The Shifter’s Spouse
(Part 4)
Chapter 47
Please be menopause. Please be menopause.
That was the one thought that ran over and over through Holly’s mind as she tapped her nails anxiously against the linoleum bathroom countertop. Underneath her, the pregnancy test slowly began to show signs of changing color.
She hadn’t gotten her period all month. Holly never skipped. Her body was like clockwork, on the same day every month. Heck, she could practically pin it to the hour. That was Holly. Reliable. Predictable. At least, that had been Holly. Little Miss Yes, Of Course, How Else Can I Help You? Holly. She’d been less than predictable since coming to Red Moon Ranch. Now, she was doing things she’d never imagined she’d do, with a man she’d married almost out of the blue—the rugged bear-by-night, rancher-by-day Jacob Westmore. He’d opened her world, her heart, and her body, in ways she had never known before, not even in her thirty-nine years of existence. Then again—
Oh God. Please be menopause.
It wasn’t that she didn’t want a child. Not exactly. It was just that she’d spent so long chained to the idea that she’d missed her window, that her ticking biological clock had run out and she was doomed to play the role of a crazy cat lady or Alice’s overweight, sometimes-funny best friend, or Chris’s uncomfortably clingy ex-wife who just couldn’t let go of the past.
Now she had a chance at a life of her own. With Jacob. But they’d barely been married a month; there was still so much they had to work out. He was still struggling with the Beast that lived inside of him and it fought against the seams of his skin constantly. She was still learning how to trust him instead of getting wildly possessive and lashing out at any woman that laid eyes on him.
They weren’t ready for this. Right? They still needed to get in tune with one another. To learn each other’s strengths and weaknesses. To—
The colors on the pregnancy test started to deepen. Holly’s eyes widened as though to drink in every dot of pigment. One line. Then two—
Positive. Holly was pregnant. She felt a wave of emotion sweep through her, hot, like a fever, hitting against her ribcage and the top of her mouth with full force. The backs of her eyes burned and then the flood burst. Holly laughed as tears of gratitude slipped down her face and her hands fell to her stomach. She felt dizzy, overcome, and gripped the sink as she dropped to her knees.
A child. She was pregnant with a child. She was going to have a baby of her own. She was going to have a family with Jacob.
“Thank you,” she whispered as she choked on her laughter. She clutched her stomach as though she could feel the life blooming, glowing, a small seed that would change her forever. “Thank you, thank you, thank you…”
Chapter 48
She knew the exact day that it had happened, too. The moment of conception. She remembered it because they’d gone through a minor dry spell after everything that happened with Brent. Jacob had informed the rest of the clan over dinner that Brent was leaving over the next two weeks and even Holly could feel the heaviness of the silence that followed. Outcast. It was a harsh punishment, even harsher to impose on one’s own brother. But Holly had stood beside Jacob, silently defending him, even when she could feel the flurry of unease and discontent in the rest of the family.
Holly knew his decision was heavy on his shoulders and heavy on his heart and she couldn’t blame Jacob for coming home exhausted and passing out in bed when his head had barely hit the pillow. But just because her head understood his need for space, it didn’t stall her body, and she was starting to feel pent up, burning for Jacob at the most inconvenient of times. Like late at night, when his body was warm and strong behind hers, his arm wrapped tight around her. Or when he sung under his breath in that low, gravelly voice in the truck (she was pretty sure he didn’t even know he was doing it). Or when he smiled—just smiled—and suddenly her whole body was thrumming with the need to feel those lips all over her skin.
It got so bad that, one day, Holly lost herself in the middle of the classroom. She was sitting at the front of the rectangular setup of tables when it happened, reading out loud a passage from Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella, Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Dr. Jekyll was battling with his inner demons, lamenting about this monster—this Beast—inside of him. Only Holly was thinking about Jacob and the more she talked about this feral, ravenous split between Dr. Jekyll’s two sides, the more she thought about Jacob. How he kissed her as though he meant to swallow her whole, how his hands gripped her with delicate forcefulness, how his eyes seemed to burn with lustful fire when they caught on hers…