He took hold of my hand that held his shirt. “Your art helped today?”

I nodded. “Yes, it always does.”

Cocking his head to the side, he asked, “Why didn’t you do it sooner?”

“I don’t think I was ready for it,” I admitted. “It wasn’t a conscious decision, but I think I knew deep down that my art would bring all the hard stuff I have to deal with to the surface. And I think I had to move through my feelings about our baby first.”

“This bullshit about you feeling like you should have cooked dinner? That’s gotta stop, babe. I’d rather you spend time figuring your head out through your art than cooking me dinner.” Scott always seemed to have the ability to say the exact right thing to me when I needed to hear it. Even if it sometimes came out in his trademark bossy way.

I moved into him so our bodies touched – my favourite place to be. Reaching up, I curled my hand around his neck and pulled his face down to mine so I could kiss him. His mouth opened with hesitation and we found each other in the one place we never failed to find each other. Being in his arms reminded me of what I held important.

When he ended the kiss, he held my face and ran his thumb over my cheek. “I know I’m a hard-ass, and I probably don’t say shit very well, but I need you to know that the only thing I want is for you to get back to being you. I don’t want you to worry about me or looking after me by cooking and shit; that’s not important at the moment. Let me do all the worrying for the moment; let me help get you through this.”

I nodded. “I will. I’m not the kind of person who is good with letting someone else carry my load, but I’m trying to share it.”

His eyes narrowed on me. “When you talked about having a family before, does that mean you want to try again for a baby?”

“I’ve thought a lot about it, but I’m still not sure how I feel about trying again just yet.” My mind was still a mess of confusion on this so I figured the best thing to do was keep working through my feelings before rushing into it.

“Okay. We don’t need to speed shit up; when you’re ready we’ll talk more about it.”

“How do you feel about it?” In all of my depression and pulling away from him, we’d hardly discussed how he felt and I was mad at myself for not considering his feelings more.

“Harlow, if you asked me for fuckin’ triplets tomorrow, I’d do everything in my power to make that shit happen. I want a family with you, baby, and whether that happens this year or in five years, I don’t mind, so long as I have you. And so long as you’re happy.” The way he looked at me with his serious eyes that didn’t blink, and the way his body had pressed against me again revealed the truth in his words.

Happiness flared from deep within and my tummy fluttered. “I know I’m on this rollercoaster of emotions at the moment, but I need you to know that you make me happy. And more than anything, I’m looking forward to the day we begin adding to our family.”

If I’d thought his words had made me happy before, what he did next only added to that. He smiled. It was only a small Scott-Cole-kind-of-smile, but at the same time, his eyes crinkled. I hadn’t seen his crinkles for a while now, and I’d missed them. He then dropped his lips to mine and claimed me again.

As our kiss deepened, his hands moved down my body, skimming my curves and circling my waist before resting on my ass. He groaned a moment later when his phone rang. I wanted to tell him to ignore it, but I knew it could be something important to do with the club so I let him go and tried to step out of his hold. However, he frowned down at me as I tried, and his hand tightened its hold on me, keeping my body close to his.

He checked his caller ID before answering, and then said, “Lisa, what’s up, darlin’?”

As Lisa spoke, his eyes met mine, concerned, and he finally let me go. “I’m coming over now,” he said and hung up.

“What’s up?” I watched as he shoved his phone in his jeans pocket.

“Michelle’s sick and Lisa is worried about her. Says Michelle hasn’t woken up since she got home from school and that she’s burning up.”

“Do you want me to come with you?”

“No, can you finish cooking dinner while I do this? We’ve got enough there for Lisa to eat; I’m guessing she hasn’t had dinner yet.”

“Good idea.”

I watched him leave and then turned my attention to dinner. Ten minutes later, I had all the vegetables chopped and the meat ready to cook when I heard a crashing sound on the back deck. Stilling, I listened closely to see if I could work out what had caused it.

Crash!

I had no idea what it was, and my natural instinct to investigate kicked in. Reaching into one of the kitchen drawers, I pulled out the rolling pin; if there was someone out there, I wouldn’t hesitate to use it.

Treading silently, I made my way to the back door and opened it. No more noises had sounded so I remained hopeful no one would surprise me, but when I flicked on the light, a tall, well-built man loomed in front of me.

“Oh my God!” I screamed and let the rolling pin loose on him.

His arm shot up to stop my weapon from hitting him, and he easily yanked it out of my hand. “Fuck, woman, go easy.” His deep voice sounded pissed off, which annoyed the hell out of me.

“Buddy, this is my house, not yours,” I snapped as I folded my arms across my chest. “Who the hell are you? And why are you standing on my back deck?” I glared at him while I waited for an answer, taking in the Storm cut he wore.