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“I won’t let that happen.”
He pulled me against his chest and held me there. I pressed my head against him, closing my eyes and finding solace in the feel of him—his warmth and scent.
Maybe that was what the priest had been talking about those months ago.
“How was church?”
“I feel guilty.”
“Why?”
“Because I was thinking about having sex with you during mass.”
“Well, that is definitely a sin.” He chuckled, his chest trembling. “But I think God can give you a pass this time.”
I rolled my lower lip between my teeth looked up at him.
“Does it bother you that you’re having a baby with someone out of wedlock? After everything that happened with your sister when she came into your life?”
“Honestly, a little. But it’s not your fault.”
“I’m sorry, Pete.”
He brushed a kiss over my forehead and sighed heavily. “There is nothing to be sorry for.”
I was tripping over my thoughts. Maybe it was the sheer panic I felt because I’d been found, or because the words left unsaid were killing me.
“I’d want to be here even if there wasn’t a baby,” I whispered into his shirt. “I would have come back to you eventually. I know that now.”
“I would have spent the rest of life regretting not stopping you from leaving a year ago, Sierra,” he whispered back, resting his cheek on the top of my head. “I’ve been telling you from thebeginning that we’re going to figure this out. We’re going to figure out how to deal with your family, and with that jackass you were engaged to, and we’re going to figure out how to be parents together. But we’re also going to figure out what’s happening between us. That’s what’s most important to me right now. You. Just you.”
I closed my eyes and tried to stop the tears from falling.
“You need to go rest,” he said quietly. “I’ll handle it from here.”
Chapter Nineteen
Pete
Iwatched Sierra walk away and disappear into my room, the door snapping shut behind her. I ran my tongue along the inside of my lower lip, unease gripping my chest and threatening to send me into a tailspin. My protective instincts flared as I turned from the hallway and paced in the living room, running my fingers through my hair.
I hadn’t put much stock into the whole running from her family nonsense if I were being completely honest. To me, she was a rich girl tired of being under the yoke of her family’s high expectations. She’d wanted freedom.
But the look in her eyes as she explained with nothing but fear in her voice that she thought she’d seen her mother had rocked me to my core.
She wasterrifiedof these people. Even her mother. The woman who raised her, clothed her, kept her fed.
I ground my teeth before turning on my heel and grabbing the keys to my truck off the table where Sierra left them when she got home.
She was scared. She was downright petrified of being found.
I should have believed her about this mess from the very beginning.
No wonder she hadn’t fully opened up to me yet. All I’d said whenever she brought this situation up was that it would be okay, and I’d handle it. I’d never asked her questions about it. I never stopped her mid-sentence and asked her to elaborate whenever something she’d said didn’t sound or sit right with me.
Like her parents forcing her into this marriage with Jonah to the point where she felt like she had to make a run for it.
She’d asked me once to take the baby if she was forced to go back home.
