Page 18 of Promise

“Who?” he hollers back at me.

“The baby,” I growl.

He stiffens before turning around and climbing down the rickety extension ladder that had been gathering dust in the garage. Something on my list of things to do was to clear out the space that once belonged solely to Dart. His man cave, he’d tease, about the collection of automobile memorabilia and a Chevy Camaro he’d been working on in hopes of racing her one day.

He eventually did get to race her.

As he scrambles down the ladder, like the professional construction worker he once was, my gaze falls to the butt of his jeans. Ones where the worn denim clings to the firmness of his fine ass. His legs are long, yet the rest of those jeans still outline the strength in them. A small tear just below the back pocket shows a sliver of skin.

As he clomps to the ground, feet landing without touching the final rungs, the sound snaps my attention away from his backside.

Because I don’t care how well those jeans fit him.

“About that . . .” he starts, spinning toward me and approaching.

“About what?” I blink, my hand coming to my chest, as if I can slow my pulse, which races through my veins because of the way he’s staring at me. Like he wants to rush me, devour me.

But he couldn’t possibly want those things.

His amber eyes scatter my thoughts for another beat before my brain catches back up to our conversation.

I scowl. “She’s not a that. She’s a she. A baby. A— You know what? I don’t owe you an explanation. Stay away from my roof.”

His mouth ticks, one corner lifting higher than the other, like I suggested something dirty. Like it had whenever I did suggest something dirty. His gaze roams down my body, taking his time to coast over my breasts and settle on my hips.

“It’s my roof, too,” he mutters. His gaze snaps back to my face and his expression sobers. “And I think a baby . . . Mirabelle . . . resting under it, is a pretty big deal between us.”

“There’s nothing between us,” I argue.

Dart flinches. The edge of his jaw clenches like I’ve taken the hammer dangling off his tool belt and whacked him in the knees.

“Trin,” he whispers, strained and winded. Hurt is handwritten in every letter of my shortened name.

Exhaling, I cover my belly with my hand, like I’m the one who took a punch to the gut, knowing that lashing out at him isn’t going to get him out of here. And I need him gone.

I need him out of sight and swept back to the recesses of my mind where I keep him filed away between broken heart and failed marriage.

“Look.” I take a deep breath. “I don’t need your help. Clint or Cort will get to it.” Eventually.

I’m so proud of my eldest and youngest brother, who own Haven Exteriors, an exterior painting and roofing company, that has really grown since they started.

Dart used to work for them. He’d not only been Tate’s best friend as a kid, but he was practically one of the family by association with Clint and Cort. Then he officially became family when he married me.

“How are your brothers?” he asks, casual, calm, like it hadn’t hurt either of them that he’d quit their business. Quit their brotherliness with him.

“Don’t,” I choke, weakly warning him my brothers are off limits.

Don’t act like he cares about the rest of my family, especially Clint, who worked side-by-side with Dart before he and Cort started their own business and brought Dart into the fold like one of them. Don’t even think about Tate, his best friend since childhood, who took the breakup of our marriage almost as hard as I did.

All of this was off limits. Dart taking interest in the roof. Him standing in my yard. Him standing so close to me.

He squints toward the front yard. “Still gonna fix the roof.”

My roof, I want to argue. Instead, I say, “Mirabelle is sleeping. I need some sleep.” I should be napping, but a load of laundry calls and baby bottles need washing.

I’d taken a leave of absence from the hospital, but I was only given six weeks off. So much for FMLA—Family Medical Leave of Absence. The hospital was short-staffed. Every nurse mattered. At one time, I’d taken on more responsibility in my department. Took every extra shift. Worked doubles to avoid coming home.

Most of that time away hadn’t mattered. Dart wasn’t here either. He’d been out at an old coal mine canyon, running circles in that Chevy Camaro he’d finally fixed up. Around and around and around he went, until he caught the attention of someone.