Spring Fever

by Mary Kay Andrews

  She knew Mason, better than he knew himself. Knew what mattered to him. Honor. Loyalty. Fidelity. Family. Doing the right thing. It was what he lived for.

  * * *

  Mason trudged stoically into the den. Just when he’d convinced himself that they were almost through with this unending agony, things seemed to go from bad to worse. Probably he should just shut up and leave and let her cry it out. But maybe not.

  He sat on the sofa and rubbed her back. “Heey,” he said softly. “I’m so sorry.”

  She turned and looked up at him and her face softened. “I knew it,” she whispered. “In my heart, I knew this wedding, this marriage was too good to be true. I knew somebody like you could never really fall in love with somebody like me.”

  Even with tears streaming down her face, Mason thought, Celia still managed to look stunning. Her hair wasn’t mussed, her nose wasn’t running, and her makeup wasn’t streaking. It was the damnedest thing.

  “I just thought if I wanted it enough, I could make it happen,” she said sadly. “And we came so close.”

  He felt like a heel. Like a jerk. Like a dickhead.

  “This isn’t your fault,” he said, kneeling down awkwardly on the floor beside the sofa so his face would be level with hers. “Don’t blame yourself.”

  Celia sniffed loudly. “No. It’s me. I try too hard. I always have. I don’t know. Maybe because my folks moved around so much when I was a kid, and because I was an only child, I always thought if I were nice and friendly, and tried to be everything for everybody, they would like me. And I thought if I worked really hard, harder than anybody else, I’d be a success. When I came to Passcoe, I thought it would be just another short-term thing. I’d sold my company; I didn’t have anything to prove. But then I met you and … fell in love.”

  She sat up and dabbed at her face with the hem of her tennis top. “I didn’t mean to. I’m so stupid. So naive. I really thought we could do something together. With Quixie. That we could build a life together.”

  “I thought so, too,” Mason admitted. He sat on the sofa beside her, took her hand, and squeezed it. “That’s what I wanted for us.”

  Celia tried to smile. “I don’t blame you for wanting Annajane instead of me.” More tears welled in her eyes. “She’s sweet, and you’ve known her forever. I just wish you’d figured out things between you sooner. Before I came here and fell in love with you, and Sophie and your mom … oh God. Sallie has just been so wonderful. Like my own mom, if she’d still been alive.”

  Oh, Christ, Mason thought. Sallie. She adored Celia. What would she say about this bizarre turn of events? His temples were starting to throb. What the hell had he gone and done?

  Now Celia was patting his knee, trying to make him feel better, which actually made him feel much worse.

  “Don’t worry,” she said, her voice wobbly. “I’m not going to make any more of a scene. I’m sorry I carried on. I don’t know what’s come over me. I guess maybe it’s my hormones.”

  “You had every right to make a scene,” Mason said. “And if you want to hit me or something, I’ll go out to the garage and get you a wrench. Or a tire iron.”

  “If I thought it would change anything, I still might,” Celia said. She slumped back against the sofa cushions.

  “You don’t hate me?” Mason asked cautiously.

  “No,” she sighed. “Maybe I should, but I don’t.”

  “If it makes you feel any better, Annajane doesn’t actually want me back,” Mason said glumly.

  Celia fixed her huge, luminous eyes on his. “She doesn’t?”

  “No. She said it was all a mistake. That she really loves this Shane guy. She thinks we were both just … confused.”

  “Mason,” Celia gripped his shoulder with her fingertips, her nails digging into his flesh. “Is … is what Bonnie Kelsey said, is it true? Were you two having sex?”

  “No!” Mason said. “It was just stupid teenage stuff.”

  “You say Annajane doesn’t want you back. But what about you? What do you want?”

  “God, I don’t know anything.” He looked over at her. “Except that I don’t want to hurt you any more than I already have. I am truly sorry I’ve screwed everything up so badly.”

  “What about us?” She leaned her head on his shoulder. “What happens with us? With all our plans?”

  There is no us, Annajane had told him only a few hours ago. She’d been very clear about that. No going back. What was that saying? Love the one you’re with?

  He turned and, with his fingertip, wiped away one last lingering tear as it rolled down her cheek. “I don’t know, maybe just step back and really figure out what we both want. Take things a little slower this time. We can still be friends, right?”

  “Friends?” her laugh was shaky.

  “Well, really good friends,” Mason said. “I still care about you, Celia.”

  She grabbed his hand. “Do you mean that, Mason? It’s really over with Annajane?”

  His face darkened. “It really is.”

  “Thank God,” she said fervently. “Because there’s something else. I didn’t want to tell you like this. I was waiting until after the wedding. I didn’t know how you’d feel about it, but Mason, I just can’t keep it from you anymore.”

  Somehow, he knew what she was going to say before the words were out of her mouth. A sense of dread washed over him.

  “I’m pregnant,” Celia said. “Mason, we’re pregnant.”

  21

  When he was eight years old, he and his friend Stevie Heckart stole a package of firecrackers and a box of kitchen matches from Stevie’s older brother. They rode their bikes out to Hideaway Lake and took the firecrackers out onto the dock. It was winter and nobody was around. For a while they amused themselves by lighting firecrackers and flinging them into the lake. But then boredom set in and they began looking for a bigger thrill, a bigger bang. They found a rusty coffee can full of nails in the tin-roofed boathouse. They dumped out the nails and put an entire package of the firecrackers in the can and lit it. The ensuing explosion left him numb and deaf for several minutes, with only a vibrating ringing in his ears.

  That was how Mason felt after hearing that Celia was pregnant. It was as if the words she’d uttered had been spoken from the bottom of a well, through a wall of water.

  She grabbed his arm. “Say something, please. Tell me you’re as happy as I am. Because I’m, well, I’m delirious. I’ll finally have a family of my own now.”

  Too stunned to speak, he simply stared.

  “Mason?” She grabbed his arm and shook it.

  “I thought you were on birth control,” he said, when his brain started to thaw.

  “I was using birth control,” she said. “The patch. But apparently, sometimes things can happen. Remember that upper-respiratory infection I had this past winter? I took antibiotics? They can counteract birth control. And I guess they did. Because here I am … pregnant!”

  “But … when? I mean, we haven’t even really been together … like that, since you started planning the wedding.”

  She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. “I know. Which was another reason I was so upset that my plans for last night were ruined. It’s been soooo long. But I promise, I’m going to make it up to you tonight.” She laid her head on his shoulder and looked up at him from beneath her uncannily luxurious eyelashes.

  He continued to stare at her. “How long, exactly? I mean, if you know.”

  “The ides of March,” she said, snuggling against his chest. “I’m due in December. Just think, a Christmas baby.”

  He looked at her carefully. She didn’t look pregnant. She was wearing tight jeans and some kind of stretchy top and her belly was as flat as the palm of his hand. When Pokey was pregnant, she swore you could tell the minute her egg latched onto a sperm. But Celia seemed to be saying she was at least six weeks pregnant and she was no bigger around than a twig. “And you’re sure? I mean, have you seen a doctor or
something?”

  “Of course I’m sure,” Celia said smoothly. “I took two of those home pregnancy tests. Plus I saw a doctor in Charlotte the last time I was there.”

  “Oh,” Mason said. He buried his head in his hands. He got to his feet unsteadily. “Excuse me,” he said, ever the southern gentleman. He hurried into the powder room and closed the door firmly.

  “We have to talk,” Mason said, when he finally emerged from the powder room, pale and grim-faced. While he’d been retching, she’d moved into the kitchen, washed her face, and combed her hair. She looked radiant, if that was possible.

  “Yes,” Celia said, nodding eagerly. “I agree.”

  He went to the liquor cupboard, pulled out a bottle of bourbon, poured three fingers into a water glass, and downed it in one swallow.

  Celia had never seen Mason drink this early in the day. She slid onto one of the leather barstools at the kitchen counter. But Mason remained standing, his backbone ramrod straight.

  “There’s no easy way to say this,” Mason started. “The thing is, even before, well, the thing with Annajane, I guess I’d started to realize maybe we should rethink getting married.”

  One large tear rolled down Celia’s cheek. She turned her head and brushed it away with the back of her hand.

  “I’m sorry,” Mason said. His shoulders slumped. “I just don’t love you. I thought I did, but I don’t. You deserve better than that. Marrying me would be the biggest mistake of your life, Celia.”

  “But, the baby,” she whispered, fighting back the tears. “Our family…”

  He sighed. “I can’t lie. The baby complicates things. You said December?”

  Celia nodded.

  He looked out the kitchen window. A baby. His own flesh and blood. How could he have been so careless? And not just about that. How could he have let his marriage to Annajane dissolve, without a fight? How could he have let the business deteriorate to the point that it was at risk? How could he get himself engaged to a woman he didn’t really want to marry? Had he been asleep for the past five years? What would his old man think of the way he’d screwed things up?

  “I will, of course, take care of you and the baby,” he started to say. “Financially, emotionally, whatever. You’ll never want for anything.”

  Celia was uncharacteristically quiet.

  “You don’t still want to get married, do you?” he heard himself ask.

  She shrugged. “I don’t want to force you to marry me.” She sniffled a little. “But I never thought I’d be an unwed mother!” And then she was crying again. Loud, gasping sobs. He put a hand on her arm, and she shook it off angrily, refusing to be comforted. “Just leave me alone,” she said.

  22

  Annajane couldn’t sleep. She was haunted by the consequences of her actions. By six that morning, she’d decided on a course of action. She had to go to Shane, tell him what she’d done, and ask for his forgiveness.

  She threw some clothes into an overnight bag and text-messaged Davis.

  “Won’t be coming in today. Maybe not tomorrow either. Sorry.”

  Celia, she thought wryly, would be delighted.

  It was a six-hour drive to Atlanta. She welcomed the quiet, the chance to think, the absence of distraction. She watched the sun come up over an emerald-green pasture dotted with horses and an old sway-backed mule and, finally, at eight, gave herself permission to stop at a Bojangles’ north of Greenville, South Carolina, for coffee, a biscuit, and a bathroom break.

  The restaurant was busy, with construction workers picking up bags of chicken biscuits, office workers lined up in their cars at the drive-through, and two long tables of elderly men who were obviously members of an unofficial coffee klatch.

  Her cell phone rang as she was getting back into her car. She glanced at it warily, praying it wasn’t Mason, grateful it was only his sister, Pokey.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “Oh my God!” Pokey breathed. “OhmyGodOhmyGod. I can’t believe you did not call me.”

  “I was going to,” Annajane said. “But I left at six. I figured you’d probably still be asleep.”

  “Left where?” Pokey asked, her voice rising with excitement. “Are you telling me you actually spent the night with him? That is the best news I’ve had in months. Years maybe.”

  “Spent the night with who? What are you talking about?” But Annajane had a sinking feeling she knew exactly what her best friend was talking about.

  “You. And Mason. Last night. Doing the wild thing out at the farm. In the Chevelle.”

  “Oh, no,” Annajane moaned. “This cannot be happening.”

  “Oh, yes,” Pokey crowed. “Believe it.”

  “Where did you hear it?”

  “What’s important is who I didn’t hear it from,” Pokey said. “You! How could you?”

  “This is not exactly my finest moment,” Annajane said dully. “How did you hear, anyway? Surely not Mason…”

  “My brother? Be serious!” Pokey said, laughing. “Of course I didn’t hear it from him. I did call him right before I called you, but he’s not answering his phone, the jerk.”

  “Then who?” Annajane asked, bewildered. Her face was in flames. “It’s only eight o’clock in the morning. How on earth…?”

  “Oh, honey,” Pokey drawled dramatically. “It’s gone viral. You know I walk every morning on the high school track at seven with Vera Hardy, and she was just agog over the news. And then on my way home, I stopped to get milk and cereal and juice boxes at Harris Teeter, and Bonnie Kelsey, that bitch, stopped me by the Pop-Tarts and wanted to know what was going on with you two. Don’t worry, though, I played dumb…”

  “I’m having a nightmare,” Annajane said.

  They heard a faint beeping on the line.

  “Oops,” Pokey said. “That’s Pete. I’ll call you back.”

  Ten minutes later, she called back. “Pete wants to know if you two could reschedule the wedding before he has to return his tux to the rental place,” Pokey reported. “Save him a hundred bucks.”

  “Not funny,” Annajane said. “Did you have to tell him?”

  “I didn’t tell him,” Pokey said. “He already knew.”

  “How?”

  “Kiwanis breakfast meeting,” Pokey said succinctly. “You know those men gossip like a bunch of old biddies.”

  “The whole Kiwanis Club knows?” Annajane felt fine beads of perspiration forming on her upper lip and forehead.

  “Rotary, too, apparently,” Pokey added. “Pete said Davis called him this morning, about to split a gut over it. Davis told Pete he’s furious at Mason for disgracing the family, if you can believe it. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.”

  “Davis knows?” Annajane felt a stabbing pain in her abdomen.

  More faint beeps.

  “Oh, Lord, that’s Mama,” Pokey said. “I’ve gotta take this. You know if I don’t pick up on the second ring she’ll pout for days and days.”

  Please, please, please, Annajane prayed. Please don’t let Sallie have heard. Anything but that. Please.

  But apparently the gods were deaf to her pleas.

  “Mama knows,” Pokey said, calling back ten minutes later.

  “Davis told her?”

  “Afraid not,” Pokey said. “She heard it at altar guild this morning.”

  “What all did she say?” Annajane asked, dread in her heart.

  “Don’t ask,” Pokey said darkly.

  “I just don’t understand how this got out so fast, and so far,” Annajane cried. “Mason would never have said anything to anybody, and I for sure didn’t.”

  “Well, that’s easy,” Pokey said. “Grady Witherspoon! If you wanted to keep your affair with your ex-husband secret, you should have picked a more private place than the farm.”

  “We are not having an affair! It was a kiss. One stinking kiss.”

  “That’s not how I heard it,” Pokey said. “Pete said Watson Bates saw Grady at the feed and seed this
morning. Watson told Pete he heard the two of you were going at it buck nekkid in the backseat of the Chevelle.”

  “It was the front seat!” Annajane objected. “And we were not naked.”

  “Were you fully dressed?” Pokey asked.

  “None of your business.”

  “Half-dressed?”

  “It doesn’t matter now,” Annajane said, biting her lip. “The truth doesn’t matter, because all of Passcoe is now firmly convinced I was having sex with Mason Bayless last night. So that’s it. I can never show my face there again. Thank God my loft is already sold. You’re gonna have to finish up my packing for me.”

  “Come back from where? You never did tell me where you are right now.”

  “I’m going to Atlanta,” Annajane said. “I need to talk to Shane.”

  “To tell him it’s over between you?” Pokey said hopefully.

  “To confess my sins and ask forgiveness,” Annajane said.

  “Bad idea. Terrible idea,” Pokey said. “Clearly, something, even if it wasn’t full-blown, buck-nekkid car sex, is going on between you and my brother. You need to turn around and come back here and get it all sorted out. And then take another ride in the Chevelle to finish off what y’all started last night. Hopefully to a motel or somewhere twenty miles away from the prying eyes of Grady Witherspoon.”

  Annajane’s phone beeped again. “I’m gonna let you get this,” she told Pokey. “But please, don’t bother calling me back with any more reports of who said what. I can’t take any more.”

  23

  Shane’s faded blue Aerostar van was parked in front of the cabin. A beat-up bicycle leaned against the concrete-block foundation, and his yellow lab, Wyley, barked once as she pulled the car under the shade of a huge old dogwood with fading pink blooms.

  A minute later, Shane stood on the porch, his face alight with pleasure.

  “Hey!” he called, grinning. “Awesome!”

  Annajane ran from the car and threw herself into his arms. “I’ve missed you,” she whispered into his neck. “I just had to come to remind myself why.”