Page 11

HOLT

I wipe down the kitchen counter. It’s not like I can leave it messy; I have no idea how long I’ll be gone. Could be days. Could be weeks. Could be months. But whenever I do come home, the last thing I want is rotten, crusty-ass food pieces stuck to everything. Mom and Raylee have been helping me clean over the past few months. This is a really big house for one person to clean. I used to have a group of retired ladies come in once a week to clean. Four of them. They would divide the house into sections and spend the better part of a day cleaning. I paid them well too. Really well. I mean, one of them used to be a special education teacher. I never wanted the bad karma of being a tightwad with them to come back on me.

But they quit.

They quit as soon as I was arrested in December.

Another one of them used to be my Sunday School leader when I was a kid. And she said she wouldn’t scrub my toilets because she thought I was a pedophile.

My phone buzzes, alerting me that someone is at the front gate. Tossing the rag in the sink, I grab my phone and slide open the app from the lock screen. As soon as I do, the system automatically asks the person to identify themselves. When the video pops across my screen, my mouth drops open, and I can’t even think straight.

To say I’m shocked is an understatement.

She scoots closer to the camera and yells into the microphone. “Merit Browning!”

I can’t help but laugh. She’s carrying my baby. I’m pretty sure I know her last name.

Buzzing her through, my heart pounds against my ribs. By the time I open the front door, she’s already out of her car. Jogging to meet her, it’s hard not to notice the scowl on her face. But even that can’t take away from her beauty. I last saw her on Thursday night, and it’s only Saturday, so I know it’s probably improbable… but I swear her breasts have grown and her baby bump is sitting a little bit higher.

I can’t fucking wait to get my hands on her and feel our baby move.

When her eyes roam across my bare chest, she blushes. My dick immediately responds, jumping in my shorts. I reach out to pull her into my arms, but she sidesteps me and folds her own arms across her chest. Sighing, I stuff my hands in my pockets. “Hey.”

“Hey,” she says as she looks down at the ground.

I’m not sure what to say or how to question her sudden appearance at my house—at our house. The last thing I want to do is scare her off.

After a few really long seconds, she looks up. Her voice is pouty and demanding. “I’m moving back into the Children’s Wing. And you,” she points a finger at me, “are gonna pay for my health insurance.”

Holy hell.

She’s moving back in. I’ll pay for the entire state of Alabama’s health insurance if that’s what it takes to get her back here. “Yeah. Absolutely.”

“And… and… I’ll stay at least until the baby is six weeks old. I’ll give you bonding time before we start the custody arrangement.”

Over my dead body is she ever leaving my side again. Of course, I don’t say that out loud. She already knows my feelings on the matter, and I know better than to rock this already-unstable boat. I’ll take this win and build on it. I’ll build the shit out of it—a damn skyscraper taller than the Empire State Building. “Perfect. Or even twelve weeks. That may be better.”

She licks her lips and stutters around. “Well… I mean… we can discuss it, but don’t push your freakin’ luck.”

It’s impossible to hide my smile. I’m so damn happy. Despite myself, I can’t help but lift a questioning eyebrow, praying I don’t stick my foot in my mouth. “Mer, can I ask what changed?”

Her lips thin. “I lost my job.”

“You lost your job?”

“Yep.”

“Are you okay? What happened?” I ask.

Her eyes narrow in accusation. “You happened.”

“What?”

“My boss found out who you were, and he called you a pedophile and a pervert.” She swallows. “I corrected him. Using very colorful language.” She shrugs. “And then he fired me.”

My muscles tense with anger. “That guy’s an asshole.”

“Yeah, well, that asshole was my only source of income. The only jobs available down there are closer to the beach, and I would waste half my money on gas going back and forth, not to mention the time. Things at the farm are…” her voice trails off. “I mean, they already…” she sighs, unwilling to finish her thought. “Well, I just don’t want my parents worrying about feeding me and paying my medical bills.” Once again, her eyes trail slowly across my chest and down my stomach. With a quick flicker to my growing crotch, they dart back up to my face. “They shouldn’t be burdened by the fact that their daughter chose to have unprotected sex.” Her face reddens when she says the word sex. Granted, she could be blushing in anger because she quickly adds, “With a man who then believed an obvious lie, kicked her out of the house, and decimated her business.”

Damn. It sounds worse every time she says it.

I am, without a doubt, the world’s dumbest and shittiest man. Hell, I don’t even deserve to be called a man.

“Mer, I—”

She quickly interrupts me, shifting the conversation. “Well, I’ll just drive around and unpack. I guess I’ll need the code for the gate and door. I assume you changed it?”

“Yeah. It’s the day we met. Six digits.”

She nibbles the bottom of her perfectly pink lip. “You mean it’s Anna’s birthday.”

“Technically, her birthday is the day after. It was on Saturday. Remember, we had her party early on Friday night.”

Her face falls into serious thought, and she stares at the ground once again. I use the distraction to my advantage and wrap my hand around her wrist. She immediately stops breathing. My body sizzles the second I touch her, heat filling my every nerve-ending, pulsing and buzzing through me like a charged current. That electricity that’s always been there is still there.

And it always will be.

“Hey,” I scrape my foot against the concrete and nudge my tennis shoe against her own, taking me back to the day when she first agreed to go on a date with me, when I brushed my bare foot against hers in the middle of the store. “Drive on around. I’ll come through the house and meet you. Let’s get you back where you belong.”

Of course, she doesn’t really belong in the Children’s Wing; she belongs with me.

In our room. In our bed.

But there’s time for that.

There’s always that push and pull with Merit. Her need to push me away, protect her heart from damage. And her desire to pull me close, pour her lifeblood into my soul. The warring emotions were there before the arrest; and they’re still there now—and even more prominent. I have to be smart. I realize there’s an appropriate time and place for each of those actions. So, for right now, I’ll let her push me away. I’ll take the small wins and keep my eyes on the prize—the prize being the lifetime of happiness I’m gonna give to her and our son.

Her eyes lift, and she peeks at me from underneath her long, dark eyelashes. “I don’t belong here, Holt. Don’t mistake my necessity for need. Or even want.” Yanking from my grasp and turning on her heels, she climbs into her SUV and drives back down the circular, guest driveway in front of the house.

She better enjoy the calm now, because there’s gonna come a time when all I do is pull .

And I won’t stop pulling until we’re joined as one.

***

Just like the first time she moved in, it doesn’t take very long. She brought even fewer clothes with her this time because according to her ‘her ass is getting too big to wear anything that doesn’t have industrial-strength elastic’.

I watch her as she’s sitting on the floor arranging her array of old movies in the cabinet. She looks at the cover of every single one and smiles. She misses the shelf with one as she goes to put it in its place, and it slides out and hits her in the head. I can’t help but laugh when she curses under her breath.

Standing up, I clap my hands. “All right, it’s more than past time we eat. How about I go grab us some steaks and throw them on the grill?”

Her face immediately turns a pale shade of green, and her eyes roll back in her head. Her body shudders. And not the good kind of shudder.

“Uh-oh. No steaks?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “Your son doesn’t like steak.”

“Well, I’m gonna have to change that before he decides to take a girl out on a first date,” I joke.

She wraps an arm around her stomach. “How about we worry about bottle feeding first, before you teach him about dropping two-hundred dollars on some steak dinner for a girl who doesn’t even deserve it.”

Laughing, I lift my ballcap and turn it around backward. “Whoa there, Momma. Someone’s a little overprotective of him already, huh?”

She doesn’t answer. Instead, she watches me. To be more exact, she watches the flex of my arms as I get my hat just right. When all the air drains from the room, she drags her gaze back to her movies. The one she’s looking at is upside down.

I don’t even think she realizes it.

She’s so freakin’ funny.

“Anyway, no steak,” she says.

“Chicken fried rice from the Japanese steakhouse?” I ask.

Her multi-colored eyes light up, and it looks like she’s about to start drooling.

Smiling, I nod. “I take that as a yes.”

“Yes, please, if you wouldn’t mind. I’ll go to the grocery store tomorrow and get my own groceries.”

Like hell she will.

I just ignore that comment because I don’t want a fight. “I’ll be back soon.” Walking down the hall to the Big House, I can’t believe how lucky my day has gotten.

Less than an hour later, I’m walking back through the door with more food than an army could eat. “Mer?” Rounding the corner to the living room, I find her fast asleep on the couch. The TV’s softly playing some black and white movie, and a box of books is sitting on the floor in front of her. Stealing one from the top, I turn it over in my hand. It’s got a picture of a pregnant woman on the front. It says it’s some sort of guide from pregnancy all the way through the baby’s first year.

Shit. I guess I need to read that.

Softly tucking a piece of hair behind Merit’s ear, I try to wake her. “Mer? I’ve got the food. It’s time to wake up. It’s time to eat.”

She answers me with a soft moan, weighed down by the heaviness of her dreams.

My God, she’s beautiful.

Her arm protectively hugs her small baby bump. Even in her sleep, she’s holding our child.

She’s gonna be such a great mom.

Let’s be real… a great wife, a great lover, a great partner.

A great everything. Forever.

If she’ll forgive me, of course.

Fuck that. I mean, when she forgives me. Not if , but when .

I stroke her cheek. “Aren’t you hungry?”

This time she doesn’t even answer. She just softly snores. Tilting my head, I spend a few more minutes watching her. Eventually, I pull her into my arms and carry her into the bedroom. I should be given a medal for keeping her in the Children’s Wing and not hauling her over to our bedroom in the Big House. But I want that decision to be hers. I want her to make it willingly and freely because she wants me just as much as I want her. Covering her with the blankets, I tuck her into bed.

Not wanting to leave—because what if she wakes up hungry—I store the food in the fridge and settle on the couch with my book about pregnancy.

Because I’ve got several months of catching up I need to tackle.