Stealing Harper

“No sorrys today. I love you, and we’re having a son.” Holy shit, we’re really having a son. I smiled and pushed some hair away from her face. “Today is only allowed to be an I love you day.” When she nodded, I opened the door and helped her into the truck before ru

Out of the corner of my eye, I watched as my Princess looked over the pictures with a wide smile. I only hoped the rest of today kept her smiling just as big.

We stopped for Mexican food, but thank God Harper was too distracted by the appointment to notice I could barely touch my lunch. My palms were sweating, and I was praying that the rest of the day wasn’t too much too soon for her. I hadn’t been lying to Sarah and Brad. I already had an idea in mind for a proposal to the only girl in the world that would ever matter; and it wasn’t going to happen that day. But everything I had pla

I was so stressed, I couldn’t even hold Harper’s hand as I drove us to the Ford dealership I’d had her dream car sent to. So I kept the music up loud enough that there wouldn’t be much room for talking and kept my right hand on the steering wheel, so I wouldn’t go to grab her hand. There was no way she could miss my shaking if I did.

As soon as I pulled in, Harper’s head stopped moving in time with the music, and she instantly stopped singing, “Uh . . . ?”

I had to clear my throat before I could talk to her as I turned to grin at her. “So I’ve been thinking, you’re going to need your own car soon, and I happen to know that you want a blacked-out Expedition.”

“Chase . . .”

“I may have had one brought to this dealership.”

“No you didn’t.” Her already wide eyes got even bigger, and her jaw dropped as she looked around at all the cars.

“I said I may have. Never said I did.”

She backhanded my arm before opening her door and hopping out of the truck. I blew out one last shaky breath as I rounded the front of my truck and pulled her into my arms. She was chewing on her bottom lip and looking around me before finally meeting my eyes. “Are you being serious?”

I smiled and pressed my lips to her neck. “I am. But we can look around and see if there’s something else you want.”

“Babe! I can’t buy a car.”

Shit, here goes nothing. “Maybe not, but we can.”

“You want to split it?”

A short, hard laugh escaped my lips at her adorably confused expression. “Not exactly. Okay, you can tell me if this is moving too fast, but since I plan on marrying you soon, I wanted to put you on my bank account so you have access to my money.”

“Chase”—her face had fallen, and I felt like I was holding my breath—“I don’t need you to do that, and I don’t need you to buy me a car.”

“I know, Princess, but I want you to have access to it. I make decent money at the shop, but Bree and I were also left a lot when Dad’s parents died. So I have more than enough in savings to take care of the three of us and to buy you a car. It’s not a big deal.”

“I know you want to, and to be honest, it kind of excites me that you want to share all that with me. But I’m saying . . . I really don’t need you to. If we’re going to share your bank account, then we should share mine, too.”

“Harper, that isn’t necessary.” Exhaling in relief, I pulled her into my arms again and thought I’d heard her wrong when she told me how much she had saved up. Uh . . . come again? It wasn’t as much as I still had for us, but I’d inherited the money I had in savings. Almost all bills, except for the house, came from what I made from the shop, so I rarely pulled any money out of savings. She’d made that from working on base? “Are you serious? Just from working on the base?” When she confirmed with one stiff nod, I whistled low. “Well damn, babe. That’s great, and if you want to add it to our accounts, that’s fine. But I’d rather not touch that money; we can save it for emergencies, and just let me take care of you.”

I’d been expecting some sort of argument, or at least hesitancy. But she just shrugged with an, “Okay,” and kissed me softly as she melted into my arms.

“You ready to look for a car?”

“Nope! No need to look. I already know I want the Expedition!”

She jumped out of my arms and grabbed my hand as she started walking off in the direction of the cars in the lot. I laughed and pulled her toward the showroom instead. Harper test-drove the completely blacked-out SUV and fell in love with it, just as I was hoping she would. We went through the process of buying it, and I swear the guy helping us scoffed when I said we would pay for the car right then. Ass. Once we were done with his stubborn ass, we drove separately to the bank and started the much-shorter process of adding Harper to my accounts and putting her savings into what was now our savings account. She was smiling brightly and bouncing along, and I wondered why I’d ever been worried about the day.

My family already knew what I had pla

After di

“Hey, man! Shit, took you long enough to call, Riss is freaking out texting me every ten minutes wanting to know how everything went.”

I snorted a laugh. “Tell her to calm her ass down. Everything went great, we’re—” inhaling deeply, I shook my head at the ridiculous smile I had on my face—“we’re having a boy.”

“Yeah?” He laughed loudly and shouted the news to whoever was in the shop before coming back. “Hate to break it to ya, Chase. But I’ve been thinking, and I’ve decided you’re seriously confused and just think that this is your baby.”

My heart stopped, and my smile quickly fell. “The fu—”

“I mean,” he cut me off with a snort, “everyone knows it’s my baby. You’re just in denial.”

As soon as his words registered, I laughed out loud. “Seriously, I was about to go kick someone’s ass.”

“Just sayin’, I even told Riss. That baby is mine.”

“All right, I’ll let Princess know, too.”

“Damn straight you will! As long as we’re all on the same page, we’ll be good.”

“You’re such a dumb-ass.” I laughed again. “Tell Marissa that the rest of the day went well. Harper’s really happy, and we’re about to leave for the last part of tonight, er, this weekend.”

“You lucky bastard. All right, have fun but make sure my baby mama doesn’t overdo it.”

I shook my head. “See you Monday.”

We hung up, and I jogged back into the house and into the living room, where I wrapped my arms around Princess from behind the couch.

My lips skimmed that sensitive spot behind her ear before I whispered, “Can you do me a favor?”

Her head had rolled to the side, and her arms were covered in goose bumps. “Anything.”

“Go pack a bag for a few nights and meet me down here in ten minutes.” Lightly nipping on her ear, I lowered my voice even further. “You won’t need many clothes.”

Her eyes flew open, and she turned to look at me, an odd expression passing over her face. “Are we going to your house?”

I wanted to ask what had freaked her out so much but decided I might not want to know since Brandon was at my house. Whether it had to do with him or not, I’d been making sure he and Harper didn’t see each other anymore and really didn’t want to discuss him with her. “Nope, but it’s a surprise, so I can’t tell you.”