The smile finally beat up the eternal frown, and his face softened. “I don’t knoweverythingabout you.”
She lifted one lone eyebrow in protest. “No?”
He shook his head. “But I’d like to.”
Her fingers bunched in the fabric of his shirt. “I’d like to know everything about you, too. The good, the bad, the beautiful and the ugly. You don’t scare me, Hart, so stop pushing me away. Take down the walls, unglue the pages and let me in.”
His head bobbed. “I’ll try … harder.”
“Okay.” She brought his fingers to her lips. “Thank you for sharing with me. About your dad and your time in the navy. I know it wasn’t easy. Please, don’t keep me at arm’s length like everyone else. I want to be wrapped up in your arms instead, right next to your heart.”
His fingers untwined from hers, and he tucked a knuckle beneath her chin. “I’ll do whatever I can to keep you here.”
Her lips twisted playfully, and her heart beat wildly inside her chest. “Even unglue the pages?”
He tilted his head down and brushed his lips over hers. “Even unglue the pages.”
“The sooner we getallyour stuff back to my—our—house, the sooner we can bang,” Brock said with a laugh as he plunked one final box of God only knows what into the trunk of Krista’s car.
Krista grinned at him. “Thank you for coming with me.”
“You going to go give your landlords notice?”
She shook her head. “Not yet. Yousayyou’re going to try and open up, but I need to see it first.”
He glared at her over the hood of her car. She’d insisted they take her car, much to his chagrin. A power thing of course. But his truck was also getting the clutch replaced, so he was without a vehicle until the morning.
“Stare me down all you want, Hart. I’m not giving my notice until I know this is the real deal. And I don’t know that yet. I need to know who I’m having a baby with. Who I’m living with.”
He growled and muttered “stubborn woman” under his breath before opening the car door. He was driving. There was no argument there. “Get in, woman,” he barked before slamming his door.
She opened the door and swung herself into the seat. “Besides, Mr. and Mrs.Geller are like surrogate grandparents to me. I’d like to take some time next month to come by and properly clean the suite, maybe help them paint it, spruce it up a bit and then help them find a new, suitable tenant. The guy before me was a knob. Played loud music, smoked pot, had an ugly little dog that wasn’t properly house-trained and ate up part of the carpet. They were so happy when I applied, gave it to me on the spot. I can’t leave them high and dry with no money coming in without at least helping them find someone new.”
“Bloody bleeding heart,” he grumbled.
She grinned at him. “You like that about me.”
“I don’t know about that.” He pressed down on the brake and turned on the ignition. “Hmm … ”
“Hmm?”
“Brakes are a little mushy.”
She lifted an eyebrow at him, her face half confused and half scared. “Mushy?”
He threw the vehicle into gear and then abruptly tossed on the brakes again. It lurched but still stopped. They still felt off, but not nonexistent.
“Everything okay?” she asked.
“Have to get this looked at once my truck is back. Need new tires.”
She scoffed.
“You’re carrying my baby. If I had my way, you’d be driving a goddamn tank.”
They rode in silence for a while. Every so often Brock would glance over at her, sitting there quietly watching the snow fall out the window. It had grown dark as they were packing up inside her place, and by the time everything was loaded, night had fallen completely. Driving down the narrow back road that had been turned into one lane by the piled-up snow from the plow made Brock glad Krista was going to be done with this place. There were no streetlights anywhere, no curb, nothing. Nothing besides a rock bluff wall on one side and a big ravine into a dense wooded area on the other. To know his woman wasn’t going to be driving this death trap anymore eased his mind. He’d push her towait until the spring to come back and clean. Maybe by that time she might be too pregnant and grumpy to want to.
“Fuck, I hate this hill,” Krista muttered, one hand falling to her belly and the other gripping the handle on the door.
