Page 116 of Training the Heart

“I know,” she answers simply, keeping her gaze out the window.

“But you don’t need me to do that,” I tell her firmly.

She looks at me for a split second.

“I don’t? I just don’t know how to handle this realization,” she says, looking wounded. The pain I see in her eyes as she lets three years, the possibility of being lied to and feeling like she could never carry a child register with her—that look on her face, it almost destroys me.

I pull the truck over to the side of the highway and unbuckle my seatbelt, getting as close as I can to her. I grip the sides of her face, and kiss her softly on her perfect lips.

“No, sweetheart, you don’t need me to handle this for youbecauseyouare strong enough to tell me what you need in order to find peace with this, and I’ll do whatever that is. If you never want to talk about it again, we’ll never talk about it again. If you decide you want to somehow prove this is something Brad did, I will spend every last goddamn cent I have and every resource I can muster helping you do it.”

“I know.” She nods as a tear slides down her cheek.

“You said to me once, you don’t need me to come to your rescue, and you were right. You don’t, I don’t need to be your hero, you’re already your own fucking hero,” I tell her as I kiss her again and place my hand over my child, letting the life radiate against my palm. “You left, you took control of your life, it led you here, to me, right where you’re supposed to be,” I remind her.

“I love you, Wade.” She sniffs, looks down at my hand on her stomach and then back out the window. “We can’t go back, only forward. Take me home.”

I kiss her lips again and marvel at her fucking strength. I’m amazed by it. I’m in fucking awe.

“Whatever you want, sweetheart. I’m at your mercy.”

As I bring her into my arms, into her place, and whisper to her how much I love her, I know that nothing matters but this. Her and I and our little bean.

Ivy is right—we can’t go back, only forward, and you know what? There isn’t a person on earth I’d rather leave the world behind with.

CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

Ivy

“Stay still, if you’re going to continue to grope me the entire time, your hair isn’t going to be straight.”

“Worth it,” Wade says, not missing a beat, as he slides his hands up the back of my jeans.

Not a good idea when I’m standing over him with a pair of shears in my hand.

I bend down and kiss him on the lips and smile.

“You’re the one that asked for this trim, remember? In yourdad eranow?” I say, recounting his words from this morning, when he came back to our Florida hotel room with new scissors and a comb and told me I simplyhad tocut his hair for him.

“I am, but fuck, that was before you were standing in front of me with your ass so close to my hands and your perfect tits in my face,” he grunts, like it’s painful torture I’m putting him through, which makes me smile in return.

“So greedy, Chief,” I tell him, shaking my head.

“For you, always,” he murmurs, as his lips come painfully close to my breasts through my shirt.

“We have to leave for the track in a half hour, if you want me to do this you have to stop trying to get my clothes off,” I scold.

Wade clears his throat and straightens out, as still as a statue. My own perfect Roman godlike statue, as I run my fingers through the wavy, unkempt strands of his hair, following close behind with a comb, then my scissors. I’m not going to say he isn’t tempting me with his freshly shaven, perfectly scented skin so close to my lips. It’s not without effort that I don’t climb into his lap, he’s mouthwatering. But if I do that right now, he’ll have really lopsided hair for the biggest moment in Angel’s racing career so far.

Thestartof her career, actually.

“Okay, I’ll be good. But if I do, that means I get to be as bad as fuck when Angel gets her gate card. The moment we walk through that door later. Deal?”

I giggle as he slides his hand up the inside of my thigh and tempts me even more.

“Deal …”

“You have to breathe.” Wade rubs my shoulder ninety minutes later and the current I feel every time he touches me races through my blood.

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