But looking in Jared and Kendry’s eyes, she understood the weight of the burden she still felt. At one point, she’d looked out through the darkly tinted window and even though the setting sun had made it difficult to see their expressions, she’d known from their stiff, sentinel-like body language that they suffered. She’d looked down at her watch and had been surprised that nearly an hour had gone by since they’d arrived at O’Reilley’s. Not nearly long enough for True, she was certain, because he wanted to know everything about her, about the baby, and about how the last ten months had gone, but definitely too long to allow her men to stand outside waiting and wondering in the cold.
Kendry’s blue-gray eyes searched hers as he closed the distance between them in a couple of long strides, taking her hand in his and pressing it against his chest. “You okay?” The concern in his eyes testified that he wasn’t looking for a rhetorical answer.
“Yes,” she whispered, squeezing his hand, but she said nothing else. True stood behind her, still holding Whit. She knew his feelings were too raw, too painful, for her to say more, and she prayed that her men could wait a few minutes longer for the answers to the questions in their eyes.
Jared’s hand trembled as he reached out to her, gathering a handful of her hair in his hand as he cupped the back of her head and nuzzled her cheek. “You’ve been crying, angel.”
She gulped around her tear-clogged throat and nodded. She tried to speak the words she needed to say but she just couldn’t, not with True standing there. It wasn’t fair or right to hurt someone like that with witnesses.
Somehow, she managed to turn to her baby’s father, the image of his dark gaze from ten months before flashing in her mind again. Sadness burgeoned at the way he tried to smile for her and then looked down at his son.
In all her imaginings of how this encounter might go, she hadn’t considered the manner in which Whit’s father might bond with him, if at all, and whether it would be a slow process or if it would be instantaneous.
His Adam’s apple bobbed as he gazed at Whit, and she saw the hint of a tremble in his full lips as he leaned down and kissed Whit’s chubby cheek.
Gathering himself, he took a deep breath, let it out, and looked at her, and then at Kendry and Jared. “I’ll see you in a week, then. That’ll give Noble time to come around to the idea he’s an uncle.”
Presley Ann nodded as he passed Whit back to her. He cleared his throat and rested a hand lightly on her shoulder for just a second as he kissed the top of her head. She watched him walk back to the bus. He looked back at her from the bottom step before disappearing inside. Moments later the engine started on the bus. He was on the bus alone, dealing with the shock of finding out he was a father.
“Guys, I’m not in the mood to go in the restaurant any more. Could we just grab something to go and head home? I’m not really even sure I can eat.”
The men bookended her as they walked back to the truck. “Of course, angel,” Jared said. “Whatever you need.”
For the first time, she noticed the small group that lingered in the parking lot close to the restaurant. It was too much to hope that her aunt and cousin weren’t in their midst, and she pressed a protective hand to the back of Whit’s head as she made eye contact with Willie and saw the glee in her eyes and the speculation in Dorothy’s as she held her phone to her ear. No doubt making calls and spreading gossip.
Fatigue washed through her and she was so relieved that she hadn’t been alone for this experience, it made her eyes sting. Whit was sound asleep when she buckled him into his car seat.
As if sensing that she was still processing the experience, Jared and Kendry were quiet in the truck. She sat in the back with the baby and nodded when they suggested calling in an order to Rudy’s and swinging by to pick it up. Food didn’t matter to her in the least. Her stomach was in knots. Whit breathed in deep and let out a sigh, drawing her eyes. His little face was relaxed in slumber, his little brows, lashes, and lips were little replicas of his father. He smiled in his sleep. A lazy little half-smile that made her heart ache because it was so much like his father’s.
She nodded as she stroked his soft little brow. Life was full of choices…and consequences. And life’s struggle was accepting the consequences for those choices, along with the blessings.
They walked her around back to her little home and coaxed her to eat a little of her food after she’d bathed Whit and put him to bed. She didn’t taste any of it and set it aside barely touched. As if he understood, Kendry made her a cup of chamomile tea with honey and brought it to the living room.