Chapter 55
GEORGIA
“Hello, Momma.”
“There you are. I thought maybe you were eaten by a bear in that God-forsaken place.”
Ah, my mother, the southern drama queen.
“I think they’re all hibernating now,” I said. I went to the switch on the wall and flipped on the gas fireplace. Every room at the James Inn had one. “And I’m not living in a tent in the woods. This is a town. With buildings. Heat. Hot water.”
“There are perfectly good towns in Georgia,” she countered.
“Yes, there are, but the job is here. I’m sorry I didn’t return your call earlier, but I was busy working and then… you won’t believe it. I helped deliver a baby.”
She gasped. “I told you it was the wilderness. You helped to deliver a baby? Don’t they have hospitals?”
“Sometimes a baby wants out on their own time,” I replied. “In this case, it was fast. Too fast.”
I’d cried all over Mac. That had been an error on my part.
Then I’d told him about Art and how I’d wanted a baby.
For a moment, I feared he’d think I was preparing to trap him.
That I was sobbing into his flannel about popping out weak eggs and that I needed his super sperm immediately.
To snare him into eighteen years of childrearing all because I’d missed out before now. That hadn’t been the case.
Seeing the love Lindy and Dex had for each other, the excitement, the fear and the pure joy of seeing the person they made…
It had been moving. And it hurt. And it made me cry.
What was I doing? Falling for a man who’d made it clear the amazing sex we had was casual. That it was a Montana fling for me. Fuck a firefighter for a few weeks, then go home. Forget him and his family.
No big deal. Like delivering a baby. It was a job to him. Something to tackle, control and resolve. Nothing more. Nothing less.
It wasn’t his fault I felt more for him than I was supposed to. It wasn’t his fault I witnessed the amazement of childbirth with him. It wasn’t his fault it made my biological clock tick louder.
I’d done all of that on my own.
We took food to the hospital and as Mac expected, Lindy’s room was packed. Dex sat on the bed beside his wife, holding the new baby in his arms. They’d named her Justine, after Lindy’s mother who passed away years ago.
They radiated pure joy and happiness. Around them was Theo and Mallory, Bridget and Maverick and Silas and Eve. They were all first-time aunts and uncles.
Maverick had passed Mac a cigar and he was the man of the hour for his birthing skills.
We didn’t linger, thankfully. Even though I’d had drinks with most of them when I first arrived, and Mav was my boss on the fundraiser project, and I’d offered up my towel support during the birth, I’d felt completely out of place, an outsider.
This was a family moment and I hadn’t wanted to intrude.
Mac drove us back to his house and the fact that I didn’t belong, even with the MacKenzies, became so glaring.
While Mac had wanted me to stay with him like I had been the past few nights, Drew was going to stay the guest room. It was one thing to fool a six-year-old, but I wasn’t going to share Mac’s room with Drew across the hall.
While Mac had said he was thirty-five and wasn’t going to be grounded for being with a woman, it wasn’t happening. Especially since it had been made more than clear I was just a fling.
And for that I was thankful.
I needed some room. Space and time to think. I was still shaky from the birth. From the abruptness of life. Of change. It was a stark reminder of how much I’d been kidding myself. I was an all-in kind of girl. Even when I agreed to just sex, I couldn’t do it. I’d caught feelings.
Stupid Georgia.
So I snagged some clothes from the garage apartment and went to my barely-used room at the James Inn. Andy and his father and grandfather were tucked in bed on the other side of town. New parents Lindy and Dex along with baby Justine were being safely observed at the hospital.
I was tucked in cozy, a fire in the gas fireplace, me in a plush robe and slippers after a hot shower. I’d never look at a bathtub the same way again.
I’d even savored the chocolate that had been on my pillow.
Alone.
And my momma wasn’t letting me forget it.
“You’d have a passel of them now if you kept Art happy,” she said, and I could clearly see her in my mind shaking her head with her usual disappointment.
I had Good Girl Syndrome, the need to please even if it was to my disadvantage. To sit quietly by and put others’ feelings and needs first. I always let my mother walk all over me in order to keep the peace.
“Art was never happy with me,” I admitted. It was the truth and was obvious if he strayed. “That’s why he’s Pam Buttermacher’s problem now.”
“Maybe if you lost some weight or served dinner when he got home from work instead of working yourself,” she added, knowing just how to make me feel bad. To make it my fault.
“Then I’d be worse off than I am now,” I countered. “I’d have no job skills, penniless and no children to show for it. Because it’s quite hard to make a baby when your husband is sticking his dick in someone else.”
“Well, I never,” she huffed.
“What is it you called about, Momma?”
It had been such a long day. Overwhelming. Emotionally exhausting and she was only making it worse. So much worse. Because after spending time with Mac and him telling me I was gorgeous and proving it to me by fucking me every which way he could, my mother’s jabs were even more glaring.
I heard her breathing, as if she had to collect herself.
“I wanted to know when you’re returning from that silly job.
Sassy needs help with some pageant clients and I need to tell them when you’ll be available.
They won’t be getting the best, but some of these girls won’t ever wear a tiara, but their mommas continue to hope and are willing to pay for it. ”
Like she still did with me.
It was my turn to collect myself. She didn’t ask how the fundraising project was going. If the James Corp thought I was doing a good job. If the community thought I was. No. Not once.
“I’ll have to get back to you. Good night, Momma.”
I hung up. Because no matter what I said, nothing was going to change.
I wanted this calendar to succeed because, obviously, I’d suggested it.
The last thing I wanted was to have it fail and the department find better success with a chili dinner.
But I also needed to prove to myself I was competent and capable, that I was better than what Momma and Art and any other doubter thought of me.
Bradley believed in me and I needed to believe in myself.
Now? I wanted to succeed because I needed so badly for James Corp to hire me full time.
I needed to be in the Denver office, not back in Calhan.
I needed to find my place, my spot in life that wasn’t in Sassy’s shadow, wasn’t my Momma’s warped view of an overweight divorcee and wasn’t Art’s second choice.
For so long I let others dictate my wants and happiness.
I stayed in places where I knew I didn’t belong.
Like continuing to linger in the MacKenzies’ lives hoping for scraps.
All of these issues were my mistakes I repeated over and over. No more.
The calendar had to be amazing. I had my life riding on it.