She knew it. Of course she did. But she hated having it confirmed.
She sighed and turned away. “I know it would be a bad thing. I know that the last thing Carter needs is to feel trapped. But at the same time…” She pulled in a deep breath. “Part of me wants to trap him.”
Nolan gave a bark of laughter. “Probably shouldn’t put it quite that way.”
She turned with a smile. “I know. I don’t mean it. Exactly. I guess I want him to want that. Even if it’s not now. Someday. You know?”
Nolan nodded. “I do. But, honey, I don’t want you to get hurt. Carter is…Carter.”
“Yeah. I know.” She did. She knew it. And it wasn’t fair for her to want to change things when he’d been so honest about everything. Hell, he’d stepped back and given Garrett the go-ahead because he didn’t want marriage and family.
“I’m not saying that a part of him doesn’t want all of that,” Nolan said after a moment. “I think maybe he does with you. He loves you, Lacey.”
She nodded. “I know.”
“If anyone could change his mind it would be you. But, really, I don’t think you should expect anything.”
It was so stupid. She knew all of this. Knew it. Had always known it.
“Garrett and I wanted to have a long-term threesome with Carter.”
She wasn’t sure where the words came from but she had so many emotions swirling around, it felt as if she couldn’t keep them inside any longer.
Nolan didn’t look shocked. “Carter mentioned something about it.”
That shocked her. “He did?”
Nolan nodded. “And he mentioned that he felt like Garrett balanced him out.”
“I don’t know what to do. Carter’s been completely honest with me about everything. And I really thought I was fine…until I started wondering if I was pregnant. And then I started hoping. And then when the test was negative…” She dashed away a tear that sprang up suddenly. “And I realized I do want that. All of it.”
Nolan stepped forward and folded her in his arms. She wrapped her arms around his waist. The hug felt good. Comforting. He rested his chin on top of her head.
After a moment he said, “You have to tell him.”
“That I want a baby?”
“Yes.”
She swallowed hard. “We’ve only been together for three weeks.”
Nolan chuckled, the sound rumbling against her ear, making her feel calmer. “You’ve been together a hell of a lot longer than that, Lacey.”
“I don’t want to lose him. He doesn’t want to tie me down. And I understand. Kind of. I guess.”
“I’m not sure Carter totally understands it either,” Nolan said. “If that’s any consolation.”
It wasn’t. At all.
“And I was hoping it would be an accident and then he wouldn’t have a choice,” she admitted.
Nolan leaned back and looked down at her. “You know that’s not fair.”
“I know.”
“Talk to him.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
“Sooner versus later,” Nolan added.
“Okay.”
“Like tonight.”
She frowned at him. “Okay.”
He hugged her again. “He loves you, Lacey. Just remember that.”
Yeah, she would remember that. But she also remembered that he’d loved her the last time he’d walked away when he found out she wanted something he didn’t.
Chapter Ten
She was pregnant.
Carter sat on the edge of the tub staring at the white plastic stick with the pink line that said he was going to be a father.
Holy shit.
A father.
Pregnant.
He and Lacey were going to have a baby. A child. They were going to bring a life into the world. Together. For the next eighteen years they were going to be making decisions together. Ideally, they would be together for the next eighteen years. Or longer. Everyone knew that parenthood didn’t end after eighteen years.
He was going to be a father. He was going to have to teach someone else how to throw a ball and ride a bike and drive a car and balance a checkbook. He was going to have to have words of wisdom. He was going to have to teach someone else how to be a good person.
Carter forced the words through his mind. He tried to focus on them. He wanted them to hit him square in the chest. He wanted to feel the wave of panic. He wanted to catalog all of the reasons this was a terrible thing.
But all he felt was possessiveness and protectiveness. And a definite touch of happiness.
Lacey was going to have his baby.
There was going to be a person in the world that was half him and half Lacey.
And because of that person, Lacey was going to be bound to him for the next eighteen plus years.
There was nothing panicking about that. That sounded damned good, in fact.
And that was what panicked him.
One of his first thoughts was that Lacey was now stuck and he was happy about it.
Yeah, that wasn’t good.
Carter got to his feet, grabbed the plastic stick and headed for the door.
He’d come home to change clothes before heading to the party at Coach’s house. He’d come into the bathroom to brush his teeth and had seen that Mooch had knocked the trashcan over. In gathering up the trash, he’d seen the stick.
He’d never seen one in person before but he knew what it was. And he knew what that line meant.
He drove to Coach’s without really focusing on the road. He was still in uniform, the pregnancy test in his pocket, but all he could think about was that he needed to see Lacey now.
She couldn’t have told him before this. If she’d taken the test that afternoon, she’d only known for a few hours, and during the football game, while he was on duty, wasn’t the ideal time to talk about all of this.
He wasn’t upset she hadn’t told him. He just needed to see her. He needed to hug her and bury his nose in her hair and tell her that he loved her and…somehow convince them both that he wasn’t going to fuck everything up.
Carter parked his truck at the back of the huge cluster of cars and trucks on the gravel and grass in front of Coach’s barn. Lorelie had outdone herself. Twinkle lights were draped from the front of the barn to the surrounding trees, picnic tables and chairs were spread out over the grass and the barn was lit up with extra lanterns and more twinkle lights added to the overhead beams.
Tables of food and a bar were set up on the far end of the barn. It looked like Sadie, Oakley and Joel were bartending tonight and they were hopping at the moment. The end of the barn closest to the door and the cool night air was the site of the dance floor and the stage, where Wade and some guy who looked vaguely familiar were playing and singing for the couples moving over the wooden floorboards.
Carter honed in on Lacey like she wore a tracking device.
She was dancing with Nolan—snug up against him, in fact.
Carter frowned. It was Nolan. Carter had absolutely no reason to be worried or jealous. Lacey loved him, he knew that. What surprised him wasn’t the lack of jealousy but the feeling of thank God that went through him.
Seeing Nolan there made Carter breathe easier. He had no idea what he was going to say to Lacey, but he couldn’t get too crazy without Nolan intervening. He’d promised as much at the coffee shop. Nolan would keep Carter from doing anything stupid.
Carter headed straight for them. He was vaguely aware of people greeting him as he moved past the outside tables and chairs and into the barn, but he didn’t spare so much as a glance around.
“Lacey.”
She pulled back and looked over at him. Her face relaxed into a smile immediately. “Hey.”
But Carter couldn’t seem to pull his own face out of the tight, pinched frown. “We need to talk.”
Her eyes widened. “We do?”
“Everything okay?” It was Nolan who asked.
Carter finally
looked at his friend. Nolan looked concerned and hadn’t yet let go of Lacey.
“Hope so,” Carter said truthfully.
One of Nolan’s eyebrows went up. Clearly he read something in Carter’s voice or face.
“Carter, what’s going on?” Lacey asked.
He looked at her. “I want to get married.”
She froze. And stared at him. Her mouth moved but nothing came out.
Nolan stepped closer to her again. “Lace?”
Carter wanted to growl at him but Lacey gave Nolan a smile that hit Carter in the gut. He liked that smile. He knew he was being intense but he couldn’t help it. Things were swirling through him so fast that he couldn’t think straight. He was going on almost pure emotion here. Nolan would balance that out.
“I’m okay,” she told him.
Nolan’s stance relaxed but he was watching Carter carefully. “Maybe we should go outside.”
Not “maybe you should go outside” but “we”.
Carter made himself breathe deeply. Then he stepped closer to Lacey and took her face between his hands. “Marry me.”
“But…wha… I…”
She looked as perplexed as she sounded and Carter felt a shot of dread go through him. He wanted her. Forever. And now she had to marry him. She was pregnant.
But he had to resist the urge to say that out loud. Because then he really would sound like his dad.
“Carter,” Nolan said, low and even. “Outside.”
His tone was firm and he had a hand on Lacey’s lower back and a hand on Carter’s shoulder. Okay. Outside. Probably a good idea.
Carter glanced around as he turned. Not everyone’s attention was on them but the couples closest to them were definitely watching with interest.
Dammit.
Carter snagged Lacey’s hand and pulled her along with him as he let Nolan’s more rational mind take the lead. When they hit the doorway and the breeze touched his face, Carter dragged in some oxygen. He felt some tension leave his shoulders as Nolan led them around to the back of the barn. It was dark back here. They could still easily hear the music and low hum of conversation from the party, but here it was just the three of them.
They came to a stop and Carter concentrated on Lacey. “I love you, Lace. I want you forever and you deserve it all—marriage, kids, the whole thing. Marry me. Please.”
She frowned. “Are you drunk? What’s going on?”
Okay, it was out of the blue. He’d give her that.
“Of course I’m not drunk.” He felt a little drunk. Crazy. Out of control. But he hadn’t had a drop.
“This is all really sudden,” she said.
Yes, in the overall scheme of things, fertilization of an egg did happen suddenly.
“Is it sudden?” Carter asked. “Really?” And she wasn’t going to tell him about the baby now? But maybe she didn’t want to talk about it in front of Nolan. “I’ve loved you for two years. We’ve been through a lot. Things have always been so mixed up, but now I really think we can make it simple. Marry me.”
It was like someone had possessed him. Of course a baby didn’t have to mean marriage. They didn’t have to get married. They didn’t even have to live together. He would be involved, he’d help her out however he could, but making a commitment to their child didn’t mean they had to make a legal, binding, forever commitment to one another.
But he wanted that. And this was the perfect reason. It didn’t make him crazy to want this…this made sense.
“You don’t want to get married,” she reminded him.
“I changed my mind.”
Because the baby was the perfect excuse to keep Lacey in his life even when he said and did stupid things. Lacey would love a baby to the depths of her soul and wouldn’t let anything keep her from being with her child. Not even the child’s dumbass father.
“I want to,” she finally said, looking into his eyes. “I want to marry you, Carter. I love you. But I have to be sure that you’re sure.”
He started to say that of course he was sure, that he’d do anything to make her happy, that this was meant to be, but at the last moment he heard his father’s voice…saying those same things.
This panic over possibly losing her—was this how his father felt? Was this how Matt felt when he kept pushing until he drove them away?
“I have no idea if I’m sure, Lace. I feel sure right now. But I’m probably not going to be good at it.”
Carter thought that was positive—that he could admit that he didn’t really know what he was doing. His father never admitted that.
“I think I’ll leave you two alone,” Nolan said.
“No!”
Carter reached out and grabbed the other man’s arm. He needed someone to make sure he was proposing romantically and giving her the option of saying no and not throwing her over his shoulder and finding the nearest aisle.
Nolan was clearly surprised. “Carter—”
“Just…don’t go yet.”
He needed someone to keep him in check.
Nolan frowned but after looking into Carter’s eyes he gave a single nod. “Fine.”
Carter felt relief wash through him. Okay, he wasn’t going to do anything stupid as long as Nolan was there. Carter looked at Lacey. “Let’s go home. Let’s just talk about everything.”
They were going to talk about the baby. He wouldn’t force her to marry him but if there was a child in the equation, it did change some things. He just wanted to hear her say that.
Lacey glanced at Nolan. “I thought—”
“Nolan will come too.” Carter felt his friend’s questioning look but he didn’t meet Nolan’s eyes. “Please, Lace.”
Lacey took a deep breath. “Okay.”
Maybe she sensed that they needed Nolan there too.
“I, uh…” Nolan glanced back at the front of the barn as Carter grabbed Lacey’s hand and started for his truck.
“Come on, Winters, you’d do anything for Lacey, right?”
Nolan frowned by nodded. “Yeah, okay.” He walked behind them into the parking area, but then pointed at his own car. “I’ll follow you.”
Carter and Lacey didn’t talk for the first few miles, but finally Carter couldn’t take it.
“I want you to know that I’m really happy.” He gripped the steering wheel tightly.
“Me too. But are you sure you’re okay?” she asked.
Her expression was worried when he looked at her. “I’m reeling a little, but I’m getting used to the idea already,” he said simply.
She pivoted on the seat. “You’re already getting used to the idea of being engaged?”
“Well, yeah, that too.”
“Too?”
He glanced over again. “You want to do this at home?”
“Do what?”
He frowned and looked back to the road. “Talk about the baby.”
There was a long pause.
“The baby?” she finally asked softly.
“I found the pregnancy test.”
“Oh.”
He looked over. “Oh?”
“I just…dammit, did I not throw it away?”
“Mooch dug through the trash. You’re upset that I know?”
She sighed. “There’s nothing to know. The test was negative.”
“It was—” He braked and pulled over on the side of the road. He slammed the truck into park. He turned to look at her. “It was negative?”
“Yes. You didn’t notice that?”
“How the hell was I supposed to notice that?”
“There was only one line.”
He stared at her. “How many lines are there supposed to be?”
“Two. If you’re pregnant.”
He let that sink in. “There was only one.”
“Right.”
“So…no baby.”
She pressed her lips together and shook her head. “No baby.”
“Oh.”
They sat without talking for almost a
minute. The silence was broken by the sound of Nolan knocking on Carter’s window.
Carter rolled it down. “Hey.”
“You guys okay? What’s going on?”
What was going on was that he had lost the best and biggest reason for Lacey to stay with him forever. That was all Carter could think about.
“He found the test,” Lacey said when Carter failed to respond. “He thought it was positive.”
“Ah.”
“Wait a second.” Carter looked from Lacey to Nolan. “You knew about the test?”
“Lacey told me at the game.”
Carter swung to face Lacey. “You told him? Why?”
Her eyes were wide. “I was…conflicted. I needed someone to talk to.”
“This is why you were out of it at the game,” Carter said, the pieces coming together.
“I was distracted. Nolan noticed.”
Carter looked back to his friend. And even more pieces clicked.
Nolan was the person Lacey had turned to. Nolan had been there for her. He’d been there for Carter too. He’d calmed the situation, supported them both.
Carter faced forward and put the truck into gear. “Let’s go home.”
Nolan stepped back from the side of the truck. “So you guys are good?”
“I’ll see you at my place,” Carter told him.
“Uh…” Nolan finally nodded. “Okay.”
Carter pulled back onto the road. They were only about a mile from his drive.
“Carter, I didn’t turn to Nolan instead of you. He was just there and—”
“Lace, it’s fine,” Carter interrupted. “It’s good. I’m glad he was there for you.”
They were quiet until he turned onto the lane that would lead to his house.
“You only proposed because of the baby,” she said.
He wasn’t going to lie to her. “I proposed because thinking you were pregnant helped me realize that I do want to have you here with me forever.” He pulled up in front of the house and killed the engine. He turned to look at her. “I want to do the marriage and kids thing with you, Lacey. But I’m going to fuck it up.”
She shook her head. Her eyes sparkled with tears in the light coming through the windows from the tall yard lamp. “You won’t. Just love me.”
Illegal Motion: Boys of Fall Page 15