Chapter 36
Breezy
Yesterday, after getting home from Josie’s house, I crawled straight into bed and didn’t move again until the sun forced its way through the curtains.
I just needed a moment to wrap my mind around the life-altering, I’m-going-be-a-mama news. I also needed more moments to cry and throw up and stare at the ceiling for what felt like hours, whispering the same words in my head until they finally stuck.
I’m pregnant. With Tad’s baby.
Tad texted me yesterday—twice—but I never responded. Lord knows, it had been a long day of puking, tears, exhaustion, life-changing news, and that didn’t even include the pay-per-view worthy fight that broke out between Bennett and Logan and Tad.
I still don’t know the whys and hows of Tad ending up in the fray of my brothers’ bullshit, but I can only assume the shouting carried all the way over to his farm.
So, yeah. When I woke up this morning and saw Tad’s texts still sitting there unanswered by me, I knew what I needed to do.
I don’t know exactly how I’m going to say the words—I’m pregnant with your baby doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue—but showing up with his favorite coffee from CAFFEINE feels like a decent start.
Josie’s coffee shop is busy as hell, but that’s probably because it’s Sunday morning. Besides The Diner, this is the go-to spot for the after-church crowd, and no one is ever in a rush to leave.
I put in my order with Josie at the register, and by the look in her knowing eyes, she understands what the order stands for.
But she doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t question or hound me about it.
She just nods, types it in, and slides my change across the counter like we’re playing poker and she’s protecting my hand from the world.
Too many ears in the room to say anything else.
Camille makes my two coffees, and I take them over to sit down at an empty bistro table to wait for the rest of my order.
It’s only a few minutes later when Josie delivers my muffin with a wink and a smile before retreating to the counter, Clay chasing behind her while she swats his hands away from her ass.
“Get away from me, wild man!”
“Don’t tempt me, Josie. I’m all prepared to show you wild,” Clay taunts.
She giggles, and I tuck my returning smile behind a sip of coffee when she looks back over at me. Josie is the type who wants to be happy—and wants you to be happy for her—but she sure as hell doesn’t want to hear about it.
She’s a lot like me in that way; she’s tough, hardened from trauma and loss and family betrayal. Closed off with a gate and a latch and a lock and a chain to protect herself from what might happen if she lets anyone inside.
But damn, openness looks good on her. Happiness, joy, contentment with Clay—it all looks good on her.
I’m ninety-nine percent happy for her and one percent jealous.
It’s a future for which I’m not sure I’m destined—a future I never really considered wanting—and yet, Josie makes it look almost good.
Tolerable, at worst. And truth be told, if my life in New York had been great, I wouldn’t have ended up here.
I take a bite of my muffin to settle my stomach and take another sip of my coffee as I pretend to flip through a free Red Bridge Tourist magazine I grabbed from the counter to keep myself looking busy.
Tad’s to-go cup sits waiting next to mine, a stopper to prevent spills in the hole in the lid, and his name scrawled in Josie’s handwriting on the side to keep me from mixing them up.
I stare at his untouched coffee for a long time.
Telling him he’s going to be a dad feels like standing on a cliff and waiting to see if the ground gives way. But I need to do it. I want to do it. The sooner I put it out there in the open, the sooner I can start to deal with it myself.
Josie’s coffee is merely a tool for consolation and coming in peace.
Okay, Breezy, time to face the music.
Just as I’m gathering my things, the bell over the door dings, and Logan walks in, his hair combed and a nice shirt belying the casual man I know him to be. He’s a jeans and T-shirts guy—so much so, he’s worn them on the red carpet before—and seeing him all put together is an unexpected surprise.
An unwelcome surprise, but a surprise, nonetheless. The last person I plan on dealing with today is Logan. I’ve got too much on my plate as it is—you know, in breaking the bun-in-the-oven news to Farm Daddy.
My brother sidles up to the counter without noticing me, nervously fidgeting as he looks over the menu. I listen a little—I can’t help myself—as he clears his throat before asking Josie a question.
“Hey, uh…you wouldn’t happen to know Ben and Norah’s regular order, would you?”
Josie quirks a skeptical brow. “And why would you want to know that?”
“I…I thought it might be a nice, friendly gesture. A…you know, peace offering of sorts if I showed up at their house with some coffee.”
I know for a fact that Logan knows that Josie is Norah’s sister, but I don’t think the two of them have ever had an actual face-to-face conversation.
Josie definitely knows about yesterday’s unexpected visit and subsequent tussle, but at his explanation, her icy exterior melts just a little before she glances at me, which makes Logan notice me for the first time too.
“Oh hey, Breeze,” he greets affectionately. “How’re you feeling today?”
I smile. His eyes are both rimmed with mauvy-purple bruising that yellows slightly right at the edge. “Much better today. Thanks. How’s your face?”
He shrugs. “Eh. I’m sure I’ve deserved worse over the years. I’ll tell you what, though. That farmer can punch.”
I snort, and it forms a harmony with the sound of the bell over the door ringing with a new customer’s entrance.
Norah is instantly recognizable, a pink and purple and orange scarf wrapped generously around her neck and a sweet pair of pink heart sunglasses on her nose.
Bennett is right behind her with a pigtail-sporting Autumn in his arms, and she bounces on his hip with unconcealed excitement to get down as soon as she sees Josie behind the counter.
“JoJo!” my cute niece squeals in excitement as she toddles toward her other aunt.
Logan turns his body away from me toward them, and as soon as Autumn spots him, she stops to point her little index finger at him. “Bam Bam!”
I kind of want to laugh over how damn much her little toddler brain can remember, but when Ben makes eye contact with Logan, we’re back in the middle of a battlefield.
Metaphorical bombs in the form of gritted teeth and sharp exhales explode in the room, and I heave the beleaguered sigh of a woman who’s been dealing with this for literal decades.
And now, I’m pregnant—and let me tell you, the hormones aren’t doing anything for the patience portion of my disposition.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Bennett demands immediately, no subtle entry to the aggression at all, and Norah doesn’t hesitate to grab Autumn and pull her into her arms.
No doubt, she’s still on edge from the last time Logan and Bennett were in the same room together. Hell, I am too. Every nerve in my body is clenched tight, and I’m still sitting at the bistro table instead of making my exit.
Logan holds up both hands innocently, and for the first time in a long time, I feel bad for our youngest brother. He’s done plenty of shit to deserve his spot in the doghouse over the years, but at this point, all the anger is getting a little clichéd.
“I just came in to get coffee. For myself and for…you guys, actually. Josie’s already whipping up your favorite drinks for me. I was… Well, I was hoping if I showed up with coffee, you’d at least take it from me before you started throwing fists.”
“I’d never hit someone in here.” Norah, Josie, and Clay all scoff, and Bennett rolls his eyes, amending his statement by adding, “Again.”
“Listen here!” Josie yells, not even waiting for a response from Logan or anyone else. “You’re either drinking coffee or getting out. Nothing else is going on in here, you hear me? No cursing, no arguing, and definitely no hitting.”
Clay laughs. “Talk about a family reunion.”
When the bell over the door rings again, I half expect my dead father to have come back from the grave and arrived in Red Bridge—but instead, it’s the one man I’ve been thinking about all damn morning and night.
Tad. The unwitting father of my baking bun. The sheep farmer with the sperm power of a thoroughbred. And the man whose coffee is sitting right in front of me.
But before I can act or react or do something in the name of grabbing his attention, a frazzled-looking Eileen Martin comes storming in behind him. A stack of newspapers practically weighs down her arms, and when the door falls closed behind her, it knocks her forward with a hit to her ass.
Unfazed, she starts yelling. “Hot off the presses! Hot off the presses! Get the latest issue of the Red Bridge Chronicle right here!”
When people ignore her, she turns into a tornado, purposefully grabbing the attention of everyone in the coffee shop by shoving papers in their hands and faces and laps.
Sue Nagel, Betty Bagley, Hal Newton, Derrick and Fran, Sheriff Pete—they’re all here and being forced to read the damn newspaper, and those are just the faces I can see.
As Norah cracks open the paper, I get a look at the front page—and my name emblazoned in big, bold letters along with Josie’s is the first thing I see.
Norah moves it quickly before I can get a read on the whole headline, but mayhem explodes quickly enough that I wouldn’t bet any money on it saying something good.
“What the fuck, Eileen?” Josie yells, all bans on cursing, arguing, and quite possibly fistfighting going right out the window.
I jump up and grab the paper right out of Eileen’s stack, flipping to the front and swaying slightly when my stomach flips completely over inside me.
Swans are in the air in Red Bridge: Josie Harris and Breezy Bishop BOTH pregnant!