Chapter Nine
Lucas
He hadn’t snuck out of my apartment alone.
And he had prenatal vitamins in his pocket.
There was a glow to his skin.
.
“Harrison, look at me.” He’d barely made eye contact at all.
He took a minute, but did. I remembered those green eyes from that night we shared, but I thought maybe I’d imagined how green they actually were.
I hadn’t. They were the color of cilantro.
“Harrison, are you carrying my baby?”
He nodded and leaned forward, and I squeezed him tighter.. As I held him, I noticed we were gaining an audience. It was time to take this somewhere private.
“Is there anywhere we can go?” I whispered into his ear.
“Get in the truck,” he answered, turning away from me while pointing to the passenger door.
As I went around the back of the truck to get into the passenger side, I glanced back at the diner to see Warren giving me a thumbs-up from the window.
He was my dating coach.
“I’m gonna take you to my place. It’s not much, but…”
I reached over the bench seat and put my hand on his shoulder. I would’ve preferred to take his hand, but it was occupied with the old truck’s stick shift.
“Anyplace you are is good enough for me.”
He nodded once, speeding down the road. He turned off between two huge oak trees where I hadn’t even seen a road. The dust blew all around the truck until he skidded to a stop near an almost picture-perfect cottage. The outside was painted sky blue with white shutters. The only thing missing was the picket fence.
“This is your house.” It had to be. The brawny man with a killer beard and tattoos next to me had to live here.
It was just too ironic.
“It is. Belonged to my grandfather. Then it passed to me. And, one day…” It struck me that maybe Harrison was as used to the idea of him having a baby as I was—which was not at all.
“When did you find out?” I asked over the engine’s rumble.
“I’ve known for about a week. Went to the doctor today with Vivian.”
“Is that the woman I saw you with earlier?” I couldn’t help but stare at his belly.
“It was. She’s someone who orders projects from me. I’m building her shelves.”
“And you’re building that other woman a cradle.”
He tugged on his beard. “Yeah, one of my specialties.”
“Do you think you’ll make one for the...I mean our...the baby?”
“Probably. Do you want to get out? Have a cup of coffee? Let me explain why I ran out on you like that?”
I looked out the window and took in the scene. An abandoned garden lay in the side yard with stakes still in the rows and one that read Basil.
“Who did that?” I pointed to the garden.
“My grandpa used to grow herbs and stuff there—he enjoyed it. So, in or…”
“Yeah, I’d love to talk.”
“Stay there,” I told him gently. I crossed the front of the truck and opened the door for him. “I didn’t get to do this before.”
“Oh, thanks. Come on in.”
We walked side by side toward the small house, and I had to refrain from taking his hand in mine and tell him that I’d never stopped thinking about him.
That I’d been a mess since he left.
That I wanted this baby—with him—with us—all of it.
“Come on in. Shoes off.”
He stopped just inside the front door and kicked his shoes off, and I followed suit. The place was immaculate. Every piece of furniture, from the tables, to the sideboard, to the little table beside a dated chair, was handmade and lovingly so. But there were no pictures, no personal touches, like it was about to be sold or up for rent.
Or simply that a lonely person lived here.
I followed him to the kitchen where he put a silver-colored kettle on the stove to boil.
“I can make coffee or tea. I have to drink herbal tea now. The doc told me to hold back on the caffeine. Shoot, I was supposed to stop at the library.”
“For what? Oh, and tea is fine, thank you.”
He pulled two mismatched cups from the shelf and with them a tin of loose tea.
“Pregnancy books. I mean, there’s just so much the doctor can tell me. I’ve got about six months to read up, apparently.”
He took off his jacket and hung it on a coatrack, also handcrafted, and walked back to the stove, waiting on the hot water.
“Wanna talk to me about why you left?”