Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Skylar
“This changes everything. You know that, right?” he whispers the words against my neck.
“I know.”
This is the first time I’ve allowed myself to fully admit my darkest secret to another person. Dee has always had her suspicions, but she’s smart enough to know that even if I told her, there was nothing either of us could do about it. Of course the brothers at the club know; they’ve even witnessed it. But it’s nothing they don’t do themselves, so why would they care?
Even Dad knew, but in his eyes, my punishments were justified. He was always telling me that someday, Klutch would knock some sense into me, and I needed to learn to keep my smart mouth shut. Between him and Klutch constantly berating me and making me feel small, I didn’t even allow myself to dream of a different life. The only thing that made life worth living was that house because the memories it holds are so dear to me.
In my darkest hours, I’d picture raising a family there. Just like when I was growing up, there would be outlandish decorations for every holiday, we’d read all the books Mom saved for her future grandchildren, and I’d chart their growth right alongside my own on the door jamb of my room. Through me, all of Mom’s traditions would live on. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.
Until now.
Being away from the club and snowed in with Walker has shown me that’s not what my dream should’ve been. Instead, I should’ve been reaching for safety, stability, and love. Those are the things I should want for my child, not a house.
My child.
Reality crashes into me like a ton of bricks because Walker still doesn’t know the whole truth. And when he finds out, I doubt he’ll be so quick to offer me a safe haven. The last thing a man wants is to deal with someone else’s baby, right?
I’m such an idiot to allow myself to get sucked into this dream of a future I don’t belong in. I look around at his perfect room in his perfect house, set on this perfect mountain, and my sadness morphs into anger. I haven’t even admitted to the pregnancy yet, but no man wants to raise another man’s baby. It’d be a constant reminder of our time apart.
I can’t handle his rejection because of this baby, so I push at his hard chest, desperate to get away. It’s like trying to move a wall, but he’s so confused, I manage to get him back a few inches.
“Skylar, stop.” He struggles to keep me close.
“Get off me,” I snarl as I viciously claw and shove at him, taking all my anger out on him, though he’s the last person who deserves it. I need to get away from him. I don’t care if I have to walk barefoot down this mountain—I’m leaving.
“What the fuck, Sky?” He hisses as he leans back, touching a scratch I left on his neck and coming back with a few drops of blood.
“I need to go.” I try to get him out from between my legs, but he’s an unmovable object.
“No, you don’t. I’m not letting you off this counter until you tell me why you’re suddenly desperate to get away when, only seconds ago, you were ready to let me help you.” He easily pins my arms to my sides, stopping my thrashing. When I say nothing, he gives me a little shake. His nostrils flare, and his jaw ticks. “Tell me.”
I might as well get it over with. Walker’s loose hold on my arms gives my hands just enough freedom to cover my lower belly. His gaze shifts lower, but there’s a lack of understanding as his brows pinch together, so I say the words I’ve only said twice since the day I took the test. “I’m pregnant.”
Just like I thought, he immediately backs off, shoving a hand through his hair as he paces. “Pregnant?”
“Three months.” My tone is flat.
“And he’s the father?”
“Yes.”
“Fuck,” he spits out, still pacing, his gaze downcast. “That changes everything.”
I laugh humorlessly as I hop off the counter. “I knew it. I fucking knew it.”
“Knew what?” he asks.
“Just forget it.” I walk over to the crumpled papers that have sat on the kitchen counter this whole time and thrust a pen in his direction. “Sign these, and I’ll go. The snow is beginning to melt, so surely I can get someone up here.”
“What? Why would I do that?”
“It’s fine, Walker. Now that you know I’m carrying another man’s child, you want nothing to do with me. It’s not a big deal; I’ll survive.”
“I never said that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“Will you please just shut up for a minute?” He takes the pen from me and chucks it across the room. Sprocket appears out of nowhere and chases it. Once he finds it, I expect him to return it to his owner, but instead, he trots away happily with it between his teeth.
“Should I go get that?”
“The pen? No, it’s fine. He just collects things like a little hoarder. He buries all kinds of shit under his bed, and I have to get it all out once a week and put everything back. He should’ve been named Klepto instead of Sprocket.” We both chuckle, but only for a second before the seriousness of our conversation resurfaces. “Look, Sunny, I think our wires got crossed somewhere because I don’t want to sign those fucking papers, and I sure as shit don’t want you to leave.”
“You don’t?”
“Hell no. I can see why you’d think that based on my reaction, but the only reason I backed off was because I don’t want you anywhere near me when I’m that fucking pissed off. I saw red thinking about him hurting you while you’re carrying his baby. He deserves to burn in hell for what he put you through.”
Is this man for real? I can’t even process his words because they’re so opposite to what I prepared myself to hear, so I address one part of his statement while I let the other sink in.
“He doesn’t know,” I say before nibbling on my lip as the smallest amount of hope blossoms in my chest.
“You haven’t told him? That’s probably for the best. He might find out at some point, but we’ll deal with that when the time comes. In the meantime, I need to make some phone calls to rally the troops.”
“Troops?”
“Yeah. Ridge, Wilder, and Rowan will want to be brought in. They can help us come up with a plan.” He digs his phone out of his back pocket.
“Walker?” I stop him before he can leave the kitchen.
“Yeah, Sunny?”
“Why are you doing this? Because for the life of me, I do not understand.”
He eats the distance between us in three long strides before hauling me off my feet into his arms. “Before you walked in my door, frozen to the bone and demanding a divorce, I never understood why I was alone. It wasn’t because I couldn’t find someone, but no one held my attention for more than a night.”
“Okay, I get it. You’re a big, sexy mountain man.”
He chuckles, and it vibrates through my body. “Now, I know it’s because I was waiting for you to come back to me.”
“I never should’ve left.”
His hands palm my ass to hike me up as my legs wrap around him so he can look me in the eyes. “Does that mean you’re done fighting me? You’re not going to change your mind and ice me out tomorrow?”
“Yeah, I’m done. I still don’t like the idea of putting you in danger. If anything happened to you, I don’t know?—”
“Nothing will happen. You’re safe here. You’ll see,” he says, and I bite the inside of my cheek, hoping he’s right. He sounds so certain, I’m almost convinced, but life has taught me I’m not meant for good things. It’s hard to believe my luck has now changed. “You don’t believe me, but that’s okay. I’ll prove it to you, and you’ll see there’s nowhere safer for you and your baby.”
I look down at my belly, which looks no more pregnant than when I eat a large meal. “I thought about getting an abortion. I even booked an appointment. I just couldn’t follow through. Not because of any moral obligation; I believe uterus owners should have a choice. No one should be forced to carry a baby they don’t want. But I realized I wasn’t being forced. I want this baby, no matter how they were conceived or who with.”
“I agree. It’s good we live in California.” He accepts my beliefs and choices but latches onto the last part of my statement. “But what do you mean by ‘how they were conceived’?”
Shit. I should’ve kept my mouth shut. Walker has always been too observant for his own good. “It’s not important.”
“It is to me. I don’t want any secrets between us. If we’re going to fight this battle, we need to be able to trust each other, and we can’t do that if you’re not telling me everything.” One of his hands skims up my back as he lowers me to my feet.
If I thought my anxiety peaked when I decided to tell him about the baby, I was wrong, because I feel stress hives form on my chest and cheeks, hot and uncomfortable. I’m sure there will be so many more things to tell him as time goes on, but he’s right. If he’s going to put himself between Klutch and me, he should know the sticking points.
“Can we sit?” I ask.
“Sure.”
I take up space on the couch while he sits opposite me on the coffee table. He rests his forearms on his muscular thighs and holds my hands, looking almost as nervous to hear whatever I have to tell him as I am to say it.
“Don’t interrupt,” I say. “And don’t freak out.”
“It makes me want to freak out when you tell me not to freak out.”
I can’t look at him while I tell him this, so I stare at our joined hands. His dwarfs mine, and just like the rest of his body, they’ve changed. Gone are the soft, gentle fingertips, and in their place are the hands of a working man. They’re dry and rough, cracked in places, and two of his fingernails are black, as if they’ve been crushed in the last month or two. Meanwhile, I had my nails done right before this trip. They’re short due to my job with little kids, and I always let them vote on the color when I know I have a manicure coming up. This time, they’re bubble-gum pink.
“The first time Klutch forced himself on me was when I turned twenty-five.” Immediately, he tenses, and his grip on my hands tightens. “After that first time, I ran to my dad and told him what happened. My lip was split, and there were bruises in the shape of Klutch’s fingers on my throat. Do you know what he said to me as I stood there sobbing?”
“Pretty sure it was something that’s gonna piss me off.”
“He said it was my job as a woman to keep my man happy.”
“You’ve got to be shitting me.” His eyes close, and his leg bounces, as if trying to stop himself from raging.
“Klutch looked at it as a trade-off. I kept putting off getting married, which he was fine with, so long as I performed my wifely duties. For a while, I tried to fight it, but he just became violent, and the more I fought, the more he hurt me. Eventually, I stopped fighting to avoid the abuse. I knew if I just lay there and took it, he’d be in and out in five minutes max.”
“If you didn’t want it, it’s still rape.”
“I know, and I told him over and over that I didn’t want it, but he’d threaten me or sneak into my apartment when he knew I was asleep and wouldn’t realize what was happening until I woke up.”
“Fuck me.” He straightens his spine and blows out a breath to the side before settling back into position. “Weren’t you on birth control?”
“I was, but I came down with sinusitis and was on antibiotics for ten days, which weakens the pill. Plus, I knew he wasn’t faithful, so I made him wear a condom. That should’ve stopped me from getting pregnant, but given my luck, something happened, and here I am.” I gesture to my belly. “I don’t want anything tying me to him, but when I saw the baby on the ultrasound—just a little floating blip—I immediately fell in love with them.”
He does something so unexpected, so sweet, my breath hitches and my heart skips a beat. He moves to my side and places a hand on my lower belly. “You’ll be the best mom this kid could ever ask for.”
I relax under the warm spray of the shower, feeling better than I have in years. I know things will get worse before they get better, but for the first time in so long, I’m certain they will get better.
It has been two days since I came clean about the baby and agreed not to go back to Klutch, and we’ve been living in a happy bubble ever since. I convinced Walker to hold off on bringing his friends over to come up with a plan and continued my lies to Klutch about the weather to keep him from coming after me. It felt like we needed some time for us to reconnect before shit got real.
So, we’ve been playing games, watching movies, and talking a lot, but my favorite is all the making out we’ve done. We haven’t taken it further than that, and each night, he tucks me into bed in his guest room alone, but I sense one of us will break soon.
Though it has been fun to tempt and tease each other, building tension. It feels like we’re sixteen again.
I’ve learned all about taking care of farm animals. I enjoy feeding them, interacting with them. However, I don’t enjoy shoveling their shit. The first time I tried ended with me throwing up. The morning sickness I had during the first trimester has been gone for weeks, but all it took was some cow poop to bring it all back.
Once I’m clean and every hair on my body has been shaved, I towel off. I want to be ready in case today’s the day one of us cracks and we finally have sex. I admire the man’s self-control, but I’ve been aching to get reacquainted with the steel rod he has been grinding against me as we kiss for hours. That, and I’m tired of sleeping alone.
After dressing in Walker’s shirt and nothing else, I set off to find my sexy man, which is an easy task when I hear the TV after stepping out of his bedroom. His eyes shoot over to me, and his gaze instantly turns molten, making me smile.
“Whatcha doin’?” he asks.
“Just got out of the shower.” I sit down next to him and rest my hand on my belly. I don’t know why I do it—there’s nothing to feel yet—but it’s instinctual.
“Do you feel the baby moving yet?”
I can tell he has a million questions about the baby, but he’s always a little hesitant to ask. I hope it’s not because of a vibe he’s getting from me. In a dream world, this would be our baby. I know that’s premature, considering we just reconnected, but it feels as if we were never apart.
We’ve both changed physically, and there are parts of us that aren’t the same, something that comes with age and wisdom, but our hearts and souls are the same. It’s an interesting dynamic because exploring what changed makes it exciting while being able to recognize him at his core makes it comfortable.
“Not yet. I’m at the part of pregnancy where I have all the symptoms, like being tired and hormonal, but I don’t have any of the perks. I can’t feel the baby, and I don’t look pregnant, just bloated.”
“What are you talking about? You look hot.” He places a hand on my lower belly, something he has been doing multiple times a day and only makes me want him more.
We haven’t spoken about what role he’ll play in the baby’s life if we find a way to make things work between us, but I want him to feel comfortable asking me how I’m feeling and be at my appointments. I know it’s greedy for me to want him to be the baby’s dad, but I want that, too.