Page 31 of Bride for Keeps

“I’ll drive you home.”

“No, I’ll call my dad. But I’ll sit in your car with the heater on while we wait. Silently, of course. If you can agree.” She could be adult if she had to be.

“Sierra. Let me drive you home. I promise, I won’t say a word.”

If he was anyone else, she wouldn’t have believed that promise, but even in all this…weirdness, Carter didn’t lie. Oh, he might go off into his own little world, might shut her out, might turn into someone else completely and then slowly start to morph back into the man she knew, but he didn’t lie.

She had to remember not to trust that morphing. It was temporary now just like it had been before. The next bad-news thing and he’d behave the same way. There was no hope. She couldn’t allow herself to have any.

“Fine,” she agreed, because if he had to be silent, she could be home and crawl into bed in the next fifteen minutes. God, she was tired.

She got out of her car and followed him to his. True to his word, he didn’t talk. They simply buckled, he started the car, and then he started driving.

Sierra yawned. She’d take a nap when she got home. Pregnant women got to have naps without guilt. Damn straight. She yawned again. She’d just close her eyes until she got home. It would make it so much easier to ignore him, that was for sure.

She had no idea how much later she awoke with a start. The sun seemed unbearably bright. The car wasn’t moving, but she was in it, still buckled. She blinked and looked over at Carter in the driver’s seat. He was reading something on his phone.

“What…” But before she could finish that sentence her gaze drifted to what lay outside the window.

It was not her parents’ house. It was not Marietta. It was an unbelievable view of mountains and a valley below, the sun setting into it and shining directly at her. She was almost awed, until she realized how far away from her destination they were. Howlateit was.

She screeched. “Where the hell did you take me?”

Carter only smiled calmly, maneuvering so he could slide his phone into his back pocket. “Beautiful, isn’t it? I can’t believe we’ve never found time to come up here. My fault, I know.”

She gaped at him. Was this a dream? Had he sustained a head injury? Hadshe?

But it all made a horrible kind of sense. “Your parents’ cabin.” Outside Marietta, closer to damn Yellowstone. Was heinsane? “Are you insane?” she demanded. No use only thinking it.

“Insaneisn’t the word I’d use. But we could use some time alone. Together. Let’s get inside. I’ve wasted an awful lot of gas sitting here letting you sleep. Be a shame to not be able to leave when we’re ready because we ran out of gas.”

“I’m ready. I’m ready right now! I can’t believe you did this. I can’t believe…” She had no words for all the things she couldn’t believe. Carter had been devious. He’dtrickedher. Carter. The man who didn’t even like practical jokes because they were too close to a lie.

She took a deep breath, gathering together all her strength and pride and…whatever you called what was going to get you through a horrible thing. Grit, maybe. Yeah, she liked that. She wanted to havegrit.

“Take me home. Now,” she ordered, giving him a look Mrs. McArthur was forever giving her. Disdainful and disgusted.

“Wouldn’t be smart to drive these icy roads in the dark,” Carter replied as if they were having a calm,saneconversation. “Especially when we’re so low on gas. Have to spend the night.”

He said it so cheerfully she wanted to junk-punch him. “I’m not spending the night with you here. I refuse.” She grabbed her purse and started pawing through for her phone. “I’ll call someone to pick me up.”

“And have them brave the icy roads in the dark?” he asked casually. Not even disapprovingly. Just a simple, non-threatening question.

Damn him.Damn.Him.“I will make you pay for this. In ways you can’t even fathom.”

“Trust me, I spent plenty of time fathoming on my way up here. I even turned around once. But as mad as you are, as mad as you’re going to be, the only thing that’s going to solve this problem is time together.”

“No. The only thing that’s going to solve this problem is div—”

He reached out and put his hand on her stomach out of nowhere. Just his big hand on her still-flat stomach, and she nearly burst into tears in that second. Pregnancy felt like such a disconnected experience this early. Sheknewthere was something in there, but it was hard to really wrap her head around the reality of it.

Carter’s hand on her stomach made it feel impossibly real. It made the connection between them a tangible thing. No matter how she told herself to be strong, to be sure, she wastorn.

Couldn’t she put up with hard times and him shutting himself away if it meant they got to do this together?

She looked up at him, his blue gaze on her stomach before it slowly lifted to hers.

She was so close to crying, to giving in. “I can’t do this,” she whispered. “I can’t keep doing this, Carter. You have to stop.”

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