Southern Playboy (North Carolina Highlands 4)

I’m dreading every fucking minute of it.

I need a lot of sleep to perform at my highest level. Like, a lot. Toddlers sleep through the night, right?

Whatever the case, there’s more at stake now than just my feelings. Or my dick.

“You have my word, Amelia,” I say. “You also have my word that I’m going to fully participate in raising my son. I want to do it all. When I’m able to, at least. I just ask that you be patient with me as I learn.”

A pause. Then: “That’s really sweet. Of course I’ll be patient if you’ll be patient with me too.”

“Looking forward to it,” I say.

I ignore the flutter inside me that repeats, over and over again, bad idea.

The next morning, the paternity test comes back positive.

I get the news just in time for Samuel and Emma’s wedding, where I have yet another semi-breakdown in front of Hank and Stevie, who hadn’t been around when I told my family about Liam. Coincidentally, Amelia is a no-show. When I check in, she tells me she picked up a stomach bug from school. Apparently, it was going around, and Amelia said it was only a matter of time before she got it. “Whatever the kids get, I get. My immune system is garbage.”

I don’t realize how much I was looking forward to seeing her again until that phone call. I’m more bummed than I should be that we don’t get to hang.

Whatever the case, if I pass the home visit from social services, Liam will be arriving here on the farm sooner rather than later.

Chapter Nine

Amelia

“You sure you want me to meet Liam with you?” I ask, frowning at Rhett from across the kitchen table.

His knee bobs frantically up and down, his khakis making a whisk whisk whisk noise as he checks his phone for the hundredth time.

His cup of coffee sits untouched on the table in front of him.

“Of course I do. You and I are going to be the ones who are with him the majority of the time.” His eyes remain glued to the screen. “And yeah, I need someone there to catch me if I faint.”

“Which is why I’m here, dummy,” Samuel says. He’s standing at the stove, giving a pan of scrambled eggs a stir. “I got you.”

“We’ve got you,” June corrects, reaching for her youngest son’s hand. “It’s going to be all right. Between the—wait, I have to count now.” She quietly counts out the number of Beauregards gathered in Rhett’s kitchen. Beau and Annabel are here with little Maisie, who’s sitting on her Uncle Hank’s lap while Stevie leans in and reads On the Night You Were Born to her for the third time this morning. Emma and Milly are sipping their coffee at the far end of the table. “Between the nine of us, including Amelia—thank you, sweetheart, for helping out Rhett—we’ll make it work.”

I give Rhett a meaningful glance, ignoring the way my heart flickers at June’s term of endearment. It’s been a while since she smiled at me in that warm way of hers and first called me sweetheart, but I still get that feeling I did back then. The sense that I belonged here. That I was an honest-to-goodness member of this family and not just a girlfriend, a temporary addition.

It was something I very much needed after losing my mom to breast cancer at sixteen. Mom was barely forty-eight, and had been sick for close to five years before she passed. It was a dark time in my life. But the Beauregards showed up for me in a way no one else did.

“Your mom is right,” I say. “You have the best damned safety net there is.”

Rhett blanks his phone screen. “Thank y’all. I appreciate you being here. I do. But I still think it’s best if it’s just Amelia and me meeting Liam for the first time.”

June nods. “Of course. We don’t want to overwhelm him. But we’re here if you need us, all right? All you have to do is call.”

His Adam’s Apple bobs on a swallow. “Thank you.”

“I get that you’re still in shock,” Milly says to her brother. “But I, for one, am pretty excited to have a nephew.”

Beau grins. “I think Maisie may be the most excited of all. She’s been telling us for a while how much she’d love a new cousin. Not gonna lie, I thought Samuel and Emma would be the ones to do the kid thing first, but—”

“Hey,” Samuel says in mock offense. “Give Emma and me a little time, all right? We’ve been married for, like, twelve minutes.”

“No rush, baby,” June says.

“I still feel terrible about missing the wedding,” I say. “From what I hear, it was one hell of a party.”

Emma waves me away. “We’re just glad you’re feeling better, friend. Stomach bugs are no joke.”