Chapter 16 Hope #2
He’s staring ahead, his jaw firmly set with a plan. "And you can stay here all summer if you want. Nobody has to know. We’ll keep you safe."
All summer.
Letting Bellamy play in dirt and chase butterflies and feed chickens. Watching her learn the names of bugs from Luna. Sleeping in that lovely bed upstairs for more than a few hours, more than a few days. For weeks or months.
Trying to be useful on this ranch that really only needs help for an hour or two a day.
Deep down, I know I’d be taking advantage of them. "I can't ask you—"
"You're not asking. I'm offering."
“You don’t know what you’re offering, though.” I squirm again, now hyperaware of the hard press of his thighs under my ass.
He groans my name. “Not offering anything other than shelter.”
“That’s not what I mean,” I whisper. I shift to move off him, because we need more space between us for this conversation, and that's when I feel the unmistakable pressure of his body responding to mine.
Oh.
Every muscle in his body goes rigid around me as I freeze on top of a thick erection. Zane’s hand tightens on my arm and his chest heaves with a sharp inhale.
"Fuck," he breathes against my hair.
"It's okay," I whisper, and I'm shocked to realize I mean it.
"It's not okay." His voice is rough, strained. “You're vulnerable right now, and I'm not—I won't be that guy who takes advantage—”
An unfamiliar lick of heat unfurls in my belly. A flicker, an unlikely flame bursting back to life from embers I thought I’d successfully doused. I’ve been attracted to Zane since I met him, on some level, but not like this. Not like…
"I'm not scared," I hear myself say.
Zane lifts my chin so we’re staring at each other, eye to eye. The raw hunger I see steals my breath. But swirling through that undeniable attraction is something else, something I’ve never seen before—real, caring restraint.
"I'm not him," he says quietly.
"I know." Maybe I needed to be in his lap and feel the tension between his attraction and his responsibility to really understand the difference between this man and the other two who have held me. "You've been nothing but respectful. Derek just took what he wanted."
Zane swears again. “Someone needs to teach him a lesson.”
“You can’t—”
“I’m focused on keeping you safe, don’t worry. You and Bellamy are my only concerns.” He searches my face. “You said he’s not her biological father, right?”
All the blood drains from my face.
No, I can’t stay here for the summer. I can’t let Zane get involved in all of this. I scramble off his lap. He lets me go, lets me pace across the room.
I hear him rise, but he doesn’t follow me as I twist my fingers together and try to think. Stay focused on the plan, Hope.
“He won’t get on a plane. He doesn’t have any government ID, so he can’t follow me to Ontario.”
“If you’re going to drive there, so can he,” Zane points out. “And if he wants to regain control of you, he’ll get that ID. Trying to charge you with kidnapping would be a way to control you, if he can claim he’s Bellamy’s father—”
“He’s not on her birth certificate,” I blurt out. “He has no claim to her.”
It was a scary decision I made that morning when the midwife helped me fill out the paperwork. But he hadn’t wanted to be there, and hadn’t even seen her yet. She was mine and mine alone, and that’s how I filled it out.
I rub my face. “I don’t have a copy of the papers,” I admit. “But I don’t think he could have changed that.”
“A lawyer could help you figure that out.”
“I can’t afford a lawyer.”
“I can.”
“This isn’t your problem.” I stare at him. “I can’t be your problem.”
“Tell that to this fury inside me,” he snaps, pointing at his chest. “Because I want to fix this for you, Hope. I want to lock that door and never let you leave.”
“You have to,” I whisper. “I need to keep running.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s not Bellamy he has a claim to.” The words tear out of me, broken and helpless. “But I’m pregnant again.”
His disbelief is almost comical. His eyebrows shoot up, his mouth drops open. He stares at me, eyes bugging, and then he slowly covers his mouth with his hand and mumbles something like, say that again?
“It’s why I had to leave when I did. It’s why I have to keep running. He doesn’t have any claim to me or Bellamy, but—”
“Does he know?” Zane stares at my midsection, hidden behind his rodeo t-shirt. “Is that why he hurt you?”
I shake my head. But I’m not sure what sparked his last attack, and I can’t say for sure that he doesn’t have a clue. “I don’t know,” I whisper. My voice cracks. “I’m sorry.”
I mean it on so many levels. In another world, on another timeline, I would have waited for a man like Zane Kincaid, if I’d known he was out here.
Instead I’m going to be a single mom of two, on the run, always looking over my shoulder, always paranoid that my terrible choices will catch up with me.
And I’ll never know what it would be like to explore that curious flicker of heat that comes from being held by a man who could consume me, but chooses not to.
"Don't be." He lurches forward, then drops to his knees in front of me. His hands come up to grip my hips, his thumbs curving in toward a belly that won’t appear for a few months still. And somehow, even through the t-shirt, he’s careful to avoid where Derek punched me.
"Jesus, don't ever be sorry for this. You’re pregnant?”
Confused, I jerk my head, nodding.
His jaw sets so hard I can see the muscle jump beneath his skin. That fury rolls through his gaze again, dark and dangerous, like it could level mountains. “Then if anyone finds out before you’re safe, we’ll tell them it’s mine.”