Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
TOBIAS
Think about it.
That’s what Eva had told me two days ago after she’d thrown me that positive pregnancy test.
Think about it.
I’d done little else but think about it.
Eva was pregnant. We were having a baby. Holy fucking shit. Maybe we were having a baby. I’d been so stunned that I hadn’t asked what she was planning. When we’d hooked up weeks ago, she’d told me her next move was to London. Was she still going?
The questions came like rapid fire. Did she want the baby? Did I?
Yes .
As I stared across the empty lobby at Holiday Homes, looking around the building I’d designed, yes might as well have been painted on the wall.
Yes, I wanted this baby. I wasn’t prepared for it. I doubted Eva was either. But in my heart, the answer was yes. That was about the only conclusion I’d landed on in the past two days .
That, and I needed to talk to Eva.
I pulled my phone from my pocket, my heart beating like a bass drum in my chest as I found her number. It had been saved in my phone for years, but since our breakup in college, I’d called it only once.
After her father’s stroke.
When my finger hit call, I leaned against the lobby’s counter, afraid I might fall over if I wasn’t propped up against something.
She answered on the third ring. “Hi.”
“Hey.”
Awkward silence dragged and dragged, but my heart just kept on thumping.
“How was your Christmas?” she asked.
“Fine. Yours?”
“It was nice. Just Dad and me hanging out. My sister and her husband and kids went to her in-laws.”
“How is your dad?”
“He’s good. The assisted living place he’s in is really nice. He’s got his own apartment and a bunch of friends.”
“That’s good.”
“I never thanked you for the flowers you sent after his stroke. They were beautiful. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” This small talk was as excruciating as the nail I’d once accidentally driven into my hand with a nail gun. “We need to talk.”
“Yeah.” She sighed. “We do.”
Even with the distraction of Christmas yesterday, the unanswered questions were beginning to fester. “Can you come over later?”
“Sure. What time?”
“I’ve got a meeting now for about an hour or two. Then I’ll be heading home.” The office was closed all week until after New Year’s Day.
“I’ll come over around two.”
“See you then.” I ended the call, tucked my phone away and some of the tightness in my chest loosened. Two o’clock. I only had to make it until two.
The front door opened and my brother Maddox strode into the building, drawing in a long breath. “Hey. Smells like Dad’s old office in here.”
“Brand-new building and it smells like the old one. But I like that.” Like strong coffee and sawdust. That scent was the reason I’d spent my fair share of time in the office in the past two days. It grounded me. It was a constant when the world felt like it was spinning too fast in the wrong direction.
“Me too.” Maddox walked over and shook my hand. “Thanks for meeting today.”
It was me who was grateful. It would do me well to work. To pinch my fingers around a pencil and simply draw.
Maddox had decided to move home to Bozeman with his seven-year-old daughter, Violet. He’d been in California for years building his billion-dollar streaming company, Madcast. But his ex was a piece of work and escaping her by coming home held a lot of appeal.
Except he needed a home. Literally. And that’s where I came in.
I was the chief architect at Holiday Homes and custom builds were our specialty. Our father had started this company out of the garage of my childhood home. He’d forsaken a parking place so he could store his tools inside. After decades of building quality houses around the Gallatin Valley, his reputation was unmatched.
Maddox had never taken an interest in construction or our mother’s real estate company. He’d blazed his own trail. I’d always admired that about him. Maddox took risks. And damn, but they’d paid off.
Meanwhile my twin brother, Heath, and I had both landed here. We’d always loved tagging along with Dad to builds, and helping him organize tools in the garage or construct our own playhouses. Being at Holiday Homes fit, for us both.
Heath preferred management while I simply wanted to design beautiful buildings.
Maddox’s house would definitely be in that category. He had the money for something magnificent, and I wouldn’t let him down. Dad wasn’t the only Holiday with a reputation to uphold. I was making a name for myself too.
“Want some coffee?” I asked, leading him toward the break room.
“Sure.” He followed, taking in the office as we walked.
It was only three years old and ranked as one of my favorite projects. The beams I’d found for the vaulted ceilings had come from an old barn on a local ranch. I’d loved the hickory flooring so much I’d picked the same for my home. From the enormous gleaming windows to the wood-sided exterior, there wasn’t a thing I’d change about this building.
“This is nice,” Maddox said.
“You know Mom and Dad.” They knew the value of beautiful buildings and didn’t mind spending some money.
They’d worked hard their entire lives to build a legacy for their sons. They’d far exceeded their own expectations and had declared a few years ago that they were going to reap the rewards. They’d earned it.
Mom and Dad’s massive home in the mountain foothills was another favorite of my designs. They’d given me free rein to be creative so I’d designed a home that blended and complemented the landscape.
Mom’s only request had been bedrooms. Lots and lots of bedrooms. One was for Violet. And the others for her future grandbabies.
I guess she could earmark another room soon.
For my baby.
The sweater I’d pulled on this morning squeezed around my ribs like a ratchet strap, making it hard to breathe as we each carried steaming coffee mugs to my office.
“You okay?” Maddox asked as I took a seat behind the desk.
“Yeah,” I lied, rubbing my beard. “Great.”
Maddox didn’t buy it. He studied my face, much like he had yesterday during the Christmas festivities at our parents’ place. Violet had been the center of attention, entertaining us all as she’d opened her gifts. I’d hoped with her as the focal point, no one would notice that I’d been busy thinking about it .
Guess not.
“Missed you at the party at The Baxter,” he said.
“Yeah. Had something come up.” Impending fatherhood had killed my desire for dancing and drinking.
“Tobias.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat.
“What happened?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
“Talk to me. I’ve been a shit older brother as of late. Give me the chance to make up for it.”
Maddox and I hadn’t talked much lately. He’d been busy in California. I’d been busy here. I was looking forward to connecting with him again. To skiing on the weekends or grabbing a beer downtown.
Maybe he could teach me how to change a diaper.
“Do you remember Eva?” I asked, staring blankly at the wall.
“I never met her, but yeah.” He leaned forward in his chair, giving me his undivided attention .
“She came over the other morning. Christmas Eve.”
“Okay. Are you getting back together or something?”
“No.” I rubbed my hands over my face, then spoke the words I still couldn’t believe. “She’s pregnant.”
“Oh.” The absent shit in that sentence hung in the air.
“We hooked up a while back. The condom broke. She’s pregnant. And she’s moving to London.” There. The truth was out. Now I wanted to get to work. So I picked up a pencil from the desk. “Let’s go through what you want for your house.”
“We can do this another day.”
I slid a notebook under the graphite tip and waited. “No, today’s good.”
“Tob—”
“Five bedrooms? Or would you like six?”
Maddox sighed but didn’t push. “Six. And one in the guesthouse.”
“Bathrooms?”
After an hour discussing his home, me asking questions, Maddox answering, I had what I needed and was ready to get home in case Eva showed up early. “I’ll get a preliminary draft sketched and bring it over within the week.”
“Thank you.” He nodded, and after I showed him to the door, I put on my coat and locked the office behind me.
I drove the familiar streets through town until I reached the country road that wound toward the mountains. My home was in the center of a six-acre plot I’d bought before land prices in the valley had boomed. Mom had seen the listing come through and she’d known how much I wanted to live out of town.
I’d owned the land for two years before I’d broken ground on my own home. Now that it was complete, I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. Not only because this was another favorite build, but because Montana was home.
At least Eva was from here. That gave us one less hurdle to clear. Her family was here and it was the obvious place for us to raise this kid.
I pulled into the garage, heading inside, where I hovered in the living room, my gaze alternating between the floor and the windows that overlooked the driveway. The clock on the wall ticked too slowly, and every time I glanced up, expecting it to be nearly two, the hands had barely moved.
Its ticking grew louder and louder until I let out a frustrated groan and forced myself away from the living room. I stalked to my room, not for any particular reason just that its windows didn’t face the front of the house. My feet stuttered to a stop when my gaze landed on the bed.
For weeks I’d pictured Eva there. Her dark hair spread out on my pillow. Her hazel eyes locked with mine as I’d moved inside her.
I hadn’t noticed the condom had broken. Granted, we’d had a bottle of wine downtown and another when we’d come here. By the time I’d given her three orgasms, I’d been spent and hadn’t paid much attention.
Or maybe she’d scrambled my brain. Because that night with Eva, well... it had been like traveling back in time.
I walked to the dresser against the wall, easing open the top drawer. Buried beneath rows of folded socks, stuffed in the far corner next to my boxer briefs, was a square velvet box. The last time I’d held it in my hand was the day I’d moved in.
The hinges gave a small pop as I pushed open the top. A golden band sat firmly in the white satin enclosure. The marquise-cut solitaire diamond glinted under the bedroom light, like a star caught in this tiny box.
There was no logical reason for me to keep this ring. I’d bought it for Eva, and it wasn’t like I was saving it for another woman.
Yet the day I’d taken it to the pawnshop, a brokenhearted twenty-two-year-old man, I hadn’t been able to let it go. I’d walked to the counter, showed the shop’s clerk the ring, and before he’d even muttered a price, I’d told him it was a mistake and walked out the door.
No one knew I’d proposed. Not my parents. Not my brothers.
I doubted Eva had told many people either. Maybe her father. Maybe not. I suspected she’d done much like I’d done and had tried to forget that night.
We’d dated through college. Eva and I had met in the dorm’s cafeteria our freshman year, and after our first date—dinner at a pizza place and a movie—we’d been inseparable.
She’d mentioned wanting to move to a city and explore the world after graduation, but they’d always been offhand comments. Like dreams you threw into the air like a balloon, knowing it would catch the wind and vanish.
During our last semester, she’d applied at a few places in Bozeman. I hadn’t realized those had been her backups, not her first choice.
She’d hidden a lot from me our senior year.
Like her plans to leave Montana. Like her plans to leave me. Like the interviews she’d had with a global construction company that specialized in managing large-scale projects. They helped build enormous, boxy, boring buildings around the world.
She’d kept it all quiet until I’d proposed.
After graduation, I’d taken her to a fancy dinner before bringing her to my apartment where I’d dropped down on one knee and asked her to be my wife. She’d taken one look at that ring and the truth had spilled out.
A life in Bozeman hadn’t been her dream.
She’d left my apartment with tears streaming down her face, and seven days later, moved to New York .
We’d gone years without speaking. Mutual friends would give me random updates on her whereabouts. New York. San Francisco. Tokyo. Melbourne. Boston. Eva always seemed to be somewhere new.
Meanwhile, I’d been in Montana, wondering how many years it would take for me to let her go.
I hadn’t realized until our night together six weeks ago that the resentment had faded. That instead of feeling angry toward her, I’d just... missed her.
Her laugh. Her snark. Her intelligence.
Her quirks. Her smile.
Our hookup had been for closure. Our second chance at a decent goodbye.
Now we were having a baby. Maybe. God, this was messed up.
I stuffed the ring into the drawer, shoving it closed, then crossed the bedroom as the sound of a car door slammed. I quickened my steps through the living room.
Would I find her on the sidewalk again? Or would she actually make it to the door? I’d learned a long time ago that rushing Eva usually meant she’d shut down. She needed a distraction whenever she was stuck, which was why I’d invented our thumb wars.
One of us always let the other win.
Today, I wouldn’t give her thirty minutes in the cold. Freak-out or no. There’d be no thumb war. If I had to drag her inside, so be it. But when I opened the door, she was making her way up the sidewalk.
My sweater was too tight again, forcing my ribs together so I couldn’t fill my lungs.
Eva’s rich, chocolate hair was tied in a ponytail with a few tendrils framing her face. Her eyes were hidden behind a pair of mirrored sunglasses that reflected the bright white of the snow on my lawn. Her red parka was the same one she’d worn on Christmas Eve, but her hands weren’t stuffed in her pockets this time.
She was beautiful. Always beautiful.
“Hi.” I stepped aside, holding the door.
“Hi.” She shoved the sunglasses into her hair as she stepped inside. Then she planted a hand against the wall to toe off her snowy boots. “How was work?”
“Fine. I was meeting with Maddox. He’s moving home.”
“Really? That’s good. I’m sure your mom will love having all three of you in town.”
“She will.” The only thing Mom would have loved more would be for all of us to have wives so she could spoil her daughters-in-law. Especially had one of those been Eva.
I helped Eva from her coat, hanging it on a hook in the entryway, then waved her to the living room instead of the kitchen. Sitting on the couches seemed safer than the island. And considering her long-sleeved tee fit snugly to her body and her leggings left little to the imagination, I doubted she’d throw a stick coated in urine my way today.
“Your house is lovely.” She ran her hand over the leather arm of a chair. “The windows. The wood. The vaulted ceilings. The mountains outside to greet you good morning. The trees as neighbors to say good night. It’s exactly what I would have expected you to build.”
“Thanks.”
That compliment seemed to diffuse a fraction of the tension in my spine. Like she knew I needed a millisecond of normal conversation. We might not have spoken much in recent years, but she knew me. And if there was a woman to go through this with, I wouldn’t want it to be anyone else.
“So . . .” She plopped in the chair.
“You’re pregnant. ”
“I’m pregnant.” The words were hoarse and rough, like this was the first time she’d said them. Maybe it was. Eva met my gaze and there was an apology there. “About the other day. I didn’t handle it very well.”
“It’s okay.” No one but Eva would have made up fake lyrics to a Christmas carol to announce a pregnancy. Someday in the future, maybe that little jingle would make me laugh. Depending on what she did. “Have you decided what you’re going to do?”
“It’s not just my decision. We’re sort of in this together.”
“I appreciate that. But if it were just your decision, what would you want?”
She dropped her gaze to her lap. “I don’t know if I’ll be a good mother.”
She would. Maybe she didn’t have confidence in herself, especially given her own mother. But Eva would be a great mom.
Her heart was too full of love.
“You will be,” I said.
She looked up to me with tears in her eyes. “I’d like the chance to try.”
The air rushed from my lungs. “So would I.”
I hadn’t let myself hope for this answer but damn, it was good to hear. It didn’t really lessen the panic or fear. But it gave us a direction.
A baby. We were having a baby.
“I didn’t plan this, Tobias,” she whispered. “To trick or trap you.”
“The thought never crossed my mind.” Maybe it would have if this were another woman, but not Eva.
“There’s a lot to figure out. And not much time.”
Wait. What? “What do you mean there’s not much time? Don’t we have eight or nine months? ”
“Um . . . no.”
It clicked, the conversation from weeks ago. Part of the reason we’d met was that she’d wanted to see me before she left Bozeman again. “Wait. You’re still moving to London?”
“Yeah.” She nodded. “My next job starts in a week.”
A job in London.
Well . . . fuck.