Page 36 of Bride for Keeps

“Your father’s an ass.”

Maybe Carter shouldn’t have been, but he was surprised at her vehemence. He’d known her feelings about his family, but she tended to not voice it. He’d always thought that was considerate of her since he had a complicated but necessary relationship with them.

“We should have dealt with that.”

“What? Your father being an ass?”

“Yes. I shouldn’t have ignored it. I shouldn’t have ignored the way they treated you and you shouldn’t have told me it didn’t matter when it did.”

“Itdidn’tmatter,” she said fiercely.

But he… He just didn’t believe her. “What else have you lied to me about?”

“What?” she replied, outrage written all over her face and in her fists clenching. But he couldn’t be worried about offending her when it was so true. “I am notlying.”

“What else have you said didn’t matter or was fine when it clearly wasn’t? My family. My silence. What else?”

“Nothing. I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re just… You’re just making things up now.”

He moved then, because it downright infuriated him she could lie like that. Right to his face. Not just now, but for this whole time. Lied and told him everything was fine when it wasn’t.

Maybe he should have known. He could cop to that. But she shouldn’t have lied. They were both wrong here, and they both had to fight to fix it. He’d go first, but he needed her to come with him.

She backed away from him as he walked toward her. She kept stepping backward right up until she hit the wall with a littleoof. But he didn’t stop. He walked until they were leg to leg, looking down at her wide, uncertain eyes.

“What. Else?” His teeth and fists were clenched because he didn’t want to yell. He didn’t want toscareher. But he wanted…something.

“Go away,” she said, giving him an ineffective shove—both because it was barely even a nudge and because he was so locked in place likely nothing would knock him over.

“Tell me what else you lied to me about.”

“I didn’t lie. Sometimes… Sometimes a person keeps things to themselves out of self-preservation, Carter. And it doesn’t have anything to do with you, so knock it off.”

“Nothing to do with me? Like learning my father wasn’t my father had nothing to do with you?” he asked, impressed when his voice sounded so deadly calm. Steely and sure.

Like Dad.

“Stop poking at this. Stop… Just stop.”

He considered it, because he didn’t want to sound or feel like Gerald. He didn’t want her to be upset, especially when she was carrying their baby. He also didn’t want to back down.

But there had to be a way to find some gentleness to exist even in all this anger.

He inhaled and exhaled and forced himself to unclench his hands. Forced himself to focus onher, not what he was feeling. He needed to let some of his own emotions go so he had room to absorb hers.

She was breathing rapidly, and her eyes kept darting anywhere but to him. She wasn’t angry, or not only angry. She wasscared. And he didn’t think it was of him exactly. It was this talking that got her so panicked. He didn’t understand it, and in the past he might have hinted around that. Or he might have ignored it.

Clearly, he’d made a mistake there. No more. “What are you so afraid of? Why can’t we talk about this?”

She just looked at him, her mouth opening and then closing.

“Sierra. Just tell me. Tell me. We have to let this go. No matter what happens, divorce or not, we have to let some of this go.”

“I wanted a baby!” she yelled at him, more tears falling from her eyes and just about doing him in. “I didn’t want to go get a job or wait or anything. I just wanted to have a baby with you.” She yelled it all, though it cracked at the end.

That hurt. Really hurt because a part of him had wondered, but when she’d agreed with him that she should find something for herself first, he’d let that wonder go. He’d been certain she’d agreed because she wanted to agree.

“Honey, why didn’t you tell me?” His own voice cracked on the question even though she had sort of gotten what she wanted—they were going to have a baby in a few months. Still, that she’d kept that to herself, agreed with him when she hadn’t wanted to… He reached out but she slapped his hand away and maneuvered off the wall.

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