She pulled the drawer open, and there her clothes were.
She breathed a sigh of relief.
He hadn’t gotten rid of her stuff.
She grabbed a T-shirt and yoga pants and headed for the shower. Once she was out, she opened her drawer in the bathroom. Her detangler, pick, extra makeup, and other stuff were in there, too. Another good sign.
She got dressed, combed out her hair, and went in search of Nate. She found him cleaning out his garage, a broom in his hand.
“Hey.” He stopped sweeping. “Are you doing okay?”
“Yeah. I’m better now. Not all better. But better.”
He moved the broom back and forth, almost playing with it. “That’s good.” He looked so forlorn.
“Are you sure?”
He shrugged. “I admit, I don’t want you to leave.”
She didn’t want to leave either.
She pointed her thumb behind her. “Do you mind if we sit and talk for a minute?”
“Sure.” He set the broom against the wall. “Let’s go in the backyard.”
She followed Nate outside, and they sat in his lounge chairs. His backyard faced the west, so it was nice and cool back there.
“So, what do you want to talk about?”
“I want to be completely honest with you.”
He looked confused. “You haven’t been in the past?”
She shook her head. “Wrong choice of words. I want to lay it all out for you and hold nothing back.”
“Okay.”
“And I’m hoping you will do the same with me. Although I won’t hold it against you if you don’t.”
He nodded. “Okay.”
It wasn’t a no, but it wasn’t a yes. But she suspected that Nate was waiting to see what she had to say.
She took a deep breath. Here goes nothing.
“I know I already apologized to you about what I’d said at my mom’s wedding, but, Nate, you have no idea how horrible I feel. Immediately after I said it, I regretted it. I was just so confused, and my in-laws made me feel so guilty.” She blushed at her next confession. “And this is probably going to sound silly, but sometimes, I ask Jordan to give me signs about what I should do. I had just been to visit him at his grave, and I’d asked him to help me out. When his parents came to talk to me, I thought that was his sign, and he was telling me not to be with you.”
“I kind of understand. My dad talked to me about what it was like for him when my mother died.”
“Wow. Really?”
Nate chuckled. “Really.”
She was so happy Nate was connecting with his father.
“I don’t know if this helps, but if I didn’t care about you or want to be with you, it would have been easy to walk away.” She looked Nate in the eyes. “But I realized I loved you, and that was what made me so distraught that night. I wanted to be with you, but a part of me felt like it was wrong.”
“Because you felt like you were being unfaithful.”
She was surprised by his statement. “Yes. That is a simple way of putting it. But, after I calmed down, two things occurred to me.”
Nate swallowed. “What would those be?”
“I realized Jordan would never send his parents to deliver a message. And I know that there wasn’t—isn’t anything wrong with being with you because I love you. Some people only find love once in their lives. Do you know how lucky I am to find it twice?” It was a rhetorical question, so she kept talking, “I might be wrong, but that day we met for lunch, you told me that we would just be friends, and I’m guessing that’s because you thought it was what I wanted. Or you were protecting yourself. Or both.”
Nate nodded.
“But it’s not what I want, Nate. I want to be with you. I love you.” She looked away from him. “I don’t expect you to tell me you love me, too. I know you’ve already moved on to someone else.”
“No, I haven’t.”
Piper swung her head up. “You haven’t?”
“No. I don’t even know who you’re talking about.”
“Vanessa.”
“Vanessa? What about her?”
“Um…” She’d told him she’d be honest. “I might have seen the text she sent you at the restaurant. It sounded like you had plans that night. She said she missed a certain part of your anatomy.”
Nate laughed.
Piper didn’t see the humor.
“I haven’t even seen Vanessa for over a month. She heard from Ty that we were having trouble, and she thought she could hook up with me again. I immediately shut her down.”
Piper couldn’t stop the grin from forming on her face. “Really?”
“Yes. I told her my heart belonged to you.”
“It does?”
“Yes, Piper, it does.” He grabbed her hand and linked their fingers. “You were right about our lunch. I was trying to give you what I thought you wanted from me. I never wanted to be just friends. And I’m sorry about our fight, too. I knew something had happened, or you would have never gone outside to think. I shouldn’t have pushed you. Instead, I should have listened to you when you needed someone to talk to.”
Piper got up from her seat and went to sit on Nate’s lap.
“I smell,” he warned her. “I’ve been working all afternoon.”
“I don’t care,” she said as she cuddled into him and breathed him in. “I love the way you smell.”
He rubbed his hand along her leg. “So, about that Jordan thing. The signs. Did you ever get one?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“You did. What was it?”
She lifted her head and looked at him. “I’m pregnant.”
There was noise coming from Nate’s house, and seconds later, Luke and Elise walked through the sliding glass doors.
“Hey, guys,” Elise said. “We brought food.” She set the paper bags on the patio table and opened them. “Chinese food and chicken noodle soup for you, Piper.”
Piper stood from Nate’s lap. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. It’s what the doctor ordered.” She pointed to her husband. She looked behind Piper. “What’s up with him?”
Piper looked behind her. Nate was still sitting in his chair, staring off into space.
“Nate?”
Nate seemed to come back to reality. He looked at the three of them, got up from his seat, grabbed Piper by the hand, and said, “I need to talk to Piper alone. Give us a minute.”
He pulled her inside and locked the sliding glass door before leading her into the living room where Luke and Elise couldn’t see them.
“You’re pregnant?”
She gave him a big, fake, cheesy grin and held out her hands. “Surprise.”
“When did you find out?”
“After our lunch.”
“Oh, Piper,” he said and pulled her into his arms. “I’m sorry.”
She leaned back and looked at him. “It was a shock to the system, but I had actually gone to the doctor because I was worried something was wrong. When I hadn’t gotten my period, like after Jordan died, I’d thought something would stop me from having kids.”
He stared down at her belly. “I can’t believe it.”
“Me either. Are you mad?”
He looked up at her face. “Hell no.” He smiled and kissed her. “In fact, if those two weren’t in the backyard, I would show you just how not mad I am.”
Piper kissed him again and put her hand on his thick erection. She squeezed him and said, “I don’t care if they’re out there. I want you inside me.”
Nate took her mouth again and walked her backward until her butt hit the couch. He broke the kiss and asked, “You sure?”
“Oh, yeah.”
He grinned and spun her around. “Bend over.”
She did, so he pulled down her pants to mid-thigh.
“God, I want to touch you, but that will have to wait until later.” He paused. “S
hit, I don’t have a condom.”
“You don’t need one.”
“Oh, yeah.”
She heard his clothes rustle, and then, with one hard push, he was inside her.
She clutched the back of his neck. “Oh God, that feels so good.” She hadn’t had an orgasm in over three weeks. She was overdue.
Nate groaned and thrust into her. Because her pants kept her legs together, he felt even bigger inside her than normal. He hit her G-spot over and over again, and she knew she wasn’t going to last long. And she knew it was going to be messy.
With the last of her stable senses, she asked, “That pile of laundry in front of me, is it clean?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, thank God.” She let go of his neck and grabbed a towel. She shoved it between her legs just in time because she exploded. Everywhere. She dug her nails into the couch cushion and rode the wave of her climax.
Nate grabbed her hips and slammed into her a couple of more times. He held her ass to his pelvis.
“Damn, I can feel you throbbing around me. That must have been one hell of an orgasm.” He slowly pulled out of her.
She used the towel to clean herself up and turned around. “That’s what happens when you don’t orgasm for three weeks.”
“I suppose.”
She studied his face. “So, you’re telling me that you haven’t gone three weeks without coming?”
“Give me the towel. I’ll put it in the laundry.”
She handed it over.
“I’m a guy. Of course, I haven’t gone three weeks without coming,” he said like she was crazy.
He went to the basement where the washing machine was and came back a minute later.
“So, you’re telling me you jerked off?” she asked out of curiosity.
“Yep.” When he reached her, he cupped her cheeks. “If it helps, I thought of you every time.”
She grinned. “I suppose it does. Not that I would ever deny you self-gratification.”
Nate laughed. “Thanks. I think.” He moved down her body, kneeling in front of her, and put his ear to her belly. “I can’t believe our baby is in there.”
She ran her hand over his bald head. “Me either. Most days, I don’t feel like I am even pregnant.”
There was a rattle as someone tried to open the door.
“We’d better go back out there.” Nate unlocked and opened it. “We’re coming; we’re coming.”
Piper walked past him and said in a low voice, “Technically, we already did.”
Nate laughed at her lame joke.
The four of them sat around the table, and Piper slowly ate her soup. She didn’t want her stomach to rebel by eating too fast.
“Is everything okay between you two?” Elise asked.
“Yes. We made up,” Piper answered.
“Woohoo!”
“And, right before you got here, I told Nate he was going to be a father.”
Elise set her fork down. “Shut up.” She looked at Luke. “Can you believe it?”
Luke shoved some food in his mouth with his chopsticks. “Yep.”
Elise’s shoulders dropped. “You already knew, didn’t you?”
That caught Nate’s attention, and he looked at his friend.
“I can’t say anything,” Luke said.
Piper helped him out. “Yes, Luke knew. He was my doctor this morning, so it was kind of hard for him not to know.”
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”
“Elise, you know I can’t. I could get fired. Or sued.”
“I wouldn’t have told anyone.”
Luke just looked at her.
“I wouldn’t have,” she insisted. “We did date for over a month without anyone knowing, except Nate because you couldn’t keep a secret.”
Piper lightly smacked Elise in the arm. “That’s what I told Luke this morning.”
“Thanks for sticking up for me.”
Luke rolled his eyes. “Elise, when it comes to one-half of our livelihood, I’m not risking anything.” He nodded toward her abdomen. “That baby isn’t going to pay for itself.”
“Fine, you’re right,” she reluctantly agreed.
“I’m just glad Nate came over this morning. I don’t know if I would have made it to the ER on my own.” That reminded her. She looked at Nate. “Why did you come over this morning out of the blue?”
Nate swallowed a bite of food. “To talk to you. Luke and Ethan both sent me texts that you were going to move, and I panicked.”
Luke’s brows furrowed. “I didn’t text you.”
Nate looked at his friend. “Yeah, you did.”
Luke pulled up his phone while Piper noticed Elise was being very quiet. He started reading from the screen. “You need to go talk to Piper. Three exclamation points? She is planning to move. Four exclamation points?” He put the phone down and looked at his wife. “When have I ever used an excessive amount of exclamation points?”
Elise shrugged. “I don’t know how you two talk to each other.”
“If you had scrolled up and read a few messages, you would have known that guys don’t talk like that.”
Elise balked. “I can’t violate your privacy like that.”
Luke raised his brow. “Yet you can sneak into my phone and message Nate, pretending to be me.”
Elise raised her chin. “It was an emergency. They needed to get back together.”
Luke shook his head. “Elise, what am I going to do with you?”
Elise grinned. “Love me.”
Piper suddenly remembered something from the night before. “Is that why you and Kayla were whispering in the corner?” she asked Elise.
Elise shrugged. “I figured, if all of us had misunderstood your moving houses to moving away, then Nate would, too.”
“Sneaky,” Piper said with a grin.
“I thought so.”
“So, you weren’t planning to move away?” Nate asked.
Piper shook her head. “No. I was just thinking of selling the house.”
Nate looked crushed. “Why?”
“Because it reminded me too much of you.”
Nate smiled sweetly at her.
“Plus, my backyard is a mess.”
“Don’t worry, babe; I’ve got that handled.”
Piper carried two cups of coffee outside to where Nate was sitting in her finished backyard.
He’d been working overtime to get the project done, and with the help of his dad and some volunteers, they’d finished.
It was beautiful and more than she could have ever imagined. Last night, they’d had a deck-warming party instead of a housewarming party. It had been a great time, and they’d stayed up late, so she had been surprised to wake up in bed alone.
She found him sitting outside. He hadn’t even made coffee, and she had to wonder how long he’d been sitting out there.
She knew he’d had fun last night, yet something was off with him.
“Hey,” she said as she came up behind him.
He looked over his shoulder. “Oh. Hey.”
“Here.” She held out one of the mugs.
“Thank you,” he said as he took it from her and drank.
She sat next to him. “Whatcha doing out here?”
“Thinking, I guess.” Nate looked down at his hand, and Piper’s gaze followed.
Is that a…
“Is that a ring?”
He flipped the top open, and a beautiful solitaire diamond lay inside. “Yes.”
“Is that—is that for me?”
“Yes. I wanted to give it to you last night in front of everyone, but…”
“But what?” It was obvious something was bothering him.
“I need to tell you something first.”
Piper put a hand on Nate’s arm. “You know you can talk to me about anything.”
He smiled ruefully at her. “Thank you.”
Nate set the ring box on the arm of his chair and stared at it. “It’s my fault that Jordan died.”
“What? That’s ridiculous.”
He met her eyes. “It’s not ridiculous. It’s true. I was the reason that Jordan didn’t come home after work. It was my idea to go have a beer. I was the one who let him drive. If I had never asked him to go out after work, he would have been home, safe. With you.” He rubbed his hands against his jeans. He hadn’t realized they were so sweaty.
“What do you remember about the accident?”
What does she mean by that?
“We were driving home when we hit someone, knocking Jordan’s car into the middle of the intersection. That was when someone else hit us.” He still didn’t understand how the third car hadn’t seen the accident ahead and hadn’t slowed down before coming upon them.
“When did you learn all this?”
“When I was in the hospital. Although, to be honest, I don’t remember much about the conversation. I was on pain meds, and I had a concussion.”
“And no one talked to you about it later?”
“No. I think everyone was afraid to bring it up much.” He looked at Piper. “How are you not mad at me?”
She cupped his cheek. “Oh, Nate. You are too hard on yourself.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“Well, as someone who loves you, I do.”
He smiled at her despite everything they were talking about.
She dropped her hand and took a sip of her coffee. She was allowed only one a day, and she made sure to get the cup every day.
“How often do you think you and Jordan went for drinks after work?”
He shrugged. He honestly didn’t know the number.
“At least several times a month. There was nothing special about that day. You didn’t force Jordan to do anything he didn’t want to do. He was a big boy. He could have told you no. He wanted to go with you that day. And Jordan was responsible for his own drinking. You were not his father.”
Her words made him feel a little better.
“Also, you have been misinformed about the accident, and I feel bad that we never talked about it. I suppose it was a topic that made us both uncomfortable.”
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