I had to give him props for the lack of reaction to news that I knew he didn’t love. Then I laughed. “I’m kidding. Presley’s not moving in with us.”

His grin returned as he shook his head and tweaked the spot on my side that he knew was incredibly ticklish. Just for an instant. Enough to pay me back without causing me to go into convulsions to avoid more tickling.

“You had me there for a second,” Holden said.

Before he was over that, I stood on my toes again and said quietly, “The real secret is that we’re having a baby.”

His head whipped toward me and he stopped dancing. As I lowered from my toes, I met his wide-eyed, raised-brow gaze.

“You’re not supposed to react,” I whispered, urging him to move side to side. “It’s our secret.” I had to fight hard to stifle a grin.

“Hold up,” he said, and he managed some dance-like motion, enough that maybe people wouldn’t notice. “Are you kidding me?”

There was no sign of joy on his face; he’d gone dead serious. For the first time, I worried that maybe he wouldn’t be happy about having a baby so soon. We’d only been married for two months. He was absorbed with getting the brewery off the ground. Parenthood would absolutely be a challenge on top of everything we had going on.

“I wouldn’t kid about that,” I said, my heart now racing for an altogether different reason—fear. I took in a shaky breath. “Are you…” I swallowed, thinking I had to be the densest girl on the planet to not have considered for a second that maybe my husband wouldn’t be ecstatic. I closed my eyes, trying to grasp that possibility.

A hearty laugh from Holden had me opening them and peering up at him.

He threw his head back and let out a longer, fuller laugh.

“Are you… okay with that?” I asked stupidly, my heart starting to lighten before my brain could fully catch up.

Holden wrapped both his arms around me even tighter, then lifted me off the ground and whirled me around, and my relief burst out of me in the form of laughter.

I held on to him, fully aware that all eyes were on us. “You weren’t supposed to react,” I insisted, but I couldn’t keep a straight face.