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And that’s when it all clicks. Him smelling my hair. His hand on my belly every night. The bucket. The cloth he had ready. The way he looked at me on that counter yesterday.

That sneaky, sneaky man.

“He knows,” I say. “He already knows. Doesn’t he?”

Mother Wren just picks her chisel back up.

“Shoo,” she says. “I got arms to carve.”

* * *

I walk home so fast I’m almost running.

Rowan’s at the kitchen table, carving a bee. He looks up when I come in, sees my face, and goes completely still.

I walk right up to him, stand between his knees, and put my hands on my hips.

“How long have you known?”

He doesn’t even try to lie this time.

“Since the night of the fair.”

“Rowan! That was two weeks ago!”

“I know.”

“Two weeks? You let me think I had the flu? You let me go to Pell’s? You let me climb you on the counter yesterday and you didn’t say one word?”

“You climbed me,” he points out. “I was making bread.”

“Rowan.”

He reaches up, slow, and puts his hands on my waist.

“It’s your body, Hattie,” he says quietly. “It’s your news. I didn’t want to take it from you.”

I open my mouth to cuss him out some more.

Nothing comes out. Because that’s the sweetest thing anybody’s ever said to me, and he said it like it was nothing.

“You sneaky motherfucker,” I whisper, and my voice cracks right in half.

He pulls me in. His hands slide around to my belly and spread out wide, the same way they have every night for two weeks.

Then he slides off the chair on his knees, right there on my kitchen floor.

He presses his face against my belly. Wraps both arms around my hips. Holds on.

And he goes completely still.

He just stays there with his ear pressed to my belly, listening.

“Rowan?”

“Shh.”

“Baby, there’s nothing to hear yet.”