Maybe if he said it enough times, he’d actually start to believe it.
…
Hope pushed ignore on her phone and set it aside. Since the disastrous dinner yesterday, her parents had called several times. She’d ignored every single one. She wasn’t ready to talk to them, especially since she highly doubted they were calling to apologize for how they’d handled the news. No, they were calling to demand an explanation.
An explanation that, frankly, she didn’t have.
She pressed her hand to her stomach. Two months along and she didn’t feel that much different when all was said and done. She’d noticed this morning that her breasts were growing at a truly alarming rate—and were seriously sore—but there was none of the nausea or sickness that she’d always heard about. Rationally, she knew that at some point her stomach would start rounding and, even further down the road, she’d have to actually go into labor, but it seemed like a distant dream. Things going so well with her and Daniel had only added to the dreamlike quality of the situation. Half the time she was convinced that she’d never actually left Dallas and that this was all a hallucination as a result of a bad taco truck meal.
But it wasn’t a dream, and she did have to come up with a real plan at some point.
Today.
“Hope?”
She turned as Daniel walked into the kitchen. He looked… Her heart picked up at the sight of him in worn jeans, a long-sleeved plaid shirt, and his cowboy hat pulled down low. He was dirty from working outside all day, but that only added to the allure. She bit her lip and leaned back against the counter. “Hey.”
“If you could see the way you’re looking at me.”
She didn’t have to. She knew. Hope crooked her finger at him, and he immediately crossed the kitchen to pull her into his arms. Daniel took off his hat and dropped it onto the counter next to her, his dark eyes searching her face. “How was your day?”
“Good.” And it was the truth. Her pain was manageable, and she’d gotten quite a bit of work done on a new account despite working remotely. The only downside was the regular calls from her parents that she wasn’t ready to deal with. She’d call them back eventually, but she wanted a few more days to figure out how to approach the conversation. She needed to have an actual plan in place before she spoke with them.
“I ran into town before coming home.” He stepped back, keeping his hands on her hips. “Jessica says you haven’t called her and if she has to drive out here and kidnap you, she’s more than willing.”
Hope laughed. “I’ll call later, I promise.” It would be good to catch up, especially now that she wasn’t feeling quite so off center when it came to wondering what the hell was going on with her and Daniel. They might not have a plan, but they loved each other. It was a start—a promising start.
“I also grabbed a few things.” A frown flickered over his face, gone almost as soon as it had appeared. “I figured I’d cook us some dinner tonight. How does pad Thai sound?”
She froze, searching his face. Over a week here, and the most he’d cooked was pouring cereal into a bowl or pulling a container of yogurt out of the fridge for her. “Why now?”
“It’s time.”
That wasn’t really an explanation, but it couldn’t possibly be a bad thing. Maybe it was a sign of him starting to reclaim the parts of himself that had fallen by the wayside over the last decade. Either way, she wasn’t about to complain about homemade pad Thai—especially when Daniel was doing the cooking. Her stomach chose that moment to growl, and she laughed. “Why don’t you jump in the shower and I’ll get the groceries put away?”
“Sounds good.” He kissed her lightly and headed out of the kitchen, reappearing for trip after trip of grocery bags.
Hope stood there and knew her eyes were getting larger and larger at the growing pile of food on the kitchen island. She’d thought he’d gone overboard last time, but it paled in comparison to the sheer amount of food he unloaded. He had to have bought out the entire store.
He thinks I’m staying.
I don’t even know if I’m staying.
He didn’t quite look at her the entire time, and she didn’t know what to stay. She didn’t want to make him feel awkward when he was making changes for the better, but it was just so unexpected. Once he disappeared for the final time, she waited for the shower to start to begin going through the bags.
There was enough food to feed them for weeks, but that wasn’t what had her raising her eyebrows. He must have gone into El Paso before he hit the grocery store in Devil’s Falls, because there was an entire selection of new cookware and saucepans and utensils. They weren’t exact replicas of the ones he’d had when they were together before, but it was more than enough to cook anything she could dream up.
We’re going to have to talk about this, and soon. All of this.
But not tonight.
Tonight was for new possibilities and to keep riding the wave that had crested the night they’d announced the pregnancy to their families. Things were good, and she didn’t want to be the one to throw a wrench into the gears until it was absolutely necessary.
By the time Daniel reappeared, wearing a different pair of jeans and forgoing a shirt completely, she had everything put away and had hand washed the various cooking gear. She smiled at him. “You got ambitious today.”
“Yeah, well, I figure your cravings are only going to ramp up as time goes on. I want to be prepared for those middle-of-the-night demands.”
She laughed even as her heart pounded at an alarming rate. I can’t stay…can I? “Trust you to make late-night cravings about food rather than sex.”
His slow smile made her stomach flip. “Aw, darling, I’m more than capable of meeting either—or both—needs if you want another go at the kitchen.”
“Oh.” She knew she was blushing furiously, but she couldn’t seem to stop. It didn’t make a bit of sense, either. He’d had his hands and mouth all over her body countless times in the last week, and last night, he’d massaged her injured leg while they lounged around on the couch and watched bad television in between bouts of sex. It was like having a glimpse of the life she’d always wanted, and a part of her kept whispering that it couldn’t last.
Which only made her want to hold it more closely.
He circled the breakfast bar and started going through the fridge to lay out the stuff he’d need for dinner. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking today.”
She didn’t know where this was heading, but she wasn’t ready to go there. Hope slipped between him and the counter and leaned up to kiss him. “Not tonight.”
His brows slanted down. “We have to talk—about a lot of things.”
She knew that. Really, she did. “We will, I promise. But can we just have one last night in the dream before we have to touch back to reality?”
If anything, that seemed to set him on edge. “One talk isn’t going to be the end of this, darling. It’s just a talk. It’s what adults do—communicate.”
Except so many of their talks seemed to end with fights and her despairing at ever being able to find a happy medium with Daniel. She loved him—more than should have been possible—but if love was enough, things wouldn’t have fallen out the way they did all those years ago. No, they needed a plan and the ability to hold down a conversation about the future without resorting to yelling.
Unfortunately, both those things felt nearly impossible.
She implored Daniel with her eyes. “Please. One more night?”
“We have to talk about Dallas, Hope. I know you were planning on going back tomorrow.”
Her chest compressed, and she forced a smile. “Then we’ll talk in the morning. First thing, I promise.”
“If that’s what you want.”
“It is.”
Tomorrow would come soon enough.