Page 69 of Henhouse
“Water would be nice. It’s a scorcher out there.” Brayden barely smiled before leading her into the kitchen. Her dream kitchen, complete with Secret Garden–green cabinets, gold handles, and open shelves. The oversized stove so she could cook and bake like Effie stood beneath a gorgeous wooden vent hood that had Hope daydreaming of a visit to the Italian countryside.
She sipped the water Brayden got for her by the eat-in island thatstretched impressively across the expansive kitchen. “Are you sorry you let me make so many design choices?” she asked.
“No. It looks great.”
“But?”
“But nothing.”
Hope nodded. Brayden was never this quiet. It was like he had a word count limit when speaking to her, and it made her dizzy. As did his drumming fingers on the countertop. He only did that when he tried to keep his mouth shut.
“Do you want me to go?”
“You’ll be here a lot, best we get used to it.”
“Right.” The tightness of his countenance was difficult to read.
“Nursery?”
Brayden nodded once, then led her toward the empty great room. She ignored the dreadful ache in her stomach as she hiked up the refinished staircase, the treads and banister oiled an impeccable whiskey brown. By the top step, Hope was near panting. It was becoming difficult to person with the protrusion of her unborn offspring making every single thing a feat of physicality.
“You okay?”
“You try gaining thirty pounds and see if you don’t get winded going upstairs,” she said sarcastically, desperate for some kind of normalcy in their exchange.
“No thank you,” Brayden laughed. “You wouldn’t . . .” He trailed off and Hope didn’t pry. She would though. Still want him, still desire him, if that’s where his train of thought went. Thirty pounds, fifty, three hundred, she’d love him at any size. A fact that was bound to get her into deeper trouble if she didn’t learn how to let it go.
He pushed open the door to a soft green room that instantly made the pain in her stomach more acute. The crib, like her own, stood on the far wall. A glider that looked previously loved perched in the corner by the window. A changing table that matched the crib already had a changing pad and boxes of diapers stacked beside it. Hope glided through the room, and she could imagine the tiny clothes hanging from the rail in the open closet. The window sat high enough that she could put a bookshelf and toy bin beneath it and a rug in the middle of the room to play on. She would insist Effie make a triplicate of embroidered greenery for over the crib—
Hope interrupted her daydream.Stop it, this isn’t yours to do.
“I love it,” Hope exclaimed. Her hand floated to her belly as she walked to the window. She leaned against the wall, the warmth of the sun a balm on her nerves. She could see all the way to the river from here. The bridge to Maine glinted in the low hanging light of the evening, and she was reminded that despite the ache of loss she felt over the home and the man who made it, life would go on. “It’s perfect.”
Brayden stayed quiet for so long that Hope wondered if he had left the room. She turned from the view she enjoyed to find him leaning against the wall staring at her. “What?”
He still said nothing. Blinking became a foreign concept to him. Hope fidgeted under the weight of his scrutiny, wondering if she’d spilled food on her dress, or if he finally noticed those thirty pounds she mentioned that took up residence in places the baby bump was not. She didn’t love that she no longer looked entirely like herself. Maybe he saw it too. “I’m having a hard time getting used to how I look too. I didn’t realize that everything about my face would take a slightly different shape.” She reflexively brought a hand to her cheekand smoothed it toward her ear.
“Stop. You’re beautiful,” he snipped like it had to be said instead of it being something he wanted to tell her. He didn’t continue, so Hope took a tentative step toward the door; it seemed like her cue to leave. “Please, don’t move.”
“Excuse me?”
“Stay there,” his tone was serious, setting up for something more. “I need a minute.”
“Why?”
Brayden scrubbed his face with his hands. Hope’s stomach knotted as she waited for him to say something.
This was it. This was the moment she’d been worrying over. He had to have gotten a lawyer or maybe he wanted full custody now. Maybe co-parenting wasn’t going to work for him. Whatever it was pained him like he didn’t want to say it.
Or maybe he did and the pain came from trying to hold it back.
Hope did her best to wait, but he kept his back glued to the wall across the room, his hands firmly in his pockets, for all the world looking like he was trying to decipher the Da Vinci Code. She couldn’t take it anymore. “Spit it out. I can handle it. Whatever it is, just tell me.”
The simmering heat in his eyes was her only warning.
He closed the distance between them in three easy strides. His hands combed into her curls on either side of her face as he pulled her into a passionate kiss, her rounded stomach only slowing down the fire in his need by a fraction.
Hope nearly gasped as her lips parted for him. She threw her arms around his neck, tugging at his nape, drawing him as close as she could. Her heart floated with relief.Was this happening?
