by Linda Kage
Tinker Bell?
A strange buzzing filled my head, and my skin suddenly felt about five times too small. Lifting my face from the cartoon fairy on her shirt, I took in her face.
Oh, hell.
Dumbfounded, I stood like a freaking statue, staring at the way-too-familiar vision that followed Mason's girlfriend up to the bar. For a second, I wondered if I'd gone delusional and was seeing things. No way was this woman real. But then I saw Ten glance at her. He lifted his eyebrows as his gaze traveled to her stomach.
Holy shit. If he was seeing her too, then she must be real. Right?
I froze as she passed right by me without even looking at me. When the hint of lilac wafted off her, I went dizzy from the shock.
No way. This wasn't possible.
I tried to shake my head, tried to get my vision to clear, because I couldn't be seeing what I was actually seeing. But my eyes soaked in every detail of the pregnant blonde.
I wasn't mistaken. Every inch of her was the same as I remembered. Even her lilac scent.
Tinker Bell from my glimpses was real.
Chapter 3
EVA
About the same time Mason finally accrued more working hours at the club where he bartended and more money started trickling in, Reese's car went kaput.
I was quickly learning things never came easily in this household. It was so unlike the Mercer residence where there was never a financial concern. But that's what I loved most about living here. I'd rather worry about money any day of the week over what I'd worried about before.
The mechanic they took Reece's junk bucket to shook his head and quoted an astronomical price to fix it. So Reese and Mason began carpooling everywhere in his Jeep.
One Thursday evening when Reese wanted to go grocery shopping while Mason worked, she dropped him off at the Forbidden Nightclub and agreed to pick him up again at closing.
It was late when he clocked off, so I probably should've been in bed asleep. But my baby girl had been kicking, and punching, and doing chin-ups from my ribs for the past two hours; plus I'd been suffering from cabin fever because I hadn't gotten out of the apartment in a good three weeks, aside from checkups with the doctor and grocery store runs. So I asked if I could tag along when Reese went to pick him up. She claimed to be grateful for the company, ergo the ride together worked for both of us.
Plus, by the end of the night, I'm glad I was there for moral support.
Riding in Mason's Jeep felt strange, though, as if I was encroaching on his territory. Things had improved between us; I no longer got the cold shoulder and he said more than three words to me at a time, but . . . yeah. Now that we'd decided we didn't totally hate each other, we were kind of at a loss of how to treat one another. We certainly weren't friends, but we definitely weren't enemies, so it just felt awkward speaking to him.
But Reese had a way of smoothing the waters. And she eased the why-was-I-in-Mason-Lowe's-Jeep nerves by trying to guess the name I'd finally decided for my baby.
"Gabriella? That one's pretty."
From the passenger seat, I grinned and shook my head. "Nope."
"No Gabby? Okay then." She pulled into the parking lot across the street from the bar and had to slam on the brakes when a pair of stumbling drunk girls walked right in front of the headlights.
As I watched them sling their arms around each other and giggle together, leaning heavily against one another and wobbling in their high heels, it struck me: I could've easily been one of them. If I hadn't gotten pregnant, I would've remained a party animal to this day, living it up every night and getting wasted, trying to find something loud and boisterous to fill the void that was my empty life.
But instead, here I sat, rubbing my huge belly and talking baby names with my best friend. The strangest part of all was that I felt grateful to be where I was.
"Next," I said, after the girls passed in front of us and Reese could finally drive again.
"How about Hayleigh?" she guessed. She liked going through the alphabet and coming up with a name for each letter.
Grinning because I knew Isabella would be next—she always guessed Isabella for the I—I laid my head back and closed my eyes. "Do you realize if I wasn't pregnant right now, we'd probably be talking about some cute pair of shoes we wanted to buy, or the next party we wanted to attend, or I'd be making fun of some person I didn't like while you'd be defending them?"
Reese made a humming sound in the back of her throat as she parked. "What a difference a few months makes, huh?"
"I was so shallow." Shame washed over me.
Her warm hand covered mine where it rested on my stomach. "You were not shallow. You were . . . "
When she couldn't come up with a complimentary description within five seconds, I opened my eyes and glanced at her. As I lifted my eyebrows expectantly, she colored, and then cleared her throat discreetly. "Okay, you might've been a teeny tiny bit . . . self-absorbed. But that was . . . that was before. Now your life has meaning, and substance, and—"
"I want to be a good mom," I said to stop her rambling. "I want . . . I just want her to be happy, and content, and proud of who she is as a person." Completely unlike the way I'd been raised.
Reese let out a small sigh before patting my fingers and squeezing them. "You will. The way you already put her before everything else, I know you'll be a great mom. And I think she'll be lucky to have . . . "
When her words trailed off and she stared transfixed out the front windshield, I turned to look too but didn't see anything out of the ordinary. The way we were parked, the Jeep faced across the street toward the front entrance of the club where Mason worked.
"What?" I asked.
"I just . . . " She shook her head. "No. I must've been seeing things. It couldn't have been her." Bringing her index finger to her mouth, she began to chew on a fingernail. Since I'd never known her to be a nail biter before, I turned back to the bar and tried to scan for whatever—or whoever—she was talking about.
I was about to ask her who she thought she'd seen, when she began to ramble to herself, which was definitely one of her nervous ticks. "I must be totally losing it. I mean, it's dark. The shadows could be playing tricks on my eyes. And we're all the way across the street, way too far to be sure it was her, and—"
Unable to handle a second longer of her panic attack, I lost it. "Oh my God, stop! Who do you think you saw?"
"I don't . . . I'm not . . . " She turned to me, her eyes huge and almost scared. "That lady who just entered the club, wearing a trench coat . . . I don't know, but I swear to God, she looked just like . . . Mrs. Garrison."
I blinked, and it took me a second to place where I knew that name. When it hit me, my eyes widened. "Mrs. Garrison? You mean, Mason's Mrs. Garrison?"
She gasped, and the hard expression on her face told me she was a second from clawing my face off. "Don't you ever call her Mason's anything. That bitch has no claim on him whatsoever."
"Okay." I lifted my hands in surrender and cringed out an apology. "Sorry. I just . . . I meant, Mrs. Garrison, the . . . the rapist?" When Reese's shoulders relaxed at that label, I frowned. "But what would she be doing here? Florida is a good nine hundred miles—"
"What do you think she's doing here?" Reese exploded. "She's stalking my man. What else has she ever done? She's obsessed with him. She's probably never going to leave him alone until someone finally takes her out."
Eyes lighting with intent, she grabbed my hands and squeezed them hard. "Oh my God, E. Let's take her out. Together. We're in a big-ass Jeep." Her fingers clamped even tighter around mine. "When she comes back out, let's gun the engine, pop this curb and run her wicked ass over. Oops, total accident. What was she thinking by jaywalking across a busy street in the middle of the night? And then . . . " She nodded, as if coming to the best part of the story. "While the car's lying on top of her and the only things poking out are her glittery red Christian Louboutins, I say we steal her shoes and run."
Wow, wha
t was this, the homicidal version of The Wizard of Oz?
While, yes, I had to agree Mrs. Garrison, Mason's rapist—er, I mean, the rapist of Mason since she wasn't Mason's anything—was the Wicked Witch of Florida, that still didn't mean manslaughter was a good option.
And hello, how had I turned into the rational one?
"Yeah . . . " I said slowly before shaking my head. "No, I think maybe we should shy away from anything involving . . . murder."
"Murder?" Reese snorted. "It wouldn't be murder. It'd be . . . it'd be doing society a favor to rid that kind of evil from the world. It'd be a public service."
Crap, she was beginning to scare me. "But you weren't sure it was her, remember? The shadows. The dark. She was all the way across the street. It was probably someone else, sweetie."
Reese took a long, deep breath, physically calming herself. But she wouldn't stop staring at the front doors of Forbidden.
"How about you guess another baby name," I tried, suddenly glad I had refused to tell her what I'd decided to name my little girl; now I had something to use as a distraction. "You're on the letter I, remember? Maybe you could try to come up with something different than Isabella this time."
"Idiot," she hissed.
"What! Why would anyone name their kid Idiot?"
"No. I'm the idiot. I was so sure moving us halfway across the country away from her would get her out of his hair and free him from her forever, but—oh God. There." She pointed. "There she is." She covered her mouth and whimpered. "It's her, E. It's really her."
I'd never actually met Mrs. Garrison before. Never even seen her. I'd only heard Reese's horror stories. The woman was Mason's living nightmare. Sorry, I meant, the living nightmare of Mason.
It was dark, and I barely saw her face. But she did have a certain air about her that reminded me of my father. Rapists were all the same—predators.
"Are you sure? I can barely see her," I insisted, trying to keep Reese calm so her reactions wouldn't throw me into a panic attack, because that atmosphere about her freaked me the hell out.
"Yes," she said with steely determination as she reached for the keys still dangling from the ignition.
"Whoa. No." I reached out and caught her hand. "This is not . . . you shouldn't . . . " Damn, I was no good at this. We really needed Mason here. I'd never seen my cousin this unhinged before, but if anyone could draw her back from the ledge, it'd be him.
"Mason," I gasped, an idea hitting me.
Reese glanced sharply at me. Wow, even his name broke through her haze.
"What about him?"
"He's inside. If she went in there, she probably saw him, right? So don't you want to make sure he's okay?" I snatched her phone off the center console and thrust it at her. "Call him."
He'd make this better. He'd tell her she was mistaken, his blackmailing rapist was nowhere near Illinois, and everything was fine.
Blowing out a shaky breath, Reese nodded and dialed his number.
"Put it on speaker phone," I demanded, beginning to chew on my own nails as I turned to stare at the opening of the club, where the wicked witch lookalike had thankfully disappeared down the block.
Reese complied and I listened to the phone ring and ring, and ring. When it went to voice mail, she cursed and hung up.
I bit down a little harder on my thumbnail, wondering why he hadn't picked up. Mason always answered the phone when Reese called. It was all part of how disgustingly adorable they were together.
"Call again," I ordered.
She did. Then she did again. Baby Girl must've noticed the growing unease in me because she stirred in restless agitation. I smoothed my fingers over her, my palms naturally ironing down the image of Tinker Bell I had on the nightshirt I wore.
When the ringing stopped and the line clicked on, Reese and I sat up straighter and shared a relieved look. Until a muted voice as if it were a distance away from the receiver shouted, "Shit! Are you really going to tell her some old chick just came in, claiming Lowe knocked her up?"
"Say what?" Reese cried.
Immediately, the line went dead.
"Oh, no, they did not." Reese redialed.
I wasn't at all surprised when no one answered. Gulping in absolute worry for her, and even a little for Mason, I tried to calm her. "Maybe . . . maybe they meant . . . "
Reese glanced sharply at me. I winced. She muttered a couple more obscenities before grabbing her phone and shoving open the driver's side door.
"Ree Ree?" I squawked, not sure how I was going to physically restrain her if she actually did try to kill someone. I lurched out of the Jeep behind her, waddling pathetically in an effort to catch up. "What're you doing, sweetie?" I tried to sound soothing.
Totally didn't help.
"I'm going to find my goddamn boyfriend and figure out what the hell is going on."
Oh, double crap. I hurried after her. Her phone began ringing as soon as we hit the sidewalk. She answered without hitting the speaker to let me hear this time.
As she shoved open the front doors of the bar, she growled, "Let me guess. Mrs. Garrison just showed up to announce you'd put a baby in her."
I followed her inside, only to pause briefly in the entrance. Since the place had already closed, it was cleared out save for five guys—all employees because they wore the same kind of black T-shirt Mason always wore to work—and one woman. They had gathered around the bar in the back.
On the other side of the long counter, Mason dropped his phone from his ear and let out a long sigh. "Yeah. Pretty much," he confessed, looking more troubled than I'd ever seen him.
Worry gnawed at my stomach. I'd just decided Mason wasn't the anti-Christ and now this? According to Reese, if he had knocked up Mrs. Garrison, it wasn't because he'd wanted to be with her. But still, how could Reese stay with him after learning he'd fathered a child with someone else?
Even more shocking, I didn't want them to break up.
It was such a perplexing thought for me since I'd spent the first six months of their relationship trying to get them to do exactly that.
But they loved each other, they were good for each other, and they gave me hope that happily ever after existed. Or at least they had up until now.
"I had a feeling we hadn't gotten rid of her so easily," Reese said as she hurried toward her man.
I bumbled after her because, yeah, I felt totally out of place being seven months pregnant and pretty much wearing my PJs—a nightshirt and gray yoga pants—while inside a bar with a bunch of complete strangers. I mean, sure, every guy in the place was hot, but they were still strangers.
"I say, if a stake through the heart doesn't work, we try cutting her head off."
I rolled my eyes and gave a soft smile. Only Reese would say that.
Mason laughed as if relieved by the way his girlfriend was taking all this. But he just as quickly sobered and shook his head. "I am so . . . so sorry."
When I saw the hint of tears in his eyes, I had to blink and glance away because I'd never seen Mason anywhere near tears before. It was hard to watch him like this. Lately, I could not let anyone cry alone. I even wailed over those dog adoption commercials, and I totally wasn't a dog person.
Freaking pregnancy hormones.
Too-forgiving Reese merely shrugged. "Hey, if there isn't some insurmountable obstacle in our path, we wouldn't be us, would we?" But there was still a tremor in her voice, letting me know she was just as freaked out as Mason was.
He didn't seem to want to be forgiven quite so easily, though. He brought her hands to his mouth and shook his head. "You shouldn't have to deal with this. You shouldn't—"
"I think she was lying," I blurted out, unable to watch them go through this torture. I felt so strongly against the whole idea, I absolutely refused to believe this could happen to Reese.
Winded from chasing her across the street, I plopped down on a stool at the bar beside Reese. When I spotted a bowl of beer nuts, the pregnant munchies struck with a vengeanc
e.
I reached for them, not even caring how much the salt in them was going to make my ankles swell. Already tasting the tart nutty flavor, my mouth began to water. But mere inches away from scooping up the biggest handful I could manage, I was shut down. Warm fingers wrapped around my wrist, stopping me while another hand yanked the bowl away.
Ack! My nuts! That yummy, yummy salt and—
I looked up, ready to lambaste whoever was keeping the famished pregnant chick from her food.
But the dark brown eyes of the guy staring back at me caught me totally off guard. Wow.
He was—
I didn't even know how to describe him. A surface description would be tattooed and pierced. There was a metal hoop caught in his eyebrow, and two right next to each other through the corner of his bottom lip. His tats spread down both arms, making him look like he was wearing long sleeves instead of a short-sleeved shirt and one colorful design flared up the right side of his neck.
He appeared to be a bad boy straight from the wrong side of town. But there was something not bad boy about him. He simply didn't look like the type who didn't give a damn about life. His deep brown eyes held too much compassion and vivacity.
Then he winked at me, confirming he was definitely no typical careless, brooding antihero. "Let me get you a fresh batch, Tinker Bell. Who knows what kind of filthy fingers have been in these all night."
Nice. My pajamas had just won me a stupid pet name. Go me.
I began to roll my eyes, but I stopped, my mouth falling open as he jumped over the bar. Like jumped over the bar, the same way Sam and Woody had done in all those Cheers reruns I'd seen. It was so hot I might've drooled a little.
After he tossed the old bowl, he pulled up a big box full and sprinkled out a new pile. Just for me. When he slid the untouched beer nuts my way with an indulgent smile, I continued to stare at him in utter awe.