Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 141951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 473(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 141951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 473(@300wpm)
She hadn’t imagined being proposed to in the middle of a big field with the backdrop of the sky dotted with stars, but it had been perfect, all the same.
Being with Lucas?
Always.
“Come here,” he murmured, catching her by the wrist with his hand to pull her into his side. He didn’t even ask for his kiss, simply took it, and grinned against her mouth as his palm found its favorite spot overtop her belly.
Not that there was much to feel.
Yet.
In fact, Delaney hadn’t even announced her pregnancy outside of her very small circle of close friends and the family she still spoke to. Like Bexley. Given her initial experience with the pregnancy, and the fact she had probably lost a twin, she didn’t want to share the news widely until she had made it past her first trimester.
Not that it mattered.
People, especially over the course of Gracen’s wedding weekend, had more than enough things to talk about and ask Delaney other than why she kept refusing drinks with alcohol. Like the new man who was never too far from her side, and her return to the area. Those things could keep the gossip mill going for a while, surely.
Lucas nodded toward the middle of the barn where the pews and aisle from the wedding service had been removed and changed to a hardwood dance floor for the guests. Currently, the band had so many people up and dancing that the floor in the middle wasn’t big enough. Gracen, in the very middle with Malachi, looked happier than Delaney had ever seen her friend before.
She should be happy.
Life had started to settle out for them both.
“Am I getting you back out there, or what?” Lucas asked.
“These shoes are killing me.”
Lucas bopped her nose, earning him a half-hearted glare. “I’ll go get your flats at the apartment. It’ll take me five minutes and save you the rest of the night. Win-win.”
“They won’t look right with the dress.”
At that comment, Lucas pulled Delaney close for a bruising kiss that took her breath away.
“Nobody is looking at your shoes,” he promised.
Delaney grinned. “Okay, go get them for me?”
“On it, baby.”
Lucas barely had time to push away from the wall before someone else joined Delaney against the barn boards. Margot, in a pink gown like Delaney’s but slinkier with deeper cuts in the chest and back, teased her friend with a glass of something pink and bubbly.
“Did you try this yet?” Margot asked.
Delaney made a face. “No, I don’t want to drink.”
“You’re missing out,” Margot said in a sigh.
“Pregnant, actually.”
The admission had Margot’s eyes flying wide, and she coughed on the sip of spiked punch as her attention swung to Delaney.
“What?”
Margot was one of the last people Delaney had to tell. She didn’t feel right doing it over the phone, but since their friend had returned to the province for a couple of weeks to celebrate Gracen’s wedding—and be a part of it as a bridesmaid—Delaney opted to wait.
Now felt as good of a time as ever.
“Yeah,” she told Margot, “I’m about nine-ish weeks.”
The news earned her a tight hug from Margot and a mumbled congratulations.
“You next?” she asked her friend after Margot pulled away.
That earned Delaney a scoff.
“No way,” Margot muttered around the rim of her drink. “No babies for me. Besides, you need a penis for that job. I swore off dick a long while back.”
Delaney snorted. “I mean, traditionally you do, maybe.”
Margot quieted next to Delaney as the band began to switch songs to a slower tune. She did well to hide the slip of sadness that fell over her expression before it disappeared, but Delaney still saw the emotion in Margot’s face.
She’d also noticed how Margot arrived home for the wedding alone.
“No girlfriend?” Delaney asked, the first time she had mentioned Leya to Margot despite it being obvious her friend had returned home alone.
Margot shrugged, and her red curls bounced with the swing of her head back and forth. “Nope, it’s just me. I came home alone.”
“Sometimes, we need to.”
That’s when a person could figure out what they really wanted.
Margot pushed away from the wall but turned to walk backward so she could face Delaney as she headed toward the dance floor. “Who knows? Maybe I’ll even stay.”
Gracen would love that.
Delaney, too.
“Maybe you should,” she replied.
Margot winked before spinning away.
It didn’t take long for Lucas to get back to Delaney with a pair of sensible, black flats that absolutely did not match the pink dress she had agreed to wear—not her favorite color, but anything for Gracen—but would make the rest of the night far more comfortable.
That’s what she wanted to do more than anything.
Make memories to remember.
Lucas kneeled to help Delaney out of her strappy, open-toed stilettos before holding the flats for her to step into as well. Remaining on his one knee after she had stepped into the change of shoes, he smiled up at her.