It sounded too good to be true. After months of looking over my shoulder, of checking the property line every morning and locking the doors every night, of watching the perimeter cameras for movement that shouldn’t be there—it seemed impossible that it could just be over.
“You’re sure?” I asked. “This isn’t just—“
“I’m sure,” Cruz cut in. “Sterling doesn’t miss details. And he wouldn’t have pulled the team back if there was any chance Hughs had resources we didn’t account for.”
I sat with all of that, Cruz’s hands warm and still moving in slow circles over my stomach, and let the weight of the past months set down somewhere I could leave it. Not gone completely—I wasn’t that naive—but manageable now. Something I could carry instead of something carrying me.
“Sterling and the team are staying on the property for a while regardless,” Cruz added. “Just to be certain nothing moves through the gaps. And while they’re there, they’re going to fix up and modernize the bunkhouse. It’s needed the work for years.”
I snorted. “That’s one way of putting it. The place is held together with duct tape and wishful thinking.”
Cruz’s chest moved against my back—not quite a laugh, but close to it. “Sterling mentioned something about structural integrity.”
“Yeah, well, when the foundation’s sinking on one side, structural integrity becomes more of a suggestion than a requirement.”
The conversation lapsed into silence, but it wasn’t the same empty quiet that had filled the house for the past month. This was different—the kind of silence that belonged to two people in the same room rather than one person in an empty house.
The kind that didn’t need to be filled.
I didn’t say anything particularly significant. I didn’t need to. My hands rested over Cruz’s on my stomach, and I didn’t move them away. The baby shifted under our palms, a rolling movement that had become familiar over the past weeks.
Cruz’s breath caught. “Was that—“
“Yeah,” I said. “Getting more active lately. Jasper says it’s normal.”
His hands went still for a second, then resumed their stroking, more deliberate now. “It feels bigger,” he said. “Stronger.”
I nodded. “Eight pounds, according to the last ultrasound. Maybe more by now.”
“Jesus,” Cruz breathed. “No wonder you’re uncomfortable.”
I shrugged. “It’s not so bad. Mostly I just can’t see my feet anymore.”
That got me another almost-laugh, the vibration of it running through his chest into my back. “You’ll get them back,” he said. “Eventually.”
“Small mercies,” I said, but there was no bite to it.
We sat there as the light faded, Cruz’s arms around me, his hands on the curve of my stomach, the baby moving occasionally beneath our joined palms. It wasn’t a solution to anything—notto the distance we’d maintained for months, not to the questions neither of us had asked or answered. But it was something. A start, maybe. Or at least a different kind of silence than the one I’d been living with.
Outside, the last of the sunlight caught the greenhouse glass and held it, turning the structure amber against the darkening sky. In a few weeks, the grapes would be ready for harvest. In a couple of weeks, maybe less, the baby would come. And somewhere in all of that, we’d figure out the rest—whatever the rest turned out to be.
For now, though, this was enough: Cruz’s steady presence at my back, his hands warm against mine, and the weight between us that belonged to both of us, whether we’d planned it that way or not.
Chapter Twenty-One
~ Cruz ~
The greenhouse air was thick with morning moisture as I crouched over the drip lines, checking each connection for leaks. The soil under my boots had that perfect dampness—not enough to make mud, just enough to smell like good earth.
Morning light filtered pale through the glass panels, throwing long shadows down the neat rows of tomato plants I’d set in six weeks ago.
I’d been checking the system since sunrise, making sure the valves and timers were all running smooth before heading into town for the replacement parts.
That’s when I heard it—Jackson’s voice cutting through the morning quiet from the direction of the doorway. “Fernando Cruz, I’m going to fucking kill you.”
I straightened, knees protesting as I turned to see Jackson making his way down the row between the raised beds. He was moving with the wide-legged waddle that had replaced his normal stride over the past few weeks, one hand braced hard against the frame of the greenhouse door, the other gripping the edge of the nearest bed.
His face was tight, jaw set, eyes narrowed. He looked pissed and in pain—a combination I’d learned to respect over the eight months we’d been together.
