Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 141951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 473(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 141951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 473(@300wpm)
Perhaps it wasn’t the right time.
But still …
“It’s the next driveway—with the wooden bin and white painted numbers,” she informed. “But back to the condoms.”
Lucas chuckled. “Right, back to that.”
“Well, you told him to put it back. I’m still trying to figure out why.”
“I’m not going to assume we’re sleeping together until you say we are, sweetheart,” Lucas said, matter of factly.
“Were your fingers being inside of me this morning not enough of a clue?” Delaney returned.
The pleased, dirty smirk he leveled on her as they approached her friend’s driveway did the best, and worst, things to Delaney’s insides.
Goddamn this man.
“Well?” she squeaked in question. “I just wondered …”
“We can stop in again on the way back. The store stays open until nine Monday through to Sunday.”
Huh.
Delaney turned to stare out the passenger window instead of at Lucas as the truck slowed on the quiet road. “Good to know.”
“Yep. Is this the pregnant one?” Lucas asked, navigating the rumbling Chevy into the narrow mouth of a familiar driveway. At the crest of the gully situated along fields the farmer’s used for wheat, corn, or cows depending on the year.
Gracen sent pictures to Delaney of the cows that greeted her one morning—her second on the property.
Delaney laughed, not knowing how else to respond to Lucas’ question at first.
“What?” he asked. “Jesus, they must get a lot of wind, huh?”
Nestled deep in the gully behind a wall of tall birch trees sat her best friend’s two-storey farmhouse directly across from a tall gray barn. Sitting between both was the garage her friend’s fiancé had converted into a wood shop while Gracen had a small salon built onto the house shortly after the fire that devastated their beloved Haus.
“First,” Delaney said, “don’t call her the pregnant one.”
She couldn’t see that flying over well with Gracen. A woman was more than whether she currently carried a child in her womb, right?
Lucas rolled his eyes and scoffed behind the wheel. “I would not.”
“Well, you just—”
“I only asked because I meant to follow it up with whether or not it would be appropriate for me to congratulate her,” he filled in, matter of fact.
Enough that Delaney’s jaws snapped to keep from saying another thing to chastise him. She should have known better. Lucas proved often, and consistently, that he considered the people around him in ways others might overlook. Not being able to relate to someone else didn’t seem like an excuse he used not to be kind.
“She isn’t far along, right? That photo I saw—what are those called?”
“Sonograms?”
Lucas made a noise under his breath as the truck slowly rolled down the winding drive with snowbanks piled high on either side. “Whew, would not have thought that was the word.”
She laughed. “Are babies out of your realm?”
Delaney couldn’t imagine Lucas saying yes to that question, honestly. He seemed like exactly the type to make a good, devoted father. If he cared deeply about people he might as well consider strangers, what kind of love would he show to a child that belonged to him?
Then again, being a good man didn’t necessarily mean that man also wanted children.
He considered that question before answering. “Experience-wise, yes. That’s a bit out there for me.”
Fair enough.
But everybody could learn.
Delaney tried to do the math in her head, but couldn’t come up with a firm, exact week number for her friend’s pregnancy. Although, she was sure Gracen would know the second Delaney got the chance to clarify and ask. “If she’s past her first trimester, it’s barely. And no, Gracen doesn’t complain about the wind. I guess it kind of rolls off the crest of the gully, and the trees keep the house from getting the brunt.”
“Huh,” Lucas said under his breath.
Not that he differentiated the non-response to anything in particular.
Delaney grinned over at him. “Are you nervous?”
“What, why?”
His head swung her way, and those soul-deep eyes of his slammed into hers.
“I don’t know,” she said, suddenly more interested in pretending to pick at the French tips on her manicure. “I mean, I might be nervous if you asked me to randomly meet your parents, or something.”
Not two seconds after those words left her lips, Lucas pulled the Chevy into park behind Malachi’s truck parked next to Gracen’s new Four-Runner.
A recent purchase.
She wanted something bigger when the baby came, apparently.
“I assure you stopping in for coffee, or whatever, with your long-time friend is not comparable to meeting my parents, on any given day of the week,” Lucas tacked on at the end.
As if for good measure.
Delaney’s brow furrowed. “I know you’re not close, but do you think that given the current circumstances, things might change in the future?”
She chose every word carefully.
Lucas wasn’t as kind. “No. If you’re at all curious what a meeting with my parents would look like, it’d probably include my father finding something trivial about you to insult as a way to poke at me, and my mother would somehow play the perpetual victim, so she can feel better about all the shitty things she’s done. The casualty in every story which I can safely say would make everyone else the villain.”