Page 57 of Diesel’s Desire

“I know.”

“Penny.”

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s something.” He sets the bottle down on the table like it’s suddenly not important, cups forgotten beside it. “You’ve been quiet since I picked you up. Sasha noticed too, she just didn’t say it.”

I look at him—at the ink crawling up his throat, the stubble he didn’t bother shaving today, those blue eyes that have been reading me easier than anybody ever has—and I know I’m not getting out of this conversation in the middle of a BBQ with Gunner’s laugh carrying every three seconds and Carol’s eyes on the back of my neck.

“Can we talk?” I say. “Somewhere quiet.”

Something flickers across his face—not fear exactly, but the caution I recognize from our last argument. He nods once and doesn’t ask again, just follows me away from the tables, past the smokers by the fire pit, toward the barn that’s become something like our place over the last three months.

He shuts the door behind us. The light through the gaps in the wood cuts thin gold lines across the dusty floor, same as it did the day I told him I quit the force.

“You’re scaring me a little,” he says. “Just so you know.”

“I’m not trying to.”

“Then talk.”

I take a breath. My hands are shaking, and I press them flat against my thighs to stop it, and I think about every way I rehearsed this in the mirror this morning and none of them feel right standing here in front of him.

So I just say it.

“I’m pregnant.”

The barn goes so quiet I can hear the horse moving around in the pen outside.

Evan doesn’t move for a second. Doesn’t say anything. Just stares at me like I’ve spoken a language he needs a moment to translate, and my stomach drops straight through the floor because I can’t read whatever’s happening behind his eyes, not for the first time in three months.

“Say something,” I whisper.

“You’re—” His voice cracks on the word. “You’re sure?”

“Took the test twice this morning. I’m sure.”

He crosses the space between us in two strides, and for a second I think he might grab me, might do something big and loud, but instead his hands come up slow, framing my face like I’m something that might break if he moves too fast.

“Penny.” My name comes out wrecked. “Penny, are you—how do you feel? Are you happy? Scared? I need to know what you need from me right now, tell me what you need⁠—”

“I need you to say something other than my name.”

A laugh bursts out of him, rough and disbelieving, and then he’s kissing me, hard, both hands still cupping my face like he can’t decide whether to hold me or lift me off the ground entirely.

“I’m happy,” he breathes against my mouth. “God, Penny, I’m so happy I want to shout it from the rooftops right now.”

“We have to wait,” I manage, pulling back enough to look at him. “I wanted to wait until I’m twelve weeks along before we tell anyone.”

“Fuck waiting.”

“Evan.”

“I know.” He presses his forehead to mine, breathing hard like he’s the one who just ran a mile instead of me. “I know you want to wait. I get why. I just—” He pulls back, and there’s something wild and bright in his face that I’ve genuinely never seen on him before, not once, not even the night I told him I loved him. “I can’t sit on this. I’ve got so many years of wanting this life with you sitting right here in my chest, and you just told me it’s actually happening, and I don’t think I can walk back out there and pretend I don’t know.”

“Evan, if something happens—if it doesn’t⁠—”

“Then we’ll deal with that together, same as we’d deal with anything.” He takes my hand, presses it flat against his sternum where his heartbeat is going hard and fast under my palm. “But right now, today, you just told me I’m gonna be a father, and I want my brothers to know. I want the whole world to know. I’m done being quiet about wanting things, Penny. Learned that lesson the hard way already.”