Alphas of Red Moon Ranch(72)

Chapter 57


Cassidy walked Holly all the way to her house and stayed with her. She insisted on making tea and Holly didn’t have the energy to send her away. Holly sank into the plush sofa and stared at a coffee ring on the center table.

Cassidy set the herbal tea down in front of her, interrupting her vision. She smelled the sharply sweet scent of berries and honey.

“Blackberry tea,” Cassidy announced proudly, as she settled in beside Holly. Her hand rested on the small of Holly’s back. “It makes everything better. And it’s good on the bun in the oven.”

“Thanks,” Holly said. Numbly, she wrapped her fingers around the mug and stared at that instead. “I shouldn’t have told him like that,” she added after a moment.

“It was a little on the dramatic side,” Cassidy agreed, “But that’s our God-given right as women. We get to be dramatic.”

“It’s just…I wanted to be celebrating this,” Holly said. “And now…I don’t know how I feel.”

The rattling door startled both women and their heads jerked up. Jacob stepped in, his boots dragging across the hardwood floor, and Holly thought he looked wet, even though it wasn’t raining—soggy, droopy. His eyes were deep when they caught hers—a dark well—and he gave a small shrug of heavy shoulders and said plainly, “Can we talk?”

Holly felt small, suddenly, so small, tiny in the face of this great, prideful man’s vulnerability. She felt her gaze drop with her chin, head wilting. She felt Cassidy squeeze her shoulder. “Do you want me to stay, love?” Cassidy asked.

Holly just barely shook her head. “No. Thank you.”

Cassidy pressed a soft kiss to Holly’s forehead and then stood up off the couch. Her shoes scuffed softly across the rug.

“You be good to her, y’hear me?” Cassidy barked.

“Yeah,” Holly heard Jacob reply dismissively.

The door shuddered closed once more. Now Holly was left with nothing but Jacob’s thunderous silence.

His boots thunked on the ground and she noticed a stain on the couch she hadn’t seen before. Had it always been there? Or had that been a sloppy spill on the night of conception? She should try to wash it out or, at very least, put a throw pillow over it—

“Holly.” His voice, low and vibrant, impossible to ignore. He had physically lowered himself, on his knees in front of her so he could be eye level with her. His hands rested on her thighs to hold her attention and when she looked into his eyes, they looked like they might break. “Is it true?”

She felt like she was the size of a mouse as she wanted to find a hole in the couch to hide in. “You think I would lie about something like that?” she said sharply. A rodent snapping at a cat, barely disturbing his whiskers.

He didn’t respond to that. He only asked, voice firm, “How long have you known?”

“Not long,” she said, pushing the words out maybe too quickly. As though she were rushing to her own defense. As though she had anything to hide…he should be the one on the defensive, not her. The thought made her irate, and her jaw tightened. “Just…this morning. I took a test. It came out positive.”

He let out a strange sound—somewhere between a groan of relief and a sigh. Jacob’s head dropped into her lap and his fingers gripped her legs. He pressed a kiss to her thigh, and then one to her stomach, and murmured, “God…thank you…”

The genuine, raw joy from him almost broke her. Almost. She felt a tear roll down her cheek and she sniffed, brushed it away, and tried to stay strong. She wanted to be happy. This was more how she had imagined it—celebratory. Celebrating this new life, this precious baby. Wellsprings of happiness she’d kept forcibly caged—just in case his reaction was sour—threatened to unleash. But there was a cold, hard casing around her heart now, and now, more than ever, she felt trapped. Now, when she wanted to be happy, to enjoy this with him, but the logical part of her, the sensible part, knew better. “That doesn’t change what happened,” she said, though her voice shook.

Jacob looked up at her, soft eyes meeting hers—he looked like a puppy dog now, not a strong, intimidating bear Alpha—and his lips pressed in a thin, guilty line. “I know,” he said heavily. “If I’d known—”

“It doesn’t matter,” Holly broke in. “It shouldn’t. We’re supposed to be building a life together, we’re supposed to be working towards…something. And when you do things like that…” She lifted her hand in a vague gesture and, frustrated with her inability to find the right words, let her arm drop heavily back to her side. “It makes me feel like you want to give into the Beast. Like you would rather be that animal than be here. With me.”