CHAPTER NINE
Bryce
Holy shit.
Holy fucking shit.
My hands shake as I shove my phone into my pocket and wrench open the door of my dusty truck. When I slide in, I feel a vibration against my ass. Pulling my phone back out, I see Leanne’s name on the screen.
Nope.
I toss it into the cup holder and crank the key in the ignition.
We need to talk. In person. And I need the half-hour drive to get my head on straight.
In the course of the last fifteen minutes, my entire world tilted on its axis and I’m not sure what’s up and what’s down.
My phone stops and starts up again, ringing through the sound system. It grates on my nerves, whereas the rumble of my tires against the gravel is oddly soothing as I roll down the driveway of Monarch Ranch and onto the main road that will carry me toward Bozeman.
The word pregnant keeps popping off in my brain like a firework show.
With the tick tick tick of my blinker, it repeats over and over: pregnant pregnant pregnant.
When the engine whirs louder as I accelerate, it’s a rumbling purr: ppprrrrreeeegggggnnnnnaaannnnnnttttttttttttt…
Somehow it has lost all meaning in the repetition despite it being the only word in my head.
And I, of all people, should know the meaning of that particular word. This isn’t the first time I’ve been on the receiving end of this news, but it was different last time. Last time it was Sarah, and last time I lost everything.
I jolt away from those thoughts as my phone rumbles in the cupholder beside me, followed by a single trilling sound through my speakers. I glance at it to see a text from Leanne.
Leanne
12847 E. Harmon Junction, Bozeman, MT
An odd sense of relief hits me. She could’ve refused to give me her address.
And she did call to tell me… That’s more than she had to do. We don’t exactly run in the same circles, and we’ve gone almost two months without a random run-in. It’s possible I never would’ve seen her again, never would’ve known.
The urge to call her, however, to see if the inexplicable connection I felt was reciprocated, was growing stronger—even if the very idea of feeling that way about someone terrified me.
The day of the wedding, I’d watched her.
I saw the way she was with her family, the way she was with me, and the way she was when she thought no one was looking.
I could see the hurt she was trying to hide.
Hurt I understood too well, having grieved my own losses.
I felt almost bonded to her because of it.
When I saw her name on my phone this morning, I thought maybe she felt it too.
I tap her address and pull up directions, keeping as much of my focus on the road as I can. But really, my attention lies solely with the woman at the end of this drive. The woman I’ve spent too much time thinking about lately. The woman who’s apparently carrying my child.
Pregnant pregnant pregnant.
Twenty minutes.
Twenty more minutes and I can see her.
I pull up in front of Leanne’s pristine white house, in its quintessential family neighborhood, and it brings our differences into sharp relief.
She’s a city girl—even if that city is Bozeman. I’m country through and through. Polar opposites. Nothing in common aside from an alarmingly intense mutual attraction.
Well… nothing in common until now.
Pregnant pregnant pregnant.
Fuck.
I reach for the bag sitting in the passenger seat—one containing crackers, ginger ale, and peanut butter.
Despite every fiber of my being wanting to get here as fast as possible, I couldn’t pass the store without stopping. A tightening under my sternum propels the air from my lungs as memories bombard me. Memories of buying these same items for someone else—for Sarah.
I press a hand against my chest and blow out a breath. I can’t think about her right now.
When I lift my head, Leanne’s form takes shape in her doorway, and it clears my mind.
Her lips form a hard line as I throw open my truck door.
She looks poised for a fight, but the wariness underneath draws me up short.
That and the paleness of her skin, the dark circles under her beautiful hazel eyes, the way she leans into the door frame, and how she looks thinner than I remember.
Before I make it more than two steps toward the house, she starts in on me. “You can’t just demand to know someone’s address and then hang up on them. You can’t just show up like this. You can’t—”
“Yes. I can,” I interrupt, then jog up the front steps, my boots clunking against the boards. We’re only a foot apart, and though she squares her shoulders and lifts her chin in defiance, the fight is already going out of her. She looks so fucking tired, and it kills me.
She also looks like she could use a hug, but I doubt she’d welcome my touch right now.
I clear my throat and lift the bag in my hand, indicating with it. “Wanna invite me in, or did you want to discuss this here on the porch?” I glance around and clock a few people out in their yards—a family playing catch down the street, her neighbor on the other side preparing to mow his lawn.
She releases an exasperated sigh and nudges the door open behind her with an eye roll.
“You didn’t have to rush over here,” she huffs when I walk past her into the entryway.
Did I not?
It’s not like I had some grand plan for this moment. I just knew I had to see her. “We need to talk.”
She closes the door with a snap and I turn.
“We were talking. You hung up on me.” She crosses her arms over her chest, her protective stance that I remember all too well.
“I… Okay, yeah, I probably shouldn’t have done that. But you don’t think maybe this deserves a face-to-face conversation?”
She drops her hands so they’re clasped in front of her, fingers twining together with nervous energy.
A torrent of emotion is still rioting in my chest—in my head—and I’m so close to being swept away in its tidal wave, but all of that begins to quiet at seeing her like this.
Both defeated and keyed up for a fight—likely because she thinks that’s why I’m here.
She has no idea.
But why would she? I rushed over without hardly saying a word, and most of our past interactions—mind-blowing sex aside—weren’t what you’d call positive.
But I don’t want to fight.
She speaks to her hands. “I-I didn’t intend on blurting it out like I did. You calling took me by surprise.”
“You called me first, Leanne,” I say, exasperated.
“I didn’t mean to…” Her voice is a shred of a whisper, and the admission makes me jerk back involuntarily. She looks up, stunned by my reaction, and continues. “I mean, I was planning to call you—eventually—but I wasn’t ready. Not yet.”
She stalks past me, the tension growing thick with so many unspoken words, and I reach for her hand. She immediately pulls it out of reach.
“Dammit, blondie,” I bite out. “I just want—”
What? Want to make sure you’re okay? Want to understand what’s going on? Want to hold you? I want a lot of things right now and most of them don’t make sense, so I stand here, holding her gaze, wishing I had the right words.
“Just want what, Bryce?” she asks in a clipped tone. I can tell she’s trying to force the same venom into my name that she used when we first met, but she doesn’t have the energy for it now.
I sigh and shake my head.
“I picked up a few things for you,” I say instead of answering, and with a shrug, walk past her into her kitchen.