Page 12 of Bride for Keeps

“That night…” She swallowed and it was the first sign of something like nerves. Sierra. Nervous. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen her that way. “Well, I hadn’t been taking my pills for a while. There wasn’t much point, was there?”

“That night was a mistake,” he said reflexively. She looked stricken, and he realized she didn’t understand that either. If she’d only give him more time, he wouldn’t be ruining all this. “I didn’t—”

“Well, regardless, I still want the divorce. You’re the baby’s father, so you’ll be involved once he or she is born, but there’s no point in being married while we do it.”

“No…point.” Anger sparked, cautious at first but growing rapidly as if every second that ticked by was a steady dose of oxygen for the blaze. For once, the numbness didn’t win. “Of course there’s a point, damn it. We’re going to have a baby, a child.” A child. His child. He was going to be a father. A father. “Marriageisthe point.”

“I’m not your mother, Carter. I have no interest in being miserable for the sake of the children, or whatever her whole life has been about. I didn’t marry you to be a McArthur or to be ignored or silenced or… No. So, I’m going to build a life I love.” She met his gaze, chin tilted, determination in her shoulders-back stance. “Which means not being a McArthur.”

I’mnot a McArthur, he wanted to say, but none of this made sense. A child. Divorce. A future. An ending.

“I’m not signing those papers.” It was the one piece of truth in all this chaos. The one stark, blackfactin all this gray area. “Filing. Whatever. I’m not divorcing you.”

“I didn’t want to make this ugly, Carter. But I will.”

“We are not getting divorced,” he said, standing so he could have those inches above her. So he could look down at her and make certain she understood. This was his proclamation. They would not do this awful thing she was suggesting.

But she laughed in his face. “Watch us,” she said, and then turned on a heel and walked out of his office.

Chapter Three

“She’s precious,” Sierrasaid, though her throat felt too tight. The tiniest little bundle in her arms looked like a squished alien, and yet shewasprecious.

Beckett sat next to Kaitlin on her hospital bed and Sierra and Kaitlin’s parents sat on a little couch in the corner. Their brother, Luke, and his wife, Melanie, stood next to them. They’d all taken turns holding little Ellie.

Sierra didn’t want to let her go, though she knew it was time to leave. Time to face the music.

She wasn’t going back to Kaitlin’s apartment tonight. Well, she supposed it was morning now, a whole new day. The day before had been a whirlwind. The morning with Kaitlin going into labor, Sierra driving to the next town over to get a pregnancy test during the wait for Ellie’s arrival. The box had told her it was too early to tell, and still she’d been determined to see that negative sign and feel some relief even if not total.

But there’d been a positive one instead. Early and everything.

Her life had changed in that Walmart bathroom, and she’d driven straight home to the house she and Carter had shared once upon a time, to tell him. She’d felt no more wishy-washy wondering if she should suck it up, wait him out, whatever.

She’d just known, in that crystal-clear moment of a positive pregnancy test: her life had to change. She was going to have a baby, and even if something happened to it, she didn’t ever want to go back to being the version of herself who’d crawled into a little box the past few months and basically given up.

No. Life was going to change.

As she held the newborn in her arms, she knew she couldn’t even begin to fathom how much. But she was determined to be ready. To be strong. Maybe her whole life had been one of failure, but she would not fail her child. If she promised herself nothing else, it would be that.

Which meant giving Ellie back to her exhausted but joyous parents, telling her own parents she was moving home for a while, and… Well, she wasn’t ready to tell anyone but Carter about the pregnancy yet. Not so early. But she’d start preparing nonetheless.

“We should let you two get some sleep,” Mom said, a clear nudge in Sierra’s direction to relinquish her hold on the baby. “Well it’s youthreenow, isn’t it?”

Sierra forced herself to turn to Kaitlin who sat in the hospital bed, puffy face and bags under her eyes, and yet with the kind of contented smile Sierra wanted to find for herself.

She’d never have it with a man who shut her out, who clearly saw her for what she was. She would need to be someone other than what she was for her child, and she couldn’t do that with Carter at her side. He was too perfect, and he’d always remind her of that.

When Ellie began to fuss, Sierra murmured, “Here’s your mama,” and Ellie snuggled into Kaitlin’s chest. Kaitlin met Sierra’s gaze and lifted her eyebrows, a clear question.

Sierra gave a quick nod and Kaitlin reached out and gave her arm a squeeze. Simple as that, her sister was offering support. And to keep quiet about it. A sister Sierra had never been all that kind to. They’d been too different, but it didn’t seem to matter now.

Even in the sadness of knowing she had to move on from Carter and all the failures of the past year, there was a kind of hope in that. Things could change. Things could get better. Maybe not marriage things, but life things.

She shuffled out of the room with her parents and brother and sister-in-law, murmuring goodbyes to the happy couple and the fussing baby. A nurse gave them a kindly smile as she slid through the door while they exited.

Sierra trudged with her family through the hospital and toward the parking lot. She was sure it was just paranoia that it felt like every person they passed in the lobby stared at her.

“We’re over this way,” Luke said, pointing to the far side of the parking lot. The family said their goodbyes and though Sierra was parked somewhere in between the two, she trailed after her parents.

---