Relief choked him, and his heart sang as he plucked the ring from its velvet, peeled away Aubrey’s left glove, then slipped it on her finger.
“I fucking love you,” he said.
“I fucking loveyou. So much.”
He kissed her again, long and deep, until a flame kindled in his belly, the kind that would burn him up unless he got her somewhere private. He kissed her until her she clung to him, and when he finally pulled away her eyes had gone glassy, her pupils shot wide.
“Do you want to go back to your party?” he said.
“No,” she breathed. “Take me home.”
“To your place?”
“Yeah. Where I can spend all night making things up to you. And one-upping the upstairs neighbors. And then, in the morning, I want to go to Henderson. To my house. Or...ourhouse, now, I guess.”
He blinked. “Is that how this is going to work? Because I was going to move here.”
A drunken smile spread across her lips. “What about Paige?”
“We talked and... it’s okay. We’re okay.”
The grin that lit her face was so sweet he felt an answering happiness rise in his chest. “Why don’t we stay in Henderson ’til she’s done with school? Then we can move back here or... whatever you want. Okay?”
Pure joy shot along every nerve. “Okay,” he said, gathering her in his arms. “Absolutely okay.”
She laughed. He buried his face in her hair and breathed her in like sustenance, until he could think of nothing but finding the nearest wall as soon as possible.
The night passed in a delirious, blurry haze. There was a phone call to an overjoyed Paige. An Uber he kissed Aubrey all the way home in. A heap of formalwear shed on the floor of her bedroom. There was the sheer ecstasy of burying himself in her softness and heat, the way her lashes fluttered against her cheeks as she tipped her head back and let her tongue trip over his name.
And there was definitely a wall, somewhere in the mix.
Many hours later, as the sun came up, Aubrey lay naked and wild-haired in the crook of his arm, smiling her way into sleep.
She whispered one last thing, just before her eyes closed.
“I’m so glad I don’t have to get a cat.”
39.
Aubrey sat on the closed toilet lid and stared at the plastic stick in her hand, her blood a chaotic tumble.
Two blue lines.
Two.
Moisture flooded her throat. She’d suspected already, back in New York. Well, sort of. But she was glad she’d waited until now, four whole days after she and Nick had returned to Henderson. It felt right, somehow, to have sorted things outbeforeshe sprung the news on him that he’d be having yet another shotgun wedding.
Dazed, she flushed the toilet and lurched from the bathroom, one hand pressed to her belly. She felt nothing out of the ordinary, could only be six or seven weeks along, because it must have happened that night in his truck. Or maybe up against the wall, beside the fire.
Either way, she should call the OB and make an appointment.
She found the chesterfield and sank onto it, the rest of the living room a blur. She saw nothing except a future full of Nick—his long fingers playing with pudgy hands, his laugh echoing a high-pitched giggle, his dark eyes peering out from a rounded face. Or maybe their child would inherit her green gaze.
It didn’t matter. Either way, their child would be perfect. Just like her husband-to-be.
Aubrey sat there for the remainder of Nick’s shift at the mill, which amounted to two and a half hours. She cradled her belly and cried the most joyful tears she’d ever shed.
When a knock interrupted her reverie, she didn’t stop to wonder why Nick would ask to be let in to what was now his house. She just drifted to the door in a trance, wondering if he’d know simply by looking at her.
