12. Josephine
CHAPTER TWELVE
Josephine
The first problem is that I don’t sleep, and the second is that I try to pretend I did.
By seven a.m., I’m sitting upright in my own bed, back against the headboard, the sheets twisted around my legs like evidence of something I can’t quite deny, staring at my phone like it might rearrange reality if I look at it long enough.
It doesn’t.
Clay: Been off the grid. Sorry. Had a bit of drama but all good… how about you?
The message sits there, unchanged, irritatingly calm.
A bit of drama.
I press my lips together. “Yeah, I’ve had a bit of drama also, Clay. I’m pregnant. With twins. Yours.”
Yeah, I don’t think that’s ever going to feel real.
From the other side of the room, Penny groans into the oversized armchair she claimed sometime around three a.m. “Are you talking to yourself or to me?”
“Neither, technically,” I say.
“Well, that clears up absolutely nothing.”
I glance at her. Her hair’s a mess, and one eye’s cracked open just enough to assess whether I’m actively losing my mind or only flirting with it.
“You didn’t sleep,” she says.
“I rested,” I reply.
“That’s not the same thing.” She frowns at me. “You look dreadful.”
“I’m aware.”
She pushes herself up slowly, blinking toward the light filtering through my curtains. “Have you been staring at that phone the whole time?”
“No.” A pause. “Not the whole time.”
“Josie.”
I don’t argue, which is how she knows she’s right.
The message burns in my peripheral vision.
Been off the grid.
A bit of drama.
I exhale slowly. “He texted me.”
Penny immediately sits up straighter. “Oh, excellent. Let’s ruin my morning too. What did he say?”
I turn the phone toward her. She squints. “That’s annoyingly vague.”
“Yes.”
“And late.”
“Yes.”
“And after ignoring you for freaking ages.”
“Yes.”
She considers that. “Men are fascinating.”
“They are not.”
“They are when they behave like this.”
I take the phone back, setting it face down on the bed like that might reduce its influence over my mood.
It doesn’t.
I could answer him. It would be easy to type something neutral and polite, something that doesn’t immediately detonate both of our lives.
But there isn’t a version of this conversation that stays simple anymore. Not when I know what I know. Not when one reply turns into questions I can’t dodge, explanations I’m not ready to give, and a truth that doesn’t fit neatly into a text message.
“I don’t care,” I say.
Penny makes a soft, disbelieving sound. “Sure you don’t.”
“I don’t,” I repeat, sharper this time. “This is exactly what I expected. Temporary, inconsistent, not something I was relying on.”
“Mm hm.”
“I have more important things to think about.”
Penny softens. “Yeah. You do.”
I swallow.
Pregnant.
Twins.
The words still don’t feel fully real, like they belong to someone else’s life and somehow got misfiled into mine.
“I’m fine,” I say again.
Penny gives me a long look. “You’re not fine.”
“I’m functional.”
“That’s not the same thing either.”
“I’m aware,” I snap.
She doesn’t react to the edge in my tone. That’s one of the reasons she’s still here. She lets it pass, lets me be difficult without escalating it into more.
“Okay,” she says after a moment. “Then we’re going to do something very simple today.”
“I have work.”
“You nearly passed out again at work. Your boss won’t want you in.”
“I didn’t pass out.”
“You still lost the argument with gravity,” she says. “Dr. Harris told me.”
I glare at her. “He didn’t have to—”
“He absolutely did,” she cuts in. “You’re taking the day off.”
“I can’t—”
“You can,” she says firmly. “And you are. We’re going to get breakfast, and you’re going to eat something that isn’t coffee or anxiety, and then we’re going to come back here and figure out next steps.”
I open my mouth to refuse, then my stomach rolls again.
Penny arches a brow.
“Fine,” I mutter.
“Good.”
The Rusty Mug smells like coffee, cinnamon, and a faintly floral scent that I’ve never been able to identify.
It’s annoyingly comforting.
Penny pushes the door open, and the little bell above it jingles, drawing a few glances from regulars scattered across the tables. Buckhorn doesn’t do anonymity well. You’re always being seen and assessed.
Today, I mind less than usual, or maybe I just don’t have the energy to care.
“There she is,” a bright voice calls.
Laura, the owner.
She stands behind the counter with a pen tucked behind her ear and a grin that’s entirely too knowing for this early in the morning.
“You look like you’ve been through it,” she says as we approach.
“That’s one way to phrase it,” Penny replies before I can.
Laura’s eyes flick to me, softer now. “You okay?”
“I’m fine,” I say automatically.
Penny snorts.
Laura’s mouth twitches. “Uh huh. Booth or table?”
“Booth,” Penny says. “She needs to be contained.”
“I don’t—”
“You absolutely do,” Penny says, steering me toward a corner booth.
I sit without arguing.
Laura appears a moment later with two menus we don’t need since I already know this place off by heart. “Coffee?”
“Yes,” Penny says.
“Tea for me, please.”
My thoughts circle back, inevitably, to the message.
I flip my phone over to find it still there.
Penny leans forward slightly. “Are you going to answer him?”
“I don’t know.”
“You usually know.”
I shrug helplessly. “I usually have fewer variables.”
“That’s a very clinical way to say your life just got complicated.”
“I prefer accuracy. I mean, it just got really deep, didn’t it? And it was never supposed to be deep with us. Casual, fun, flirting, not… this.”
She smiles faintly. “Yeah, you’re right.”
Laura returns with drinks, setting them down with practiced ease. “Food?”
“Something bland,” Penny says immediately.
“I don’t need bland.”
Laura doesn’t even blink. “I’m bringing you toast and eggs.”
I exhale slowly and wrap my hands around the warm mug, letting the heat ground me.
This is manageable. I can handle breakfast. I can handle one day at a time. I can…
The bell above the door rings again.
The energy changes. The volume lifts just slightly. There’s a familiarity to the way people greet them, the way space makes room without being asked.
The McCoys.
Shit.
Penny glances over my shoulder, curiosity immediate. “Oh—”
“Don’t,” I say quietly.
“I’m just looking—”
“Penny.”
“Fine,” she mutters, though I can feel her practically vibrating with interest.
I glance up.
Tessa is the first one I recognize, baby tucked close to her chest, her expression soft in that way new mothers have, like they’re still adjusting to the fact that something so small can take up so much space in their world.
Rose enters beside her, Ellie close at her side, Wyatt already trying to climb onto a chair that’s slightly too big for him.
Faith follows, Brooklyn balanced on her hip, talking as she moves, her voice light and easy as Lila asks endless questions.
They fill the space without trying.
Family.
The word lands unexpectedly.
“There’s so many of them these days,” Penny whispers. “The McCoys will take over this town at this rate.”
I try to smile, but it’s hard to when I have McCoys within me. “That’s one way to put it.”
Laura greets them like they’ve been expected, guiding them toward a larger table near the center of the café.
I try not to watch.
I fail.
It’s subtle at first. The way Tessa adjusts the baby’s blanket without looking. The way Rose reaches for Ellie’s hand automatically. The way Faith shifts Brooklyn higher on her hip mid-sentence without breaking the flow of whatever story she’s telling.
“The McCoy brothers’ wives seem nice,” I mutter to Penny.
“Oh, they are.” She nods enthusiastically.
I pick up my tea, taking a careful sip.
Don’t read into it, don’t compare, don’t…
“…I don’t know what we’re going to do with him,” Faith is saying, her voice carrying just enough to reach us. “His mood is just awful.”
My grip tightens slightly around the mug.
“He shouldn’t have been riding like that if he was that exhausted,” Rose replies, a note of concern threading through her tone.
“I know,” Tessa says softly. “But you know Clay.”
Clay?
Shit. Just hearing his name makes my heart thunder against my rib cage. Panic and paranoia claim me. How much do they know?
“He’ll be alright,” Faith adds. “Boone said the break wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been. He just needs to get himself out of this funk…”
Break.
How the hell have I not heard about this yet in Buckhorn? This town doesn’t have secrets.
Penny goes very still across from me.
“Clay?” she mouths silently.
I nod once.
“Clay broke his leg?” she hisses. “How did we not know this? That’s not what he said in the message.”
I press my lips together and shake my head. Been off the grid. Sorry. Had a bit of drama but all good… how about you? That gave nothing away.
I set the mug down carefully, because my hands are no longer still.
He’s here, in Buckhorn, and finally reaching out to me again at the worst possible time because I have no idea what I’m about to do with the bombshell I just got dropped on me. The last thing I want to do is throw it in his lap, not when he’s already dealing with… well, a lot by the sound of it.
I press my palm flat against my stomach without thinking.
“Josie,” Penny says gently.
“I’m fine,” I say, because it’s automatic, because I don’t have another answer yet.
“You’re not.”
“I will be.”
“How?”
I look at her. “I don’t know.”
All I do know is that now nothing about this is going to stay simple, and I have no idea what I’m supposed to do next.