Page 97 of Tragic (Lark Cove 3)

“Do you want to grab pizza at the bar for dinner?” Kaine asked. “Or hit the diner for a burger?”

I took in his profile from the passenger seat. He was driving my Tahoe, relaxed and sexy behind the wheel. His hair had grown out in the last two months since he’d come back, but he’d kept his beard trimmed short and it made his lips look soft and full.

The sweater he’d pulled on this morning was bunched up, revealing his forearms. His wrist hung carelessly over the steering wheel while his large fingers dangled above the dash. The sight of him in that seat, driving me around, was one I’d never get sick of.

He looked over and raised an eyebrow. Busted. I drooled over him a lot these days and most times he caught me.

I smiled but didn’t look away. “Let’s just go home.”

Over the last two months, Kaine and I had been playing house. From the outside, we looked like a happy couple blissfully awaiting the arrival of our twins. The inside wasn’t far off from that image either.

Kaine had even lifted his ban on socializing. He took me to the bar to hang with Thea and Logan on the weekends when they were working. When I didn’t feel like cooking, we went to the only other restaurant in town, Bob’s Diner. And on occasion, Kaine and I would drive to Kalispell for dinner at a nice restaurant.

Just like he’d done for our first date.

He’d flirted with me over candlelight and pasta at this quaint Italian restaurant. Then he’d taken me to a movie. It was simple and sweet, a cliché even. Dinner and a movie. Kaine hadn’t planned anything extravagant or over-the-top. He’d just planned an evening where I was the center of his attention.

It was the best date I’d had in my life, and I’d had a near-constant smile on my face ever since. There hadn’t been another time in my life when I’d felt so cherished.

Kaine cherished me.

I forced my eyes away from his handsome profile and looked outside to the trees covered with ice crystals. My first winter in Montana hit earlier than normal for the region. It was only the middle of October and every day this past week had been below freezing. We hadn’t gotten a huge snowfall yet, but the thought of it made me shiver.

Kaine saw my should

ers shimmy and turned up the heat on my side of the car.

Cherished. I wasn’t all that cold, but I left the dial alone.

“What do you want for dinner?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Whatever. We can just scrounge around for leftovers.”

I rubbed my belly. I didn’t look pregnant yet, just more like I’d eaten too many large meals for the last month. Which, of course, I had. Now that I was past the first trimester, my appetite had come back with a vengeance. I’d gained all the weight I’d lost from my months of puking and surviving on saltine crackers.

“I’m hungry.”

Kaine chuckled and reached into one of the bags he’d put on the floor behind his seat. His hand came back holding a granola bar. Then he dug around and found a bottle of chocolate milk.

“Where did you get these?”

“I went to the little coffee shop in the mall.”

“You went to the coffee shop? When?”

“While you were trying on your hundredth pair of maternity jeans.”

“Ahh.” I nodded and tore into the wrapper of the bar. “Good thinking.”

“Gotta make sure you’re fed every hour, on the hour. Like a bear.”

I just smiled and tore open the wrapper. A minute later, the bar was gone and I was still hungry. We’d gone to the doctor for an exam and ultrasound today, then gone to the mall to shop for nursery things. I’d spent an hour in the dressing room of the one and only maternity store, getting acquainted with more spandex than I’d owned in my life. With all the activity, I was famished.

“How much do you want to bet that my mom overnights us a package of blue onesies?”

Kaine reached across the console and took my hand, threading his fingers in mine. “She already did.”

“What? When? We just found out we were having boys three hours ago.”