When she tried to speak, he held up a hand. “I’m walking away now, and if you ever refer to anything I’ve just said, I’ll pretend I don’t know what you’re talking about. Friends only, Erin. That’s all I can offer you. I know you don’t understand why. I know you have questions. All I’ll say on that score is that I try never to hurt the people I care about, and you’ve become one of them.”

Erin’s whole body shook as she watched him vanish into the charcoal shadows of the forest. She wanted to scream his name. To call him back to her. To tell him she already knew his dark secret. She wished now that she had made that confession weeks ago. Maybe then he might have listened to her and considered how they could make an intimate relationship between them work. Only she’d been afraid to tell him that she’d used her badge to invade his privacy. Of all the wrong things she’d ever done, she regretted her actions that evening the most.

He was one of the most honest and straightforward men she’d ever known, and she had betrayed his trust. If she ran after him now and told him what she’d done, would he still think she was damned near perfect? Erin felt fairly certain that he’d never look at her in quite the same way again.

Chapter Twenty

Julie waited three days before she decided to tell Blackie she was pregnant. He had stopped in at her shop. He’d asked her if she was upset with him about something. She’d tried to reassure him and pretend nothing was wrong, but she’d never been an accomplished liar, and something was very wrong indeed. She’d needed time to think. About the baby. About how much she loved Blackie and how this pregnancy might destroy her relationship with him. And in the end, when she had completely assimilated that she was going to have a child, she was glad she’d waited. It had given her an opportunity to realize she and her baby had become a package deal. If Blackie hated her for that, she would have to accept it. As deeply as she loved the man, she would allow no harm to come to her child if she could possibly prevent it.

She called Blackie from her shop and asked him over for dinner that night. She still wasn’t sure how she should broach the subject. She knew it would come as a shock to him. It had certainly come as an unpleasant surprise to her.

She fixed a pot roast and all the trimmings for their meal in her Instant Pot, but she decided that eating outdoors would be silly, even though Blackie loved dining al fresco. Once she dropped this bombshell on him, he might walk out, and then she would have to carry in all the dishes and stuff by herself. Her morning sickness lasted well into the afternoon and sometimes even the evening. She’d also been on her feet for twelve hours. In her condition, she needed to pamper herself just a little and rest as much as she could.