by Kate Kisset
“And Boone…” Georgia’s focus drifted toward the stage area. “He...what? Abandoned you? That doesn’t sound like him.”
“He didn’t, but he had his hands full with Harlan’s mess. You did a great job getting to the bottom of Harlan’s story, by the way.”
“Thanks, but I’m not following.”
Becca shifted, trying to make herself more comfortable, while explaining the mess. “I didn’t find out the truth about Harlan’s situation until much later, when I read your article with the rest of the world. Boone didn’t tell me what was going on while they were in the thick of it. We were getting serious, and he was staying out all night, acting completely different.”
“Covering for his brother.” Georgia sighed.
“Right.” Becca nodded. “I guess I couldn’t handle the stress of worrying about whether to believe Boone, on top of agonizing over whether I’d ever walk again… So when my aunt invited me to stay at her place in Malibu, I tell you,” she lowered her voice, “sunshine sounded like a very good idea. So, I left. There was a lot going on here with the Becketts. Too much.”
“I’ll say.” Georgia wiped her mouth with a napkin. “You know, those cheating rumors where just a small part of Harlan’s shitshow. Did you know the girl broke into Harlan’s studio, too? Took his stack of yellow legal pads full of all the songs he’d been working on for years, brought them into his house and burned them? She trashed his equipment, threw some guitars in the fire too, and all the songs their father handed down to them.”
Becca gasped. This was news to her. “That’s awful.”
“Harlan was a disaster. It must've torn Boone to shreds not to be able to confide in you. Out of all the brothers, he's the sensitive one. Well, I don't have to tell you.”
“No. You don’t, although he didn’t seem so sensitive then.”
“The girl’s family ended up moving. She’s still living with her parents and doing well now. She was off her meds and hadn’t been in trouble before. Harlan was only keeping her name out of the paper because her parents begged him to. He didn’t want her to end up in prison.” Georgia winced.
“But why didn't Boone just tell me? I wouldn't have told anyone.”
“You don't know Harlan, then. He’s kind of a cut and dried guy.” She nudged her, lighting up. “But he can be pretty romantic once you get to know him. Obviously, right?” She rubbed her belly. “But the Beckett brothers have a code. Harlan didn't want anyone to know about the girl. His brothers promised to keep their mouths shut, and stood by their word. Nothing will ever come between them.”
“Not even wives?”
“Who knows?” Georgia shrugged. “None of them were married then. I'll have to keep you posted. Hey, would you excuse me?” Georgia held her stomach, seeming to struggle while she pushed off the bar and climbed down from her stool. “I feel a little funny.”
Becca dropped her fork and reached over to help. She grabbed hold of Becca’s arm. “Where are you going? Bathroom? I’ll walk you there.”
Georgia winced again and doubled over like she’d been punched in the stomach. “Wait. Just a second.” She sucked in a quick breath, and then another. “Something’s not right, here.”
“Okay,” Becca said, “well, whatever it is, let me help.” But Georgia didn’t respond and with a shell-shocked expression glued to her face, looked down.
Becca followed the path of Georgia’s eyes and saw the dark stain at the crotch of her jeans.
“I think my water just broke.”
“I think you’re right.” Becca swallowed nervously, trying to keep her cool. She’d never been in this situation before, but had watched enough hospital shows to guess where the next stop would be. “You better call Harlan.”
“I can’t.” Georgia gasped, with an edge of panic in her voice. “He just got on the plane in New York. I don’t think it was a nonstop.” She nodded, clutching her belly. “It can’t happen now. He needs to be here—he really wanted to be here.” Her voice wobbled. “He’s gonna miss it.”
“Not necessarily. You might have a way to go. Sometimes it takes a while.” Becca wrapped an arm around her waist. “Are you in a lot of pain? Maybe you should sit down?”
“Everything okay here, hotcake?” Linda asked, hurriedly flanking Georgia’s side, coming out of nowhere from behind.
“I think I’m in labor. Ow.” Georgia doubled over again, sucking air between her teeth, holding on to Becca and Linda.
“Well, let’s get you to the hospital then, okay?” Linda suggested, wide-eyed, looking across Georgia, who still had her head down.
“Let’s get her to that chair.” Linda pointed to a nearby crowded table. “Guys, clear out, pregnant lady coming through,” Linda joked as the seated employees frantically scooped up their plates to make room for Georgia.
“I’m not going to have the baby on the table, guys. I just need to sit down,” Georgia chuckled. “I think I can walk by myself. I feel okay now.”
“Do you have this, Linda?” Becca kept her tone calm and steady, hoping not to panic Georgia. “I’ll get my car keys.”
Linda gave her a nod and with a jerk of her chin, told her to get moving.
“Be right back.” Becca said, dashing off to the small closet behind the bar where employees kept their belongings, a million scenarios stampeding through her brain.
Would Boone cancel the show? What about Colt? Should he be notified? Georgia’s mom. Where was she? Would they make it to Billick General in time, or would she have to pull over and deliver the baby in her car?
She grabbed her purse, reminding herself that women give birth every day and there was no reason to worry.
As much as Becca dreamed of having children of her own, she didn’t have any personal experience with the process of getting babies out of a body. She’d only visited her two mom-friends after their infants were born.
Becca rounded the bar, banging her hip in the process, and hurried back to Georgia. “Can you walk to the parking lot?”
“We can get her to your car, no problem,” Linda encouraged, sounding positive and light as if this sort of thing happened every day at The Owl.
“I called my doctor,” Georgia said breathlessly, heaving herself up from the chair. “She’s going to meet us at Billick General.”
Chapter Nine
Boone accepted the applause and bowed as gracefully as possible with one foot out the door, finally wrapping up the longest performance of his life.
In moments he was flying down the country highway to Billick General, amazed he played so well and remembered the lyrics while worrying about Georgia. With Harlan out of town, Georgia was his and Colt’s responsibility, and if anything happened to her and the baby—he tried not to let his brain even go there.
They’d taken three breaks during the two-hour show, and every time Boone checked in with Georgia or Colt he’d held his breath, half expecting the situation to have changed. But every time they reiterated their last conversation, explaining the baby was taking its time. Still, he couldn’t wait to get to the hospital to see for himself that everything was okay.
He easily found a place in the half-empty lot to park near the hospital’s entrance, locked his truck, and took off for the glossy double door entrance.
The heels of his boots clicked on the shiny tile floors as he entered the building, immediately recognizing an antiseptic hospital smell. He rushed through two sleek doors to a hall with corded telephones, hand sanitizer dispensers, and a series of different wildlife figures...bobcats, elk, a prairie dog, each painted in muted colors...lining the walls.
Boone turned the corner, passing through a quiet hallway, and came to a large reception counter stacked with brochures, clipboards, and a warning for him to get a shingles vaccination.
A sleepy receptionist looked up from her paperwork. “May I help you?” As he was about to say something, Boone spotted Becca slumped in a small, uncomfortable-looking blue chair
in the waiting area on his right.
“Thanks. I think I’m set.” He tapped the counter and stealthily approached Becca, not wanting to wake her.
Keeping an eye out for Colt, who said he’d meet him in the waiting room, Boone entered the small, carpeted space and the sound of his footsteps disappeared. There was only one other person besides Becca in the room. A middle-aged man with his head fully back and mouth wide open, snored under a nondescript painting of two egrets in a marsh.
Becca must have heard him coming, because she straightened, and broke into a smile. Reflexively he smiled too, feeling a tinge of excitement knowing he still had that effect on her. She hadn’t looked too happy to see him when she dropped off the water bottles earlier.
“No change?” he asked, settling in the chair next to hers, getting a whiff of coconut and coffee.
“I would’ve called. Or Colt would’ve gotten in touch,” she said sleepily. “But no. Georgia’s settled in for the night back there.” Becca pointed to a well-lit hallway lined with wide-open doors and things he didn’t want to look at inside shadowy rooms.
“Harlan will be relieved the baby hasn’t come yet. He wants to be here when it happens.”
“Maybe he’ll make it in time. But if you want to keep your head on your shoulders, don’t mention anything to Georgia about how long it’s taking,” Becca teased, “I think she’s ready for the baby to come out.”
“I can only imagine. Take that back. I can’t even fathom it.” Boone peeled his eyes away from Becca, fully aware of how close they were sitting and how their arms were only inches away from touching.
He took a deep breath, trying to wrestle his attention away to focus on something—anything—else. But it wasn’t right that he had to keep his distance from her. They went through so many rough times together, why couldn’t he and Becca share the happy times too?
“Are you doing okay?” He looked her over, flashing back to the last time he was at this hospital.
“Because I’m back here, you mean?”
“Yeah.” He thought back to how his heart had ripped to shreds when he saw how fragile Becca looked, like a broken bird connected to wires and cords trapped in a hospital bed after the accident.
“I feel fine.” She gave him a drowsy smile. “Glad to be in the waiting room and not the other way around. They took good care of me here. The nurses were great.” She scanned the adjacent corridor. “I was in ICU, though. I don’t think any of them work on this side of the hospital.”
“Right,” Boone commented, remembering ICU all too well. “And where is the illustrious Colt? Hitting on nurses?”
“You never know,” Becca said quietly, meeting his eye and holding on a little longer than she had to. Her gentle expression, the soft, warm quality of her voice, brought him back to the way things used to be between them, before all the shit happened—before Harlan, before the accident, before she left him.
And for a second Becca seemed like his best friend again.
“Colt’s out scouting for food and more coffee,” she added.
Boone nodded, debating whether he should drape his arm across the back of her chair, or rub her knee, or touch her at all.
“Thanks for being here.” He connected with her eyes, and she beamed, lighting up the dreary room.
“Of course. Happy to.”
He eyed her devilishly, loving the way she was still smiling at him. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were stalking me.”
“What?” She shifted, straightening. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Moving back to Lonesome.” Boone raised his brows, grinning. “Getting a job at The Owl, right when I happened to be booked there, following me around with water bottles, and now you’re here.”
“If you want me to leave, I’ll go.” Becca reached for her purse, but he leaned across the chair to stop her, brushing her satiny arm in one quick motion.
A crackle of heat swept over him like a brush fire, shooting embers up his arm and down his torso straight to his groin, making his cock twitch. Which surprised him. But if anyone could have that effect on him in a sad hospital waiting room decorated with paintings of comatose wildlife, it was Becca.
Becca froze, locked in his eyes, apparently feeling it too. Would the electricity between them ever go away?
“I was teasing.”
She let go of the purse strap. “Fine, I’ll stay.”
Boone brought his hand to his side. “Okay then,” he whispered, settling back in the chair, where he wouldn’t torture himself by lusting over her, so pathetically, desperately wanting something he couldn’t have. “But I’m sure there are a thousand other places you’d rather be.” A vision of her in bed with Harrison flashed through his brain.
“There aren’t.” Becca adjusted her position, crossing her smooth, silky legs.
“Good, because this is where you belong.”
“I do?”
“How can you even question that? You’re like family,” he admitted, wanting to add, my family. Mine.
“Cafeteria is closed, but I found a machine." Colt came up from behind and slapped Boone’s shoulder before dumping a pile of candy, chips and crackers on the fake wood coffee table. "I also stopped by Georgia’s room. She’s sleeping. Any word from Harlan?” Colt asked, easing into a chair across from Boone and Becca.
Boone rifled through the mound of junk food. “Yeah, I talked to him on the way over. He’s landed and on his way.” Boone plucked a Hershey bar from the pile and handed it to Becca.
“Thanks.” She waved the candy, looking surprised he remembered that she loved chocolate almost as much as kissing. “I think I’ll save this for later.” She tucked the bar in her purse. “I’m getting a little tired, so now you’re both here and Harlan’s on his way, do you mind if I take off?”
Colt leaned over the table and grabbed a package of crackers. “Everything's under control here. We’re fine. Thanks for coming, Becca. It’s like old times.” He laughed. “Old times, minus you in the hospital, plus a baby on the way.”
She chuckled. “I guess we’ve made a new, better, memory tonight.”
“Are you okay to drive home?” Boone asked, looking her over. Even under fluorescent lights in the dead of night, she was still the most beautiful woman on the planet.
“I'm good now, but in another hour I probably won't be.”
“I’ll walk you out.” Boone said, rising.
“It’s okay.” She shrugged, grabbing her purse. “I can walk myself out.”
“It wasn’t a question.”
“Don’t,” Colt butted in. “It’s either him or me. You’re not walking out to an empty parking lot in the middle of the night by yourself. It’s a Beckett brothers’ code violation,” he stated matter-of-factly, before popping a cracker in his mouth.
“Well, I sure don’t want to break any code.” She rose, turning to Boone. “Sure, walk with me if you’d like.”
“Goodnight, Colt,” Becca tossed over her shoulder as they headed out of the waiting room.
“Billick’s a safe town, but the lot isn’t very well lit.”
Becca nodded as they passed the reception desk, and they strolled side by side into an empty parking lot.
Boone scanned Becca as they approached her car. “There’s a sweatshirt in my truck if you’re cold.”
“No thanks, I’m fine.” Becca shook her purse. The keys jangled and she fished them out of her bag. “See?” She waved the keys. “I’m all set.”
There was something about the way she looked at Boone with her typical bravado that struck him. “I don’t think you’re all set, Becca. Far from it.”
She looked up at him, probably about to say something, but before she could he leaned down and brushed his lips over her soft skin and kissed her cheek.
Becca drew a quick breath and let out a moan as he lingered, kissing her again, relishing her scent and the feeling of home on his lips. She
didn’t move, but he pulled himself away before his instincts got the better of him and he swept past those few inches and kissed her lips. So close, yet so far.
He doubted Harrison had the same kind of reaction to a peck on the cheek. No. That moan was solely for Boone. He let his hand glide down her arm.
“Now you’re set. For the night, at least.”
Becca didn't say anything. She didn’t have to. He could tell by the look on her face she liked it. She eyed him for a few extra beats before getting behind the wheel.
“Drive safely.”
“Thanks, I will,” she said quietly as Boone closed the door.
He wistfully watched her pull out of the lot before returning to the waiting room to find Colt snoozing.
It wasn't long before Harlan finally arrived and Boone and Colt went home to get some rest.
The next morning Harlan woke Boone out of a dead sleep with the news that seven-pound, three-ounce, nineteen-inch-long Ruby Jane Beckett arrived at six thirty-six. Harlan was so overcome with emotion when he explained that Georgia and the baby were healthy, he started bawling, which made Boone choke up too.
The moment he hung up, Boone hauled ass over to Billick General and spent a few hours at the hospital visiting before picking up his mother, the baby's namesake, at the airport.
Chapter Ten
Although it had been weeks since Harrison proposed, Becca still hadn’t had the chance to discuss the ramifications in depth with her mother. With her part-time job at Belle’s Boutique and volunteer work at the elementary school, Joanne Barclay was a difficult woman to pin down.
“You look a little tired. Did you sleep okay?” Joanne asked over her shoulder on their way to the kitchen. Filled with happy childhood memories and decorated with vintage knickknacks, the sunny space was one of Becca’s favorite rooms in the house.
