Harlequin Desire January 2021--Box Set 1 of 2 by Maisey Yates (inspirational books .TXT) 📗

And she let herself feel it. All of it. The love she felt for him expanding, growing in her chest, so much so that she thought she might burst. So much so that she nearly wept, and when her orgasm finally broke over her, she did. She shook and cried and held him, as his own release took him over.

And when it was done, he stood, and she just lay there, wrecked. The dishes on the floor a metaphor for her body.

“I…”

“Jackson,” she said, at the same time.

“Cricket, this has been… It’s been… The bet’s over.”

She just lay there, frozen, her arms spread wide, like a butterfly that had been pinned in place in a collection, unable to move, her back against the table.

“Are you leaving?”

“It’s the end of the bet,” he said again.

“Day thirty,” she said. “You almost left me that first night too. Why don’t you just…not.”

His eyes looked tormented then, pained. “I should have left you then. That’s the thing. Better late than never.”

“No…”

“But it has to be some time. I’ve got a ranch. I’ve got a life, and so do you.”

“Well, maybe don’t leave me with my fucking dinner plates on the floor, you asshole,” she said.

He didn’t flinch. Instead, he righted his clothing and went over to the corner, grabbed the broom and the dustpan. His actions reminded her so much of the first night he’d been here, when he had fixed things and she had swept, that she nearly cried. And she just lay there, naked, while he swept up the glass on the floor, but left all the pieces of her heart.

“If you ever need anything—if, when the horses come, you need something… You just let me know, Cricket.”

“No,” she said.

Because what she wanted from him, he wasn’t going to give.

The words were lumped in her throat, and she couldn’t bring herself to ask for them. And when he left her house, and she was there, nothing but misery, she had to wonder if she had changed at all.

Because she hadn’t said what needed to be said. She hadn’t. She’d just left it all there, in her chest, afraid of rejection.

What was the point? What was the point of any of it if she hadn’t gotten strong enough to say what she needed?

What was the damn point?

But she didn’t go after him. And for the next several days, she did nothing at all. Until she started to realize that something wasn’t right. Not just the loneliness or her heart. She was pretty upset by Jackson leaving, and by his not coming back, but not enough to screw with her cycle. And when she showed up at her sister Emerson’s house, practically shivering from the cold and clutching a bag that contained a pregnancy test, she was in a daze.

“What are you doing here?”

“I couldn’t go to Wren. Because she is married to Creed.”

“Yes,” Emerson said, stepping back away from the door. “She is.”

Cricket stepped inside, and held up the test.

Emerson touched her stomach. “I’m actually good. But is there something you need to tell me?”

“Yes,” Cricket said. “I mean, maybe. I need to use your bathroom.”

“You know you can.”

“Please don’t tell anybody,” Cricket said.

“I won’t.”

She went into the bathroom, and didn’t come out for way longer than the prescribed number of minutes. It didn’t take long for Emerson to knock.

“I feel like your lack of communication indicates the test results were not what you wanted.” Her sister’s voice was soft through the door.

“No,” Cricket said. But even as she said that, she didn’t feel like it was true. She wasn’t devastated. She wasn’t even sad. It felt…right somehow. That there was no way she was going to get out of a relationship with Jackson without keeping something of him.

Without being changed.

“Honey,” Emerson said. “Open the door.”

And Cricket did, knowing she must look every inch the bedraggled insect her name suggested she might be.

“Whatever you need. I’m not here to judge. If you need a ride to anywhere, if you need me to provide you with an alibi while you collect a weapon to go kill someone…”

“No,” Cricket said.

“No to…”

“Any of those things. I’m fine. I mean, I will be. I’ve just got to…tell him.”

“And by him, do I take it you mean Jackson Cooper?”

“The very same. And I didn’t want Wren to tell Creed to kill him.”

“Well, I’m fixing to tell Holden to kill him, so all you’re really doing is sparing Creed’s conscience.”

“Please don’t kill him. I’ve got to tell him.”

“Sure.”

“I’m not upset.”

“You look upset.”

“Well we’re not really…together anymore. So that kind of sucks.”

“Well, you don’t need him. You’ve got us. Whatever you want to do, you’ve got us.”

“I want to have a baby,” Cricket said. “And I didn’t think I did. But now that it’s happening… I mean, I guess it’s not a bad thing that I’m not horrendously unhappy about it.”

“Yeah,” Emerson said. “I guess so.”

“I just need…to see him. Before anything else.”

Emerson had been protective, but Cricket managed to extricate herself from her sister and get herself on her way to Jackson’s place. She had never been there before, and she was stunned by how impressive the modern ranch house was. All black windows, reddish wood siding and charcoal paint. An extraordinary collection of shapes and angles. So very different from the classic little farmhouse she had.

They were so different.

But…

At their core, they had plenty in common.

There was a reason they were in this situation, after all. Chemistry, for sure, but more than that.

She would never forget that day they had spent out on the picnic blanket. He might have been stern and cold the last time they made love. The last time she’d seen him, but that wasn’t the sum total of what they were as a couple.

A couple.

But they had never been that, had they? They’d been two people bonded together by a bed, by her pain and…

And glimmers of his. Which he had shared, but so sparingly. And she knew there was more to him. She