Chapter 3
Alexander
“Haven?”
It’s her. It’s definitely her. Haven Wylder. The woman I met almost a year ago during a week away in Aspen. The one who’s ruined me for any woman since.
I want to rush and hug her, pull her into my arms, breathe in that rich pine scent of hers, and tell her how incredible it is to see her. That I can’t believe she’s here.
But my pride stops me.
I’ve been trying to contact her for ten months to no avail. She hasn’t returned a single call. And that ranch that came up for sale, and I haven’t heard back from? Hers.
She’s looking up at me with wide emerald eyes, her teeth worrying her lower lip. She blinks twice, as shocked as I feel, except this can’t be an accident. There’s no way.
“Hey, Alex.”
Turning to Miles for any form of clarification that I’m not dreaming, I’m tempted to ask him to slap me, only he’d take me too seriously. I now realize that this—Haven—is the reason he dragged me out and attempted to break the sound barrier on the way over here.
“What’s going on?”
Miles shakes his head. “I have no idea. Lando and I spotted her in here right before he left for the plane.”
My focus shifts to my sister, who is leaning against the bar. “Clem?”
“I don’t know, Al. But I think you should talk to her.”
Haven spins around and narrows her eyes on Clementine. “You’re Alex’s sister?”
Clementine gives one deep nod, her mouth pulling into a somewhat bashful smile that makes me wonder what they’ve been talking about. Especially when she lifts her hand for a sheepish wave. “Hello.”
Finally, my eyes find Haven’s again. It dawns on me that this could be about Wylder Ranch—her ranch—but flying five thousand miles to tell me I can’t have it seems a little extreme, especially since she wouldn’t even return my call to arrange another date.
Nope. It’s something else.
While I figure out my answer, I take my first good look at the girl I’ve only seen in my dreams since I drove away from the house in Aspen last December.
She’s not quite how I remember her.
It’s her, it’s still the same Haven, but instead of the rosy cheeks, she looks pale. Instead of the sparkle of amusement in her bright green eyes, mauve bruises the delicate skin underneath. She’s rounder but pinched all at the same time.
She looks exhausted. She looks sick.
And—my eyes drop as a gurgling noise emanates from the lump on her chest—she’s holding a baby.
Haven has had a baby.
The initial excitement of seeing her is replaced with abject embarrassment. Humiliation. I’ve been pining over a girl I spent a week with, and she quickly moved on and had a fucking baby.
She’s a mother, and I’m some idiot who held on to the idea of a connection that never existed.
She’s come to tell me to stop calling her. That’s why she’s here.
“What is going on?” I repeat, my tone firmer this time and filled with annoyance that she felt the need to tell me in person.
“I . . .” Haven scans the pub and turns around to where Clementine and Miles are standing together.
It’s not as busy as it usually is, though I get the sense it’s still too busy for whatever she wants to talk about.
She looks down at her baby, cupping its tiny head in her hand.
It’s so bundled up, in one of those carrier things Hendricks used with Max, that I can only see a nose and a pair of chubby cheeks. “Could we go somewhere quieter?”
I mean, sure. Why not? Why not go somewhere quieter with this girl . . . and her baby? It’s not like I don’t have anything else to do. It’s not like I don’t have a company to run. On the other hand, I might be extraordinarily pissed off, but I also want to know what the hell is going on.
“Sure. There’s a room in the back that’s usually quiet.”
Haven winces. “Actually, would you mind if we walk?” Her eyes flick down. “It’s better . . .”
“Fine. We can walk through the village.” I hold the door open and sweep my hand in front of me, allowing her to exit first.
Maybe after I’m done here, I’ll go home, get into bed, and wake up when this nightmare is over.
My eyes catch my brother’s and sister’s again, both of them wearing the same blank expression. I can only offer a shrug in response.
I guide Haven out and to the left, away from the hustle of Valentine High Street. If she wants quiet, we need to go in a different direction.
I’ve only been inside the pub for a few minutes, but the fresh air immediately invigorates me. I’m snapped out of my shock, and infuriatingly, my brain jogs with the one question I’ve been asking myself over and over, along with all the rest I have lined up to go.
“Why didn’t you call me back?” I ask, slightly more whiney than I’d have liked.
Haven pauses her stride, and I swear she squirms a little. “Because . . .”
I wait for the rest of her sentence, but it doesn’t come. “Because? You met someone else, clearly. You didn’t have to come all this way to tell me.”
My tone is harsher than I mean it to be, but the hurt I feel at seeing her is more powerful than I was expecting.
“What? No.” She shakes her head. We’re walking side by side, but as she answers, she steps around a lamppost, and her voice drops so I don’t quite hear the rest of her response.
“It was a week of fun. No big deal.” I blurt the words I’ve been repeating like a mantra. No big deal. “I thought we had a great time together, but whatever . . .”
“We did.”
“Then why didn’t you call me back?”
“What was the point, Alex?” she snaps, and this time, I hear every word loud and clear. The sting is equally loud and clear. “We live five thousand miles apart. When we met, I barely had enough time to sleep, let alone date—”
“So what? You’ve come to rub it in my face that you’re with someone else? You could have put this in an email. Better yet, kept going with the radio silence. I’d already gotten the message you didn’t want to date me.”
Haven’s face drops, and she looks genuinely hurt by my accusation, though I don’t know why. But it’s enough to make me feel guilty.
“Alex, no. It’s not—”
“Is this about the ranch?”
Her brows knit together, emphasizing the dark circles under her eyes. “What?”
“Wylder Ranch? You’re selling it. I tried to buy it and never heard back.”
“That was you?”
“Who’d you think it was?”
Her shoulders lift slowly. “Brokers were dealing with it all. I wanted to test the water to see if there would be any takers, but I changed my mind.” She pauses, and another deep frown crosses her face. “Alex, the sale price was one hundred million dollars.”
“Yes. I know,” I reply, but I don’t want to discuss my finances right now. I am such an idiot. “Haven, why did you change your mind? That’s a lot of money.”
“I know it is. But when Everly was born, I couldn’t go through with it. I needed her to know where she came from. My parents built that ranch.” She pats against the bump on her chest, and for the first time since we’ve been talking, she smiles.
A real, warm, genuine smile.
It’s the smile I remember, and seeing it again makes my chest ache.
I glance down, totally forgetting it isn’t just her walking along next to me, and nothing about this entire bizarre scenario makes sense. I still have no idea what she’s doing here. I have no idea what I’m doing either.
What is the matter with me? Why didn’t I take the hint when she didn’t call me back the first time?
I stare at the point Haven’s hand is stroking along the baby’s back. “Everly is your daughter?”
I nearly choke on the words.
“Yes, she is.”
Wow. It’s literally the only thing that pops into my head. Wow. A baby. A fucking baby. My dream girl has a baby.
My pride, already dented enough after being ghosted for ten months, is now smashed to smithereens after I hear her confirmation out loud. We have spent the last ten months at opposite ends of the spectrum.
“Congratulations, I guess,” I manage to say, and I’m weirdly proud of how I keep my expression as neutral as possible.
Inside, I’m writhing in jealousy. Thick, green, and ugly. It’s so quick and consuming that it almost winds me, and I slump down on the cool stone wall of the Valentine Nook fountain.
Thankfully, there aren’t any people throwing in coins to make a wish today. Out of habit, I dig into my pocket and pull out a couple of pounds and a fifty pence piece, toss them in, and screw my eyes shut.
Please wake me up from whatever this fucking weird dream is.
Opening one eye at a time, I find Haven still there and peering down curiously at me.
“Haven, why are you here?” I ask wearily, one more time.
Instead of Haven answering, the baby lets out a very loud, garbled screech, and opens its eyes directly in front of where I’m sitting.
I don’t blink. I’m locked in a staring competition with the creature strapped to her chest, the one with Burlington blue eyes.
And then it hits me. Like a sledgehammer. The reason Haven is here, in England. In my village.
If I had my wits about me and the skill to do more than basic mental arithmetic and recall my biology lessons, I should have already figured out that the baby she’s carrying is mine.
Haven notices. The tension in my shoulders and the way my spine stiffens, pulling me to sit up straighter.
“I’m so sorry, Alex. I didn’t know I was pregnant until I was nearly five months. I thought I had the flu. It took me a couple of months to get over the shock and admit to myself,” she says quietly. “After that, it was all a whirlwind. I didn’t know what to do.”
I’m trying to listen, but blood is whooshing too loudly in my ears. I’m lightheaded. I need to sit down, except I already am. So instead, I lie back on the wall.
“I know it’s a lot to take in.”
I scratch through my beard and suppress a shiver.
In Miles’s haste to get me into the car and around to the pub, I forgot to pick up my jacket. I’m only wearing a cable-knit sweater and jeans, which, having been outside for ten minutes, is starting to weaken against the crisp November air. The cold spray from the fountain isn’t helping either.
The baby—Everly—lets out another sharp cry, bringing me back to reality, and I sit up again.
“I need to hear you say it.”
Haven sighs and jostles the baby against her chest, but it doesn’t help. “The week we spent together, I got pregnant. Everly is your daughter, Alex. You’re a father.”
I close my eyes, taking in her words. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to do. It’s hard to think clearly when a baby is screaming next to you, and all that pops into my head is the last time Haven and I had sex.
We were at it all night, on every available surface. I’ve relived it more times than I care to admit. Lonely nights in the shower before bed, or the morning after a particularly vivid dream.
“How old is she?” She. Christ, I have a daughter.
“A little over six weeks. Her birthday is September twentieth.”
My throat thickens immediately, and my gaze flashes to hers, checking to see if any part of her is lying. Not that she could possibly know that date is also my father’s birthday.
That I know exactly where I’ve been every single year on September twentieth.
“I called you. I left a dozen messages, Haven—”
“I know,” she replies, doing her best to concentrate on me while also calming her daughter. Our daughter.
Nope. No way. I’m not a father. This isn’t going to be Hendricks all over again. Years and years of court battles to gain custody of his son, with a woman who only wanted his money. My anger at having been ghosted bubbles up to the surface again.
“You call me back, you don’t turn up at my home with a fucking baby.”
“I’m so sorry, I didn’t know what else to do,” she sobs. Tears pool in her eyes and spill down her cheeks as I glare at her.
I’m too mad to have sympathy. Mad and hurt. And deaf once the screaming reaches an ear-piercing level.
I need space. To think. To figure out what to do.
What the fuck am I going to do?
But sitting here watching Haven’s silent tears and Everly’s not-so-silent ones won’t help me figure it out. It’s only going to make me feel guilty. And right now, feeling guilty is the last thing I want.
I already have enough guilt to last me a lifetime. I’m well practiced.
Jumping up, I ignore the way Haven startles. Ignore everything.
Staring down at her, the urge to wrap my arms around her is still too strong, but instead, I say, “I can’t do this right now.”
My daughter’s cries ring in my ears as I leave as quickly as I can, hurrying around the corner. Even after they’re well out of earshot, I can somehow still hear them.
Everly. Haven’s baby.
Fuck.
My daughter.