Instant Gratification (Wilder #2)(9)

“I dressed up as warm and fuzzy once for Halloween.” Annie dropped Chuck to the floor and stood to pace.

Stone watched her a moment, realizing she wasn’t here just to drive him crazy. Something was wrong, and his gut tightened. “What?”

“He wants a baby.”

He blinked. “Nick?”

“No, the damn Easter Bunny. Yes, Nick. Jesus, Stone, keep up.”

“So what’s wrong with wanting a baby? You’re only forty.”

She shoved her hands in her pockets and looked…scared. “I already raised the three of you. I don’t want to start over.”

She’d been little more than a kid herself when she’d taken them on, but she’d kept them fed and out of jail—above and beyond the call of duty as far as he was concerned—and she’d been good at it. No, raising another kid wasn’t what was bothering her. “That’s not why.”

“Okay.” She walked the length of the office, pivoted, and did it again. “I’m not ready to take our relationship to that level.”

“Come on.” He had to laugh at that. “You’ve been together twenty years. A baby would be fun.”

“Fun?” She whipped around to face him. “Fun? Let’s see you breastfeed it. That we could call fun.”

He shuddered. “I’m just saying.”

“Well I’m just saying! I can’t have a baby, I’m already getting fat just thinking about it.” She plopped herself back down and glared at him. “I started running.”

She hated exercise with the same passion she reserved for hating spiders. “Why would you do that?” he asked, alarmed not just for the guests they needed her to be nice to, but for him and his brothers. Running would only make her all that much more distant from warm and fuzzy. “Don’t do that. Don’t take up running.”

“I have to. This body isn’t what it used to be. Things aren’t holding the way they used to.” To show him, she cupped her breasts and jiggled them.

“Jesus!” He slapped a hand over his eyes. “Stop that.”

“And my ass.” She cupped that next. “It’s falling, Stone. Losing the fight against gravity.”

“Shoot me, please.”

“So I’m running.” She sagged back. “Dammit.”

“There’s got to be a better way. Surgery.”

“Hell no.” She pointed at him. “You, the wussiest of the Wilders, are not alone in your needle phobia.”

“TJ told you.”

“Oh, yeah. He told me. Dr. Evil? Really?”

Stone shook his head in disgust. “He has a big mouth.”

Annie laughed. “Yeah, he does. But we spent all last year worrying ourselves to death over Cam before the kid got his shit together, and apparently now we need a new obsession. We picked you.”

“When? When did you pick me?”

“When TJ and I talked to Cam on the phone last night.”

Stone shook his head. Last year he and TJ and Annie had nearly killed themselves trying to save a devastated Cam, who’d lost his life’s passion—racing—to an injury. They hadn’t been able to reach him, to help. But then Katie had come along and done it for them.

But Stone didn’t need anyone worrying about him. He was fine.

“You’re not yourself lately.”

“Am too.”

She slanted him a glance.

“Okay, I’m not.” He shoved his hands in his hair. “But I’m fine.”

“Fine as in you’re going to vanish for a year?”

“That was Cam.” He blew out a breath. “Not me. I wouldn’t vanish. I love it here, you know that.”

“But…?” she pressed. “’Cause I definitely hear a but at the end of that sentence.”

“But…” The truth was, the business had been TJ’s love child, funded by Cam’s professional athlete winnings, and run by Stone.

Which was fine. Great. Because how many people could say that they, literally, played for a living? Plus, it’d kept him and his brothers together, when once upon a time he’d wondered if they’d ever be okay.

But the guiding, the business end of things, none of it had been what Stone had seen himself doing with his life. Truth was, he was so damn far from his own dreams of renovating and restoring the glorious old historicals in the area that he couldn’t even picture it anymore. He shrugged. “But we’re busy. Really busy. And yeah, I know it’s fun stuff we’re busy with, but it’s a lot of work.”

“Oh, baby. You’re tired is all.”

“Yeah.” It’d been ten years since he’d bought his first falling-down-on-its-axis Victorian in town and flipped it. He’d managed only two houses since then, and he wanted to do more, but he didn’t have the time. He could buy something and hire out and get things moving, but he didn’t want that either.

He refused to be a Cadillac contractor. He wanted to strap on the tool belt himself.

For that, he needed time.

Lots of it. “I want to do another building renovation.”

“Oh.” Annie lifted a brow. “I didn’t know you were still thinking about that.”