Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 141951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 473(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 141951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 473(@300wpm)
Even their breaths matched for a while.
She buried her face in his neck, mumbling, “Gracen canceled all of my appointments for tomorrow. Didn’t even ask.”
“Good, she should. You probably need a break.”
He felt her eyelashes flutter against his skin with the roll of her eyes, but she still pressed a kiss to his neck all the same. “Don’t worry—she already told me that I can’t put my head down and work to get through everything.”
“Well—”
“They think there was two.”
Her random statement made Lucas blink more than a few times as her fingertips patted the back of his neck. Had she felt the way his surprise raced up through his spine?
“Two?”
Delaney’s exhale came out shaky as she started to pull away. That sad smile curved her lips at the edges just enough to distract him from the strip of papers she produced from under the overturned book.
Along the edge of the tub, she spread out a roll of sonogram pictures that made Lucas’ hands tremble as he picked them up. He didn’t really understand the images in front of him. Every black and white and gray swirl around a circular patch of darkness wasn’t exactly distinguishable.
Delaney pointed out the smaller circle off to the side of several shots. “When the blood test came back with a high hormone level, the doctor did an ultrasound. Based on my last period, and dates of conception, I would be just far enough along to see the embryo this way. If it was there,” she added.
“And one was,” Lucas murmured.
“That’s what the doctor told me, anyway. I think I went through emotional whiplash so many times today that now I’m just numb.”
Lucas’ head snapped up from the sonograms to find Delaney staring blankly into the bubbles down below. “Sweets, it’s been a long day for you.”
She laughed weakly, looking his way with desperate eyes. “It’s crazy. I went from not even thinking I wanted to be pregnant to probably being pregnant to not being pregnant, and then …” Her hand gestured toward the strip of sonograms he still held.
“You’re supposed to have this stuff figured out before it happens,” Delaney said. “Right?”
“Not everybody,” he returned. “Life’s different for everyone, Delaney.”
Maybe that sad smile of hers had a little more fear than he’d first thought.
“Okay, well I wanted to have a lot more things in my life figured out before I had to do it with a baby on my hip,” Delaney said, but even that made her frown. “I hate hearing myself say that out loud because it makes me feel bad, too.”
“I can’t begin to find a single reason why you need to feel bad about anything you’ve done, Delaney.”
Her wet gaze, tears gathering on her long lashes, found his. “I don’t want to feel that way at all because I need my baby to know I loved them from the start. Even if it didn’t happen the way I might have planned for it to. That’s not going to change if I’ll be a good mom.”
Lucas pressed his lips together, desperate to hold the smile back lest she take it the wrong way. “I don’t think you have to worry about being a good mom. Our baby looks like a grain of rice in these damn things, and you’re already worried about whether it knows you love it. Doesn’t that speak for itself?”
Delaney instantly burst into tears.
Rolling down her cheeks, and all.
Not really sure what to do at that point, Lucas simply hugged Delaney against his chest while his mouth stayed pressed to the top of her forehead where he could whisper everything he wanted her to know.
“You’re going to be the best mom, and no matter what, I’m not going anywhere,” he assured her.
“I don’t even want to cry,” she wailed helplessly. “It’s just happening a lot today.”
Lucas didn’t try to hold back the laughter. “I heard that happens with pregnant women, sometimes.”
Her hand weakly smacked at him. “Shut up.”
Then, she tipped her head back.
Tears still stained her cheeks.
But she smiled.
Lucas dropped a kiss to her coral colored lips, and grinned back. “I love you, Delaney Reed. We’re going to figure this out.”
“Either way?” she asked, her voice still a little wobbly.
He tucked the flyaway strands of her hair behind her ear, nodding all the while, because he remembered very well what she had told him not very long ago.
“Either way,” he echoed.
Epilogue
“We’re definitely doing a live band when we get married next summer,” Delaney said.
Lucas grinned next to her where he leaned against the barn wall. His leather loafer tapped along with the bluegrass beat coming out of the band at the far side of the barn. “I agree.”
His gaze shot to the ring on Delaney’s finger that twinkled under the bare bulb lights dangling across the eaves of the barn overhead. A new feature that she was still trying to get used to despite wearing the engagement ring for a little over a week.