Page 22 of The Hermit on the Hill

He turned and stared at me. "That makes no sense."

I shrugged and pulled a cinnamon bun from my bag. "It's a small kitchen. And I mostly only go into it to get a drink. Makes sense for the glasses to be in the first cabinet I see when I walk in."

"Or you could just have the glasses next to the fridge where you keep the drinks."

"I usually drink tap water. The sink is closer to that cabinet."

Sam frowned like I'd just said I liked tadpoles in my cereal.

"Do you have any idea what's in tap water?"

I bit into my cinnamon bun and my whole body thanked me, warming and soaking up the sugar rush as I chewed. "Mmmm."

Mistletoe appeared from wherever she'd been hiding and hopped up onto my lap.

"Right," Sam said. "With a diet like that, it shouldn't surprise me you drink tap water."

I smirked as I chewed. "Tastes delicious."

"I hope you eat vegetables every once in a while since you're growing a human." He opened my fridge and sighed heavily. "How have you survived this long without scurvy or rickets?"

I was chewing blissfully, but managed to speak by the time he made it to the couch and handed me a glass of water. "There is a bran muffin in the bag. Bran is healthy."

Sam shook his head, but didn't argue, and it occurred to me I felt entirely comfortable with him in my space. I wasn't worried there might be sticky sugar on my lip or searching for polite small talk. Was this what happened when you had a one-night stand with a man and broke into his house? I wouldn't know, because I'd never done either before Sam.

He sat next to me and sipped his water. "You should move in with me."

I straightened in my seat, comfort gone. I didn't like the tone in his voice, like he was telling me what I was going to do. Like he'd seen the way I lived and made a judgment call. Like he knew I was having his baby and wanted me under his control. "No."

He swung his head to look at me, expression impassive. "You'll have to find a home for the cat. I have a rabbit."

I stared for a long moment, unable to arrange his words into any sort of sense. "I'm not moving in with you, Sam. This is my home."

He smirked. "You have an apartment above a bakery, and you have no job. How are you going to pay rent?"

"I—"

"And there's no food in your fridge. Judging by the wrappers in the trash, you've been living off sugary crap from the bakery. How is our baby going to get decent nutrition from food that contains literally no nutrients?"

"I eat plenty of fruits and vegetables, and I've been taking a prenatal vitamin. Our baby is getting everything he needs."

Based on what I'd been reading, I probably did need to do better about getting more greens and fruit in my diet. I'd been planning to go grocery shopping after May's photo shoot, but had obviously gotten distracted.

"He?" Sam's expression softened. "You know for sure?"

"The ultrasound last week confirmed it. He's a boy, and he's due the first week of January."

"A snow baby."

I smiled. I liked the sound of that. "Maybe so."

He smiled back. The first time I'd seen a genuine smile from him since the conference where we'd met.

He had the best smile. His eyes went all crinkly at the corners and the blue of his irises became impossibly bluer.

"Pack enough for a few days," he said, ruining the moment. "We can come back for the rest."

"No."

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