Picture this (Birds of a Feather Book 3)

by Lena North

  “Not a good idea, Mary,” Jack said with a wide grin. “Our boys clearly have something to sort out, so why don’t you and I go and have some coffee while they do that, hmm?”

  I stared at him and heard another grunt, and this time I thought it was from Miller.

  “What?” I breathed.

  “This happens all the time, sweetie,” Mac said, and I jerked around to look at him. “Hawker’s a dick most of the time, and Miller can be one too, so yeah…” he trailed off and indicated the fight by circling his index finger in the air a few times. “This happens a lot. You should probably get used to it.”

  I blinked. Miller had said that they fought all the time, and if they ended up where they were currently over just a small misunderstanding, he’d apparently not exaggerated.

  “Coffee,” I sighed.

  Then I walked out of Johns, followed by a chuckling Jack, and Wilder’s loud cheers. Apparently, she rooted for Miller and not her dad.

  I sat in the soft chair in the back corner and sipped on a latte when a small, old lady came through the door and marched right up to me.

  “When are you going to do Miller?” she asked.

  I choked on my coffee, thinking that she surely couldn’t mean what I thought she meant.

  “Uh,” I wheezed.

  “Tonight?” she pushed, and I blinked.

  Wow. That was kind of specific, wasn’t it?

  “Ma,” Jack choked out, “Jeez, you’re scaring the girl.”

  “She did Poopy, and Marjorie just won’t shut up about it, so she’ll have to do Miller or I will become a neighbor-killer,” she said and turned to me. “You don’t want me to become a neighbor-killer, do you?”

  No?” I said weakly, though it came out as a question more than anything else because my mind was still spinning.

  “Here she is,” the woman said, pulled a photo out of her purse, and handed it to me.

  I felt my eyes widen and my jaw fall.

  “You have a pig called Miller?” I asked.

  “Miniature pig,” she said.

  “Miniature,” I repeated weakly. “It’s a…” I realized I couldn’t remember what a female pig was called, so I settled for, “She?”

  “Gilt,” the woman said, “We haven’t bred her, so she isn’t a sow.”

  “Gilt,” I echoed and felt how my belly started to quiver.

  “So, can you draw her?”

  “Ma,” Jack snapped. “Mary has other things to do and she can’t –”

  I started laughing hysterically and had to put my coffee down.

  “Yes, Mrs –” I paused, but she didn’t introduce herself, so I went on, “I will absolutely draw Miller-the-pig for you.”

  “Good,” she said and sat down and pursed her lips, surveying me with eyes that were sharp and perceptive. “Miller waited long enough, but I see why he did.”

  “Thanks,” I said, though it came out kind of muffled because I was still laughing, so.

  “I’m Veronica Pearson, but you can call me Vera.”

  “Vera,” I said, and stretched my hand out, “It is so nice to meet you. I’m Mary.”

  Then Jack brought his mother coffee and sat down with us. I learned that Miller had saved Miller-the-pig’s life, which was the reason for the name. I also learned that Miller had dated Jack’s sister when he was eighteen and that he’d been arrested thirteen times for speeding by Hawker’s father when he was the sheriff.

  While we talked, I pulled out a drawing pad and let my pen move over the paper. It didn’t take me long to finish what I thought was an okay sketch of the white pig with black spots.

  “What do you think?” I asked.

  “You’re good, girl. Really good,” she said with a satisfied smile. “Better than Murielle, and she’s always been clever with her pens.”

  “Murielle?” I asked.

  “My cousin, the chalkboard idiot,” Jack mumbled.

  “Aha,” I said noncommittally.

  His cousin hadn’t been very good at the chalkboard, but there was no need to insult a woman I’d never even met, and maybe she was better at drawing or painting, I thought.

  “Married Gilmore Johns’ youngest,” Vera said, and when I raised my brows, she muttered, “She wanted Hawker, but he wouldn’t touch her with a pair of tweezers, so she got her claws in his younger brother instead.”

  “Ma,” Jack sighed.

  “Well she did, and they seem happy enough,” she replied. “All those years at the University and then she’s a housewife in Norton, doing your boards every week,” she muttered, and added under her breath, “It’s a waste, though.”

  I wasn’t sure what Vera meant, but regardless, I did not think it was a waste at all since Jack’s cousin clearly had limited artistic talents, and whatever the woman had studied in University could be picked up again when the kids were older. I remembered Wilder’s description of her, and it had not been a favorable one, although I wondered if my friend knew that her aunt-in-law had been chasing her father.

  “Mary,” a deep voice suddenly said by the door and I turned.

  Hawker was standing there, with Miller at his side. They were both grinning so I assumed that they’d settled their differences. They seemed relatively unharmed too, although Hawker had the beginning of a black eye and a split lip.

  They were suddenly pushed to the side and Wilder, Mac, Jinx, and Dante walked past them.

  “Coffee!” Wilder squealed, and the young girl behind the counter jumped.

  Two men that I didn’t recognize followed Wilder to the counter at the back and then three girls about my age walked through the door, carrying shopping bags. They shouted cheery hellos to Jack and started flipping the t-shirts around on a rack to the side, trying to hide their curious glances at me.

  Then Sloane walked in, glanced at her man and the gathering in the store, and her mouth curved. She walked over to me, and we hugged.

  “Hey, sweetie,” she said.

  Miller suddenly cleared his throat but didn’t move or say a word.

  “Shit,” Hawker said.

  I raised my brows and waited.

  “Mary,” Hawker said again. Then he took a deep breath and muttered something.

  “What was that, honey?” Sloane asked, and by the smug look on her face, I suspected she knew something I didn’t.

  Hawker gave her a sour glance, and then Miller cleared his throat again, but this time he was grinning and wiggling his brows at me.

  “I was completely out of line, Mary. I had no business making assumptions, and I was rude,” Hawker pressed out through clenched teeth.

  “Okay,” I said.

  Miller cleared his throat for the third time.

  “I apologize,” Hawker said quickly, but then his face softened. “I really do, Mary. I apologize for what I said yesterday, but also what I said before. I was an ass, and I shouldn’t have been. Please forgive me.”

  Everyone in the store-slash-coffee shop froze and stared at him.

  “Thank you,” I said quietly, wondering about the strange mood.

  “I never thought I’d live to see this day,” Vera breathed.

  Jack tried to hide a chuckle, which earned him a glare and a harsh, “What are you laughing at?” from Hawker.

  “You,” Jack said calmly. “Never heard you apologize like that for anything in your life. You wrecked my dirt bike. Twice. Didn’t get any apology from you.”

  “Fixed it up again, didn’t I?” Hawker muttered.

  “Dad,” Wilder snapped. “You left me for almost twenty years with my silly mother and a criminal step-father. No apology.”

  He turned to her, but I heard Sloane make a small huffing sound.

  “You slept with me, left during the night, and never called. I can’t remember an apology,” she said.

  “I had the wrong number,” he snapped sourly.

  “And you haven’t apologized for that either,” she snapp
ed right back, but I could see how the tips of her mouth quivered.

  “You left Marshes, and I got kidnapped and chased through the night,” Jinx declared, and everyone turned to her. “Just saying,” she said, “I almost died, and there has been no apology for that lovely incident, so far.”

  Hawker turned to Miller who grinned back at him and snorted, “This went way better than thought it would, Hawk.”

  I started giggling, and Hawker walked over to me.

  “Only for Mill, and only this once,” he murmured, and leaned to the side to kiss his girlfriend.

  “I really appreciate it,” I said, trying my best to hold my laughter back because he looked so dismayed.

  “You’re at Da’s house tonight. We’ll use his Bible,” Hawker muttered.

  I stared at him, and then I glared at Miller.

  “You –” I started and pointed at him, but he was pushed to the side, and a loud voice boomed over the coffee shop.

  “Darlings!”

  Bozo sashayed into the store and stretched his arms out. He wore a thin jacket with a fur collar, and a chic scarf in bright pink tied around his neck. His lipstick was, as always, flawlessly applied and matched the scarf perfectly. Carson stopped next to Miller, but Bo continued toward me.

  “Mary, my beautiful…” he started, but then my appearance stunned him into silence, and he stopped. “Fairy princess,” he breathed, finally.

  “You like?” I asked.

  “Love!” he called out, and had almost reached me when he added, “And the glow!”

  What?

  “I come bearing presents for you, little mama!”

  What? No! Shit.

  “I’ve searched the stores to find just the right things ever since we heard that you’d been impregnated,” he said, enunciating the last word loud enough for people in Prosper to hear.

  There were cheers mixed up with laughter all around me, but all I got out was a weak, “Bo…”

  “I’ll be the best uncle in the whole world,” he declared, “You’ll see.”

  Carson walked across the floor, and his soft smile made my throat close up, and my eyes sting. Then he wrapped his arms tightly around me and held me.

  “Stupid, stupid girl,” he muttered. “I’ll be the best uncle in the whole world too.”

  I leaned into him and smiled.

  “I know you will,” I whispered.

  “What?” Bo called out with mock annoyance. “I get no hug?”

  I turned my head and looked at his happy face.

  “I hope it’s a girl,” he exclaimed, and declared, “It must be.”

  I blinked, wondering why it had to be a girl when I had no doubt in my mind that any child of Miller’s wouldn’t dare to be anything but a boy. He must have seen my confusion because he wrapped his arms around both Carson and me, and explained in a whisper that wasn’t nearly quiet enough.

  “Doing it in a room that pink, Mary. I’m sure it’ll be a girl.”

  Then he pulled back and narrowed his eyes.

  “It was in your room, right?”

  There was a stunned silence, and then loud laughter echoed again, and I laughed too, although by then it was breathy and slightly hysterical.

  “Yeah, Boz,” Miller snorted and added, “It was in that room.”

  “I did not need to know that,” Carson muttered, and Bo stared at him.

  “Of course you needed to know that. Wouldn’t you like to know if there was an imminent need to change the couch, or say, get a new kitchen counter?”

  There wasn’t any answer to that, so no one provided it, but when I looked feebly around the room, everyone was grinning at me. Then Jack clapped Miller on the back and congratulated him.

  “That was fast,” he said.

  “It only takes once,” Hawker muttered, most likely speaking from experience since he’d gotten two women pregnant by mistake himself.

  “Actually,” Dante started but stopped speaking when Miller speared him with a glare. “If you don’t want to be a legend…” he said, grinning and raising his hands in the air.

  “I can’t believe he brought that up,” I breathed into Millers tee.

  “I still can’t believe you counted,” he countered, but I felt his chest shake, and then he laughed down at me.

  “I guess we’ll be going to Gilmore Johns tonight?”

  I smiled sweetly back at him, so full of happiness it felt like my heart was overflowing with it.

  “I love you,” I said, and added sweetly, “But I think it’s safe to say that hell will freeze over before we get married.”

  He started laughing again, and so did Hawker.

  “We’re not getting married tonight, you know that, right?” I asked.

  “So you say,” Hawk murmured.

  “Hawker,” I said patiently. “We won’t.”

  “I hear that,” he replied.

  “No,” I said.

  He just snickered, and walked away, muttering, “Whatever.”

  Miller slung an arm around my shoulders and declared that we were leaving. He’d either had enough of Jack’s coffee shop or, more likely, felt the need for a few hours of sleep.

  “You’re staying with us?” he asked his brother, and I melted into him.

  We were an us.

  “Wouldn’t dream of it,” Bo said. “Newlyweds should have some privacy.”

  “We’re not –” I started.

  “They’re with me,” Hawker interrupted.

  “Let’s go, baby,” Miller said, and since he sounded exasperated, I picked up my bag and then we were in the car again.

  “That was nice,” I said when we were alone in the car. “Surreal, but nice.”

  Chapter Sev

  enteen

  You’d better believe I’ll hyphenate

  There was a wedding that night, which apparently was expected, but it didn’t come about the way everyone anticipated.

  The first thing I saw when we walked into Gilmore Johns' living room was a buffet laid out on a side table, and I eyed it greedily.

  “Are you hungry?” Bo asked. “In your delicate condition, I’m sure you can start before the rest of us,” he added.

  I stared at him.

  “I’ve been pregnant for less than a week, Bo. In fact, we don’t actually know for sure yet.”

  “I could do a blood test, and we’d know,” Jinx said.

  “No,” Miller retorted calmly.

  Ha, I thought, though I didn’t say it. I wanted to wait and pee on a stick like a normal person.

  “But –”

  “No,” Miller repeated. “Either she is, just got, or will be pregnant. Don’t care which it is.”

  Shit, I thought. We’d not taken any precautions, so he was right about that.

  Hawker grinned, and then he said, “A few of us need to talk about some things before we eat.”

  “Willy’s papers?” I asked, and he nodded but looked warily at his brothers who were entering the room together with his father.

  They were apparently not invited to their little pow-wow.

  “You guys go ahead,” I said. “I’ll spend some time with your family, Hawk.”

  He looked relieved, but added quietly, “You can come too, Mary, if you want to.”

  “Thanks, but no thanks,” I said, squeezed Millers' waist and walked off toward the group that had entered the room, calling out over my shoulder, “Don’t take too long or I give no guarantees the buffet will remain untouched.”

  “You’re the size of a mosquito, Mary,” Hawker called back, “Pretty sure you could eat as much as you want and we wouldn’t notice it.”

  I laughed at him, winked at Miller and turned to introduce myself to the men who clearly were Hawker’s brothers, Hare and Magnus.

  Carson left with Hawker, but Bo didn’t, and neither did Sloane, and they clearly knew the Johns family well. I sat tucked into Bo’s side and laughed at their h
ilarious banter when the sound of high heels approaching made me turn toward the door. The sound seemed so out of place, and I glanced down at my sneakers.

  “Murielle,” Magnus greeted his wife, and I caught sight of the woman who had drawn the crappy pattern in Jack’s coffee shop, and according to gossip chased Hawker when she was younger.

  “Hello everyone,” she said breezily, walked through the room as if she owned it and sat down with a satisfied sigh. “The kids are in bed, finally.”

  She didn’t look like Jack at all, and she was beautiful. That was the first thing that ran through my mind, although when I looked more carefully at her, I knew why Wilder had thought she looked hard. There was something around her mouth that made her look dissatisfied, almost bitter, and her eyes were shrewd.

  “Sloane,” she drawled and nodded toward the woman sitting next to me. “You’re looking very… voluptuous,” she added, although it sounded like she wanted to say fat.

  My brows went up when I realized that she’d just insulted her brother-in-law’s girlfriend. His very pregnant girlfriend.

  “Of course she does,” I giggled immediately, and explained the obvious, “That’s because she’s pregnant.”

  There was a stunned silence, and I felt Bo’s mid-riff quiver a little. She turned slowly toward me, and I smiled sunnily even though I wanted to slap her.

  “I don’t remember meeting you before,” she said calmly.

  “That’s probably because we haven’t met,” I replied. “I’m Mary.”

  “Ah, Miller’s little girlfriend,” she said.

  “Absolutely,” I agreed. “I won’t be little for much longer, though.” I winked at Sloane who looked like she’d sucked on a lemon but wanted to laugh at the same time, and added, “I’ll be voluptuous too, I suppose.”

  “And you’ll look gorgeous,” Bo said and glared at Murielle as he added, “Like a pixie-goddess.”

  “Sweetie,” I said and leaned my head back to look at him. “I’ll probably look fat, although I know you’ll never say that because that would be so incredibly rude, wouldn’t it?”