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“I know that the phone you were supposed to use for emergencies—say, when a group of men showed up at your cabin lookin’ for their missin’ guns—was wired to blow that entire cabin to kingdom come the minute you tried to call out.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” she shot back, her jaw clenched. “I’m telling you—my dad wouldn’t hurt me. He’s mad at me. He’s disappointed. That doesn’t mean he’s a murderer.”
“You know the guy that was drivin’ our truck was beat within an inch of his life?” I asked, willing her to take this shit seriously. “He’s still in the ICU with his brain bleedin’.”
“You don’t even know that was my dad!”
I just looked at her as it finally sunk in. She was trying so hard to maintain that the life she’d led, with the white picket fence and strict parents, was the only truth, that she was refusing to see what was right in front of her. It wasn’t that she was naïve, or stupid, or in shock. She just couldn’t reconcile what she’d always known with the hard truth that had been presented to her.
“Let’s table all that for a minute,” I said tiredly.
“Table it,” she replied dubiously.
“You’re havin’ my baby,” I said quietly, reaching out to put my hand on her belly. I half expected her to push my hand away, but she didn’t. She sat frozen in place while I spread my fingers wide, my palm pressed against the roundness.
“I would’ve told you,” she said, looking down at my hand. “When I could. I would’ve told you.”
“Yeah?” I was barely paying attention.
There was a littlepersonin there.Myperson. How the fuck had that happened?
“I didn’t have your phone number,” she mumbled sheepishly. “But once I was back in town, I would’ve found a way to contact you.”
“I went to the garden center,” I blurted, taking my eyes off her belly but leaving my hand where it was. “Saw your brother.”
“You saw Ephraim? What did he say?”
“I was lookin’ for you,” I clarified in case she hadn’t realized. “But I didn’t ask for you because I didn’t want to get you in trouble.”
She let out a hoarse laugh and her belly jerked under my hand.
“I don’t think you could’ve gotten me in any more trouble than I was already in,” she said wryly.
“About that—”
“I didn’t mean it that way.”
“I used a condom.”
We were speaking over each other and both came to an abrupt halt.
“I remember,” she replied simply.
“I didn’t want you to think that I wasn’t careful—” I continued on. Suddenly it was really important that she knew. “—that I didn’t try to protect you. I did.”
“I know.” She shrugged. “I guess God had different plans.”
“God, huh?” I asked, reluctantly pulling my hand away.
“Yes.”
“I can’t believe we’re going to have a kid.”
“Give it a couple days to sink in,” she advised seriously. “It took at least a month for me to absorb it.”
“A month?”
“Well, we’d only done it once,” she said in exasperation, widening her eyes.
