I slipped my hand into my brother’s and let him pull me up. I wouldn’t admit to him that I was weak from my loss of appetite. I wasn’t nauseated from the pregnancy, but I missed Grant. Right now, I wanted him. I wanted to share this with him. To see him smile and hear him laugh. I wanted more than he could give me.
“You haven’t smiled in days,” Mase said, letting go of my hand.
I dusted off my bottom and managed a shrug. “I’m not going to lie to you. I miss him. I love him, Mase. I admitted that to you already.”
Mase fell into step beside me as we walked toward his parents’ large white farm house with its wraparound porch and flowers in the window boxes. Mase had grown up with the perfect life. The kind that kids like me don’t believe in unless they’ve seen it. I wanted to give that kind of life to my child.
“Answer his call tonight instead of sending it to voice mail. He wants to hear your voice. At least give him that. It might make you feel better,” Mase said. This wasn’t the first time he’d urged me to answer Grant’s calls. I hadn’t told Mase why I’d left. I couldn’t stand the idea of Mase hating Grant. He wouldn’t understand why Grant had reacted the way he had. And he’d never forgive him. They would be family one day. This baby would make them family.
And if I wasn’t around . . .
“You’re stubborn, Harlow Manning. You know that?” He nudged my shoulder with his arm.
“I’ll answer him when it’s time. It just isn’t time yet.”
Mase let out a frustrated sigh. “You’re carrying his baby. He needs to know that. This ain’t right, what you’re doing.”
I brushed the wisps of hair that had fallen out of my ponytail holder out of my face. He wouldn’t understand why I couldn’t tell Grant. I was tired of having this conversation with him.
“No one will persuade me to give up my baby. I will not choose myself over this child. I can’t. I won’t. I just . . . don’t ask me to again, just understand that I have to do this my way.”
Mase tensed beside me. Any reminder that I was taking a gamble with my life upset him. But it was my life to choose. I didn’t push him to agree. We walked in silence to the house.
Maryann stood over the stove in a blue and white polka-dotted apron, which I knew was monogrammed on the front. It had been a gift from me when I was seventeen. When the screen door slammed behind us, Maryann glanced over her shoulder and smiled. “Just about ready. Set the table for me, will you?” she said, then turned back to the stove.
Mase went to the silverware drawer, and I went for the plates. This had become a regular routine. After putting down four place settings, I went to get the mason jars and fill them with ice and sweet tea.
“Five places today. Major will be here for lunch. He called this morning to let me know he was on his way into town. Dad agreed to hire him for the next six months. He needs a break from the drama at home, and we need another strong pair of arms around here.”
From what I remembered of Major, he was a bully. A scrawny, mean bully. But then, I hadn’t seen Mase’s cousin since he was ten, so things could have changed. He should be taller than four and a half feet and have his braces off by now.
“Uncle Chap still planning on divorcing this one?” Mase asked as concern wrinkled his brow. We never talked about his cousin, mostly because Major had lived in a different country every time Mase had mentioned him. Uncle Chap was a Marine, and he was hard-core. He also made it his goal in life to marry as many young, beautiful women as he could. Major always had a new mom. That much I remembered.
Maryann sighed and set the biscuits on the table. “The thing is, this time it isn’t about some pretty young thing wanting a sugar daddy. Hillary also wanted Major, and apparently, she got him. Major made a mistake, and, well, Chap isn’t very happy with his wife or his son. Major can’t go home and face his dad now, and he doesn’t want to go back to college. He’s confused and unhappy.”
Mase set the pitcher of tea on the table and swung a surprised expression toward me. He hadn’t known this bit of information. Interesting. “You mean . . . Major tapped his stepmom?”
“Don’t say tapped,” Maryann said as she frowned at her son. “And yes, he did. But Hillary was only four years older than Major. What did Chap expect? He’s an old man, and he married a young girl, then put her in a house with his beautiful son while he went off to work all the time.”
Mase let out a low whistle and then chuckled. “Major tapped his stepmom,” he said again.
“That’s enough. He will be here any minute, and I know he’s embarrassed about all this. Be nice. Ask him about college or what he wants to do. Just don’t talk about Hillary or his dad.”