Page 98 of The Candlemaker

And for our baby.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chandler

“I’m sorry about your shoes.”

My toes sank into the cold sand. I’d dropped my shoes in the trash can at the edge of the beach; the only thing worse than shoes with puke all over them was shoes with sand-crusted puke all over them.

“Just shoes, Frankie. I can get another pair.” I took a deep breath and glanced at her. She wobbled a little on the uneven terrain, but I shoved my hands into my pockets instead of reaching for her. She was fine. A little shaken, but fine. And if I reached for her, she’d only pull farther away.

We reached the flat stretch of sand that was just short of where the waves crashed and broke. Here, the beach was bereft of people. Lou had pointed out this part to me the morning she’d taken me on a tour; we’d been on the larger, more public rim of coastline, and when she’d pointed out the lighthouse where Kit lived, she’d also mentioned a smaller, more private section of the beach that only the locals knew about.

“I’m pregnant,” she repeated, the words still sounding like they were foreign on her tongue.

“I gathered.”

“Who told you?” She bundled her arms in front of her as another breeze swept through.

I shook off my jacket and handed it to her. “It was an accident.”

The horror on Lou’s face when she realized I didn’t know about the baby and that she’d just revealed her sister’s secret was branded into my mind. It wasn’t her fault. It was mine. If I hadn’t left—hadn’t disappeared the way I had—it wouldn’t have been a secret at all.

“Lou.” She stared at me, hesitating a beat before another whip of wind made her grab my coat.

“She thought I already knew.”I should’ve already known,the thought punched to the front of my mind, but I reined it back, keeping silent as she put on my jacket, and we continued our slow stroll toward the tower of the lighthouse.

“So you’re…” I lifted my fingers to count, not trusting my mind with even the simplest of mental math.

“Almost thirteen weeks. I…I had my twelve-week check-up last week.”

Check-up. That meant at a doctor. A doctor with tests and scans and imaging. A check-up with pictures and ultrasounds and a beating heart. My throat felt like it closed up, but somehow I still kept breathing.

“Frankie…”

“Just say it.” She huffed, suddenly annoyed. “You have to be angry I didn’t tell you. Didn’t reach out. You can say it. You can be angry. It’s fine—I’m fine.” The flippancy in her tone was anything but fine.

“I was going to ask if you had a picture.”

She stopped walking, her head lowering for a second beforeshe fished underneath my jacket and pulled out her phone. The waves crashed and roared, louder and louder in my ears, until I realized it wasn’t the sound of breaking waves at all but the thundering churn of my heart.

She handed me her phone and everything stopped. Stilled.

I turned away from her, staring at the black and white speck on the ultrasound image.My baby.

I was going to be a father.

My pulse trampled through my veins, the word never having any kind of positional connotation in my life until this moment. Until it became me.

“Chandler…”

I looked up and blinked. I didn’t even realize I’d sunk down to sit on the sand, my arms propped on my knees, holding the phone as I stared.

Shit.

“Can I…have this? The picture.” I stammered like an idiot. “Not your phone.”

She nodded, and I swore there was the tiniest of smiles on her face.

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