Incredible.
Tears pricked the corners of her eyes but accompanied a resilient smile. Zach breathed a “Wow” next to her, his gaze glued to the screen, his mouth ajar.
It was a miracle.
An unexpected, unrelenting miracle.
After a few minutes and measurements, Dr. Cho asked if they’d like to know the sex.
“Yes,” Pen and Zach answered eagerly—both on the same page. This little gem had given them enough surprises.
Pen held her breath and wondered if Zach did the same. Then Dr. Cho told them the sex of their baby.
* * *
“It’s incredible, isn’t it?” Zach said on the ride home from the doctor’s office. Hearing the heartbeat had been one thing, but seeing their child on the screen and knowing a little Ferguson would soon be entering their lives was unbelievable.
Pen was lying back against the headrest, the A/C cranked up so high her hair blew in the air coming from the vent. August in Texas was hell. But Zach didn’t mind the heat or the fact that he had to lift his voice to talk over the vent forcing out cool air. He was on cloud nine.
In spite of today’s announcement ruining a particular surprise.
He pulled into the garage of his new house and rounded the car to open Pen’s door for her. She wore a long white dress and heels, but her shoes were lower heeled than her normal nine-to-five wear. His favorite part of the dress was the wispy material that slitted up both sides showing peeks of her smooth calves when she walked as well as the off-the-shoulder straps that showcased not only a gorgeous collarbone but also cleavage that was going for the World’s Record for holding Zach’s undivided attention.
Inside he gave her the bad news. “I had a surprise planned, and now it’s not as good of a surprise unless you want to leave the house for a day or two so I can fix it.”
She slanted her head and narrowed one eye, her smile playful. “What’d you do?”
He shook his head in chagrin, but found his smile wasn’t going anywhere, either. “You’re gonna laugh.”
“Now I have to know.”
Here went nothing. Time to own it.
He led her through the house and upstairs to the baby’s room. His designer had come in and furnished the room with a crib and dresser and changing table—the same furniture that Pen had pointed out at Love & Tumble. The style was what he preferred: clean, simple, warm. No pastels or frilly anything. His designer had insisted on beige with white crown molding running along the center of the wall, which he at first protested. She’d argued it was “the perfect blank palette ready for a splash of color” for when they found out the sex. When he’d first showed Pen, she loved it. Zach turned the knob, gave Pen one last lift of his eyebrows and pushed the door wide.
He was right about the laughing.
His surprise? Decking their child’s room floor to ceiling in Dallas Cowboys paraphernalia.
“You were awfully certain we were having a boy,” Pen said with a giggle as she stepped into the room.
“I was.” And then the ultrasound proved him wrong. He shook his head but he didn’t have a single ounce of regret about the outcome.
A daughter with Pen’s gorgeous blue eyes? He’d take it. He’d have to scare off testosterone-infused boys once she was a teen, but he’d worry about that later. This was Texas. He had a shotgun.
“Zach.” Pen searched the room, her eyes landing on framed posters of the players, a mobile featuring footballs and cowboy hats, and on the shelf, a signed football in a case. He’d gone all out. The mother of his child faced him.
Fingers shoved in his front pockets, he explained with a shrug. “Maybe she’s a Cowboys fan.”
“Clearly you’re one.”
“Honey, I’m in Dallas. I’m a Cowboys fan.” He took a look around for himself. He was pretty damn proud of the cool stuff he’d picked out. “We can tone it down a little.”
“A little?” She lifted a blanket thrown over the crib that resembled a football field—green with the yardage marked in white. “Really?”
“I wanted to surprise you. You’re surprised. Mission accomplished.”
“Yeah. I’m surprised, all right.” She rested her hand on the crib and palmed her belly, not yet as big as it would be. He felt a firm tug in his chest. “I’m grateful that it’s a girl after your mother told me how big you two boys were.”
“When did she tell you that?” She hadn’t mentioned talking with his mother.
“Last week. She stopped by my office.”
A pair of chairs flanked a side table with a lamp and, yes, a Cowboys lampshade, and Pen sat in one and beckoned for him to sit in the other one.
She opened the side table drawer as he sat, coming out with his crocheted baby blanket he hadn’t seen in decades.
“She dropped this off for our daughter.”
“It’s blue.” He took it, then gestured around the room. “Matches the theme.”
“She apologized for her reaction. I know she wanted to smooth things over. She wasn’t proud of herself. I didn’t hold it against her, though.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” he said. “You take issues on. You don’t push them off on others.” And just so Pen didn’t think he meant it any other way, he amended, “That’s a compliment.”
“I know it is.” She inhaled and held her breath for a few seconds and that tug in his chest turned uncomfortable. What else did his mother say when she stopped by?
“Is there more?”
Pen released the breath she’d been holding. “Elle said... Well, she brought up a woman named Lonna. Then she told me she never thought you’d fall in love again.”
His shoulders stiffened. He kneaded the super-soft blanket in his hands, avoiding looking at Pen. His mother knew about Lonna, of course, but what gave her the right to barge in on his fiancée and offer her opinion on his heart, for God’s sake?
“I bring it up because your mom thinks we’re in love.”
That lifted his head. He watched her carefully. “She doesn’t know anything about Lonna.” The edge in his voice forced him from his seated position. He dropped the baby blanket on the chair and paced to the door.
“Did you love her? For real?”
Anger stopped him in his tracks. As if he was only capable of “unreal” relationships? His eyes went to the stairs leading to the front door, but he didn’t run away from problems any longer. He ran toward them. He ran back to Texas, ran headfirst into a Vegas wedding to prove to himself he was “fine” and ran straight to Pen when she delivered news most men would’ve run from.
He faced Pen, leaned on the jamb and shoved his fingers back into his pockets. She lifted her hand to push a lock of hair from her face, and the diamond ring he’d slipped onto her finger glinted in the sunlight streaming in through the Cowboys-blue curtains.
Zach was a lot of things but he wasn’t a liar. So, he told Pen the truth. “Yes.”
She took the news well, simply nodding. But she wasn’t done.
“Did you go to Chicago because she broke up with you?”
In part, but he saw no reason to explain himself. “Yes.”
Pen took that news well, too, but had one final question for him. “Are you over her?”
That question required no hesitation. “Yes.”
If he wasn’t mistaken, that was a relieved breath Pen just blew out. “Your mother believes we’re in love, Zach. She thinks this is our happily-ever-after and I couldn’t correct her.”
“You and my mother had quite the conversation.”
“I didn’t know she was going to go into all of that. And I honestly wouldn’t ask you to clarify any of this if it wasn’t for what lies before us.”
That statement settled into the room like an elephant.
“Which is what?” She kept making decisions and telling him last. He di
dn’t like it.
“When we announce the sex of the baby at our surprise shower, we should also announce that we won’t be getting married. Hear me out.” She held a hand in front of her as if to silence him, probably because he’d filled his chest full of air to protest how they didn’t have to do anything. Before she said more, he managed to blow out one question in an infuriated tone.
“What surprise shower?”
“I’m guessing that’s why your sister asked me to clear a spot on my calendar in two weeks for a ‘cake-tasting appointment.’” Pen used air quotes. “It sounded very...suspicious. Plus, she asked that we tell no one the sex of the baby—not even her.”
“The gender reveal,” he mumbled. “She’d mentioned she wanted to host one and then never said another word.” He’d hoped she would forget about it. He should’ve known better.
Zach swiped a hand over his forehead, frustrated. Why the hell was everyone arranging parties around him, talking about him like he was a backdrop? Like he was a store mannequin. He was the one who arranged his life. It was his life, dammit.
“Before you blow up, let me finish.”
He gave her the most patient glare he could manage, aware of the heat warming his face.
“We thank everyone for the gifts. And we hold hands—I’ll take this off first—” she waggled her ring finger “—and then we’ll let everyone know that while we’ll be living separate lives we are very much going to raise our daughter together. Everyone will be so overjoyed to learn that we’re having a girl that I’m betting they won’t even focus on the fact that we’re announcing a breakup.”
“We’re not breaking up.”
“Zach.” She stood, her hand protectively over her middle. “We’re not in love. You can’t believe our sex-soaked relationship isn’t going to fall apart. There’s nothing holding us together except our attraction for each other. What about when that fades?”
“What if it doesn’t?” He saw no reason to put a headstone on what they had. Not yet. They had time.
“Come on. We’ve both been in relationships. Did the infatuation stage last forever?”
He ground his back teeth together. “We’re not breaking up. Wear the ring on Sunday. We’re not doing this.”
“You can’t run from this forever.”
“I’m not running from anything.” To illustrate his point, he stepped deeper into the room and stood in front of her. “I’m here, right in front of you. And that’s where I’m staying until I decide. Not you. Not my mother. Not my family. Not the duchess of fucking Dallas. Me.”
Eighteen
Pen smoothed cocoa butter over her stomach, determined to avoid stretch marks at any cost. She’d read that moisturizing helped, and she’d started her nightly routine almost right after she found out she was pregnant.
As she ran her hand over her rounding belly, she considered the warring feelings inside her.
Frustration with Zach. Frustration with herself. Amusement for how he’d decorated the room for a son. Admiration at the way he was determined to be a good father. And the biggest: so much love for her unborn baby, she was ready to burst with it.
If she was being honest with herself, that love was inching closer and closer to Zach himself. Encircling him and swallowing him up in it. But she couldn’t confuse her love for their daughter for romantic love with him. They weren’t the same.
When she’d asked him about Lonna, he’d confirmed one of Pen’s biggest fears. Falling in love meant you could lose it all. And for all of Zachary Ferguson’s bliss-chasing, he’d drawn a very distinct boundary around true love.
Romantic love had no place in his plans. Not any longer. Not since Lonna.
It was unfair.
Unfair because for the first time in her life, Pen feared she was starting to fall in love...with a man incapable of loving her back.
“Hey,” came a soft rumble from the doorway.
Pen spun the lid on the lotion and set it on her nightstand. “Hey.”
Zach’s hooded eyes and sideways smile had replaced his flattened mouth and ruddy complexion. After their conversation in the baby’s room, he’d mumbled something about working and shut himself in his office. She hadn’t seen him since.
They weren’t fighting. Not really. They just had very different views of the way things were.
For Penelope, she needed to leave before she fell for him and couldn’t pull away as easily. For Zach, there was no hurry because falling for her wasn’t a remote possibility.
Perhaps acknowledging that was what hurt most.
“I overreacted,” he said, walking into the room. “Did you eat?”
“All I do is eat.” She gave him a tired smile. “Did you?”
“Just ate a sandwich.”
“Dinner at nine-thirty.”
“Bachelor,” he explained.
Her heart squeezed at the word. That was the problem. Even with his pregnant fiancée in the house, Zach still considered himself single.
His eyes searched the room before landing on her again. “I don’t want you to move out. I don’t want to miss anything.”
She had to close herself off from the sincerity in his voice. There was a bigger picture—the baby girl residing in her growing belly.
“You won’t miss anything,” she promised. “My stomach is going to get larger, my ankles more swollen, my temper more out of control. It might even get as bad as yours.”
He shook his head in agreement. “I’m sorry about that.”
He sat on the bed and lifted the delicate edge of her short cotton nightie, skimming the lace hemline up to expose her thighs. When one large, warm hand landed on her skin, she found it suddenly hard to breathe.
This was such a bad idea. Sealing her tumultuous feelings with sex wouldn’t bring her closer to a resolution but take her further from it.
“How tired are you?” His green eyes sought hers.
Who was she fooling? Could she really convince herself she wasn’t in love with him? Not when he looked at her the way he looked at her now. Not when he was watching the monitor at Dr. Cho’s office with rapt attention and pride. And not when he touched her—especially when he touched her.
Zach claimed her as his that night in the mayor’s mansion. She thought then it’d been about sex and physical love, but now she realized that claim was staked deep in her heart and soul. And the proof of it was incubating in her womb.
“Not too tired,” she whispered, her eyes glazing over with staunch acceptance. She’d rather have him than not—even if it drove another stake into her lovesick heart.
He leaned forward to place a kiss on her bared shoulder. His tongue flicked under the strap, then dragged up her neck, giving her all of his attention like no other woman in his past or present who’d commanded it.
Warmth flooded her tummy, the flutter between her legs having everything to do with a million jettisoning hormones. She buried her lovelorn emotions into a deep, dark corner of her being and focused on the present. Focused on giving in to her physical needs—and riding Zach like the cowboy she once thought he was.
Her nightie was gone in a whisper as he lifted it over her head and tossed it to the floor. He smoothed his hand along her swollen belly, moving to her breasts next.
Lying back, she closed her eyes as his amazing mouth skated over one nipple then the other. The sensations assaulting her brought an end to the warring emotions in her chest and the thoughts littering her brain. And when his hands moved between her thighs and stroked, every ounce of her attention went there. Nothing felt as natural, as all-consuming, as making love with Zachary Ferguson.
His lips were at home on her body—anywhere on her body. Every inch of her belonged to him.
She reached for his T-shirt, tugging at it weakly. “Off.”
“Yes, ma’am.” There was the drawl she
loved so much. He whipped off his shirt to reveal his chest and once again, breathing became difficult. Was it any wonder she let herself indulge in what she thought would only be one night with him? Was it any wonder she indulged now?
She took a page from Zach’s book and released her worries of responsibility and the future, letting go like dandelion fluff on a thick summer’s breeze. She focused on his physicality instead.
His broad shoulders, round like he spent the day hauling hay bales instead of sliding a mouse across his desk. His biceps, straining as he shoved his jeans to his knees. Thick thighs, covered in coarse, dark-blond hair and leading down to sturdy feet. All of him was gorgeous. And for the moment, hers.
“You keep looking at me like that, Penelope Brand, and I’m not going to last a minute.” His green eyes sparked in challenge. His dimple dented his cheek as he shucked his boxers.
She embraced the idea of behaving like an out-of-control teenager. Pen had always been drawn to stability...until she’d moved to Dallas. Until she’d laid eyes on Zach. He made her embrace the moment. Made her live in right now.
His hot skin came in contact with hers and she could’ve sworn she felt sparks dance on her skin. He stripped her panties down her legs and once she was naked, pressed every part of himself against her.
She moaned. He was perfect.
He was hers. In a superficial, temporary sense, but nonetheless hers.
* * *
“Remember to pretend to be surprised,” Penelope told Zach as they stepped up to the entryway of the hotel. At the top floor stood the Regal Room, their destination. A popular choice for parties of the upscale variety. She’d never been, but knew about it, and had recommended it for some of her more elite clients in Dallas.
“Should I add clutching my heart for effect?” Zach leaned over to ask, his voice low. Then pressed the button for the elevator.
“That might be poor form since Rider will be there.”
“Oh, right.” But his smirk hinted that he’d already figured that out.
This was the way things had been in the two weeks since their argument that ended in bed. They’d ended up in bed several times since and each interaction was like the last. Penelope fell deeper in love with him, and Zach maintained his position as kind, caring father of her child.
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