Silence.
She loosened a breath. “All right, so here’s the thing. I’m beyond grateful that you planned this party for me, and I love you all like crazy, but honestly, this day has been absolute shit. And since you all know that I’m pregnant, I can tell you that I’ve barfed my brains out ten times today. What I need more than anything else right now is my bed.” She glanced back at Remy and let her guard down, showing Remy everything she was feeling. Everything felt raw. Most of all, her heart. “Would you hate me if I went and crawled into bed?”
Remy’s eyes saddened but she shook her head. “Totally fine. We’ll do a dinner together another night. No worries.”
“Dinner sounds really, really nice.” She gave Peyton and Remy quick kisses on their cheeks, then turned toward Remy’s husband, Asher. His soft eyes held hers, radiating the warmth she’d grown to expect from him. He was a good friend not only to her brother, but to her. “Thanks for coming tonight,” she told him.
“Happy Birthday, Kins.” His hair fell over his brow when he reached down and took her into his embrace. When he released her, he added with a smile, “And congratulations.”
“Thanks.” She smiled back, and that smile felt a little more real.
Before she could even get to Boone, her brother grabbed her hand, tugging her into his arms. “I thought there was something different about you these last couple of weeks, but I couldn’t figure it out. I thought you had your hair done differently or something.” His laugh brushed over her as he released her, his smile tender. “I’m gonna be an uncle, huh?”
She nodded.
He winked at her. “Surprising news, but you always do seem to keep us on our toes. You know we’re here for you.”
Emotion climbed up her throat again. She clamped down against it and the tears welling in her eyes. “I know, thank you.”
“You’ll let me know if you need me?”
“Always do,” she told him.
“Good.” He stepped away.
Then she found herself under her dad’s wise gaze. He pulled her into his strong and comforting arms. Any control she had over her emotions vanished. The day had been too much. Holding on to this news had been too much. There was all this love around her and yet all this uncertainty. She broke, a whimper spilling out as tears rolled down her hot cheeks in the safety of his father’s hold.
She was on the pill. Rhett had worn condoms every time. They’d taken every precaution for this not to happen, but somehow, it did. Of all the dreams she had of becoming a mother, none of them included having a man at her side that didn’t want to be there. She was far past hoping Rhett would come around. After the first time he dodged her call, she was more than annoyed with him. From that day on, her attention turned to finding a way to tell him about the baby. What happened tonight, it hadn’t been how she’d wanted him to find out, but his arrogance, and his belief that she couldn’t control herself around him, made her blood burn. The jerk.
“Ah, kiddo, none of that now.” Dad’s rumbly voice spilled over. “Everything’s gonna be all right.”
She stayed put, letting him hold her and make this all better for a minute. She had never been an emotional person, but pregnancy had done strange things to her hormones. Lately, she cried over commercials.
Dad eventually pressed his lips to her forehead then gave her a level look. “We always get through, don’t we?”
She wiped her tears. “Yeah, we do.” Because they had to. Mom left Dad when Kinsley was six years old. In every one of Kinsley’s memories, her mother didn’t want the small-town life Stoney Creek offered. So she left them and moved to California. There, within a handful of years, she found herself a new husband and had two more kids, and Boone and Kinsley no longer mattered. Boone had made peace with their mother, but even when her mother had tapped her on the shoulder at Boone and Peyton’s wedding like she had the right to and then said, “Kinsley, please stop shutting me out,” Kinsley did not want to talk to her. Ever. That would never change. Mothers shouldn’t abandon their kids. Some things were unforgivable.
When Dad finally stepped away, Kinsley felt a small measure of relief rush over her. Everyone knew about the baby now, but the heaviness at her back told her that things were more complicated than ever. “Now if you’ll excuse me,” she said, picking up the cake, along with a plastic fork, before heading for the foyer. “I’ll be in bed, eating my emotions.”
* * *
War, Rhett could handle. But a baby?
The world had shaken beneath him the moment Kinsley hit him with the news. He’d replayed the words in his head over and over: I’m pregnant. The baby is yours. He had seen the condom wrappers on the resort room floor, and yet he also didn’t doubt her. She wouldn’t dream of having a child with him; no one would. He eventually pushed up from the porch and stared into the fury in Hank and Boone’s faces. Then with his balls still lodged in his throat, he walked away. Anything he said then would have been wrong. He’d seen the pain in Kinsley’s eyes. Pain he’d caused. He strode back to his truck at the police station on Main Street, the brisk east wind cutting through him. Once in his truck, he drove to the one place that grounded him.
Home.
He’d bought his parents’ house from them when they moved away to Wisconsin for his father’s new job. They’d inherited the property from his maternal grandparents and they’d given it to him for a steal. The twelve-hundred-square-foot bungalow wasn’t anything spectacular, but the view was what made the property priceless. He pulled into his driveway then immediately stepped on the breaks. Hard. In the middle of his gravel driveway stood a doe, her eyes glowing under the beam of his headlights. Yeah, he felt a little like that too. Dazed, for sure.
He slowly lifted his foot off the break, inching his way forward, and the doe quickly took off into the forest. He parked his truck in the circular driveway and headed for the back door. The night was still and silent around him. Once inside, he flicked on the lights as he entered through the small kitchen and dropped his keys on the worn oak counter. By the time he grabbed the whiskey bottle from his grandfather’s old liquor cabinet in the living room and headed outside, he was barely thinking anymore, only needing air and alcohol to numb the raging rawness in his chest.
The property sat atop a cliff, and Rhett headed straight for the left side, go
ing down the staircase lit up with solar lights that led to the beach. When he hit the sand, the half-frozen water and starry sky greeted him, and he quickly built himself a campfire before plopping his ass in the Adirondack chair that he kept there. He took two big gulps of the whiskey, the warmth of the liquid burning in his gut. Only then could he breathe fully.
A baby? With Kinsley?
When he raised the bottle to his lips again, his mind drifted and went back to the place that made sense.