Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
Rowan
Something jolted me out of a light slumber. I lifted my head from the pillow and tried to get my bearings.
I was in my bedroom at Presley’s, which she’d insisted on making cozy and comfortable, bordering on luxurious.
The bed from her condo’s guest room had a soft, feminine, upholstered headboard, a fluffy white comforter, and cloud-like sheets.
Even though I’d said I didn’t need a TV, she’d brought one over, saying I might want it for noise since the rest of the house was so empty.
She’d been right. The TV was on now, still playing Gilmore Girls episodes. I’d seen them all before, but Sam and I had discussed the show a week ago, which made me want to rewatch.
I looked at the TV, trying to figure out whether something on the show had woken me up. Just then, a light ping came from the large, four-panel window that looked out over the lake, sounding like tiny hail or sleet. Except the weather had been springlike and clear today.
A glance at my phone told me it was a few minutes after eight p.m. Dark outside. When another ping came, my heart sped up in alarm, and I came fully awake. Had I locked the doors downstairs? I only used one, and I was pretty militant about checking it.
The lights in my room were off, the only illumination the flickering of the television. I felt around for the remote, found it buried in the covers, and clicked off the TV, leaving me in the dark.
The ping came again. I crawled out of bed on the side away from the windows, my hand cradling my small belly automatically.
Picking up my phone, I went to the opposite end of the window from where the pings were sounding and crept up to the closed blinds.
My heart was in my throat, my finger perched over my phone’s keypad, ready to dial 911.
The next ping sounded, again on the opposite end, which was a good eight feet away from me, giving me courage to pry the blinds open just enough to peek outside.
I nearly screamed at the sight of a man sitting a few feet away on top of the pergola. The moon was bright, enabling me to see that the guy held something over his head.
The second I recognized the boom box, I realized it was Chance, and I wilted in relief. Dropping my hand from the blinds, I pressed it to my chest to ease my frantic heart.
Once the message that there wasn’t a killer outside my window registered, I stepped back to the blinds, surreptitiously peeking out again, confused and concerned.
Had he lost his damn mind? What would ever possess someone to climb to the top of a pergola that had to be a good fourteen feet off the ground? How had he gotten up there? Did he have a death wish?
As I watched, he pulled something out of his pocket and winged it at the window again, apparently still trying to get my attention.
All I could think was, what the actual hell was going through his head?
Frowning, I flipped the blinds open abruptly, my eyes locked on him. I went to the end he’d been hitting, raised the blinds completely, and cranked the window open.
“What in the world are you doing?” I exclaimed.
That’s when I heard it. Music. Coming from the boom box he raised higher over his head now that he saw me. It only took a few notes for me to recognize the song—“In Your Eyes,” the one we’d danced to that very first time on New Year’s Eve.
“Oh,” I said quietly, softening in spite of myself.
Chance continued to sit there, watching me as the music played. Once the shock and the subsequent emotional punch dissipated, I crossed my arms and leaned against the window frame, shivering in the chilly air, waiting him out. Because what the hell?
Still holding the radio up, he stood, wobbling slightly as he found his footing on the widely spaced two-by-fours that made up the pergola roof.
“What are you doing, you idiot?” I hissed, visions of him falling to his death plaguing me.
Chance made it all the way to the windows without dying, then lowered the boom box, the music still playing. The volume was low, so at least he wouldn’t wake the neighbors.
“Seriously, what are you doing?” I asked, still coming down from that moment when he’d flirted with falling.
“I need to talk to you, Rowan.”
I held up my phone, still with the keypad at the ready. “Have you heard of texting?”
“It’s an in-person topic.”
“Okay, so maybe knock on the door? You could break your neck up there.”
“I was trying to make a point,” he said quietly.
Something about his tone had me stepping back from my panic and taking in his gesture as a whole.
He was serenading me. Playing the first song we’d danced to. Enacting a scene from a movie. Standing out in the cool night on top of a pergola roof, for the love of God.
The question was why? He was the one who’d put an end to us. Was he afraid he’d lose access to our baby? I wouldn’t ever do that without a damn good reason. Surely he knew me well enough to know that.
Had he changed his mind about us?
I shut down on the hope that single thought sprouted.
“So can we talk?” he asked, his brows rising.
I studied his handsome, earnest face, trying to read his intent. His expression gave away nothing.
Obviously I wasn’t going to send him away without finding out what he wanted. I could tell him I’d meet him at the deck door, but the thought of him moving another foot on that pergola roof sent a shudder through me.
Shining the dim light of my phone on the window screen, I located a release toward the top. I reached up, slid the release over, and maneuvered the screen off the window. “Get in here,” I told him.
Chance was in my second-floor bedroom in an instant, standing close enough I could smell his familiar scent.
Maybe it would’ve been wiser to send him to the deck door after all.
I wouldn’t fall under his spell nearly as fast if we were six feet apart in the kitchen instead of a foot apart in my bedroom.
He set the radio on the floor, along the wall, the music continuing to play at a background level.
I stepped around him and slid the screen back into place, then cranked the window shut. Before I turned to face him, I collected myself, donned an indifferent expression, and tried to remember the impenetrable look on his face four nights ago when he’d figuratively pushed me away.
“Rowan,” he said behind me.
I closed my eyes and tried not to be drawn in by the familiar, comforting timbre of his voice.
The last four days had been hell as I’d tried to accept that I’d misjudged him, ending up with my heart taking the damage, plunging me deeper into a well of grief at yet another loss.
I couldn’t be sucked back into his orbit just at the sound of his voice saying my name, like a desperate puppy wanting to be loved.
He grasped my hand and tugged me gently away from the window. “Will you sit and hear me out?”
Sitting did sound divine. He gestured to the edge of the bed. I sat on it, keeping my legs on the floor because I wasn’t about to get comfortable or let my guard down. Not when just being this close to him and my bed had spicy thoughts running through my mind.
Chance lowered himself to the mattress next to me. He pulled one of his legs up to pivot and face me from the side. “Will you look at me?”
I heard a hint of vulnerability in his question, so I mirrored his position and faced him in the moonlit room.
“Rowan, I’m sorry. I screwed up utterly and completely the other night.”
I met his gaze. His eyes shone with regret and humility as he took my hand in his and settled our entwined hands on his knee.
“You were right,” he said. “When you told me you loved me, I freaked out. Those three words sent me into what I now know was an anxiety attack.” He averted his gaze and swallowed hard before making eye contact again.
“That’s no excuse. I just want you to know that’s how much the idea of a real, feelings-involved relationship scared me. ”
Any irritation and disappointment I might’ve been feeling slipped away. My heart went out to him. “I get it, Chance. Caring about someone is scary. The idea of possibly losing someone is horrible. The absolute worst, no matter how you lose them…”
“I know. I know that’s a fresh wound for you with your Gram.” He squeezed his eyes closed momentarily. “And I pushed you away when you were still recovering from her loss… Fuck, Rowan, I’m so sorry.”
It wasn’t okay; I still wasn’t okay, but I nodded to let him know I could forgive him.
“My daughter called me on my bullshit,” he said.
“Sam? What did she say?”
He let out a humorless chuckle. “She called me out for letting fear prevent me from living the life I want.”
“That can happen.”
“She got that from me.” He shook his head.
“I can’t describe to you how it feels to have your teenage daughter come back at you with your own words.
Particularly when she’s right, because she was.
I was letting fear hold me back from what I wanted.
Want. You. A family. A real family. Love.
” He moved closer to me, our knees butting against each other.
When he sought out my gaze again, the look in his eyes was fervent, impassioned, determined. “I love you, Rowan.”
I stared at him, afraid to breathe. Afraid he’d realize what he’d said and take it back.
“I think I was halfway in love with you before the end of New Year’s Eve,” he continued. “There was a pull between us even then like nothing I’ve ever felt. I couldn’t let myself go there though because…”
“Scared,” I whispered.
“Scared,” he repeated. “But I’m tired of letting fear win. Am I still scared? Hell yes. But I’m doing this anyway. I love you, Rowan Andrews.”
Before I could say anything back, he slid off the edge of the bed to the floor. He got down on one knee, dug something out of his pocket, then held up a small velvet box.
I caught my breath, my heart thundering in a different way.
His eyes skipped up to meet mine as he opened the box and took out a stunning, sparkling ring. Holding it with one hand, he took my hand in his other. I could feel him shaking—or maybe that was me.
I pressed my lips together, trying to keep my emotions in so I wouldn’t miss a second. To make sure I wasn’t misunderstanding this, wasn’t dreaming it up.
“I want to be a real family with you. Partners in every way. Parents of Sam and Bean there, co-chefs of our kitchen, dance partners for life. Will you marry me, Rowan?”
“Oh, my God.” I looked into his beautiful, love-filled eyes, seeing the truth there.
He’d decided to move forward, to leave his fear in the dust. “I love you, Chance. I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with you.
Cook with you, parent with you, dance with you.
Yes, I’ll marry you.” I laughed as he stood and tugged me up with him, pulling me into his strong, loving arms.
He pressed a tender kiss to my forehead as I breathed him in, tears forming at the corners of my eyes.
Joyful tears. He cradled my face in his palm as he peered down at me with so much love and affection in his eyes, then leaned lower and kissed my lips, slowly, deliberately, as if he had the rest of his life to stand there and let me know how he felt.
I felt the exact same way.
As I pressed my body into his, his phone sounded with an alert I recognized as being from Sam.
Still kissing me, Chance laughed, then ended the kiss, pulled out his phone, and read his daughter’s message. He laughed again and held it up for me to read.
Sam: Well?
I tilted my head, trying to figure out what I was missing. “Well what?”
Grinning, he typed something in, hit send, then showed me.
Chance: She said yes!
“She knew?” I asked, overflowing with laughter and happiness.
“Remember she’s the one who set me straight,” Chance said. “She helped me come up with the grand gesture, as she insisted on calling it.”
He no sooner got the words out than my phone buzzed with a message at the same time his sounded again.
I reached to the bed, where I’d tossed mine aside, and picked it up as Chance looked at his. When I opened the message from Sam, my screen vibrated with a fireworks display and a message she’d sent to both Chance and me:
Sam: Congratulations, you two! I can’t wait to be a family of four.
We both typed into our respective phones.
Rowan: Thank you for setting him straight! Love you.
Chance: Thanks, Sammy. I’ll be home a little later.
Sam: Don’t want to know any details!
Laughing, we set our phones on the nightstand at the same time. Then Chance lowered me to the bed and covered my body with his.
“The details,” he growled into my ear, “are the very best part.”
“I love me a detail man.”
“I’m so damn happy to hear that, because this detail man is yours for the rest of your life.”