Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Zander
I never thought I’d be the type of guy who got nervous about knocking on a woman’s door, but as I stand on Romy’s front porch with sweaty palms and my heartbeat thrumming in my ears, I realize that’s who I am. At least with Romy.
She doesn’t want me here. What I did is unforgiveable. There’s no way she’ll trust me with her heart again.
I raise my hand to knock and lower my fist back to my side.
Come on, you’re Zander fucking Shaw, of course she’s going to say yes.
The problem with that thinking is that I don’t want her to want me because of who I am to everyone else. I want her to want me for me.
I raise my fist another time, but the door swings open. Instead of Romy, it’s Poppy.
“Gonna stand there all night?” She opens the door wider.
Judging from her glare, I’m still on her shit list. And it’s hard to get off that list when I can’t tell her that I didn’t want her pregnant cousin on the ladder in case she fell.
“Hello, Mr. Country Superstar.” Her voice drips with sarcasm. She leans against the doorframe, arms folded across her chest as though I’m the last person she wants to see tonight. “Here to pick out her outfit tonight? Tell her she can’t wear lipstick?”
“I think you and your queen bee have some similarities.” I nod toward inside the house. “Is Romy here?”
“Maybe.” She shrugs, her arms crossed.
I hear a set of steps walk up the stairs behind me as Poppy’s scowl deepens.
“I feel so honored to have two controlling men on my porch tonight,” she says.
I slyly look at the man next to me. Nash.
“Fucking hell, Poppy. Are you ready?” he asks, then looks at me. “You’re on her shit list, too?” He holds out his hand, and I shake it.
“Apparently.”
Poppy stares at him as if he’s her history teacher in high school, the most boring person she’s ever met.
“Ready?” he asks, not entertaining her piss poor attitude. I like his style.
“Maybe I’m not gonna go with you,” she says with an abundance of sass.
I feel as if I’m at a tennis match with my head moving back and forth.
“You are. Go get your sweater.”
Fuck, these two are entertaining. My head volleys back over to Poppy.
“I’m only going because I don’t want to miss out.”
“Noted.” Poppy disappears inside, and Nash leans against the porch railing, crosses his ankles, and stuffs his hands in his pockets as though he doesn’t have a care in the world. “She’s mad at me, not you. Actually, she’s just mad at men in general because she’s pissed at me. Don’t sweat it.”
Poppy comes out, sliding her sleeves into her sweater. “Romy will be down in a second.” She shuts the door.
“Jesus, Poppy, let the poor guy wait inside.” Nash pushes off the railing, waiting for her to head down the stairs.
“Superstar likes traditional roles where the man has to protect the woman because she’s defenseless. He should wait outside to make sure there’re no predators lurking about.”
Nash shoots me an apologetic look, and they head down the porch stairs.
I open my mouth to say something back, but the front door opens again, and I forget all about Poppy. I’m here for Romy.
Romy raises her finger, her phone plastered to her ear.
Then she waves me inside and holds the door open all the way.
She’s wearing panda pajama pants and a cropped T-shirt that shows just a sliver of her stomach.
I don’t see any sign of a baby bump, but she mentioned the other day that her clothes were getting tight.
I step in, and she disappears through an archway, but I can still hear her talking.
“I’m not going. Why? You know why. I’ll go over and walk Mack…
do not come over here. Zander just got here, I gotta go.
” She groans and comes back in the room, holding the phone.
“Sorry, that was Lottie. She’s demanding I go to The Hidden Cave tonight.
” She smiles. “Way to work on Beau. You get to go off the ranch.”
“You’re not going?” I’m sure she can hear the disappointment in my tone.
“No. Then I’d have to explain to people why I’m not drinking. It’s better if I just stay home.”
I chew on the inside of my lip. “Your entire family is going, and you’re going to stay here?”
“Yeah. If you and Beau want this little one to be a secret, I cannot show up there and not drink. And obviously I’m not going to drink.” Her hand runs along her stomach. Every time she does that, a flicker of the caveman inside me lights up.
“So, if you weren’t pregnant, you’d be going?”
She sits on the couch and tucks her legs under her. “Well, yeah.”
No way am I going tonight without her. Either I stay here with her, or she comes with me. I think we both need a night off of the ranch to just have fun. Beau is supplying the most trusted spot he can right now, so we’re doing this together.
“All right, get up,” I say, holding out my hand.
“Not you too?” She groans.
“Come on. You’re not missing out because you have to explain why you don’t have a drink. Let’s go.”
“You’re being bossy. Poppy would have opinions on that.” Her cheeky smile says she’s joking. Thank God she has a better opinion of me than Poppy does.
“I don’t give a shit. Now get your sweet ass upstairs and get dressed to go dancing.” I gesture with my hand out, using a little more force this time so she’ll get the point to grab it.
“Zander, they’re going to notice.”
“So what?”
At this point, I don’t give a shit. She’s already going to miss out on so much just because she’s the mother of my child.
I’m not going to let her miss out on stuff like this before she’s even had the baby.
Romy seems entirely confident that if her inner circle does figure it out, it won’t pose a problem.
I want to build trust between us, so maybe I need to trust in that.
“Beau will be upset.”
“Screw Beau. He’ll deal with it.” I take her hand in mine, slowly pulling her up off the couch.
She humors me, and I lead her to the bottom of the stairs.
“I’m going to wait here like a good boy while you go get dressed.” I release her hand.
She steps on the first stair, and I grab her wrist to stop her.
“What?” she asks, turning back around.
“I just want to ask… will you go with me to The Hidden Cave?”
Her eyes narrow. “I thought we already established I was going.”
You’re fucking this up.
“Well, yeah, but I wanted to ask you though. If you’d go with me.”
She laughs and turns all the way around to face me. “I’d assumed we would be, no?”
“Yeah… yeah, of course.”
She studies me for a second, and sweat pebbles along the back of my neck. I’m terrible at putting myself out there. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” Did my voice crack? “We’ll leave when you’re ready.”
Her lips tip up. God, I love her smile. Especially when she’s excited. It was the first thing I noticed about her that night I picked her out of the crowd after she showed up on the Jumbotron.
“Okay, I won’t be long. The remote is on the coffee table.” She walks up two stairs and turns around. “There’s no beer, but there’re energy drinks in the fridge. They’re Scarlett’s. I don’t drink them.”
I chuckle and motion her forward. “I’m good, go.”
“Okay.” She jogs up two more stairs and turns back to me again. “Snacks. The chip cabinet—”
“Romy, go.”
“Okay, okay. Be right back.” She scurries up the stairs.
“And stop going up and down the stairs, you’re giving me a heart attack,” I call.
Her giggle carries down the hall and stairs to me.
I go sit on the couch, tapping my fingers on my jeans.
Faster than I expected, Romy returns. She’s changed into jeans and a sweater, hair out of her ponytail and brushed out. Her makeup is barely there, but she still has what I know now is a pregnancy glow. She grabs her coat from the hook and looks at me with an expression I can’t quite read.
“Ready?” she asks.
I nod and get up off the couch, relief flooding me. “Let’s go.”
DeSoto waits in the black, tinted SUV. It’s a clear giveaway of who is probably driving off this ranch. We’d be better off driving a beat-up Chevy truck.
I wave off DeSoto and open the SUV’s back door for her. She pauses right before she climbs in.
“Hi, DeSoto, I hope you can have at least one beer tonight.” She climbs inside.
I shut the door, and my hand stays on the handle for a second before I round the back to get in my side.
The road stretches out ahead of us, dark except for the glow of the headlights.
I can’t stop stealing glances at her. She’s nervous based on the way her hands twist together in her lap.
A memory of those hands tugging me closer flashes through my mind.
Feeling them sneak up the hem of my T-shirt and explore my chest as she stared into my eyes.
I feel her hand touch mine and turn to see her looking at me.
“Thank you,” she whispers.
“For what?”
“This.” She gestures between us. “I know it’s because you feel guilty, and you shouldn’t—”
“Guilty?”
“Well yeah, but still, thank you.”
I should tell her I didn’t go get her because I felt guilty.
I came to her house because I want to spend the night with her.
I want to walk into The Hidden Cave with her by my side.
I want to make her laugh and smile and be the reason she has a good time.
It’s all selfish reasons, and guilt has nothing to do with it.
“Romy, I don’t want you missing out on anything more than you have to because of me.”
Coward.
The rest of the drive passes, and by the time The Hidden Cave sign comes into view, my chest is filled with a mix of nerves and anticipation.
And with that, we step out of the truck together, the night air cool against my skin.
I offer her my hand, and she accepts it. We walk to the front door with DeSoto right behind us. Maybe we can move past what happened and have a new start. I sure as hell hope so.