Random Acts of Baby

By Julia Kent

You know those television stories about the woman who goes to the emergency room thinking she has a bad case of indigestion or kidney stones or a burst appendix and she comes home with a bouncing baby boy?

Stupid woman, right? Who the hell doesn’t know she’s pregnant for nine and a half months? I used to think those mamas were one block short of a level trailer.

Used to.

Random Acts of Baby is the 11th book in Julia Kent's New York Times bestselling series as Darla, Trevor, and Joe go on a long, crazy journey involving a baby, living two lives, and learning who you can count on most when you need a helping hand.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Prosaic Press
• Release date: Dec 20, 2022
• ISBN: 9781950172986

Julia Kent

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Julia Kent writes romantic comedy with an edge. Since 2013, she has sold more than 2 million books, with 4 New York Times bestsellers and more than 21 appearances on the USA Today bestseller list. Her books have been translated into French, Italian, and German, with more titles releasing in the future. From billionaires to BBWs to new adult rock stars, Julia finds a sensual, goofy joy in every contemporary romance she writes. Unlike Shannon from Shopping for a Billionaire, she did not meet her husband after dropping her phone in a men’s room toilet (and he isn’t a billionaire in a rom com). She lives in New England with her husband and children in a household where everyone but Julia lacks the gene to change empty toilet paper rolls.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Darla

---

The call was coming from my stepdaddy, Calvin.

I screwed up my face and squinted at my own screen.

No. Way.

Heart pounding, I just stared at the numbers on the screen, the words Mama Made Me Do It glaring right back. I named his number that in my Contacts because, well – she made me do it.

Made me have Calvin in my contacts just in case.

I didn’t want to think about what in case might mean, so I did it, but I didn't like doing it.

See, my stepdaddy and me, we never texted. Never called. Never communicated at all except for the rare times we saw each other in person. It's not that Calvin wasn't a fine guy. He just didn't talk. Wasn't the kind to chat, you know?

So I only had his contact information for emergencies. And vice versa.

If he was calling me – calling! On my phone! Using his voice! – then that meant only one thing.

My mama was having an emergency.

Or worse. She was –

Dead shocked! Calvin said into the phone just after I pressed the green button.

WHAT? I screamed back, his words making no sense. My phone felt like a portal into the twilight zone.

Darla? Is that you? An image of his long, thin face flashed through my mind. He sounded tired.

Too tired.

"Who the heck else you think it is, Calvin? You called me!" Anger is a useful emotion when you need to cover for stone-cold terror. If I had to be pissed or afraid, I'd take pissed any day.

Yes, yes, of course I did. Oh, Darla. I'm so sorry!

I gasped.

No.

NO.

I – Cathy wanted me to let you know –

KNOW WHAT?

I just – hang on. The doctor has a question.

Don't mute me, Calvin! Don't you –

He muted me.

I heard nothing.

Wild fear began a meltdown inside me, a feral, freaked-out entity that tipped tables, ripped screens out of windows, tore out fur and drew blood. As seconds ticked by, my heart tried to climb out of my throat and run from Massachusetts to Ohio using a split aorta.

I was nothing but writhing nerves until he came back.

He cleared his throat. Sorry 'bout that. The doctor needed to know –

IS SHE ALIVE? I screamed.

Just then, Trevor came rushing into the kitchen, his eyes full of questions that were unbearable to even note. Calvin's silence made the world cave in.

What? The doctor? Of course she's alive, Darla, he said as if I were a bit touched in the head.

CALVIN! DID MY MAMA DIE?

No! Lordy, no. He sucked in air, then came back, speed talking like he was on double-time. Oh, my goodness, Darla, I didn't mean to make you worry! No, no – Cathy's just fine. Alive and kicking, and –

He kept talking. I didn't hear him. All I heard was the sound of my heart collapsing in on itself, and oddly enough, I tasted Frosted Flakes. I was four again, wearing a nightshirt, Mrs. Humboldt at the door, Josie's rail-thin body answering, head peering through the crack, the light shining in.

The day we learned our daddies died and our mamas were in the hospital after the car crash.

Time folded, twenty-five years compressing like origami.

My fingers released the phone as Trevor gently took it from me, put it to his ear, and kept one hand on my shoulder, ocean eyes boring into mine, pinning me in the present.

Breathe, he said.

Oh, believe you me, Trevor, Calvin said through the phone, a long, loud exhale making the phone sound like a wind tunnel. I just had a crash course in how to breathe right. Hee hee hee. Hoo hoo hoo. Rasping noises filtered out through the phone.

I'm talking to Darla.

Oh.

Trevor’s irises were so perfect, a kaleidoscope of wonder that made it easy to hold my breath, my diaphragm begging for relief but my body too shocked to let go. For a few seconds, there was a reality in which Calvin was calling for all the wrong reasons.

For Mama's just in case.

And while my mind knew that reality hadn't happened, my body – and some deep, primal memory – needed a little more time to catch up.

I plunged both of my hands into my thick hair, curls all Helter-Skelter, fingers digging in as if the pain of nails on scalp would make some of the pressure stop.

Calvin, what's wrong with Cathy? Trevor asked firmly, taking over, taking control, the way you hope your love will do when the worst crisis hits and shatters your world.

They're fine! Calvin shouted through the phone. Just fine, which is a surprise and all, because no one ever expected that when I took Cathy to the emergency room, she'd –

THEY? I screeched. Who else got hurt? Was it Marlene? Uncle Mike?

Hurt? Oh, no, Darla, no one got – oh! His gasp made me feel a little bad for him, for some reason. Oh, my word, Darla, no one got hurt. I shouldn't be so insensitive, what with the way your daddy died and all.

YA THINK CALVIN? I screamed. What was Mama's diagnosis? Did her diabetes run crazy again? Her body can't handle much.

It can handle more than you think, he said with a chuckle.

That damn chuckle did me in.

"You're LAUGHING about my mama being hospitalized, Calvin? You? Her man? Her husband who promised to love, honor, and cherish her in sickness and in health? You're laughing when she's sick? What the hell is wrong with you? How dare you!"

Stunned silence greeted me as I sucked in enough air to single-handedly power a blast horn on a cruise ship.

And then.

And then my stepdaddy said:

She's not sick, Darla. Your mama just gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. Six pounds, 15 ounces, and healthy as can be. Congratulations. Your mama and I have a son together. Jenna and you share a half-sibling. You're a big sister now. You have a baby brother.

And those were the last words I heard before I fainted dead away in Trevor's arms.

Chapter 2

Trevor

---

Road trips that don't involve a gig are rare.

So rare I don't remember the last one.

I can't believe I fainted dead away like that. Two hours ago, Darla got the call from her stepfather, and we packed in a mad frenzy, the car already gassed up and Joe unable to join us. We were on hour ten out of ten on the road, driving straight through from Massachusetts to her hometown in Ohio, the wee bit of the night fading as midnight winked at us and handed time over to the sunrise.

I can't believe I have a brother, Darla said for the umpteenth time as she ate her umpteenth Reese's cup and chugged it down with what was not her umpteenth Red Bull.

Thank God.

I have a brother, I reminded her.

Rick don't count.

Why? Because he's autistic?

"No. Of course not. Because you've had him your whole life, Trevor. Mine is brand new! I've spent nearly thirty years with an identity carved out of being an only child. I assumed I'd always be an only child. Then Mama and Calvin go and get horny and have themselves some unwrapped fun and bam! Instant brother."

I don't think that's quite how it works, Darla.

Calvin's baby paste is some seriously sticky stuff.

Of all the times for Joe not to be able to come with us, I muttered.

I hope Joe's dad is okay. Knee replacements are a big deal, Darla said around a mouthful of Munchos. That house they live in is nothing but stairs. And Joe's parents never had another kid. Joe doesn't have a brother. You and I do.

Congratulations.

I can't believe I have a baby brother. What was Mama thinking? She's way too old to have sex.

If she's old enough to conceive, she's old enough to have sex.

Watch that reasoning, Trevor. I got my period when I was eleven.

What does that have to do with – oh, God, I groaned. "I don't mean it that way!"

Mama turns fifty next month. Said she thought it was just menopause kicking in. Gained about fifteen pounds and kept blaming Calvin for cooking such good beef short ribs all the time. The local news are all over her story, and now they're being offered money to go on one of those reality TV shows.

It is super rare, I said, reaching for the thermos of coffee. Normally, when we roadtrip to Ohio, we have three drivers. The ten hour journey is much easier split three ways.

It's also easier to listen to Darla when Joe and I can take shifts.

You always think those women who don't realize they're pregnant must be idiots, I added.

You calling my mama stupid?

Of course not. But how does someone carry a baby for nine months and not know?

I don't know. Never been pregnant.

Thank God.

Hmmmph.

I know better than to ask what that sound means. Agreement is a possibility. Anger's another. Pensive deliberation is not Darla's strong suit, so cross that one off the list.

Her hand clamped on my knee, moving up the inseam of my jeans so fast my cock turned into a paratrooper, leaping toward that palm.

Take the next rest area, she said, just as we crossed the state line for Ohio.

What?

Old time's sake.

Deciphering her words took more effort than it should have. You need a bathroom? We're less than half an hour away.

I need to ride your one-eyed trouser snake.

Huh?

I. Want. Sex, she said slowly, drawing out the words with an aligned tone, as if saying them this way were diplomatic.

"Now? Here? While I'm driving? I'm flexible and up for anything, but not while I'm careening down the Ohio Turnpike at 72 miles per hour. Even I have sexual limits."

No. At the nearest rest area.

"Are you serious?'

Do I ever joke about sex?

No.

Then shut up and put on your turn signal.

Never one to give up an offer for some hot romping fun, I did as told, a wave of déjà vu washing over me. Joe was going to be pissed when he heard about this, his constant whining back home about how boring our sex life together had become a refrain in the back of my mind. Missing out on hot monkey sex outdoors on an Ohio turnpike would drive him nuts.

All the more reason to go for it.

You got a condom? she asked as I pulled into the parking lot, her hand playing pocket pool with my boys.

Always.

Then let's go. I got too much going on in my head and an orgasm is the only way to force myself to reboot.

Sometimes I think you're half guy, Darla.

Because I can be an asshole?

That's not a requirement for being a guy.

Maybe it should be.

Am I an asshole? Is Joe?

Sometimes.

If this is your idea of foreplay, Darla, it's working. We both looked at my crotch as I hit the brakes, put the car in park, turned the key in the ignition to off, and before I could twist my body to grope her, she beat me to the punch.

A palm cupping my boys is the best feeling ever.

You continue to amaze me, Darla, I groaned as I lunged for her.

Good. Gotta keep up my game when we've been together for so many years.

Years.

That's right.

Years.

Best years of my life, I whispered between kisses, finding her breast, the weight of it in my hand making me smile against her mouth. Blood pumped fast and furious through me, making my heads explode.

Both of them.

If she kept touching me like that, I was going to cream my pants, and that would be a gigantic waste of a gigantic boner. My woman wanted me to screw her silly at a rest area in Ohio where she –

Wait.

Wait a minute.

Darla?

Mmmm?

Is this the same rest area where we had sex before? All those years ago? The night you found me, naked and hitchhiking on the turnpike?

Bushy blonde hair looks like it's glowing when a streetlamp acts as backlighting. Her head had a halo.

But she was definitely not an angel.

Laughter poured out of her. Hell, yes. It is. The crank of the passenger side door opening up, then a blast of cool air, made me startle. C'mon, Trevor. Let's finish having sex here. We never did get to do the whole deed back then.

No man needs to be asked twice with that kind of invitation.

Chasing her meant catching up in seconds, Darla's ability to run fast about as good as Joe's ability to hold back his temper. She was slow and rolling, fine, round ass on display in tight jeans, calves pushing her forward as I ate her up with my eyes.

Years.

We'd been together for nearly a quarter of our entire lives.

My cock should have been the focus on my attention when it came to my body, but suddenly, my heart decided to leap into my throat, emotion ejecting it like a fighter pilot's seat in an emergency.

I couldn't breathe. Couldn't see anything but her. Couldn't feel my skin, just the steady, increasingly louder push of blood through a body that had spent twenty-five percent of its life touching Darla. Building a life with her and Joe. Making mistakes, sharing victories, fighting and winning, fighting and losing.

Being shaped into a better version of myself.

Trevor? she hissed, the sound carrying through time and space as I stood under the shadow of the big pine tree I remembered from before, the stored picture in my mind a bit dewy from the peyote I'd taken all those years ago.

I love you, I said, the blurting of words perfectly normal when you're about to have sex with someone you do, in fact, love deeply. But around the edges of the words there was a glow, an intensity she picked up on, those same fine legs making her step closer to me, her hand reaching up to stroke my cheek. Green eyes held mine in a gaze that made moons orbit around it.

I love you, too. What's making you so emotional?

You.

Softening up Darla when she's nervous and edgy takes a huge amount of patience, time, and mostly ice cream. I only had two of the three, but I wasn't trying to make her melt.

Yet she did.

Kissing her made sense in that split second when she parted those sweet lips to say something, my hands caught up in a kind of fevered desperation, whatever drove her to ask me to screw her at a rest area a few minutes from her hometown infecting me now.

I used my tongue to connect with her, the wet, warm taste of the coffee we'd just finished so familiar. When we kissed, it never felt perfunctory, even if it was routine.

And kissing her underneath a canopy of tree branches behind a brick rest area building, with headlights sparking against the windows like camera flashes was anything but routine.

Her hands went to my button-down shirt, a rarity in my wardrobe these days now that I'd left law school. Coming back to Peters, Ohio filled me with confusion, the shirt a formality I'd thrown on to show respect for the situation, not that her baby brother would care what I wore. In his little world, I didn't exist.

But I was about to be an uncle.

Or a – what the hell was I to this baby?

Come here, she said softly, slowly, pulling me down to the ground, a tree root digging into my knee as she reached under the shirt with flat, dry palms and took in the curve of my torso. Sucking in air as my abs curled in, I felt every stroke of her hands deep in the root of me, my pants suddenly tight, my body wanting.

You make everything so real, Trevor. I don't feel quite real right now. So much is changing. Give me something that doesn't change. Something familiar. Something I know is rock solid, always there, always right.

I wanted to make a joke, to lighten the intensity, to take the enormity of what she said and turn it into something less. Not lesser – invalidating Darla would be cruel.

But I couldn't breathe. Knowing I meant that much to her was a savage responsibility.

"I'll always be here with you. For you," I choked out, my hands on her back, riding up to cup the back of her head, fingers in her silky hair, rooted in place.

Then get in me. I need something other than confusion inside my bones, my blood, my body.

My mouth found hers, hands on her ass, moving to the waistband of her pants and sliding down under the cloth, finding big handfuls of her solid self. Didn't she know how real she was, how present, how there?

How could she not? After six years – nearly seven – together, did she seriously doubt me?

"You're here. I feel you. I know you. I see you, Darla." I squeezed, then looked into her eyes, holding the stare until I was long past being comfortable. That's where the authenticity waited between us, hard to find until you stripped out the pieces of yourself that squirmed when pushed.

Her hands undid her jeans, mine working my belt buckle, the rush of need to be in her taking hold of me like I was holding my breath, deep underwater, and needed to fill my lungs with air. The longer I spent not being in her, the more it felt I would die.

Make love to me, Trevor Connor. Finish what we started all those years ago. Close the loop. Give me something that doesn't feel like the world is reeling.

I'll spin along with you, babe. I pulled one breast out of the cup of her bra and sucked in her nipple, the taste smooth and almost sweet, a salty tang from the day's drive a reminder of her delicious humanity. I opened her pants and slid them over her wide hips, Darla lifting her ass to help me.

We kissed and kissed and kissed, as if we couldn't spend a single second not connected that way, so different from sex at home. She wanted more from me than normal, and I rose to the occasion.

Desperate kisses turned to bites, nips, fingers digging into the muscles of my back as I bent down and ran my tongue quickly between her legs, eliciting a sharp gasp, the