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They had some rental properties—which Rory ran. They had the plans for the farm store which Quinn and Fia were so enthused about.
And they had hazelnuts at Sullivan’s Point.Hazelnuts.
There was nothing glorious or rugged or Western abouthazelnuts.
“Just... I’m going to talk to Gus tomorrow.”
“All right.”
“I’m tired,” she said. “I’m going to go to bed.”
She trudged up the stairs, and she knew the creak of every single one. She had lived in this house her entire life. She had been planning on moving somewhere else, but she didn’t... She hadn’t thought that it would be this soon. And there would be a baby. And there was Gus.
She reached the top of the stairs and froze.
He wanted to marry her. Did that mean...?
Her breath rushed out of her lungs in a gust. She couldn’t imagine that. Gus, so large and hard. Touching her and... She squeezed her thighs together and walked down the hall, feeling very much like she had just done something naughty, and she couldn’t quite say why.
She hadn’t ever thought of Gus McCloud in that way. He was... Well, he had been amanas far as she was concerned ever since she’d first met him.
When she was a child.
She’d never thought about him like that before.
She walked into her room quickly and shut the door firmly behind her, lying across the handmade quilt that was still on her bed.
She groaned. Eventually, she had to call her mother, let her know she was going to be a grandmother. Maybe she’d be willing to leave her beach life for a while to sit in a rocking chair holding a baby?
That made her chest tight.
No. She wouldn’t be doing that now. Not right now. She just needed to sleep.
She threw her arm over her eyes. Sleep was elusive, and she couldn’t grab hold of it in spite of her best efforts.
Finally, when the light was beginning to turn pink, she went downstairs and out the front door. She went right to the barn area and took her horse out of the stall, grabbing hold of a bridle and some reins and putting them on the old gelding. She decided to skip the saddle, pulling herself up and riding bareback across the field. She had it on good authority—meaning the internet—that as long as horse riding was something she was accustomed to, it was just fine to do while pregnant.
It was such a strange thing. She’d felt like she was in some sort of denial about this from the beginning, but she had been trying to take care of herself. To take care of the baby. Because it did matter. It just did.
She decided that as weird as everything had been...she needed to see Elsie. She had to go to McCloud’s Landing anyway and she figured that’s where her friend was. So she headed that way, as fast as her horse would take her.
The wind blew in her hair, and she closed her eyes for a moment and just felt.
Felt it all.
It was early, but she knew that Elsie would already be up. Her friend was always up with the dawn.
She was a horse girl, after all.
Alaina got off her horse and stomped up the front porch of Hunter’s cabin. She knocked on the door, swift and hard, and it opened abruptly. And there was Hunter, shirtless and looking irritated. And really, she should’ve realized that they might be in a partial state of undress. And that Hunter would be the one to answer the door, but she just wasn’t quite prepared.
“Hey,” he said, his lips turned down into a frown.
“Hi,” she said.
She felt awkward. Because she knew thatheknew that she’d had a crush on him, and also, he knew that she was marrying Gus. And... She let herself take a slow perusal of his bare chest. It was weird.
He was aesthetically a beautiful man, and she could see that and appreciate it. But now... Well, she wasn’t a virgin anymore. She couldn’t say that she passed for anything likeexperienced, considering her sexual adventures had been muted to say the least. And very brief. But she didn’t feel a real sexual stirring along with the appreciation of his aesthetic.
