Chapter Fifty-Seven Ivy

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

Ivy

I compare the quiet in this moment to the seconds before a race begins. One moment there are thousands of people waiting with baited breath, you could hear a pin drop it's that quiet, the next the bell rings and all hell breaks loose when those gates fly open and the horses are off.

Only the gates never open. Wade stands before me, eyes wide, full of a thousand questions. He pulls me to his chest but he doesn't speak, and after a few seconds he paces into my living room and he drops to the sofa, his legs spread wide as he leans back, one arm resting on his thigh as the other scrubs his face. It's like I just put my cowboy into shock.

In true Ivy fashion, I start to ramble.

"I know I'm asking a lot by telling you this," I start to say, trying not to cry again. I can't help it because apparently pregnancy makes me an emotional trainwreck.

"Not because you wouldn't love this baby, Wade, because I know you would. In fact, imagining you with him or her makes my heart physically ache …"

He still doesn't speak, he just looks up at me, so I take a seat directly across from him on the coffee table and take his hand.

"The reason I'm asking a lot is because by telling you this, I'm possibly asking you to suffer heartbreak with me, and I'm sorry … I'm so sorry …" I trail off.

"I know we're new … I know this might be the last thing you expected. I even thought about not telling you, keeping it to myself so if it's not meant to be, you wouldn't have to go through this with me, but then I knew. I knew you'd want to go through it with me."

Something about those words seems to pull him from his trance. Wade drops to his knees and pulls me into his chest in one quick movement, holding me tight.

"How long have you known this, Ivy? How long have you been dealing with this on your own, sweetheart?" He pulls back and cradles my face as he asks, looking down at me, kissing my lips once before I can answer.

"Just since this morning."

He breathes out a sigh of relief with that.

I tell him the entire story as he listens intently, never once stopping the stroke of my cheek with his thumb. Before I can fully finish speaking, soft kisses meet my forehead, my cheeks, my lips, my shoulders through my hair. Everywhere he can dot kisses, he does, and he doesn't stop, as if the love he gives me has a direct correlation to how my body will accept this pregnancy, and maybe it will?

Wade smiles at me, a real fucking smile, and it's like sunshine breaking through the clouds.

"Don't you dare apologize to me for this … because this? This is fucking incredible, a miracle. We don't know what the future holds, but we're in it together, sweetheart … no matter what comes," Wade says, and I don't miss how his voice almost breaks when he does.

I breathe out a heavy sigh of relief as he pulls me back in.

"My dad always used to say there are two ways to look at something, the way you're afraid it will turn out and the way you hope it will turn out. We have to stay positive," he whispers in my ear. He pulls back and looks at me again like he just doesn't quite know what to do with me.

It makes me giggle as I watch him, behaving almost like a squirrel, a really big squirrel, not able to decide which direction to go in.

"Do you have your own doctor?" he asks, raking a hand through his hair.

"No, my doctor when I left Jellico was Brad's family doctor. And I will go for an ultrasound next Monday. Dr. Evans offered."

"Monday," he repeats, nodding. "A week from now?"

I nod in response.

"I'll be maybe nine or ten weeks then, by the doctor's calculations, and we will be able to hear the heartbeat." I shrug sheepishly, and Wade's eyes snap to mine.

"Heartbeat?"

"Yes …" I answer.

Wade kisses me again, takes his large hand and places it over my abdomen, then he moves his face down to talk to my belly and I die a slow death from how fucking adorable it is.

"How can you have a heartbeat, little one? You can't be bigger than a penny in there."

"A bean, actually," I say as Wade's eyes come back to mine. he's still on his knees before me.

He looks back down, and takes in the sight of his inked hand resting against me, and he smirks and whispers the word that covers his child. " Mine ," he says, then kisses my belly.

I feel my heart shatter, there is no going back. I'm a total goner for this man.

"You get cozy in there, bean. Your mama is your home, and she'll be the best home, you'll see," he whispers before he kisses my stomach again, then rises to kiss my lips.

"I know this is a lot. Are you—"

Wade's mouth comes down on mine, smothering my last words. The kiss is full of all the love he says he has for me. He kisses me like he may never have the chance again, before pulling back and looking into my eyes.

"I don't know whatever made you think for one fucking second that it's you against this world, but it isn't, it's you and me. If I haven't made it clear enough for you, Ivy, there's everyone else and then there's us. And this little bean"—he runs his fingers over my abdomen—"is part of us now. Not only am I not going anywhere, if anyone ever tried to keep me from you two, I'd set them on fucking fire to stop them. I will always protect us ."

Wade looks at me with so much hope in his eyes, it almost does me in. It almost makes me believe this is possible.

"You just give me all your burdens, all your worries, I'll be the steady, for both of you." He kisses my cheek. "I'll do anything you need." A kiss brushes my other cheek. "I'll even share my Pop-Tarts with you."

I smile through my tears and kiss him.

"Besides, I have a feeling maybe we have a shot here," he says.

"Oh yeah?" I ask. "Pretty confident, are you?"

"Fuck yes, this baby is an Ashby," he says as he kisses my neck, his voice commanding.

"And let me guess, you're going to tell me Ashbys never quit or something like that?"

He chuckles as his lips find my neck.

"No, baby, we never follow the rules."

I laugh, a real laugh for the first time in what feels like days, as Wade's lips trail my neck to my lips and then he kisses me deeply.

"I never want to miss you like that again—no matter what happens from here on out, we are in it together," he whispers in my ear, and his deep commanding voice has me clenching my thighs together just from the sound. "Tell me you understand."

I nod just before his lips meet mine.

He pulls his face back.

"That's my good girl," he says, with a kiss that sets me on fire.

I let my hands move through his hair and pull, hard enough to make him suck in a breath between his teeth. The way I missed him for just those few hours settles into my chest; there's not a chance in hell I can ever live without Wade Ashby.

He pulls me up by my wrists and we start to move toward my room, but any hope we have of even making it to my bed fails as Wade's hands roam down my sides, slow and intentional as he presses me into the wall.