The Bosun: A Military Romance (Love is Blind Book 3)

by Harlow Layne

Not always. There were times when we were too excited and barely made it through the door before he was deep inside of me.

  “Not always,” I admitted. “It could be possible.”

  The thought I might be pregnant had butterflies taking flight in my tumultuous stomach.

  Jumping up, I started for the door. “I’ll meet you over at my house. I’ll see you later, Ryder. Have fun tomorrow,” I called.

  “Bye, Stella. I hope you feel better soon.” He waved.

  Hurriedly I made my way over to my house and left the door ajar for when Lexie came over. The need to pee suddenly came over me, but I knew I needed to hold it. Otherwise, I’d either have to wait a few hours or chug a lot of water. Wanting to distract myself, I went over to the counter where I’d left my phone before I went next door to do a photoshoot for my website and headshots. Picking up my phone, I let myself have a few minutes of looking at the pictures of Remy and me that we’d taken during our short time at Pen’s place. Most of them were of us in bed with me snuggled up to his side, but there were a few of us while we were out to dinner. In a way, I was sad I didn’t have any pictures or many memories of us at my house. It was probably a blessing I didn’t, though.

  Was it possible I was pregnant? Sure, we’d gone without protection a couple of times, but until now, the thought never occurred to me. What was I going to do if I was? I knew I’d need to tell Remy, even if I wasn’t sure he’d want anything to do with me or the baby.

  “Knock, knock,” Lexie called as she stepped inside and walked over to where I stood with her brows pulled down. “You were like a million miles away. Are you okay?”

  “I think so. I was just thinking about Remy. How could I have been stupid enough to have unprotected sex with him?” I asked as I stared down at a picture of us. He had one thick arm wrapped around me. The other was holding the camera as he nuzzled into my neck. We both had the biggest smiles on our faces. Of course, I didn’t know he was going to break things off in a matter of days when the picture was taken either. Did he already know what he was about to do to me?

  Break my heart.

  “You can’t beat yourself up about it. Here.” She thrust a box at me. “Go take this, and then we’ll talk about what to do once you know if you’re pregnant or not.”

  She was right. There was no sense in going down that rabbit hole if there was no need.

  “I’ll be right back,” I murmured as I stared down at the box in my hand. One little test could change the course of my life forever.

  “I’ll be right here waiting for you unless you want me to accompany you to the bathroom.” The corners of her mouth tipped up. I knew if I needed her to, Lexie would indeed come into the bathroom with me, but I could do this. The idea was both terrifying and exciting. I’d known for a long time I wanted to be a mother, but I thought the chance to carry my own child was slim to zero after all the years of trying with Brock.

  I took my stairs two at a time in my rush to take the test. I might not have been sure of how Remy would react if I was, in fact carrying his child, but I would cherish the blessing if I happened to be growing a life inside of me.

  After peeing on the stick, I laid it on the box and took it downstairs to wait the longest three minutes of my life. Lexie had her back leaned up against my kitchen counter as she watched me come back into the room.

  Gently, I placed the box on the island and stared down at the test, waiting for any sign it was working.

  “I can tell you from experience the wait is excruciating. Why don’t we sit down while we wait? I set a timer the minute I heard you coming downstairs.”

  I hadn’t even thought about a timer. My plan was to watch the damn thing until something happened.

  “Good idea.” I shook my hands out and started to pace around the kitchen. There was no way I could just stand there and watch, but I also couldn’t sit down. My body was too amped up.

  “You know Ryder and I weren’t together when I found out I was pregnant,” she said, eyes locked on me.

  “What?” I stopped dead in my tracks. I’d thought they’d been together from their very first hookup, but traveling had kept them apart.

  “Yeah, it was a whole huge misunderstanding, and then I couldn’t get a hold of him. I had to set up this big elaborate way to get into contact with him just to tell him.” Lexie went on to tell me everything that had happened to them. Would Remy feel the same way?

  The timer went off on Lexie’s phone, and all of a sudden, I was too scared to look. I’d appreciated her distracting me while we waited, but now that it was time, I wasn’t sure I was ready to be disappointed if the test showed I wasn’t pregnant.

  Squeezing my eyes shut, I braced my hands on the island top. “I can’t look.”

  The sound of Lexie moving had me squinting one eye open. She had a blinding smile on her face as she came toward me. “Are you sure you don’t want to look?”

  “Did you by any chance peak at it?” There was no hiding the hope in my voice. I wanted that smile to mean I was, in fact, pregnant.

  “I might have.” She winked.

  “Then tell me already!” I yelled while moving around to look for myself. I couldn’t stand the suspense. Lexie backed out of the way as I barreled around the corner.

  Picking up the test, I saw two faint blue lines. “Does this mean what I think it does?” I glanced up at her and then back to the stick.

  “It does. You’re pregnant!” She shrieked in happiness. Grabbing each other by the shoulders, we jumped up and down while laughing and me yelling I was pregnant over and over again.

  “I can’t believe this,” I panted out, still holding onto Lexie for dear life. “We’ve got to call Pen. She’s going to be so upset she missed this.”

  “FaceTime her,” Lexie said as she handed me my phone. What would I do without her?

  “I don’t even know what time it is where she’s at or where she is. It doesn’t matter. She’ll want to know no matter what.” Hitting the button to FaceTime Pen, I was smiling so hard, I thought my face was going to split in two.

  “Hello?” she answered, all groggy. Wherever she was, it was barely lit, but from the small amount of light, I could see her hair was a mess, and her eyes were barely open.

  “Pen, you’re never going to believe what just happened!” I shrieked, unable to hide my happiness.

  Her eyes flew open, and I heard a male groan. “What is going on?” Walker said, his voice raspy with sleep.

  “I don’t know. Stella just called me, and she’s yelling. Go back to sleep.” She kissed his cheek before she climbed out of bed. Her finger was to her lips as she left the room. There was a click of a door being closed, and then she flicked on a lamp. “What’s going on? It’s the middle of the night here.”

  “I’m sorry about the time, but I thought my best friend in the whole wide world would want to know that I’m pregnant.” I rolled my lips and pressed down as I waited for her response.

  “What? You’re pregnant!” All I could do was nod as she squealed. “Oh my god. Are you happy?”

  “Beyond happy.”

  “You’ve wanted to be a mom for so long!” She clapped and then looked to her left before she spoke quietly. “Is Remy the father?”

  I leveled her with an annoyed stare. “You’re not missing out on that much of my life. If I had sex with anyone else, you’d know about it.”

  “Have you told him yet?”

  I shook my head. “I literally just took the test a few minutes ago. I told Lexie how I was feeling off, and she made me realize my period was late.”

  “Hey, Pen,” Lexie moved around me and rested her chin on my shoulder.

  “Hey,” Pen replied before her face crumpled. “I can’t believe I missed it. I’m sorry. I’m the worst best friend in the world. I promise I’ll make it up to you when I get back, which is only a couple more weeks. We can go baby clothes shopping, and I’ll help you decorate the nursery.”

  “It’s okay. You’re not really
missing anything. I called you the second I found out, and you’ll be here before we know it.”

  She wiped under her eyes, making my mouth turn down. “When are you going to call him? Or are you going to tell him?”

  “Of course, I’m going to tell him. Even if he broke my heart, I’d never do that to him or our baby. They deserve to know each other if he wants to.”

  “I think you need to find out where he lives and drag his ass back to California,” Lexie chimed in.

  “What if he doesn’t want to have anything to do with me anymore?” I questioned. Not for the first time, I tried to wrap my head around his nightmare and if it was the reason he’d ended things.

  “You won’t know until you try to reach out to him again. If you show up on his doorstep, he’s not going to slam the door in your face,” Pen added onto Lexie’s idea.

  “Let’s do a background search on him and find out where he lives. If we can find an address, then you have to go there and tell him. Where’s your laptop?” Lexie asked as she looked around my kitchen.

  “It’s in my office.” Before I could say anything more, she left the room. Leaning closer to my phone, I watched as Pen did the same. “It’s been almost two months, and he hasn’t reached out to me. If he was regretting his decision to end things surely, he’d have reached out to me by now. He has my number this time,” I pointed out.

  “How do you feel about him now?” She tilted her head to the side as she asked.

  “I miss him, but it doesn’t hurt as bad. And I want him in my baby’s life.”

  “But do you want him in your life? Do you want him in your bed?”

  “Most days, but I don’t want to drag him here only for him to leave again. I can’t do that to myself again.”

  “Okay, then you need to go to Florida and find out why he ended things the way he did. If it’s because he’s a stupid guy, then give him the news and say he can be in the child’s life as little or as much as he wants, and leave it up to him.”

  “She’s right,” Lexie called as she walked back into the room with my laptop and browser open. “I didn’t want you to change your mind, so I already did the search.”

  “Already? That’s fast and scary. I don’t want someone to be able to search my home address up that fast.”

  “One thing at a time. Did you find an address?” Pen asked.

  “I did, and I already looked up flight info.”

  “Okay, you’re scary good at this. Have you done it before?”

  “No,” she laughed and shook her head. “I book plane tickets all the time, but I don’t make it a habit to do background checks on people.”

  “Sure, you don’t,” Pen laughed. “Did you by any chance already book her a flight?”

  Lexie looked at the computer screen and then at me as she bit her lip. “I may have.”

  “Oh my god, you two are going to be the death of me.” Lexie set my laptop down in front of me and rushed to get out of the way as if she was afraid I’d hit her. I blinked a few times at the date and time that was on the page. She had me flying out at the ass crack of dawn tomorrow morning. “Tomorrow? Couldn’t you give me a little time to figure out what I want to say?”

  “That’s what the flight is for,” Lexie smirked.

  I turned to glare at her but stopped when I saw her hand lightly pressed to her belly. I couldn’t believe there was a chance we’d be pregnant at the same time. Seeing her like that instantly thawed me out. “No, I’ll be sleeping because I’ll have to get up at four in the morning to make my flight.”

  “You’ll figure out what you want to say after you hear him out,” Pen instructed. “And I want you to call me after you see him. I don’t care about the time.” She let out a huge yawn, reminding me we’d woken her up.

  “I will,” I promised. “I’ll let you go so you can get back to sleep.”

  “As if I’ll sleep now. I’m so excited I’m going to be an auntie,” she squealed and then looked over her shoulder. “Walker is leaning against the bedroom door, looking at me like I’m crazy, so I should probably go.” She pointed at her phone. “Call me tomorrow, so I’ll know if I need to go kick his ass when I get back.”

  “I will,” I laughed, knowing she would kick Remy’s ass if he broke me again. “Bye.” I blew her a kiss before hanging up.

  “Now, let’s go pick out an outfit that’s going to make Remy St. James rue the day he walked away from you.”

  22

  Remy

  A soft knock on my bedroom door had me perking up and sitting up on my bed. “Come in.”

  My dad cracked the door open and pressed his face into the small opening. “There’s someone at the door for you.”

  “For me?” I questioned. No one ever came by to see me. Ever. At least, not since I was in high school.

  “The one and only, and you shouldn’t leave them waiting for too long. Otherwise, they might leave.”

  My brows knitted together, racking my brain on who it could possibly be. Maybe it was one of the guys from the station, but why wouldn’t they call before coming over? “Who is it?”

  “You’ll have to come to the door to find out.” The hint of mischievousness in his tone had me up and off my bed in a nanosecond. What was my old man up to?

  I thought he might have let whoever it was inside or he would have waited for me at the door, but when I walked by the living room, my dad was reclined back in his chair with a smirk on his face.

  When I hesitated to open the door, he yelled. “Hurry up and find out who it is.”

  Doing as I was told, I slowly opened the front door. Whoever it was stood with her back to the door and her long black hair in a ponytail. For a brief moment, I thought of Stella and how I wished it was her, but she didn’t know where I lived, so I knew it couldn’t be her.

  “Can I help you?” I asked as I swung open the screen door.

  The woman turned at my voice, and my knees nearly went out from under me when Stella stood there staring back at me. Her big brown eyes scanned me from head to toe, and once they were done, they were filled with unshed tears.

  Unable to move or speak, it seemed, I took in every inch of her body. Her eyes were red-rimmed as if she’d been crying, and her nose was tipped with pink, but she was still the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. She wore a light blue sundress that showed each and every one of her curves. Her breasts seemed larger than when I last saw those perky globes with dark nipples that I loved to suck on so damn much. Her skin was a beautiful bronze that glowed in the sunlight.

  Her hands went to her hips. “Are you only going to stare at my boobs, or are you going to say something?”

  “Stella,” I croaked out and had to clear my throat. “What are you doing here?” I wanted to hit myself with the heel of my hand at my stupid question, but before I could take back my words, she spoke.

  “I came for two reasons, but before I tell you, is there somewhere we can talk in private?”

  She wanted to talk in private? I didn’t really want my dad to eavesdrop on our conversation, even though I’d likely tell him all about it later, so I knew we needed to go somewhere else.

  “Are you hungry?”

  “No.” Her face actually looked like it turned a slight shade of green at my question.

  “Okay, let me grab my keys, and I’ll take us somewhere private to talk.” I held up one finger. “I’ll be right back.”

  I sprinted through the house to get to my room. Slipping my feet into a pair of flip-flops, I grabbed my phone and the keys to my truck and ran back, waving to my dad as I went by. I was afraid if I was gone too long, she might leave.

  “Let’s take my truck.” I pointed to the F-150 that I’d had since high school. It was old as dirt, but it ran like a rock star.

  Stella followed along beside me. I opened the passenger door for her and waited until she had her seatbelt on before I closed the door and hightailed it around the front to slide in behind the steering wheel.

  I
thought maybe she’d talk while I drove, but instead, Stella looked out the passenger window with a death grip on her phone. Luckily, where I was taking her wasn’t far because I was dying to know why she’d sought me out. Pulling up to the public beach, I turned to look at her.

  “Is this okay?”

  When she started to open the passenger door, I assumed she was fine with the location I’d chosen. I wasn’t fast enough to open her door or help her out, which irritated me. I wanted to say something but held my tongue.

  Once her feet hit the sand, Stella kicked off her sandals and held them by their straps with one hand as she headed in a direction where it was less crowded. I let her pick the spot, and once she sat down in the sand, I moved to sit beside her. My pinky finger itched to reach out and touch her silky skin, but I didn’t give in to temptation. Instead, I waited until she said whatever she came here to say.

  Her gaze stayed on the tide coming in and out. Never once looking at me. “I need to know why you ended things with me. Even if it’s awful, I need to hear it.”

  “That’s why you came here?” She could have called or texted, but I hadn’t answered those questions when she’d asked before, so maybe she knew I couldn’t deny her in person. Even though I hadn’t responded to her texts, it still killed me when she stopped contacting me. I knew I’d fucked up royally, only now she was here in the flesh. Now was my chance to tell her about my dark past. Would she look at me differently after she knew how damaged I was?

  “I’m nowhere near good enough for you, and I knew if I stayed, I’d be one of the men in your life who broke you.”

  “And you don’t think you broke me when you ended things?” Her voice was wobbly as she spoke while her eyes were set on the ocean in front of us.

  “It wasn’t my intention to break you but to save you from me. When I decided to volunteer, I thought I was better, but the night that I fell asleep and had that nightmare, I realized I still had so much more work to do.”

  “Did you ever think if you explained it to me that I might have understood and given you time? That maybe I could have helped you or at least not cried nonstop for a week straight wondering what the hell I’d done that made you run away from me?”