“I’ve seen it,” he said. “I think that’s my favorite thing about you.”
He wrapped his arm around my shoulder and I studied the horizon. Would he be able to hang tight with me when my junk got real too? Because, my real wouldn’t be getting any better. Especially not once my family knew. Wow. My stomach did a flip when I thought of going to Kel’s next weekend. “Are you still good to go with me to my sister’s next Saturday?”
“Affirmative, cowgirl. If you still want me to.”
“I’m planning to spend the night though, and they do church on Sundays.”
Carter tensed, but the longer he stared at our hands in my lap the more he relaxed. “Roger that. I just need to be back for a meeting with Pastor Gregg at sixteen hundred.”
Military time. Four o’clock. Dad made our whole family live on military time growing up. I smiled and rested my head back on Carter’s chest. What would Dad think of me dating a marine?
“Oh, I have something for you,” Carter said, voice raspy. He lifted my hand to his lips, kissing my knuckles, and pulled a paper out of his pocket.
“I’ve been looking everywhere for this,” I whispered, studying my ultrasound image with so much warmth in my heart for whoever this baby was.
Twenty
-LAUREN-
The next Saturday after work, we loaded up in Carter’s truck and headed down the mountain, me a pile of nerves, and him, a rock-steady marine going wherever duty called. I loved that about him.
The past week had been amazing. Carter was more open with his struggles, and I’d tried to be more understanding. Not that it was easy. I hated the competition I felt brewing between me and his past. It was like, once he snapped back into a memory, he froze up and there was no getting him back until it passed. He decided to start hanging in his room whenever a memory was triggered and coming out when it was done. I didn’t like it when he disappeared in the middle of things. But for everything he was doing for me, I could totally give him the space he needed when something triggered his guilt.
At least, that was my plan.
“Think we should practice again?” he asked as he drove.
He lifted my hand to his warm lips and set it back on the console between us.
I shook my head. We’d practiced the “Hey, Kellie, I’m knocked up” conversation eighteen hundred different times, and we’d hashed out every possible scenario, and none of it helped. Carter just didn’t understand how freaked out I was that this would be the last straw for my relationship with Kel. My conversation with her about Carter didn’t help my fears either.
When I told her I was dating someone new over the phone, she flipped. For a solid five minutes she “lectured” so loud I had to pull the receiver away from my ear.
When I told her I was bringing Carter with me to meet them, she disconnected the call.
When I called back later, she said Carter could come but that was it. No more random dudes for them to meet.
She didn’t want her boys growing up thinking a revolving door on relationships was healthy, and my brother-in-law, Jared, was getting tired of it too. They loved me too much to watch me waste my life.
I sighed.
Carter gave my hand a squeeze. “I’m with you all the way.”
It soothed my panic a little. Kellie hadn’t met Carter yet, and he wasn’t like any of my exes. That had to count for something. As soon as she met him, she’d get it.
The baby was another story.
“Do you need more water?” Carter asked, glancing in his rearview mirror as he flipped his blinker on and shifted lanes toward the freeway off-ramp.
“You already made me drink ten gallons.”
“So dramatic.” He pulled another bottle out of the console and offered it to me. “We should stop so you can stretch again, too. Or maybe to use the bathroom?”
“You’re like an old paranoid aunt or something.”
He tipped his baseball hat and winked. “Auntie Carter to the rescue.”
“Ew.”
I twisted the cap off and swigged some water, drawing a deep breath as he exited the freeway and followed the automated voice on his phone toward Kellie’s cute little suburban town in the valley.
“Do you think I can win ’em over?” Carter asked. “After they get over the shock of another new man in your life?”
I flipped the visor down, opened the mirror, and pulled my concealer out of my purse. I dabbed a small amount under my eyes and tousled my hair. I’d put moose in this morning to go for the whole wind-tossed look. “If Jared doesn’t shoot you first.”
“He’s a gunslinger, huh?”
“His dad was military.”
“Why didn’t you say that before? That’s the best angle you’ve given me all day.”
“You’re sure you don’t want to turn around?”
“And let you freak out all by yourself? No way. I have front row seats.” He glanced at me, lips twitching. “And popcorn too. Perfect snack for the big show.”
I elbowed his arm. “I’m serious, Carter. If you’re looking for a chance to back out, this is it.”
“I’m not backing out, Lauren. I believe in this thing between us, and I want to see where it goes. As long as you’re in, I’m in it too.” He flipped his blinker and shifted lanes to make a right turn. “You still in, cowgirl?”
I drew another shaky breath, my heart surging at the husk in his tone. “Sir, yes, sir.”
-CARTER-
We pulled through a residential neighborhood around 1500 hours. The sun was still pretty high in the sky, shining on rows of black roofs lining the minor downhill grade of her sister’s street.
“The white one right there,” Lauren said.
I rolled to a stop alongside the curb of a white two-story house that looked like it came from one of those fix-em-up shows with
