Shake The Frost (Crystal Lake #6) - Juliana Stone Page 0,15
after the Gala, Miranda gave Tommy Bale an STD.”
“Damn, I guess I dodged a bullet.” She didn’t smile at his lame attempt at a joke, and once again, they fell silent. Ethan pushed the mug aside and rested his elbows on the island.
“We’ve got to talk about this, Emily.”
She looked away from him and got busy rinsing out her mug. She then dried it and put it away in the cupboard.
“Em.”
“I know, Ethan,” she snapped. “I just…” She tossed her tea towel and shrugged, though she didn’t meet his gaze. “Before we can even begin to address the baby—”
Baby. Ethan’s heart picked up at the word. This was real. He was having a kid.
“We should talk about what happened back in July.”
Just like that, his mood darkened. “No. We shouldn’t.”
Her head yanked up at that, and damn but her heart-shaped face did all kinds of weird shit to his mind and body, but on this one thing, he wasn’t budging.
“That night was a mistake, and it won’t happen again.” He looked her square in the eye and held her gaze until she looked away.
“I know,” she replied softly. “But here we are, and our mistake has major consequences.”
She looked so damn small and fragile that it pulled at the part of him that would do anything to make her pain go away. Ethan rounded the kitchen island but stopped a few inches away, unsure and wishing like hell that playbook was handy.
“You don’t need to…” He stopped and tried to organize his thoughts properly. “We don’t need to—”
She made a weird noise and moved toward him. “I’m not getting rid of it, Ethan. I want this baby. With or without you.”
“That’s not what I was trying to say.”
“Then what is it? I don’t need your money. Rick’s life insurance was over the top, just like everything else he did. I’m pretty much set for life, so…”
Tears pooled in the corners of her eyes, and he reached for her, ignoring the way she flinched. Gently, he wiped them away. “I meant to say we can take some time and get this right.”
She shook her head and, sniffling, stepped out of his reach. “We don’t have time, though. My mom knows about the pregnancy, though I didn’t tell her you were the father. And now Darlene Phibbs knows, so by nightfall, most of Crystal Lake will too. And every single person will be wanting to know the same thing. Who’s Emily Davenport’s baby daddy?”
“Tell them. I don’t give a fuck what they think.”
“That’s easy for you to say. You hide out at the lake like some kind of freaking mountain man who only comes to town to buy food and screw Trudy Styles.”
That got his attention. Trudy and Emily weren’t exactly friends.
She nodded. “Yeah, everyone knows about her.”
Fuck. Me. This wasn’t going well.
“Look, all that stuff is background noise. None of it matters. Nothing that happened before I walked into this house fifteen minutes ago matters. What does matter is what we do from this moment on. And I mean we. You’re not alone, anymore,” he said quietly. “I want you to know that.”
“Do you?”
“Do I what?” He watched her closely.
“That night in July after we made love, you told me never to come back to your place. You said you never wanted to see me again. You looked at me as if you were disgusted by what we’d just shared.”
Throat tight, he had nothing for her. How could he explain all that darkness was directed at himself and not her?
“What’s changed?” She tugged on a strand of hair that had fallen across her eyes and tucked it behind her ear.
He finally found his voice. “Everything’s changed. It’s been changing since that night on River Road when Rick took the bend too fast. Hell, I’ll be honest, it was changing before that night, and as long as it’s been changing, I’ve been running.”
“What are you saying?” He saw the uncertainty in her eyes, the fear and the pain.
For the first time in a long time, Ethan saw things clearly. This was his moment to change his path, and he didn’t miss a beat.
“It’s time I stop running.”
Chapter Six
Emily was at the grocery store when it happened.
She knew it would—had, in fact, prepared herself for it—but preparing for and dealing with were two different things. She’d been in the produce section picking out the biggest, juiciest green grapes she could find along with packaged watermelon slices, two cravings that had recently taken her