“That so?” He reaches for me, his fingertips grazing the side of my neck before he cups my nape, holding me as he leans in for a kiss. “Need to be filled up again, pretty girl?”
I nod jerkily. Shame wants to roar to the surface, but I don’t let it.
I liked having Zane inside me. I liked it so, so much. I want it again, as soon as possible.
He smiles before he kisses me.
Slow. Sweet. A little dirty.
“I’ll take good care of you, I promise.”
He always does.
In every way. I vaguely remember him gettingup with Bellamy, letting me sleep a little longer. Now, my daughter is nowhere to be seen, and for the first time in her entire life, I’m not worried about that. In the distance, I hear the clatter of people in the kitchen. Zane’s family taking care of my daughter, because she’s now their family, too.
He tugs on his moustache. “We have some pasture maintenance work that’s becoming urgent. Will you be all right on your own today if I’m in the field?”
It’s time we get back to work for real.
“I’ll be all right,” I promise him.
He scoots back and pushes the sheet down to my hips so he can kiss my tummy. “You be good for your mama today, you hear me? She wants to keep you secret a little while longer.”
I ruffle Zane’s hair as he nuzzles the tiny bean inside me, amazed at how much he likes my pregnancy. Feeling blessed on every level.
That thought carries me through the day, while Zane is out in the fields working on water lines and solar pumps.
While he’s gone, I help Luna in the greenhouses. All day I yo-yo between feeling like I’m floating on a cloud to free-falling through space. It’s like the morning sickness I’m trying to hide but on a cosmic level.
A wonderful, heady, but also disorienting secret to be keeping.
In the afternoon, I retreat to the more solitary task of processing our excess greens into freezer cubes before I return to the house to get dinner started.
Oh, the irony of how domestic my life is here. How much I bristled at it when Derek tried to force this kind of lifestyle on me. But he wasn’t workingall day in fields, either. It’s way easier to hustle to get dinner made for Zane when I know he’s spent all day breaking his back for his family.
For us.
And when he gets back, he does his own laundry before he has a shower.
Over dinner, he watches me in a way that feels like a caress.
That heady, floating and then falling and then floating again feeling returns.
After Bellamy’s bath and two stories pulled from the book about animals of the Rockies, she’s still not ready to close her eyes.
Zane appears in the doorway with a small stack of books. “I found a few more options for bedtime reading.”
I slide over, making room for him to sit on the edge of the bed.
At first Bellamy wants to climb on him as he shows her the books, but once he starts reading, she lies down next to me.
He has a good voice for bedtime, and before long, both of our eyes are drifting shut.
When I wake with a start, Bellamy is fast asleep, and the shower is running next door.
My pulse picks up as I slide out of bed. I know exactly where I want Zane to fill me up next.
He says my name when I open the door, a low, inviting growl. I leave my clothes on the floor and step into the steam, into his arms.
