It was late in the morning when they woke up again.
Late, and bright. Blue-sky bright.
Tom’s stomach sank as he realized this meant the storm was well and truly over, and it wouldn’t be long before Chloe would be hoping for a plow so she could hit the road.
So she could leave him behind, and get on with her search for a safe place to be single and pregnant.
He hated that his town wasn’t that for her.
But if she weren’t single…
God, that was such a tempting and dangerous thought. It was way too soon. He’d promised her he would take it slow and show her he was committed to her. But it would be so much easier if they lived in the same place. The same town, at a minimum, even if not the same house.
They showered together again, then he put another packet of bacon in the oven before checking his phone.
When he still didn’t have a great signal, he did a secret dance of joy.
“How’s your cell signal?” he asked as Chloe came into the kitchen, newly dressed.
She shook her head. “Not good. I managed to refresh a forecast, but it said storming, and…” She pointed at the sunny sky out the window. “Clearly not accurate. Maybe it was an old forecast, maybe it’s just not right. Either way, I think we’re stuck here another day. Do we have enough bacon?”
He grinned the biggest shit-eating grin he’d ever grinned in his life. “Oh yeah. We’re good for another two days.”
She pressed up onto her toes and kissed him right on the mouth. “Excellent.”
And it was. They played cards, finished their books, traded their books, recreated a scene in the dirty book where Tom went down on Chloe in front of the fireplace because wasn’t that conveniently written—and neither of them checked their phones again the entire day.
Dinner was bacon sandwiches, which led to a debate about what percentage of their diet could be bacon and bread before it bordered on an imminent heart-health concern, and that led to making out in a chair in the kitchen because they just couldn’t keep their hands off each other.
By the time they headed outside for their post-dinner walk, Tom was quite convinced this was the best day ever.
That ended ten steps into their walk, when headlights appeared at the far end of the causeway. The rumble of an engine promised it was a truck, and from the wall of snow being thrown up all of a sudden, pretty clearly one with a plow.
Tom swore.
“What?” Chloe shouted.
“Nothing,” he muttered. “Let’s get back to the porch.” He wasn’t sure he trusted any of his friends or brothers not to run Chloe over.
The wall of snow curved as the truck cleared the causeway and plowed past his truck, Chloe’s car, and around the corner of the house, pushing as much snow as possible out of the way.
When it backed up, the passenger window was rolled all the way down.
It wasn’t one of his brothers, or his friends.
It was his sister-in-law, Olivia, and Chloe’s friend Jenna, who was driving her husband’s truck. “We’re the rescue squad,” Liv said as she hopped down. “Sorry it took us so long, but we couldn’t sneak away without attracting attention because of the storm. Kind of hard to steal a plow when they’re all in use.”
Sneak away? Rescue?
Tom bobbled his head back and forth between Chloe and Olivia twice before he realized she wasn’t talking to him.
She was looking right at Chloe and trying to do some Woman ESP thing with her. With his Chloe. In front of him.
“We’re fine,” he said. “Thanks, though.”
Liv nodded, but her gaze was still locked on Chloe. “Are you?”
He looked at the mother of his future child, whose mouth was hanging open. She snapped it shut. “Yep. Yeah. We are. All good.”
“Okay…” Olivia looked back at Jenna, who’d joined them.
Now he was outnumbered three to one. He could take them, but he wasn’t sure he understood exactly what was going on. They were worried about Chloe, clearly. But she’d said they were fine.
“So are you heading out soon?” Jenna asked. “Do you need any help packing up here?”
Chloe blinked. “Uh…”
For a second, Tom thought she might have had a change of heart. I’m staying with Tom, she could say. She didn’t.
“Yeah, in the morning I guess. Do you guys want to come in for hot chocolate?”
“Sure.”
“Yes.”
Both of them swept past him as Chloe opened the door.
Now it was Tom’s turn to gape, speechless. “I guess I’ll go chop some wood,” he finally muttered, not that anyone was listening.
“Tell us everything,” Jenna said as Chloe put on the kettle. “Why does Tom look like he wants to murder us? He doesn’t want to murder you, does he?”
“We interrupted their love nest,” Olivia said. “No murders.” She looked at Chloe. “Right?”
Chloe went to the fridge and got out the milk. Then she went out into the mudroom, closed her eyes, counted to ten, realized it was too cold to hide there for long, and grabbed a couple of extra mugs.
When she returned, Jenna was frowning. “Are you okay?”
“Of course she’s not okay.” Olivia had an answer for everything. They could really have this conversation without Chloe. “Tom loves her, but he’s hurt her—clearly—and he hasn’t had enough time to convince her that this time, he’ll do right by her.”
Chloe dropped the box of hot chocolate she’d picked up. “Wow, that’s creepily accurate, actually. How did you do that?”
“Practice.” Olivia sat down. Jenna followed suit.
Okay, so they were staying a while.
That was on her. She’d invited them inside, but she hadn’t known what to do. Telling people to go away was clearly not her strong suit.
“Besides, you were upset the last time I saw you,” Olivia continued. “And now you look…better. Are things on the mend?”
“It’s complicated.” In more ways than one, but the library closure was still a secret, and Chloe felt honour bound not to tell the residents of Pine Harbour—and that included her friends.
Her heart twisted.
“So…” Jenna looked back and forth. “This is a good thing? I thought you wanted to get out of town because Tom wasn’t ready to—” She cut herself off, glancing quickly at Liv.
Secrets were so complicated.
Chloe sagged back against the counter. “That wasn’t a fully formed plan, let’s be honest. And now? I don’t know what’s going on with Tom. I don’t know what’s going on with me. I don’t know where I want to go or when I might leave. I really just want to…” She trailed off.
She really just wanted to have another snowball fight with Tom.
Anything beyond that was still terrifying for her. Sure, last night they’d talked about baby names, but that had been a sex-fuelled hormonal connection thing. That wasn’t real.
She might call the growing fetus Hank Williams, though. That had a certain ring to it.
She looked at her friends. Really looked at them. “Who else knows about me?”
Olivia shrugged. “About the fight? Or about the baby? Not many on the first point, and I think just the two of us on the second.”
Chloe gaped at her friend. “How did you know I was pregnant?”
“You were a hot mess and mainlining saltines when I saw you. I’ve been there, done that. And then Jenna didn’t need a reason why we had to come and rescue you, so I figured if you’d confided in the midwife and not me…”
Chloe laughed weakly. “I will never, ever cross you again.”
Liv smiled. “Hey. Your secret’s safe. I promise. I don’t know if Tom told Zander, but I think he’d be the only other person. I didn’t tell Rafe.”
Jenna nodded. “I haven’t told Sean. Some secrets, husbands don’t need to know about. Zander probably doesn’t follow that same rule, so maybe Faith knows?”
Four people. And Tom had been right. The world was still standing.
Chloe took a deep breath and held it until she started to see spots at the edges of her vision. “I don’t know what to do,” she finally burst out. “At all. I was freaking out, and then—” The kettle boiled, and she cut herself off to make four cups of cocoa. She set two of them in front of her friends.
Both of them were looking at the other two mugs sitting side-by-side on the counter. Her mug. Tom’s Thermos lid.
She shrugged. “It doesn’t mean anything.”
Olivia gave her a dorky smile. “I think it does.”
“He’s outside chopping wood. He’ll be cold when he comes in.” His big, strong hands would be red and rough, and they’d wrap around the mug and warm up so when he touched her, they wouldn’t be ice cold.
She was selfish, that was all. She didn’t want freezing hands on her skin.
Except if Tom wanted to…
She closed her eyes.
Jenna coughed.
Olivia sighed.
Chloe opened her eyes and both of her friends were grinning. “Shut up,” she said. “Shut up, drink your hot chocolate, and get out. I’m not ready to be rescued yet.”
“Bye, Tom!”
He set the axe down and turned around in time to see Olivia and Jenna pile into the truck they’d driven in not that long ago.
He lifted his hand to wave goodbye, and a snowball pelted him on the shoulder.
Without looking back, he leaned down, made his own ammunition, and then spun on one foot.
Chloe was nowhere to be found.
It was dark, and he was far enough from the house that there were long shadows around the trees and between the windows. She could have come out the front, where her friends left, but probably…
He pivoted and stalked toward the mudroom on the back of the cottage.
Another snowball sailed in his direction and he batted it out of the way. “So this is how you want to go,” he yelled out. “In battle?”
“Always,” she called back, and then he saw her, just a blur, sprinting around the side of the house.
He gave chase, and when he rounded the corner she was waiting for him.
Her eyes bright, her stance wide. Her smile huge.
“Hey,” he said. He was grinning, too.
“You’re going down.” She stepped back and wound up.
He lobbed an easy one right at her chest. She twisted to avoid it and he pelted the other snowball he had ready right at her ass.
She tumbled sideways into the snow, and he pounced, ready to declare victory. But Chloe played dirty, and she was waiting with a pile of fluffy cold stuff to shove in his face and then, as he howled in protest, down the back of his coat.
“Take that,” she crowed, climbing on top of him. “What do you say?”
“I love you.”
Her smile dropped and she gave him a wide-eyed stare. “What?”
“I love you.” He struggled to sit up in the snow, with her perched on top of him like a pleased kitten. He gave up. Flopping back, he sank a bit further into the snowbank as he looked up at the sky and hollered. “I love this woman, and I’m tired of keeping that secret inside! I. Love. Her.”
The words bounced and echoed, and they felt good as they rained back down on him.
Chloe was looking at him, her eyes big and mouth a tight little O of surprise.
“Do you hear me?”
“I think everyone north of town hears you,” she whispered. He’d yelled that at her when she’d told him she was pregnant. She’d misread his emotion then, but there was no missing what he was saying now. And she was all ears.
“I know I stumbled when you told me about the pregnancy, but nothing is more important to me than you and the baby. Let me move with you. Wherever you want to go. I can take a leave of absence from work.”
“What?”
“I have to follow you. Wherever you go, like a creeper. Except a creeper who will respect your boundaries and live arms-length away, whatever you want. But damn it, Chloe, if we’re going to do this, I need to be near you to do it.”
“What would you tell people?”
“I don’t know. I don’t care. People can get fucked is what people can do. They don’t matter. You matter. Our baby matters, and snowball fights matter, and I love you. That’s it. That’s as real as it gets.”
“That’s pretty real.”
“Also, I’m freezing my nuts off right now.”
She scrambled off him and held out her hand. “Come on.”
He jumped to his feet, suddenly feeling ten feet tall. She hadn’t run away screaming. Maybe there was some hope for this new plan. “I’ll follow you anywhere.”
“Right now, I just want you to follow me inside and get dried off.” She laughed and shook her head. He was pretty sure she muttered something else under her breath, but she didn’t let go of his hand.
Inside, she dragged him over to the fireplace, and then left him there. She disappeared, then returned a moment later with a cup of hot chocolate. “Here,” she said, shoving it into his hands. “This is still warm.”
“Thanks.” He watched in confusion as she stripped out of her own winter gear. “Do you want some cocoa?”
“I have a cup, too. Be right back.” She was scurrying. And she wasn’t looking at him.
Slowly, he laid his wet stuff by the fire and found a new, dry shirt for himself. “Do you want to wear one of my shirts?” he asked, turning around.
Chloe had stripped all the way down, and was wearing just a tank top and a pair of panties. “Sure.” She smiled and reached for the flannel shirt in his hand. “This one looks cozy.”
His brain scrambled to keep up.
He leaned down to grab another shirt from his bag and his gaze caught on the cardboard box he’d stubbed his toe on two nights ago. “Hey.” He reached out, caught her wrist as it popped out the arm of his shirt. “Wait.”
She searched his face. “What is it?”
He sat on the couch and pulled her on top of him, her legs spread so she was straddling his lap. “You haven’t opened your presents yet.”
She looked sideways at the offending box. “I didn’t get you anything.”
He shook his head. “That’s not true.” He rubbed his fingertips over her belly, still soft, their wonderful accident still small inside her. “Yes you did.”
“Tom…”
“Shhh. I want you to open your presents.”
“It doesn’t feel right. I know you got them for me before—”
He cut her off, kissing her lips until she softened against him. “I didn’t buy any of them until after you told me you were pregnant,” he whispered.
“You didn’t?”
“We didn’t have that kind of relationship.”
Her mouth dropped open, and he kissed her again, enjoying the sweetness of her surprise. “That’s what I thought when you gave them to me,” she said softly. “I was like, you big jerk, I didn’t get you anything, we don’t have that kind of relationship.”
“And I knew that it was pushing things. I just—well, I’m glad I brought them. And I’m glad we talked things out before I gave them to you.” He wrapped his hand around her side, his thumb stroking the edge of her belly. “But when I say you got me something special, I mean it. And the things I could get you pale in comparison. So please, open your damn presents. They were… I mean, I had a few days to try and put together a way to show you that I was onboard, and…well, it didn’t go exactly as planned. But they’re a part of showing you how I really feel. They’re real, I promise.”
She climbed off his lap and went to the box. There were five presents in there. He knew them by heart.
“Bring the whole box over,” he said. It wasn’t heavy.
She gave him a curious look as she set it on the coffee table. “Is there any order I should open them?”
“No, I’m not that organized.”
She gave him a crooked smile and pulled out one of the small packages first. She ripped into the paper, and sighed. “Aww, this is cute.”
It was a yellow sleeper with bunnies on it. “I picked yellow because I don’t care if our baby is a boy or girl. I just want them to be healthy.”
She beamed at him. “Nice.”
“And I did some research. Apparently, the zipper is better than snaps for middle of the night diaper changes.”
Her eyes went wide again. “Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Shit. Okay, good to know.” She bit her lip.
“Keep going.” His heart pounded in his chest. Maybe this hadn’t been a good idea. But he wanted to see it through.
The next one was the heavy present. A bottle of non-alcoholic sparkling wine which she wiggled at him. “We can drink this when I finish, yes?”
“Yes.” Yes, yes, a million times yes.
“Good.” She stared down into the box. “There’s a big one that seems kind of jammed in there, and then two smaller ones. Which next?”
“Pull that big one out.” He was proud of this one. He licked his lips as she ripped the paper off, and laughed when she gave the present inside a confused look. “You need to, ah, open the package, I think.”
She did as much, and the body pillow started to inflate in her hands. The squeal she let out was downright sinful. “What is happening?”
“It’s a body pillow. Pull it all the way out of the package.”
She did, then she danced around with it. “It’s my new boyfriend.”
“I thought I might be your new boyfriend.”
“You’re my it’s-complicated.” She gave him a soft smile. “These are all amazing.”
He gestured to the box. “Keep going. There are two more.”
The next one was a massage bar, vanilla and lavender, which he ordered online from an all-organic prenatal something something. It cost him twenty bucks plus expedited shipping, and it was worth every penny for the moment she held it out and asked if he’d use it on her tonight.
Hell yes. And every night for the rest of her pregnancy.
She took a deep breath before she picked up the final present. Holding it in her hands, she came around the coffee table and sat next to Tom.
“Thank you,” she breathed, leaning in to kiss him. “I just…this is all perfect. I’m sorry I was too angry before to see that you were trying.”
“I was bumbling, mostly. This was my big plan, and it wasn’t enough. But I’m glad you’re opening them now.”
She went to stand up, and he stopped her. “Open this one here. I want to show you something about it.”
Nodding, she carefully ripped the paper open.
Inside was a hand knit blanket. Yellow and blue striped. It was a bit fuzzy in parts, but clean. Meticulously clean. That’s what came with having a control freak for a mother. He turned over the top corner and showed her his initials on the inside.
“This was yours?”
He nodded. “My baby blanket. We can put it in the nursery, or let the kid drool on it. Whatever you want.”
“It’s in amazing condition,” she said, stroking it carefully.
“I wasn’t allowed to wreck it.” He shrugged. “Our kid can do whatever he wants to it. Or she. Mabel Hank.”
Blanket gripped firmly in her hand, Chloe climbed into his lap. She looked at him, really looked at him, and he held her gaze.
See me, he offered. Look at whatever you want.
“I don’t know what to do next,” she finally said. “I’m grateful you came after me, though. And I’m grateful for all of these presents.”
“You could come home with me.” He ignored the pounding in his chest. It might be pushing her too hard. He had a fine line to walk here. “When the storm passes. We can take it day by day. I’ll help you move wherever you want to go, but you don’t have to go far if you don’t want to.”
Did she want to move away? She couldn’t deny how relieved she’d been when Tom had found her, hiding in his own backyard. She hadn’t run far in the end. “I’m terrified of what people will say,” she said, her voice cracking. “Which sounds silly when I say it out loud.”
There was a part of her that desperately wanted to be accepted in Pine Harbour, and she hated that. Hated it so much it hurt all over again. She forced a smile on her face, even as Tom shook his head.
“It doesn’t sound silly to me. I think I’ve spent a lot of my life trying to be good or some shit like that, too. Don’t we all fall into that trap?”
“But you are good,” she murmured. “With the search and rescue team, and all the community work you do.”
His mouth tightened up, his brows pulling together in a frown. She wanted to ask him about that, but what’s wrong with your face right now wasn’t the right way to frame it. But as she wrestled with the words in her head, he smiled, the cloud passing. “So what do you say? Should I call movers and put my stuff in storage, too, and we can be nomads together?”
She burst out laughing. “No.” That was silly. And a good kind of silly, because it helped her see what she needed to do next. “I’m not going anywhere. I’ll get my apartment back, and we can figure out what the next step is with the whole telling the world I’m having your baby and we’re happy about that, so mind your own beeswax, everyone. Deal?”
He nodded. “Deal.”