“I planned to talk to him when we got back to Atlanta. His parents’ basement is no place to tell a man he’s going to be a daddy.”
“I think you should assume the whispers have started as of now. Better move your timetable up if you want him to hear it from you first.”
Chapter Nineteen
Beau sat between Savannah and his father at the round table in the center of the banquet room where the Daughters of Magnolia Grove, along with plenty of friends and family, had gathered to eat, drink, and be merry. Mrs. Pinkerton stood at a lectern in front of the room, giving her annual year-in-review speech spotlighting citizens who’d celebrated a milestone during the last twelve months. The crowd applauded in response to everything from newborns to ninetieth birthdays.
He knew from years ago the evening would wind down shortly afterward. Some people would head out for Midnight Mass, and some would head home to put kids to sleep and then stuff stockings, wrap last-minute gifts, and do all the stuff parents did to make sure Santa had come and gone by the time the first little eyes blinked open on Christmas morning. Still, sitting in the room among all the neighborly goodwill reminded him the Magnolia Grove Christmas Eve dinner was a nice tradition. Catching up with people had been more fun and less uncomfortable than he’d anticipated.
At least for him. Beside him, Savannah twisted her napkin, untwisted it, smoothed it over her lap, and then began twisting it again. All the while her eyes darted around the room. She’d been on edge all night, and he was beginning to think she’d lied her pretty little lips off earlier when she’d told him she felt better. He placed a stilling hand over her restless ones, and she nearly jumped out of her chair.
He leaned close. “Are you all right?”
Those big blue eyes bounced to him, and then back to the lectern. “Yes. I’m sorry I’m so fidgety. I just…I really need to talk to you. After this, can we drop your parents at home and go for a drive or something?”
“Sure.” He kept his voice casual even though his gut tightened. They’d agreed to back-burner the whole conversation about staying, but evidently she’d given the matter more thought. Her anxious look suggested he wasn’t going to be thrilled with her decision. He straightened in his chair and faced front while he racked his brain for ways to change her mind.
“…and speaking of engagements,” Mrs. Pinkerton rambled on, “please join me in congratulating Laurel and Bill Smith and Cheryl and Trent Montgomery on the engagement of Savannah Smith and Beau Montgomery.”
His face heated as the proverbial spotlight landed on them and the room filled with more applause. Around the table their parents beamed. Sinclair looked oddly tense, which was weird because she knew the score.
“Now, I know that’s not breaking news. We all saw the announcement in the Gazette a few weeks ago, but I’m going to go out on a limb and speculate they’re opting for a short engagement.”
The comment brought some whistles and laughter, but Savannah clenched her fists and whispered, “Please don’t.”
“Why do I hazard such a guess? Well, let’s say I got a little scoop tonight. Please join me in being the first to congratulate the happy couple on the impending arrival of Baby Smith-Montgomery!”
What? Reenergized applause drowned out the echo of the words in his ears, but everything else shifted into a disorienting slow motion. People smiled broadly. His father clapped him on the back. Savannah’s mom flung her arms around her daughter. Sinclair covered her face with her hand, and Savannah…
Savannah looked up at him—he belatedly realized he’d gotten to his feet—her lips and cheeks feverish red against her ghostly skin.
“What?” he repeated, and the word came out that time. “Is it true?”
But he knew. Before her hand came to rest on her flat abdomen, before she nodded, he knew. A jumble of fragmented details suddenly clicked into a complete and undeniable picture. Nausea, low energy, her suddenly sensitive breasts. A raw and livid panic tore through him, along with a crushing sense of betrayal. How long had she known?
She stood and reached for him. “Beau, I—”
“What were you thinking?” He stepped back, away from her touch.
Now she straightened, and her mouth firmed. “I didn’t plan this.”
“Right. You didn’t plan to buy a wedding dress either, but surprise. You’ve got one. How long have you known?”
“I took the test before we left for the inn.”
“Then why am I finding out from Claudia fucking Pinkerton?” He raked his hands through his hair and tugged on the too-long strands. “I can’t believe you would try to manipulate me like this.”
“Beauregard Montgomery!” His father’s voice barely registered. Hands landed on his shoulders, but he shook them off.
“Manipulate you? Like this?” Savannah flung her arms out and then let them drop to her sides. “Are you serious? Yeah, Montgomery, you fell into my trap. I lured you over to my apartment, bashed you in the head hard enough to plant this genius engagement-of-convenience scheme in your mind, and then got pregnant so, boom, you’d be stuck following through.” She punched him in the chest with a closed fist. “Because of all the men in Atlanta, I set my diabolical sights on the emotionally unavailable paramedic who can barely gather up the courage to admit he ‘cares’ for me. I thought, ‘Hell, yes, that’s the man I want to be the father of my child—’”
“What do you mean, engagement-of-convenience?” Laurel’s voice broke in.
“Mom, not now.” Sinclair stepped between them. “Time-out. You”—she pointed to Beau—“you need to back off. Right now.”
Somebody tried to pull him away from the table, but the temper he usually kept on a leash jerked hard in the opposite direction, even though every other instinct urged him to close his mouth and walk away—keep walking until he had himself under control or his legs broke, whichever came first.
Temper won the tug-of-war, but by the time he stood toe-to-toe with Savannah, the temper had solidified into bleak defeat that sat on his chest like a corpse. “I told you I couldn’t.” His voice creaked. “I told you I don’t have it in me, and I told you why. It’s a permanent condition, Savannah. Blind people can’t see. Deaf people can’t hear, and I can’t…” The pressure on his chest threatened to crush him. “I can’t. I have obligations, and I’ll meet them, but I cannot go down this rabbit hole. Not even for you.”
She shoved him, hard enough to back him up a step. “I am nobody’s obligation.” Another shove, but this time he held his ground. “This baby is nothing but a blessing, and if you can’t see that”—she came at him one more time—“stay the hell away from us.”
She wanted him gone? Fine. Gone was where he should have been weeks ago.
He remembered nothing about crossing the banquet room except people stepping out of his way, but somehow he arrived at the door. He paused there and turned back. Savannah stood in the middle of the room, a small oasis of red with her arm wrapped protectively across her stomach and unspeakable sadness in her eyes. He pushed through the doors and welcomed the sting of cold night air.
His phone started vibrating before he even climbed into the Yukon. He ignored it and put the truck in drive, following the one imperative screaming through his mind.
Escape.
Scenery zipped by as he drove along Broad Street—past the turn to his parents’ house—all the way to the on-ramp and straight out of town.
When the hum of his phone became incessant, he turned it off. Savannah wouldn’t call. He’d officially moved himself to the ex list, like good old One-for-Three, and she’d demonstrated clearly enough that once she was done with somebody, she was done.
They never should have gotten started.
He didn’t need to hear his dad tell him he was a disgrace or listen to his mom go on about how he’d broken everyone’s hearts to know he’d fucked up. He had all of that coming, and more, but right now he had to get the hell away or he was going to explode.
He spent the
next two hours realizing escape wasn’t as simple as getting in a vehicle and hauling ass. In the course of the last month Savannah had infiltrated every area of his life, including his car. Each time he breathed, he inhaled faint traces of her perfume. A trio of ponytail holders sat stacked on the gearshift knob. A nail file peeked out from the passenger door pocket. Some change rattled in the center console cupholder, crowned by a yellow tube of lip balm with a bee on the side. The clear concoction inside had touched her lips a hundred times…something he’d never do again. A sense of loss he didn’t want, and wasn’t entitled to, swamped him.
By the time he trudged up the stairs to his apartment, he craved only one thing—complete and total oblivion. A shadow by his door moved. His adrenaline surged and then subsided as a figure pushed off the wall and the light from the overhead fixture landed on Hunter.
The blond man checked his watch and then looked at Beau and raised a brown paper bag clearly containing a bottle of liquor. “Merry fucking Christmas.”
“Merry fucking Christmas to you. What are you doing here?” He motioned Hunter aside and unlocked his door.
“I’m Santa’s little helper. I got a call informing me your Christmas Eve didn’t go as planned, and asking me to do a welfare check.” Hunter followed him inside and went directly to the kitchen to get two glasses from the cabinet.
“My mom called you?”
“No. Not your mom.”
Hunt poured two double shots of whiskey, and Beau flashed back to the afternoon he’d gone shot-for-shot with Savannah. And lost. Or won, depending on how one looked at it.
“My dad, then.”
“Not anyone in your family.” He pushed one of the glasses across the counter and took the other for himself.
“How is she?” How do you think she is, moron?
Hunter shrugged. “She sounded okay, I guess, given the circumstances.”
Circumstances like being publicly accused of manipulation and deceit by a man she thought she loved after telling him she was pregnant with his child? He already regretted the words. Savannah lived life openly and spontaneously. Manipulation wasn’t part of her makeup. Good or bad, she held nothing back. He couldn’t say the same for himself. “She told you what happened?”
“I got the gist. I didn’t actually talk to her very long. I mostly spoke to someone named Sinclair, and if you’re inclined to keep your balls, I’d avoid her for the next little while if I were you.” He downed his drink and then gave a long, eighty-proof exhale.
Beau did the same and slid his empty glass back to Hunter.
His partner gave him a speculative look. “You ready to talk, or do you want to shut up and drink?”
Easiest decision he’d made all night. “Shut up and drink.”
…
“You’re too calm. I’m worried you’re in shock.” Sinclair donned oven mitts and opened her old, battered oven. The smell of apple pie wafted out even before she reached in and extracted the steaming pastry.
Maybe she was in shock, because Savannah fought an urge to laugh at the incongruity of Sinclair standing there in her high heels and racy black dress, now accessorized with flaming skull oven mitts and a piping hot pie. She didn’t give in to the impulse because of a strong fear that if she unleashed her emotions, she’d soon be sobbing uncontrollably. “I’m not in shock. I’m just—” She splayed her hands on the worn surface of Sinclair’s antique pine table and searched for the right explanation. “Tonight went about as poorly as it could have, but screaming and crying won’t improve anything.”
“And pie will?”
“They call it comfort food for a reason.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t know how comforting a frozen apple pie from the gas station food mart is going to be.” She placed the pie on a trivet in the middle of the table alongside two forks, took off the oven mitts, and sat down across from Savannah. “Chances are it’s not going to stand up to your homemade version, but my options were limited, given it’s Christmas.”
“How bad can they screw up pie?”
Sinclair handed her a fork and then dug into the domed center of the flaky crust with her own. “I guess we’ll find out.”
Savannah dug in as well. They spent a moment blowing on the steaming forkfuls.
Sinclair inhaled. “It smells good.”
“It does. Looks pretty good, too.”
They took bites at the same time.
“Oh my God.” Sinclair’s face fell. “Worst pie ever.” She took another bite, as if she couldn’t believe what her taste buds were telling her. “It’s a crime against pie. It’s crap.”
“It is,” Savannah agreed around a mouthful of dry, hard apple chunks, synthetic, gloppy filling, and a crumbly sawdust crust. She swallowed and, to her horror, burst into tears. “A-and I’m the worst mom ever, because I’m feeding my baby crap.”
Sinclair was at her side immediately. “You’re not the worst mother ever.”
“I am.” Crappy gas-station pie was a ridiculous trigger, but now that the tears had started, she couldn’t seem to stop them. “What if I’ve just ruined pie for this baby forever?” She tossed her fork down. “I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. I can’t do this on my own.”
“You’re not on your own.” Her sister took her by the shoulders and looked her in the eye. “You will never be on your own. You’ve got me. Mom and Dad, Beau’s parents—“
“M-mom and Dad are so horrified they can’t even look at m-me.”
“They’re in shock—angry and disappointed you lied to them—but they’ll forgive you. They love you, and they’re going to love their grandchild. As for Beau’s parents, let Beau deal with them…at whatever point he pulls his chickenshit head out of his ass.”
“What if he doesn’t?”
“He will.”
“Were you not just cursing him out thoroughly to his partner on the phone an hour ago?”
“Yep. And I’ll curse him out to his face, next chance I get. But I also know he cares about you. He told you so himself.”
“The situation has changed. That’s not good enough anymore. This baby needs a father who loves it freely and unconditionally. Not some emotionally resistant man who meets his legal obligations but refuses to get too close.”
“Give him a little bit of time to get his head straight. Your getting pregnant is his worst nightmare come to life. What if something happens? What if history repeats itself? All he’s focused on right now are the risks. He can’t see past them, so he’s trying to close himself off. The thing is, his walls were already starting to crumble. He couldn’t hold out.”
“He’s held out pretty well for the last three years.”
Sinclair folded her hands on the table and tilted her head to the side. “No. He hid out well for the last three years. He blockaded his heart and nobody got past the barriers until this Thanksgiving, when he lowered them enough to trust you with a problem and ask you for help. He let you into his life—not for the right reasons, and certainly not with the intention of falling for you—but he let you in. Now he cares for you, and I hope he loves you. He just needs to grow a pair and figure it out.”
“I can’t wait forever for him to figure his shit out. I have to start making plans now.”
“Wait a little while, Savannah.”
She folded her arms and stared at the floor. “Why should I?”
“First, because you’re in love with the man. Second, he’s the father of your child, so he’s always going to need a way back. Don’t go to Italy without talking to him.”
Savannah ran her hand over her stomach and accepted reality. “I’m not going to Italy.” The words were surprisingly easy to say.
“You’re not? I thought the fellowship represented the opportunity of a lifetime.”
“This baby is my opportunity of a lifetime, and I don’t want to have him or her five thousand miles from home. I’d actually been thinking about declining the fellowship anyway. The Mercer Gallery offered to represent me,
and I trust them. I moved to Atlanta to secure a deal with a reputable gallery that could help establish me in a regional market, and if I accept the offer from Mercer, I’ve fulfilled that goal.”
“And you have your baby at home.”
Savannah nodded. “Provided home isn’t located across the hall from Beau-how-could-you-manipulate-me-this-way-Montgomery. Can I move in with you for a while?”
Sinclair reached around and gave her a hug. “Crazy Aunt Clair always has room for you.”
Chapter Twenty
Beau woke up on his sofa with his cheek sweat-glued to the leather and a yellow Post-it note stuck to his forehead. He peeled it off and flipped it over. The weak gray morning light filtering into the apartment assaulted his eyes, but he forced them to focus on the note. He recognized Hunter’s scrawl.
Call your mother.
P.S. I’m never drinking again.
Yeah, right. He got up, astounded when his head didn’t roll right off his shoulders, and dragged his sorry ass to the medicine cabinet to swallow three painkillers with a handful of tap water. Then he brushed his teeth, splashed his face with a couple more handfuls of water, and took stock.
Red eyes, scruffy jaw, the complexion of a zombie. Not much of a way to show up on his parents’ doorstep on Christmas Day, but they’d seen worse—much worse—and he owed them an in-person explanation and apology. He owed Savannah’s parents the same.
And you need to talk to Savannah…
Had she come home last night? If so, she’d gotten into her apartment more quietly than she’d ever managed in the past six months. He’d been listening for any telltale footfalls on the stairs, or the rattle of a key in a lock—right up until he’d passed out. His eyes dropped to the counter, where the assortment of bottles and jars and…product…had multiplied in some seemingly organic way since the first evening she’d come over with a bag full of stuff to set the scene for his parents.
This was no longer set dressing, though. He tugged off his undershirt and walked to the bedroom to change into clean clothes. His apartment—his life—had morphed into a shared space. He shouldn’t have let it happen, because before she’d come along, he’d been content with his orderly, somewhat stark apartment and his orderly, somewhat isolated life. Now the thought of her things not cluttering the counter, or her discarded robe not tossed across her pillow—the thought of her not being there—left a dangerous void. The kind of void that would drive him to her doorstep to offer things he couldn’t afford to offer.
Emergency Engagement (Love Emergency) Page 18