Page 88 of Tragic (Lark Cove 3)

“Good! I’ll show you.” I led her down the hallway, taking the woodpeckers too. They’d get added to the growing collection of baby things amassed in the middle of the room. “It seems strange to paint a room that I just had painted, but the color I picked out for the guest room just wouldn’t work for a nursery.”

I’d picked a dark, nearly charcoal gray for the room originally. But now that the babies were coming, I wanted something lighter and softer. The nursery would be full of whites and creams and beige, and after I found out the babies’ genders, I’d add some colorful accents.

Coral and pink for girls.

Green and brown for boys.

“Uh . . . I see you’ve been busy online shopping.” Thea stared at the stack of baby clothes on the dresser.

“That would be my mother.” I rolled my eyes. “She’s basically had a package sent to me every single day since I told her I was pregnant. If she keeps this

up, they’ll grow out of all the newborn stuff before they can even wear it once.”

Thea laughed. “You’re probably right. Though I always underestimate the amount of puke and poop babies create.”

“I never thought I’d be so excited at the prospect of poop.” I giggled. “My parents are so excited, I don’t have it in me to tell them to stop shopping. If they want to spoil their grandkids, I’m going to let them. My mom is already making plans to come and stay here for a month after they’re born. And they’ll be here for Christmas.”

My parents would be wonderful grandparents, even from a distance. When I’d called to tell them the news, they’d been delighted. Even though I wasn’t married and lived on the other side of the country, they’d been nothing but supportive.

I’d finally found the courage to tell them about the problems with my marriage, and how I’d gone years believing I probably wouldn’t have children. When I’d told them about Adam’s betrayal, they’d taken a page from his family’s playbook and disowned him immediately.

My mom had begged me to move home so she could be closer and able to help. After my argument with Kaine, I’d considered it seriously for a few days. But when I pictured what life would look like in New York, it wasn’t where I wanted the babies to call home.

I wanted them to splash around in Flathead Lake every summer. I wanted to teach them how to walk in these hallways. I wanted them to play outside under the trees. And when—if—Kaine returned, I wouldn’t take his children to the other side of the country.

According to the doctor’s estimate, I was due in early March, if I went full term. Kaine had months and months before these babies came into the world. I was pissed as hell at him, but I hadn’t lost hope that he’d get his shit together and decide to be a father.

Because he had the potential to be one of the best. He kept his heart hidden, but it was full of goodness and grace.

“Any word from . . .” Thea asked, pointing out the window toward Kaine’s house.

I shook my head. “Nothing.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” I shrugged, setting a hand on my stomach. “I’m making the best of this. I’m trying not to think about all of the idiot men in my life. Though I did get an interesting email from Adam yesterday.”

“Oh, really.” She frowned. “And what did he have to say?”

“Ugh.” Why had I even opened that email in the first place? “The subject line was CONFESSION. That should have warned me away.”

Instead, his shouty caps had enticed me to read the message that should have been sent straight to the trash.

“First, he scolded me for blocking his number. Then, he scolded me for not returning the messages he’d left from other numbers. After that, he went on and on for five paragraphs, telling me that the fertility news hit him hard. He blames his lies on shock. And once he started that lie, he didn’t know how to unravel it.”

“Was there an apology in there somewhere?”

“He admits that how he reacted was wrong. But he asked me to look at it from his point of view. We’d been under the assumption that I was the reason we couldn’t have a baby. He knew how badly I wanted to get pregnant. So the news that he had the problems and he couldn’t give me a child was devastating. He realizes he should have talked it through with me, but instead, he made some stupid mistakes.”

Thea scoffed. “Putting your dick inside a woman who is not your wife a week after lying to her about fertility test results would definitely qualify as a mistake.”

“But according to him, totally justifiable,” I deadpanned.

The rest of his email was another plea for me to reconcile. He had yet to grasp that his mistakes were unforgivable. As much as I’d wanted to respond, reinforcing that we’d never be together again, I’d simply moved the email to the trash.

Silence would speak louder than a reply.

I’d considered blocking him but just hadn’t been able to click that button. Why, I wasn’t sure. Maybe because he’d been in my life so long, and though I was furious at him, blocking him felt too . . . extreme.