by Helm, Nicole
Meg obeyed. “Thank you. I’m so sorry.” She shook her head. Oh, how embarrassing. “I don’t know what came over me.”
“You’re overwhelmed, and apparently Charlie wasn’t listening to you—”
“Surprise, surprise,” Cara muttered.
Mia sent her a silencing look before returning her gaze to Meg. “Trust us, everything is fine.” She smiled kindly, and somehow Meg did feel comforted. “Perfectly normal.”
“You’re lucky Mia isn’t related to you,” Cara muttered, still rubbing calming circles on Meg’s back. “All she’s done since I told her I was pregnant is tell me horror stories.”
“Hush,” Mia said. “It’s not exactly...beautiful. But being a mother is. You’ll get through the hormones and the mood swings and the vomiting and the horrible, horrible heartburn and...” She trailed off and then smiled guiltily. “Okay, I’ll stop now.”
“Thank you,” Meg managed. “For stopping and for reassuring me.” She couldn’t fathom why they’d done it. Why they were being so nice. “I don’t know...” She almost said it, and she thought she almost said she didn’t know how to do this, or anything, but she only trailed off.
“I don’t know” seemed to sum it all up.
“It’s a lot of I don’t know,” Cara offered. “The first time, it’s so...” She placed a hand over her stomach. “I’ve been more scared than joyful, I think. But the thing that helps? Talking. Especially to someone who’s done it before. Mia’s talked me down more times in the past four months than our entire lives, and that’s saying something.”
“Here.” Mia hopped up and walked into the kitchen. When she returned, she was writing something onto a little Post-it. She handed it to Meg. “Our phone numbers. If you ever need to talk. It can feel lonely, and I think that makes it worse. Charlie can be sweet, when he wants to be, but the guys...they don’t get it. They can comfort and pat your back, they might hold your hair or give you a foot rub, but you look at them and they’ve got that deer-in-headlights horror thing going on when it isn’t anything you can explain sensibly.”
Meg took the offered piece of paper and blinked at it. She was too shocked to cry. Too surprised at their sheer openness and niceness and acceptance.
“Anytime. Really. Charlie brought you here, and I don’t think he would have done that if he didn’t really care about you.”
Meg swallowed. Was that it? This thing they were building. Care? She was a little startled to realize how much she wanted that—as much as she wanted a good father for her child. But he’d just paraded her out there and...
“Why didn’t he listen to me?”
“Because he’s Charlie,” Cara returned.
Mia let out a sigh. “He’s a Wainwright. They have very...” She seemed to think it over. “They’re stubborn. The whole lot of them, and it takes a lot for them to realize they’re wrong.”
Meg closed her eyes. The last thing she wanted was to have fight after fight with someone who couldn’t admit he was wrong. She didn’t want to be steamrolled like she just had been.
“He’s a good man, but I don’t think he’s had much practice worrying about what other people want,” Mia said carefully.
Meg thought about that but then found herself rejecting Mia’s interpretation. She thought Charlie spent quite a bit of time wondering what people wanted, but much like her, he had trouble figuring out what it actually was.
“But, you know, love is a great teacher,” Mia added cheerfully.
Meg’s stomach clenched. Love. She wanted to reject that too, wholly. But she didn’t know how.
“Can I come in now?” Charlie’s voice asked from the opening that led to the entryway.
Mia and Cara glanced at her as if asking what she wanted. These two women she barely knew had given her shoulders to cry on, immeasurable reassurance and the promise for more.
“It’s all right.”
The women stood, and though Meg felt some trepidation at facing Charlie, she also felt strangely stronger. As if Cara was right about talking, that it could make things better.
Some things anyway.
Mia gave Charlie what looked to be a reassuring arm pat as she passed.
“Don’t be an ass” was Cara’s parting shot.
Charlie frowned after Cara, but when his gaze returned to Meg, it was all...contrition. “I’m sorry,” he said simply.
“Why did you push?”
“Because you weren’t going to get there on your own. Because I wanted them to know and...” He shoved his fingers through his hair. “I needed you to see that it would be different than you thought.”
Meg took a deep breath. Yes, it was stubbornness; he was a stubborn man. But it wasn’t just to get his way, or because he didn’t worry about what she wanted; it was because he’d needed their acceptance. Even knowing he’d get it, he’d been driven by a need for, well, what Cara and Mia had offered her.
Comfort. Company.
“Your family loves you, but they don’t...get you, do they?”
His gaze flicked to hers, a startled surprise etched across his face. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. Slowly he slid onto the couch next to her. He opened his mouth again, and then something in his posture slumped. “No,” he agreed hoarsely.
She reached out to touch his face, the rough edge of his beard. “Are you going to let me?” she whispered.
His dark eyes met hers, something a little tortured she thought she recognized in the dark chocolate of his gaze. “I think I have to get me first.”
She leaned her head against his shoulder, because that—more than any of today—that she understood.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHARLIE LED MEG back outside, her hand in his. They hadn’t said much else, and it seemed that his apology had smoothed over any ruffled feathers.
She was quiet, but her hand squeezed his, and her words kept echoing around in his head. Your family loves you, but they don’t...get you.
She had put feelings into words, words he’d never quite been able to piece together. He’d been close lately, but she cut to the center of it.
Would this year ever stop changing everything inside him? It wasn’t bad exactly, but it was exhausting.
When they went back into the yard, the family was still there, still ready to offer congratulations and hugs.
He’d known without a shadow of a doubt she needed this. To feel a part of a family, or at least a group of people who would support them.
As much as he loved his family, as important as they were to him, he’d never realized just how big a gift that was. He’d never spent much time considering there were people out there who didn’t have parents who loved them unconditionally even when things weren’t perfect or even happy.
“We’re so happy, Meg,” Mom offered, pulling Meg into a warm hug. Meg looked back at Charlie, something like bewildered, but she let go of his hand and hugged his mother back.
And then the rest of the congratulations rolled in. Kenzie hugged him and Meg, and Mom hugged him and then Meg again, lingered with her, saying reassuring, happy things and talking about how they needed to get to know each other better.
It was a blur, really, of well-wishes and handshakes and hugs and backslaps and he didn’t know why he felt so separate from it.
Because this wasn’t the plan? It wasn’t how it was supposed to go. He’d lost sight of so much of that the past few weeks in his perfect, happy little world that he knew was simply a figment of his imagination.
“When are you due?”
“March. March twentieth,” Meg said, her voice unsteady, though her smile wasn’t. Her smile was big and bright and it brought him back to the moment a little bit. Her smile, her hand slipping back into his.
“Two new grandchildren next year, then, unless
Mia goes early.” Mom placed a hand over her heart. “This is such wonderful news. Oh, we have so many things to discuss. Not all at once, but there is something I need to show you right this very instant.” Mom grabbed Meg’s free hand.
“What thing?” Charlie asked, his grip on Meg’s other hand going tighter. He knew his mother well enough to know that gleam in her eye, and that she was planning to do her level best to embarrass him.
“Oh, let her go, Charlie. I’m just going to show her your baby pictures. She has a right to be warned.”
“Warned?” Meg asked, eyes wide.
“That’s highly unnecessary,” Charlie said through gritted teeth. “She’s exaggerating. She’s trying to embarrass me.”
“Nonsense!” Mom said, barely containing her glee as she gave Meg’s arm another tug. “Meg should know that if the baby inherits those monstrous eyes, she or he will still be able to grow into a fine-looking young man or woman.”
“Mother.”
“Downright terrifying,” Mom was saying to Meg, only half joking. “Just the biggest eyes anyone had ever seen. People never could tell me I had a cute baby. They had to say those hideously patronizing things like ‘won’t he be handsome?’ and ‘look at you, you had a baby.’” Mom tsked as she dragged Meg along toward the house.
Which in turn dragged Charlie, until Meg turned to him, that pleased smile even brighter on her face, laughter on her lips. Delighted and happy, and he couldn’t do anything but let her hand go. Let Mom show off his embarrassing baby pictures.
Whatever would keep that look on Meg’s face, he was on board.
As Mom and Meg disappeared inside, Dell appeared behind him and clapped him on the shoulder. “Warned you it was catching.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Charlie muttered, still watching where Meg had gone.
“She’s colorful,” Kenzie added, coming up on his other side. “Very colorful.” At the murderous gaze he sent her way, she held up her hands. “Don’t hurt me, I was only commenting.” Then she grinned at Dell. “Oh, he likes her.”
“I think he very much does,” Dell said, sporting an entirely too-smug grin of his own.
“Meg and Charlie sitting in a tree,” Kenzie sang. “Getting ready to have a ba-ay-bee.”
“You’re hilarious.”
“And you’re going to be a daddy.” Kenzie wrapped her arms around him. “I can’t wait to be the most annoying aunt ever to three little ones.”
Charlie could hardly stay annoyed when his perpetually condescending baby sister had her arms around him. So he wound his arm around her shoulders and stood there with his sister and his brother, not sure what this moment meant, only that it meant something. And he’d remember it. For a very long time.
“Keep in mind, Kenzie, every obnoxious toy you give to our kids, we’ll repay you. Tenfold,” Dell warned, ruffling Kenzie’s hair despite her growl of rage.
Our kids. He was suddenly aware of his age and the passage of time and how it was downright cruel. He’d been a child on this very ground, tormenting these very people, and they were still tormenting each other, but they were adults, procreating all over the place.
It was kind of wonderful and horrible all at the same time, but Meg came out the front door with Mom, family photo albums clutched to her chest. Most of the terrible faded away to possibility.
* * *
“YOU REALLY DID have the most terrifyingly large eyes. How did you grow into them?” Meg clutched the picture Mrs. Wainwright had allowed her to keep. Baby Charlie. Handsome, self-assured Charlie had been a truly ugly baby.
She couldn’t stop giggling over it. “I’m going to put it on my mantel. No, my nightstand.”
“Your endless delight is so much fun,” he said dryly, pulling his car onto the gravel drive that led to her little cottage. The world had gone dark except for the bright half-moon guiding them home.
Her home anyway. It was odd to want to share it. It was odd to have fallen into this thing, and yet when she wasn’t overthinking every angle of how screwed up she was, it felt so right.
She held the baby picture to her chest as Charlie bumped up the driveway. The moonlight illuminated the goat shed and the old cottage, and her heart felt so full.
But she wasn’t going to cry about it, because good God, she’d done enough crying for fifty pregnant women.
Cara had been right, because talking to people, being around people...it had eased some of that pressure, some of that fear. She hadn’t made a bad impression; she’d been accepted.
Elsie had given her that—Elsie and Dan, and this had reminded her that they too would be part of Seedling’s family. She got to build the best community for her child, and that was what was important.
Far more important than Meg’s insecurities running rampant. More important than her past. It didn’t matter who she’d been. All that mattered was who she could be.
Charlie stopped the car, but he didn’t move to turn off the ignition or get out.
“Are you coming inside?” she asked, wondering the last time he’d been back to his apartment in the city. He’d been spending so many of his days and nights in New Benton. Maybe he wanted to head back.
She wouldn’t let her heart sink at that. This was still all very new, which meant they still had separate lives. Even if it was nice to have help and nightly company, that didn’t mean it was imperative.
It would be dangerous to think of it as imperative. She had learned, over and over again, to count only on herself for happiness. Herself and her goats. She could enjoy Charlie, she could build something with him and ingratiate herself into his family, but that didn’t get rid of the simple truth.
She was the center of her life. She was the thing she had to depend on. She was an island. With visitors.
“Are you inviting me inside?” He said it while his mouth did that slow curve into a smile, and she melted, even though he seemed to know exactly how charming he was. And he definitely knew what her answer would be.
Warmth and happiness bloomed in her chest. Gratitude too. Gratitude that her falling off the wagon, that Grandma’s death, they could mean something. The beginning of a new phase in her life. A good one.
She’d hold on to that. Bad things could beget good ones. Hadn’t her life been a study in that? Self-sufficiency could still have relationships. Standing on her own two feet could include holding someone’s hand.
She reached across the console and rested her palm against his jaw. “Thank you for this. Especially after my major drama-fest beforehand. You were right. They’re...everything. I’m so glad Seedling gets to be a part of your family.”
He moved his head so his whiskers scraped against her palm. “We should talk about yours, Meg,” he said seriously. Too seriously.
She didn’t want that. She couldn’t show him that. Her family was tied up in all her failures, her addiction, all those pieces of herself she was determined to forget.
“Let’s leave today as the day you were right and I met your lovely family. Some other day can be the day we dissect mine.”
“I’m right most days.”
She laughed, light infusing the spot of darkness the mention of her family created. “You are very, very certain of that, aren’t you?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” He let out a little sigh. “Aside from being unemployed, of course.”
“You’re not unemployed. You’re my very handsome goat assistant.”
“Goat. Assistant. Perhaps I should put that on my résumé. What’s the classiest term for ‘shoveler of poop’?”
“I think that’s when you use the term waste management.”
His dark eyes flashed with humor, and it was the closest Meg had come to pure joy with someone else in a very, very, very long time.
Maybe ever.
“I like you.” It
was the barest truth she knew how to tell without coming unglued. Without relinquishing the control that kept her moving most days. She liked him, and he should know it.
“I like you too,” he replied, his voice suitably raspy as if he understood how important that was, how much it took for her to say something like that.
It meant a lot that he would say it back, because she somehow knew Charlie wouldn’t lie to be conversational. He wouldn’t be here, right here, if that weren’t true.
So she kissed him. Because she could, because she wanted to. She wanted to build something with this man. He wasn’t anything like what she’d initially feared. No, he was good. He was real. And she could be worthy of that goodness, that realness, as long as he never saw what had come before.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHARLIE COULDN’T THINK of a time where he’d ever been this nervous. No job interview, no test, no big presentation to the entire company. Never had his lunch threatened to revolt at the sheer enormity of what lay before him.
He forced himself to look at Meg, who was as white as the waiting room walls around them. She had her hands clasped together so tight they seemed drained of all color too.
He wanted to offer her a smile, a reassuring one. He wanted to offer her something, to commiserate at just how awful this wait was, and the word viable flashing over his head.
But he didn’t know how to move—no smiles, no gentle hand touches. He had no words. Because if he moved, if he offered any, he wasn’t sure what reserves would be left. And he thought he desperately needed those reserves.
For whatever came next.
When Meg’s name was called, they both jerked as if a grenade had been lobbed at them. Charlie forced himself to stand, but Meg remained sitting. Way too pale, her hands still clasped together like she didn’t know how to let them go.
“Meg.”
Slowly her gaze met his, wide and blue and terrified. You have to do something. You have to reach out. Stiffly, afraid of all that it would cost him, he held out his hand.
Just as slowly and stiffly, she unclasped her hands and reached out, sliding one into his outstretched hand. He helped her to her feet, and they walked toward the nurse, hand in hand.
