Healing Beau (The Brothers of Beauford Bend Book 6)

by Alicia Hunter Pace

  He looked up in surprise. “Child, I would never do that. I’m not disappointed in you. You’re a grown woman. I’m only wondering about what you’re going to do.”

  Do? “I think I’m a little old for a home for unwed mothers, wouldn’t you say? Or do they even have those anymore?”

  He smiled a little. “Some, though they aren’t as prevalent as they were at one time. But that wasn’t what I meant.”

  “Then I don’t … oh.”

  He was talking about abortion. The thought was so foreign to her that his meaning had not been immediately apparent. While she supported every woman’s right to choose, this woman had chosen, and she would not be aborting Beau’s baby. It was unthinkable. The very thought of the words Beau’s baby sent little butterflies of happiness flying around her stomach—but only her stomach. The rest of her was practically paralyzed with fear and anxiety.

  And a big part of her had hoped it wasn’t true. Beau was coming home today. When she’d talked to him last night, things seemed so normal—not the new normal, but the old normal back before they had slept together. She’d hoped this trip to the doctor would prove the home tests wrong. Then she and Beau could pretend it had never happened—just like he wanted.

  But did she really hope that anymore? She didn’t think so. The butterfly joy inside her was even bigger and stronger than needing a relationship with Beau, especially a take-what-you-can-get relationship.

  Dr. Daniels raised a questioning eyebrow.

  “I will be having this baby.” Of course she would. But what then?

  He nodded. “Let’s take care of the doctor business first.” He reached for his prescription pad. “I’m going to write you a prescription for prenatal vitamins. Then I’m going to make you an appointment with Teresa Shelton. She’s young, but she’s good. If she weren’t, I wouldn’t send you to her.”

  Another doctor? “Oh, no. I mean … I had hoped …”

  “Christian,” he said sternly, “I am not the best one to see you through this pregnancy. I cannot deliver your baby. I should have insisted that you go to a gynecologist long ago, maybe if I had—”

  “I’d have known about birth control? I assure you, this is not your fault, and I do know. And let’s leave it at that.”

  He gave a half nod. “I can get you in soon—probably next week. You’re healthy, but you need proper care.”

  Again she nodded, dreading what was coming, when the doctor business was over and the friend-of-the-family business set in.

  “Now.” He laid his hands on the desk. “Just so we’re clear, I am now your daddy’s friend who has known you all your life. Would you care to tell me who the father is?”

  For what reason? So he could take his hunting rifle and force Beau to marry her? Of all the things she wasn’t clear on, that was not one of them. She’d dreamed of being married to Beau all her life, but not like this. Never in a million, billion years like this.

  She shook her head. “I would not.”

  “What’s your plan?”

  “It’s a little too late for planning, wouldn’t you say?” Would she change it if she could?

  “It’s never too late to plan.”

  “Surely you aren’t asking what I’m going to do to keep people from talking. Do you think I care?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m talking about when you’re going to tell the father and if you’re going to get married, or, if you’re going to be a single mother, what you’re going to do about childcare.”

  “Good questions, Dr. Daniels.” She got to her feet. Even if she had answers, she wasn’t going to talk about them now. “I’ll let you know when I know.”

  He sighed and held the prescription out to her. “Call us if Joy and I can help you.”

  Once in the car, she laid her head on her steering wheel. It wasn’t the first time she’d done that in the last two days. In fact, one might say her head had developed a special kind of relationship with that steering wheel. Why did people do that? Lay their heads on steering wheels when they were upset? It made you wonder what distraught people had done in the days before automobiles.

  Then she began to laugh. That was funny. Too bad she hadn’t thought about that before she got pregnant. She could have expanded that and become a stand-up comedienne. She wouldn’t have even have had to try to get someone to hire her. She had her own venue. Yes, sir. She could have performed right at Firefly Hall where she practically had a captive audience. At least she would if she passed out wine and cheese straws. People would do anything for free wine and cheese straws—even listen to her lame jokes. Or joke, singular. She’d have to come up more before she could think in plural.

  But she needed to think plural, at least as applied to people. First, there was one, meaning her own personal self. Now there would be two. It was a new thought, sure, but there was plenty of time to think of that since she couldn’t be a stand-up comic. It might sound good to say pregnant women could do anything they wanted, but it wasn’t true. There was a whole string of things she couldn’t do now—drink, eat blue cheese, eat sushi. Not that she had ever eaten sushi, but if she had been going to start, this wasn’t the time. Probably not the best idea to ride her horse. She’d have to find out about that.

  And let’s never lose sight of the fact that she couldn’t be that person whose friends didn’t demand information—not that she ever had been. Once they knew she was pregnant, they would stage an intervention. Of course, Gwen would make sure the food was good, and Emory would choose the perfect venue. Hope would make her a baby quilt, and Neyland would make a commemorative charm for her bracelet. Abby would offer to babysit, because what was one more when you already had three? They might even invite Neyland’s cousin, Hope. She would knit something. Yep. If there had to be an intervention, they would do it right.

  And when would she have to tell them? She was tall. Maybe that meant she wouldn’t show as soon as Emory had. That would be good. Maybe she should go to a home for unwed mothers like it was 1956. Then she could come back with the baby and say she had adopted it. People would know and whisper, but they wouldn’t say anything to her face.

  But wait. They would. Because it wasn’t 1956. But what did she care, anyway? She could support herself and this baby. Her customers wouldn’t care if she had fifteen babies all at once as long as she kept those cheese straws and that wine coming, as long as she let them have a ham sandwich instead of scrambled eggs, and remembered who liked their Bloody Mary made with Clamato Juice instead of Zing Zang mixer.

  Or like they thought she remembered—like she didn’t have index cards on repeat clients. It was a trick Emory had taught her. That’s why they were queens of the B&B and events business worlds.

  Pregnant queens—not only that, queens pregnant with Beauford offspring. Except it was different with Emory. She had planned her baby and had a husband who’d stood on a stage, held her hand, and told the world how happy he was that he was going to be a father.

  Also, Emory had not insinuated to Jackson that she was on birth control and pretended to be experienced when she wasn’t. Beau was going to cut her head off and feed it to the dogs. He had it in him. She knew that. There were all those new puppies running around Beauford Bend. How long would it take them to eat her head?

  Maybe she would never tell who the father was. Maybe she’d tell Beau the baby belonged to somebody else. She’d certainly acted like she slept around. He’d believe her. Maybe. She could have her baby. It would grow up with Emory’s baby, and they would be best friends. But what if she had a girl and Emory had a boy? What if they fell in love without knowing they were cousins? She couldn’t let that happen.

  Christian banged her head on the steering wheel. Might as well bang it while she still had it. This was a whole new level of head/steering wheel despair. It had to stop. Who knew if head banging might hurt her baby?

  Christian had always known her limitations—on the basketball court, with Beau, and in her business.

  And sh
e knew her limitations now. She couldn’t stand this another second without some help.

  Christian picked up her phone and dialed. “Noel? Can you get away from the shop for a little while? I’m ready to talk. I’m in town. I can meet you at Mill Time.”

  There was no chance of privacy at Miss Laura’s or The Café Down On The Corner, but by now, the lunch crowd would have cleared out of Beauford’s fanciest restaurant. Since they weren’t particularly friendly with any of the staff, they could talk without being overheard.

  Besides, she was hungry.

  • • •

  Beau slid out of the booth and stood as soon as he caught sight of Mary Charles McAnnally making her way across the dining room of Mill Time. Long red hair, long legs, and big eyes. It had been years since he’d seen her, but she looked much the same.

  “Beau.” She turned her cheek for him to kiss.

  “You look good, Mary Charles.” He waited for her to sit before he settled back into his seat across from her.

  “Thank you. So do you. But you always did.”

  The waiter appeared with the beer he’d ordered for himself and a glass of Chardonnay for Mary Charles.

  “I hope that’s okay. I thought you’d probably grown out of Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill.”

  She took a sip of her wine and shook her head. “Can you believe we used to drink that stuff?”

  “Would you like some lunch?”

  Mary Charles shook her head. “No, thank you. But you go ahead.”

  “I’m good. I had breakfast with my cousin Missy before I left Merritt this morning. She made a lot. I ate a lot.”

  “I remember Missy. So that’s what you were doing in Merritt? Visiting her?”

  “Yes.” Technically not a lie. He had seen plenty of Missy, Harris, and their kids while he was down there. He wasn’t ready to talk about his new endeavor to just anybody. And regardless of how good she looked or how much Strawberry Hill they’d shared in the back seat of his car, Mary Charles was just anybody.

  “Beau.” Mary Charles set her glass on the table and folded her hands. “I’m sure you think that because I’m newly divorced and you’re just back in town that I called you because I’m in the market for a new husband or a fling to help me forget about the old one.”

  He hadn’t expected that. “I don’t know that I that would have put it quite that way but …” But what? How was he supposed to answer that? “But yeah. I guess that’s the upshot of what I would have thought if had thought about it that much.”

  She put up a hand and laughed a sad little laugh. “I can see where you would, but I’m a little too fresh from divorce court for that. I thought I did everything right in my marriage, but here I am anyway. I don’t really want to go into it, but it wasn’t my choice, and it wasn’t just an ‘agree to disagree.’ It was nasty, it was humiliating, and it was public. At first, I thought it was my fault. I guess that’s natural, at least for a woman. But it wasn’t. Even so, he grew up in Savannah and I did not. He got the friends—or I guess he’s the one who had them all along.”

  “I’m really sorry, Mary Charles.” This was pretty uncomfortable. He wasn’t a cards-on-the-table kind of guy, nor was he used to people who were. “Do you want me to go to Savannah and beat him up? I will. I’ll break a Strawberry Hill bottle over his head for old times’ sake.”

  She looked surprised for a second, and then she began to laugh a real, honest, amused laugh. She wiped her eyes with her napkin.

  “Oh, Beau. Thank you for that. This is the first time I’ve laughed in five months.”

  “I do what I can. Some days.” But none of this explained why she’d called him.

  “Here’s the thing. Back when I was at the bargaining phase of my grief, I made a list of all the terrible things I’ve done to people over the years, thinking if I recognized what I’d done, I could get my life and my marriage back. When I moved on to the acceptance part, I still had the list. You won’t believe some of the things on it. Stole the newspaper out of the neighbor’s yard when I was eight, because my picture was in it and I wanted an extra copy. Let Ginny Knight think I was doing her a favor by letting her go ahead of me in line when we were renting school lockers, when I was really angling to get a top one.”

  What was he? A priest who was supposed to grant absolution?

  “Even if you believe in karma or a vengeful God, I don’t think those things would have brought on what happened to you.” He had to admit he was pretty curious about what that had been. Prostitutes, porn, group sex with the Junior League? But he wasn’t asking, no, sir. He didn’t have that kind of time.

  “I agree.” She took a sip of her wine. “But there were a few things I feel like I need to make right, if it’s even possible to do that. Probably it isn’t. But I can apologize for what I did to you our senior year.”

  Now he was really confused. “To me? For what? We broke up, sure. Kids break up.” He didn’t really even remember who’d done the breaking up, but considering the way she was carrying it on, it must have been her.

  “We didn’t just break up. I broke up with you because I wanted to date a Vandy freshman. Randy Cooper.”

  “That was a long time ago. We were kids. Kids want to date a lot of different people. I sure as hell did.” It was coming back to him now. He had been upset, which had surprised him—though it had probably been more about his pride than anything else. He had been accustomed to being the one who left a relationship. Come to think of it, that had never changed.

  “That’s not all. I thought I was going to be hot stuff showing up at the prom with a college boy, but he refused to go. He said he was past all that, and he didn’t understand why his spring fraternity formal couldn’t be enough for me. But it wasn’t. I wanted to go to the prom.”

  Beau wanted to interrupt her and tell her it didn’t matter, but he sensed that she wanted to get it all out.

  “I knew there was a good chance I would be queen. I wanted the pictures to be good, and you were the best looking boy in Beauford.” She smiled a sweet, remembering kind of smile, without a trace of flirtation. “You still are. So I manipulated you into getting back with me so I could go to the prom with you. Then I broke up with you shortly afterward so I could go with Randy to that fraternity dance—which did not work out for me, because he wouldn’t take me back. And he shouldn’t have. You shouldn’t have either.”

  Beau reached across the table and took her hand. “Mary Charles, it was a long time ago. We were kids. To tell the truth, I didn’t even remember all that.”

  “Whether you remember it or not, whether I was selfish and immature or not, I still shouldn’t have done it. You always treated me well. And I am sorry.”

  “Then I accept your apology.” Clearly she needed that.

  She smiled. “You know, if the offer’s still good, I think I could eat something now.”

  “Sure.” He turned to get the waiter’s attention— and found himself looking right into Christian’s eyes from where she stood across the room. He was shocked at how glad he was to see her. “Christian!” He let go of Mary Charles’s hand and stood. But as he took a step in her direction, Christian put up a hand as if to ward him off, turned, and flew out the door.

  What in the hell? What had happened here? When he turned to look at Mary Charles, she had covered her face with her hands. Was the whole female population infected with some kind of high drama, emotional, zombie disease?

  “What?” he demanded. “What in the ever loving hell?”

  Mary Charles raised her face. “That’s another apology I owe, but one load of guilt I’m going to have to live with. It would be too humiliating for her, and I don’t deserve absolution.”

  She had done something to Christian? Anger flared. That was another matter entirely. “What about?” he asked evenly.

  “Beau, surely you’re not that obtuse. For basically the same thing. You were going to take her to the prom.”

  That’s right. He remembered all that now.
“It was no big deal. She didn’t even really want to go. She was glad when you and I got back together, because she wanted to go to the beach that weekend.”

  “No she didn’t.” Mary Charles looked more ashamed than she had when she’d been confessing to him. “She was excited. Her mother had taken her to Atlanta to buy a dress. And she didn’t go to the beach. She only told you that to save face.”

  That couldn’t be true. Christian wouldn’t have lied to him. Even if she had, he would have known it; she was his best friend.

  “How do you know that?” There was no way she could have known that.

  She shook her head. “You don’t understand anything about teenage girls. Even when they’re trying to play it cool like Christian did, the truth is there. And I was paying attention because I didn’t like that you were taking her, even when I still thought I could get Randy to go with me. See? I’m an awful person.”

  He had no time for this and less patience. “No, Mary Charles, you are not. You were a spoiled brat who acted out and got over it. Now get over this.”

  In truth, if what Mary Charles said was true, he was the awful person. But Christian had been so insistent that she didn’t care.

  Hell. What now?

  All of a sudden, out of nowhere, Noel Glazov was standing in front of him, and she did not look happy. She let her eyes drift to Mary Charles and looked even less happy. Zombie drama apocalypse, without a doubt.

  “I was supposed to meet Christian here. Have you seen her?” Her words weighed about a ton each. If she could have physically hurled them at him, he’d be dead.

  “Yes. She seemed to get upset, though I don’t know— She ran out.”

  “Really? Really, Beau?”

  Everyone talked about how kind and gentle Noel was, but evidently they had not seen this side of her.

  No man, no woman, no terrorist across enemy lines had ever looked at him like this woman was looking at him. There was no doubt in Beau’s mind that if Nickolai Glazov were to walk in right now and see the expression on his wife’s face, he would commit murder first and ask questions later.