Chapter 28
an immaculate conception
Hannah
“What are you kids up to tonight?” Mom asks as she rummages her purse for her keys.
The clouds from earlier have evaporated since dusk has moved in, making it an idyllic Colorado summer night.
Artie, Cecil, and Tom give us an over the shoulder wave before Rowan and I look at each other. We exchange a bemused shoulder shrug.
My gaze lands back on Mom and the dress that’s actively drowning her withering frame. She knows it doesn’t fit. But wasting money on a new wardrobe when she won’t be around next summer to enjoy it is pointless, she’s told me. I hate it here.
Rowan jostles my hand, a signal to check my expression. “Not sure,” he says.
I attempt a smile. “Where are you headed, Mom?”
“Ahhh, found ‘em,” she declares, revealing her keys. “I’ve got dinner plans with Richard.”
Right. Doctor Adelson; my mom’s…boyfriend? Or are they, like, casual? Gross.
“Okay, well, have fun.” Smile when you say it, Hannah.
Mom gives me a quick peck on the cheek. “That goes for you too, sweetheart.” She points a key at Rowan, mouth tipped up in a tease. “Rowan, I expect her home by midnight.”
He chuckles, tips his ball cap. “Yes, ma’am.”
Together, we watch Mom’s brake lights as she turns onto the main road.
“You heard the woman,” he announces. I turn to find him grinning down at me. “Fun. So what’ll it be?”
I purse my lips in thought and cast a glance around the parking lot until I spot something in the distance. A Ferris wheel.
The annual Boulder County Carnival. I forgot it was running this weekend. A cheshire grin spreads across my face.
Rowan tracks my eyes. “I don’t do dunk tanks,” he warns.
“I don’t do haunted houses.”
He takes one slow, sauntering step and then another, gaze fixed on me as he closes the distance between us.
I fight to hide the way my breath catches when he dips his head.
His lips are a millimeter from mine when he pauses, hovers so close I can feel the scratch of his beard on my chin.
A hand grazes my hip, coils around my waist to my back and then…
Creak.
The passenger door to his truck swings open behind me and he steps back, leaving me breathless, flushed, and annoyed as hell.
I scoff and glare at the same time. He pops a dimple I want to scrape right off that smug face of his. Correction: I want to eat that dimple right off his face.
“The night is young, Hannah James. Get in.”
The air smells like hot asphalt, buttered corn, and cotton candy. Carnival music rings through the crowd, split amongst the shrieks of happy children and the sound of spinning gears and clanging metal.
“What first?” Rowan asks.
“Funnel cakes, obviously.”
“Obviously.”
I order my wagon-wheel-sized plate of billowy, sugary goodness while my soldier orders a turkey leg the size of his head.
We wander the wide paths sliced between rows of food vendors and carnival games, stuffing our faces as we hatch a plan for the rides we want to tackle.
A sudden tug on my waist jerks me from the path of a group of rowdy teenage boys. “Eyes up,” Rowan commands, the crook of his smile matching the crook of his finger still wedged in the belt loop of my shorts.
I chuckle and return to my funnel cake, licking the powdered sugar off my fingers before going in for another bite.
Another belt loop tug a moment later as a mother pushing a double stroller squeezes past us. In my defense, it’s hard to walk and consume funnel cake at the same time.
“Would you marry that funnel cake if it had a pulse?”
“Funnel cake is only available to me this one weekend a year, Rowan. Let me live, dammit.”
He trashes his turkey bone and uses a napkin to wipe away the grease around his mouth. Rowan stares down at the funnel cake carnage on my plate, watching in amusement until I’m finished. I suck my thumb clean one final time with a loud slurp and toss the plate into the bin.
I scan the nearest attractions. “Should we do the bumper cars first?”
“Nope, come here.” He pulls me across the busy path to a vintage photo booth tucked between two food trailers.
Slipping inside, Rowan slides the curtain shut behind us. He lowers to the tiny bench seat and plops me into his lap. I tap through the setup screen until the countdown begins.
5…4…
I scrunch his face between my palms.
3…2…
He crosses his eyes at the camera.
1…
I stick out my tongue.
Snap!
I shift a little on his thigh to reset before the countdown begins again.
5…4…
I flip a set of bunny ears behind his head.
3…2…
He squeezes our cheeks together, flashing a smile that’s all teeth.
1…
Two fingers tickle along my ribs and I jolt, shrieking in laughter.
Snap!
I slap him across the arm as we reset.
5…4…
His eyes turn molten when I remove his hat and put it on myself.
3…2…
My lips find his ear in a whisper. “Camera’s that way, soldier.” I turn his face toward the lens.
1…
I smile at the camera, but he swivels at the last minute and presses his lips hard against my cheek. My face scrunches at the unexpected contact.
Snap!
He pulls back. I avoid his eyes to catch my breath. I want him to kiss me so badly.
5…4…
I inhale deeply, settling the flutters in my belly.
3…2…
He angles my body with two hands on my waist until his head finds the crook of my neck. I wrap one arm around him and run my fingers through his hair, the other cradles his jaw.
1…
“That kiss doesn’t count either,” I murmur.
Rowan breathes me in, his lips grazing my collarbone as I rest my cheek on his temple. Arms wrapped around me like I might float away if he lets go, he doesn’t look at the camera. Neither do I. We both smile anyway.
Snap!
For the next two hours, we bounce between rides and eating our weight in grease and sugar.
Rowan said he doesn’t do dunk tanks, but I somehow convince him to do the log ride.
We stumble out of the exit, drenched from head to toe.
I tug my wet V-neck from my body and shake some of the water away.
Rowan’s hair drips from where it curls out from under his hat, hungry stare directed right at me.
His attention is a blaze of fire raking over my body. The wet hair stuck to my forehead I sweep away with the back of my hand. The shirt clinging to my stomach. The water droplets cascading down my legs from the frayed edges of my denim cutoffs.
A group of kids crying out for money from their parents interrupts the moment, abruptly ending his perusal. I force a small chuckle as the tiny humans whizz past us toward the games. Otherwise known as the money pit by which these carnivals stay afloat.
Rowan coughs once, clears his throat. “Let’s play,” he rasps. Then he grabs my hand and pulls me into the crowd.
He vehemently opposes my desire to win a goldfish.
“What the hell are you gonna do with a fish?”
I pull some damp cash out of my back pocket. “I’ll give it a nice home for the three days it lives and then I’ll move on with my life. It’s not that deep. It’s the thrill of winning, okay?”
He shoves my hand away when I hold out a five dollar bill for the game attendant, passing over his own money instead.
It’s about the seventeenth time he’s done that tonight, and I’ve lost the will to fight him on it.
I’m also just a girl standing in front of a boy who insists on paying for everything, and he’s gorgeous and big and strong and sweet and…
well, feminism kind of loses its luster around him.
I walk away sans goldfish, and Rowan loses fifteen dollars in the process.
“My turn to pick,” he declares, curiously eyeing the plethora of options until he strikes gold. “That one.”
Rowan drags me behind him until we’re standing at a table in front of a wall of bullseye targets.
“Ten dollars for seven shots,” the young carnival worker explains.
Holding a long wand, he points to the stuffed animals framing the booth.
“Three bullseye hits gets you something from this section. Five gets you a medium prize. Hit all seven and you win one of these,” he finishes, slapping his pointer to the colossal stuffed animals clipped to a wire overhead.
Calm and unfazed, Rowan hands over the cash in exchange for a pellet gun loaded with seven rubber pellets.
He turns the toy weapon over in his hands.
With expert precision, he folds his left palm around the grip and places his right hand on top, tucking his pointer around the trigger.
His face is stoic, fully focused as he positions the gun just right.
His determined eyes lift to mine from under the brim of his hat. “Pick a prize, runaway.”
I bite my lip against the wave of butterflies in my chest. Dipping my head side to side, I pretend to consider my options for a second. “The life-sized teddy bear, obviously.”
“Obviously,” he parries, stepping closer. “A little space?”
A snort bursts out of me. He pops a brow in answer. And, because I’m a brat, I clap my hands loudly and spin around, shouting like a circus ringleader. “Alright, people! Out of his way, out of his way. Give the man some space! History is about to be made!”
I whirl on him with a dramatic bow. He glares at me, tugs his hat a little lower, but I spy a hint of a smile there.
“Cute,” he quips, pretending not to notice the small crowd I’ve assembled for him.
He takes in a single breath before lifting the gun to take aim. The corded muscles of his forearms flex through the dark colorful ink of his tattoos. My cheeks flood with heat. I take a step back to give him the space he asked for, but also to breathe.
Not only does my big soldier man hit seven bullseyes. He hits seven bullseyes in under five seconds.
I think I just fell pregnant. A modern day immaculate conception.
For Rowan, it’s another day at the office. He sets the gun on the table and directs the attendant to collect my prize. If he notices the stares and audible gasps from the group of onlookers, he does a good job of hiding it.
Before the attendant can hand over the bear, a young boy breaks out from the crowd and runs to Rowan’s side. He can’t be a day over seven. Tugging on the hem of Rowan’s shirt, the kid looks up at him with awestruck eyes.
The moment Rowan turns his attention on him, the boy takes two steps back. He sloppily claps his feet together and pins his hand to his forehead in a soldier’s salute.
Rowan quirks a grin, steels his spine, and gives him a return salute.
My heart somersaults down to my stomach and back up my throat. This just in: Surprise! It’s twins. In my womb, it’s twins.
“At ease, little man,” the big guy says.
The boy points to Rowan’s hat where the word ARMY is embroidered boldly across the front. “Do you know my daddy?”
“Micah!” a woman shouts from behind us. “You can’t take off like that.” With a toddler on her hip, she runs to her son and looks to Rowan apologetically. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s no problem, ma’am.”
“Mama, look. He’s in the army too. I think he might know daddy.”
She gives her son an appeasing look the way only moms can. “Maybe.”
The kid, unironically, soldiers on. “His name is Sergeant Aidan Sherwood and he’s in guitar.”
His mom chuckles. “Not guitar, baby. It’s Qatar.”
Micah scrunches his nose. “That’s what I said. Do you know him?”
Rowan runs a thoughtful hand over his chin.
“Sergeant Aidan Sherwood, you say. You know what, I think I do.” The boy’s eyes go wide again.
Rowan winks conspiratorially at Micah’s mom, then crouches down to his level.
“Yeah, he and I met once. It was a long time ago so he probably won’t remember me, but I definitely remember him.
He was so brave. Like, the strongest, bravest soldier I’ve ever met. You’re really lucky he’s your dad.”
The woman preens down at her son, matching his bug eyes like she just can’t believe it either.
“He’s been gone a long time, but my mom says he gets to come home in two weeks.”
Rowan looks up to the woman who nods in confirmation, eyes glassy.
His gaze drifts from her to the little girl in her arms then back to Micah.
Nobody else may see it, but I notice as the memories of his own childhood flood his mind.
Watching his dad leave time after time, returning many months later only to turn around and leave again.
Until the final deployment when he never made it home.
He swallows hard. “Two weeks is gonna fly like that,” he says with a snap of his fingers. “Will you tell him Army Ranger Staff Sergeant Rowan Shaw says hello? He’ll know what it means.”
The mom grins knowingly, bouncing the baby higher on her hip. Micah nods in delight.
“What do you think, Micah?” Rowan asks, looking over at the stuffed animals. “Which one’s your favorite?”
After many, many, long seconds of deep consideration, Micah settles on the Bluey stuffy twice his size. The attendant swaps out my bear for the blue Australian Heeler.
Rowan hands it over to the boy. “Here ya go, kid.”
Micah and his family amble off a moment later. He avoids my gaze while he digs out his wallet.
“Don’t say a word.”
“A word about what? About how precious and adorable and sexy”—his eyes flit to mine, curious—“and incredibly kind that was?”
He shakes off the compliment and pulls out another ten dollar bill.
Laughing, I grab his forearm. “Seriously, I don’t need the bear.”
“I promised you the bear.” The attendant takes the cash. Rowan flips his hat around. “I’m getting you the damn bear. You can just stare at my arms like you did before and thank me for the show later.”
Rowan plants his oversized man hand in the center of my face and shoves me behind him, efficiently cutting off my snarky retort.
Five seconds and seven bullseyes later, we’re headed back to the truck, my stuffed bear in one hand and the man I’m rapidly falling for in the other.