Chapter 16 Haven
SIXTEEN
Haven
The property was so quiet…so peaceful.
And everything was right.
I knew we hadn’t figured everything out—not yet, that was going to take time—but we’d at least figured out a little. We were going to keep this baby. We were going to do it together.
We were going to go public with our relationship, because his family already knew anyway, apparently…and if I was being honest with myself, the Holts were my whole world. Had been for a while.
I texted Amber while I sat at the table, Wyatt whipping something up in the kitchen. We’d barely spoken since deciding this was happening; we were letting it sit, letting the silence fill us up and turn into something more like peace.
My phone buzzed almost before I'd finished sending.
Amber
HAVEN MARIE SINCLAIR
you have been gone ALL DAY
i have been sitting here MANIFESTING
Haven
we're okay
like. really okay
Three dots. Disappeared. Three dots again.
Amber
okay i need MORE than that
are you keeping it
Haven
yes
we both want it
She didn’t respond right away. Three dots…
Then:
Amber
I'M CRYING IN THIS APARTMENT ALONE
are you together? like TOGETHER together?
Haven
yeah
he came and found me. i fell asleep on his floor with the puppies and he just
idk. he just came and said he wasn't losing me
Amber
stop
STOP
haven i'm going to need a minute
Haven
take your time
Amber
okay i'm back
i'm fine
i'm not fine at all but we're not talking about me
how are YOU
I looked up at Wyatt's back. The easy way he moved around that kitchen. The set of his shoulders, looser than this morning. The particular quiet of a man who'd made a decision and meant it.
Haven
honestly?
really good
rattled bc this has been a lot. but really good
Amber
that's the right answer
also the puppies better all survive or i'm coming out there myself. also i’m dibsing one of them to be my baby so i don’t get jealous
Haven
one of them is doing a lot better actually
Amber
see?? GOOD OMENS
I'm really happy for you
like genuinely. you've wanted this man since you were SIXTEEN
Haven
i know
Amber
okay go be with your man and your puppies and your baby that is currently the size of a sesame seed
Haven
it's probably more like a blueberry at this point
Amber
go away i love you
Haven
love you too
I set my phone face down on the table and looked up.
Wyatt set a plate in front of me without a word. Sat down across from me with his own. Looked at me in that steady way he had, like he was taking stock, making sure.
"Amber says hi," I said.
"Amber…” he frowned. “Amber Bowen from town? She knows?”
"Amber knows everything," I said. "She has for months."
Something moved across his face. Not quite surprise. "How many people did you tell?"
"Just her." I picked up my fork. "She's a vault."
He looked at me.
"She really is," I said. "She just—she needed to know. She's my person."
He was quiet for a second. Then, like it cost him something to admit it: "Good. You should have someone like that."
I looked at him across the table—his kitchen, his t-shirt on my back, his baby, his puppies asleep in the next room—and felt something settle in my chest so completely it was almost like exhaling.
"I have a few of those now," I said.
He looked at me for a moment. Then he picked up his fork.
"Your parents," he said.
I winced. "Yeah."
"They're going to have opinions."
"My dad is going to want to have a conversation with you that involves sitting on the back porch and probably a shotgun he won't actually use."
Wyatt's expression didn't change. "I can handle that."
"I know you can." I pushed food around my plate. "My mom is going to cry and then immediately start planning things, which is somehow worse."
"What kind of things."
"Baby things. Shower things. She's been waiting for grandchildren since I was approximately seventeen." I paused. "She's going to love you, for what it's worth. She already thinks you're good people."
"She doesn't know me."
"She knows you've been good to me on the ranch for six years." I looked at him. "That matters to her."
He was quiet for a moment, working through something.
"I want to do this right," he said finally. "I know the timing is—I know it's not conventional. But I don't want you to be something I'm hiding. Not anymore."
"You never wanted that," I said. "That was me, remember? I suggested the secret."
"You suggested it because I made you feel like you needed to." His jaw worked. "That's on me."
I opened my mouth.
"It is," he said. Flat. Not arguing, just stating. "I'm not going to pretend otherwise."
I let it sit.
"So what does it look like?" I said. "Going public, I mean. Given that your entire family already knows."
Something shifted in his face. Almost a smile. "I think it looks like showing up to breakfast tomorrow morning."
"Together."
"Together," he confirmed. "And letting them have their moment."
I thought about Peggy—Wyatt's mother, warm and sharp and not a woman who missed much.
I thought about Gage, who had been raising an eyebrow at me across breakfast tables for months.
Millie, who was going to be insufferably delighted.
Dakota, who already knew everything and was probably already gloating somewhere.
"They're going to be so smug," I said.
"Every single one of them," he agreed.
"Gage is going to look at you like—" I did my best impression of Gage's flat, knowing stare.
Wyatt looked pained. "I know exactly what face he's going to make."
"And your mom—"
"Let's not talk about my mom right now."
I laughed. Actually laughed, for the first time all day, and it came out more relieved than funny. Wyatt watched me do it with that expression he got sometimes—the one he didn't know he was making, the one that looked a lot like a man who couldn't believe his luck.
"What about vet school?" he said, when I'd settled.
"What about it?"
"You're not quitting."
I looked at him. "I wasn't planning to."
"I know you weren't. I'm just—" He set his fork down. "I want to say it out loud. You finish school. Whatever we need to do to make that work, we do it. That's not negotiable."
I looked at him across the table.
This man. This infuriating, careful, deliberate man who had spent all morning telling me what my life should look like and was now sitting across from me making sure I knew my own future was still mine.
"Okay," I said softly.
"Okay," he said.
We ate.
The puppies made small sounds from the living room.
Outside the Hill Country dark pressed warm against the windows and somewhere a whippoorwill started up, the way they did in April, and it was so quiet and so ordinary that I had to remind myself that this morning I'd been sitting on the edge of a bathtub watching a pregnancy test turn positive in about four seconds flat.
"Wyatt," I said.
"Mm."
"I'm glad it was you."
He looked up.
"The baby," I said. "I'm glad it's yours." I held his gaze. "I'm glad it's us."
He was quiet for a long moment.
Then he reached across the table and covered my hand with his.
"Yeah," he said. "Me too."