Fuck. “I haven’t taken the job.”

“I hear the ‘yet’ in those words, partner.”

“And I’m wondering why you’ve taken to spying on me.” He could turn this around. He hadn’t said a word because he hadn’t decided what he was going to do. Cam was pushing him, and he didn’t like it one bit.

“Well, you’ve taken to hiding whole fucking life decisions from us.”

“What’s going on?” Laura was standing in the doorway, a piece of paper in her hand.

“Did you find it?” Maybe he could avoid this conversation.

She turned her eyes up to his. “Yes. I also found a list. I think it was a list he was making for deputy mayor. Would you like to know who was at the top?”

It didn’t really matter now, but he would say anything to not have to answer her original question. “Who?”

She looked back down at the lined piece of paper she was holding. “It’s a list along with pros and cons. Nell is at the bottom. Her pro is hard working and makes excellent bread. Her con is will make everyone in town blow their own heads off. He has Cade Sinclair in here. He’s smart and hard working. Cons—why can’t that boy wear a shirt? But at the top of the list is Rafael Kincaid.”

Did he really want to hear this? He carefully schooled his expression. “And what are my pros?”

“One of the smartest men in the county. Good family man. Could handle the craziness and keep everyone in line. Best man for the job.”

“What are his cons?” Cam asked, a deep frown creasing his brow.

“Rafe could be the best mayor, if only he opened himself up. He likely won’t stay. He’ll take his family back to the city in the end.” Laura looked up. “Is that what you’re planning?”

It looked like they would have it out here and now. “You know staying here was always contingent on me finding a decent job, Laura. How are we going to raise our daughter if no one is making any money? Right now we’re living off the money we had saved up. We won’t have money for her college fund. We won’t be able to fix up the cabin. If we choose to adopt again, where will we put the child? You two don’t seem to think about these things, so I am forced to.”

“The money is there to build onto the cabin. You’ve just been holding off on it because you don’t want to stay here,” Laura accused.

“And screw the money part, man.” Cam jumped in. “Where do I fit in to your corporate job in Miami?”

“You already have a job?” Laura’s question came out on a breathless huff.

“I’ve been offered a job with a six-figure salary, a company car, and the best insurance we could possibly get.” Perhaps she would see it was for the best.

Laura shook her head. “So you expect us to move to Miami where you have a job and we don’t.”

That was one argument he could shoot down. “Laura, you work at a convenience store.”

“I help out the people of my town, and as soon as we find someone to take my place, I’m going to start working on some projects. You know Georgia Stark is talking about a school.”

“That school should be under the purview of the mayor’s office.” He wanted to control the project. If he let Georgia handle it, school uniforms would be provided by Prada and walking in five-inch heels would be a requirement of graduation.

Except he wasn’t going to handle it.

Laura’s face had gone a stunning shade of pink. “Well, that’s not up to you because you’ll be in Miami. Tell me something, Rafe. Did your mother put you up to this? Can she not stand the thought of her precious boy being stuck in some back road Colorado town?”

“Laura,” Cam warned.

Laura’s well-shod foot came down. “No, I’ve had it up to here. If Rafe isn’t happy, he can run right back to his momma. She doesn’t like me anyway. She hasn’t even asked to come out and see Sierra. She doesn’t care about her own granddaughter. That’s what you’re trying to choose over us, Rafe.”

“Laura, be quiet about this,” Cam commanded.

“No,” Laura shot back. “I won’t. He loves his mother so much. He can live with her. I’m not moving. I’m staying right here. I made it clear to you in the beginning that I wouldn’t leave Bliss. I gave you every opportunity to go back to DC and keep your job with the BAU, but you want to have your cake and eat it, too. This is my family, Rafe. I’m not leaving. I’m not raising my child, our child, in a world that would ridicule her for the type of family she has. Or did you expect that Cam would just stick to the background? Maybe we shouldn’t tell Sierra that Cam is her father at all. We can call him Uncle Cam and pretend like he doesn’t sleep with us. You probably have this all figured out.”

Every word stabbed at him because it was all true. She had told him she wouldn’t leave. She had made her wishes clear. He just wasn’t sure there was a place for him here. Cam had slid naturally into the role of deputy and hero and small-town good guy.

Rafe still enjoyed expensive wine and he’d never gotten into fishing. He’d spent most of his time since getting married looking for a job or working with Caleb to adopt Sierra. He hadn’t really fit in around town. He hadn’t tried because he’d needed the job first. How could he introduce himself without a job?

And he would never really have one in Bliss.

Unless he took what his crazy neighbors were offering.

“I have not figured out anything at all, Laura.” It wasn’t worth throwing anything in her face. He wasn’t really mad. He just felt a deep sadness begin to weigh him down. His mother had rejected him, and now it felt like his wife and partner were doing the same thing.

“Well, I’ll leave you to it then. I’m going home to take care of our baby. Maybe you should think about her. I’ll get this to Zane. He needs to talk to Cade so we can get this thing done.” Laura stormed out, her blonde hair flowing behind her.

He loved her so much, but now he wondered if love alone was enough for him. Perhaps it would be better to leave Bliss, to let Laura and Cam stay where they so obviously belonged. He slumped down on Hiram’s couch. At his feet was a bearskin rug complete with head and claws attached. The story was Hiram had fought with the bear and eventually won and cackled with glee every time he stepped on his rug.

Rafe wasn’t colorful, not like Laura and Cam.

“She doesn’t know, man. I’m really sorry, but she doesn’t know about the rift with your mom because you haven’t talked about it with us. You hold yourself apart.” Cam sat down beside him. “It makes me wonder if you’re going to leave. And I don’t think for a second that you’re planning on shoving me to the side. You would never do that.”

At least Cam believed him. “I didn’t know how to tell you.”

“Well, I’ll tell you I feel some guilt about it. I suppose that’s one reason you wouldn’t tell us.”

“Yes. I knew how it would make you feel.”

“But, god, Rafe, I’ll take the guilt to get you to talk to me. If you don’t want to talk to me, then at least tell Laura. You were a momma’s boy. I don’t mean that as an insult. I just know how close you were to her. I loved my mom, too. And I know how hard it was on her to raise a kid in a place that didn’t accept her.” Cam continued as he crossed to the kitchen, opening the fridge. “My town didn’t accept her because she was unmarried when she had me. Do you even know what it would be like for us? I’ve lived this life. I don’t want it for our daughter. At the same time, I know how you feel. You just had the rug ripped out from under you.”

Because his mother was always supposed to be there. Because she was supposed to stand beside him even when she thought he was wrong. She wasn’t supposed to tell him he was dead to her. She wasn’t supposed to cut him out of her life.

She wasn’t supposed to abandon him.

“I knew she would take it hard.” Rafe began speaking slowly, forcing the words out. “It was why I put off telling her the truth for so long. I only told her that we’d found Laura and we were working things out. I knew how she would take those words.”

“She took the ‘we’ to mean you and Laura.”

“Yes.”

Cam sat down, passing him a beer. “Well, I suppose that’s only to be expected.” He popped the top on his. “Her brain isn’t on the Bliss wave station. It must have been a surprise to her.”

Rafe looked down at the beer. “I don’t know about this.”

Cam laughed a little. “Hi doesn’t need it anymore, and while he was stingy with money, he was always quick to offer a beer. So tell me what happened, and not the craptastic, two-second version.”

“Fine.” He took a long draw off the beer. There was something soothing about sitting with his best friend, having a cheap beer. “I tried to explain it to her gently. I thought showing her some pictures of Sierra would soften her up. She wanted to know why I couldn’t get a kid who looked like me. She said we should have gotten a surrogate because Sierra didn’t have her blood.”

Cam sat back, a thoughtful look in his eyes. “She was always very concerned with her blood line.”

“We have a long family history.” He’d heard about it endlessly growing up. He and Javier were the latest in a long line of Spanish royalty who came to the new world centuries before. They had a duty to be the best, to continue the line.

He thought he had. He had a daughter and she was beautiful and sweet and he intended to raise her to know all of her heritages. His daughter would be the quintessential American—a child of the world, raised with American idealism.

His mother had only cared about the blood that ran in Sierra’s veins.

Sierra’s blood meant nothing. The love he and Laura and Cam would pour into her, that was what would bind them together as a family.