Page 136

It’s dusk by the time I climb back into Cash’s truck with a Hope Pharmacy bag in my hand, a pair of plastic sticks tucked inside.

Cash climbs into the truck beside me. He tosses his phone onto the dash. The timer he set inside the store for two minutes is counting down from one minute thirty-eight seconds.

One minute thirty-seven. Thirty-six.

My hand shakes as I take the tests out of the bag. I couldn’t wait until we got home to take them, so I ducked into the restroom inside the pharmacy and peed on the two sticks that came in the package.

I set them on the seat between Cash and me. The little window where the result will appear—one line for not pregnant, two lines for pregnant—is currently stuck at one line. That line appears right after you pee on the stick. It’s the second line you’re looking for over the course of the two minutes—that one tells you you’re pregnant.

Resting my elbow on the window ledge, I hold my hand to my mouth. My emotions are a tangled jumble inside a pressurized can that’s just been shaken. I feel short of breath. On the verge of bursting at any moment.

I could bepregnant. With Cash Rivers’s baby. If I am…

That could change everything. And nothing.

If I am pregnant and we decide to keep the baby, that would make my choice to stay or leave Hartsville very easy. Some fucked-up part of me longs for that, how black-and-white the situation would become.

But another—saner—part knows it’s a decision I need to make outside of what happens in the next minute and three seconds. Would I love to be with Cash for the long haul and eventually have a family with him? Hellyes. But the timing has to be right, and I don’t want to trap either of us in a life we’re not ready for.

I don’t want this to push us to make choices we shouldn’t.

But goodness does my heart beat faster at the idea of making a life—making babies—with Cash.

I need to tell him how I feel. I just have to wait another fifty-two seconds.

He reaches across the seat and puts a hand on my thigh. “Breathe, Mollie.”

I force air into my lungs. “I’m trying.”

“I’m not going anywhere, you hear?” He ducks his head so our gazes meet. “We’ll handle this together. We don’t have to make any decisions today.”

I grab the hand he has on my leg and wrap my fingers around it. “Thank you for saying that. You’re handling this like a fucking champ, Cash. Which I appreciate. I just…”

I’m brimming with feelings, and I don’t know what to do with myself.

I need to tell you I’m in love with you, but I might be leaving, and I don’t know what I should do.

I glance at his phone. Thirty seconds left.

I glance at the tests. No result yet.

My pulse pounds inside my temples.

“You ever have a scare before?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “You?”

“Nope.” I look at him. “You’re the only one who’s ever—I don’t know—made me a little reckless, I guess.”

Cash lifts a brow. “You havin’ second thoughts? About not using more protection?”

“No,” I answer swiftly. “Not at all. I don’t think it’s any secret I’m addicted to you. To the sex we have.”

One side of his mouth curls upward. “So you’re using me to get quality dick.”

I laugh. Goddamnit, leave it to this man to make me laugh in the middle of a very real crisis.

Is it a crisis, though?