Chapter Twenty #2
Cruz found the angle that made my toes curl into the cushion and stayed there, working it with the kind of precision that came from knowing exactly how I liked to be touched.
His free hand slid from my hip to my stomach, palm flat against the curve, feeling the movement underneath as the baby shifted.
That was it—that touch, that connection, the reminder of what we’d made together—that pushed me over the edge. I came with my fingers clenched in Cruz’s hair and a sound I wouldn’t want anyone else to hear, my back arching as much as it could with the extra weight I was carrying.
Cruz pulled off and stood in one motion, his eyes fixed on my stomach. There was something in his face that made my chest tight—possessive and unguarded at the same time, like he couldn’t hide what he was feeling even if he wanted to.
He tore his pants open, not bothering with the button or zipper, and wrapped his hand around his own cock.
He was already hard, the head flushed and wet at the tip.
He stroked himself fast and purposeful, his gaze locked on the full round curve of my belly—his child inside it—a growl threading into his breathing.
I watched him, still loose and wrung out from my own orgasm, and didn’t look away. There was something raw about the moment, something that felt more honest than any conversation we’d ever had.
Cruz came with a low, rough sound, striping my stomach and chest with hot spurts, his hand still working through it, jaw tight with the intensity of it. He stood there a moment afterward, chest heaving, looking at what he’d done with an expression that made no attempt at subtlety.
“Jesus,” he said, when he’d caught his breath. “I didn’t mean to—“
“I know,” I cut him off. “It’s fine.”
He reached for the box of tissues on the side table and cleaned me up with careful hands, wiping the come from my skin with a gentleness that contrasted with the intensity of what had just happened.
When he was done, he pressed a kiss to the center of my stomach, his stubble rough against my skin. “You good?” he asked, looking up at me.
I nodded, not trusting my voice.
He stood, tucked himself back into his pants, and reached for my hand. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get you dressed.”
I let him pull me to my feet, his hand steady at my elbow as I found my balance. We’d done this enough times over the past months that he knew exactly how much support to offer—enough to help, not enough to make me feel like I was being handled.
He helped me into my loose joggers first, kneeling to guide my feet through the leg holes, then standing to pull them up over my hips. My shirt came next, pulled carefully over my head, his hands smoothing it down over my stomach once it was in place.
“There,” he said, his voice softer now. “Better?”
I nodded again. “Yeah.”
He brushed a strand of hair from my forehead, his touch lingering. “You sure you’re okay? I didn’t—“
“I’m fine,” I said. “Better than fine.”
Something in his expression eased. “Good,” he said. “That’s good.”
He took my hand again and led me back to the couch, settling in beside me instead of across from me. Close enough that our shoulders touched, his thigh pressed against mine. Not the distance we usually kept. Not the careful space we’d maintained for months.
Something had changed. I wasn’t sure what, exactly, but I could feel it in the way he looked at me, in the deliberate press of his body against mine. Like he’d made a decision while he was gone, or maybe like he’d finally admitted something to himself.
After cleaning up and getting dressed without ceremony—Cruz helping me with my boots since bending over had become more of a production than it was worth—we settled onto the couch.
Cruz pulled me back against his chest, both of us facing the room, his arms wrapped around me from behind. It was the kind of position that would have made me uncomfortable three months ago, all that contact, all that closeness.
Now, with five and half months of baby between us and a month of empty house behind me, I let my weight settle against him without thinking twice.
Cruz’s hands settled over my stomach and began stroking slow circles—the same unconscious habit he always fell into when he was in contact with it, like he couldn’t help himself. His breath was warm against the back of my neck, his chest solid against my shoulders.
Outside the window, the valley was going quiet in the late afternoon light.
The greenhouse glass caught the last of it, throwing amber reflections across the pasture.
Another hour and the light would be gone completely, the mountains to the west already throwing long shadows across the lower fields.
“We hit Hughs,” Cruz said finally, his voice low and matter-of-fact. “The team ran a targeted operation against his financial network.”
I shifted slightly, trying to turn to look at him, but his arms tightened, keeping me where I was. “Hughs?” I asked. “As in Gerald Hughs? The guy behind Peterson? The same one that was after Jasper?”
Cruz nodded, his chin brushing the top of my head. “Yeah. Peterson was just the muscle. Hughs is the one who’s been quietly funding the legal pressure campaigns, the contracted harassment—everything that came before the physical attacks on the ranch.”
I let that sink in. We’d known there was someone behind Peterson—someone with money and connections—but putting a name to it made it more real somehow. More threatening.
“Hughs has been acquiring land through shell companies for the past decade,” Cruz continued.
“Not just here—in three states. He identifies properties with water rights or mineral access, then uses a combination of legal pressure and targeted harassment to drive the owners out. Most people sell when their fences start getting cut, or when they find dead animals on their property. The ones who don’t—“
“They get visits from people like Peterson,” I finished.
Cruz’s hands paused for a second, then resumed their slow circles. “Yeah. Peterson and her team are contractors. They get paid per property, with bonuses for the ones that require...extra persuasion.”
The way he said it made it clear what that meant. I’d seen enough of Peterson’s work to know exactly what kind of persuasion they preferred.
“We took apart his financial network,” Cruz said. “Every shell company, every hidden account, every connection to the contractors. It’s done. The money’s gone.”
I leaned back against him, feeling the steady rise and fall of his chest. “And Hughs?”
“Dealing with federal charges,” Cruz said. “Enough to keep him tied up for years. And without the money, Peterson’s got nothing to work with. No funding means no team, no equipment, no reason to keep coming after the ranch.”
It sounded too good to be true. After months of looking over my shoulder, of checking the property line every morning and locking the doors every night, of watching the perimeter cameras for movement that shouldn’t be there—it seemed impossible that it could just be over.
“You’re sure?” I asked. “This isn’t just—“
“I’m sure,” Cruz cut in. “Sterling doesn’t miss details. And he wouldn’t have pulled the team back if there was any chance Hughs had resources we didn’t account for.”
I sat with all of that, Cruz’s hands warm and still moving in slow circles over my stomach, and let the weight of the past months set down somewhere I could leave it. Not gone completely—I wasn’t that naive—but manageable now. Something I could carry instead of something carrying me.
“Sterling and the team are staying on the property for a while regardless,” Cruz added. “Just to be certain nothing moves through the gaps. And while they’re there, they’re going to fix up and modernize the bunkhouse. It’s needed the work for years.”
I snorted. “That’s one way of putting it. The place is held together with duct tape and wishful thinking.”
Cruz’s chest moved against my back—not quite a laugh, but close to it. “Sterling mentioned something about structural integrity.”
“Yeah, well, when the foundation’s sinking on one side, structural integrity becomes more of a suggestion than a requirement.”
The conversation lapsed into silence, but it wasn’t the same empty quiet that had filled the house for the past month. This was different—the kind of silence that belonged to two people in the same room rather than one person in an empty house.
The kind that didn’t need to be filled.
I didn’t say anything particularly significant. I didn’t need to. My hands rested over Cruz’s on my stomach, and I didn’t move them away. The baby shifted under our palms, a rolling movement that had become familiar over the past weeks.
Cruz’s breath caught. “Was that—“
“Yeah,” I said. “Getting more active lately. Jasper says it’s normal.”
His hands went still for a second, then resumed their stroking, more deliberate now. “It feels bigger,” he said. “Stronger.”
I nodded. “Eight pounds, according to the last ultrasound. Maybe more by now.”
“Jesus,” Cruz breathed. “No wonder you’re uncomfortable.”
I shrugged. “It’s not so bad. Mostly I just can’t see my feet anymore.”
That got me another almost-laugh, the vibration of it running through his chest into my back. “You’ll get them back,” he said. “Eventually.”
“Small mercies,” I said, but there was no bite to it.
We sat there as the light faded, Cruz’s arms around me, his hands on the curve of my stomach, the baby moving occasionally beneath our joined palms. It wasn’t a solution to anything—not to the distance we’d maintained for months, not to the questions neither of us had asked or answered.
But it was something. A start, maybe. Or at least a different kind of silence than the one I’d been living with.
Outside, the last of the sunlight caught the greenhouse glass and held it, turning the structure amber against the darkening sky.
In a few weeks, the grapes would be ready for harvest. In a couple of weeks, maybe less, the baby would come.
And somewhere in all of that, we’d figure out the rest—whatever the rest turned out to be.
For now, though, this was enough: Cruz’s steady presence at my back, his hands warm against mine, and the weight between us that belonged to both of us, whether we’d planned it that way or not.