Chapter 18
Eighteen
AVERY
I got ready quickly, anxious to get out of the house. Despite the situation, I was starving. As a holdover from the first trimester, if I didn’t eat within an hour or so of waking up, I was sick. The clock was ticking.
And there were the suffocating walls of the house with me and Kane in it. The anger from last night was still there, a living, fire-breathing thing that had not been resolved nor addressed yet.
Because I wanted to give Kane privacy, I went downstairs to let him get ready after throwing on a cotton dress. I had never been a dress person, but I'd become one out of ease. Dressing a bump in a warm spring, approaching summer, I needed simple and breathability.
My hair was much longer now. Before, I’d had a standing appointment in New York, getting a trim every six weeks. Obviously, I couldn’t make that appointment anymore. And I didn’t have the energy to sit in a salon chair with a stranger while making idle conversation. Especially since a pregnant woman was a magnet for people wanting to converse with a stranger. It felt like I was a carnival game. In line at the supermarket, the doctor’s office, the gas station. Everyone wanted to know how far along I was, what the gender was, did I have a name. The questions were endless and infuriating.
At least the people of Jupiter, Maine didn’t seem to recognize me from the photos posted all over the media during Kane’s trial. Granted, I looked different being very pregnant, my face rounder than it was with the extra weight, my hair longer. I wasn’t unrecognizable, though. So people were either very polite, didn’t know who I was or didn’t care.
I didn’t mind any of the above as long as I was left alone.
Alone. Lonely, was a better term for it. Never in my life had I been so terribly, painfully lonely.
“You ready?”
I jumped from where I’d been standing at the window, watching the waves, contemplating.
Kane was in the arch separating the kitchen and living area.
His hair was still wet, curling around his neck. I marveled at the tattooed arms, stretching the sleeves of his black tee. They were larger, much larger than they had been before. They were crossed over a chest that was wider, broader. Even though the day was warm, he wore jeans, ripped at the knees, and Converse.
He seemed to be doing the same inspection of my outfit. Simple white cotton dress that should’ve gone below my knees but because of my stomach, it brushed mid-thigh, showing off legs that were now tanned from my endless strolling along the beach with Blanche.
Same with my face. I had freckles I’d never had before … which made sense since I had spent most of my days inside a kitchen without windows, blasted with artificial light. Because of all the extra blood flowing through my veins, it seemed my now rounder cheeks were always flushed with color. And that made my green eyes look brighter.
“You look different,” Kane said.
“Obviously,” I replied, gesturing to my stomach.
He shook his head. “Not that. Even though I couldn’t have known it until last night, you were born to walk around, heavy with my baby.”
My breath hitched at the casual yet possessive statement. One I shouldn’t have liked. I didn’t believe women were ‘born’ to be anything but whatever they wanted to be. They certainly weren’t born to be mothers. Unless they made that choice themselves.
But yet…
“It’s … something else,” Kane rubbed his jaw, looking at me with an inquisitive gaze. He opened his mouth. Closed it. Shook his head. “Let’s go,” he stated instead of saying whatever it was he was going to say.
Nodding, I pursed my lips to not let my disappointment show.
“After you,” he said when I stood there unmoving.
We’d gone from him uttering something profound, intimate, loving to bumbling about like strangers on a first date, unsure of how to act around each other.
I hated it.
Because we were worse than strangers, we were people who once knew each other intimately and now we were … something else.
I held my breath, keeping a wide berth as I brushed past him in the archway to get to the hall that connected to the front door. Regardless, I was somehow engulfed in the smell of him mixed with my soap.
I swallowed down the burn of my arousal, since Kane seemed to be doing the same to his. Yes, he’d been hungry for me last night, and there’d been the kiss in the kitchen, but all of that was now packed away, locked down.
Outside, I inhaled the morning air, the dampness from the storm still hanging around, leaving humidity heavy in the air.
Before all of this, I wasn’t someone who appreciated simple things like spring mornings after storms. I wasn’t someone who slowed down in order to appreciate things like that. Now I did reflexively, not by choice.
I’d felt like I was going insane my first few weeks there. Stuck in survival mode, I’d forced myself to meditate for ten minutes a day, even though I didn’t believe it would do a thing for me. Being pregnant meant I couldn’t self-medicate, so it was a last-ditch effort to slow my mind.
It hadn’t worked at all at first. But slowly, it helped quiet everything.
Yet with Kane back, things were loud.
I stopped on the porch, staring at his sleek, black motorcycle next to the SUV I bought after researching what was best for fuel economy, accommodating things like a car seat and a stroller along with Maine winters.
“Keys.”
Kane’s voice pervaded the quiet morning.
When I looked at him, he had his palm out open toward me.
“Excuse me?”
“Keys,” he repeated, tilting his head to my purse.
“We’re not taking the bike?”
Before, we never went anywhere unless it was on the back of Kane’s bike. Well, after his accident was a short exception, but he was back on before the doctors could approve.
Seeing it parked in my driveway sent a yearning through me. To be pressed against him, to feel the world speeding by.
“Are you fuckin’ kidding me?”
The harshness of the words snapped me back to Kane, ’who had pushed his glasses to the top of his head to regard me, even more pointedly, before lowering his ridiculously-wide eyes to my stomach.
“You’re eight months pregnant. You think I’m puttin’ you on the back of my bike, even courting the chance of somethin’ happening to you or the baby?”
I looked down at my stomach, having forgotten momentarily that I was pregnant. I’d gone back to life with Kane before the arrest, before the baby, when there were no worries, no barriers between us.
“Aren’t you supposedly the best rider in the world?” I joked, not intending on arguing the point, just desperate to sever the tension between us.
It didn’t work.
“I am the best in the world,” he growled. “But that doesn’t mean I’m stupid enough to put my baby at risk. Keys.”
The jovial man I knew was gone. An angry, bitter person standing in his place, palm outstretched.
I wordlessly gave them to him, striding to the car so he wouldn’t see my watery eyes. Not once in my past life had anything brought me close to tears. Yet I was on the edge of a full blown meltdown with Kane’s presence mingling with the pregnancy hormones.
Part of me wanted to spar with him, to give him the coldness I was so well-known for. But bigger parts of me were exhausted, hurt, confused and desperate for Kane. And the guilt… It weighed too heavily on me to fight back.
Though I thought I moved quickly, Kane made it to the passenger door first, opening it for me.
I kept my eyes down.
“Chef.”
Though I wanted to deny him any eye contact, feeling helpless, I looked up.
He was standing behind the door, hands resting on the top of it, gaze intent on me, glasses now down so I couldn’t read the expression in his eyes.
His body was tense, jaw hard.
I watched his head rear back as he read whatever emotion I was failing to hide on my face. The stern frown on his lips, visible below his glasses, softened.
“Chef.” His voice was inconceivably tender.
I ground down on my molars. All I wanted was this version of him, yet now that I’d been presented with it, I couldn’t handle it.
“We’ve got to go,” I snapped. “If I don’t eat within an hour, it makes me sick.”
Not a lie, but the coward’s way out.
Kane nodded slowly and looked like he was going to say something, but I climbed in the car. The second he got in the driver’s side, I leaned forward to turn the radio all the way up.
I was doing all I could to avoid conversation, to avoid him. Yet some small part of me wanted him to turn the radio off, to face me and talk.
But he didn’t.
Not for the whole drive.
Kane
I hurt her.
It was plain to see. The naked pain on her face.
Fuck, it almost took me to my knees.
That wasn’t Avery. She wore her strength like armor, an unbreakable expression on her face meant to tell the world that she couldn’t be hurt.
Even with me in the beginning, she wore that mask. Except when I was inside her, when she was alone with me. It was a gift she gave me, that vulnerability, that openness.
It was a crime, the worst I’d committed, to betray that.
That’s what was different about her. Not the sun-kissed skin I wanted to explore every inch of. Not the freckles on her face I found so fucking pretty it hurt. Not the stomach, round with my baby that pierced my fucking heart every time my eyes landed there. No, there was no more barrier. All of her defenses had been … shredded.
She was defeated. Lost.
I hadn’t seen it last night because I was wrapped up in my own fury. Fury that I thought she deserved. I knew now that not an ounce of blame laid on her doorstep, yet I’d brought it here.
And I couldn’t take it back. Couldn’t undo the hurt. Though I spent the short drive to ‘town’ racking my brain on how to.
Avery spoke only to give me curt directions to her bakery, turning the music up to almost ear-splitting volume once done.
She needed space. I decided to give it to her, though it went against all my instincts. I wanted to pull the car over, pull her onto my lap and kiss her until she looked like my Avery again. Until she melted for me.
I wanted to be inside her again, tell her how much I loved her. But that wouldn’t work, and not just because she was logistically too large right now to fit between me and the steering wheel.
“I get sick if I don’t eat within an hour of waking.”
Something related to the pregnancy, obviously. Another small example of how she’d changed, how I needed to take care of her. Another marker of just how much I’d missed.
I didn’t know what she craved, what made her sick, what hurt her. She’d mentioned heartburn and some other things, but I didn’t learn that myself.
My hands clenched against the steering wheel thinking about how much I’d been robbed of.
While I was plotting Brax’s death, I absently looked at the town we were driving through. I didn’t see much beyond the darkness and lights as the storm was rolling in yesterday. Plus, I didn’t have the capacity to appreciate the scenery as I was riding toward the woman I thought had abandoned me. I’d come for a confrontation, yeah. But also because I had nowhere else to go. After being stripped bare to show all the things I couldn’t escape while locked up, all I wanted was to go home. Even when I was furious with her, Avery was my home.
In the bright light of day, Jupiter, Maine was fucking charming. There was no other word for it. Right on the ocean, houses dotted sparsely on the coastline, all small, quaint, well maintained. The Main Street was lined with small, unique stores, not a Starbucks to be seen. Everything gleamed with fresh coats of paint, colorful flower boxes.
It was all so fucking wholesome.
Not at all where I thought I’d end up.
But my woman had bought a house there. My pregnant woman.
So that was where we’d be.
Avery
I had managed to pull myself together by the time we parked the car. Kane had somehow got a spot right out front, unheard of even at that relatively early hour. It was almost summertime, which I’d learned was the peak time for tourists to visit. But even when I arrived in the late winter, locals still swarmed to the bakery, all wanting fresh pastries and coffee.
Therefore, parking out front was typically all but impossible.
Unless you were Kane ‘The Devil” Rhodes, it seemed.
I almost jumped out of the car the second he put it in park, not wanting him to do the whole opening the door for me thing. Didn’t want to give him a chance to touch me, to look at me in that tender way. I almost sprinted to the entrance. Unfortunately, I could only manage a brisk walk in my condition, and even that was no match for Kane’s unhurried, long strides.
To my frustration, he made it to the entrance to the bakery first, opening the door for me. I didn’t look up at him.
I was sending all the messages that I wanted space, yet Kane did not give it to me. His hand rested on my lower back and stayed there as we walked into the bakery and lined up. My stomach was in knots. And it was also growling for pastries as the scent of bread, sugar and cinnamon perfumed the air.
Every morning it smelled slightly different, since every morning Nora, the owner of the bakery, would bake something dependent on her mood, or what she was craving at the time. Nora was warm, shy, pretty and friendly. She owned the bakery with her best friend Fiona, both of whom had tried to engage me in more than small talk, tried to befriend me and neither of them had seemed to give up, despite my not-so-subtle rebukes.
It was probably sensible to befriend people in what very well could be my new hometown, especially since both of them were mothers and likely knew more about babies than I did—which was exactly zero—but I didn’t have the strength. I couldn’t answer questions about my life before there. Couldn’t answer questions about my plans for after I had the baby.
Which was one of the many reasons I hadn’t even told my mother or sister about the pregnancy. For the very first time in my life, I’d stuck my head far into the sand of denial, and just now, it was being wrenched out.
I was mulling over all of this as we waited in line, doing my best to ignore Kane and his hand on me. He was looking around, seemingly casual, at ease, just as he had been in the past. But I caught the slight downturn of his lips, the tightness of his shoulders. He was on guard, tense. Whether it was because he was waiting for someone to recognize him, because it was the first time he’d been out of prison and in a public place for months or even if it was because of me, I couldn’t know.
“You the baby daddy?” was Fiona’s first question when Kane and I made it to the counter.
Fiona’s gaze was sharp, probing, wary and vaguely threatening. I’d never seen such an expression on the pretty Australian’s face. She was always warm, genuine, greeting me with a friendly smile. She looked at her husband with a much sweeter smile, one that made me want to look away from all the intimacy in it. Then she gazed at her daughter, who was always in her husband’s arms with utter adoration.
But I’d never seen the woman look even vaguely hostile.
Until now.
Now looking at Kane.
Clearly, she was not impressed with the muscles, the handsomeness. She wasn’t even intimidated by the new aura of coldness and danger that blanketed him. Nope.
She didn’t seem to look like she recognized him. And she hadn’t let on that she’d read any articles on who I was either. I’d been so sure that the entire world was closing in on me that I forgot there were plenty of people just living their lives, too busy to get caught up in tabloid scandals.
Thank God. I needed anonymity.
Kane, on the other hand, seemed to be … surprised at the blatant hostility without any room allowing for his fame. His face went blank, eyes a little wide before he recovered.
Kane’s arm was tight around my waist.
“Yeah, I’m the baby daddy.” Kane recovered quickly, meeting Fiona’s stare with an easy smile.
She tilted her head, not anywhere near charmed by the megawatt smile. “And you’ve been where the past four months?”
My body stiffened, and I opened my mouth to cut in, if only to avoid the drama of the situation, and my stomach was actually rumbling.
“Babe,” a low voice interrupted Fiona’s interrogation.
I hadn’t noticed Kip rounding the counter until he was grabbing his wife and laying a kiss on her.
I’d never seen Kip without a backward baseball cap on, sandy-blond hair escaping from it. He was in paint-stained clothing most of the time or a tee sporting the logo of the construction company he owned. He was ridiculously handsome, tanned and had crinkles at the edges of his eyes that reminded me of Kane.
Though the logical part of me felt happy to see two obviously good people in the kind of love I didn’t think existed, it had been extremely hard to look at it. I’d averted my eyes and ignored the burn in the throat that had nothing to do with pregnancy heartburn.
Right then, with Kane at my side, it felt infinitely more uncomfortable. He was there. But he wasn’t. We were in front of two people who seemed utterly in love without complication or pain, and it made our issues all the more heartbreaking.
Kane was watching the two people essentially making out in front of us.
It was important to note that Kip had their baby, June, strapped to him in a baby carrier, and she appeared to be sleeping.
He let his wife go, but not before gently tucking her blonde hair behind her ear in an exceedingly touching gesture that somehow felt more intimate and precious than the make out session from moments ago.
Kip turned to acknowledge me with an easy smile. “Avery,” he winked. “Looking absolutely beautiful. Glowing, in fact. You better take me up on building your crib and installing the car seat; I’m practically an expert now.”
I wanted to smile, I really did, but it felt traitorous with the man at my side.
The man who Kip had just noticed, his smile freezing and his blue eyes going wide.
“Holy fuck, you’re Kane Rhodes,” Kip exclaimed, hands on the bottom of the baby in the carrier. He spoke loudly, almost yelled, yet the baby didn’t so much as twitch.
“Dude, I’m a huge fan. Huge .” He leaned over, presumably to shake Kane’s hand, but Fiona grabbed onto her husband’s wrist.
“Uh-uh,” she tsked. “We are not huge fans. Not of men who abandon their pregnant women for months at a time.” Her tone was hostile yet coated with a protectiveness that made me feel warm.
It was all so strange. We weren’t’ friends, I’d made sure of that. But there she was, nostrils flaring and seemingly ready to go to battle for me.
Kip’s demeanor instantly changed, looking stricken. I didn’t know the man well enough to decipher the subtleties of his expression, but he looked almost hurt.
He looked down at his sleeping daughter.
Turning to her husband, Fiona’s expression changed too, softening. “Babe,” she whispered soothingly. “Not the same.”
The two shared a look that again felt intimate, special.
“You don’t know that,” Kip retorted. “Things are always much more complicated than they seem. And I think you’ll find out that Kane has a pretty good excuse as to where he’s been these past few months.” He gave Kane an empathetic smile. “Glad to see you’re out, bro. And now I know why you look so fuckin’ familiar, Avery,” he added, eyes on me. “I probably would’ve figured it out sooner, but little June here doesn’t like to sleep unless she’s right here.” He peeked down at June again. “And my brain is eating itself these days.” He winked at Fiona. “But it’s worth it. So fucking worth it. Trust me, you won’t die from lack of sleep. Not immediately anyway. You may see the effects when you’re seventy or some shit, but we’re living day to day here, baby.”
He leaned over and kissed his wife on the neck. “And may I say, you look so fucking hot today. You’d think you got at least a full five hours.” He looked at me and Kane. “Five hours is considered sleeping through the night in our house. Anyway, look how hot my wife is. Wouldn’t she look even hotter pregnant like you, Avery?” His eyes rushed to Kane. “Not that I’m calling your woman hot, well, objectively, she is. But I can only have sexual feelings for one woman on this planet.” He craned his head toward Fiona who was smiling and shaking her head.
“First of all, no more children. One and done,” she playfully scolded Kip. “Second, stop talking so much about sleep. Avery doesn’t need that bullshit. Better to be blissfully unaware of the horrors that await you.” She smiled at me. “Kidding. Kind of.” Fiona’s sharp gaze returned to Kane. “And I am not distracted by all this to decide I like you just because my husband seems to go all douchebag bro over you. Actually, that’ll be a strike against you, not that you need any more. So even though my husband seems to know, I’m going to ask you… Where have you been?”
Fiona was quite obviously a dog with a bone. Again, despite my complicated feelings toward Kane right then, I opened my mouth to speak up for him, to save him.
“I’ve been in prison,” Kane answered before I could. There was no edge to his tone. No irritation at having to explain himself to a woman he didn’t know. “I went there because I beat a man half to death. A man who laid hands on Avery, and that was after he tried to assault her. A man who did much worse in the past before I was there to protect her, but that’s her story to tell.” He grasped my hip tighter. “My piece of shit manager spouted poison in her ear that he will never finish paying for, not even when worms eat his corpse, so I didn’t know about the baby until last night.”
His hand drifted to my stomach, rubbing my bump protectively. My heart did cartwheels.
“And trust me, I’ve been wondering for the past thirteen or so hours whether I would go back and not punish the bastard who laid hands on my woman and stole these months from me or if I’d do it again to make absolutely sure he paid.”
Kane spoke the words quietly but with confidence, with emotion that seemed to seep from every vowel. Violence, guilt, anger, and determination all mixed together.
Fiona stared at him, struck silent for a handful of seconds before she recovered. “Okay, I like you,” she decided, as if she heard heartfelt declarations every day. She reached under the counter, getting my croissants. “Now, I’ll get you coffee ready and whatever other sweet treats your badass heart desires. We’ll have you over for dinner one night, but be forewarned: we eat at five on account of the tiny terrorist.” She pointed to the baby carrier. “I have a feeling you’re gonna get on just fine with the badass dad crew.” She jerked her head at her husband who for some reason was grinning wildly. “Rowan will like you.”
“We’ll bring you the coffee,” she said, pushing the croissants across the counter. “You two obviously have a lot to talk about, and now I have to gossip with my husband about you.” She winked, and I took the croissants and walked away, more out of shock than anything.
Kane was close behind me as I sat in the one table that was free, Kane pulling out the lush, bright-pink chair for me.
We sat in silence for a bit as I stared at my croissants.
“Pink bakery,” Kane observed, looking around at the space that was indeed decorated in shades of pink.
Everything was simple, white framed art on the pale-pink walls, elegant, charming and definitely girly.
“Not something I think would be your style,” he continued, eyes darting to me. There was a familiar, playful glint in them that made my mouth dry like it had in the beginning.
I pushed one of my croissants over to him.
“Taste this, and you’ll understand why it’s everyone’s style.”
He looked from me to the croissant. “I’m not eating that. It’s yours, you need it.”
I quirked a brow, looking down at the two remaining croissants in front of me. “I’ll be just fine with two, and those will change your life.”
Kane’s playful glint was gone. “I like my life exactly how it is, don’t need to change shit, and I’m not takin’ food from my woman and baby.”
My smile died on my lips. I didn’t know how to cope with the new Kane who yo-yod back and forth so quickly.
So I didn’t say anything, I just ate my croissants.
Fiona was right, we had a lot to talk about. But we didn’t speak the entire time we were at the table.