I let out a laugh and pulled her closer to me. I felt her stiffen in my arms, so I slowly started to move my fingers up and down her back.

“Mmm that feels so good,” she said.

We lay there for another few minutes in silence before Ari took a deep breath.

“Jeff, we need to talk about it.”

“I know we do.”

“When’s her due date?”

“She told me August seventeenth. She also said that she’s having a boy.”

Ari snapped up her head, and I saw the tears welling up in her eyes.

“How do you feel about all of this, Jeff? I saw you smiling when you were touching her stomach. If this is going to work out, you need to be honest with me right now.

Holy shit. What am I supposed to say? A small part of me felt something when I’d felt the baby move. Oh Ari. There was no fucking way was I going to hurt Ari that way. I only wanted kids with her. There was no one else for me.

“Ari, it’s hard not to smile when you feel a baby moving around in anyone’s stomach. Something weird did happen though. She seemed shocked when I told her I’d asked you to marry me last Saturday. She couldn’t believe that I asked even after I’d found out about the baby, but it wasn’t just that. When I said that Gunner got married, she was really surprised. I think she thought it was us getting married.”

Ari quickly sat up. She pulled the covers over her as she tucked her legs up to her chest.

“Don’t get mad.”

“Oh shit, Ari. What did you do?”

“Well, I had a feeling that her calling you right before the wedding was all too coincidental. I just had a feeling. So, Amanda and I went to Halcyon this morning, and Crysti happened to be working. She also seemed surprised that we hadn’t gotten married. Turns out she overheard someone talking about a wedding. When she heard your name and mine, she thought it was us getting married. My guess is that she called Rebecca to fill her in with what she’d found out. I think Rebecca came up with this whole baby thing to keep us from getting married.”

Wow. When Ari puts her damn mind to something, she goes one hundred percent at it.

“Well, what are you thinking?”

“It’s possible. If she was lying though, why would she offer to let me go to her next doctor’s appointment?”

Ari’s face turned white as a ghost.

“She did? Did she offer or did say that you wanted to go?”

“Does it matter Ari?”

“Yes, Jeff, it matters a lot! Did you ask to go or did she offer?”

I had to really think about it.

“I think that she offered. No, wait…I told her that I wanted to go since I’d not been a part of the pregnancy for the first seven months.”

Ari turned her head and took a deep breath. What is she thinking?

“Okay. Did she give you the appointment date, time, and doctor? What information did she give you?”

“Um, well, right before I came over, she sent me a text with her appointment time and directions to the doctor’s office.”

Ari jumped up, reached for my phone, and then handed it to me.

“Can I see it?”

I nodded my head. “Of course, you can see it.”

I opened up the message and showed it to Ari. She made a face and then handed the phone back to me.

“Is she going to drop the stupid-ass restraining order against me?”

Oh hell, here we go.

“No, I asked twice. She feels like it would be…safer for her to keep it up until the baby is born.”

“Okay, she’s a weirdo. Does she think I would actually hurt her? Holy hell! What else did y’all talk about?”

I lay there for a moment, thinking about if there was anything else I left out. I really just wanted to put the whole thing as far out of my mind as I could.

“Well, we talked about her having a high-risk pregnancy. She can’t get upset and that kind of shit. She talked about painting the baby’s room and putting up a crib. Ah shit, I don’t know Ari. I wasn’t even listening to her through half the conversation.”

Lying back down under the covers, Ari moved slightly away from me. Shit! Not again. After we’d just spent probably the best night of our lives together, she was pulling away from me again. I couldn’t believe how much I’d wanted her earlier. She’d looked so unbelievable beautiful, her skin glowing, as her eyes filled with love.

“Ari, please don’t pull away from me again, baby.”

She rolled over to her side to look at me. “You can’t let her pull us apart, Jeff. Promise me that you won’t let that happen.”

I pulled her closer to me, and she put her head on my chest. I started to run my fingers through her hair. She smelled so good. Something was making my heart pound hard in my chest. Maybe it was just this whole bullshit with Rebecca. I was so afraid that I was going to lose Ari over this. I can’t let that happen. I won’t let that happen.

“I promise, baby. She won’t pull us apart. I promise.”

Ari reached up, putting her hand on my check, and then she kissed me gently on the lips. I wanted her so badly again. I deepened the kiss as I rolled her over, climgin on top of her.

“Jeff.” She moaned.

“I love you so much, Ari.”

I started to make love to her, my cell phone started to ring.

“Ignore it,” Ari said as she pushed her hips up into me.

No problem.

My voice mail notification went off.

“God, Ari, you feel like heaven. baby.”

Ari smiled at me, and my heart melted. I would never get tired of seeing that smile. She rolled us over, so she was sitting on top of me. Pure fucking heaven.

“So, what are our plans today, cowboy?” she asked as she moved her hips.

I started to laugh, thinking about all the packing that we had to do.

“You really want to talk about our plans for the day…now?” I groaned.

She slowly lowered her lips to mine and whispered, “No.”

She took my lower lip between her teeth and let out a moan.

Then, my cell phone went off again. We both ignored it. When it went off a fourth time, I started to get worried. What if something happened to Gramps or Grams?

“I have to see who it is, Ari. What if something happened to Gunner’s grandparents?”

Ari moved off of me as I reached for my cell phone on the night-stand. Holy fucking shit!….The four missed calls were from Rebecca. Not good.

“Who was it?”Ari asked.

“Um…it was Rebecca.”

“Are you kidding me?” Ari let out a laugh. “Nice. It didn’t even take her twenty-four fucking hours.” She jumped out of bed, grabbed her robe, and walked out of the bedroom.

Son of a bitch! I can’t believe this. I listened to Rebecca’s message. What the hell? She was just trying to give me the information for the doctor’s appointment. I sent her a text message, telling her to text it to me, and to only call me from now on if she had an emergency. Bitch.

I got up and headed into the kitchen where Ari was making coffee. I walked up behind her and pulled her into my arms.

“You don’t want to finish what we started?” I whispered into her ear.

Turning, she looked at me and gave me the weakest smile. I knew she was trying, and I loved her for it.

“I’m sorry. The mood is kind of…gone.” She turned back around and pulled out to coffee mugs. “Do you want anything for breatfast?”

“How about we go out for breakfast?”

She glanced at me, surprised. “What about your run? You never miss your morning run.”

I smiled at her. Reaching down, I scooped her up in my arms and carried her back to the bedroom. There was no way that I was going to let Rebecca win.

“I have something more important to take care of, like making love to my future wife.”

Ari let out a laugh and started to kiss me as I brought her back into the bedroom.

“Well, if you insist on giving up your run for sex, who am I to complain?”

The passion between us was unbelievable. It was like we couldn’t get deep enough into each other. I can never…ever…lose Ari.