I can’t swallow. I can’t breathe.
I look over my shoulder again to see her saunter up to us. “Let me guess,” she says. “You’re going through the math in your head right now?”
She smirks, looking between us. “We’ll be in touch,” she whispers to Kaleb.
She walks away, and I blink, trying to keep the tears away. Please. I hold my stomach because it hurts. Not this.
“Kaleb?” I murmur.
She was pregnant before the snow. She was pregnant well before the snow.
But he says nothing, simply opening the truck door and ushering me inside quickly.
He slams the door, rounds the front of the vehicle, and climbs into the driver’s side, speeding off toward home. The lumber in the bed bangs against the tailgate, and the groceries spill in the backseat.
I hold the handlebar above the door, staring over at him. “Did you know she was pregnant?” I asked.
His knuckles turn white as he grips the steering wheel, and he won’t look at me.
“She’s been pregnant a while. Is it yours?”
Still, nothing. Did he know? He seemed surprised. But maybe that’s what she was upset about in the cave that day. She was pregnant, and he didn’t want her.
Anger curdles inside me, and I breathe hard. “Did you know?” I demand. “Did you know last fall?”
He punches the gas, taking us across the train tracks, toward the highway leading home.
If it’s his, Cici will be in our lives forever. She’ll have his first child, not me. I’ll never have that.
Won’t he say anything? Nod or shake his head? Why won’t he do anything? I know he can!
“Just let me out,” I choke out, the tears threatening. “Stop the truck.”
He keeps driving.
“Stop the truck!” I yell.
Finally, he looks at me, shaking his head.
“No?” I say. “No, what? Talk. I know you know how! Is the baby yours?”
Just communicate. Do something! But he keeps his mouth closed, and I’ve had enough.
Sliding over, I punch the brake, stalling the truck, and he swerves the wheel as it comes to a stop. I hop out, seeing him follow.
He stops me at the front of the car, coming in for me.
But I back away. “No,” I tell him. No kissing. No holding. “Speak. Right now. Is it yours? Did you know?”
He draws in quick, shallow breaths, staring at me, speechless. If he didn’t know, then he could shake his head, and I wouldn’t hate him. We could go from there.
If he knew, maybe he kept it quiet because he knew he’d be up on the mountain all winter, and maybe he didn’t anticipate we’d fall in love. Maybe he thought he could run from this like he runs from everything.
Just talk to me.
His beautiful green gaze falls to the space between us, and there’s nothing he wants to say to me.
The whir of an engine grows louder, and I know it’s Noah on his way home.
He pulls up next to us, planting his shoes on the ground. “Hey, what’s going on?”
I give Kaleb four more seconds, waiting for him to do or say anything.
When he doesn’t, I climb on the bike behind Noah and wrap my arms around him.
“Let’s go.” I bury my head in his back. “Hurry.”
We speed off, and for the first time, Kaleb doesn’t pull me back to him.
Tiernan
I run up the stairs of the deck, breezing past my uncle and all the commotion in the shop as I hear the truck tires grind the gravel behind me. I pick up my pace.
Noah made good on his threat to put me on the website and scheduled an impromptu photoshoot with the motorcycles. I won’t take good pictures today, but at least it keeps me away from Kaleb.
I wipe the tear from my face.
“What’s wrong?” I hear Jake ask.
“I don’t know,” Noah tells him as I hurry for the front door. “She ran away from Kaleb.”
“Tiernan!” my uncle shouts.
“Let’s just do this,” I call out, swinging open the door. Where’s the photographer?
An SUV and a Jeep sit parked in the driveway, and I know they’re setting up lighting and such in the garage, but I should take a moment to compose myself.
I need to get in my room—my room—and lock the goddamn door for a few minutes.
Why was he in such a hurry to toss my birth control this morning? He didn’t even think about it. He didn’t hesitate. It was like a lightbulb went on and the solution to a problem he’d been facing finally occurred to him.
I stalk through the living room, but a hand wraps around my arm and pulls me around. I jerk out of Kaleb’s hold, glaring at him through watery eyes.
“Kaleb, stop,” his father orders, entering the house.
Noah follows. “What happened with you two?”
But I just stare at Kaleb. “This is why you wanted me pregnant,” I tell him. “You wanted to trap me before I found out about her.”
“Pregnant?” Jake repeats. He darts his eyes to Kaleb. “What did you do?”
Kaleb’s face is flushed, sweat glistens on his neck, and his eyes look pained. He’s wrecked.
And quiet. Always quiet, because if he doesn’t have to address any problems, then they don’t exist.
I barely have the strength to breathe. “Even now, you won’t talk to me,” I say quietly.
Jake inches in. “Are you pregnant?”
“No.” I shake my head, my sadness turning to anger as I look at Kaleb. “Thank God,” I spit out.
Kaleb steps in, hovering over me with an edge to his expression. He’s mad now.
Noah pulls him back. “Kaleb, back off her.”
Jake presses a hand into his chest.
But Kaleb throws them off, growling, and I back up, tears welling again as he swoops in and picks me up, holds my face and forces his mouth on mine. I choke down a sob, the assault of his scent reminding me how happy we were just this morning.
Before we came back to the world.
I push him away, crying out as Noah and Jake pull him off me.
I breathe hard, falling to my feet and backing up, farther away from him.
“Cici Diggins is pregnant,” I tell Jake and Noah. “Very pregnant.”
Kaleb doesn’t look at anyone but me, but I see Jake and Noah staring at me, stunned.
“It could be anybody’s,” Noah argues.
“Yours?”