"You like my surprises."
He sighs, but his mouth twitches. "Fine."
He closes his eyes. I pull the small box from my pocket, the one I've been hiding for three days, and press it into his hands.
"Okay. Open."
He looks down at the box, then at me, then back at the box. Carefully, he lifts the lid.
The pregnancy test sits inside, two pink lines clear as day.
Wolfe goes completely still.
"Surprise," I whisper. "We're having a baby."
He doesn't say anything. Doesn't move. For one terrible second, I think I've made a mistake, that this is too much too fast, that I've finally found the thing that will make him run.
Then he sets the box aside and pulls me into his arms so tight I can barely breathe.
"Wolfe." I'm laughing and crying at the same time, my face pressed against his chest. "Say something."
"I love you." His voice is rough, cracked in a way I've only heard a few times before. "I love you, and I'm terrified, and Idon't know how to be a father, and I've never wanted anything more in my entire life."
The tears come harder. Happy tears, the best kind. "You're going to be an amazing dad."
"You don't know that."
"I do know that." I pull back to look at him. His eyes are wet, which makes me cry even more, because Wolfe Hendrix doesn't cry. "You're protective and patient and you pay attention to everything. You taught me to shoot and cook rabbit and check a perimeter. You'll teach our baby too."
"Our baby." He says the words like he's testing them. Like he can't quite believe they're real.
"Our baby. Due in October, if my math is right." I take his hands and press them against my still-flat stomach. "There's a whole person in there, Wolfe. A person we made together."
He stares at his hands on my belly, and I watch something shift in his face. The fear doesn't disappear, but it makes room for something else. Wonder, maybe. Or hope.
"I want to name them after J," he says quietly. "If it's a boy. Jacob. Jake for short."
My heart cracks open. "Wolfe."
"He would have loved this. Would have been insufferable about it." A rough laugh escapes him. "He always said I needed to stop hiding and start living. Guess I finally listened."
"I think he'd be proud of you."
"I think he'd be too busy spoiling his godkid to care about me." Wolfe's thumbs trace circles on my stomach through my shirt. "But yeah. Maybe proud too."
I cover his hands with mine. "Jacob Hendrix. I love it."
"And if it's a girl?"
"Then we'll figure it out together." I grin at him. "That's kind of our thing now."
He pulls me into another kiss, slower this time, deeper. His hands slide from my stomach to my hips, pulling me closer, and the familiar heat sparks between us.
"We should celebrate," he murmurs against my mouth.
"What did you have in mind?"
He answers by lifting me off my feet.
