Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
What Comes Next
Lilly
The smell of bacon filled the kitchen, but my nerves were too frazzled to feel hungry. The skillet popped and hissed behind me, the sound filling the silence that had stretched since sunrise. I’d been up for hours, pacing between the counter and the window like a woman waiting on bad news.
I was the one who’d told him to come. Last night, in the Bennet’s barn, it had sounded simple enough.
“Come by tomorrow morning. We should talk.” I’d said it like it was no big deal, like I hadn’t spent a few days thinking about how he’d looked leaning against the stall door, hay dust on his Stetson, that half-smile tugging at his mouth.
Yesterday, I’d told myself it was practical. There were things we needed to clear up.
Today, it just felt like a mistake.
The bacon was starting to curl too much on one side, but I didn’t move to flip it.
I could hear my heart louder than the crackle in the pan.
I wiped my hands on a towel and glanced toward the clock again.
Seven-thirty. It was too early for a Sunday, but Sawyer wasn’t the type of cowboy who slept in.
Sunny sat by the door, head cocked toward the window like she could sense what was coming. Her tail twitched once, then stilled, her amber eyes fixed on me as if to say, You’re the one who invited him, remember?
I sighed and turned back to the counter, whisking the pancake batter one more time. My hands moved on autopilot, trying to make the morning feel normal, like I wasn’t waiting for a man I barely understood to walk through that door.
We agreed to keep things quiet. I’d repeated that to myself more times than I could count.
Just between us. No strings, no gossip. But pretending it was only about sex stopped working weeks ago.
The way he touched me, the way he listened, the way my chest ached when he left—it wasn’t casual anymore.
And that terrified me.
I poured a small circle of batter onto the hot griddle and watched it bubble, pretending that all I wanted was to talk about logistics—how we’d keep things private, how often we’d see each other, maybe even when it should end.
But even as I rehearsed those words in my head, they didn’t sound right because I didn’t want it to end.
I just didn’t know how to hold on without losing myself in him.
Sunny’s ears shot up. My heart gave a hard, useless thud.
He was here.
I caught my reflection in the window—hair a bit mussed, an apron I’d never bothered wearing before, a nervous tilt to my shoulders that gave me away. I pressed a hand against my stomach, drawing a slow breath.
“Okay,” I whispered to myself. “Just talk.”
Sunny gave a small bark, tail wagging now. I managed a shaky smile and turned down the burner.
For all the noise I’d made convincing myself I was ready for this, the truth was simpler and much harder to swallow.
I wasn’t ready at all.
I forced myself to breathe. He was right on time, of course. Sawyer wasn’t the type of guy who ever ran late for anything—meetings, missions, or messy half-defined relationships.
A single knock came before the door creaked open. He stepped inside like he’d been doing it for years, that easy confidence both irritating and disarming.
“Morning,” he said, voice still rough from sleep.
And there they were—wildflowers in his hand. A small bunch, uneven stems, petals bent from being clutched too tightly. A few still had specks of dirt clinging to the roots.
He caught my look and gave a crooked grin. “Fence row outside Lucky Ranch. Thought they’d brighten the place up.”
For a second, I just stared at him. He could buy a florist shop if he wanted to, but he’d stopped on the side of a road to pick flowers for me. It shouldn’t have meant anything, but somehow it did.
Before I could think of a response, Sunny trotted over, tail wagging like she’d just seen her favorite person in the world. Sawyer crouched and rubbed behind her ears, his voice softening.
“There’s my girl,” he murmured, like it was a secret between them.
The sight hit me square in the chest. That same man—an ex-SEAL, a millionaire who still smelled faintly of horse feed and hay—was kneeling on my kitchen floor to greet my dog as if she were family.
I didn’t know what to make of him. He was contradiction layered over contradiction.
Strength wrapped around patience, danger threaded with tenderness.
And standing there with his rough hands full of wildflowers, I wasn’t sure which version of him scared me more—the one the world saw, or the one I had fallen for.
I slid the last pancake from the griddle onto a plate and tried to act like my heart wasn’t doing jumping jacks. “You didn’t have to bring anything,” I said, setting the plate between us on the small kitchen table. “We said we’d just talk.”
“Can’t show up empty-handed.” He was still crouched beside Sunny, running his hand down her back in slow strokes that made her lean into him. “Military etiquette.”
I arched a brow. “I thought you left the military part behind.”
He rose, the corner of his mouth lifting. “You can take the man out of it,” he murmured, “but some habits stick.”
I took the flowers from his hand and carefully arranged them in a glass tumbler. Then I busied myself pouring coffee, mostly so I wouldn’t have to watch the way the morning light caught the edges of his jaw. “So, manners and discipline—good to know.”
He accepted the mug from me, our fingers brushing for half a second too long. “And punctuality,” he added, eyes glinting with amusement.
For a moment, the air between us loosened.
We ate in a quiet expectant silence—forks scraping plates, crispy bacon crunching as we ate, the rhythmic thump of Sunny’s tail against the floor.
The sun slanted through the kitchen window, casting a warm glow on him that made the moment feel almost… domestic.
Too domestic.
It hit me how natural it all felt—how wrong that was for two people still calling whatever this was private. I told myself I was imagining it, that the silence was comfortable, but it wasn’t. It was full.
Sawyer glanced up from his plate, his gaze steady. We both knew why he was here; it had nothing to do with breakfast.
The word “talk” hung between us like a live wire that neither of us wanted to touch first.
Sawyer was the first to break the silence. He set his fork down and leaned back in the chair, eyes still on me. “So,” he said casually, “how’d it go with your doctor? You get the prescription?”
The question landed harder than he probably meant it to. I smoothed my apron with shaky hands. “He got called out to deliver a baby,” I said, keeping my tone light. “I had to reschedule.”
His mouth twitched, almost a smile. “So no prescription yet?”
I shook my head and focused on cutting another bite of pancake I had no intention of eating.
He crossed his arms, the movement easy and deliberate, a faint grin tugging at one corner of his mouth. “Guess that means we’re on pause for the bareback rides then.”
I nearly choked on my coffee. “I guess so.”
He laughed quietly, that deep, rumbling sound that always did things to my pulse. But the look in his eyes told me he wasn’t completely joking.
“Just saying,” he murmured, voice dropping low, “next time, I’d rather not need a barrier between us.”
I froze, the coffee cup still halfway to my lips. He said it like it was nothing. But it wasn’t nothing—not to me.
That kind of closeness wasn’t what scared me—I was the one who’d brought it up first and started thinking about what it would be like without anything between us.
What scared me was what it meant now. Somewhere between the jokes and the heat, it had stopped being just physical.
And if I wasn’t careful, I was going to want more from him than he could give.
I set my cup down and managed a weak laugh. “You don’t quit, do you?”
He smiled, slow and steady. “Not my style.”
The warmth in his voice tangled with the warning bells in my head. I told myself I’d think about it later, that we’d keep things simple, keep them safe.
But deep down, I knew there was no going back to simple.
I drew in a shaky breath, tracing the rim of my coffee cup with my thumb. “It’s not just the prescription,” I admitted quietly. “I’m… late.”
Sawyer’s chair creaked as he leaned forward, the easy humor draining from his face. “How late?”
“A few weeks,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “Could be stress, could be nothing—but I can’t stop thinking about it. I already took one test, and it was negative.”
He was silent for a moment, eyes steady on mine. Then he nodded once, slow and sure.
“Let’s do another one. We’ll go get it right now.”
I blinked. “What?”
“Finish your coffee,” he said, pushing his chair back. “We’ll drive to town.”
I shook my head, trying to laugh it off. “I can do it myself.”
“Not the point.” His gaze found mine—calm, certain, unflinching. “I’ll drive. You shouldn’t have to overthink it alone.”
That single word—alone—landed somewhere I didn’t expect it to. The steadiness in his voice made my chest clench. He was so sure, so composed, like he could fix anything if he just followed a plan.
That’s what he does, I thought. Takes charge. Stays calm. Like everything in life is a mission with a checklist.
But this wasn’t a mission. This was me—my life, my body, my mess of feelings.
I searched his face, waiting for some trace of judgment, a flicker of panic, anything that would prove he wasn’t made of stone. But there wasn’t any. I was beginning to recognize that quiet resolve as the truest part of him.
And maybe that was what scared me most—that he was already standing still when everything in me wanted to run.
We cleaned up in near silence that hummed with too many thoughts and not enough words. The clink of plates and the splash of water filled the kitchen while Sunny padded between us, her nails ticking softly against the floor. Every so often, she nudged Sawyer’s leg for attention.
He reached down and gave her a slow scratch behind the ears. “Good girl,” he murmured, and I couldn’t help but smile.
It was such a simple thing—washing dishes side by side, his shoulder brushing mine now and then—but it struck me that this was the first time we’d done anything remotely ordinary together.
No hiding, no pretending, no rush to part ways before dawn.
Just the rhythm of two people moving around the same small space like they belonged there.
The thought scared me more than I wanted to admit.
When I turned to wipe the counter, Sawyer’s gaze met mine. “You’re shaking.”
“I’m fine,” I lied, focusing on a spot that didn’t need cleaning.
“Lilly.” His voice softened but stayed steady, that tone that made people listen. “Whatever it says, we’ll deal with it.”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. The word we did things to me I wasn’t ready to face.
He didn’t press. Just dried his hands, grabbed his keys from the table, and crossed to the door. “You ready?”
I looked down at my hands—sure enough, they were trembling—and then at Sunny. She tilted her head, eyes steady and trusting, like she somehow understood what I couldn’t say out loud.
Finally, I nodded. “Yeah. Let’s go.”
He opened the door and waited while I locked up behind us. The morning light spilled across the porch, bright and blinding, the air thick with all the words we hadn’t said.
By the time we reached the truck, my nerves were a tangle of what-ifs. Sawyer didn’t say much, and maybe that was better. Because if I really were pregnant, no amount of his calm could steady me for what came next.