Chapter 13
Fiona
I covered my face the moment I’d said to Laird that he was what I wanted. I couldn’t believe I’d done it. I had voiced what I’d been thinking since I’d been with him. I didn’t know what it was about him, but since I had been with him the first time, I had felt that he was another piece of me.
We’d had two sexual encounters. They had been beyond amazing, no doubt, but that didn’t make a relationship. God, it barely made us acquaintances. But it was what I felt, and I couldn’t help it, no matter how hard I had tried to fight it since he had dropped me off at the lodge.
And now that I was pregnant with his baby, it seemed like a twist of fate. But I didn’t want to be that girl, the one who believed that because something was amazing it was meant to be. I was more logical than this. I was realistic. What I felt for Laird was something that belonged in a fairy tale, and this was real life. This was where he would laugh at me and tell me I was being ridiculous, that he barely knew me. This was where he told me I had to figure out what I wanted to do with the baby by myself, that he would send a check in the mail if I was lucky.
I shouldn’t have said what I did.
Laird touched my wrists, peeled my hands gently away from my face. He put his hand under my chin and tipped my head up so I looked at him. His eyes were dark and drowning deep, and his face was gentle. There was no mockery or reproach after what I had said. My body reacted to him, and my heart skipped a beat. Maybe I was in love. I was definitely in lust. Either way, I wanted him.
“Don’t hide,” he said.
I shook my head. “This is ridiculous. Isn’t it? We barely know each other. I don’t know how this is possible. I think I’m emotional. Hormonal. I’m sorry.”
Laird shook his head. “No,” he said. “Don’t be. I’m not. I think I loved you since the moment I dropped you off at the lodge.”
I blinked at Laird. Had he said the “L” word to me? I had told him I wanted him. He could have added any explanation to that. He could have interpreted it as more fucking. Instead, he had taken “love” and added it in there. And he had said it to me.
My heart soared. It was crazy. It was unrealistic. Everything was wrong with this picture. But everything felt so damn right. This amazing man, hot and gentle and caring, loved me. He wasn’t going to throw me out. He wasn’t going to tell me to get out of his life. How did I get so lucky?
It seemed too good to be true. After everything that had happened with Randy, it was hard to believe that we could have such a happy ending. But here I was, and I was awake. I wasn’t dreaming. It was true.
Still, I had to ask.
“Why?” I asked. “Why did you say that?” Because usually when something was too good to be true, it usually was.
Laird put his hand on my cheek. “Because since you were here three weeks ago, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you. You wriggled your way into my heart and soul. I can’t get you off my mind no matter how hard I try. So, I’m listening to my heart.”
I wrapped my arms around Laird’s neck, and he folded me against his body. He was big and strong, and when he held me like this, even though he was a total stranger, it felt right. I was home. We sat in each other’s arms like this for a long time. Outside, the sun started to set, the trees around the cabin casting tall shadows over the land but inside it was light and warm, and I was where I belonged.
But, as usual, I started overthinking it. Fear crept in, messing up the wonderful feeling of everything working out perfectly, and I let go of Laird. He shifted, giving me space but his hands were still on me, not breaking contact.
“What if this doesn’t work out?” I asked. “What if we find out somewhere down the line there’s something we really hate about each other?”
“Then we work through it,” Laird said.
“Even if it’s something terrible?”
“Do you have something terrible you want to tell me?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“I don’t have something terrible to tell you, either. We’re just two people, sweetheart.” My heart skipped a beat when he called me that. “We’ll get to know each other. We’ll work around the stumbling blocks, and we’ll figure it out. We’re stuck together, you and me. We don’t have a choice but to make it work if we want to give the baby the life he or she deserves.”
He was right. We had a choice, of course, but it was a no-brainer. I was terrified of trying with a man I barely knew, even when he was perfect in every way because I had felt like Randy was the man for me once upon a time. Look how that had turned out. But Laird was right. We owed it to the baby to figure it out, and we could make it work if we really wanted to. I felt something for him I had never felt for Randy, no matter how long we had been together and how perfect I had thought we were at first. It meant something.
“Alright,” I said.
“Alright?” Laird asked, confirming.
I nodded. “We can do it,” I said. Because what I needed wasn’t a man that told me everything was going to be perfect. What I needed was a man that could admit it might be hard, but he would work with me to make it through. That was realistic. It was logical. It was the one thing that grounded this fairytale and made me believe that we really could do it.
We were stuck together with the baby in my belly, thrown together by circumstance, lust, a fairy tale. And we could make it happen.
Laird pulled me against him and held onto me tightly. I felt safe. I felt like we could do it. I had never felt this safe, this loved with Randy. He had always made me feel like the world revolved around him and that I was lucky he wanted me around. With Laird, I felt like he believed he was the lucky one when he held onto me.
“I’m glad you came to me,” Laird said. “I was so happy to see you standing in front of my door earlier.”
“Even with the news I brought?”
Laird nodded. “Even with the news.”
He kissed me. It was long and deep and sensual, and when he finally broke the kiss, I was out of breath and dizzy with love and lust.
“I think it’s time we make up for the past three weeks we haven’t been together,” Laird said, When I looked up at him, there was hunger in his eyes. He kissed me again and guided me backward so I was lying on the bed. He pulled the blanket down that I had covered up with, put his palm on my skin and traced my curves with his hand as if he was committing them to memory.
Slowly, we explored each other, getting to know each other in a way we hadn’t taken the time to do before. And I felt like everything was going to be okay. The way Laird looked at me made me feel like he cared for me. The way he touched me made me feel beautiful. The time he took to get to know my body, to make sure I was alright, made me believe that whatever we set out to do from here on out – no matter how hard it became – we could do it as long as we worked through it together.