by Beth Andrews
She shut her eyes. “This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening.”
What was she doing? J.C. had always been a bit…eccentric. Which was fine when she’d been a teenager and had staged a one-person sit-in at the high-school cafeteria to protest the school’s refusal to offer meat-free lunches once a week. But this was just plain weird.
And if that one word didn’t sum up Jane Cleo Montgomery, nothing did.
She opened her eyes and walked away. Finally, his torment was ending. Except, she whirled back around and threw her hat. It sailed over his head and hit the wall behind him.
“Do you have any idea what I’ve been going through?” she asked quietly, but his headache spiked just the same. “How scared I’ve been? For over a month I told myself that I couldn’t really be pregnant. But now, well—” she gestured to the bag of pregnancy tests “—there’s no more denying it. My worst fears are confirmed and now I get to deal with the joys of an unexpected pregnancy, which includes puking every morning, no matter what I eat or even if I eat.”
Brady rubbed the back of his neck. “What do you want me to say, Jane? That I’m sorry? Okay, I’m sorry.”
“I don’t want an apology. I want you to get your head out of that bottle and help me. How am I going to tell my parents?” she asked, her voice breaking. “How am I supposed to face Liz?”
Grinding his back teeth together, he reached over for the whiskey bottle and added more to his glass. Ignored the unsteadiness of his hand as liquid splattered over his fingers. Damn it, did she think this was easy for him? Any of it? He wiped his hand on the sheet. He’d regretted what had happened between them the moment he’d come to. The last thing he wanted was for Liz—the woman he’d sworn to love for the rest of his life—to find out he’d slept with her kid sister.
“Your family’s close,” he said. And they’d coddled J.C. her entire life. They wouldn’t let her go through this alone. “I’m sure once they get used to the idea, they’ll help you out.”
“Thank you for sharing that brilliant piece of logic,” she said so coldly, so sarcastically, he raised his eyebrows. “Tell you what, when you figure out what, if any, part you want to play in this baby’s life, let me know. In the meantime, you can go to hell.”
He saluted her with his glass. “Already there.”
With a low growl, sweet Jane Cleo Montgomery, the girl who was so bubbly and happy it was as if she’d swallowed a goddamn beam of sunshine, stormed out. A moment later, the front door slammed shut, followed by a dull thud. Which was probably one of the framed family photos his mother had hung in the living room falling.
Brady finished his drink and hung his head, his hands between his knees. Once she thought things through, she’d agree he shouldn’t have any part of this kid’s life. And he sure didn’t want any part of it. Yeah, he used to think about having kids, of becoming the type of father his own dad had been, but that was before. Before his knee, and his life, had gone to hell. Before Liz decided he wasn’t enough.
WHO SAID SHE DIDN’T have a backbone?
So what if Brady was no help to her at all? Or that he didn’t want anything to do with the baby she was carrying? Or with her, J.C. thought late that afternoon as she ignored the heated debate her mother and grandmother were having next to her over whether to thicken the turkey gravy using cornstarch or flour. J.C. shut off the flame under the huge pot of boiling potatoes. She’d handled Brady’s rejection. Not only handled it, but told him where to get off.
Too bad her backbone turned to Jell-O whenever she thought about telling her family she was pregnant. She sipped from her glass of ginger ale, but it did little to soothe her suddenly dry throat. Picking up two pot holders, she hauled the heavy pan of potatoes to the sink and dumped them into the waiting colander, leaning back from the steam in an effort to keep her hair frizz-free, if even for just an hour.
Well, she just had to suck it up and tell them. It wasn’t as if she could hide it much longer anyway. When she’d put on her long suede skirt earlier, she hadn’t been able to button it around her rapidly expanding middle. Which had resulted in a fifteen-minute crying jag and her rethinking her stance against elastic waistbands. A stance she’d taken up after she’d lost weight and had worn her first pair of size-six jeans.
Now she had a large safety pin holding the two edges of her skirt’s waistband together and it still dug into her with every inhalation.
Would the indignities of this day ever end?
She poured the potatoes back into the pot and carried it over to the counter. Giving up this round of culinary battle, Grandma Rose carried a tray of her homemade angel biscuits to the living room, a pinched expression on her wrinkled face, her heavily shellacked blue-tinged hair bouncing with each step. J.C.’s mother, Nancy, stayed at the stove stirring the gravy. And humming.
“What did you do to Grandma?” Liz asked as she came into the room. “She’s in there mumbling about the sad state of the world today and how the youth of America have no respect for the traditional way of doing things.”
“Mom schooled Grandma in the art of gravy making,” J.C. said.
“I didn’t school anyone.” Nancy adjusted the heat beneath the pan with one hand while stirring with the other. “I just pointed out that I’ve thickened my gravy with cornstarch for the past thirty-four years and that her son has never had any complaints about it.”
“Ooh…burn,” J.C. mouthed to Liz.
Liz’s sleek chestnut hair swung as she nodded. “Second degree,” she mouthed back. They shared an easy smile.
Until J.C. remembered what she’d done. How she’d broken the number one rule of sisterhood: no going out with your sister’s ex.
J.C. wiped the back of her hand across her damp forehead. It had to be one hundred degrees in her sister’s cramped kitchen. It didn’t help that she’d had to wear her heaviest turtleneck sweater today, an oversize, soft cable-knit that covered her stomach. And hid the slight bruising from her encounter with Brady. And while she sweated in clothes that added at least ten pounds to her curvy frame, her mother and sister were both cool and stylish. Nancy in trim dark pants and a V-neck top, her short, layered hair was a shade darker than Liz’s with only a few strands of gray. Liz had on skinny jeans and a gorgeous billowy mauve top with a wide band at the bottom that accentuated her tiny waist.
Not that J.C. was bitter or anything.
They usually had Thanksgiving dinner at their parents’ spacious house, but Liz had wanted to host her first official holiday dinner in the house she and Carter were renting while their dream home was being built. And since Carter’s family was in Ohio, it was going to be him, Liz and J.C., their parents and Grandma Rose.
J.C. poured cream over the potatoes, then shook in salt and pepper. All the people she loved the most in this world, everyone she needed to tell about the baby, would soon be gathered around the table. She’d get to face them over plates filled with green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, turkey and stuffing, and then see their shock turn to disappointment when they heard about her latest screwup.
What better way to spend the holiday?
She threw a stick of butter into the pan. Then, seeing the amount of potatoes, added half of another stick before shoving her sleeves up to her elbows, picking up the masher and mixing it all together.
Her mother, obviously satisfied no lumps would dare appear in her gravy, poured it into a gravy boat and peered over at J.C. “Honey, are you feeling all right? You look a bit flushed.”
“I’m fine,” J.C. said. “Just…it’s hot in here.” Okay, so there was a definite edge of whining in her voice. Her life was falling apart and so far she’d had a really crappy day. She deserved a pout.
Nancy laid the back of her hand against J.C.’s forehead, the gesture bringing tears to J.C.’s eyes. “I don’t think you have a fever,” Nancy decided. “Are you sure you’re over that stomach bug?”
She averted her gaze. “Definitely. It was probably something I ate,” she said,
referring to the lie she’d told her mother last Sunday when she’d gotten sick after they’d had brunch.
Nancy smiled and rubbed J.C.’s arm. “Good.” She glanced at the potatoes. “You need to scrape the sides down or you’ll miss lumps. Here, I can finish—”
“I’ve got it.” J.C.’s grip tightened when her mother tried to take the masher from her. “Why don’t you go on out and save Dad and Carter from Grandma’s lecture about the merits of thickening with flour?”
“Be careful you don’t overmash them or they’ll get gluey,” her mother warned. “And remember, you can always add a little milk if they’re too thick.”
“I’ve got it, Mom. Really.”
Though she seemed conflicted about leaving the fate of the potatoes in J.C.’s hands, Nancy nodded and then walked away.
Her mother’s back disappeared around the corner and J.C. let go of the masher as if it had caught fire. God. As if she needed an advanced degree to mash potatoes. And considering it was the one task her family entrusted her to handle for family dinners, you’d think they could give her more credit. Picking up a large spoon, she scraped down the sides and then began pounding away in earnest.
By the time Liz came back into the kitchen, J.C.’s arms were aching from the effort and sweat was trickling between her shoulder blades.
“You can stop now,” Liz said as she attempted to work a few potato pieces out of J.C.’s curls. “Those vicious potatoes are dead.”
“Just making sure I got them all.”
“I think that’s a safe bet. Here,” she added, handing J.C. a large blue serving bowl. “Put them in this.”
“Did you have to cook the entire ten-pound bag?”
“I didn’t want to run out.”
“Who did you think was coming? The Jewell High School marching band?”
“If they do,” Liz said, shutting off the oven, “we’ll be covered.”
J.C. scraped the last of the potatoes from the pan and added them to the mountain already in the bowl. “We could cover ourselves with mashed potatoes and still have enough to eat.”
“Now I know what Carter and I can do with all the leftovers.”
“Eww… Please. That’s one visual I really don’t need.”
“Wait,” Liz said, when J.C. picked up the heavy bowl. “I made something special for you.”
J.C. set it back on the counter. “What?”
“Close your eyes.” J.C. squeezed her eyes shut. She heard the oven door being opened and then shut.
“Ta-da!” Liz said.
“Uh…” J.C. studied the brown, football-shaped loaf in the baking pan. “I repeat, what is it?”
“Tofurkey.”
“Is that like a contagious disease? Because that thing looks like a breeding ground for bacteria.”
“It’s not a science project, it’s a tofu turkey.” Setting the pan down, she used a large metal spatula to transfer the loaf onto a small serving platter. “Mom and I didn’t think it was fair that you got left out of the biggest tradition of Thanksgiving, so we decided to make you a vegetarian turkey. I found the recipe online. It’s basically tofu wrapped around stuffing—Mom made a special version of her bread stuffing using vegetable broth instead of chicken broth.”
J.C. blinked and for some reason, the blob of browned tofu didn’t look half as bad as she’d first thought. At that moment, it looked downright delicious. “You made that for me?”
“Well, I’m sure not going to eat it and I doubt anyone else here is, either.”
“I think it’s beautiful,” J.C. managed, unshed tears thickening her voice.
There were times, more than a few, when they were growing up when J.C. thought she hated her sister. Times when she’d wanted to hate her, if only to try to ease the jealousy that came with having an older sister who was smarter, prettier and more popular than J.C. could ever hope to be.
But the truth was, J.C. loved Liz. There was no way she could harbor any animosity toward the person who was not only her sister but also her best friend.
She threw herself at Liz, knocking her sister back a full step as she clung to her.
“Hey,” Liz said, returning the hug, “what’s this?”
And Liz’s concern made J.C. feel even worse. “You made me a tofu turkey.”
Liz smoothed J.C.’s curls away from her face. “It’s tofu and stuffing, not a cure for cancer. Now come on, what’s wrong? It’s not like you to get emotional over a meat substitute.”
God, how she wanted to tell Liz everything. And maybe if she told Liz about the baby, then Liz could break the news to their parents.
But while that had worked when J.C. had been fifteen and had gotten her belly button pierced, she doubted she could get Liz to bail her out of this situation.
J.C. stepped back. “I always get emotional at the holidays.”
“Yes, but usually you reserve it for sappy commercials.”
“That one where the college kid comes home to surprise his family and makes coffee to wake them gets me every time,” she said lightly, picking up the potatoes again. “Now come on. Let’s get these real potatoes and that fake turkey on the table.”
And the sooner they all sat down, the sooner she could admit she’d had a one-night stand with her sister’s ex-fiancé and was now pregnant. Pregnant and scared out of her mind.
CHAPTER THREE
J.C. PUT THE POTATOES on the table and sat next to her mother. Even though they were eating at the picnic table Carter had brought inside, it somehow still looked like one of those fancy layouts in a home and garden magazine. Liz had covered it with a red tablecloth and then added a white runner down the middle. On the runner, gourds and a few pinecones were scattered around glass bowls filled with bright red and green apples, cranberries and minipumpkins.
J.C. unfolded her red-and-white cloth napkin onto her lap and tried not to think about how the last time she’d hosted a family dinner, they ate off paper plates. And her mother had provided most of the food.
Ten minutes later, grace had been said, dishes had been passed and her plate was piled high with food. J.C. nibbled at a flaky, buttery biscuit but couldn’t seem to swallow properly. If she didn’t come clean to her family right now, she’d never be able to eat her meal. And she was starving.
Setting her biscuit down, she brushed the crumbs off her fingers. “I have an announcement,” she said but her voice was so reedy, no one heard her over their laughter and conversation. “I have some news,” she yelled, blushing when everyone quieted and stared at her.
To her left, Grandma Rose peered at J.C. over her glasses. “Did you get fired again?”
Jeez. You get fired a few times—okay, five times, but that third time was not her fault—and suddenly it’s, what, a habit?
“No. I’m still employed.” J.C. drank some water. “I…”
“Come on, sweetie,” her dad said, giving her a wink as he scooped sweet potatoes onto his fork. “Whatever it is, it can’t be as bad as when you stopped going to college but didn’t officially drop out, leaving me to foot the bill for a year’s worth of classes you didn’t take.”
“Daddy,” Liz admonished while Carter ducked his head and coughed—the sound suspiciously close to a laugh. “We all promised not to talk about that again, remember?”
J.C. twisted the napkin around her fingers. “I told you I’d pay you back.”
“We’ve been through this,” Nancy said, shooting her husband a loaded look. “You can worry about paying us back once you’re on your feet.” She sipped her wine. “Now, what is it you want to tell us?”
“You…you and Daddy…” Her voice shook so she took another drink, and then, staring at the table, said, “You’re going to be grandparents.”
When no one spoke, J.C. raised her head.
A huge, proud smile broke out across her dad’s face. He pumped Carter’s hand, not noticing his son-in-law was too flabbergasted to return his handshake. “Congratulations. When are you due?” Don asked Liz
.
“Due?” Carter repeated, his gorgeous face devoid of color, his green eyes panicked as he gaped at his wife. “What’s due? Who’s due?”
“I thought you wanted to wait a few years before having children,” Nancy said to Liz.
“Yeah,” Carter choked out, his hand still being pumped by his father-in-law, “me, too. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t tell you,” Liz said slowly, “because I’m not pregnant.”
Frowning, Don let go of Carter’s hand and sat back. “What? But Janie said…”
Staring at her plate again, J.C. felt five expectant gazes turn on her.
“Jane,” her mother said sharply, “are you pregnant?”
Biting down on her lower lip, she nodded.
“Oh, dear Lord,” Grandma Rose murmured.
“But…but I didn’t realize you were seeing someone,” Don said, sounding lost and hurt. J.C. winced.
“I’m not.” Raising her head, she sent Liz a beseeching look. “It was a…a mistake.”
“Oh, Lord Almighty,” her grandma cried, throwing her hands up as if she were at a tent revival meeting.
Her mom shook her head, her disappointment palpable. “Didn’t we teach you to have more self-respect than that?”
J.C.’s throat constricted. “It wasn’t like that,” she whispered.
No, it was worse. Because even though she’d known Brady was using her as a substitute for Liz, J.C. had gone along with it.
Liz rushed around the table and, crouching next to J.C., put her arm around her sister and squeezed. “Now, let’s all calm down. This can’t be easy for J.C.”
Don stood. “What’s his name?” he asked in a low, deadly tone J.C. had never heard before. Not even when she’d sold the car they’d bought her as a high-school graduation present to pay for a trip to Europe.