Page 92 of Tragic (Lark Cove 3)

“Or you can stay here.” She said it so quietly, I wasn’t sure I’d heard her right.

“I thought you were mad at me.”

“I am.”

I rubbed my beard, looking outside at the fading evening light. It had been a damn long day, and the longest part was yet to come. I’d gotten up early, spent the morning finishing a couple of projects on Mom’s house. Then I’d showered, hugged her good-bye and hit the road. The five-hour trip from Bozeman to Lark Cove had been tense, mostly because I’d had no idea how I was going to explain everything to Piper.

“Where were you?” she asked.

“I went to see my mom.”

“For three weeks?”

I nodded. “I hadn’t seen or spoken to her in three years. We had a lot to talk about.”

The last nineteen days had been filled with apologies and honest conversations. Mom knew all about what I’d been doing these last three years. I’d learned about her new job as the office manager at a law firm and the man she’d just started dating. We talked about everything, except for the one topic that we avoided completely. And as far as I was concerned, we’d never talk about him again.

Piper didn’t know it, but she was the reason I’d reconnected with Mom. If not for this pregnancy, I don’t know if I ever would have returned home. I liked to think I would have pulled my head out of my ass eventually, but the truth was, it had become easier to hide out.

But the day Piper had come to the shop and told me she was pregnant, everything had changed. It had taken me these last nineteen days to close the book on my former life.

The friend I’d called to deal with my house had actually worked with Mom to get it rented. But boxes and boxes of my things had been shoved in storage, so I’d had to go through them all. Sorting through the nursery items had been the hardest. The clothes and old mementos had been easier, just time-consuming. The same was true with my old shop.

I’d spent the last two and a half weeks selling some items, tossing others and donating the rest. On top of that, I’d met with the tenant in my house and worked out an agreement for them to purchase the place.

Everything from my former life was being put to rest. Once I told Piper about the accident, I wanted to leave it behind for good.

“Come sit down.” I retreated to the living room and took one end of the couch while she took the other.

She tossed her knees up into the seat between us, and the lights above us cast a soft glow on her skin. Hardly an hour had passed over the last nineteen days when I hadn’t pictured her face. But my mental image hadn’t done her beauty justice.

“You look beautiful,” I told her, earning a blush. “How are you doing? Feeling okay?”

She nodded. “A little sick here and there, but nothing I can’t manage.”

“Everything check out with the doctors?”

“I’m good. The babies are good and should be arri

ving around March eleventh.”

“March eleventh,” I repeated, penciling that date into my mental calendar. Unless we had an off winter, we’d be surrounded by snow. “The roads might still be icy then, but if we plan—wait. Back up a minute and say that again. The babies?”

She raised a shoulder. “You have magic sperm.”

Magic sperm. “How many babies are we talking about here?”

Piper laughed, flashing me those dimples. “Just two.”

“Just. Two.” My head fell back into the couch as it raced. Twins. We were having twins.

It was hard enough to wrap my head around the idea of one kid, let alone two. But in seven months, we’d be parents. To twins.

There were so many things to figure out by then, like where they’d sleep and which car seats to choose and if we’d be those parents who assigned each of their twins a color so we could tell them apart.

Twins.

“It kind of blows your mind, doesn’t it?” she asked.