Page 9 of Blue Norther
I thought he’d reach down for the bags, bring them to the house. But instead, Colt took two steps towards me. And then two more. My stomach swooped as I watched his eyes rake over my body, from my hair, to my lips, down to my chest—and then right to my belly.
Colt’s jaw dropped.
“Holy fuck. You’repregnant.”I watched as every emotion cycled through him. “Oh my God, Violet. You’re pregnant!”
“I am.”
My stomach kept rolling, twisting itself into knots, and I couldn’t honestly tell whether it was from the butterflies exploding at the way his eyes mapped out every inch of my belly, or the way his face was beaming out pure excitement…or the nausea bubbling up to the surface because I was about to drop the biggest bomb right in his lap the literal minute I got back to town. I was supposed to have more time.
Time to decide when to see him again.
Time to see if he’d moved on.
Time to have this baby and get settled in my new life here.
But most importantly, I was supposed to have time to figure out how to tell the man I still loved what I had done.
He closed the distance between us in what seemed like a mere second. Colt’s legs have always been one of my favorite features, but the way they moved his body towards mine, all power and determination, made my own legs feel weak.
“I’m so happy for you,” he whispered. And then I found myself wrapped in the arms of the only man I’ve ever loved. The man whose baby was doing somersaults in my belly.
Colt
Vi was pregnant.
My Violet.
She was standing there, right in front of me, all big, beautiful belly. Every emotion simmering under the surface of my skin since I saw her get out of her car slammed into me like a freight train. Because how many years had we spent waiting for that? How many positive tests ended in tears? As far as I knew, Violet had never even made it out of the first trimester before. I never got to feel our babies kick. I never pushed my head against her belly to see if I could hear the heartbeat.
It was the coward's way out, but I bolted as fast as I could. I set her luggage inside, said goodbye faster than I’d ever said anything else in my life, and fucking ran to my truck. And not a second too soon. Because seeing her like that, it rattled me right down to my goddamn core.
How many nights had I fallen asleep to the thought of her carrying my baby? Even after our damn divorce, it was my favorite brand of torture. Imagining what life would have been like if I was able to give her the one thing she wanted more than life itself.
For a second, just as I rounded her car and saw her—really saw her for the first time in seven God-forsaken years—I thought that baby was mine. My brain flashed through every emotion in the span of a single second, and my heart nearly burst through my chest.
But the reality of everything hit me so fucking hard.
I wasn’t the man who put that baby in her belly.
I wasn’t about to be a dad.
I wasn’t anything to either of them.
The first tear fell, and fuck…I managed to swipe it away as I cleared my throat. If there was ever a time I needed to get a grip, it was right goddamn now. She wasn’t carrying my baby. It was some other man’s. Some fucking joke of a man, if he was sending her off to a cabin thousands of miles away from him as pregnant as she was. What was she thinking, traveling so far along into her pregnancy? I couldn’t be sure—because I didn’t stay long enough to ask—but she looked far enough along that it was alarming to think about her making the trip down to Texas from New York City.
Yeah, I knew that’s where she lived now. Her dad had told me she moved there a few months after I last saw her. Chasing her dreams of publishing her manuscript while living a life completely different from Small Town, Texas. And she had. She’d chased her dreams so far and so well, that she was coming home pregnant with another man’s baby.
I didn’t even fucking knowher due date. I didn’t stop to ask. Just hugged her like she was telling me it was my baby, and then ran to my truck when I remembered there was no way in hell it could be. Because the last time we’d been together—one night before the divorce was final, when emotions were so goddamn high I thought my heart might crumble in my chest—fuck. No baby waited for that long. After a lifetime of thinking it would be me, I was forced to stare down the cold, sobering truth.
I wasn’t ever going to be the father of Violet’s children.
Dammit, these tears needed to fucking stop. My hands twisted against the steering wheel, trying to fight off the tightness in my chest.Pull over.The rate at which I was blinking away tears was fucking pathetic, but the last thing I’d do was put someone else on the road in danger because I couldn’t get a fucking grip.
I drove back onto the ranch as the ache in my chest spread through my body, my shoulder, my arm…fuck, what the hell was happening?Hayes was a firefighter. I needed to get to him. I was about to fucking die.
Trying my best to breathe against the pressure sitting on my chest, I threw the gearshift into park and scrubbed my hands over my face.Get a grip, Colt!My fingers sat against the spot over my heart that was tattooed with a violet. I’d gotten it done the day of our divorce. For her. Because I knew, even as I set her free, even as I signed away my right to be her protector, her provider, that Violet Ford would never be replaced.
With my body in absolute agony, I dragged myself down from the cab of my truck and forced myself towards my brother’s front door.
