Page 86 of Knot Her Beta

“Fair enough.”

“I wanted him to have a chance to settle first.” Her fingers curl around the lunchbox handle. “But I’ll tell him.”

“And you’ve confirmed it?”

“Not yet.” She picks at her sandwich. “We’ve got an appointment the week after next.”

That’s no time at all and forever, all at the same time.

Emily raises her half-eaten sandwich. “I should eat and return to the job site before my crew notices I vanished for an hour.”

“You’re the boss. You can take a longer lunch break.”

“Fine, I should leave before Clint comes searching for me and catches a whiff of the pheromones in here.” She shoves the rest of her sandwich into her mouth as she grasps the door handle.

“Can I go with you?”

My question gives her pause, and she turns back.

“To the appointment,” I add. “I’d like to be there, if you don’t think Jared would mind.”

A shy smile spreads over her lips. “No, I don’t think he’d mind. I’ll text you the appointment time.”

“Thank you.”

Pink stains her cheeks. “It’s nothing to thank me for.”

Then she’s out the door, and the trailer door bangs shut behind her.

I stand there for another moment, staring at the space she’d just vacated.

Less than two weeks until the appointment.

Less than fourteen days until we confirm if our future has already begun.

My hand drifts back to the flutter beneath my sternum.

The thought should have terrified me, but instead, I find myself counting the days.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Jared

“Quinn, for the love of god, slow down before you break something!”

Blake’s shout follows his niece as she tears through the open door of Grady’s new cabin in a streak of brown hair and rainbow pajamas with Sprinkles’s massive black form galloping behind her.

The dog’s paws skid on the hardwood as he takes the corner into the living room, followed by the clatter of plastic hitting the floor.

I set my box on the porch and step inside, the March cold still clinging to my jacket. Morning light cuts through the west-facing windows Dominic designed, throwing long splashes of gold across the bare floors. Fresh paint and cedar linger in the air, the cabin empty except for the Wright Pack and the accumulating pile of Grady’s possessions.

Chloe sits in a folding chair in the middle of open space, her belly a perfect dome beneath her sweater, one hand resting on it. Her pink hair is twisted into a lopsided knot, and her quartz-colored eyes track every person moving through the space like a traffic controller.

“That one goes in the downstairs office,” she tells Holden, pointing at a box marked ‘Books’ in Grady’s neat handwriting.

Holden hefts the box, his golden-brown curls falling across his forehead. “I can read, sugar.”

“Then shoo.”