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I’d wiped all the evidence of tears from my face by the time I got home and got out, walking up to the cabin. Dillon was sitting on the porch seat, refusing to look at me.
“I’m sorry. I just really needed a few minutes to myself,” I said, heading over to him and pulling out the KitKat bar. He just stared at me as I set it down next to him and raised his eyebrows before snorting and shaking his head.
I knew him well enough to know that I was in deep, deep shit.
He didn’t talk to me for the rest of the night. We’d flipped a hundred eighty degrees from what we’d felt in bed an hour ago, but I didn’t know how to navigate this moment in time.
I had no idea how to tell a man I barely knew, who I was ninety percent sure I was coming to love that I was pregnant with his child.
23
DILLON
A fucking KitKat bar? Seriously? After weeks of being so careful that I knew it was starting to drive her crazy, she decided to fuck everything up and drive into town for candy?
Just a few minutes before, we’d reached a new threshold while I’d had her in bed with me, and it had terrified me. It terrified me how much I wanted her around, and how when she teased me for loving how weird she was, I’d wanted to turn around, grab her, and tell her that it was just the beginning of the things that I loved about her.
My uncle Rick had once told me that love was when you found the person you couldn’t picture your life without, and as much as I’d tried to avoid it, she had become that person.
So when she tore off in my truck without an explanation, I’d been seized with a moment of terror that she was straight-up leaving me, for good. That she’d had enough of my bullshit and that she was getting out of Singer’s Ridge. And as much as I’d been able to talk myself down off the ledge, the thought had lingered until she’d pulled up again, looking guilty as all hell and, if I didn’t know any better, the barest hint of terrified.
The combination of relief and fury was disorienting, and since I was so happy she’d come back, I didn’t want to say anything that would push her to actually leave, so I just didn’t say anything to her for the rest of the night. We’d gone to bed in silence, and in the morning, I’d found myself waking up with my arms around her as usual.
Fuck. How could I pretend to be furious with her when I couldn’t even keep my hands off her?
I got up and took Bucky for his walk, letting her wake up on her own. I still needed time to calm down before I talked to her.
When I got back, she was making breakfast, her face pinched and paler than usual. She put the plate of eggs and bacon out in front of me, along with the coffee, and looked up at me with her wide blue eyes, as if she was begging for forgiveness.
I sat down in one of the stools, taking a bite. “I just don’t understand,” I said, “why after everything, and after you’ve gotten so pissed at me for being controlling and you’ve given up so much by staying here, you would do this, now.”
“I wasn’t careless, and I wouldn’t have done it if it weren’t necessary,” she said.
“Okay. So a candy bar was necessary? Was it a life-and-death chocolate situation?”
“What if I said it was?”
“I won’t even dignify that with a response.” I pushed my plate away and put my face into my hands. “Jesus, Macy. You really are the dumbest smart person I’ve ever met.”
As soon as I said it, I knew it was fucked-up. Her face went pale, and she nodded at me once before turning and heading down the hall to the guest room, slamming the door behind her. I flinched at the sound of it.
Through the rest of the day, she and I didn’t speak much. The only times she made her presence known were when she came out of the room to use the bathroom, and even then, she kept as quiet as possible.
I knew I’d been an asshole, and that I owed her more than that, but I couldn’t get past the fact that she’d completely ignored everything we’d talked about and put herself in danger. And even if she thought I was overreacting and just being a controlling, alarmist ex-cop, the fact remained that I still valued her, and I still wanted her to be safe.
That evening, I went and knocked on the door. “I made dinner.” I’d extended the invitation; now it was up to her to decide whether or not she wanted to take me up on that.
I went back out to the kitchen, serving myself a plate of pasta and going to sit on the couch. I didn’t even look up as I heard her come into the main room and go toward the stove, serving herself a plateful.
I waited for her to come sit down next to me, but she didn’t. When I turned around to look and see where she was, I saw that she was sitting at the counter with her book open in front of her, despite the fact that she wasn’t reading.
I finished eating my own dinner in silence before taking my plate up to the sink, rinsing it, and walking over to stand in front of her. She flipped a page, studiously ignoring me for as long as she could before looking up and finally meeting my eyes.
“You know I don’t think for a second that you decided to leave the house because you were craving some Reese’s.”
“You have yet to see me when I get a craving for chocolate. I assure you that can get deadly.”
