“I am. It’s done. We both know it.”
Her heart fluttered. “No. I don’t want to talk to my dad. I’d... I’ll tell you what. I will... Let’s... I’m in my first trimester. And that’s... It’s kind of the danger zone. I don’t see the point of us getting married if...” Her head was spinning. The problem was... The problem was he wasn’t really wrong. They were both part of incredibly small communities, and even though he had never been a significant factor in Copper Ridge, he was related to people who were. Their lives were strangely, inadvertently tangled around each other.
“What if we wait? What if we wait a few months? I just... Oh, my family. What are they going to say? I just... I can’t. And I’m sick and I can’t handle all of this. I just can’t.”
“Come to Four Corners.”
“What?”
“Come to Four Corners with me. For a bit. See the place. Because I will tell you, I can’t leave.”
“You can’t... You can’t leave Four Corners?”
“No. Garrett’s Watch is part of my family legacy, and I have to carry it on. It’s what I have for my child. For our child. I was working it, all this time just for the legacy. But now there’s actually a reason. And I want... I want the kid there.”
“But Copper Ridge ismyhome,” she said on the verge of tears now. “It’s where I... It’s a place where I found myself. It’s the most important place to me. I...”
“Violet,” he said. “This is important to me. I spent time with you here. Come back and see Four Corners. Meet my family. Hell, they already know about you. Does your family know about me?”
“My aunt does. My... It’s complicated. My aunt is basically my age. She’s my best friend.”
“Right,” he said. “Well, tell her not to tell anyone else. Give yourself some time.”
“I would like some time,” she said. “I don’t really know how to explain that I’m leaving right around the holidays. I can’t leave,” she said. “I have this job.”
“We’ll talk to Sadie.”
“I can’t... Wolf, I can’t just walk away from my life.”
“We have to figure out how to deal with each other. We have to figure out how to build a life together. And exactly what that’s going to look like.”
Well, she was fairly terrible at her job right now, anyway. She was falling asleep everywhere; she didn’t feel very well... The idea of going off to his ranch and...well, lying low for a while appealed.
Except...
Did you forget that you’re angry at him?
She looked at this man. The object of her first heartbreak. Her first sexual experience. The biggest, most frightening change she had ever endured.
This wasn’t a small thing. Wolf had been something from the moment he walked through the door of that bed-and-breakfast, and she’d known it. She called it trouble then, but that was a small word for what he actually was. An entirely new phase of her life. She had been here, and only here. And now she was faced with this massive change. And maybe she did need to leave, just for a while. To think.
“You and I can’t... We have to...”
“Agreed,” he said, which was good, because she hadn’t even been able to get out the sentiment. But what she actually wanted was a little bit of time to reflect on this away from her family. The fact of the matter was she wasn’t doing a very good job of hiding the pregnancy. She hadn’t even known about it and Sadie had guessed. Clara was on pins and needles waiting for her to take a test.
Clara.
She was going to have to talk to Clara.
And she was going to have to figure out her story to tell her family.
“I need to go to the bakery,” she said. “I have some things to take care of. And then I’m going to have to talk to Sadie.”
“I’ll talk to Sadie,” he said. “And I will put her and everybody else under strict orders not to tell anyone. It’s a small town. We know how things spread. We need to keep it under wraps. It’s important.”
“Thank you,” she said.
This man had been her enemy a few moments ago, and now he was her ally. Out of necessity. Because he was the only one who knew everything. Who knew the whole story. Who knew how they got here, and well, he was the only person she was going to be able to figure out where they went from this moment with.