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“I’d marry you in a heartbeat if you’d have me.”
Scarlett’s eyes widened in surprise. Then she looked angry as hell.
“Let me get this straight, Trevor Parker. I can’t get you to commit to just dating me, and then all of sudden you’d marry me?”
“You’re having my baby, Scarlett.”
She shook her head. “Is that the only reason you’d marry me, Trevor? Because you knocked me up, and it’s the proper, southern thing to do?”
“What? No! I mean, if things were different, I’d, of course, want to date. Especially since I’ve never really dated anyone. I think things would move slower, but…I guess I messed that up.”
Scarlett opened her mouth but snapped it shut quickly. After pacing for a few moments, she faced me.
“Should we tell your parents first or mine?”
“That was a change of subject.”
Tilting her head, she glared at me.
“Mine?” I said, a hint of fear in my voice.
“I think we should do this today.”
“Wait,” I said, putting my hand up to my face and scrubbing over it. “Don’t you think we need to figure some things out before we tell our parents? Do we move in together? Where will the baby live?”
“No. And here.”
“Okay, well, don’t you think I should have a nursery at my house too?”
She chewed on her lip.
“You are going to let me see my own child, right?”
Her mouth fell open, and she stared at me in shock. “Of course I am!”
“Okay, because I’m pretty sure the first thing my folks are going to ask is when we’re getting married. We need to have something else to tell them. A plan of how we intend to share custody of the baby.”
She instantly began chewing on her thumbnail. “Right. They’ll ask questions.”
“I think we should be honest with them.”
Laughing, she faced me. “What? Tell them you’re a dick and wouldn’t commit to a relationship with me before I got knocked up? And what else should we tell them? We had unprotected sex and when you realized it, you ran out? Without so much as a ‘thanks for the fuck’?”
I flinched. “Don’t do that. Don’t make that night seem like it didn’t mean something.”
“Did it? Because all I do is give and all you do is take. I gave myself to you that night and you took me. Then you left.”
“I…I got scared because of the intense feelings I was having for you, Scarlett. I know I shouldn’t have left like that, but I didn’t know what else to do. That night was the best night of my life, and we made a child that night. Please don’t let my stupid mistake take away from that.”
She stood there, something I didn’t understand etched on her face. A part of me thought she might kiss me, the other part was ready for her to slap me.
Glancing down, she placed her hands on her stomach.
“I’m so angry at you, Trevor.” When she looked again, her eyes were filled with tears. “And I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to forgive you for hurting me like you did.”
My very soul was stunned by the reality of her words. I took a step closer, framed her face in my hands, and leaned down. Kissing her gently on the lips, I whispered, “I’ll wait forever if I have to, Scarlett.”
We drove in silence. Trevor navigated his truck through the streets of Oak Springs out to the country roads. I loved being farther out of town. Not that being in town was bad; it wasn’t. But something about the silence of the country soothed my soul.
Clearing my throat, I said, “I talked to Corina about working for her.”
I could feel Trevor’s gaze. “Did you lose your job?”
“No, but I got to thinking about when the baby is born. I don’t want to put him or her into daycare. If I helped at the bed and breakfast, I could use the nursery that Mitchell had put in for Merit. Plus, her mother works there full time, so she could help me with the baby.”
When I looked at him, he was staring straight ahead.
“Trevor? You know you’re stopped at a stop sign, right?”
This time, he cleared his throat. “Yeah, sorry. I got to thinking. How would this work? Will we just share her?”
My stomach flipped when he said her. Did Trevor hope for a girl? Did he even realize he had said that?
“Yes, of course. I mean, if you feel like you want to do something legally, we can have Tripp write up a custody agreement.”
His face went white as a ghost. “What? No, I don’t think that’s necessary, do you?”
I smiled. “I don’t think so.”
“Is your insurance good at work? What about after the baby is born?” He rubbed his neck, his habit for when he was thinking about something important or really stressed out.
