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A perfect day to ruin Pete’s life.
I bit back the idea that he’d laugh and turn from me. That he wouldn’t me and that this baby was his.
I wasn’t sure how to prove it to him. He’d probably slept with someone else, maybe a few people, in the weeks that had passed. Right?
Why did that thought tighten my chest and make me reel with sudden jealousy?
Pete and I were nothing. It had been a one-night stand that ended in a pregnancy. He didn’t owe me anything, and I had to be okay in the event that he had no interest in this child, or me, or helping either of us.
For a moment, I lost track of my reasoning for even coming back to Montana.
Maybe I do need Pete, I thought. I just needed to feel a little less alone right now in this situation. I needed someone on my side in the event Jonah tried dragging me home. I needed someone to tell me that everything was going to be fine.
I knew, deep down, that I was running back to Pete for more reasons than one.
My desire for him ran deep, that was clear. Whether that be because he was the first man I’d ever chosen for myself, or because he knew how to pull feelings out of me that I hadn’t known were there, I couldn’t be sure.
I just prayed he felt some inkling of emotion toward me now, even if it were nothing more than sympathy for me and our situation.
The rusty oldHot Springs, Montanasign came into view.
My life would never be the same after this moment.
Chapter Five
Pete
Keely kept looking over at me and I was getting annoyed.
“Stop looking at me,” I grouched as I knelt on my knees along the upstairs hallway in the house they were renovating. I ran my thumb through the caulk I was applying to the baseboard as Keely’s eyes burning a hole in the back of my neck.
“I wasn’t looking at you,” she mimicked in the same tone I’d used on her.
“Then what do you want?”
“You’re just awfully quiet,” she mused, tapping her paint roller on the pan. Her blonde, unruly curls were pinned back from her face and those blue eyes we shared were focused on mine as I turned around to face her. She and I looked alike despite only sharing a father. She was a lot shorter than me, but most people were. Otherwise, it was plain as day we were related. At least I thought so.
“I’m trying to focus, and you sighing and carrying on over there isn’t helping me finish this house any faster.”
She pursed her lips and scowled at me before turning back to her task. Outside, George and Grant were starting to mow down some of the really tall grass in the front yard. George already had a few cows grazing in the back, and the two old barns had been demolished and new ones built.
I’d been to this place as a kid but seeing it again thirty years later had been a shock. It had been falling to pieces when George found out his mom hadn’t lost the property after his dad’s death three decades ago and that he’d inherited it, all three-thousand acres of trees, hills, and open pasture.
Within a year he’d have a prosperous ranch like his father did back in the day.
But right now, he had a fiancée who was grinding my gears.
“What, Keely?”
“What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing’s wrong—”
“It’s because of the engagement, isn’t it?”
“No—”
“Then what—”
