Bayou Dreaming (Butterfly Bayou 3)

“I’m looking into some options,” Roxie admitted. “I’ve got some feelers out for departments in some larger cities. Hopefully I’m not being blackballed.”

Her mother’s lips pursed. “You were never blackballed.”

“Then explain to me why I couldn’t get a job.” She was so sick of her mother pretending nothing had gone wrong.

“I don’t know, Roxanne,” her mother said with a long-suffering sigh. “I only know that everything went wrong when you divorced Joel. I like this new boy. I do, but he’s obviously not cut out for what you’re going to need.”

Zep had given her a lot of stuff she hadn’t even known she’d needed. She hadn’t known she needed a dog. She hadn’t known she’d needed long hours spent in bed with nothing to do but touch and caress another person.

She forced the images away. He was in her head way too much. “What do you think I need, Mom?”

Her mother’s expression became overly serious. “You need to come home and get serious about your life. You’re not getting any younger. How long do you think your eggs are going to last? I read an article about infertility, and half your eggs are dead.”

She was going to need so much liquor.

“I’m going to get a drink.” Roxie pushed the chair back and stood.

“You shouldn’t drink when you’re trying to get pregnant,” her mother chided. “Not that you should try right now. You need a serious man. I know he’s good looking and charming, but is he father material?”

She walked away, praying her mother didn’t follow.

The great room of the B and B had a small but elegantly appointed bar in one corner. This was where Seraphina and Harry hosted nightly wine hours for their guests. Tonight’s selection included a bottle of Scotch, likely in deference to her father’s preferences. She passed up the bottles of Pinot Grigio and Cabernet and went straight for that eighteen-year-old Highland single malt.

She’d just taken a drink when she heard a familiar voice.

“You have to forgive her. She’s under a lot of stress.” Her brother walked up and poured himself a glass, too.

Sera was going to be surprised by how much Scotch her family could go through. “Do I? I can think of so many reasons to not forgive her. Talking openly about the state of my eggs is the latest.”

“She’s worried about grandkids.”

“Yeah, I got that. Why is she down here bugging me about it? You’re getting married. Shouldn’t she bug you? Shawna apparently smiles more than I do. I’m sure that means she’ll make better babies.”

Brian was quiet for a moment. “Shawna can’t have kids.”

That made her stop. “What?”

“She’s not fertile. Do you remember when we broke up?”

They’d dated off and on for the last few years. The truth was she’d been surprised when they’d announced they were engaged. She’d always thought that Shawna wasn’t serious enough for him.

And she hated that she’d had that thought because her mother had said the same thing about Zep.

“You broke up a lot.”

“Yeah, I guess we did. Well, I’m talking about the major breakup. You know I asked her to marry me on Christmas Eve this year.”

“Yes. I heard all about it.” She’d decided to work through the holidays. She hadn’t gone home. She’d told herself she was taking one for the team since her working gave the others a chance to be with their families. Now she mostly thought she’d been avoiding her own.

She’d missed her brother’s engagement.

“That wasn’t the first time I asked her to marry me,” Brian admitted. “I asked her six months before and she turned me down.”

“I hadn’t heard that. Mom mentioned something about you two having a fight, but she didn’t tell me what it was about.” And Roxie hadn’t asked because she hadn’t wanted to know anything about her family for years.

“I was pretty vague about it with her. I know she loves me but she can be difficult to deal with. I didn’t tell her we’d broken up because Shawna had told me she couldn’t marry me. I didn’t tell her that I’d ignored the way the woman I was supposed to love had cried. She rarely cries. It’s pretty much dogs dying in movies and me asking her to marry me that first time. That’s when I’ve seen her cry. Did I stop and ask what was wrong? Nope. I heard that no and flew into a selfish rage. I walked out. It took a month for me to finally go to her and ask her why.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

He shrugged and poured her another glass. “We haven’t been close in years. Maybe never. Some siblings are like that. Anyway, Shawna told me what she hadn’t before. Her mother died at thirty-nine of uterine cancer. When she was younger, she took a genetic test. She had the gene for it and made the decision to have a hysterectomy. She didn’t save her eggs because she’d decided to not have kids and didn’t want to deal with the cost. But then she met me and realized she wanted a family.”