Chapter 19
Zane
I’m feeding Shadow in the barn when Cash calls in the late afternoon.
“Good news,” he says. “The guy hasn’t left the island yet. Bad news is, it seems like he might be planning to.”
“What did your contact find?”
“He’s selling off some computer equipment. Probably to get some ready cash. Rumour has it that most of his assets are tied up in crypto. He’s dangerous, Zane. People on the island steer clear of him. There was some relief at the idea that he might be moving.”
“Any way to keep eyes on him so we know if he does leave?”
“Yeah, that’s doable. It’s a nice place to spend a few days, that’s what my buddy says. He’ll hang out and make friends.”
I can only imagine what that means. “Thanks.” My knuckles tighten around my phone. “I mean it, Cash, I really fucking appreciate this. It’s going to buy Hope a good night’s sleep or two.”
“I should have her car fixed up day after tomorrow, too. You think I could drive it out to the ranch?”
I have a better idea. “I think we’ll come pick it up. As long as you can reassure her that he’s nowhere near Dragonfly Creek, I think she’d like to pick it up herself.”
Giving Hope a taste of normal life in town might go a long way to showing her that while how we found each other was chaotic and irregular, from this point forward we’ll get to know each other in more ordinary ways.
But that depends on an unhinged man not moving too quickly. I’ll wait and see how the next thirty-six hours go before asking her on a date. I do, however, pull her aside to let her know that Derek’s been sighted on his homestead.
“Are you serious?” She stares at me. Then she leaps into my arms.
I catch her and spin her around. “You can sleep easy tonight,” I promise her.
The way she dances away should be studied, it’s so light and happy.
That night, I finish the dishes while Hope gets Bellamy through her bath routine. I can hear them faintly from upstairs, Hope’s voice low and singsong, Bellamy’s answering giggles, the splash of water. Sounds I didn’t know were missing from this house until right now.
Ridge drifts through to grab some leftovers.
He paces a bit as I put the last few dishes away. “What?”
I don’t know why I ask. I know what his concern is, and he’s not going to verbalize it anyway.
As expected, he just shrugs. “Nothing.”
“I know what I’m doing.”
That goads him a bit. His jaw flexes. “This sure has escalated quickly.”
“Life comes at you fast sometimes.”
“She’s younger than you.”
“I know. Just like Mom was. But I’m not him. You aren’t either, by the way.”
He grunts.
One day, I’ll tell him about Hope’s fear that I might not want another man’s baby, a violent man’s baby.
I can’t share that yet. It’s not my secret to tell.
But one day, I’ll tell my older brother that he’s just as good, deep inside, as that innocent baby is. That because I love him, I know I’ll love that baby, too.
Tonight is not that day, though.
“Night, Ridge.” Get out, buddy. I have a woman to tuck in.
“Yeah.” He puffs out his cheeks. “Lock up tight.”
I follow him to the door, and do exactly that. I triple check every door and window. Downstairs, I grab my pillow and a blanket. And then I slowly climb the stairs. Following Hope up to the second floor is its own kind of heady joy. It feels like a promise of things to come, later.
Luna’s been in her studio since dinner, and her door is closed, a sure sign she’s deep into something and won’t surface until morning.
Hope waves to me from the doorway of the bathroom, her hair damp from her own shower, and the sight of her steals the breath right out of my lungs.
Her feet are bare, and she’s in new hand-me-downs tonight.
My old basketball shorts, and a t-shirt that I think Dax rejected for being too small for him.
It hangs off her shoulders and disguises her body.
“Hi,” she whispers.
“Hi yourself.”
She glances at the blanket in my hand. “Can we—is there somewhere we can…” Her cheeks go pink. “I don’t know what I’m asking.”
But I do.
I wish I could just take her to my bed. Not for any of the long list of things I’d like to do together later, just to sleep tonight, and hold her close.
But she won’t sleep away from Bellamy, and I wouldn’t ask her to.
I point to my brother’s unused room across the hall from hers. “Dax has a TV and a couch. It’s not as cozy as the den, but I think we can make it something special tonight.”
I’m already rearranging the rooms in the house. Dax can have the basement. We can have the second floor.
Hell, maybe I’ll make that change tomorrow.
Tonight I’ll sleep on his couch so I’m across the hall from her. I should have thought of that sooner.
But once we step inside, I remember why it wouldn’t have occurred to me earlier. It’s the most basic rodeo bro room imaginable, and it smells vaguely of Axe body spray.
“Could be worse,” I mutter. “But it could be better.”
“It’s fine,” she whispers as she curls up on the oversized leather loveseat that my brother squeezed into the window nook so he could play video games on the big screen across the room.
I wrap my blanket around her, very aware of her tucking her bare legs into it.
“I like you better in my shirt,” I murmur as I tug on the sleeve of the tee she’s wearing tonight.
She plucks the shirt away from her body. “Whose was this?”
“Not sure. Maybe Dax’s.” I have to swallow back the possessive suggestion that I want her to take it off. I’ll give her the shirt off my back instead. But we’re not anywhere near taking our clothes off together, not even to put different ones back on.
So I settle for sitting next to her and tugging her into my side and wrapping my fingers around her bare arm.
“Come here, City Girl,” I say softly.
She comes, and folds herself in against my side, tucking her legs up, pressing her cheek to my chest. Her hand rests lightly on my stomach and I have to close my eyes for a second because of what it does to me.
“Is this okay?” she whispers.
I press my lips to the top of her head. “This is the best I’ve felt in a long time.”
“Me too.” She exhales, and I feel her whole body unspool against mine. “I didn’t know I could feel like this.”
Something twists hard in my chest.
I pull the blanket up around her. “Then let’s just enjoy it.”
She smiles and closes her eyes.
“Sleep if you want,” I murmur. “I’ll wake you before it gets too late.”
“Just for a minute,” she mumbles into my shirt. “Just—”
She’s out before she finishes the sentence.
I sit there with the most beautiful woman in the world asleep against my chest, and I don’t reach for my phone. I don’t turn on the TV. I don’t do anything to disturb the miracle of her trusting me enough to fall asleep in my arms.
She must have been so fucking tired.
No shit. She’s pregnant.
The reminder feels like a tackle out of nowhere, not that I forgot, of course. But more like the detail has been waiting all day for a moment of stillness to bowl me over with shock again.
Because I cannot fathom how fucked up someone would have to be to be angry about that fact.
He attacked her. Punched or kicked her in the fucking stomach.
She was right to run. And she’s fucking brave to fall asleep on me right now. But she also needs this sleep desperately.
I brush a strand of hair off her cheek, and she doesn’t move a muscle.
“Gonna give you my name, Hope,” I murmur. “Can’t believe I didn’t know you a week ago, and here you are, turning me inside out with how much I want to keep you safe and make you mine.”
I think about the gossips in town, and some options for overwriting their first impressions of Hope. I hate to think of her feeling uncomfortable because of that chatter.
I think about Bellamy going to school in town in a year or two. Growing up and going to the high school where I found myself an outsider when I moved here.
For years, I wanted to come back here to pummel those who made fun of us, to make them respect us.
Now I know how fucking happy I can be without a care in the world for their opinions.
I want to raise Bellamy to be as strong as it took me thirty-two years to be.
Hope squirms a little against me.
“You’re okay.” I kiss the top of her head.
She settles down again.
I don’t need to send her to bed just yet, I tell myself. We can stay like this a little longer.
And then I close my eyes for what I swear is only a second.
I wake up because something warm is pressed against my throat.
For a brief, confused moment, I don’t know where I am. The light is wrong, a cool grey wash on the ceiling, not long shadows anymore. My neck has a crick in it from the arm of the couch. And there’s a weight across my chest that has no business being there.
Then it all comes back, and I can’t be mad about what’s happened.
I don’t open my eyes all the way. I let them slit open just enough to take stock, and what I see nearly ruins me.
Hope is draped half across me. Sometime in the night we slid sideways, and now I’m stretched along the length of the couch with my back against the cushions and she’s tucked in front of me, my arms wrapped tight around her.
And my bottom hand is splayed low across her belly, under her shirt, against the warm, bare skin just below her navel.
I would never have put it there awake. But my sleeping self knew exactly where it wanted to be, and it found her, and it stayed.
Don’t move.
It’s not quite dawn—maybe five, maybe a little after. The house is silent, and I’m listening for something, anything, a sign that I have to wake Hope up and break this perfect spell. Across the hall, Bellamy isn’t moving yet. Luna won’t be up for a while.
Greedily, I memorize every soft, warm point of contact, because I want to remember this for the rest of my life.
Her hair, tangled, tucked under my chin. I can smell her shampoo and underneath it, just her, warm and clean.
Her back, flush against my chest, rising and falling with my breathing, because somewhere in the night our rhythms synced.
Her ass cradles my morning wood, and I’m sure she’d be mortified if she realized how firmly she’s wedged herself in here, as if on a subconscious level she knows she belongs in this carved-out space in front of my body.
And in front of her, my hand, possessively holding her and the child inside.
I close my eyes again.
Her belly is so flat under my palm. There’s nothing there yet to feel, no swell, no kick, nothing. But I know. And my hand knows. And somewhere in the night, my sleeping self made a decision on behalf of my waking self, and there’s no taking it back now.
Mine.
Her. The baby. Bellamy. Mine to stand between them and the world. Mine to keep safe. Mine to wake up to, if she’ll let me.
She stirs. She goes still. I can feel her waking up, can feel her taking her own inventory the way I just did. Feeling where she ends and I begin, thick and aching for her.
Her breathing changes. Quickens, just a little.
I don’t pretend to still be asleep. And I don’t move my hand on her belly, either. “It’s early,” I murmur, my voice rough with sleep. “Seems we fell asleep. Nobody else is up yet.”
“I didn’t mean to…” She sighs and relaxes into my arms. “This is nice, though.”
I nuzzle the side of her head.
She giggles softly. “Your moustache does tickle early in the morning, it turns out.”
“Really?” With my free hand, I brush her hair off the back of her neck so I can test that theory in more detail.
She squirms and laughs in my arms as I kiss down to her shoulder.
“Good to know,” I murmur. “I like making you laugh.”
She huffs, and my chest shakes silently against her back. And I think this. This is everything.
I know I should move.
I don’t.
“Hope.”
“Mm.”
“Bellamy’s going to wake up soon.”
“I know.”
Neither of us moves.
Her thumb strokes the side of my hand. A tiny, deliberate, decisive movement.
“Five more minutes,” she whispers.
And I was wrong, because that is actually everything.