Page 27 of Possessive Trucker

I start to fume. Thorn never keeps anything from me, but this one thing. It’s driving me up the wall.

“No!” he calls out from his study absently. Reading my mind even, it’s so unfair.

A few months ago, Thorn wouldn’t have me doing anything. Just decided I had to take it easy and be pampered.

He even hired some people to do more at the mill and in the office so we could spend more time at home. Business is booming and Thorn does less every month, it’s amazing.

Finishing a leg and then a wing, I struggle to get up to go for more food.

Watching a diaper ad on TV.

The past three months.

It all plays at high speed through my brain as I have a rare moment of clarity.

I suddenly realize what I’ve become.

I flail like a turtle and then manage to haul myself up out of the chair and I dash for the kitchen, narrowing my eyes as I scan the calendar on the fridge.

No…

Yes…?

Ugh!

If he knew before me… I’ll… I’ll…

My next stop is the bathroom in the hall.

There’s a whole drawer full of tests, which mysteriously appeared a few months after I moved in officially.

The day after I met Thorn.

I can almost hear my own voice. It seems like a lifetime ago.

God, I’m so naïve.

“Let’s wait and find out,” Thorn had said when I tried to ask if it was even possible.

Mind you, we’ve been at it like rabbits since then.

How could I not know?

I sigh loudly, and kicking the digital scales by accident all the way under the vanity unit, I open the drawer and pull out a test kit.

I scan the instructions as I sit on the toilet waiting for my part of the process to come, which doesn’t take long.

I laugh to myself, waiting for the result.

It can’t be. It won’t be.

It is.

I let out a cry. A sort of scream crossed with a squeal but more like I’ve just stepped on a spider.

I can hear Thorn’s steps thundering down the hall and he calls my name before he gets to the door, which he pushes open.

One look at his face, looking at mine and I get it.

I’m not sure how it never even occurred to me. Maybe it’s a first time thing, or maybe I’m just too hormonal to think straight anymore, but in a split second I know that Thorn knows.

“How long have you known?” I ask, feeling my face screwing up and getting hot, the tears starting already.

Thorn rushes over to me, and kneeling down, he takes the test, showing a big blue plus sign and sets it on the counter, hugging me.

“I didn’t… Not really… I mean… you didn’t know?” he asks me with disbelief.

I can only shake my head, crying.

Tears of joy though. I’m not mad or upset or even mildly annoyed.

It’s like the past few months make sense in one second. Everything that’s happened is because I’m pregnant.

“We’re gonna have a baby?” I ask Thorn, as he walks me back to the bedroom, pausing at the basement door on the way through.

“We’re gonna have a baby,” he tells me, and gently unlocks the basement door, going down the first few steps after turning the light on and holding his hand out so I can follow him down.

“I was working on something, you were right, but I wanted to be a hundred percent sure before I showed you… just in case.”

He murmurs absently.

“Just in case?” I hear myself asking.

“I just wanted to be sure, honey,” he says, lifting back the tarp and flicking another light switch on the wall, making me put both my hands to my mouth which is wide open in a gasp.

“Oh, Thorn! It’s beautiful. For me? For us? For the baby?” I stammer.

“For the baby and for you,” he tells me, nudging me closer so he can show me.

“You made this?” It’s a stupid question, but I just can’t believe how beautiful it is. The quality of the work, the wood he’s used, the finish.

The first piece is an upright bassinet, the antique kind that you rock by hand.

“Try it out,” he says softly, urging me into the second piece.

A beautiful, hand carved rocking chair with red velvet, embroidered with little golden S’s.

I’m shaking my head, I can’t believe it.

“Tell me you didn’t stitch all those little S’s,” I ask him, relieved when he shakes his head.

“No honey, but I did make the furniture… for our baby which I thought might be coming but was waiting for you to say so.”

“I thought I’d just put on some weight. I thought I was just vagueing out from not doing much,” I tell him absently, instantly feeling right at home in the rocker and gently nudging the bassinet with my foot.

“That’s great, honey… just perfect… just like you… so perfect,” Thorn beams, and I can see a line of silver at the corner of his eye as he leans in to kiss me on the lips, then bend lower to kiss my belly.

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