I pulled her into my chest. “Jesus Savanna, you can’t believe that. You were trying to escape from being kidnapped. You didn’t kill our baby. Don’t you ever think that way. Darlin’ I would never blame you for what happened. You need to get that out of your pretty little head. Tucker Chase did all of this, not you.”
She cried so hard in my chest and I couldn’t blame her. She had been carrying around that guilt for over a year. It was time for her to understand she wasn’t to blame.
“How can you not be mad at me Colt? If I would have just listened to him, our baby would be alive today. It’s my fault for trying to get away.”
I cupped my hands over her face. “You listen to me right now and you listen good. You are not to blame for what happened to the baby. You acted on instinct to try and survive. You were trying to save our baby and yourself. What happened was a horrible accident, but you are not to blame for it. Don’t you ever say that again Savanna. Please don’t ever even think that.” I pulled her back into my chest. “I thought I was never going to see you again, Darlin’. I was so scared over it. Losing our child was awful, but losing you would have ended me. I don’t want to ever be without you. I will miss our first baby forever, but I will never ever blame you for what happened. You never should have been in that basement in the first place. If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s Miranda’s for bringin’ that piece of shit into our lives.”
Savanna pulled away from me and shook her head. “No, I will never blame her. People make their own choices in life. Miranda was never anything like Tucker. She had no idea he was capable of being the person he became when they first met. I will never blame her. I love her too much to put the blame on her.”
“Then stop blamin’ yourself. It ain’t nobody but Tucker’s fault.”
She agreed by smiling. “Okay, I will try.”
For the rest of the evening we all three lounged around the house. Noah woke up from his nap and claimed he was dying of starvation, so Savanna made us all grilled cheese sandwiches. She cut Noah’s in the shape of a heart, which he got a big kick out of. He still ate the cutoff pieces, claiming the crusts were the best part.
We sat around the kitchen table laughing and carrying on and I felt like somehow something had changed. Savanna seemed at peace.
Chapter 26
Savanna
The next three months went by so quickly. The bigger I got, the more Noah and Colt did for me. I wasn’t helpless, in fact I spent most of my days trying to reorganize the entire house and Colt’s garage. He was fine about the house, but when he came home to me standing in the garage in one of his winter coats, putting screws into jars, he lost his temper with me.
It was funny, he never raised his voice. He got this mad look on his face, that was more sexy than scary and he pointed to the door to the house. I took a second to finish up what I was doing before stomping back into the warm house.
The winter was rough and we were being pounded by another snow storm. It didn’t help that I was in full nesting mode and bored out of my mind. Every drawer, cabinet, and closet in our house had been completely organized. I even went on a binge and made photo collages for the whole family. I was out of my mind. Our little baby had begun moving around so much at night that I wasn’t getting any sleep. I had two weeks to go until my official due date and I was going totally insane.
Sunday morning came and I knew we were at least going to trudge through the snow to get to Colt’s mother’s for Sunday funday. Noah had been going in and out of the house constantly. Colt was trying to clear me a good path to walk to the truck, I felt bad he had to go through such hard work just for me to have dinner at his mother’s house. Noah had already built three snowmen and I was running out of household items to use for the faces. We were out of grapes, carrots and buttons, as well as toothbrushes. He used the toothbrushes instead of pipes because he learned smoking was bad for your health.
By noon, I had dried his snowsuit three separate times, washed the foyer floor around ten times and done three loads of laundry. When Colt said it was time to head over, I was beat. I threw on a pair of his sweatpants from college, that were old as shit and came walking downstairs. I looked like the abominable snowman.
“Darlin’ is that what you’re wearin’?” He knew as soon as he said it that it was a mistake. You NEVER talk about a pregnant woman’s attire.
“Yes, this is what I’m wearing. Why? We are going to your mother’s not a fashion show.”
He started to say something, but bit his tongue and changed his tone. “I was just wonderin’ if you are goin’ to be comfortable, that’s all.” He smacked my ass as I walked past him.