Page 20 of Theirs to Keep

“Laundry and cooking, just like any other day,” she said with a little too much heat.

Ash chuckled. “Okay then. Listen, Jamison and I will be taking the cattle to market next week. We will be gone most of the week, so you’ll have the place to yourself.”

“Fine,” she barked. “I’ll enjoy the quiet.” She downed her milk and got to work making pancakes. By the time she got to scrambling the eggs, she knew that she couldn’t hold it in, she got sick in the trash can. Ash by her side, holding her hair back.

“What the hell, Regan?” Jamison questioned, entering the kitchen.

“She was scrambling eggs and got sick again,” Ash explained.

“Regan, you are throwing up a lot lately, maybe you should see a doctor.” Regan took the wet rag that Jamison handed to her and sat down in a kitchen chair.

“I’ve already seen the doctor and there isn’t anything he can do for me; this sickness just needs to run its course.” She knewthat she was dancing around the truth but lying outright to them still didn’t feel right.

“What do you mean? He can’t give you anything to help?” Jamison finished up the eggs and turned off the stove.

“No, there is nothing that I can take for it.” Regan leaned back in her chair and sighed. “Do you guys’ mind if I go back up to my room and lie down?”

“Sure, no problem.” Ash smiled down at her and extended his hand to help her up.

“You go on up and we can take care of ourselves this morning. If you need anything, just text one of us,” Jamison offered.

Regan nodded and trudged up the steps and down the hall to her room. She fell onto her bed and closed her eyes, letting her world go black.

Jamison

“So, you think she’s going to tell us anytime soon?” Ash asked, shoving a pancake in his mouth. Jamison smiled at his best friend. The thought of the woman that they had both fallen in love with, pregnant with their child made him so fucking happy. Ash was snooping around Regan’s bathroom about a month ago and found the positive pregnancy tests in her trash can. After he told Jamison, they both decided that they would wait Regan out to tell them on her own. Ash figured that she needed time to come to terms with the fact that she was pregnant and didn’t know which one of them was the father. To the two of them, that didn’t matter. In their minds, they were both the baby’s father and they planned on making their family more permanent. They just needed Regan to figure out that they were a family already.

“I think that she’s running out of time and she’s worried about what her next move should be. According to the baby books, she should be getting over this morning sickness phase soon and I’m betting that she’ll start showing after that. Regan is carrying a package with an expiration date and sooner or later, she’s going to have to come clean with the two of us,” Jamison whispered.

“Agreed, I just worry that she’s going to get spooked and take off. How do we keep that from happening? Like you said, she’s going to start feeling better soon. We’re running out of time. If we just tell her that we know, she’ll be forced to lean on us and let us help.” Ash made a valid point. Jamison knew that his friend constantly worried that Regan was going to leave them and he also worried that would destroy Ash. Neither of them would survive losing her and their baby.

“Just give her a little more time, she’ll come around. She needs to learn to trust each of us and if we force her to tell us about the baby, we’ll never get there.” Jamison wanted her to come to them, lean on them, need them. God, he wanted her to trust them again, especially knowing that there was a baby involved now. He was trying to wait; he really was but he also wanted to get their shit straight before their baby came into the world.

“I’ll give it a few more days but I’m not sure that I can wait much longer. It’s killing me to have her living here with us and not being able to touch her or tell her how much we love her,” Ash said. Jamison nodded. When she made the demands of not touching her or treating her as anything other than a hired employee, Jamison was sure that it would last a week, maybe two, and then she’d be back in their bed. He had to admit that he admired Regan’s resolve, but he was getting sick of hiding his feelings. And he was fucking sick of not being able to touch or kiss her. Most nights, he thought of Regan lying in the next room and it took all his restraint not to go to her and claim her again. Jamison was smart enough to know that they wouldn’t get far with Regan unless they played by her rules and that made the control freak inside of him crazy.

Two days later,Jamison ran to town to sign some papers at the bank for the cattle that they sold. He hadn’t seen Regan since early that morning when she made them breakfast. She was having a good day until they asked for scrambled eggs. That seemed to be the one food that she couldn’t handle with her morning sickness. A part of him felt horrible that they kept asking her to fix something that made her so sick. But if she thought that they caught on about the baby she might take off and neither of them wanted that. If Jamison had to guess, Ash was asking Regan to make him scrambled eggs each morning to force her hand. He knew that Ash was pushing her to tell them about the baby, but Jamison still thought it was a bad idea. If she didn’t trust them enough to tell them about the baby then he wasn’t sure that she’d ever be able to trust them again. He hated that they fucked up so royally with her.

Jamison stopped into the bank first and within a half hour had all the papers signed. He wanted to celebrate the sale by taking Regan and Ash out to dinner, but he knew that she would balk at the idea. She would consider it a date and Jamison knew that dating was off the table for her. He decided that making her a nice steak dinner with all the trimmings was the way to go. She needed to rest and eat and hopefully, she would let him, and Ash take care of her at least for a night.

Jamison pulled into the grocery store’s parking lot and ran in to pick up a few things. When he came back out he swore that he saw Regan riding her motorcycle down main street. He almost dropped his bags of groceries at the sight of her speeding past, as if she wasn’t three months pregnant. Jamison growled and threw the bags into the cab of his truck, taking off in thedirection that her bike disappeared. He was done letting her push them away, especially now that she was taking chances with their baby. It was time for the three of them to sit down and have a come-to-Jesus talk. Regan was going to have to accept that she was pregnant and theirs. He was done waiting her out.

He called Ash, filling him in on Regan’s little joy ride. Thankfully, she headed from town straight home, so he didn’t have to chase her too far. She cut the engine to her bike, walked it a quarter mile up the driveway, and stowed it in the barn where she kept it.

Jamison parked his truck and followed her into the barn. “Might as well not spend so much energy sneaking around, honey. I saw you riding through town on your bike.” He blocked the door, crossing his arms over his chest. She pulled her jacket tighter around her body and he didn’t miss the slight swell of her belly. Every instinct in him wanted to go to her, pull her into his arms, and kiss her senseless. Knowing that she was pregnant with their baby made his inner caveman roar to life.

“I’m allowed to ride my bike, Jamison. And don’t call me honey, you lost that right.” Regan tried to walk around him, but Ash took up the open space in the doorway to stand next to Jamison.

“What the fuck were you thinking, Regan? You can’t just go riding around town on that death trap,” Ash barked.

Regan’s laugh was bitter. “You don’t get to tell me what I can and can’t do, Ash. You might be my boss but I’m off the clock right now, so go fuck yourself.” Ash’s anger seemed to get the best of him, and he strode across the barn and pulled Regan into his arms. Jamison wasn’t sure if Ash was going to hug her or strangle her.

“You can’t take chances anymore, Regan. You’re too important to us, you both are.” Ash cupped her tiny belly, and she gasped.

“You know about the baby? But, how?” Regan tried to back away from Ash but ran right into Jamison. It felt like forever since she had been between the two of them.

“We both know about the baby, honey. We’ve known since you took the tests. Ash found them in your bathroom. We were concerned that you were sick and well, he went in there to snoop around.” Regan’s anger boiled up and Jamison knew that he was saying all the wrong things. He decided to do things his way because talking things out and telling her how he felt wasn’t working.

“Why didn’t you tell me that you knew?” Regan sobbed and Jamison pulled her into his arms. He hated it when she cried and since she got pregnant, she seemed to cry all the time. She thought they hadn’t noticed all the changes that the baby brought on, but they did.

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