Chapter Thirty-two
I parked the car outside the lodge and ran inside.
“Jake!” I called out to see if he was here but heard no answer. Binksie looked up from his bed in the living room and if I knew he wouldn’t scratch the hell out of me I would have hugged him. Instead, I settled for walking over and petting his head.
“I’ve missed you, boy.” He started purring and leaning his head into my hand.
“I’ll pet you more later, okay? Right now I need to find him,” I told the cat and began thinking of where I could find Jake. He wasn’t out by the pregnant Gemma, nor was he within sight. My gaze spotted the ATV and knew he must be walking around on foot. Feeling an opportunity here, I hopped onto the ATV and started searching. If he asked why I was driving it, I would just kiss him and shut him up.
My breath got stuck in my throat when I finally found him. He was helping build the new enclosure for the bear I had read about. When he heard the ATV pull up, he looked over with his hand shading his eyes, trying to see through the sunlight.
I stopped and hopped off, but didn’t move. Neither did he. We just stood there, so many words in our locked gaze. However, one word hung in the air between us like a cord.
Forever.
Our forever wouldn’t happen unless we were together. So I took off and ran towards him. He took a few steps and opened his arms, as I jumped into them, and wrapped my arms around him.
“I love you, Jake Wild. And I’m never leaving you again. You’re my mate for life.” I nestled in his neck, feeling him, and smelling him. Dirt, sweat and all.
“Mine forever.” I could feel his grin against my head. Feeling like we needed to seal our promise with a kiss, I eased back and looked into his eyes. This right here was my missing piece. As our lips met with a promise of forever, my life clicked back into its rightful place. I enjoyed our kiss for a few moments, before the news I had burst out of me.
“Jake.” I tried to pull back, but he wouldn’t let me.
“Jake, I need to tell you something,” I tried again, this time he let me pull back, but only enough so we could see each other’s faces.
“I’m preggers.” I beamed, watching his face for a reaction. Which I didn’t get any. Not quite what I was hoping for, so I started back pedaling a bit.
“In my depressive state, I was an idiot, and forgot about my birth control pills. And as you know, we had sex on the beach, and well, being that you are a big alpha man, your sperm were all about making babies, so I really didn’t have a choice in the matter. I…” He silenced me with a kiss, then groaned against my lips.
“You know when you rattle on like that, it turns me on like nothing else, sweetheart.” I felt the evidence of that growing as he spoke.
“Right.” I nodded.
“You’re having my baby?” he purred against my lips. I liked it when he did this.
“Yep. You ready for two of me?” I teased.
“Lord help us all.” I was about to go off on him for that response, but if I was being honest, he was right. Mini-me and I would rule the world. Our lips connected again, and with the sounds of the animals roaring in what I interpreted as approval, we jumped back into the pages of our beautiful story of love.
We spent the rest of the day helping with the new bear enclosure and our night wrapped in sheets, enjoying our new forever.
The morning sun woke us up. Yeah, Jake slept in with me. I was shocked to wake up with him still holding me in his arms.
“Rayne had the baby yesterday. I really want to go see them. Wanna go with?” I smiled, hoping that would help influence him to go with me.
“Sure.” He kissed my forehead and I snuggled against him, enjoying this moment of waking up together. After another ten minutes of snuggling, I had the urge to pee so we decided it was time to get up. Jake checked in with Derek to make sure things were calm enough for him to sneak away for a few hours, and I cleaned up, and dressed myself in a cute green sundress. As soon as Jake finished checking in, we left in his truck and drove to the hospital—stopping for a bacon egg and cheese biscuit on the way, of course. Mimi-me needed breakfast.
Rayne and Arson were snuggling their sweet baby when we walked through the door.
“Hey, parental! How was the first night?” I plopped down on the couch, while Jake stood next to me.
“Pretty good. He ate through most of it, so not very much sleep for us. But he exhausted a lot of energy being born and all, he needed to fill up.” Rayne smiled but you could tell she was tired.
“Fun stuff,” I commented. I mentally crossed my fingers that our baby was a sleeper like me.
“So I see you guys are back together. Does this mean you told him?” Rayne was looking at me with a happy gleam in her eyes, while I had a gleam of confusion staring back at her.
“Huh?” I cocked my head to the side.
