Chapter 53 - Tessa
By the end of June, the heat had turned lazy, heavy, sweet. The kind of heat that makes the world slow down for you when you can’t slow down yourself.
I sat on the porch with my swollen feet propped on a wooden bench, one hand stroking the rounded top of my stomach. The insects hummed like they were trying to soothe me. Or maybe soothe her. She pushed back beneath my hand, stretching long and slow.
“We’re almost there,” I whispered.
It still startled me sometimes, the softness in my voice. The fact that it existed at all again.
A low rumble drifted up the driveway. I looked up, expecting Eli or Kenzie or one of the Palmers. Brody had been by a few times with some pieces Maggie and John had asked him to make for me.
But my breath caught. A Bronco eased to a stop at the bottom of my porch steps. One I had only ever seen once before.
The doors opened, and Callum stepped out first, relaxed. He tipped his chin in a small hello.
And from out of the passenger side stepped out… Aaron Huxley.
Of all the people I expected at almost nine months pregnant on a Tuesday afternoon, Aaron Huxley was not on the list.
I stood slowly; one hand braced on the porch railing as the baby shifted her weight.
“Afternoon,” Callum said, offering a polite warmth that didn’t scrape against me anymore.
Aaron smiled sheepishly. “Hope we’re not intruding.”
“You’re not,” I said cautiously. “I am just… surprised.”
Aaron stepped forward then, holding a folder against his chest.
“I won’t take up much of your time,” he said. “I just… needed to bring this to you myself.”
I waited, as I watched him. I didn't know what to expect.
He had always had a quiet confidence about him in the few times we had spoken.
But after learning who he was to Nate, I was having a hard time reconciling who he was as a man.
Somehow, the impression he had given me didn't line up with a man who would cheat with Brielle behind Nate's back and then rub it in his face in such a public way.
He looked different today: in jeans, even though they looked designer, and a plain dark t-shirt.
His dark hair was still styled as if he had just come from work, but something in his eyes was different.
He exhaled slowly. “I know you have no reason to think well of me after everything with Brielle. And you’d be right not to. But I want you to know something, because it’s part of your truth too.”
He hesitated, and for once, didn’t seem like a man who filled silence with charm.
“When I first met Brielle, she told me that what she had with Nate was fake. That it was a contract. We started dating in secret because she told me she had an agreement to fulfill and that after New Year’s, it would be over.
That the contract ended that night.” His mouth tightened.
“So, I showed up, excited that I could finally be out in the open with this stunning woman who seemed so genuine and caught up in something she wanted to get out of desperately. But after how Nate reacted, how his teammates reacted... I questioned her. She stuck to her story... the version she wanted me to see.”
I didn’t say anything, and he went on.
"Slowly she started to change over the year we were public.
I noticed small things at first, and then the truth of who she was started to show.
It wasn't until I met you, the person who, according to her, was also in a contract relationship with Nate.
I should have known before then. But from what I knew of you and how you were on Halloween.
.. I started asking more questions and digging deeper into her lies. "
I looked away from him for a moment and swallowed hard, "I didn't know about all the PR stuff... well, until I did. But my relationship with Nate was real, and to my knowledge, so was Brielle's."
"We know," Callum said, stepping closer to the porch.
I cleared my throat and rubbed a soothing circle over my belly. "Is that why you are here?"
“No... I mean partly, yes. I wanted you to understand I am not that kind of man. But the reason why we are both here today is that Nate's financial planner reached out to me a week before…” He swallowed hard. “Before the accident.”
A breeze lifted the hair at my neck.
“They asked about the Northern Initiatives about the mobile units,” Aaron said softly. “The programs I told you about. He wanted something set aside for you, for you to build, to lead. Something that wouldn’t be tied to him legally, so you’d never lose control of it.”
My throat closed, not because of the money, not because of the opportunity, but because of the intention. The thoughtfulness. The quiet planning. The way he’d been building a future even when everything between us was broken.
Aaron extended the folder. I reached out with shaking hands and took it.
“I don't know if you know, but Callum is one of the executives I had told you about. And he has approved the partnership,” Aaron added. “It’s yours whenever, if ever, you want it.”
I looked at Callum in surprise. He shrugged lightly. “You’re the right fit. That’s all. Nate saw it. I see it. And frankly? Our community needs it.”
I pressed the folder to my chest, as if it were fragile.
“I don’t know what to say,” I whispered.
“You don’t have to say anything yet,” Callum replied. “Just know this isn’t about the past. It’s about your future. Your baby’s future. The life you can still have.”
The baby kicked hard beneath my ribs, as if answering him.
Aaron’s expression softened as he watched my hand move across my skin.
“You deserve something that’s yours,” he said quietly. “Not something born from chaos. Something born from love. From people seeing who you are and what you have to share with this community.”
A breath shuddered out of me. A tear slipped free, but not from pain this time. Something that felt… like a beginning.
Callum stepped back toward the Bronco. “We just wanted to deliver this in person. Out of respect.” He paused. “Take your time. Let us know if you want to find out more or move forward. No pressure. No deadlines.”
Aaron gave me a small smile. “Congratulations, by the way. You’re going to be an incredible mom.”
They climbed into the Bronco and drove away, dust rising behind them like a curtain slowly lifting. I stood on the porch long after the sound faded. Then I went inside, filled a glass with iced tea, opened the windows wide, and sank into the glider.
The Carsons had tried to hand over Nate's estate to me, but I had refused it.
I didn't want his money, I never did. They disagreed, but eventually we settled on a trust fund for the baby, and they gifted me a SUV that was better than my old pickup, which had nowhere for a baby seat.
I knew we would never see eye to eye on the matter.
They felt like Nate and I were good as married, even though we weren't and that it should all go to the baby and me.
I didn't want his money that way, it felt like blood money and even though I never said it out loud.
.. I just couldn't accept it. I would take having him back over any of it.
But this... this felt different.
The folder lay in front of me. A shaky smile filled my face as I thought about Nate's belief in me, in us, stitched between every typed line.
I pressed a hand to my belly, tears slipping warm and unashamed down my cheeks.
“I think your daddy left us a roadmap,” I whispered.