“I wouldn’t change it if I could.” She looked directly into his eyes as she said it.
“You wouldn’t push it back a few months? To lend it some respectability?” He watched her closely. She didn’t even flinch.
“No.” Her eyes narrowed. “Would you?”
“If I had it to do over again, the only thing I would do differently is that I would have tied you to me that first night. So I could have enjoyed the last few months with you.”
“Have you eaten?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Not yet.”
“Neither have I,” she said.
“What?” He jumped to his feet. “Why haven’t you eaten yet? That’s not good for the baby.”
She laid a hand on her belly. “The baby is fine,” she said softly. “You’re happy with the idea of a child?” she asked.
He leaned forward and kissed her softly. She tasted like sunshine and sleep. Like she was his. Like she was perfect. He drew back with a groan. “I couldn’t be happier.”
“Where have you been?” she asked again. “Why so late?”
“I was with Robin, trying to figure out what we’re going to do about Mayden.” He pulled his shirt out of his waistband and picked up the small trunk her father had sent. He sat it on the edge of the bed. “That’s from your father.”
Then he walked away to call for some food.
When he came back, Claire was poking at the box. “I feel certain there’s no snake in it,” he said with a laugh.
“Our kind uses boxes to hold memories.” She took a deep breath, as though weighing her words. “I hate to say it, but I don’t want to know what the memories felt like for them. I like the way things are right now. I want to get to know them from now forward. I don’t want the past, except to say that it made me who I am.”
He leaned forward and kissed her forehead. He lingered there, his lips pressed against her skin. She raised her hand to brush the stubble on his cheek, so he dipped his head quickly and scrubbed his chin in the sensitive skin of her neck. She squealed and shoved at him, laughing.
He pushed the box farther toward her. “Open it,” he said.
Tentatively, she flipped the latch that held the box closed and lifted the lid. Then she smiled, and it was a smile so beautiful and so perfect that he smiled with her.
“He thought you might need something to do while you’re under the weather.”
“He thinks I’m sick?”
“He thinks you have a stomach ailment or something.”
“I wonder if he’ll be angry at Mother when he finds out the truth.”
“I think he’ll probably be angry at all of us.” Finn chuckled. He wanted to chuckle about it now while he could. Because when Ramsdale found out Finn had impregnated his daughter, there would be hell to pay. “What did he send for you?”
“Paint. Brushes. Parchment.” She reached in and retrieved jars of paint. “I helped him make some of these.” She grinned.
“There are canvases too. I’ll have someone bring them inside.”
“He thought of everything.”
“I’d say that he knows you very well for a man who just met you.”
She nodded, a ridiculously charming smile on her face.
“What are you going to paint?”
He narrowed her eyes and looked at him, her eyes running up and down his body.