Page 7

HOLT

It may be a small town, but at least it has a Walmart and a small mom and pop motel. Of course, I didn’t sleep at all, but at least I was able to change clothes and get a shower. I’m also thankful that I have a family filled with investigators. It only took one phone call to Crutch to find out where Merit is working now.

Stepping on the sidewalk, I glance up at the sign for the small insurance office. I lift my ballcap and tug it back down on my head. I’m glad it was in my truck. I guess it’s kind of like my security blanket. As soon as I open the door, a bell dings.

“I’ll be right with you.”

Holy hell. Her voice .

I can’t see her because people are blocking my view, but I can hear her. Her voice is like a soothing balm to my aching body.

I can’t help but wonder if she ever feels the same.

Well, felt the same.

An older couple is standing in front of her desk, talking about the insurance for their new tractor. When she laughs, I nearly lose my shit. And it’s not even a real laugh; it’s her polite laugh.

It feels like an eternity before they walk away. She doesn’t immediately look up, but instead finishes writing herself a note. She’s sitting behind her desk, focusing on her penmanship. I take a small step in her direction, and she freezes.

Completely freezes. Right in the middle of writing a word.

She can feel me. She can sense me.

All the air is sucked out of the room, charging the distance between us with electricity.

I can’t swallow.

She slowly lifts her head.

And there she is. My Merit. My beautiful and made-for-me Merit. Her redwood hair is perfectly styled, and her makeup is perfectly applied. She’s completely breathtaking. I can’t help but wonder if she’s dressing up for work because she wants to, or because she has to. My perusal of her body is severed all too quickly, however, because the rest of it is hidden behind the bulky desk, shadowing and blocking views of anything below her breasts.

But that doesn’t stop my own body from reacting to hers. In quick fashion, my asshole status is even further cemented when my dick jumps in my pants. I cup my hands in front of my crotch, trying to camouflage my erection, as my eyes travel across her face, soaking in the features I see every time I close my eyes. It doesn’t matter if it’s for a night’s sleep or simply a half-second blink…she’s there.

Despite her beauty, I can’t help but notice her own hazel eyes.

They’re dead.

Void of all spark. Void of all life and joy.

Do they look that way because she’s been emotionally dead these past few months? Just like me?

Or do they look that way because I’m standing in front of her?

“What are you doing here?” she hisses.

“I’m here to see you.”

“Why?”

Well, that’s a loaded question. I go with the truth. “Because I love you.”

“How dare you say that to me,” she spits through clenched jaw.

“It’s the truth. I don’t lie to you. You know that.”

She snorts in disgust. “Yeah, sure. You keep telling yourself that, Holt.”

I sigh, reaching out to her. “I’m so fucking sorry, Merit.”

Her back stiffens, and she looks over her shoulder at the hallway behind her. “Shhh! This is an office. You can’t cuss in here. Are you trying to get me fired? I need this job. I already lost one job because of you, you know.”

Shit. I’m acting like a damn buffoon. “Can we please go somewhere and talk?”

“No! It’s the middle of the workday. I know you’ve got millions of dollars just chilling in the bank, but some of us have to work, and we can’t just walk out in the middle of the day.”

“Merit?” An older man walks around the corner and brightens when he sees me. “Well, hello, young fella. Something we can help you with? Do you have an insurance need?”

I stuff my hands in my pockets. “No, sir. I was just hoping to have a moment with Merit. It’s personal.”

He scowls and looks between the two of us. “Well, Merit knows she can’t conduct personal business on my dime,” he scolds her. “That’s not what I’m paying her for.”

How dare he speak to her like that. I shake my head and point at him. “Listen here—”

Merit jumps up, immediately interrupting me. “He was just leaving, Mr. Shore.” She taps the large file folder that she’s now holding in front of her stomach. The folder completely blocks my view. “I have those numbers you wanted to see.”

He grumbles, perching his folded arms on his bulbous belly.

“Goodbye, Holt.” She pins me with her stare. The dead void in her hazel eyes shifts, and she silently pleads with me, begging me to leave.

Lifting my hat, I settle it back on my head. Fine. I’ll let her win this battle.

But after that?

It’s war.

I’m waging a full-on war, and I’m not stopping until my family is back with me—my wife and my baby.

“I’ll see you tonight, then, Merit.” I toss her a wink and push out the door.

***

I walk across the yard, heading to the back of the barn, where I hear music playing. I parked my truck at the end of the long driveway, behind a tree, hidden from plain view. I guess I’m trying to be sneaky.

“Don’t you know that sneaking onto a man’s property is likely to get you shot?”

Well, I guess I’m not as sneaky as I thought.

Deke’s leaning against the front porch railing wiping his dirty hands on an even dirtier rag. I nod in his direction. “Sir.”

“What are you doing here again, Holt?”

“I have to talk to her. You had to have known I wasn’t gonna give up that easy.”

He stuffs the towel in his back pocket. “You did before. You gave up on her pretty damn easy, in my opinion.”

I try to swallow some of my shame. As always, it chokes me. “I did. It was the worst mistake of my life.”

“So, everything’s different now that a baby is involved? You think you can just come in here and say ‘I’m sorry’ and she’s gonna run back into your arms like nothing happened?”

I shake my head, agreeing with him. “I don’t think it’s gonna be easy, no. But I’m prepared to do whatever it takes to have her back in my life.”

“How do you think she feels knowing that you only came back for the baby? You’re only breaking her heart more.”

“I had planned on fighting for her, even before I knew about the baby. I was… I was just giving it some time.”

“Time? What the hell for?”

My words come out slowly. They sound even more pathetic when I say them out loud. “There’s a big interview I did airing on TV on Thursday night. I was waiting for that.”

He scoffs, sizing me up as the world’s dumbest man. “You think she cares about what you tell some TV reporter?”

No. It’s one of the many things I love about her.

The glass storm door opens, and Marie pokes her head out. “You might as well let him pass. You know this has to happen.”

Deke frowns, mumbling something to her that I can’t hear. She lifts her eyebrows but doesn’t say anything back. Before shutting the door, she gives me a little nod. It’s not exactly a confidence booster, but I’ll take anything I can get at this point.

He pulls his bottom lip between his teeth and bobs his head at the barn, giving me permission to pass. I only take a few steps when he catches my attention. “I guess I should thank you.”

“Sir?” I ask in confusion.

“You said you wanted to ‘ find her’. And you did. The little girl I raised is back.” He turns and walks around the side of the porch, laughing like he knows a secret. “You might not like what you’re walking into.”

The second I see her on the back deck of the barn, my heart skips a thousand beats. She’s bent over a flowerpot, planting something. She’s wearing a short white sundress and yellow and green striped rubber boots. Her ass is bouncing up and down, moving to the rhythm of the song playing through the speaker of her phone. I’m not sure what it is, but I can tell it’s some kind of song from one of her old movies. I can see the outline of her panties through the fabric of her dress.

My heart dives into my stomach, and my dick threatens to spring to life.

Just then, she stands up and stretches her back. She’s turning opposite of me so I’m out of her line of sight, but I can still see everything.

Everything.

The sun dress pulls against her beautiful, rounded stomach. I never thought a belly could be so damn sexy. The setting sun hits her in just the right way, and her dress becomes nearly see-through. I can see the shape of her body. Every curve. Every delicious inch. A strand of hair escapes her messy bun and tickles her nose. She snorts and quickly brushes it away with the back of her hand, getting potting soil on her cheek in the process. She’s glowing, flushed with color from the summer sun and spending her days outside.

No matter how hard I try, I can’t draw my eyes away from her stomach. Away from our baby. The baby that we made.

She looks healthy. Happy.

“Mer,” my voice croaks.

Well… she did look happy.

Her head snaps in my direction, and her eyes narrow in anger. “What are you doing here?”

I climb the stairs. “You know what I’m doing here. We need to talk.”

She cocks a hand on her hip, drawing my gaze back to her belly. “Well, I don’t really feel like talking to you right now. You nearly got me fired today. Haven’t you done enough?”

I ignore that line of questioning and say what’s immediately on my mind. “Holy hell, Merit. You’re breathtaking. This…” my hand instinctively reaches out to her. “I mean, this is the picture I’m gonna have in my head when I’m lying on my death bed.”

She scoffs. “And is that soon? Should I be preparing? Ordering flowers?”

I can read her face. She immediately feels bad about joking about my death. She opens her mouth to apologize but quickly decides against it, refusing to give in.

Holy shit. I love this woman.

I immediately jump in feet first. “I’m so fucking sorry.”

She glances down at the floor, avoiding eye contact. “Yeah, you said that already.” She slides her hands across her belly, shielding our child from me, and then grimaces when she realizes she just used her white dress as a towel to clean her dirty, soil-covered hands. Gaining her strength, she lifts her head and stares directly at me. “Thanks for that, by the way.” Her voice drips with sarcasm, and I’m not exactly sure if she’s talking about her job or her now-messy clothes. “Didn’t you hear me? You nearly got me fired today.”

“Your boss seems like a total prick.”

“Well, of course, he is. But that’s beside the point. I need that job.”

“Why?”

“Why?!” She rolls her eyes and points at her stomach. “I need health insurance, dumbass.”

Merit Eliza Browning just called me a dumbass.

“I’ll pay—”

She immediately cuts me off. “Holt Hill, I would choose your next words very carefully because you are about two seconds away from me giving you a colonoscopy with my garden shears.”

Well, that doesn’t sound pleasant.

I hold up my hands in defeat.

After a beat of silence, she finally looks at me.

I mean, she really looks at me.

Up until now, the hurt has clouded her vision, the pain I caused blinding her.

As it should.

But when she looks at me, it nearly makes me double over in relief.

There’s still love in her. Love for me. Even though I don’t deserve it; it’s there. It’s buried deep, under layers and layers of torment and disappointment. Despite her best efforts, her eyes roam over my body. And when her breath hitches in her chest, I nearly lose my mind with want.

But it’s so much more than the physical. Yes, I want her. I want to hold her, kiss her, make love to her. But more than that, I want to give her my soul. I want to share my life with her. Forever. I want to marry her and grow old with her. I want to shelter her from the storms and carry her in the sun.

I have so many things to make amends for with her, and I’m praying she gives me the chance.

My voice is a whisper of gravel. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

She sucks on her bottom lip. “I was gonna tell you.”

I chuckle softly. “When? Our child’s high school graduation?”

She rolls her eyes and grabs her phone. “Way before his high school graduation,” she says. “I was just waiting until the legal documents were drawn up.”

Time stops. My ears ring and my vision pinholes. “He?” I take another step closer to her. “Did you just say he ?” When she doesn’t answer, I press her. “Mer, are we having a boy?”

She can’t hide the brightness of her smile, though she tries. “Yeah. I just found out last week.”

We’re having a boy.

A son.

Our son.

And I missed it. “Shit. I can’t believe I missed it.” All of a sudden, the other part of her sentence attacks my brain like a mad man with a machete. “Legal documents? What legal documents?”

She taps around on her phone screen and then passes it to me. I can’t help but notice how she does her best to make sure our fingers don’t touch. I scroll through the pages, skimming the legalese, barely able to focus on it because of the panic in my heart. “Custody papers?”

She shakes her head. “Don’t say it like that. I would never keep you from your child. I know how important the kids are to you. After seeing you with them, I have no doubt you’ll be a wonderful father.”

My brow furrows as I read. “Anytime? It says you’ll have primary custody, and I can have visitation as frequently as I want. Anytime at all?”

Her face serious, she just nods.

I lift an eyebrow at the next section in bold type. “No child support?”

She wraps an arm around our son, horror etched on her face. “I don’t need your money,” she spits. “I can provide for him.” She looks out over the fields of growing green grass. Her eyes glisten with unshed tears. “I don’t want your money.”

Fuck. Her broken heart is killing me.

I set her phone back on the table. “Well, it’s a moot point because I’m not signing that.”

She jerks back to me, fear pouring over her like a waterfall. “What? You’re gonna fight me? For custody? Holt, no, please.”

“I would never fight you for custody of our child. It’s a moot point because we’re gonna be a family.”

She cocks her head, lifting her eyebrows. “Holt…” she draws out my name, warning me not to continue.

“Like I told you earlier today, I love you. And that will never change.”

Her hand rubs her sternum, like she’s trying to smash whatever feelings may be coursing through her. “Don’t say that.”

“You know it’s the truth, Merit. I don’t lie to you.” I take another step, trying to close the distance between us. “I’m in love with you. I never stopped. I never stopped loving you.”

She stumbles backward, like my words physically assaulted her, like I’m brutally attacking her with every single syllable. Her leg knocks against the table, making her cell phone bounce, and she splays her hand in the air, fingers wide, nonverbally telling me to stop. Her whisper is laced with a flurry of warring emotions. Adoration and abhorrence. Softness and sharpness. Detachment and pain. “Take me out of the equation, Holt. You keep saying that you don’t lie to me, but who the hell cares. Because it’s yourself you’ve been lying to this whole time. You might not have stopped loving me, but you started despising me the second those attorneys painted a target on my back.”

I open my mouth to defend my indefensible behavior, but she jams her hand back in front of me, begging me to keep quiet. “Stop. You’re only making this harder on both of us. I’ve done my best to find some small modicum of peace with what you did to me. I’ve had to do that—as a mother . It’s time for you to do the same. Because this,” she wags her finger back and forth between the two of us, “is never happening again.”

“Wanna. Fucking. Bet.” My growl is harsher than I intend for it to be, but I can’t help it. I’m gonna fight for her. To the fucking death, if need be. My ass is done standing on the sidelines like some kind of beaten-down and defeated, little wimp. “You better buckle up, baby, because this world already stole you from me once before. And like a fool, I let it. But that’s over and done with. Get ready, because this is a battle you’re never gonna win. Because I’m not stopping until you’re in my life, in my arms, in my bed. I’ll tear down fucking mountains and rip trees from their roots. I’ll scorch this world from the top of Heaven to the bottom of Hell, if I have to. I’ll do whatever needs to be done to put you back where you belong. And once I get ahold of you, I’m never letting you go. We belong together. In our home. In our life. I’ll be damned if I leave this farm without you.”

Her whole body is shaking. Her eyes are wide and innocent, filled with disbelief and yearning. A slow ember is starting to flame, knocking away some of the death I saw in them just a few hours ago. I erase the distance between us, stepping to the side a bit to avoid bumping into my son, nestled lovingly in her belly.

But I don’t dare touch her. She deserves more than me just trying to manipulate her buried feelings with my kiss, with my touch.

She deserves more respect than that. God knows, she’s earned it.

She’s the strongest woman I know.

But I don’t have to touch Merit to feel her.

“Don’t touch me.” Her whisper fans across my face. We’re mere millimeters from one another.

“I don’t have to touch you to feel you, Mer,” I say honestly, conveying the thought that just raced through my head. “Our souls are connected. Our hearts beat in tandem.” I turn my face, nuzzling against her hair, breathing in her scent of summer flowers and grass and sunshine. And of course, the scent of the potting soil still streaked across her cheekbone. “And you’re wrong. I never despised you. I was mourning you. I let charlatans and thieves steal my faith in us. I was weak.” I kiss the top of her head, softly and gently, with one small peck. “And in you, I find my strength.”