Midlife Baby (Small Town Lovers)

I’d let the words of a loving mother confuse my mind as well as my heart.

Grady wasn’t’ into me in a romantic sense, he was here out of a sense of obligation and responsibility. It wasn’t affection and it definitely wasn’t love. “Love, hardly,” I grunted as tears blurred my vision and I stumbled down the street. “Love doesn’t humiliate.” He had to know that word of his antics would get back to me since the whole town now knew he was the father of my children.

He knows but he doesn’t care.

And why should he? Grady didn’t owe me anything and with my vanishing act over the past week he was free to do what he wanted. And he did, that snide voice in my head said to me.

Whatever. It didn’t matter. As long as he stepped up where the kids were concerned then I would be happy. Single parenthood wouldn’t be so bad. I had friends, a support system of sorts and I had money to hire help when I needed it. No big deal.

No problem at all.

I swiped at the tears and nearly stumbled to the ground at the curb. Where I was going, I hadn’t a clue but I needed to walk off this anger and humiliation. I needed to get as far away from Grady as possible so I continued on a forward trajectory. Carson Creek was small enough that I could just walk back to my car when I was in a mental headspace to operate a vehicle. I walked in a straight path with no regard to anyone or anything but my hurt feelings. I ignored my name being called, greetings and even a loud honk of a horn that was close.

Too close.

I froze and swiped my eyes just in time to see a big green Cadillac barreling towards me. I jumped back with enough room to spare to avoid getting hit by a car, but my hip smacked against the truck parked at the corner and I fell backwards on the oddly warm concrete. Shouts sounded and then footsteps and Claire’s worried face was the last thing I saw before everything faded to black.

Chapter 22

Grady

The bar doors smacked open and Carlotta appeared first followed by Mama. Instantly my heart skidded to a halt. “What?” They both wore worried expressions as if someone had died and there was only one person I could think of, hell one person I hadn’t stopped thinking of even though she’d gone and pulled another vanishing act for the past week. “I said what?”

Carlotta’s hands fidgeted in the fabric of her dress and Mama was a ghostly shade of white. “It’s Margot,” Carlotta finally spat out.

“She hit her head and they took her to the hospital,” Mama filled in the rest. “I’ll stay here until someone gets here,” she urged. “You should go be with her.”

I nodded and absently looked around the bar as if there was anything more important in the world at the moment than Margot’s well-being. Too many emotions warred within me and I didn’t have time to settle on just one. “I’m going now. Thanks for letting me know.” I kissed Mama’s cheek and squeezed Carlotta’s shoulder before I made my way outside and jumped in my car.

The fucking hospital. She’d worked herself up into such a tizzy she ended up in the ER and by the time a nurse showed me to her room, I was good and worried and twice as pissed off.

“Grady? What are you doing here?”

I whirled on her with a wicked expression on my face. “Well I was deep inside the blond that sent you running but I figured you being the mother of my kids and all, I should make sure you were all doing all right.” My tone was harsh, I knew that. Despite the relief I felt that she was fine, I couldn’t stop the flood of angry words. “What in the hell were you thinking Margot? Oh besides the fact that I’m some piece of shit who would publicly humiliate you.”

“Grady, please.”

I shook my head. “I saw you come in, you know. I saw you and I waited for you to come to the bar but you never did.”

“You were busy,” she said with a pout, her gaze fixed out of the window because she refused to look at me. “With that busty blond.”

I stared at her in disbelief though I really wasn’t surprised in the least. It was always going to end up here. Fucking always. “So you were jealous because some woman was flirting with me, the lowly bartender you barely even like? Or was it that she was young and hot, and not pregnant?”

“Don’t be a jerk.”

“Only you’re allowed to be a jerk,” I asked and folded my arms. “Classic Margot. You know, I really thought things had changed between us, that you’d started to see me, the real me instead of the guy you conjured up in your head.”