Ari snapped up her head, and I saw the tears welling up in her eyes.

“How do you feel about all of this, Jeff? I saw you smiling when you were touching her stomach. If this is going to work out, you need to be honest with me right now.

Holy shit. What am I supposed to say? A small part of me felt something when I’d felt the baby move. Oh Ari. There was no fucking way was I going to hurt Ari that way. I only wanted kids with her. There was no one else for me.

“Ari, it’s hard not to smile when you feel a baby moving around in anyone’s stomach. Something weird did happen though. She seemed shocked when I told her I’d asked you to marry me last Saturday. She couldn’t believe that I asked even after I’d found out about the baby, but it wasn’t just that. When I said that Gunner got married, she was really surprised. I think she thought it was us getting married.”

Ari quickly sat up. She pulled the covers over her as she tucked her legs up to her chest.

“Don’t get mad.”

“Oh shit, Ari. What did you do?”

“Well, I had a feeling that her calling you right before the wedding was all too coincidental. I just had a feeling. So, Amanda and I went to Halcyon this morning, and Crysti happened to be working. She also seemed surprised that we hadn’t gotten married. Turns out she overheard someone talking about a wedding. When she heard your name and mine, she thought it was us getting married. My guess is that she called Rebecca to fill her in with what she’d found out. I think Rebecca came up with this whole baby thing to keep us from getting married.”

Wow. When Ari puts her damn mind to something, she goes one hundred percent at it.

“Well, what are you thinking?”

“It’s possible. If she was lying though, why would she offer to let me go to her next doctor’s appointment?”

Ari’s face turned white as a ghost.

“She did? Did she offer or did say that you wanted to go?”

“Does it matter Ari?”

“Yes, Jeff, it matters a lot! Did you ask to go or did she offer?”

I had to really think about it.

“I think that she offered. No, wait…I told her that I wanted to go since I’d not been a part of the pregnancy for the first seven months.”

Ari turned her head and took a deep breath. What is she thinking?

“Okay. Did she give you the appointment date, time, and doctor? What information did she give you?”

“Um, well, right before I came over, she sent me a text with her appointment time and directions to the doctor’s office.”

Ari jumped up, reached for my phone, and then handed it to me.

“Can I see it?”

I nodded my head. “Of course, you can see it.”

I opened up the message and showed it to Ari. She made a face and then handed the phone back to me.

“Is she going to drop the stupid-ass restraining order against me?”

Oh hell, here we go.

“No, I asked twice. She feels like it would be…safer for her to keep it up until the baby is born.”

“Okay, she’s a weirdo. Does she think I would actually hurt her? Holy hell! What else did y’all talk about?”

I lay there for a moment, thinking about if there was anything else I left out. I really just wanted to put the whole thing as far out of my mind as I could.

“Well, we talked about her having a high-risk pregnancy. She can’t get upset and that kind of shit. She talked about painting the baby’s room and putting up a crib. Ah shit, I don’t know Ari. I wasn’t even listening to her through half the conversation.”

Lying back down under the covers, Ari moved slightly away from me. Shit! Not again. After we’d just spent probably the best night of our lives together, she was pulling away from me again. I couldn’t believe how much I’d wanted her earlier. She’d looked so unbelievable beautiful, her skin glowing, as her eyes filled with love.

“Ari, please don’t pull away from me again, baby.”

She rolled over to her side to look at me. “You can’t let her pull us apart, Jeff. Promise me that you won’t let that happen.”

I pulled her closer to me, and she put her head on my chest. I started to run my fingers through her hair. She smelled so good. Something was making my heart pound hard in my chest. Maybe it was just this whole bullshit with Rebecca. I was so afraid that I was going to lose Ari over this. I can’t let that happen. I won’t let that happen.

“I promise, baby. She won’t pull us apart. I promise.”

Ari reached up, putting her hand on my check, and then she kissed me gently on the lips. I wanted her so badly again. I deepened the kiss as I rolled her over, climgin on top of her.

“Jeff.” She moaned.

“I love you so much, Ari.”

I started to make love to her, my cell phone started to ring.

“Ignore it,” Ari said as she pushed her hips up into me.

No problem.

My voice mail notification went off.

“God, Ari, you feel like heaven. baby.”

Ari smiled at me, and my heart melted. I would never get tired of seeing that smile. She rolled us over, so she was sitting on top of me. Pure fucking heaven.

“So, what are our plans today, cowboy?” she asked as she moved her hips.

I started to laugh, thinking about all the packing that we had to do.

“You really want to talk about our plans for the day…now?” I groaned.

She slowly lowered her lips to mine and whispered, “No.”

She took my lower lip between her teeth and let out a moan.

Then, my cell phone went off again. We both ignored it. When it went off a fourth time, I started to get worried. What if something happened to Gramps or Grams?

“I have to see who it is, Ari. What if something happened to Gunner’s grandparents?”

Ari moved off of me as I reached for my cell phone on the night-stand. Holy fucking shit!….The four missed calls were from Rebecca. Not good.

“Who was it?”Ari asked.

“Um…it was Rebecca.”

“Are you kidding me?” Ari let out a laugh. “Nice. It didn’t even take her twenty-four fucking hours.” She jumped out of bed, grabbed her robe, and walked out of the bedroom.

Son of a bitch! I can’t believe this. I listened to Rebecca’s message. What the hell? She was just trying to give me the information for the doctor’s appointment. I sent her a text message, telling her to text it to me, and to only call me from now on if she had an emergency. Bitch.

I got up and headed into the kitchen where Ari was making coffee. I walked up behind her and pulled her into my arms.

“You don’t want to finish what we started?” I whispered into her ear.

Turning, she looked at me and gave me the weakest smile. I knew she was trying, and I loved her for it.

“I’m sorry. The mood is kind of…gone.” She turned back around and pulled out to coffee mugs. “Do you want anything for breatfast?”

“How about we go out for breakfast?”

She glanced at me, surprised. “What about your run? You never miss your morning run.”

I smiled at her. Reaching down, I scooped her up in my arms and carried her back to the bedroom. There was no way that I was going to let Rebecca win.

“I have something more important to take care of, like making love to my future wife.”

Ari let out a laugh and started to kiss me as I brought her back into the bedroom.

“Well, if you insist on giving up your run for sex, who am I to complain?”

The passion between us was unbelievable. It was like we couldn’t get deep enough into each other. I can never…ever…lose Ari.

I would rather die than not have her in my life.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

ARI

This had probably been the longest week of my life. Rebecca had managed to text Jeff every day at least three times a day. I’d been trying to let it go, but today, I was on my last nerve.

Then, his phone went off again. What the hell is it this time?

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! Really, Jeff?” I yelled.

Jeff pushed his hand through his hair while looked at his cell phone.

Josh was standing there with a pissed-off look on his face.

“Holy shit, dude, is she fucking watching us? Every damn time we’re trying to move something heavy, your fucking phone goes off!”

I had to let out a giggle as I looked around. It wouldn’t surprise me if she were watching us. Crazy bitch.

Heather walked out of the house, carrying a box, and she seemed to be struggling. I’d never seen Josh move so fast in my life as he took the box from her. Even on the football field, the bastard had never run that fast. Heather and I were planning on going out to dinner tonight in Mason, and I couldn’t wait to drill Heather about her trip with Josh from Mason to Austin. She’d been avoiding me like the plague all week. Something must have happened, and I was going to get to the bottom of it.

I watched as Heather thanked Josh. Holy hell. She was blushing as she looked away from him. He said something to her that made her laugh. She looked over at me, and I smiled at her. Her smile faded as she walked back into the house.

Damn it. Why is she fighting this thing with Josh so much? What the fuck is wrong with this group of friends?

I looked back over at Jeff, who was now pacing back and forth on the phone. My heart stopped for a moment. Oh shit. What if something happened to the baby? I mean, I couldn’t care less about that bitch, but I would never want something to happen to that innocent child. Poor thing was going to have a nut-case for a mother.

Just then, my cell phone started ringing. I pulled it out and looked at it. Ellie?

“Hey! What the hell are you doing, calling me on your honeymoon?”

“Hey, sweets. Um…Gunner is talking to Jefferson right now. We’re in Miami, waiting for our next flight.”

“What? I thought y’all weren’t coming back until next week.”

“Yeah… well, Gunner got a call late last night. His dad had a heart attack.”

“Oh my god, Ellie! Oh no. Is he okay?”

“I guess. His mom, Grace, called last night and said she was at the hospital. His dad was stable. The doctors told him that he needed a serious amount of rest and relaxation. Somehow Grace was able to talk him into going to the ranch to visit his mom and dad.”

“No shit. Wow. Well, you know when something life-changing like that happens, you tend to think of things differently. You know what I mean?”

Ellie let out a small sigh. “Yeah,” she paused for a moment.

“Ari, how are you?”

I sucked in a breath of air. She knows.

“When did you find out?”

“A couple of days before the wedding, I knew something was wrong, and made Gunner tell me. I’m sorry that I didn’t say anything to you. I felt like it wasn’t my place.”

I felt the tears coming again. Shit! “S’okay, Ellie. I know it had to have been hard for you to keep that from me. You won’t believe how I found out though.”

“Will it make me hate my own brother?”

I let out a laugh. “No, but you’ll hate Rebecca even more!”