favorite.

“I know, I just— The days are getting harder, Chrissy. She was great yesterday. Full-on Grandma Gale, made me biscuits, even blasted through the ironing while we watched some AMC reruns.” Yes, Grandma still has some old, viewable VHS tapes of the classic soap she recorded back in the ’90s. “Then this morning she frowned like she couldn’t place me at all.” I shift my weight, and the ache in my back shifts right along with me. “Two good days a week, if I’m lucky. That’s what I’m getting now. Two.”

I’d always loved my childhood summers in Wicked, away from suburban Houston’s heat and humidity. The Wild Rose Mountains felt like freedom, Grandma’s house like a second home.

When I first moved in with her six and a half months ago, fleeing Richmond and my inconvenient timing and my parents’ disappointment, even though they tried to hide it (their understandable embarrassment over my growing “situation”), Grandma had been sharp as ever. A little forgetful, sure, but nothing alarming. One questionable day a week, tops.

Now? I’m lucky if she remembers who I am at both breakfast and bedtime.

The decline’s been steep and fast. Super scary.

Mom and I already videoing about what might have to happen, and when. And—ugh—it’s difficult to even think about me not being able to care for Grandma once my little ones arrive.

Yep, plural.

Not something I’ve told anyone besides Grandma, who promptly forgot. And that was on one of her good days.

“Hey now.” Chrissy yanks me back to the present. “Don’t borrow trouble. Happy thoughts, happy baby.”

She’s right. I know exactly what my dad would say on the topic. He’d quote some variation of Matthew 6:34, about not worrying about the future, letting tomorrow take care of itself. I’ve been doing that for the most part, handling things really well, considering. It’s just, today’s been extra tough.

“Thanks for keeping an eye on her,” I say.

Chrissy reaches through the window and squeezes my hand.

She’s been a godsend since I moved to Wicked. When most people see a single, pregnant—unmarried—newcomer, they jump straight to judgment. Chrissy jumped straight to friendship, complete with ice cream deliveries and late-night support whenever Grandma’s having particularly bad days. 

“You okay?” she asks. She gives my hand another squeeze before releasing it.  “You look pale. And flushed. Both. Which is weird, I know.”

“Just back pain. Baby’s doing Olympic-level hockey today.” I place a hand under my belly. Another twinge arcs across my lower back. “Probably did too much this morning.”

Chrissy’s gaze flies toward the entrance like a punk zooming into a stanchion. “Now, spill. Don’t think I didn’t notice how long you and Mr. Wilder conversed.”

“He seems nice.”

“Nice?” Her eyebrows practically go on a mountain hike. “Girl, that man is fire in a uniform. He started Monday, day before I did. Emmy said he’s related to the security-company owner.” Emmy, the floor manager and Chrissy’s new boss. “Want me to find out how?”

Yes! “No. I’m the size of a cargo vessel. I’m not allowed to be curious about hot security guards.”

Except I am. 

“Mrs. Krippner gushed to Ms. Whitt yesterday that him holding the door for her and then running out to do the same thing on her ancient Cadillac was the most courteous thing that’s happened to her since 1987.”

“That’s a low bar.”

“It’s Wicked, Texas, Ash.”

True.

“Besides, you’re blushing,” Chrissy singsongs, “over a man. For the first time since I’ve known you!”

“I am not.”

“You so are.”

I’m not about to tell Chrissy I practically flirted with him the second I walked in.

“Totally hot, isn’t he,” Chrissy says. Then she frowns at the bright-shirted fellow hanging back behind me when he clears his throat. “He is,” she tells him. “You’re cute, too, so don’t go getting your briefs in a bunch.”

“Boxers,” he tells her. “Plaid ones.”

“Shush, you,” she fires back and I can practically see the sparks flying between them. “I do not need to be imagining you in your underwear. Back to you—” As though he’s dismissed and I’m the one under fire, she circles her charm-braceleted arm around my head. “Blush gives you away. You totes think he’s hot,” she all but gloats.

I absolutely refuse to answer. On the grounds that I am a grown woman who is nearly full-term pregnant and has no business—

“Extremely,” I say.

Chrissy beams.

I refuse to acknowledge how my stomach hasn’t stopped flipping, spinning, and landing perfect-ten, triple-round-off somersaults—backward (if that’s even a thing) since the moment he called my belly “precious cargo.”

“Go check on your grandma. Then go meet Harry.” Chrissy nods toward the gold wire penthouse dominating the far end of the lobby. “You need something to make you smile today and that bird is delivering.”

Another twinge blares across my spine, sharper than the last. Bird might not be the only thing delivering. 

Still three full weeks out, I remind myself before panic take holds. Dr. Rubio shared that first-time moms rarely delivered early.

She also said twins do.

Ack. Braxton Hicks. That’s all.

And if you think it enough, it’ll be true?

I don’t realize I’m still staring toward the cage until Chrissy encourages, “Go. Harry’ll cheer you up. And text me if those back pains get worse, okay? Otherwise I’ll see you as soon as I get off work.”

Okay, the talking parrot’s an option, but only if Grandma proves stubborn.

She’s happily plopped on the cowhide bench with her purse in her lap and a butterscotch candy tucked in her cheek (I’d know that familiar smell a mile away), checking out folks in the lobby as she might a stellar parade. To an outsider, she looks perfectly fine. To me, she looks like my loving Grandma Gale. 

But today, she looks at me as though I’m someone she can’t quite place. By the time I’m three feet out, she goes from squinting to smiling. “Vivian? Is that you? My heavens, you look ready to pop!”

My heart sinks. She thinks I’m her sister again, who’s been gone since before I was born. I’ve learned it’s best to play along. “Didn’t expect to find you here.” I keep the accusation out of my tone. “I would’ve happily given you a ride, if you’d told me you needed to run errands.”

“Don’t be silly.” She waves a dismissive hand, then frowns at her purse, opening and closing the large tarnished snap anchoring the middle. “Someone’s played a nasty trick on me, Viv. This isn’t my wallet.” She pulls out her driver’s license. “Look at this. It says I’m eighty-two! And the expiration date— What nonsense.”

She pats the bench beside her. “Come now. Take a seat. You look tired, sweetheart. Dreadfully so. Are you sleeping?”

I sit, carefully, feeling one of my little hitchhikers protest with a firm kick to my right side. “I’m doing all right.” I take her hand, and her fingers curl around mine with the easy warmth she’s always had, the warmth that doesn’t change even with the other things that keep slipping farther away. Her skin’s soft from the copious lotion she keeps in every room of her home. “Wasn’t expecting to find you at the bank today. How are you feeling?”

“Me?” She pffts and pulls away as though I’m the unreasonable one for daring to ask. “I’m fine, always fine. You see the bird?”

I follow her pointing cane to Harry’s cage. “He’s wonderful,” she says, and her enthusiasm wrings a smile past the nagging worry. Worry about her memory, my back, my babies. All of our futures. “He’s said some rather salacious things the past hour. I nearly choked on my candy.”

“Would you like to go home?”

“Go talk to the bird, Viv. He’s got more sense than the tellers today.”

I blink fast. “You don’t want to go home?”

Chapter 4 - ASHLINN

“No, no, I’m fine right here,” Grandma insists, an unexpected thread of irritation lacing her tone. “A bit tired is all. I don’t mind sitting.”

“I’ll just go say hello to him, then. You sure you’re comfortable here?”

“Stop all the fussing, Vivian. Go on, now. I’m just resting up before facing Erica again. What she’s doing working in a bank, I still haven’t figured out.”

I push myself up off the bench, the effort every bit as difficult as one might expect given the budding new life (lives) I’ve been growing inside the last thirty-five weeks and three days. I make my ungainly way toward Harry’s cage.

“Chrissy and Grandma claim you’re a blast,” I offer as I approach. 

Harry answers with a wolf whistle that prompts a smile. 

A smile that only grows when he sidesteps along the biggest horizontal perch, a thick branch, coming closer to the wire and fixing me with one pale yellow eye. Then he clicks his beak. Tsking at me? “State your business, ma’am. What’re you doin’ in my town?”

“Your town?” I chuckle. “Just passing through, Sheriff,” I reply, playing along.

Harry puffs up, gives me a flash of scarlet tail feathers. “We don’t take kindly to strangers ’round these parts.” Then he whistles. “Unless they’ve got nice tits.”

I nearly choke on my laugh. “That’s hardly proper language for an officer of the law.”

“Law and order,” Harry proclaims, “law and order,” sounding as though he’s announcing the TV show. “Justice will prevail! Bring me a beer, babe!”

I giggle so hard I slap a hand over my mouth. Cross my legs and pray.

Good Lord, please don’t let me pee on the floor of Texas Century Bank.

Oh my gracious. The absurdity of this conversation is exactly what I need after seeing Grandma so lost. After wondering more and more what’s going to happen to her if I can’t keep up the next few weeks. Or directly after the babies are born.

Those thoughts pull me back from the hyena-style giggles, from nearly peeing my pants. But I’m still smiling. “You’re awesome,” I tell Harry. “What do you do for an encore?”

He bobs his head, trills his tongue (or bird-mouth equivalent; I’m totally clueless here), and I swear, it sounds as though the spurs are a-jingling by the time he’s done. Only he’s not done, because once the spurs stop, John Wayne states, “This town ain’t big enough for the both of us, pilgrim.”

“Is that The Duke?” I ask, delighted.

“Damn straight, little lady.”

“You’re ridiculous,” I whisper. “Man, someone spent some time training you. I’d put you in my pocket and take you home if I could. Where’d you learn to talk like that?”

“Hands up, little lady. This here’s a holdup.”

I lose it. More giggles, the kind that make my belly shake and my back protest even more. “Can’t make up your mind? Now you’re an outlaw?”

Harry ruffles his feathers. “Justice is swift, ma’am. Swift and final.”

“You’re trouble, aren’t you?”

“Trouble’s my middle name. Well, that and Harold.”

I’m still laughing—clutching the side of his cage for support because if I’m not careful, this bird is truly going to make me wet my pants. With home two miles away and Wilder between the threatened puddle and escape, no way I’m letting that happen! Can’t mortify myself and embarrass either one of us like that. No way, no how. 

Harry clicks a few times, puffs his chest, and hollers at full volume: “There once was a man with a blade—”

Then…just…stops. Like completely stops.

“You gonna leave me hanging, buddy?”

Nothing.

“Well? Are you going to finish?” I ask, half expecting Harry to answer. Only he doesn’t need to because a new voice thunders across the lobby and finishes the limerick without a hint of hesitation.

Conversation ceases. Everyone turns, including me.

The man’s tall—taller than Wilder, which is saying plenty—with a leather vest (that’s been around the block—same as the scowling man wearing it). The leather’s a biker vest, covered in patches, and a gargantuan black dog hovers at his side like a silent shadow. A shadow with big teeth, extra visible against that midnight fur. 

Harry squawks, fluffs his feathers. Smug approval at the impressive limericking, if a bird can manage that. This one can.

But then Ms. Whitt appears. I’ve met the no-nonsense bank vice president, not long after I moved here, when Grandma voluntarily added me to her bank account. Within seconds Ms. Whitt’s in the leather-vested man’s face. Or rather, she’s in his chest, given the height difference, her voice carrying every bit as much as his. Only instead of a laconic drawl and rhyming cadence, she’s gone shrill. “Sir, you need to leave.”

His response rumbles too low for me to catch.

“No dogs permitted inside the bank.”

More rumbling. The dog doesn’t move. Neither does the man.

“Beer and Fritos!” Harry tells me, eliciting another giggle.

“You are going to be one drunk bird.”

“Happy drunk, happy Harry,” he tells me.

I’m still chuckling when another cramp hits hard, traveling from my lower back around to my belly. I suck in a breath, curl one hand around the wires of Harry’s cage for support.

Okay. That one hurt.

“You all right there, missy?” Harry asks, and I swear there’s actual concern in his voice.

“Yeah. Just my back.” I breathe through it.

Oh crap. Now I’m talking to the bird as though he understands? Isn’t just parroting back what he’s been taught? 

You’re fine. Still weeks out. Braxton Hicks. That or you pulled something washing and changing all the bed linens this morning.

I glance back at Grandma. She’s unwrapping another butterscotch, still living in a year that predates my existence.

I need to get her home.

Maybe get yourself to the doctor?

My gaze travels across the lobby—past the man sprawled opposite the loan officer’s desk (who’d make a dynamite pirate in another century), past Chrissy, still busy at her teller window with her card-shuffling flirt, to Wilder at the entrance. 

He catches me looking.

Doesn’t duck or avoid the eye contact. 

Neither do I, for about two—all right, three (five?)—seconds, because I can’t help but smile at him before I swing my attention back to Harry as though the bird squawked my name.

Ashlinn Kristine Clearly, I hear it plain as day, you are a disaster.

If only I’d met him eight months ago (the man, not the bird) before the app, before poor judgment, before the questionable decision and following “incident” that resulted in the enormous and beloved consequences currently attempting to rearrange my internal organs. If only I’d met him eight months ago, I would have found an excuse to come back to this bank every single day.

Yeah, well. You didn’t. And here you are, and there he is, and the math doesn’t change.

The ache in my back twists, meaner this time.

I breathe. Count. Struggle for another. Release it a little slower. The tightness eases a little. I stand there with my hand pressed to the base of my spine and my other hand strangling Harry’s cage and tell myself it’s nothing. I’m still weeks out; women have backaches. That’s what happens when you’re hauling around an extra forty-five pounds.

Harry draws an audible breath. Manages to blow it out in puffy pants, echoing what I’m doing, I realize belatedly, as though we’re both in Lamaze class.

Which causes another laugh. Another ow across my low back. Because I’m sneaking another ill-timed glance toward the sexy security guard, I see the red-haired young woman who breezes in, arms full of three hot-pink bakery boxes stacked to her chin, Gimme Some Sugar visible on the sides. I’ve seen her in the kitchen at the bakery in Wild Rose; one of the sisters who runs the place. She speaks briefly to Wilder, gives a nod when he points toward me—okay, past me—to the Employees Only door on the other side of Harry’s cage. The door that opens into the back, private section of the bank. Toward more offices, a break room, and the bathroom.

Yes, I know that from my prior visits.

When she heads our way, I release my death grip on the wires and aim for the door, albeit moving slower than I’d like. “Here,” I offer, “let me get this for you. Those boxes are nearly taller than you are.”

She pauses in front of me and grins. “I know, right?” Then her attention zooms to my double-baby belly which is, quite frankly, impossible to miss. “But I feel like I should be getting the door for you. You gotta be due soon. You’re even bigger than my sister and she’s in labor right now! Crazy lady’s having her baby at home, if you can believe that.”

“Crazy lady is right.” I slide both hands over my mound and beneath it, fingers pausing to smooth where one of my bambinos decides to lay down some tap dance moves. “She’s braver than I am. I’m going traditional all the way.”

We both enter the hallway together, indulge in a brief conversational exchange including names (she’s Amalie Baker and likes how I’m an “A” match), how good the waft from those bakery boxes smell (very), and when I’m due (not until the end of next month). Then we part, as she goes to the break room and I beeline for the ladies’.

Thanking heavens for the handicapped stall on the end—the one that accommodates my hippopotamic self—I take care of business, only realizing I’m still doing Harry-Lamaze breathing when I look in the mirror as I wash my hands.

That glow people always talk about, the one expectant mothers possess? Yeah, not happening.

I’m still a little sweaty—the summer heat—definitely flushed (thank you, Mr. Security Guard), and a bit glassy-eyed from the pain.

Yep. Time to corral Grandma and head home to call the doc.

I ease out of the bathroom and, a few waddles later, past the Employees Only door and back into the lobby. I smooth my floral top over my belly and butt, making sure I didn’t accidentally tuck it in my jeans or retain any trailing toilet paper.

Got to look nice for the hot security guard?

I am so messed up right now. But we all know where I’m looking. Who I’m focused on.

Just ask him for help. Simple request. He’s a security guard. This is what security guards do.

Help preggers ladies to their cars?

No, he’s supposed to be protecting the bank, not my slow ass.

But a glance toward Grandma shows she’s off in Pine Valley or other soap-opera environs, not in Wicked. So I keep aiming his way. And he starts forward.

“Ashlinn,” he says. “Everything all right?”

No. “Maybe. I’m not—” I start, and that’s as far as I get.

Because the next one isn’t a twinge.

It’s a wave. A full, seizing, this-ain’t-Braxton-Hicks-or-anywhere-close tsunami that starts at my low back and wraps all the way around, and my knees go out from under me as though someone kicked the legs off a chair.

I flail. Scream.

But I don’t hit the floor.

Because he moves, fast as lightning. His arms go around me. Bands of steel. I’m not falling anymore. I’m caught up against him.

But the lobby whirls around me and I’m mortified and terrified and weirdly hear the second scream that gasps out of my mouth.

Because behind him, past the caring concern and his broad shoulders, the double doors erupt so hard I flinch.

Bandannas over their faces, guns visible, three men storm inside.

Then everyone’s screaming. 

The masked trio shouts, ordering people down, on the ground, demanding phones, money, jewelry. 

And Wilder’s there, his face in front of mine. His sheltering presence. Wickedly sexy—yes, even now, amid more harsh shouts from the intruders, whimpers and squeals from the others scrambling to the floor all around us (the floor that’s blessedly cool against my back), I can’t help but revel in the sexy man with his arms around me. 

Wilder’s strong voice assuring me that I’ll be all right. He’s there. He’s not leaving. He’ll protect me, and my baby. 

Baby.

Do I need to correct him? Because there’s more than one baby who needs protecting.

But I can’t forget Harry. Wonderful Harry, who whistles once, demanding to be heard over the screeches, screams, and shouts. Harry, who loudly proclaims to one and all, “There once was a man from Nantucket—”

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