Page 10 of Tempting Bo (Montgomery Dreams #2)

BO

I never put much stock into the concept of rose-colored glasses.

I’ve also never cared about someone enough for their existence to make the entire world look brighter, but Kenzie could melt me if I was completely frozen through.

Everything is calmer around her, my racing thoughts and obligations fading into the background.

It’s easy to romanticize silly, everyday occurrences when she’s on my mind.

The sunrise has taken on a whole new meaning now that it means a good morning text from her is following shortly.

Even going into town to shop has become something new because the feed shop is next to a bakery, and the tack store is across the street from the florist. Everywhere I look, an addition to my daily life pops up, some new way to include Kenzie.

I wound up coming back with everything Dad ordered for the ranch, along with a few pastries for Kenzie.

I hope they’ll keep well in the fridge until I can see her.

I may not be all that experienced in relationships, but even I know I’m falling in love. I can’t get enough of Kenzie, and I don’t want that to change.

She never leaves my mind.

I guess it makes sense now why I could never find a woman I wanted to settle down with. She’s the one I’ve been waiting for this whole time. I always thought I was just being too picky, but she already had everything I wanted. I just had to buck up and admit it to myself.

I’m glad that I did.

I carefully tamp down my wide smile while parking in front of the house.

Dad’ll have to help me unload everything, and I don’t want to listen to his advice on love.

To be fair, his relationship with Mom is right out of a storybook, but the embarrassment of talking about girls with my father is a bit much.

I think I’ve been doing pretty well in the wooing department without his guidance so far, and it’s not like there have been any real hurdles to overcome.

Me and Kenzie are on the same page when it comes to our relationship, as far as I know. Actually, I should probably talk to her about that and make sure she doesn’t have any doubts about how important she is to me.

For now, it’s time to get to work. I’ve been daydreaming about her since I woke up, and there is a lot of stuff to do around the ranch this week.

Lowering the tailgate of my truck, I hear the rumble of tires coming up the driveway. Turning with a confused frown, a bright blue sedan fights its way through a cloud of dust.

We’re not expecting guests as far as I know, and that’s not a car that I recognize. I pull a few bags of feed closer to the edge of the tailgate as I wait for the car to roll to a stop.

The dust settles after the car parks, and I immediately wish I had just booked it inside.

Savannah fucking Ward sits in the driver’s seat, glaring at me as she kills the engine.

She slams the car door behind her, the sound echoing like a gunshot in the mid-afternoon air.

Her blonde curls bounce as she marches right up to me, visibly steaming with fury.

Her face is screwed up in a nasty snarl, hands curled into fists at her sides.

She’s always been a small woman, but her anger only serves to make her look like a petulant toddler.

I grit my teeth and square my shoulders to ready myself for whatever tantrum she’s going to throw my way.

I thought she’d gotten over this latest attempt at fucking with my family, but it looks like she was only getting started.

“Fuck you, Boden!”

Off to a strong start.

“Look, Savannah, I’m really?—”

“No, you look!” She cuts me off without mercy and yanks my hand toward her. I’m too surprised by the sudden movement to resist, and she slaps something plastic into my palm before stepping back. “I’m done playing your games. I’m tired of this shit! I’m a fucking person too, Bo!”

Guilt claws timidly at my gut as tears well in her eyes.

She looks away as I stare at her, dumbfounded.

She doesn’t look like a toddler anymore, she just looks scared.

I don’t want to have any sympathy for her after all the shit she put Oakley through, but she looks genuinely distressed. I guess I really am a softie at heart.

I tear my eyes off her shivering frame to look at what she put in my hand, and the whole world drops out from beneath me.

“What is this?” My words come out strained and breathy as I stare down at the pregnancy test with a bright pink positive sign in the little window. “What the fuck is this?”

Savannah scoffs, watery and hurt, but her eyes are sharp as ever when I look back up at her.

“What does it look like, genius?” she asks. “I told you I was pregnant. I figured this was the only way you’d stop avoiding me. You can’t just hit it and quit it, not when something like this happens.”

My mouth drops open in shock as I struggle for words. This isn’t real . There’s no way it’s real. This is just another of her bullshit stunts to fuck me and my family over. But the plastic in my hand is very, very real.

Has she been telling the truth the whole time? About… everything?

The thought makes me want to be sick.

“Are you just going to stand there? Say something!” Her eyes brim with tears again, and she wraps her arms around her waist as she stares at me. She looks absolutely devastated, like I’ve left her out in the cold. “You need to be a man about this, Bo. My parents are fucking pissed.”

The mention of her parents makes my blood run cold. What is this, a playground fight? If you don’t apologize, I’m going to tattle .

No, this is so much more serious. This is so much worse.

“What do you want from me?” I ask, my voice brittle and tense.

“What do I want?” She laughs humorlessly and rakes one hand through her tousled curls.

With the other, she points furiously to the pregnancy test still clasped in my fist. “I want you to figure your own shit out and step up. You’re still hanging out with that McArthur bitch while I’m pregnant with your fucking child.

I want you to be an adult and take responsibility for your own actions, you asshole. ”

My blood runs cold at the mention of Kenzie. Pure terror grabs me by the spine at what this could all really mean. I thought Savannah was lying this whole time, but the test in my hand is as honest as you can get.

Plastic has no reason to lie.

“Kenzie is none of your business.” My hand curls into a fist around the test, so tight the plastic creaks and threatens to splinter in my grip. “Stay out of her life.”

Savannah tosses her head back on a caustic laugh, halfway between malicious and completely unhinged.

“I don’t give a fuck about your little girlfriend,” she says mockingly.

“I care about myself. I’m not going to be a single mom, and I’m not going to let the father of my child run off and live happily ever after with someone else while everyone looks at me like trash.

I deserve to be respected just as much as everyone else.

You’re not going to turn your back on me and your child just because you don’t want to step up. ”

I don’t make a habit of thinking about Savannah’s feelings, mostly because I don’t believe that monsters have feelings, but something in her words rings a little too true to brush off. If I was in her shoes, I can imagine how alone and scared I’d feel.

She’s a horrible person, but she’s right. She’s still a person.

“I—fine.” I bite the words out, purposefully relaxing my hold on the test. I’m going to need it later to remind myself that this wasn’t just some awful dream. “Just give me some time to figure all this out.”

She snorts scathingly and rolls her eyes. The actions are much more like the Savannah Ward I know, but her shoulders are still shaking and there’s still a bright edge of fear in her eyes.

“You’ve got a week to talk to your parents and let me know what the plan is, or all of us are going to sit down and have a talk, family to family.”

Horror grabs hold on my spine at the thought of talking to my parents about this. The course of my life will change entirely in the span of one conversation.

“A week?” I blurt, terrified. “I can’t figure this?—”

“A week,” Savannah says, glaring at me. “I’m pregnant, in case you forgot. Time is of the essence here.”

She turns on her heel and storms off, just as furious as she was when she arrived. All I can do is stand and watch as she climbs back in her car before gunning it out of the driveway in a cloud of dust.

I look back down at the little pink and white test in my hand, my heart pounding in my chest.

A week. One week. How am I supposed to do anything in a week?

This will ruin everything. My family will never forgive me. They’re traditionalists when it comes to things like this. They’ll expect me to stand up and do right by Savannah and the baby, no matter the situation. I won’t have a choice.

More accurately, I already don’t have a choice.

How am I supposed to throw my whole life away for something I still can’t believe is real? My vision blurs every time I look at the test. Maybe I’ll wake up in a cold sweat next to Kenzie and shake the panic off.

But this is real, no matter how much I don’t want it to be.

That means my parents aren’t the only ones I have to talk to about this. Kenzie needs to know too. She deserves to know.

She’s been the only person I’ve wanted for longer than I can remember, but I have no idea how to keep her in this situation.

My parents will expect me to marry Savannah and raise the baby, and I would never ask Kenzie to be the other woman.

She deserves better than that. Even if she still has feelings for me after she knows, there’s nothing to be done about it.

I’ll have to say goodbye to everything I’ve ever loved to make up for one drunken mistake.

God, I want to fucking puke.