Page 21 of Call Me Yours (Lodestar Ranch #4)

STEVEN

Aspen Springs went all out for Halloween.

With two weeks to go, there wasn’t a single undecorated shop or home on Main Street.

I rolled through town at a crawl, taking it in.

Witches with green-striped stockings careened into lampposts.

Fat orange pumpkins, dusted with last night’s snow flurries, lined the porch steps.

Skeletons were big this year. Two were taller than the gold-rush-era buildings, but most of them were human-sized and placed in ridiculous positions.

Rocking on a porch swing, checking the mail, getting chased by a skeleton dog.

And there, striding down the crumbling brick sidewalk, bundled up in a thick puffer coat and green knit hat, was the most terrifying thing I’d ever seen, given how my heart damn near jumped up my throat at the sight of her.

I slowed even further, rolled my window down, and hooked one elbow over the door. “Chloe Adams, as I live and breathe,” I drawled.

Her eyes darted sideways to take me in. “Pity,” she murmured.

I smirked. “Sorry my existence disappoints you.”

She kept walking, so with a quick glance at my mirrors to ascertain no one was behind me, I did a u-turn in the middle of Main Street and pulled up next to her. “Where are you headed?”

She pulled her coat collar higher, like it could save her from me. “Doctor,” she grumbled.

I frowned. There wasn’t a doctor in this part of town. The hospital was forty-five minutes from here, and the closest medical office was a fifteen-minute drive. “You’re walking?” I asked sharply.

She stopped and turned to face me, annoyance stamped all over her pretty face. I hit the brake. “Well, driving makes me nauseous, and I can’t drive and puke at the same time, so yes, I’m walking.”

“I’ll take you,” I said.

She started walking again. “No, thank you.”

“Come on,” I argued. “You can lie down in the back seat, or hang your head out the window, or go ahead and puke if you need to. I’ve got a trash bag for you.” Fuck me, now I was begging her to let me do her a favor? This woman had me by the balls and didn’t even know it.

She stopped again. “You’re going in the wrong direction.”

Goddamn, this woman.

“I’m going wherever you are,” I growled. “Get in the fucking truck, princess. It’s freezing out here. You’re not walking.”

The belligerent purse of her full lips told me she was not done arguing. “Don’t test me, Chloe,” I warned. “I’m used to dealing with nine-hundred-pound ornery animals. I can deal with you the same way.” I stretched across the cabin and pushed open the passenger door for her.

With a petulant sigh, she got in, slamming the door closed with more force than necessary. “It’s five miles, Steven. I can walk five miles.”

“It’s ten miles, there and back, and it would be dark by the time you were walking home. I don’t want you walking next to a road in the dark.” I waited while she struggled out of her coat and buckled her seatbelt and then hit the gas.

She squirmed lower in her seat, smashing her knees against the dashboard, then grabbed the lever next to the seat and pulled it. The backrest jolted flat with a bounce.

“Are you gonna be sick?” I asked, alarmed. With one hand on the steering wheel, I flicked open the center console and pulled out one of the plastic bags I kept balled up inside. “Here.”

She took it but dropped it in her lap. “Not yet. We’re about to pass the library and Hannah gets off work soon. I don’t want her to see me.”

With you . She didn’t have to say it. I knew that was how the sentence ended. It stung. Another reminder that we weren’t friends and never would be. We sure as hell would never be more. And that didn’t just sting. It burned. Because sometimes…

Sometimes she looked at me with those green eyes glinting like she saw right into my soul, and I saw the ghost of a future we would never have. A future we maybe should have had, if I hadn’t fucked everything up before we even got a chance to know each other.

I didn’t know what the hell I was doing with Chloe Adams. I just knew I couldn’t stop myself.

I unlocked my phone and handed it to her. “Put in the address.” I had a pretty good idea of the direction we were headed, since all the medical buildings were clustered by the highway, but I didn’t know the exact location.

“Ohhh, you’re giving me access to your phone?” she asked, opening the maps app. She tsked. “Not very smart, Steven. Who knows what I’ll find?”

“You already know the worst thing I’ve done. No point in keeping secrets now,” I said. When she didn’t respond, I glanced over and found her scrolling through my photos. “Wow, you’re nosy,” I muttered.

“It’s all pictures of Junior,” she complained. “Where are all the vanity selfies?”

“Vanity selfies?” I repeated, merging onto the highway.

“You know. Fresh out of the shower, a towel wrapped around your waist, flexing your abs but pretending you’re not. Maybe a little steam for atmosphere. You seem like the type.”

“Oh, I do, do I?” I smirked at her over my shoulder. “Why are you so obsessed with my abs, Chloe?”

She pulled the seat lever and popped upright. Apparently her reputation was safe now that we had left downtown Aspen Springs. “Why are you so obsessed with your pig, Steven?”

“She’s cute,” I defended.

“It’s weird,” she replied. “You know that, right?”

I hummed noncommittally. When I looked at her, she was still thumbing through my photos, hearting her favorites and smiling to herself.

My chest pinched with the knowledge that I was going to spend some time tonight looking through those photos myself, trying to see her favorites through her eyes. Something was definitely wrong with me.

“So,” I said cautiously.

“So.” She circled one wrist in a gesture for me to continue.

“You didn’t text me back.”

“Right. Sorry about that.” She worried her bottom lip. “I didn’t know what to say because I didn’t know what to do. So I ignored you because I wasn’t ready to think about it. I needed some time to work through it.”

We were treading through something delicate now.

I still didn’t know what this doctor appointment was for.

I didn’t know what she had decided to do about the pregnancy.

No matter what she had decided, no matter what was going to happen at the doctor’s office, I was in it with her.

If this was a regular checkup, I was driving her there.

If this was an abortion, I was driving her there. No regrets either way.

My gaze flicked to her face and immediately sought the open road again. “And did you? Figure it out, I mean?”

She blew out a breath. “I’m keeping it. If I can.

” She scowled at a perfectly adorable photo of Stevie wearing a pink sweater.

“It still feels fake, you know? Like fate, the universe, whatever”—she did jazz hands—“is playing a joke on me. They’re not really going to let me have a baby.

” She sighed again. “Anyway. We’ll see what the doctor says today. ”

I frowned. She had said something similar the night she took the test, that pregnancy hadn’t ever been a concern for her. No wonder she didn’t want me to drive her. This was a high-stakes doctor appointment, not just another box to tick.

I pulled into the parking lot in front of a gray, square building and cut the engine, then twisted in my seat to face her. She had a white-knuckled grip on herself, her hands folded tightly in her lap, her eyes staring straight ahead, her mouth a grim slash of pink.

“I can wait here for you,” I offered.

She paused. I swore I could hear my heartbeat in the silence. “You might as well come in with me,” she said finally.

That was as close as Chloe would ever come to admitting she needed something from me. I wasn’t going to make her say it twice. I unbuckled without another word.

The waiting room was packed full of women, about a quarter of whom had protruding bellies and a man by their side. I settled next to Chloe in the world’s most uncomfortable chair and watched her fill out the intake form, glancing from the other women to her stomach. Very soon that would be her.

“Are you imagining me with a baby bump?” she hissed, smacking my thigh with the clipboard. “Stop that!”

Busted. “Why? It’s going to happen.”

She sneaked a peek at the woman cattycorner to us, who looked like she had swallowed a basketball. “God, I hope so. I would be so cute, right?”

I could picture it. “Cute. Yeah.” Why did my chest suddenly ache like a motherfucker? It wasn’t even my bun baking in her oven. The only reason I was here was because he wasn’t. She’d probably trade me for him in a heartbeat if she could.

The nurse appeared in the doorway. “Adams?” she called.

I turned toward Chloe and opened my mouth to ask if I should wait here, but her sudden death grip on my thigh made me snap it shut again. I managed to pry her fingers off my leg and interlocked her hand with mine. “Right here,” I called back, tugging Chloe to her feet.

The nurse held the door open wider so we could join her in the hallway. “I’m Renee. I’ll be assisting Dr. Davidson today in examining you. Is that all right?” Chloe nodded and Renee beamed. “Great! We will be in room three.”

She ushered us inside and handed Chloe a folded blue paper hospital gown. “Put this on so it opens to the front, then hop up on the table and lay the cloth over your lap. Daddy, your job is to stand there and look handsome. No pressure.” She gave me a wink. “Dr. Davidson will be right with you.”

The door closed behind her with a quiet snick, leaving us staring after her with slack jaws.

Chloe pivoted to me with a scowl. “I can’t believe she was flirting with you right in front of me. That’s so rude.”

I blinked. Apparently we had very different viewpoints of what just happened. “She wasn’t flirting with me.” Although I did kind of like the idea of Chloe being mad about it. I wasn’t so delusional as to believe she was jealous, but a man could dream, couldn’t he?