Chapter 12 Haven
TWELVE
Haven
We kept doing that.
…we kept doing it for two months.
It felt insane that no one figured it out, but somehow, we managed to keep it a secret. Every day except for class days, I’d go to work at the ranch. Every night, I’d leave through the main gate, then pull around back and park behind Wyatt’s place.
And during those nights…god. God.
He learned exactly how I liked it. Learned that I came harder with his hand around my throat than almost anything else.
Learned that if he got the vibrator on my clit while he was inside me I'd lose the ability to form words entirely—he'd done that one twice just to watch me fall apart, and both times he'd had this look on his face like he was conducting an experiment he already knew the results of.
I learned things too. That he had a thing about my hair—always grabbing it, wrapping it around his fist, pulling my head back so he could get at my throat.
That he liked me loud. That he'd edge me until I was crying and begging and then he'd give me everything at once and watch me take it with this expression that did something genuinely dangerous to my heart.
We tried everything. Up against the wall, bent over the kitchen table, out on the back porch at midnight when he couldn't wait to get inside.
He'd wake me up at three in the morning with his mouth between my legs, not saying anything, just—taking what he wanted, which turned out to be something I very much wanted him to do.
He used the belt twice more. Used his hand so many times I lost count.
Once he held me down by the back of my neck and fucked me so slow I actually sobbed, and he just kept going, steady and unhurried, telling me to take it in that low Texas drawl that only came out when he was deep in it.
Take it, he'd say. That's it. Good girl.
I was so down bad it was embarrassing.
Then it was summer.
And I was still in a secret relationship with a man nearly twice my age.
Still wanting him.
Still desperately, hopelessly in love.
Still lying about being on the pill.
The thing was, I'd been on the pill in high school—started it for cramps, stayed on it out of habit.
Then I'd gotten a new insurance card in January and the pharmacy had some kind of issue and I'd missed a refill and then another and then it had been six weeks and somehow I'd never quite gotten around to fixing it.
And then Wyatt happened.
That first night I'd told him I was on the pill because I was panicking and it was technically recently true and he'd looked so relieved and I hadn't corrected it because I wanted him and I was twenty-one and stupid.
He always used a condom anyway. Or pulled out.
Usually both, which, looking back, maybe should have told me something about how seriously he took this.
But in the moment it had felt like enough.
Like the math worked out. Like the universe wouldn't be cruel enough to make me pay for one small lie told in the dark to a man I was absolutely desperate to have.
And he hadn't asked again. Not once in two months. So it was fine.
It was totally fine.
I was lying in his bed on a Tuesday morning in April watching him pull his shirt on before work, already thinking about that night, already planning what I was going to ask him for, when I did the math in my head.
Then I did it again.
Then I lay very still and stared at the ceiling and thought: hm.
…and all of a sudden it occurred to me everything might not be fine.
I called Amber on my way home that day, and she was already sitting at the kitchen table and waiting for me with a drugstore bag on the table when I walked in.
She raised her eyebrows and tilted her head toward the bag, and I snatched it up with a grateful, awkward smile.
She caught my wrist before I could pull it away, and I stared at her with wide eyes.
She cleared her throat.
“Haven Marie Sinclair,” she said. “In all my years, I never thought you would be the one with an oopsie baby.”
I bit my lip. “I didn’t plan for it—”
“Obviously,” she drawled. “But…shame on you for making me be the responsible one here. Rude.”
I laughed despite everything. "You're going to be somebody's wife someday and they're going to be so confused about how you got there."
"Rude and accurate." She let go of my wrist and pointed at the hallway. "Go pee on the stick. I'll be here."
"You're not going to come hold my hand?"
"I will absolutely come hold your hand."
She was already up, following me down the hall. She leaned against the doorframe while I opened the box, watching me with her arms crossed and her chin tilted up. "Okay so walk me through the math. You said you were on the pill—"
"I said I was on the pill in January."
"Haven."
"I know."
"That's not—Haven, that's not how pill coverage works."
"I know, Amber."
She pressed her lips together. Watched me read the instructions I didn't need to read. "Does he use condoms?"
"Usually."
"Usually."
"Always, basically.”
I winced. She judged.
“Almost always."
She stared at the ceiling like she was asking God for patience.
"Okay," she said finally. "Okay. So we have: no pill, inconsistent condom usage, and a man who apparently has the fertility of—" she gestured broadly— "a Holt."
"You're not helping."
"I'm absolutely helping. I'm standing in this bathroom with you at—" she checked her phone— "eight A.M. on a Tuesday, and I’ve already been to the drugstore on your behalf. That’s love, Haven. That's what love looks like."
I set the test on the back of the toilet, pulled up my pants, then straightened up. We both stared at it like it was a thing that could be reasoned with. The little test strip was already showing up with one blue line, with—
“So say it’s positive, hypothetically,” Amber started. “What do you—”
I gasped and my hand flew up to cover my mouth.
Amber’s eyes widened.
“No,” she said. “That—that quickly?”
She came over to look at it, but the result was beyond clear—two proud blue lines, like the test itself was trying to be funny. Amber shook her head with a scoff.
“Good lord,” she muttered. “Are you pregnant with super sperm or something…?”
“That’s not funny, Amber.”
"I'm not joking, I'm genuinely asking." She picked up the test and squinted at it. "Haven, this thing did not hesitate. Most tests take three minutes. This one saw your pee and went immediately. Like it was waiting for you."
"Please stop talking about my pee."
"I'm just saying, whatever Wyatt Holt is working with, it is committed." She set the test back down. "Very goal-oriented sperm. Very type-A."
"Amber."
"Driven. Ambitious—"
"Amber."
She looked at me. I looked at her.
Her expression softened all at once, the jokes dropping away, and she put both arms around me and hugged me properly—chin on my shoulder, squeezing tight.
"Okay," she said quietly. "Okay. How are you actually doing?"
I sighed…and I didn’t realize I was crying until I felt the tears. “Um. Not good?”
She pulled back to look at me, hands on my shoulders. “Babe—you know you don’t have to keep it, right? I will drive you to Albuquerque right now, state law be damned.”
“I know,” I said. “I’m just…”
I paused. There were about a billion thoughts racing through my head, a billion different feelings racing through my heart. Because the thing was…
…the thing was that I’d been in love with Wyatt Holt for years. I’d dreamed of being his wife. Having his babies. Sleeping in his bed every night, watching him be a dad.
I wanted this.
But he didn’t.
Obviously, he didn’t, and I had no idea to tell him what I’d done.
“I’m keeping it,” I said.
Amber stared.
“And I’m telling him today.” I wiped my face with the back of my hand. “Both things. All of it—the pill, the baby, what I want.” I took a breath. “He deserves to know all of it at once.”
Amber watched me for a long moment. “Haven…”
“I know.”
“He might not—”
“I know, Amber.” I met her eyes. “I know he might not want this, I know he might end it, I know it might go badly.” I looked down at the test in my hands. “But I’ve known what I wanted for years, and I’m not going to lie about it. Not about this.”
She was very, very quiet. Just waited for me to go on.
“I lied about the pill because I was stupid and because I wanted him so badly,” I said. “I can’t lie anymore. Not when the consequences are this big.”
Amber sat down on the edge of the bathtub, shaking her head and sighing. Then she looked at me with an expression that was unusually earnest for her.
“Okay,” she said softly. “How can I help?”
I blew out a breath. “I don’t know…talk some sense into me before I get pregnant?”
“Too late for that,” Amber said dryly.
I laughed despite myself.
She stood up, rubbing her hands on her legs. She was still wearing her PJs. “So are you gonna wait until the usual rendezvous time or are you going earlier?” she asked.
“Earlier,” I said. “I can’t wait or I might lose my nerve.”
She nodded. “Right. Well—maybe shower first? I’ll make you something to eat before you go.”
I nodded. Amber started to leave, then turned, her brow furrowed. “You’re not alone in this,” she said. “You know that, right?”
My throat when tight. “Yeah. I know.”
Amber left, and I did as she said and got in the shower.
I stood under the hot water for longer than I needed to and thought about Wyatt. The way he'd checked the belt twice before he ever used it. The way he'd rubbed my wrists after. The way he cooked Ethan's recipes because it seemed wrong not to.
He was a man who took care of things.
The question was whether he'd see this as something to take care of, or something that had been done to him.
I didn't have an answer. I wasn't going to have one until I was standing in front of him saying the words out loud.
I turned off the water. Got dressed. Came out to find Amber at the stove, the radio on low, eggs already in the pan. She slid a plate in front of me without a word and sat across the table with her coffee and didn't ask me anything, which was the most Amber thing she'd ever done for me.
I ate about half of it.
"Okay," I said finally, pushing back from the table.
She looked up.
"I'm going."
She nodded. Stood up. And then she crossed around the table and hugged me again—quick and tight, her chin on my shoulder.
"You're the bravest person I know," she said into my hair. "Even when you're an idiot."
I laughed, short and shaky. "Thanks, Amber."
"Go get him." She stepped back. "And text me the second you're out of there or I will drive to that ranch myself."
I grabbed my keys off the counter.
The drive out to Holt Creek took twenty minutes. I spent nineteen of them completely fine and one of them sitting in the turn lane with my blinker on, hands tight on the wheel, talking myself into it.
You've been choosing him for years, I thought. This is just one more time.
I turned in.