Jeremiah (Stud Ranch 5)

I expected Charlie to shrink away or try to placate her mom like she had every other time on this trip.

Instead, she surprised the hell out of me. She snatched the napkin out of Reece’s hand, wiped her mouth, then walked over to her mother and stood up tall to her.

“I’ll have you know that it is my honor to announce,” she hooked her arm through Reece’s and jerked him possessively to her side, “I am honored to be having a baby with this man. Maybe we should have been honest from the start. It was definitely one of the reasons that made us choose to get married, but it was far from the only one. I love this man, through and through. Everything he is and everything he will become.”

Then she turned back to Reece and clasped her hands like they had back at the diner. “I’m fucking ecstatic to get to partner at your side as you go on the journey, love. It’s the honor and pleasure of my life. And I, for one, cannot wait to see you as a father. You’re going to be amazing at it.”

Then she spun back on her mother. “But you. We’ve all been walking around on eggshells ever since you got here, all because I wanted to preserve some kind of relationship with you so my child would have grandparents to know and love. But I should have known that anyone who could stand passively by while their daughter was married to an abusive monster, even when I told you, I begged you for help—”

Her mother waved a hand to cut her daughter off, the high color in her cheeks evidence enough that she didn’t appreciate having the tables turned on her and having her dirty laundry aired in front of the public instead. Her mother leaned in and hissed, “You always were an overly dramatic child,” Mrs. Winston snapped. “We thought you were just exaggerating for attention. And considering this little display, I can’t be sure we were wrong. When you make a commitment to a man, you stick to it. But no, the first time you ran into a little adversity, you wanted to quit your marriage. Of course I counseled you the way I did, and I stick by it. Jeffrey was an excellent husband and it’s a tragedy we lost him the way we did.”

“Leave.” Reece said, stepping in front of his wife. “Go. Right now. You’re no longer welcome here.”

Mrs. Winston tried to look around him at her daughter, her face the picture of offense, but Charlie had turned away from her, burying her face in her husband’s back. She glared back up at Reece. “Who are you to speak to me that way? Who are your people? Oh right, you’re nobody. You’re nothing. You think you’re so much better than Jeffrey, taking advantage of my daughter when she was vulnerable and chaining her to this dead-end life by planting your bastard in her belly—”

“Mother! That’s enough. Reece is right. You’re welcome to leave now. I wanted you in our child’s life but not if you’re going to be like this. I’ve chosen my family now—real family so that for the first time in my life I understand the meaning of the word. If you ever want to be part of it again, things will have to change. Either way, I need you to leave right now.”

Then Charlie turned back to Reece and the way they looked at each other in that moment, it might as well have been as if the hundred and fifty of their closest friends and relatives around them had all disappeared.

Charlie threw her arms around Reece and tucked her face into his chest as he enveloped her in the safest, most secure looking hug in the world. My chest hurt just watching them, especially as they continued ignoring everyone, including Charlie’s parents. Reece kept his arm securely tucked around her shoulder as they walked back toward the house.

“The bride needs some rest. Keep celebrating, enjoy the food and open bar and I’ll be right back!” Reece called over his shoulder.

Mrs. Winston just huffed and crossed her arms over her chest, her lips thinned in disapproval. “It’s a disgrace. A bastard conceived out of wedlock. My grandfather must be rolling over in his grave to see what’s happened to his bloodline. We were raised better.”

If I punched the mother of the bride at her own daughter’s wedding, that would be a bad thing, right? Especially since I still had one last check for fifteen grand to secure from her.

My hand was still itchy anyway.

No chance though because then she was grabbing her husband’s arm and dragging him back around the house. The man hadn’t said a single word during the altercation between his wife and daughter. But he hurried along at his wife heels. House-trained for sure, that one. I bet he didn’t even pee on the carpet anymore. Lord only knows how Charlie came from those two—one of nature’s little miracles.