keep doing better and better.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
Holden loved his sister, and Wren and Emerson’s father had caused her immense distress. Wren was rooting for her.
“So what brings you by? Because you look like an absolute disaster.”
Wren stepped into her sister’s house and craned her neck so she could see her reflection in the mirror on the wall. Emerson wasn’t kidding. Her makeup was smeared, in spite of the fact that she hadn’t been crying. She assumed that maybe she had wiped her fingers firmly across her eyes to try to keep the tears back. But she hadn’t even been conscious of doing it.
Her hair was in disarray, and there was just something...shocked looking about her expression. Her skin was pale, and her cheeks seemed especially hollow.
“Well, I feel terrible,” she said. “So that’s fair.” She sighed heavily. “I have to tell you something.”
Emerson looked bemused. “Am I hiding a body? Should I get a shovel? Because you know I will.”
“I do know you will.” Wren sighed heavily again. “I don’t think I’ll need your help with that. Though, I guess we’ll see how all this goes. I’m pregnant.”
Her sister’s schooled expression became very serene. Wren could tell that Emerson was covering shock, because there was no way she was that serene about such an announcement.
“Congratulations,” she said. “I didn’t expect that.”
“Well. Just wait until you hear the next part. Creed Cooper is the father.”
A bubble of sound escaped Emerson that was almost a laugh, but not quite. “That doesn’t surprise me at all. I actually figured you were here to tell me that you slept with him. But obviously that ship sailed a while ago.”
“Multiple times,” she muttered.
“I mean, I can’t exactly lecture you.”
“Why not?”
“Well, I jumped into bed with our father’s enemy while I was still engaged to somebody else. So, when it comes to making good sex choices... I mean look, luckily, I married him. It all worked out in the end. But, I get how men can make you really stupid. And I didn’t get that before Holden.”
“Well, Creed doesn’t make any sense to me. I don’t like him,” Wren said helplessly. “I don’t like him and yet... I want him. I want him so much. And the sex is so good. It’s the best sex I’ve ever had. I mean, that’s weak. It seems like just the thing you say. But sex with him is like a whole other thing.”
“I get it,” Emerson said. “I mean, I profoundly get it.”
“I guess you managed to use condoms, though.”
“Yeah,” Emerson said. “That we did.”
“We forgot. And...”
“What are you going to do?”
“Well, I was all resolute. I’m not a kid. I’m in a great place to raise a child, and everything has been so out of whack I just... I kind of want to. I mean, I really want to. I was shocked by the realization, but it’s true. I want to have a baby. I want to have his baby. It’ll be...so cute. But I didn’t think he would want me to have a baby. And I didn’t think he would care. I thought this would be just my decision, but he told me today that I have to marry him.”
That successfully shook Emerson’s composure. “He what?”
“He demanded that I marry him. Like, demanded. With threats.”
“I mean...” Emerson blinked. “Okay, that’s shocking.”
“I know.”
Emerson’s expression turned thoughtful. “Well, obviously something happened to him.”
“You think?”
“If I know one thing about hardheaded, alpha cowboys, it’s that usually demands like that spring from an emotional wound.”
“With all the experience you have with them?”
“I may not have experience across a vast section of them, but the one I married was basically a giant walking open wound.”
“Gross.”
“I know. But everything he did, seducing me, forcing me into marriage, tearing my dress off...tying me to the bed... What was the point I was making?”
Wren narrowed her eyes. “This isn’t helping me, Emerson.”
“Right. My point. My point is everything he did that was awful came from a place of being so angry on behalf of his sister. And a lot of things got twisted up inside him, but he couldn’t quite deal with all that anger. It took time for him to sort it out. But ultimately he did. Ultimately, we did. But he wasn’t being an asshole just to be an asshole. My experience is they’re all just lions with big thorns in their paws.”
Wren’s mouth flattened into a line. “And you want me to... What?”
“I mean, find the thorn. Identify it. Pull