Bombshell For The Black Sheep (Southern Secrets Book 3)

by Janice Maynard

  J.B. reached across the table and took her hand. “They’ll work through it eventually. Hartley’s home now. That’s a start.”

  “Can’t you talk to them? Either? Both? Jonathan is being all scowly and buttoned-up and Hartley is...well, I don’t know. He’s acting weird. Did you know he bought a house today?”

  J.B. blinked. “He has a house.”

  “Not anymore. He listed it this morning. Already has offers.”

  “So where is this new house?”

  “Three blocks away from Fiona.”

  “Ah. The plot thickens.”

  “I dropped by to talk to her late this afternoon, and Hartley showed up, insisting that we look at his new toy. It’s a huge run-down place. Going to need tons of work.”

  “Sounds expensive.”

  She sat back and frowned. “Are you taking any of this seriously?”

  J.B. grinned. “I take you seriously. They’re grown men, sweetheart. Give them time.”

  “Did Jonathan ever tell you why Hartley left? Or what made Jonathan so angry he will hardly speak Hartley’s name?”

  “He didn’t, my love. Whatever this is feels like a betrayal so deep Jonathan can’t get past it.”

  Mazie chewed her lip. It didn’t take a psychologist to see that she was dwelling on this Hartley/Jonathan rift to put off telling J.B. what she suspected was true. It was so scary.

  “Fiona knows.”

  Jonathan frowned. “Are you positive?”

  “I asked her. She told me. Not the details,” Mazie said quickly. “But that Hartley very recently confided in her.”

  “So she’s important to him.”

  “Looks that way. But I don’t think he knows it yet.”

  The housekeeper came in with the main course, and the topic was shelved for the moment. By the time dessert rolled around, Mazie had come to a decision. If she was going to wait for confirmation until she could see her doctor, then she wanted J.B. waiting with her.

  While he drank his coffee, she watched him. He’d been almost a part of their family since they were all kids. It was impossible to imagine her life without him. He was funny and irreverent and never met a stranger. He would make a wonderful father.

  Her stomach flopped and twisted. “J.B.?” she said.

  His gaze met hers over the rim of his cup. “Hmm?”

  “What if we go upstairs early tonight?”

  A dark streak of red bloomed on his chiseled cheekbones. His eyes glittered with strong emotion. “Is that what you want?”

  Their sex life had suffered in recent months. It was impossible to make love anymore without thinking about whether or not the baby they so desperately wanted was being conceived. And then every month when Mazie got her period, they both mourned.

  “It is,” she said.

  He lurched to his feet, bumping the table. “I’ll tell Mrs. P. to finish up tomorrow. That my dear wife wants my body.”

  Mazie covered her mouth, laughing. “You wouldn’t dare.”

  “Watch me.”

  In truth, Mazie had no idea what he said to the housekeeper, but in less than half an hour, the kitchen was pristine and the older woman was gone.

  Mazie wandered the living room aimlessly, praying for courage. J.B. found her there.

  He paused in the doorway like a gunslinger walking into a saloon. “Alone at last,” he said, the words gruff.

  She went to him and sighed when he immediately folded her close in his arms. There was no place she would rather be. Not ever.

  “I need to tell you something before we go upstairs,” she said.

  He kissed the top of her head. “I’m listening.”

  She pulled back, searching his face. Wanting to judge his reaction. “I think I’m pregnant.”

  His big frame went rigid. “Are you positive?”

  “Not a hundred percent. I did a couple of store-bought tests. But I’ll need to see my doctor. I can’t get an appointment until Tuesday.”

  He cupped her face in his hands. His eyes were damp. “God, I want this to be true. So damn much. I love you, Mazie.”

  She swallowed hard. “I’m scared.”

  His frown was swift. “About what?”

  “Lisette has suffered two miscarriages already.” Tears she couldn’t stem spilled from her eyes. “What if that happens to me?”

  “It won’t,” he said firmly. “We’ve had trouble getting pregnant. There’s no reason you should worry about losing a baby.”

  She snuggled into his embrace a second time, drawing strength from the sheer physicality of his body. “I don’t feel pregnant,” she whispered. “Shouldn’t I feel something? Shouldn’t I know?”

  J.B. stroked her hair. “You’re gonna have to relax, Mazie.”

  “I know. I think it would help my stress level if you would play intermediary between Jonathan and Hartley.”

  “So that’s how it’s going to be, brat.” He took her hand and headed for the stairs. “I get it.”

  “What?” she cried innocently.

  He stopped halfway up to the second floor, his smile lopsided. “You think I’m going to say yes to you for an entire nine months.”

  “Is that a problem?” She gave him a smug grin, unbuttoning her shirt slowly.

  His hot gaze started at her eyes and drifted lower, locking on the curves of her breasts, telegraphing his intent. “Not at all. Because I’m going to keep you on bed rest with me.”

  She giggled, shoving him in front of her. “That’s not even a thing, J.B. Vaughan.”

  On the landing, he scooped her into his arms and carried her the rest of the way. “Whatever it takes, my love. Whatever it takes.”

  * * *

  Fiona nearly called Mazie for advice, a woman she barely knew. That’s how freaked out she was. After Mazie dashed away earlier, headed home to rendezvous with her husband, Fiona had made awkward excuses to Hartley and locked herself inside the cottage.

  She couldn’t face him right now. For all her big words about how wrong it was to keep secrets from his family, Fiona was doing the same thing. Keeping a huge plot twist from the man who might possibly be a father very soon.

  That evening, she puttered around the house, dusting...tidying up. Since it was far too early for nesting, the only logical explanation was that she was losing her marbles. Popping her cork. Her well-oiled life was off the tracks.

  How could she tell him she might be pregnant? Wouldn’t it be smarter to find out for sure first?

  And then what? He’d spoken his piece unequivocally. I won’t have children. I choose not to take that chance.

  Remembering his words hurt. Badly. It was as if he was repudiating everything that was happening to her. Of course he didn’t know. How could he? That didn’t make her anxiety and incredulity any less real and painful.

  She managed to keep Hartley at bay over the weekend...barely. He called. He texted. He asked to come by and see her.

  Her work was her excuse. She needed blocks of uninterrupted time. He claimed to understand. But each time they spoke, she felt his frustration increase. Worst of all, she missed him. A lot.

  Having him in her bed each night would have been a wonderful comfort. Even feeling the way she did, she wanted him. As it was, she slept alone and awoke every morning barely in time to dash to the bathroom.

  Her reflection in the mirror was appalling. Her hair was lank and dull. She had lost weight. Cooking was too much trouble. All she could tolerate, even later in the day, was chicken broth and dry crackers. When her stash ran dry, she used a grocery service.

  Amid the stretches of feeling sorry for herself—and when she could stand for chunks of time—she worked on her paintings. Only then did she feel anything at all like normal. The repetitive brushstrokes calmed her. The colors that spread forth on the canvas filled the yawnin
g chasm in her chest with purpose and joy.

  In her heart, she knew she was pregnant. The doctor’s appointment she had wrangled at the last minute for Wednesday morning was only going to confirm her status as a mother-to-be. So what was she going to do about it?

  She wanted the baby. Desperately. There was no doubt about that. Thinking about holding her own tiny infant in her arms made her heart sing. But uncertainty about Hartley’s reaction tempered her excitement. Could she be a single mom?

  Sunday night, she forced herself to take a shower and wash her hair. The nausea had finally subsided some. But her energy level was nil.

  At eight, she put on soft cotton pajamas and curled up to watch a movie. Hartley’s text came through before the first credit rolled.

  Do you mind if I stop by for a few?

  Ah, damn. The way her heart leaped in her chest told her the truth. She couldn’t put him off any longer...didn’t want to, for that matter.

  I’m home. What time will you get here?

  I’m in my car out at the street.

  His comical emoji actually made her laugh.

  Come on in.

  She unlocked the door and watched him walk up the path. Everything inside her warmed and settled. Hartley made her world a little better. A lot happier. She could argue with herself all she wanted, but it was true. He was the one she had been waiting for...her knight in shining armor.

  Could a black sheep prodigal make the leap to hero?

  She gripped the edge of the door, white-knuckled. “Hello.”

  He paused to kiss her gently. “Hello, yourself. You must have been working hard. Is the project coming along?”

  “It is,” she said. That wasn’t entirely a lie.

  “These are for you.” He’d brought more roses, blush pink this time. Without asking, he headed for the kitchen and dug out the vase. She followed, standing in the doorway to watch him. Were all women so emotional about the men who made them pregnant?

  When he was satisfied with the arrangement, he dried his hands and set the vase on the table. “You look tired. I won’t stay long.” His smile was sweet, catching her off guard. “I missed you these last few days,” he said.

  She swallowed. “I missed you, too. Come sit with me in the living room,” she said. “I want to tell you something.”

  Not the whole truth and nothing but the truth. That conversation would have to wait for a few more days. After the official doctor’s appointment.

  They perched on the sofa together. Hartley wrapped an arm around her shoulders as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Though arousal flooded her veins, it was more like a slow, warm river than licks of fire. Hartley was back in Charleston to stay. They had time. For now.

  “How’s the new purchase?” she asked.

  He yawned and leaned his head against the back of the sofa. “I may have bitten off more than I can chew. Although, I’m discovering that punishing physical labor does wonders for clearing a man’s brain. I’ve been working in the yard since I don’t have the keys yet.”

  “Have you tried to talk to your brother?”

  She felt him stiffen slightly. “I ran into him a few nights ago. It didn’t go well.”

  “I’m sorry.” The faint bitterness in his voice told her he was wounded by the rift with his twin.

  Hartley rubbed the top of her shoulder with his thumb. “What did you want to tell me?”

  “I know you disagree with me about whether or not you should tell your siblings about Switzerland. But I have some experience with secrets. It concerns my parents.”

  He pulled away from her and groaned. “Please don’t make me feel worse. I never should have lost my temper. Your past is none of my business.”

  Her smile was wistful. “You’ve told me your sordid secrets. I think it’s time for you to hear mine.”

  Nine

  Sordid secrets. Hell. Now she was quoting his unforgivable words back to him. He felt like whatever was lower than pond scum.

  Fiona stood up and wrapped her arms around her waist. Her pj’s were not terribly thin, but he could see she wasn’t wearing a bra. He was swamped by a wave of tenderness mixed with lust. It was an unfamiliar combo, and he didn’t know what to do with the feelings.

  “Please don’t,” he begged. “God knows, you don’t owe me any explanations.”

  She stared at him, big gray-blue eyes filled with feminine emotions he couldn’t decipher. “I spent my whole life wondering who I was. I lived in an actual orphanage...a children’s home, until I was eight. After that, they had to move some of us out to make room for more. I was labeled amenable, so I went into foster care. It wasn’t terrible. Some of the families were pretty wonderful. But it was all temporary. I knew it and everyone else did, too. The odds of getting adopted at that age are like winning the lottery.”

  She’d barely started and already her story was tearing him apart, leaving him raw inside. While he’d been living in a veritable castle, Fiona had been tossed around by governmental red tape.

  “I don’t need to hear this,” he said. I don’t want to hear it.

  Fiona was on a mission. “When I was seventeen and a half, they told me I could begin the process of applying for my records to be opened. Then, when I reached my eighteenth birthday, I would have the option of knowing or not knowing. My choice.”

  “And what did you do?”

  “I filled out the paperwork, and I started dreaming dreams. Now that I was going to be an adult, I was sure my biological parents would want to know me. I wasn’t on drugs. I had graduated near the top of my high school class. I was not going to ask them for anything at all. The only thing I wanted was to be able to look them in the eye and see where I came from. To understand why I was allergic to apricots. To know if it was my dad or my mother who gave me my artistic ability, or maybe a grandparent. To finally study my family tree.”

  “Ah, hell, darlin’—” This story didn’t have a happy ending. He knew it before she even told him the rest.

  Fiona ran her hands through her hair, her eyes scrunched shut as if she didn’t want to remember. “When my birthday rolled around, everything was an open book. The details were sparse, but they were there. I came from a small rural county up the coast. Rampant poverty. Poor schools. High numbers of opioid deaths. My birth mother was fifteen when she had me. She hemorrhaged after the delivery and died before they could save her.”

  “Good God.” The long-ago tragedy was stunning. “And your father?”

  “He was in jail for drug possession the night I was born. The following day he was released, but on the way to the hospital, he crashed his car into a tree.”

  “Because he was high?”

  “Yes.”

  “Surely you had grandparents.”

  “The official report listed four names. I followed up on each one. All deceased. At that point, I no longer had any interest in looking for cousins or aunts and uncles. I was done.”

  He went to her and held her, feeling the fine tremors that racked her slender body. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  Fiona rested her cheek against his chest. “It was wretched,” she said. “I felt so foolish for all those silly dreams I had spun in my imagination.”

  “Dreams are not bad things.”

  “No. But despite everything I learned, I didn’t regret seeking out the answers. I decided I wouldn’t be defined by my origin story. There was more to me than that. I set goals, and I pursued my passions, and I made peace with my past. Knowing is always better than not knowing, Hartley. That’s why you need to tell Jonathan and Mazie about their mother.”

  He hadn’t expected her to turn this on him, but he should have seen it coming. “There’s a difference,” he said stubbornly, releasing her and going to stare out the window.

  “How?”

  He shot her a look over
his shoulder. “Jonathan and Mazie don’t have any ‘blanks’ like you did. They know who they are. They’re not wondering and wishing. So they aren’t struggling to find answers.”

  “But the truth they believe is a lie.”

  He ground his teeth. There was merit in what she was saying. Still, other factors made him leery of sharing the information with his siblings. “Our father just died. I think that’s enough trauma for one season. Maybe you and I can agree to disagree on this point.”

  “I’m pretty stubborn about things that are important to me.”

  He found a smile, wanting to shift the mood to less volatile topics. “Duly noted.” Pulling out his phone, he flipped to the photo icon. “I actually came tonight to ask about you doing a job for me. A commission.”

  “I’ve got a couple of big things in the works, Hartley.”

  “This will be small. Mazie’s birthday is coming up in a few weeks, and I wanted to surprise her.” He showed her a photo. “This is Mazie and J.B. at their wedding reception. See how he’s looking at her. I know she would love to have you paint this for them.”

  “That’s not really what I do. I focus on outdoor subjects. Landscapes. Birds. That kind of thing.”

  “But you could do it...right? Mazie would flip. She’s been singing your praises to me. She thinks you’re phenomenally talented, and I agree.”

  “Flattery will get you everywhere,” Fiona said. Her laughter loosened the knot in his chest that had appeared when she told him about her parents. “Text me the photo. I’ll fool around with a sketch and see what I can do.”

  “Thank you.” He pulled up her number, sent the photo and set his phone on the coffee table. “How about a kiss before I go?”

  * * *

  Fiona didn’t want him to go. Not at all. She wanted to burrow into his embrace and feel his hands on her body and forget for a few moments that she was in big trouble.

  She cocked her head and stared at him. His innocent expression had to be at least 75 percent fake. He knew what his kisses did to a woman. “Are you asking permission?”