That hadn’t been a figment of her imagination, had it?

I hope our child has your eyes.

More words that kept repeating on a loop.

There was a lot of uncertainty coursing through her, but something she felt in her bones was that Liam James was a man of his word. So she was going to go with that, uncertainty and all.

At least the overwhelming anxiety that had been plaguing her for the last few weeks had lessened significantly. She guessed it was because of the truth finally being out there and all. Well, the truth being out there to Liam…she still had to tell her parents, a prospect that wasn’t in the slightest bit appealing.

But she didn’t need to worry about that tonight…that was on the docket for tomorrow.

She’d actually planned on telling them everything when she’d gone to pick Luna up that afternoon, but her father had been out at a farm checking on a sick colt. She couldn’t tell one without the other there…and really the thought of telling her mother alone was terrifying.

So yeah, she didn’t need to worry about that until tomorrow.

Her cell phone rang on the nightstand next to her, vibrating against the wood. Liam’s name flashed on the screen and she grabbed for the phone immediately, hitting the Accept button before even thinking about it.

“Hi.” Her heart was beating erratically out of her chest.

“Hey, I…” He trailed off for a second, the phone going silent. “Are you listening to my music?”

“Crap!” She dropped the phone into the pile of clothes before she practically pole-vaulted over her bed to get to the speakers set up on her dresser. Luna jumped up from her dog bed in the corner and started barking as Harper fumbled with her iPad. It took her a couple of tries before she was able to mash the Off button successfully.

Well…that had just happened.

“Luna, shhh.” She picked up the still barking dog and held her to her chest.

Luna let out a few more chuffs before Harper set her on the bed. The dog stopped barking as she spun in a circle, making herself comfortable on a throw blanket by the pillows.

It took Harper a second to successfully retrieve her phone from the still warm pile of clothing, and she heard Liam’s chuckle coming through the speaker before she even had it to her ear.

She cleared her throat before talking. “Sorry, I, uh…dropped the phone.”

“Yeah, I noticed that.” The smile in his voice was evident. “Luna not a fan of my music?”

“Wh-what?”

“She was barking.”

“Because I woke her up when I made a mad dash across the room.”

“Ahhhh, I see.” He chuckled again, the rich warmth of it settling low in her belly. “So, what are you doing?”

“Unpacking and washing laundry.”

“Well, aren’t you a party animal?” The teasing in his voice wasn’t helping with the erratic state of her heart.

“Yup. What are you doing?”

“Settling into the hotel.”

“Your flight was okay?” she asked as she propped the phone between her ear and her shoulder and started twisting a washcloth in her hands. Why was she so nervous? It wasn’t like this was their first conversation, yet she was barely able to think of what to say. Next thing she’d be asking him about the weather.

“Yeah, but I came to a conclusion.”

“A conclusion?”

“This whole catching-up thing is going to need to be balanced.”

“Balanced?” Or she’d just turn into a parrot and repeat the end of all of his sentences.

“Yup, I want an entire conversation where I get to ask you anything. You know way more about me than I know about you. And I’m at a disadvantage as a lot of information about me can be found on the Internet.”

This was very true. Case in point, the entire ride back she’d been regaled with interesting tidbits about Liam.

As it turned out, Hamilton was a huge fan, so he knew quite a few facts without the assistance of the World Wide Web. And fan or not, the vetting process on whether Liam was good enough for Harper began, and Dale had been more than happy to help out. The two must’ve looked up every ounce of information that could be located about the guy, and repeated it for everyone else to learn.

The only person in the car who knew about the pregnancy was Mel, but as they’d all been witness to Liam making out with her in front of the hotel, they obviously knew something was up in some capacity. Couldn’t exactly miss it, now, could they?

For the most part, Liam wasn’t much for being in the spotlight when he wasn’t on the stage; must’ve been a family trait as Logan was pretty similar on that front. Liam had dated a few semi-famous women—an actress or two, other musicians, a model—and those facts had all come with somewhat painful pangs. But as none of those relationships seemed to have been all that serious, she was able to breathe a little easier.

There was a part of her that had felt guilty about learning this information…like it was an invasion of privacy. But in the end, it was information that she was pretty sure he would’ve told her himself and really none of it was anything that was all that personal. It was observations from outsiders. She’d found out more about him within the first hour of meeting him than what the boys had pulled up on their phones.

“You Google me yet?” Liam asked, a shuffling on his side of the phone like he was moving papers around.

She pulled her bottom lip into her mouth…chewing on it as she tried to figure out how to answer.

“Honey, remember the new rule: no barriers.”

She dropped her lip from her teeth, smiling at the fact that he was calling her honey again. “I didn’t.”

“Ahhh, so it was one of your companions. My money is on Dale and Hamilton.”

“You’d be correct.” She dropped the towel she was still twisting and sat on the edge of the bed, holding the phone to her ear with her hand.

“Well, in that case I get two conversations of asking you questions. And you don’t get any follow-ups until then.”

“Oh, is that so?” Her eyes focused on the mirror across from her and she was taken off guard by just how massive that grin on her face had gotten.

She’d never seen anything like that before.

“Yup, and I’ve made a list.”

“Really now?” She grabbed a pillow and placed it on the space behind her on the bed, lying back and settling in.

“Spent the entire flight working on it, too. Could take hours to work through.”

“Well, then you should get started.”

“Question number one.” Papers rustled again and he cleared his throat. “When is your birthday?”

“July thirty-first.”

“Question two: Where were you born?”

“So you’re starting from the very beginning?”

“The more interruptions you make, the longer this is going to take. I have a lot of questions, honey.”

Honey. Yeah, her grin was somehow still growing. She was going to have to get a grip, because not only was it hard to talk around it, but it was going to crack her face in two any second now.

“Atlanta, Georgia, and it was four seventeen in the afternoon,” she answered.

“You being sassy will not make this process go any faster, either.”

She had absolutely no problems whatsoever with a long conversation with Liam. How shocking.

*  *  *

Harper ended up staying on the phone with Liam until well after midnight. When they’d hung up—both more than a little reluctantly—she’d passed out with a massive smile on her face. A smile that had been there the entire time she’d gotten ready that morning…and hadn’t budged in the least bit on her drive to Café Lula.

The first order of business that morning was breakfast with Mel and Grace, where she was grilled for about an hour. Even though Mel had known a lot of what had happened over the weekend, she hadn’t been privy to all of the facts of Harper’s conversation with Liam. Mel had been kind enough to refrain from interrogating Harper in the car—something she couldn’t have done without revealing the pregnancy. But neither Mel nor Grace refrained from asking Harper every question under the sun over coffee.