Chapter 24 #2
Dove coughed. There was no way Jack could’ve known. She hadn’t even told Trent yet, and she’d only confirmed it with the doctor yesterday.
Trent cleared his throat. "On that note.” He dropped his feet from the railing and sat forward.
He looked at her in the way he looked at her when it was just the two of them and the rest of the world had stopped being relevant.
"I've been trying to figure out the right time to do this for a week,” he said.
"But I've come to understand that with you, there isn't a right time.
There's just—now, or not yet, and I'm done with not yet. "
Dove stared at him with her heart in her throat.
He reached into his pocket.
Her mother made a sound.
“What are you doing?” Dove asked.
“I’m getting to that.” He held up one hand.
"I've spent most of my life believing that the things worth having were the things I'd already fought for.
This land. These animals. The people in this town who know me well enough and still like me anyway.
" He took her hand. "Then you showed up and hated my moat, and argued with everything I said, and somehow that turned into the best thing that ever happened to me. "
"I didn't hate the moat," she said.
"You called it a ditch with ambition."
"That isn't a lie."
“I’m not having that conversation again—not when I’m trying to ask you if you’ll marry me?"
The ring sat in his palm—simple, nothing like what she would have picked out for herself and somehow exactly right.
Her mother made the sound again, louder.
Her father put down his beer.
Jack was very still at the end of the dock, watching his son with an expression that had nothing restrained about it at all.
"Yes," Dove said. "Obviously, yes."
Trent exhaled. Like he'd been holding that breath longer than just tonight, longer than just this month—like he'd been holding it for the entire wild, impossible run of this last month and had finally found somewhere safe to let it go.
He slid the ring onto her finger, stood and pulled her up with him. He cupped her chin. “I love you,” he whispered.
“I love you, too.”
He kissed her, slow and gentle. It wasn’t long, but it was passionate.
Her mother jumped out of her chair. “Oh, my God.” She practically shoved Trent out of the way. “I’m sorry. I honestly never thought I’d see this day.” She hugged Dove so hard, she couldn’t breathe.
Her dad took Trent's hand and Jack hung back for exactly two seconds before he put his arm around his son from the other side, and for a moment all five of them stood on the dock in the dark over the water with the stars glittering in the sky.
But Dove couldn’t let another day go by without telling Trent and since he proposed in front of the family, she might as well make this a family thing. “I have something I need to tell everyone, and it’s kind of a big deal.”
Trent took her hands. “Bigger than getting married?
She decided to just blurt it out. “I’m pregnant."
Trent's face went through approximately four separate expressions in the span of two seconds. Surprise, calculation, something that was trying to be composed and wasn't, and then something that was so far past composed…shock.
He reached behind him and lowered himself.
But there was nothing behind him, and Trent went backward off the dock and hit the water with a sound that sent every gator in the moat to the far bank.
"Trent." Dove was at the edge of the dock. "Trent."
His head came up. He was in about four feet of water, sitting on the bottom, staring up at her with hair and mud plastered across his forehead. He brushed it from his face. "You're pregnant," he said.
"Yes."
"We're having a baby."
"That's what pregnant means,” she said.
His father burst out laughing. Her father joined in.
Her mother cried. It was that happy cry, but there were still tears, and Dove had been making her mom cry since she graduated from high school.
Trent sat in the water for a few more seconds. He didn’t smile. He didn’t frown. Nothing. “Holy shit," he said.
“We need to watch our language,” her mother said. “Good practice for when the little one arrives.
Jack reached down and took Trent’s hand. “Let’s get you out of that water before a gator decides you’re dinner.”
Trent took his dad’s hand and jumped up on the dock, dripping, still wearing that expression, and Dove put her hands on either side of his face the way he'd done to her at least a hundred times.
"You okay?" she asked.
"I think so." His hands came up and covered hers. Warm, even soaking wet. "Yeah." He turned his face into her palm for a moment. "Yeah, I'm good."
"You fell in the water."
“Shock will do that to a man.” He smiled. "We're having a baby."
“We are,” she said.
"My mom was right about you." He kissed her hard, ignoring the fact that their parents were standing right there. And honestly, she didn’t care. There was a time and a place, and this was certainly the time.
Behind them, the Glades settled into its nighttime rhythm. Something moved in the moat and bellowed. Dolly, most likely, doing her slow circuit.
The stars held their position overhead, indifferent and endless.
Dove rested her head on Trent’s chest and closed her eyes.
Calusa Cove. Mallor's Landing. The ditch with ambition, and the man who'd named his alligators. The land that had started to feel, against all reasonable expectation, like the first place she'd ever chosen on purpose.
This was home.
Thank you for taking the time to read Shadows in Calusa Cove.