by Liza Kendall
“That’s not what I mean. What do I have to offer anyone as a parent? I forget to take care of my own self—and Mom takes any excuse to remind me.”
Sue rubbed at her eyes. “You know your mother isn’t going to react well to this news.”
Jules wanted to hurl all over again at the idea of having to tell her very conservative, Southern Baptist parents that she’d gotten “nekked” with Rhett Braddock. And that they hadn’t even been dating. That it had been a sleazy one-night stand.
“Aunt Sue, I don’t even know how to tell them. Will you tell Mom and Dad for me?”
Her aunt paused for a moment, then shook her head. She leaned forward and took Jules’s hand in both of hers. “No, honey. That is one conversation that you have to have face-to-face with them. I can’t do it for you, and you know it. This is about their daughter and their grandchild. You’ll have to break the news on your own. Maybe Grady can stand beside you.”
“Grady,” Jules moaned. “He’s going to kill Rhett with his bare hands! I can’t tell Grady.”
“Well, now. That is another wrinkle,” Aunt Sue said.
“Wrinkle? It’s an entire, wadded-up sheet!” Jules buried her face in her hands.
“All right, calm down. First things first. You’ll have a conversation with Ever-Rhett. How he handles this will most likely determine how Grady handles him.”
“Okay, okay.” Jules shifted her weight, crackling the paper on the padded examination table. She stood up, slid off it, and paced the small room. “How do I tell him? Invite him for coffee? Or just tell him in the tack room and watch him fall off his chair?”
The door opened and Mia came bustling back in. Her nose was pink under the freckles, and her eyes suspiciously watery. Her mouth was set in a determined smile, though—and it was the smile that broke Jules’s heart.
“Here’s a starter package of neonatal vitamins. Get some more at the pharmacy. And—”
“Ugh—what’s that glass tube for?”
“Jules, I know you’re not a fan of needles, but I have to draw blood in order to do the official test. So just shut your eyes and take your mind somewhere else, okay?”
Jules looked at the vial again, at the little rubber hose, at the hypodermic needle and the alcohol wipe in Mia’s hands. “I’m gonna be sick again,” she said to nobody in particular.
“Back up on the table,” Mia said, patting it. Then she slipped on thin rubber gloves. “Come on.”
“If I even see that needle, I will faint.”
“That’s why you’re going to keep your eyes closed. It’s an order, Holt. Now, get back up here and stop being a chicken.” Mia smiled to soften the words.
Jules gulped and climbed back onto the padded examination table.
“Give me your arm. And look at that diagram on the wall.”
“The one with all the intestines and organs and whatnot?”
“Yes. Look at the human stomach. Imagine it’s yours, with an entire Chocolate-Cherry Cake from Kristina’s inside. Ganache frosting. Extra whipped cream.”
“Yum.”
“Now close your eyes . . .”
Jules did.
Mia swabbed her with the alcohol wipe.
“Chocolate-Cherry Cake,” Jules repeated. And then there was the barest pinch.
“Good. Keep those eyes closed.”
Jules did.
“There’s vanilla ice cream, too. Also Kristina’s, from Piece A Cake. The soft, creamy kind with real particles of vanilla bean in it.”
“Mmm.”
A pause came, then another pinch, then pressure. “Hold this on.”
Jules did. Then she made the mistake of opening her eyes, saw a large vial of her own blood in Mia’s gloved hands, and got woozy. “I’m gonna—”
“You’re fine. Look at me. Did I say you could open those peepers?”
“No.”
“So shut them again, if you need to. But you’re fine,” Mia repeated, marking Holt, J. on the vial.
“Mia, you should have this baby,” Jules blurted.
Her friend froze. “That’s not an option,” she said crisply, stowing the vial in her shirt pocket and stripping off the gloves.
“What if it is?”
Mia, her face utterly blank, dropped the gloves in a waste-disposal unit. “Jules, you cannot say things like that to me unless you really, truly mean them.”
“What if I do?”
“You haven’t had a chance to think this through. And there’s the question of the baby’s father. Rhett’s got rights here. He gets a say. So you can’t just . . . just . . .” Mia looked at the ceiling, blinking rapidly.
“But—” Jules felt even worse than she had earlier, if that was possible.
“You cannot get my hopes up like this. It’s not fair. It’s actually cruel.” Mia headed for the door again and pulled it open. “Take those prenatals. I have another patient to see now.”
“Mia—”
“Gotta go.” And her friend, valiantly holding back tears, shut the door behind her.
“That went well,” said Aunt Sue.
“I am a human train wreck,” Jules wailed. “Why does everything I touch go to—”
“Shh,” Sue said soothingly.
“It!?” Jules moaned.
Chapter 24
Jules had never before regarded her mother’s blue and white kitchen as a cross between a courtroom and a guillotine. Today was different, though. Today, she could practically see Judge Judy about to spring out of the fridge in black robes, wielding a gavel and a pithy opinion. And she’d swear that the French Revolution’s Madame Defarge and her knitting lurked in the pie safe, waiting to collect one more head in a basket: Jules’s own.
She considered quick options for offing herself in order to avoid this conversation. No time for the head-in-the-oven routine. There was hara-kiri by electric carving knife. Or drinking antibacterial spray. Perhaps death by stand mixer?
Billy and Helen Holt sat at the kitchen table across from Jules, looking bewildered.
“What’s this about, honey?” Dad asked.
P is for pregnant.
R is for ruh-roh, as Scooby would say.
E is for embarrassed.
G is for Grady and gun.
N is for not good.
A is for awful.
N is also for naked.
T is for time to speak: unfortunately, NOW.
“Julianna?” Her mother raised her eyebrows.
Jules fidgeted. Flexed her foot against the leg of the oak table, as she used to do when in trouble as a child. “I’m, uh . . . There’s no easy way to say this. Mom and Dad, I’m pregnant.”
“What?” Billy said, stunned.
“But you’re not married!” Helen exclaimed.
“Who’s the father?” Dad demanded.
Mom’s expression conveyed pure horror. “We brought you up better than this, Julianna.”
“I’m going to have the baby,” she said.
“We’re going to be grandparents,” Dad said, wonder in his tone.
“I’m not old enough to be a grandmother.” Mom sounded flabbergasted.
“I’m only at around two months, so don’t go telling a bunch of people—especially not Grady. I’ll tell him. You two are the first to know.” Besides Sue and Mia and pretty much all of Silverlake now.
“What about the father?” Dad asked again.
“Who is the father?” Mom pushed for the answer again.
Jules took a deep breath. “That’s not really important—”
“The heck it’s not!” Dad stood up, looking furious all of a sudden.
“Billy, calm down, honey.” Mom turned from him to her daughter, smoothing her hair reflexively. “Has the father asked you to—”
Jules cut Mom off. “He’s not re
ally a part of my life.” First blatant lie. “So he doesn’t know, yet. I just found out myself.”
“Not a part of your life,” Mom repeated, freshly scandalized. “Who—what—what are people going to think? How did this happen if he’s not a part of your life?”
Jules took another deep breath. “The usual way.”
Billy Holt squeezed his eyes tightly shut. “I’m gonna kill ’im.”
No, Grady will take care of that for you.
“I knew I shouldn’t have let her outta the house until she was fifty,” Dad said. “I’ll kill ’im.”
“Dad, I hate to break it to you,” Jules said, “but I have had sex before now.”
There was a horrified silence.
“Don’t you talk to me about that,” he said through gritted teeth.
“You know what?” Jules asked. “It disgusts me to think about you and Mom doing it, too.”
Her father reared back. “We are married folks.”
“Billy! Hush up,” snapped Mom, turning fuchsia.
“You are not,” Dad said pointedly to Jules.
“And I don’t want to be. All I’m saying is that you’d have . . . um . . . more than one guy to kill. So don’t bother killing this particular one. Okay?”
It was Dad’s turn to change colors. His shade was more purple.
Mom announced, “I’m taking you to see Pastor Hines.”
“No. I’d rather talk to Duncan Hines.”
“How dare you joke at a time like this?”
“Who said I was joking? Look, I know you two still think I’m five years old, but, Guess what? I’ve drunk alcohol before, too. I even tried a little—”
Her father yelled, “I don’t want to know!”
Jules blinked at him. He never shouted at anyone. “Okay. But my point is: I vote. I drive. I manage the barn. I’m an adult.”
“Well, you don’t manage your affairs like one,” Mom said.
“It’s the new millennium, Mom. Single women do have children. Nobody locks them up for it.”
Billy Holt went quiet all of a sudden. “Here it is, Jules: If you do not tell us who the father is, right now, then you are adult enough to move off our property and find your own place. Is that clear?”
“Crystal,” said Jules.
Dad slammed out the door and Mom burst into tears and ran to the bedroom. Jules stood for a moment in the silence of the kitchen and then went to pack a bag, preparing for a long stay at Aunt Sue’s. Nobody was around when she left the house and headed out in a kind of daze to the stables for work. An immense feeling of relief swept over her when she stepped inside her refuge. She greeted Don Qui with a carrot and a kiss and began to trundle the wheelbarrow full of hay down the length of the barn, stopping to pitch some into each stall. But halfway down, something about the smell of the hay hit her wrong, and she gagged. Then, feeling dizzy, she braced herself on the low door to Blossom’s stall.
The big chestnut eyed her curiously and came over to nose her.
“Hey, girl,” she said weakly. She put out a hand to stroke her. And then she caught a whiff of the pile in the corner of her stall and dropped to her knees, her stomach heaving and her face suddenly slick with sweat. She heard steps behind her.
When she turned around, her brother was standing there, all six foot six inches of him. “Jules? What are you doing . . . and why?” Grady, the biggest, smartest teddy bear of a brother—and the very last person she could confide in.
“Nothing!” she said brightly. “Aren’t you supposed to be at work?”
“Yeah, but I heard some—”
She swayed as another wave of nausea hit her due to the smell of the manure. “Excuse me.” She got to her feet and tried to pass her brother.
Grady put a gentle hand on her shoulder to stop her, but on his face was an expression like thunder. “You’re sweating, you’re close to fainting . . . you’re scaring me,” he said through gritted teeth. “Do you need a doctor? Want me to call Mia?”
The truth just sat there on her tongue.
“Jules,” he said, his voice cracking slightly. “Is something wrong with you? You gotta tell me. With Dad battling a tumor . . .”
Oh God. She couldn’t have Grady worrying that it was something that bad. “No, it’s not like that. It’s not bad. I mean, it’s not good . . . not exactly. Not that it’s not, if you really think about it . . .” Huh. “It’s just bad in almost every way . . . but not every way . . .” Okay, that did not go a long way toward putting Grady at ease. Jules closed her eyes, shook her head, and tried to pull herself together. “I’m going to be fine. My stomach is very upset. I haven’t been eating enough.” All true things.
“You think I’m an idiot,” Grady said.
“I do not think you’re an idiot.”
“You must think I’m some kind of an idiot.” His eyes narrowed.
“I do not,” Jules said, desperately attempting to edge down the side of the wall to get away from her brother. Then she thought better of it, because that awful feeling was coming back and the bathroom was the opposite way. She stopped moving. “You’re especially good at math.”
“I am very good at math.” Grady had a funny look on his face and there was no way she was asking why.
“Can we finish this conversation later?” Jules asked desperately.
“You saw Rhett in early March. I asked you to go check on him, and you saw him. Last month in Dallas.”
Oh no. “Yep. And can I just say that the top of March can be a terrible month for visiting Dallas? It was super chilly. Makes you just want to stay in bed all day under . . . the . . . blankets . . .”
A muscle in Grady’s jaw flinched. “The boys told me a kind of funny story this morning. Figured it was a mistake. Small-town gossip and all that. But it made me want to come by and see how you were doing, just the same,” he said pointedly. There was a long pause.
Jules started to sweat again. “I don’t feel good,” she whispered.
“You and Rhett’ve been awful close since he’s been in town,” Grady said.
“Well, you may have heard we sold our family business to him.” Jules tried to laugh. She sounded like a cat with a hairball.
“Jules,” Grady said very, very quietly. “Tell me nothing happened with Rhett while you were in Dallas.”
“Nothing happened.” She glanced up to see if he’d bought it. Not a chance.
“Did Rhett . . .” Grady couldn’t finish his own sentence at first. “Did Rhett . . . ?”
Jules’s head was swimming; she felt dizzy. She couldn’t think. So she shrugged.
“That’s what happened? It’s worse than I thought!” Suddenly, it was Grady who looked like he wanted to throw up. “That sack of—” he said, in a voice full of anguish. “He’s my best friend. You’re my sister.” He focused back on Jules, who was seriously considering just sitting down on the ground.
“Jules, look at me,” her brother said. “Are you pregnant?”
Jules’s eyes filled with tears.
“I’m going to kill him,” Grady said. “With my bare hands.” Grady punched the wall between the tack room and the bathroom. Hard. “Doing this to you. Keeping this from me.”
“You’re not killing anyone. He doesn’t know, Grady.”
“What? How can he not know?”
“We weren’t in touch after,” she said miserably. “And I only found out recently.”
“Let me get this straight,” Grady said in dangerous tones. “When you say you ‘weren’t in touch after,’ are you saying that he didn’t even call you afterward?”
Jules’s stomach lurched. “It doesn’t matter.” Jules threw up her hands. “We all know he’s going back to Dallas.”
“The hell it doesn’t matter!”
“Grady, stop. I have to work with him. And I don’
t want to talk about this. Just leave it alone, okay?”
“Are you kidding me? It’s not like you had a bad day. You’re pregnant, and it’s Rhett’s doin’!”
“Keep it down, will you? I’m not ready to tell anyone.”
“The whole town is sure ready to listen!” Grady ran his hand down his face. “Okay, right. Not helpful. Forget the whole town for a sec. What’re you planning to do?”
She raised her chin defiantly. “What do you think? I’m having the baby.”
Relief, shock, and concern filled Grady’s eyes in equal measure. He took a deep breath, like he was settling himself. And then he nodded. “Okay.”
Her brother’s easy acceptance made her want to cry. “I know it’s a big deal,” she said, waiting for more Mom-and-Dad-style fireworks.
“I know it, too,” he said, his voice gentle now. “But if you say you wanna do this, we’re gonna do this.”
Oh, Grady. Thank you.
“You’re great with animals,” he continued, “so I figure you’ll be a natural mother.”
Jules gulped. She had her doubts.
Grady gestured to the land, looked over to the main house. “Do Mom and Dad know?”
“I just told them.”
“I’m sure that was a fun conversation.”
“Not exactly.”
“All right. Well. No matter how upset they are, we’ve got a tight family and everything you need. So, c’mere, sis. You look like you could use a hug.”
Absolutely true. She went to him and laid her head on his broad chest while his arms encircled her. And then she knew; the reason he was so calm for her was because he was saving all the rest of it up for Rhett.
“It’s all gonna be okay,” Grady murmured as he patted her back.
“Let me talk to Rhett first,” she mumbled into his chest.
“It’s all gonna be okay,” her brother said in the same soothing voice. But she could feel the tension, the rage in the bunched muscles of his arms. “It’s all gonna be okay.”
“Yeah,” she breathed.
If only she could believe that. Alarmed, she pulled her head up. “You gotta let me talk to Rhett first,” she repeated.
Grady just smiled. And that’s when Jules threw up all over his boots.