Free All He Ever Needed by Shannon Stacey

warm and, when Mitch found out, gave him an ultimatum. Her, or his work. Even if he hadn’t had contracts to honor and people depending on him for their paychecks, he wasn’t giving up his business, so that had been the end of that.
    Since Pam, he’d gone back to doing things the way that had always gotten him the physical pleasure without the emotional pain—letting the ladies know right up front he wasn’t sticking around. A few laughs, a few orgasms and they were smiling when he kissed them goodbye.
    “When you do find the right woman,” Rosie said, “bring her by and I’ll teach her how to make fried bologna sandwiches the way you like them.”
    “It’s a deal,” he told her, just to end the discussion.
    He wasn’t going to find the right woman anytime soon because of the simple fact he wasn’t even looking.
    * * *
    Paige usually used the quiet time between breakfast and lunch to restock condiments and help clean up out back, as well as to recover from feigning indifference to Mitch, who seemed to be making breakfast at the diner a habit. Today, however, she was playing bartender. Not because she was serving booze—not having a liquor license took care of that issue—but because she was listening to Mallory Miller’s woes.
    The chief’s wife worked for a law office in the city so, with the long commute, Paige rarely saw her during the week, especially on a non-holiday Monday. Mal said she’d called in sick—as in sick of her crappy life, though she hadn’t told them that. And Paige poured them each a cup of coffee and offered a shoulder to cry on.
    It wasn’t until Carl hollered out he was going on break that Mal really got into what was bothering her, most of which Paige already knew. Drew wanted children, Mallory didn’t, and they weren’t speaking to each other. And hadn’t been for a while.
    “I think I should be enough for Drew,” Mal said. “That our life together should be enough. Why do the last ten years become irrelevant and worth throwing away if we don’t have kids?”
    Paige, who’d been leaning against the counter, topped off their coffees and set the carafe back on the burner in a hopefully-not-too-obvious bid for more time to think. She was supposed to be listening, not being put on the spot. What the hell did she know about marriage? Not much. “Did you ask him that?”
    “I’m not asking him anything.”
    “You do realize you can’t fix anything if you won’t talk to each other, right?”
    Mal shrugged. “I said everything I had to say on the matter. I don’t want to be a mother.”
    That’s where it got hazy for Paige. It wasn’t a decision Mal had suddenly come to and sprung on the police chief. She’d known all along she didn’t want to have kids but had let him believe she did rather than risk losing him. The entire marriage had been built on false advertising, and Drew hadn’t known it. But Mal had a point, too. They’d had ten good years of marriage. Did not having children really erase that?
    “I thought I’d grow into it,” Mal told her. “The idea of having kids, I mean. I thought I’d get used to being married and eventually feel the urge to be a mother and Drew would never know how I’d felt. But the urge never came.”
    “But you can understand why Drew’s upset, right?”
    Mal’s lips tightened. “I understand being upset. But throwing our marriage away? I should be as important to him as children that are nothing but hypothetical, don’t you think?”
    “I’d like to think so,” Paige said, being honest without definitively taking sides—the key to peaceful business ownership in a small town.
    The bell over the door jingled, and Paige stifled a sigh of relief. Mal wasn’t going to air her dirty marital laundry if there were other customers in the place. But she’d been relieved too soon. It was Katie Davis, which meant the conversation would continue. But at least, if she could manufacture some busywork, Paige wouldn’t have to be