CHAPTER TWENTY
Leanne
Twelve Weeks ~ Baby is the size of a wine cork
You would think growing up in such a beautiful and scenic place I’d be more outdoorsy, but nope, that’s never been me.
My idea of exercise takes place in a gym, either on a treadmill or in a Pilates class or something along those lines.
Those hiking boots I bought specifically for Jenna’s wedding weekend haven’t seen the outside of my closet since.
Over the past couple of weeks, however, I’ve found the combination of fresh air and movement helps with the fatigue and nausea. So, I’ve been going on walks down Main Street during my lunch hour. Something I told Bryce about, which led to him asking if he could join me today.
My puffer jacket insulates me from the chill while I pace outside the offices of Latitude 45—Bozeman’s only corporate events firm—waiting for a big burly man I want to see more than I care to admit.
The breeze against my face reminds me the weather will turn soon.
We don’t get enough of fall in Bozeman. Summer never lasts long enough, and then winter comes.
Bryce’s black truck squeezes into a spot along the curb, and I bite my lip to hide a smile. His truck feels like the perfect embodiment of him. It’s large and imposing, dark and sleek, but there’s a comforting warmth to its interior I really like. I shake my head.
What am I even thinking right now?
I’ve never seen Bryce in anything but jeans, but his grey joggers are really doing something for me. As is his Carhartt jacket, layered over a hoodie with the Monarch Ranch brand on it.
“Do you want me to turn around, blondie?” he asks with a wink.
My cheeks flame red-hot against the chilled October air.
“Fuck you,” I huff, placing my hands over my cheeks. They still feel cold but I know they’re flaming.
His rumbly chuckle accompanies a slow perusal of my body, just like the one I gave him. “I mean, we know you love my ass in jeans…” He waggles his eyebrows as he gets within touching distance. “I could let you look at it in these too so you can decide which you like better.”
I shove his shoulder and he uses the momentum to do exactly what he said he would—spinning so his back is to me and lifting his jacket.
Damn…
“You’re an ass,” I say, rolling my eyes to force them away from the nice ass in question.
“Ah, feels like old times,” he quips, turning back around with a smirk. “Shall we walk?”
It does feel like old times, except the abrasive quality of our banter from before is more playful now. Where I used to rage over the way he called me blondie, now I find myself hiding smiles so he doesn’t know how much I’ve grown to like it.
“Yeah, let’s go.” I glance toward the glass wall of the office and catch the eye of Candace, our receptionist, who waves and smiles. I wave back and turn away.
The gossip mill will have circulated the news of me meeting a man for lunch by the time I get back.
“You know,” Bryce says, “if you’d told me you worked in events back when we met, I wouldn’t have believed you.”
I scrunch my nose, my lips twisting in a grimace. “You did not get my finest or most professional behavior.”
“You didn’t get mine either,” he admits, and a quiet apology hangs between us.
We walk shoulder to shoulder down the sidewalk for a few minutes while I get lost in my head. He doesn’t push me to talk, and I allow the words I’m thinking to percolate until they finally bubble over, and I blurt out, “Why are you so nice to me?”
Bryce’s head whips in my direction with a quizzical expression—eyebrows pulled down under a grey beanie he put on while I wasn’t paying attention, lips pressed together. “Would you rather I wasn’t?”
“No. No, it’s just… Never mind.”
“Nah, you can’t ask me a question like that and then not elaborate.”
“I meant, like, I know I’m pregnant so there’s a certain amount of necessity to be nice to me now, but it feels like more than that… I know you said you like me, but why? I was such a bitch to you.”
He contemplates this for a moment, watching me with those penetrating brown eyes. “Neither of us was particularly kind to the other in the beginning. But I think I understand you better now. I think I started to understand you that night in the tent.”
“Really?” I ask with a quirked brow. “How so?”
“Carnally, obviously…” He chuckles, and I shove him so he goes stumbling almost into the street.
“Shut up,” I grumble.
“No, seriously though,” he says, catching up to me again.
“What is it you think you understand about me, huh?” I ask, looking at my feet, unsure I want the answer.
“Can I ask you a question first and then you can tell me if I’m right?”
I cut my eyes to him and hesitate for a beat before saying with careful resignation, “Yeah, okay.”
“You said, when we were together, that Craig”—he makes his name sound like a curse—“broke things off the same day Jenna and Eric got engaged.”
“Yeah, that’s not a question though,” I say, feeling a little huffy and defensive at the mention of Craig. Maybe we could wipe his name from the planet? That might help.
“True. Just go with me on this. Is the way our communication started and progressed normal for you in a situation like this? Your job would indicate otherwise…”
My humorless laugh is enough to tell him exactly what he needs to know, but I answer anyway. “No, I’ve honestly never acted that way with anyone. I think about it now and am absolutely mortified.”
“It’s not all on you. I—”
“You should’ve told me to fuck off with my attitude,” I say, finishing his sentence and making him bark out a laugh.
“Well, I wasn’t going to say that exactly. But I do usually have a better handle on dealing with particularly difficult clients. But with you… I don’t know, I couldn’t get past it. If I weren’t my own boss, I’d have expected to be fired for my behavior.”
I nod, appreciating that we can both see our behavior for what it was—bad. That shows progress if nothing else does.
“Okay, another question,” he says, his long strides eating up the sidewalk while I keep pace beside him.
“You never told your family what really happened with you and Craig—until last weekend, right?” I nod, and he continues.
“And it’s clear—at least to me—that you never wanted to plan Jenna’s wedding. So, why did you?”
This one is harder to answer. It’s messy and it still hurts, but maybe speaking the words aloud will help me let it go.
I blow out a heavy breath through my lips.
“Did you just blow a gasket?” he asks, chortling.
“Do you want to hear the whole story or not?” I snap, but it doesn’t hold any real bite. Just enough to have his eyes tracking over my face.
“Only if you want to tell it to me.” He really would let me drop this subject if I wanted to. Which I do, but I also don’t.
“The day things ended with Craig, I’d just started my period.
Indicating another failed attempt to get pregnant, so emotions were already running high.
” I glance up to see how he’ll react, but he keeps his face neutral and seems completely unbothered by my mention of periods—one point for Bryce.
“I told him I thought we should see a fertility specialist and get tested—both him and me—to figure out what the problem was. I didn’t understand his reaction at the time, but he got really angry.
He said it was clear to him what the problem was.
” I say this with a swiping motion to indicate myself.
“He didn’t actually do that with his hands, did he?” Bryce asks, incredulous. The cool facade of a moment ago cracking.
“Oh, he did. He said maybe I was too old to get pregnant; we’d waited too long while I built my career—as if he hadn’t been perfectly happy to build his without any distractions too.
He said I was faulty and there was no point putting himself through testing only to be told I couldn’t give him what he wanted. ”
As each word tumbles out, I feel two things: near-debilitating rage and…
freedom. Finally sharing them with someone allows me to accept them for what they are: lies.
I’d been working my way toward that conclusion before I found out I was pregnant, but finally voicing it is soothing the freshly healed wounds in a way I didn’t expect.
“He said he couldn’t be with someone who wasn’t able to give him biological children. He was always opposed to adoption or fostering because he didn’t think he could love a child that wasn’t his. I guess that should’ve been a red flag, huh?”
Bryce’s face pinches, like something in what I said hit him hard, but he quickly recovers, angling his head to gaze down at me.
“I mean, the guy sounds like a walking red flag, but sometimes they’re harder to see than we think they will be.”
I nod, knowing he’s absolutely right. “He packed a bag, said he’d come back to get the rest of his stuff, and left. I didn’t talk to him for six months… until the day of the rehearsal.”
“Asshole,” Bryce mutters, none too quietly, and it makes me chuckle.
“Yeah, he was… Definitely worse than you.” I knock Bryce with my shoulder and a little bit of the tension I’ve noticed creeping into his body loosens.
“Anyway, I was basically a heap of hormones and emotions, sitting on my closet floor and staring at where his clothes had been. And that’s when a text came through in the family group chat from Jenna announcing her engagement with a picture of her and Eric and her big diamond front and center. ”
That moment broke me in ways I’m still trying to understand.
“Damn, I’m sorry.”
I kick at a small pebble on the concrete and send it skittering down the sidewalk, where I follow it, needing the distraction.
“Yeah, it was not great timing.” I huff out a self-deprecating laugh. “I sat there and cried in my closet for a while. Then I got up and texted my sister how happy I was for her and told myself I wouldn’t ruin her big day.”
He stops me with a hand on my wrist. I reluctantly turn so we’re facing each other, my gaze still locked on the ground until his finger slides under my chin and lifts.