by Leslie North
“Okay, then,” Scout finally said. “We’ll do it. I’ll read up and start making some calculations. I’m thinking we could start in a couple of weeks.” He stood and grabbed her mug and the empty bottle from the beer he’d drunk at some point during her quick and dirty lesson on low-tech irrigation techniques. He set both items on the kitchen counter, then faced her from across the kitchen. “I had the crew put all your things in your old room. I thought you might want to redo some stuff in George’s room before you moved in there—I mean if you want to move in there.”
Reality came crashing in on Stella. She didn’t want to move into her grandpa’s room, but she would need to at some point, because it was bigger. Big enough to have a crib and a changing table added. Her hand settled over her stomach, and her heart fluttered nervously. What if he got mad when she told him? What if he quit, leaving her with a farm that had no foreman. Pregnant, out of work…
“Stella?” His voice pulled her out of the panic. “Are you okay? All of a sudden, you went all pale on me.”
She looked up to find him staring down at her, not from across the kitchen, but right there, where she could reach out and touch him.
“Um, we have something else to talk about,” she said quietly, gesturing at the chair he’d vacated minutes ago.
“Yeah, plenty of stuff, but we don’t have to do it all tonight.” He pulled his phone from his pocket. “It’s after eight, and you’ve been driving all day. My work starts at four a.m. Maybe we could wait until tomorrow to talk some more?”
She shook her head. “This really can’t wait. Can you please sit? You’re kind of…” she waved a hand between them, “looming.”
He scoffed but sat down.
She took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “I’m pregnant,” she blurted.
He stared at her for a moment. “Oh, um, congratulations?”
She looked at him and realized he didn’t understand.
“It’s yours.”
“What?!” He nearly came out of his chair. “That’s…that’s…” he sputtered, his hands gripping the edge of the old wooden table as if he might tear a chunk off.
“Entirely true,” she finished. “I’m twelve weeks along, finishing the first trimester, and since I haven’t slept with anyone else in the last eight months, it’s definitely yours.”
She watched him let go a big whoosh of breath. His eyes were bright and sharp, his face flushed, and his body as tense as an overtightened guitar string. “Fuck,” he finally muttered.
“Something along the lines of my thoughts when I first found out,” she answered.
“How?” He swallowed. “I mean, I guess we didn’t really…”
“No, we didn’t talk about it, but I didn’t think we needed to. I was on the pill. Unfortunately, I was also exposed to virulent bacteria in Benin and had to take antibiotics that interfere with the pill.”
“Shit.” Another brilliant observation. Stella was beginning to worry he’d be rendered speechless for the duration of the pregnancy. Then he pulled through, and she could breathe again. “Will it hurt the baby?” he asked. “The bacterial thing, I mean.”
“No.” She gave him a tiny smile. “No, it’s fine. Everything’s fine, apparently. Going along just like it should.”
His brow furrowed. “Good. That’s really good. So you’ve been to a doctor?”
“Yes, twice, and they gave me a name of someone here in town to use. I’m due for another check next week, and…” She stopped. It was a lot all at once. Maybe he wouldn’t be interested, and maybe she’d feel terrible if he wasn’t.
“Yeah?” he asked, regaining some of his natural color.
“It’s time for an ultrasound, if you wanted to come along.”
“Really?” he perked up more. “Like see it swimming around in there or whatever?”
She laughed. “I’m not sure there’s enough to see all that yet. But you can hear the heartbeat, they said. And maybe see a little shape.”
He nodded, his expression just this side of bemused. “Wow. Well, okay then. I’d like to go.”
Though she tried to ignore it, her heart gave a little flutter of joy. He hadn’t rejected her outright—the baby, she meant. Maybe this would work out.
“There’s a lot to decide,” she told him. “I’ve been thinking about it all for a couple weeks now, but I realize you haven’t had a chance.”
He scratched his head. “Yeah, there’s a whole lot to think about.”
“So maybe we can just take it day by day? Kind of chip away at it?”
He smiled then, and for the first time in weeks, she felt like everything was going to be all right.
“That sounds good,” he replied before standing and moving to her side of the table. He put out his hand, and when she put hers in it, he pulled her to her feet. He kissed her softly on the forehead, the same way he’d done after their one-night stand. “Sleep well, Stella,” he said before moving away and going out the back door.
5
“Holy shit,” Scout’s brothers said in unison as they stared at him across a table at Nadine’s Diner. He’d called a special meeting of their weekly breakfast club because, well, pregnant one-night stands were worthy of some brotherly support.
“How the hell did that happen?” Bran asked.
“Well, when the daddy puts his—” Hunter began.
“Stop.” Scout put a hand up as Bran and Hunter both grinned. “It was stupid, just a chain of bad decisions and accidents.”
“You sure it was an accident?” Bran asked.
“Yes,” Scout replied, glaring.
“Dad is rolling over in his grave,” Hunter muttered.
“But Mom is planning a baby shower,” Bran added. Hunter and Scout couldn’t help but nod in agreement.
“Ooh, if it ain’t my three favorite men!” Nadine, the owner of the diner cooed as she arrived with a coffee pot in one hand and a tray in the other. “What brings you boys here on a Monday?” she asked, batting her mile-long fake eyelashes at each brother in turn.
“Oh, we just wanted to see you, Nadine,” Scout told her, taking a grateful sip of the coffee she’d just poured.
“Well, Scout, I always said you were the sweetest of all the Beckett boys.” She picked up a plate off her tray and set it in front of him.
Scout shot a triumphant look at his older brothers across the table. They rolled their eyes in return.
“You get lonely out there on the farm, you can always stop by,” Nadine flirted.
“Will do, Miss Nadine,” Scout answered, putting extra twang in his Texas.
After she left, Bran muttered, “Don’t encourage her.”
“She gave me a free cinnamon roll, though.” Scout bit into delicious sugary goodness.
“Back to business,” Hunter said. “Mainly, what the hell are you going to do?”
Bran looked at Hunter as if he’d lost his mind. “Well, he’s going to marry her, of course.”
Hunter looked at Scout.
“Who said anything about getting married?” Scout balked.
“She’s pregnant.” Bran’s voice was filled with shock. “What the hell else would you do?”
“This isn’t 1950,” Hunter reminded him gently.
“But he is a Beckett man. We take care of our responsibilities.”
All three brothers looked at one another in silence for a moment, then Scout sighed. “Yes, we do.”
“But that doesn’t mean you have to marry her,” Hunter was quick to point out around a mouthful of bacon.
“I want to be there for her and the baby. But I hardly know her.”
“Well.” Bran picked up his coffee cup and tipped it at Scout. “Then you’d better get to know her, and fast. Six months and counting, baby brother.”
Stella woke to a lesser version of the nausea that had plagued her for the last twelve weeks. “Hey,” she said, placing a hand over her still-flat stomach. “I thought we agreed you were going to stop this?” She breathed
through another wave, closing her eyes and practicing the visualization she’d read about in an online article about morning sickness. Hell. It never worked.
She sat up in the big wrought iron bed her grandfather had gotten her at an antique shop when she was six, grabbing the packet of saltines off her matching nightstand. Nope, the only thing that worked were starches. Lots of starches.
Thirty minutes later, she leaned against the kitchen counter, sipping peppermint tea, a piece of toast in her other hand.
The back door opened, and in strode Scout, wide awake, grinning, and way too alpha male for this early in the morning.
“Are you allowed to have caffeine?” he asked as he set his phone and a huge key ring down on the counter.
She bristled, but then she reminded herself that the alternative—the father of her child not giving a damn—was no better. “I can have a little, but this happens to be peppermint tea,” she answered.
He nodded. “Have you been sick? I mean, isn’t that what happens? Morning sickness?”
“Yes. It is, and I have been. It’s gotten better the last week or so, but it still takes me a while to get going in the morning.”
He came around the counter and leaned opposite her, crossing his arms. “So, did you have to quit your job to come fulfill the stipulations of your grandfather’s will?”
She slowly chewed a bite of toast. The messages she’d finally gotten from Scout when she’d returned from her assignment had all said the same thing—Where are you and when will you be here? She’d wondered if he had any idea how difficult it was to simply drop your entire life to move somewhere for nine months. She had no idea what was going through her grandfather’s head when he’d made the damn will. It was disheartening to think he might have had so little respect for the life she’d built that he hadn’t even considered what he was doing to it when he made her move to the farm. Granted, she hadn’t seen him in ages with her travel schedule. She swallowed down the guilt reminding herself that it was too late now.
“I’m actually a consultant. I work on contract,” she told him, setting the toast down on a plate and focusing on holding the tea. Scout had a piece of hair falling over one eye, and she needed to keep her hands busy or she’d reach out and brush it aside. “That’s why I needed to go back to Benin after the funeral. I had a contract to finish up. When the stipulations of the will became clear, I cancelled my next gig and told all the other agencies I typically work with that I was taking a sabbatical.”
His brow furrowed. “So what are you thinking to do after the sabbatical?” he asked. The tone was casual, but she could tell her answer mattered to him. It created a tangle of feelings. She was grateful he cared enough about the baby to want to know, but she was irritated at the implication she needed to run her plans by someone else.
Stella had been an independent entity since she was old enough to drive a car and earn a paycheck. Even with this situation, Mirabelle had just smiled and handed Stella organic fruit as she walked out the door. Hell, Mirabelle hadn’t asked one question about how Stella intended to raise or support this baby. She’d just given some recommendations for Ayurvedic teas and kept talking about the importance of using cloth diapers.
And somehow, Stella knew before she answered that he wouldn’t take it well. “I plan to go back to work, of course.”
Scout’s gaze shot to hers, and he stiffened, standing straighter and uncrossing his arms. “Back to work where?”
“Wherever the work takes me. That’s sort of the nature of the job.”
“And what exactly are you planning to do with the baby—our baby?” he asked, volume rising.
Stella felt that bristling sensation return. Yes, it was good to have a father who cared—unlike the one she’d been handed—but that didn’t mean he had the right to question her career decisions. She’d made a life for herself, and she wasn’t about to give that up when she didn’t have to.
“The baby will come with me, of course. Most of the places I work are villages, and the people I work with are regular families who live in those villages. Babies are strapped to their mamas’ backs out in the fields all the time. And if I don’t want her with me all day, there are plenty of village women who will watch her along with their own.”
Scout simply stared at her, recrossing his arms, his posture now taking on a decidedly hostile look.
“I see,” he said softly. “So how many months a year do you typically work out of the country?”
Her chin went up, gaze narrowing on his. “As many as I can. Nine. Ten. Sometimes eleven.”
He nodded, his lips twisting in anger. She’d never seen charming, patient Scout anywhere close to angry. She had a sinking feeling she wasn’t going to like this.
“Let me see if I have this straight? I’m the father, and I’m here with you for the pregnancy. I have legal obligations—child support—and moral ones—love, protection—yet you’re going to take my child out of the country anywhere between nine and eleven months a year, to third-world countries with unstable governments, rampant poverty, and often inadequate health care. And you apparently didn’t think it was necessary to consult with me on this? You thought—what? I’d just sign checks and send birthday cards to Zimbabwe?”
Stella felt her face flush with humiliation and anger. No, she hadn’t thought that. The truth was, she hadn’t thought about Scout at all. She knew she needed to tell him, knew it would be better if he gave a damn, but beyond that? She hadn’t thought about his part in the whole thing at all.
Scout ran a hand through his hair, looking like he wanted to hit something. Instead, he turned his back to her and leaned stiff-armed against the kitchen counter.
“It’s our child,” she said, her voice low and hard as glass.
He looked at her over his shoulder. “What?”
“You said I was going to take your child out of the country. It’s our child.”
He scoffed, pushing off the counter and looking at her briefly before he began to walk toward the back door. “If your plans are any indication, it’s your child,” he snapped, before walking out the door and slamming it behind him.
6
Two days later, Stella hadn’t seen Scout in the house again. Jean Anne came for an hour or two every morning to help clean, cook, and provide some company, and Stella had begun slowly going through her grandfather’s things, sorting them into garbage, thrift store, and keep piles. But Scout had stayed away, and while her pride was struggling to come to terms with it, her conscience knew she needed to apologize.
Stella’s independence was the thing that had always kept her life on track. She didn’t need much in the way of help or support; she was a unit unto herself. Mirabelle had been the same way. Men came and went, Mirabelle let them, but she never relied on them for anything. And when Stella came along, Mirabelle had simply incorporated her into the autonomous bubble she’d formed.
But Stella’s dad hadn’t wanted to be involved. And it seemed as though Scout did. She had no idea how that would look going forward, but she knew it wasn’t fair for her to simply ignore it.
She didn’t know how to approach him with that apology, though, so Stella did what she was best at—she worked. When sorting through her grandpa’s things wore thin, she moved on to the irrigation system Scout had talked about.
“Hi, Lonny,” she said as she entered the equipment barn on a sunny afternoon.
“Hey there, Miss Stella. How are you today?” Lonny looked up from the boxes of auto parts he was digging through.
“Everything’s good. How’s the paperwork coming for your brother to buy that acreage? I’m really sorry it took me so long to approve it for him.”
“Scout said the lawyers will have it ready in a couple of days, so no worries. It’s all going to end up fine.”
“Oh, good.”
He stood, a carburetor in his hand. “Do you need to find something out here, or just getting some fresh air?”
“Oh, yes. Thanks. My memory la
tely is a little scattered.”
Lonny just smiled patiently.
“I think we’re going to try this low-tech irrigation system on the far acreage that’s drying out this year. I thought I’d look around and see if we had any of the parts we’ll need to build the dhoras.”
“Well, we have a lot of spare parts out here—pieces of milking machines, plumbing lines, tractors, trucks—” He held up the carburetor. “Heck, we even have parts from household appliances.” He turned in a circle as if reminding himself of all of it. “Most of the stuff is in these boxes, and the boxes are labeled, but it’s general, like…washing machine, or PVC lines. So it takes some digging.”
“That’s fine,” she answered, smiling. “I need to get out of the house, but I want to do something useful. This is perfect. And who knows, maybe I’ll find some hidden treasure.”
Lonny laughed. “If you can find treasure in this mess, you definitely get to keep it. Everyone else avoids this place like the plague.”
Stella laughed as Lonny left, and then she began to hunt through the boxes, reading labels and digging through greasy chunks of metal. It was going to be a long afternoon, but at least she’d be distracted from worrying about how to handle Scout.
Scout hadn’t let himself react when Lonny quietly took him aside to tell him Stella was in the equipment barn going through things. After all, Stella had made it perfectly clear neither she nor the baby needed him. They were going to travel the world—year-round—and if he were lucky, maybe they’d send him a few postcards. So he told himself he didn’t care what Stella was doing over there in the barn with all that equipment—dirty dangerous equipment, equipment that could fall on a person, cut a person and give them tetanus, equipment that could expose someone to toxic chemicals like pesticides. Nope. Scout wasn’t going to think about all that.