Light danced atop the surf surging into the lagoon of Friendship Beach. Kat rested her head back against the large, painted wood chair and sipped her nonalcoholic strawberry daiquiri. Relaxed, she closed her eyes and imagined playing in the sand, building castles and burying her little girl or boy waist-high. She swore she could hear the giggles of her little one in the wind sliding between palm leaves.
Her hand rested on her now-showing belly. Two months since the sonogram had gone with no issues. She wanted to rush to the end where she held her baby in her arms yet also wanted the time to slow down so she could enjoy each moment of growing a life inside of her.
“Is the baby kicking?” Jewels asked.
“Not that I can feel with my hand. Is that wrong?”
“No. I only asked because you were holding your belly,” Jewels said.
“It’s funny. When I first found out I was pregnant, I couldn’t imagine being a mother. All I could think about was how this would disrupt our lives, but now…”
“Now you’re attached and couldn’t imagine not being a mother.” Jewels sighed and looked up at the clear sky. “It’s natural. As women, we get to connect before the fathers do. It’s a gift.”
Kat didn’t have words to describe the connection she felt, but she knew she loved her child.
Jewels looked to the other girls. “We need to head back soon. The men will be meeting us at Kat’s. You know if we’re late, Wes will be pacing the floor, worried about mama and baby.
Trace slurped the last of her red slush. “Has Wes calmed down? The men said he still worries about you all the time.”
“He’s been better about letting me breathe.” She didn’t want to say he gave her more than a little space, more like there was a hundred-foot valley between them. Nothing had been the same since she’d accused him of not wanting to marry her.
“You ladies are being too nice.” Wind huffed and unceremoniously dropped her plastic glass into her chair’s cup holder and leaned forward. “Why’d you tell Wes that you’d tell him no if he asked you to marry him again?”
Kat swallowed a gulp of her drink down the wrong pipe, choking on the seeds and the realization that Wes had shared their relationship drama. “What? Where’d you hear that?”
“From the Mansters,” Wind huffed.
“They still calling themselves that? How silly.” Kat shook her head and pointed at the surf. “Look, I think that’s Rhonda. She’s probably got a spyglass pointed this way, taking notes on our time here. Rumors are already spreading about my man, and I’m sure someone’s noticed my belly bump.”
“Nice conversation detour, but I’m ramming the barricade. Talk.” Wind closed her cover-up around her waist and turned to face Kat with all the stage drama she could muster in one motion. “You know, you’re knocked up and fifty. Not sure you’re going to find another man at this point.”
Jewels rose from her chair and opened the cooler as if their conversation delayed their departure. “Wind, behave.”
She shrugged. “Telling the truth is all. Kat knows that. How many times has she berated me with the truth?”
“Put a straw in it.” Trace shot her a shut-your-mouth glower then turned to Kat. “Still, Wind has a point. Wes is a good man. He loves you. You love him. Why won’t you marry him?”
Kat wanted to avoid this line of questioning. “I think I’ll go for a swim.”
“You can’t outswim me, so start talking,” Trace said, and it was the truth. No one could outswim her.
Jewels pulled out the pitcher of daiquiri and poured more in each of their glasses. “We only want to help you. If there’s a reason you don’t want to marry him, we will respect that. Heck, we’ll run him out of town now. But if you’re avoiding marriage out of fear, then you need to talk about it.”
Kat buried her toes in the sand, the bright-blue polish showing through the grains as if water had seeped up through the ground. “Think about it. He tried to ask me up until he found out about the baby, and then he didn’t ask me again.”
“Yes, but he told the men that he hadn’t had a chance. That he was so worried about you, he hadn’t even thought about proposing. He didn’t want to add any more stress to what you were already going through.”
Kat was both happy Wes had bonded with the other men and equally annoyed that he shared like a thirteen-year-old girl. “I know what he said, but now that we know the baby is going to be a permanent part of our lives, I can’t figure out if he wants to marry me now out of obligation or because he wants to.”
“That’s the hormones talking.” Wind waved her hand at Kat. “You know even with that baby bump, you’re beautiful, smart, and bossy.”
Kat laughed. “Not wrong. I’m as bossy as you are theatrical.”
“Not wrong.” Wind winked. “Anyhoo, do you want to lose an amazing guy like Wes, the father of your baby, because you’re scared he’s only proposing out of obligation?”
“You don’t understand.” Kat pulled her hat down lower on her forehead, shielding her skin from the dark-spot-generating sunrays.
“Yes, we do. You think because your mother and father were so unhappy and were never around, that’s how it’ll be for your child. You think it would be easier to be on your own than with Wes, who wants a life beyond parenthood.”
“Yes. You heard him that day. Wes said he would hire staff to care for our baby. He says that is only to give us a break, but I can’t help but worry he’ll want a life beyond parenthood. He’s been a bachelor for fifty-two years. I won’t do it. I won’t abandon my child like that. He won’t admit it to me or himself, but Wes wants a life I can no longer give him, so if we get married, he’ll only resent me someday. I love him too much to trap him like that. I won’t end up like my parents.”
“Talk to him, Kat. Tell him all of this,” Jewels urged.
“He’ll only tell me that I’m wrong and he won’t even consider my words. Wes carries his own baggage. He thought he’d never be a father. He never wanted to get a woman pregnant because his father accused him of killing his own mother when he was born.”
Trace abandoned her drink as if the conversation took too much concentration to be distracted with an icy beverage. “That’s harsh.”
“And he also told Wes that if he ever got a woman pregnant, the same would happen to her.”
Kat’s heart ached at the thought of him worrying about something so ridiculous. “He thinks he’ll be no better than his own father, who ignored and belittled him growing up.”
“Wow, no wonder the guy’s so scared.” Wind looked at her nails and then at the sand. “You realize you’re one lucky girl to have a man who would give up his life’s plans to stay home and have a baby with you. A man who would sacrifice anything to be with you. A man who cares more about you than himself. A man who loves you.”
“But he won’t love me forever.”
“Kat, your parents treated marriage like a business arrangement. Your relationship with Wes is different. That man loves you. The question is, do you love him?” Jewels would’ve made a good lawyer.
“Yes, I do. More than my heart can take sometimes,” Kat said with no reservation at all. “But I love this baby more than I can express, and isn’t it my job as its mother to protect him or her from a father who doesn’t want to be there?”
“Doesn’t want to be there or is scared to be there?” Trace asked. Kat couldn’t help but notice Trace’s overprotectiveness had faded into the shadows. Wes had done the impossible. He’d earned her trust.
“Isn’t it the same thing?” Kat asked.
Jewels replaced the pitcher and closed the cooler. “No, it’s not. Fear can tear us apart. Don’t let it win.”
“Sailing” by Rod Stewart echoed from Jewels’s beach bag.
“No phones allowed, remember?” Kat scolded.
“It’s off. It would only ding for a contact I have in favorites.” She dug through her bag and pulled out her phone. “It’s Trevor. He wouldn’t call unless something was wrong.”
“Answer it, then.” Kat went to her side, hovering like Wes when it was time for her to take her vitamins.
“What’s wrong?” Jewels asked without a hello or anything. “No. Seriously?”
“What’s up?” Trace asked, already packing their stuff.
“On our way.” Jewels ended the call and tossed her phone into the bag. “The STSB reports seeing Kat’s mother arrive in town, and she’s on her way to the house. Your house.”
“But the men are there putting together the stuff for the nursery.” Kat grabbed her beach bag and raced for the dinghy. “We need to get there fast.”
The girls grabbed their stuff and raced to the boat, pushed off, and charged across the river to the docks at Trevor’s hotel. There was no time to waste. Not when Kat knew if there was anyone on earth who could chase Wes off, it was her mother.
When they unloaded and reached Jewels’s car, she paused and faced Kat. “I wish you had more time. But you better decide right now what you want from Wes. If not, you know your mother will decide for you.”
Kat huffed. “I’m a grown woman having a baby of my own. She can’t rule my life anymore.”
They all hopped into the car and raced the few blocks to her home. But when she saw her mother’s car parked in the driveway, her gut clenched tight as if the baby boxed inside her belly. Her pulse quickened, and her mouth went dry.
“I won’t let her make me feel small or like a failure. I won’t let her take charge.” Kat straightened to her full height, slung her beach bag over her shoulder, and marched inside her home to find her mother circling like a shark about to capture prey.
She turned on her too-high heels and tsked. “Guess you’ve done it this time. Good thing I’m home to clean up your mess.” She tossed her purse on the side table. “The scandal needs to be controlled. I blame you girls. Told you they’d be the downfall of you someday.” Her gaze fell on Kat’s belly. “And at your age. You’re lucky I decided to come home.”
Kat stepped forward, her heart beating faster than the baby’s had sounded on the sonogram. “This isn’t your home anymore. It’s mine. I bought it.”
“Ungrateful as always, I see.” She turned to Wes. “Did you want a baby so bad you’d risk my daughter? I mean, she’s too old to give birth. You trying to kill her?”
Wes dropped the hammer, and his skin went sheet white. Kat couldn’t remain silent. All the progress they’d made talking through his pain drained from his body with one statement from her mother.
“You have no right to speak to Wes that way.” She stormed forward, ready for a fight. Ready to take on the one person who always cut her down and made her feel worthless. “If you’re going to be ugly to the father of my child, then you can leave.”
She huffed. “You’re kicking me out of my own house?”
“It’s no longer your house. It’s my home now.” Kat forced herself to keep her hand from her belly, despite the deepening knot inside her. “A home I plan on building with laughter and love.”
Jewels went to her side, Trace at her other
Wind stepped in front of them all. She waved her arm like a wizard about to cast a spell. “Mrs. Stein, I’ve held my tongue all these years, and if you took the time to get to know me, you’d know how difficult that’s been, but I can’t hold it any longer. You need to realize Kat can take care of herself.”
Mother crossed her arms over her chest. “Obviously she can’t. Look at this place. There are boxes everywhere.” She pointed to all the crib and cradle and cuddly baby stuff stacked around the living area. “And where’s the staff? You can’t run a house without staff.”
Kat pushed past her friends, past the pain of being unworthy of a mother’s love, and marched forward. “I don’t want staff raising my child. Unlike you, I want to be a mother.” A sharp, searing pain shot around her belly. She doubled over and cried out. Her stomach cramped like a vise. “Baby!” she cried out, her knees hitting the floor hard.
Friends buzzed around. Hands touched her. Words sounded. But Kat couldn’t speak or comprehend anything but the fact that she could be losing her baby.