Chapter 18 Haven
EIGHTEEN
Haven
We woke up first thing in the morning and we went to breakfast.
I’d been doing this for years—ever since I started working at the ranch in high school, when I was just fifteen, when I was in love with Wyatt Holt at sixteen.
Now, I was walking to the main house with his hand in mine and with the littest puppy in my other hand, held tight to my chest so we could keep an eye on her.
We both…we looked happy. Felt happy.
And I wasn’t even a little bit nervous about telling his whole family we were together and expecting.
Peggy was already at the stove when we came through the door.
She turned at the sound of boots on the threshold—and then she saw us. Saw Wyatt's hand in mine. Saw the puppy tucked against my chest. Saw whatever was on both our faces.
She didn't say a word. Just turned back to the stove with a smile she wasn't even trying to hide.
"Sit down," she said. "I made extra."
Millie looked up from the table first. She had Bea on her hip, trying to get a spoonful of something into her mouth while Bea regarded it with profound suspicion. Her eyes went to our hands. Then to my face. Then to Wyatt's face.
She kicked Gage under the table.
"Ow," Gage said, not looking up from his coffee.
She kicked him again.
He looked up. Looked at us. Set his coffee down.
He didn't say anything. He just looked at Wyatt with that flat, knowing expression, and Wyatt looked back, and something passed between them that was probably an entire conversation.
"Bout time," Gage said finally, and picked his coffee back up.
Dakota came in from the hallway looking like he'd slept in his clothes, which he probably had, hair pressed flat on one side. He stopped in the doorway, took in the scene, and pointed at Wyatt with his coffee mug.
"Glad you didn’t lose her," he said.
"Wasn’t going to," Wyatt said, smiling slightly. “Thanks to a good talking to from my incredibly wise younger brother.”
Dakota looked at me. Then at Wyatt. Then at our hands.
"Good," he said, and dropped into his chair and reached for the biscuits.
Forrest was already at the table, hands wrapped around a mug. He glanced up when we sat down. Looked at our hands. Looked at my face.
"Glad you're staying," he said to me.
I felt something warm move through my chest. "Me too."
He went back to his coffee.
Peggy set two plates down in front of us, then put her hand on my shoulder and squeezed once, brief and warm.
"How are you feeling, sweetheart?" she said.
"Good. Really good."
She patted my shoulder and went back to the stove. No interrogation whatsoever.
I was going to cry if I wasn't careful.
Bea reached across the table and grabbed a fistful of my hair.
"Bea," Millie said. "We don't grab."
Bea grabbed harder.
"She likes you," Millie said apologetically, detaching small fingers. Her eyes went to the puppy against my chest. "Oh, she's precious. How is she doing?"
"Better. We're watching her."
"She'll be fine," Wyatt said. He'd checked her three times already this morning.
Millie looked between us, a massive smile on her face as she wrangled Bea. “So what happens now?” she asked. “You’re together…happy, I can see it all over the two of you. And for what it’s worth, I’m thrilled—”
“Well, of course I’m moving in,” I said.
Looked at Wyatt.
He blinked.
“To your place,” I added, looking at him. “I mean—I’m here every night anyway. May as well make it official.”
“Every night,” Peggy shook her head, clicking her tongue at the stove. “I swear you all picked up this free love attitude from your father…”
“You—” Wyatt paused. “You don’t have to—”
“I don’t do anything I don’t want,” I said, reaching over to squeeze his hand, letting the puppy rest in my lap. “You know that.”
Wyatt looked at me for another second. Then something in his face just—let go.
"Okay," he said.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah." He picked up his coffee. "You could've told me first."
"I knew you'd say yes."
Dakota snorted into his biscuit.
"She's not wrong," Gage said, to no one in particular.
Peggy turned around from the stove. "Don't give her a hard time. I've been telling you for years that place needs more life in it." She turned back to the stove. "And a woman's touch."
"His kitchen is actually really nice," I said.
"He learned from me," Peggy said, satisfied.
“Oh,” I added, looking her in the eye. “And you’re getting another grandbaby.”
Peggy's spatula hit the floor.
Nobody moved for a second.
Then she spun around and looked at me—really looked, eyes wide, the composed morning-kitchen version of her completely gone.
"Haven Sinclair—"
She looked at Wyatt.
He looked back at her, and whatever was on his face made her press both hands over her heart.
"Oh, baby," she said. Not to me. To him.
She wasn’t talking about our baby…she was talking about hers, her baby even at forty years, and that made my chest warm.
Wyatt looked at the table. His jaw worked.
"Mom," he said.
"I know, I know." She picked up her spatula. Pointed it at him. "You're going to let me have this."
He didn't argue.
Millie was vibrating beside Gage. I could feel it from across the table—the specific frequency of a woman trying very hard to hold something in.
"Millie," Gage said preemptively.
"I'm fine," she said.
"Millie."
"I said I'm—" She looked at me. Her eyes were completely wild. "We're pregnant too," she said in a rush. "Eight weeks, we weren't going to say anything yet but I cannot—Haven, we are going to be pregnant at the same time—"
Gage closed his eyes.
"—and Bea is going to have a cousin basically her age and—" She grabbed my arm across the table. "Haven."
"I know," I said.
"This is the best day," she said. "This is genuinely the best day."
Bea, sensing the energy, shrieked and grabbed my hair with both fists.
Dakota laughed. Real and surprised and happy.
Forrest looked at the table and smiled.
Peggy had turned back to the stove and her shoulders were shaking slightly, which I was choosing to interpret as happy.
“Your dad is going to be so mad he missed this,” she laughed, the sound a little wet as she sniffled. “He loves this kind of chaos.”
“Tell him to start waking up at a reasonable hour and maybe he won’t miss so much,” Gage grunted.
Millie still had my arm. I looked at her across the table—both of us pregnant, Bea between us trying to eat the puppy's ear, the whole loud warm kitchen chaos all around us.
“I’m so glad to have you as a sister,” she said, squeezing my hand.
“Me too,” I said.
Then I looked at Wyatt.
He was watching his mother at the stove, something open on his face that I didn't usually get to see—something young, almost. Like a man remembering he was allowed to be happy.
I did that. Me. Haven, the girl who’d longed for him for years and known, on some instinctive level, that we were meant to be.
It was all finally happening.
And I was truly, thoroughly happy.