Page 49 of The Wild Charge

Eden turned – rather, shewhirled. “You don’t have to–”

“Oh, no, I do. See ya!” She breezed out of the room with a slap of wavy blonde hair against her back, bootheels rapping on the hardwood.

The back door opened, closed. The bikes started up, then the GTO. It sounded like a thunderstorm in the front yard.

“Okay,” Fox said, when the grumbling engines had retreated down the street, and it was silent again. “That was…odd.”

Eden’s chair creaked, faintly, as she spun it back around – and then promptly put her elbows on the desk and dropped her face into her hands.

“Alright,” Fox said, sitting forward. “Something’s wrong. I’ve been thinking that for a few days now, but when I first walked in a few minutes ago, you looked–” He cut himself off before he could saylike shit. Bad at relationships though he may be, that wasn’t the sort of thing you said out loud.

Eden heaved a deep, shaky sigh, and lifted her head. Turned to look at him with a glimmer of wetness in her eyes. She said, “I don’t guess there’s anything to do but rip the plaster off.” Inhale, exhale, lower lip trembling. “Charlie,” she said, meeting his gaze fully for the first time since he’d arrived. “I’m pregnant.”

Thirteen

Fox’s mind went very, very blank. He wasn’t sure that had ever happened before. Because there was the sort of wiped-slate state he could push himself into in the heat of battle, at a crisis point during an op: a controlled sort of mental lockdown that kept him emotionless and engaged in only the most practical aspects of the moment.

There was that.

And then there wasblankblank. Blue screen. A frozen hourglass.

Eden’s tired face scrunched up, and her eyes glimmered, and she looked exhausted and more than a little hopeless. He noted this, but wasn’t able to feel any way about it at all.

I’m sorry, Charlie can’t come to the phone right now…

He blinked. “I’m sorry,” he said, in a flat voice. “It sounded like you said you were–”

“Pregnant.”

“Yes. That.”

“I am.”

“Pregnant?”

“Yes.”

He blinked some more. “Okay.”

“Okay?Okay?”

Oh. He’d said the wrong thing, hadn’t he?

In his defense, he’d never expected to hear that word directed at him, though. He was always careful, never left anything to chance.

At least, before he’d gotten back together with Eden. Before he’d gottencomfortable.

Abe’s voice sounded in his head:It’s okay to do indulgent things, but people like us, we can’t ever get too comfortable. We can’t ever forget how quickly things can go tits-up.

Eden stood, hand held out as if to ward him off, though he hadn’t moved. “No, you know what? Forget it. It’s fine. I don’t know why I expected you not to beyou.”

He could hear the checked tears in her voice, hear the hitch in her breath – but he sat stone-still in his chair, and listened to her bare footfalls hurry to the staircase and up them. Listened to her bedroom door slam shut.

Well. Bollocks.

~*~

For most of his life, Reese’s understanding of sex had been this: that it was something the men who owned him partook in, and that there was a lot of grunting and swearing and repetitive motion involved. He knew that his sister had never wanted it, when Badger and his ilk had pressed it upon her, but that she’d lied still and compliant because they’d threatened to hurt him if she didn’t. Those had been empty threats, because of the two of them, Reese had been the greater asset, and he’d known, when Badger leaned into his face, breath reeking of whiskey, and vowed to make it hurt worse next time for Kris if Reese didn’t allow himself to be locked into his room like a good little weapon, that he wasn’t lying.

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