Taylor Lynne: The Women of Merryton - Book Two (33 page)

We arrived in Birmingham
around midnight. As soon as we were able to turn off airplane mode on our
phones I was inundated with messages and texts from Easton. I didn’t have the
time or wherewithal to listen to them at the moment. I needed a rental car and
to get to Grams and Harry as soon as possible.

I was running high on
adrenaline, but poor Ashley was exhausted.

“Do you want me to drop
you off at Grams and Harry’s before I head to the hospital, love?” I asked my
somewhat-sleeping beauty as we left the airport.

“No,” she slurred.

I let her rest as I sped
toward UAB hospital, where it had all begun for Easton and me. It was fitting
that I would end up here when perhaps it was all over. I tried my best to keep
my emotions in check, but I had so many coursing through me it was hard to know
which ones to police. A half day ago, I was content and in love with the love
of my life. Now I could be losing both the men I loved most in my life. At
eighty-five, Harry was no spring chicken, but he had always been in such great
health. Just last week Grams had been complaining about him being on a ladder
clearing out the gutters around their house.

I silently begged God not
to take him. Not yet. I selfishly still needed him, especially now that I found
myself once again losing Easton. Why I ever thought moving back to Merryton was
a good idea, I’ll never know. No. I did know—Ashley got her dad back, and
that’s what I wanted to happen.

I looked at my angel as
she slept against the passenger side window.
What was I going to do?

***

We found Grams praying in
one of the hospital’s interfaith chapels. I didn’t want to startle her, so we
approached cautiously. “Grams,” I whispered.

She opened her blurry
eyes and gave a small smile. “My girls.”  

Ashley sat on one side of
her and I sat on the other. I took her aging hand in mine. “How’s Harry?”

She patted my hand. “He’s
in surgery. They’re trying to widen his carotid artery.”

“So it was a TIA stroke?”

She nodded.

“If he was going to have
one, that’s the best kind,” I tried to reassure her.

“That’s what the doctor
said, but at his age, surgery is high risk.”

“Harry’s tough,” Ashley
said.

Grams turned toward her.
“You look so grownup. We’ve missed you. I’m sorry we’re ruining Thanksgiving.”

Ashley hugged her tight.

“I thought Easton would have
come with you,” Grams said to me.

I shook my head no and
did my best not to cry.

“Something wrong?” Grams
asked.

“Yes,” Ashley said to my
surprise.

I looked at her, wide
eyed.

Grams looked between the
two of us.

“We don’t need to talk
about it right now. Let’s focus on Harry getting better.”

“No, Momma. I need to
know. I don’t want to go back to the way it was before.”

“Taylor?” Grams said when
I didn’t answer right away.

I reached across Grams
and took my daughter’s hand. “I don’t want to upset you.”

“I’m already upset.”

I blew out a large
breath. I didn’t want to do this right now. “Darlin’, I don’t know if I can be
with your dad.”

“What do you mean?” she
asked.

“That’s all I can say
about it right now.” I stood up. “I’m going to get some water. Does anybody want
anything?”

They both shook their
heads no.

Ashley’s distressed look
pained me. I was doing my best not to hurt her, but my best wasn’t good enough.
I found my way to the lobby vending machines. I was tempted to buy a package of
Oreos, but I reminded myself what happened when you gave in to temptation. I
leaned against the machine instead and slowly drank my water. I tried to will
the ache to go away, but it wasn’t going anywhere. Not even my worry for Harry
could overcome it. I kept thinking about my sweet Emmy. I missed her, but I
would always have to. And Easton. I didn’t want to be without him, either.

After the two-hour
surgery was complete and they confirmed that the artery was open, we all
breathed a sigh of relief. The doctor allowed Grams to go back and see him
briefly, but encouraged us to go home and get some rest. He was worried about
Grams’ age and her health.

Grams didn’t take too
kindly to that advice. She was tougher than nails and didn’t appreciate being
mollycoddled by anyone. I think she stayed by Harry’s side longer than she
should have to prove her point. By the time we left the hospital it was seven
in the morning. The traffic was light, which was probably a good thing since I
had gotten used to the non-existent traffic in Merryton, the forsaken place.

When we pulled up into
the drive I noticed a shiny new Acura.

“Did you get a new car?”
I asked Grams.

She looked as surprised
as I did about the unfamiliar car. I pulled up behind it. As soon as I did, we
saw the front seat pop up. We all looked at each other with interest. At least
we did until the figure exited the car.

“Dad,” Ashley said,
relieved like she had been saved. She jumped out of the car and ran to him.

The scene had my eyes
watering.

“What happened, Taylor
Lynne?” Grams asked.

“His ex-wife came to
visit me. She told me if I didn’t stop seeing Easton, she would take Emmy.
She’s a monster. I can’t let that happen. And … she said Easton had multiple
affairs while we were married.”

Grams eyes widened in
disbelief. “Are you sure about that?”

I looked out the window
at him holding onto our daughter like he was never going to let go. Every fiber
of my being didn’t want to believe it. Then Emmy crawled out of the passenger
seat of the car Easton had exited. My heart constricted. I couldn’t let Kathryn
take her away from Easton.

I got out of the car in a
hurry and Emmy ran to me. I held her to me like I never wanted to let go.
Easton looked my way with passion and determination written in his eyes.

“Why don’t you girls come
inside for some pancakes,” Grams said to our daughters.

“Grams, you need to get
some rest.”

“I’ll rest when I’m
dead.” She gathered Emmy and Ashley.

Easton and I were left
staring at each other on the front lawn that was now brown and dormant.

“What are you doing
here?” I asked.

He edged closer. “I
didn’t go after you once and it was the biggest mistake of my life. One I wasn’t
going to repeat.”

“Easton, we can’t be
together.” I started toward the house. I didn’t want to fall apart on the lawn.

Easton caught my arm and
pulled me to him. “I know Kathryn visited you, and I’m not letting you go until
you hear me out.”

I tried to resist, but I
looked up into his tired eyes and lost it.

He wrapped me up and held
me tight. “How could you believe her?” he whispered in my ear.

“I don’t want to, but I
can’t risk Emmy and I don’t want to be my mother.”

He let go of me only to
hold my face so he could see me better. “Taylor, please listen to me. I’ve told
you the truth. Kathryn,” he said through clenched teeth, “only wants to cause
problems. Her worst nightmare is for me to be happy without her. I need you to
trust me.” He took my hand and placed it on his heart. “Listen to your heart;
you know me.”

I nodded once and then
shook my head, tears streaming down my face. “We can’t. I won’t let Kathryn
have Emmy.”

That statement set his
eyes on fire. “Kathryn will never have Emmy. She’s constantly threatened me
with that. Not only will no judge ever rule in her favor, but she doesn’t want
Emmy and never has. Please don’t let your fear get in the way of us this time—you
aren’t your mother and I’m not Frank,” he pleaded.

I sank into him, daring
to hope.

He wrapped his arms
around me without delay. “I love you, Tay.”

I pulled back and looked
into his deep brown eyes and thought about all the ways he had showed his love.
How he put me first and visited me at work and loved the girls like I always
knew he could. He had come after me. He wasn’t Frank, and I wasn’t my mother.

“I took a red-eye flight
to Atlanta and drove from there chasing after you,” he added, mistaking my
silence for hesitance.

“I love you, too. Thanks
for coming after me this time.” I smiled. I felt the knot in my chest fade
away.

“I want you in my life.”

“Even though I’m anything
but perfect?”

“I never expected you to
be perfect, but if it makes you feel better, together we are perfectly
imperfect.”

I laughed against his
chest. “I guess we are perfect at that.”

He unexpectedly picked me
up off the ground and held me to him. “Perfect. Now that that’s settled, we
need to find a bed.”

I raised my eyebrow at
him.

“Just to sleep in, of
course.”

“Uh-huh.”

He grinned devilishly.
“Trust me.”

Six Months Later

“No, no. This can’t be
happening. I’m too old.” I looked at the box again. Over ninety-nine percent
accurate it said. I looked down at the third pregnancy test with a plus sign. I
splashed some cold water on my face. When we married in a small ceremony with a
few close friends and family members including Harry and Grams on our old
anniversary date back in February, I told Easton we could try for a few months,
but I never thought I would actually get pregnant. I thought for sure my body
would laugh at the thought. I was forty-three and Easton had just turned forty-six,
which meant we would practically be senior citizens when this poor child graduated
from high school.

I looked down at my
wedding rings—my original one, along with a stunning solitaire diamond band—and
thought,
We can do this, right? What were we thinking?

“Honey.” Easton knocked
on the bathroom door.

I hastily threw the tests
in the wastebasket under the sink. “Come in.”

He opened the door in his
baseball pants but without a shirt. “Do you know where my practice jersey is?”

I admired his beautiful
chest for a moment before I remembered that’s what got me in this mess in the
first place. I narrowed my eyes at the virile man.

“Did I do something
wrong?” he asked.

I quickly put a smile on
my face. I wasn’t ready to tell him yet. I was still trying to process it. “I
think it may be in the dryer.”

He reached out and pulled
me to his bare chest. His lips landed on my neck. “I could skip practice,” he
said between kisses.

As I breathed him in and
ran my hands across his bare shoulders, I was tempted, but again remembered my
predicament. “I promised Jessie I would be at girl’s night tonight.” I hadn’t
been in a while and they had been teasing that I was too wrapped up in domestic
bliss or something like that. For the most part, that was true.

“Fine. I guess I’ll go to
practice.” He kissed me hard before he went in search of his jersey.

I went back to fixing my
makeup and semi-hyperventilating. I also thought back to the start date of my
last period and calculated a due date in my head. I was guessing the baby would
be due the first part of January. It seemed a long time away from May. I rubbed
my abdomen. Don’t get me wrong, I was going to love this baby like crazy, but I
hadn’t thought that at this stage in my life I would be facing motherhood
again. But there was a lot about my life I hadn’t thought I would be doing.
Like being remarried to my ex-husband, or building a house with him in Merryton,
of all places.

We had thought a lot
about it, and for the girls’ sakes we decided it was best to stay here. Emmy
was flourishing and had made some good friends, and Ashley was going to be a
senior.
She’s going to flip when we tell her we’re pregnant,
I thought.
So, in the interim, Easton put his house on the market and after we were
married, he and Emmy moved in with Ashley and me. It was a little cramped, but
I refused to live anywhere Kathryn had.

Speaking of the vile
woman, I was grateful she hadn’t reared her ugly head again. After our last run
in, Easton threatened to file harassment charges if she ever came near any of
us. He had apparently given her and Veronica the tongue lashing of their lives
before he chased after me.

I had to admit, I was
excited about the home we were building near Rachel. She had just moved into
hers. The developer had bought six large parcels of land in a beautiful wooded
area outside of town. The semi-secluded properties were a big draw for us. We
kept the plans for our farm-style home hung up on our bedroom wall. I smiled
every time I looked at it. I wondered if we could add a nursery near the master
bedroom. The only bedrooms we had planned for the first floor were the master
bedroom and Emmy’s room since we didn’t think Emmy would like sleeping upstairs
alone after Ashley went off to school. Maybe we could make the study the
nursery?

I still couldn’t believe
I was pregnant.

I ran into Easton on his
way out, but he was fully dressed this time.

He pulled me to him and
kissed me goodbye. “Last chance to change your mind,” he said in hushed tones.

This was why I was
pregnant. I smiled up at him. “There’s always tonight,” I said even though I
was already exhausted. I should have known I was pregnant. That and all the
extra trips to the bathroom I had been making the last couple of weeks.

He groaned before kissing
me deeply. “You drive a hard bargain, Mrs. Cole. I love you.”

He left me standing there
feeling warm. “Love you,” I called out to him.

I walked back to the
kitchen to find the girls working on homework at the kitchen table.

I got a, “Hey, Momma,”
from Ashley and a “Hi, Mom,” from Emmy. I never tired of hearing that term of
endearment. Now we were adding one more into the mix. I tried to act normal
when I approached. “I thought you girls were meeting Spencer at the park.”

Ashley looked up,
disgusted. “Change of plans.”

“Did something happen
between you two?”

“If you count the fact
that he’s been hanging out with the new girl, Cortney, every day, then yes.”

I went to her and put my
arm around her. “I’m sorry, darlin’. So did you break up?”

“No,” she practically
cried. “He says they’re ‘just friends’, but I’m not stupid.”

It was probably for the
best, but I didn’t say that out loud. Her dad and I both hoped she would see
other people. We liked Spencer, but they were too young to be so serious with
each other. “Do you want me to stay home?” I asked her.

She waved me off. “No.”
She reached across the table and grabbed her sister’s hand. “Emmy and I are
going to do facials and pedicures at home tonight.”

“That sounds like fun.
I’ll be at Jessie Belle’s if you need anything.” I kissed both of them on the
head before I made my way over to the café. All I could think about was that I
was growing a life inside of me. A life Easton and I had created. It was
amazing and overwhelmingly frightening all at the same time.

When I walked into the
café I had to remind myself not to touch my abdomen. I wondered when I was
going to start showing and how long we could keep this a secret. With Ashley, I
made it to almost five months before I had any sort of a baby bump, but I had a
feeling I wasn’t going to be so lucky this time around.

“You made it,” Jessie
grinned from her chair by the fireplace. She was bouncing Tristan on her lap.

That was going to be me
before I knew it.
Don’t show it on your face,
I reminded myself. I
smiled wide. “Look how big he’s getting.” I walked over to them.

“I know. He’s already
trying to crawl. Blake’s gone crazy baby-proofing the house.”

Baby-proofing? I hadn’t
thought about that at all. I didn’t even know what little kids liked anymore,
or what the best and safest car seats were. And were you supposed to lay them
on their backs now or their sides? They were always changing recommendations,
but I supposed Easton would know. He was a doctor after all. But who was going
to play with this child? If I showed up to the Mommy and Me programs, they were
going to think I was this kid’s grandma.

“Are you okay?” Abby
asked. “You look a little pale.”

I took a seat near
Jessie. “Right as rain,” I lied. I was having a midlife crisis of mass
proportions. Easton was getting a vasectomy, stat.

“I think you look
fabulous,” Rachel said. “You still have that newlywed glow.”

I think it was probably
something else, and soon it was probably going to turn into a green glow of
sickness as I puked my guts out for the next couple of months. I smiled again.
“You’re too kind.”

“Anyway,” Cheyenne
interrupted. “As I was saying, I ran into Andrew Turner again and this time he
asked me what my name was.”

With looks of
befuddlement and not knowing how to respond, we all smiled at her.

“Guys, this is it. The
next time he’s going to ask me out.” She was obviously hoping for more
enthusiasm on our part.

“Why don’t you go for the
pastor’s brother who just moved to town,” Jessie suggested. “He’s attractive
and … attainable.”

Cheyenne’s eyes blazed.
“Aidan Bates? He’s a complete gentleman.”

“That’s a bad thing?”
Rachel asked.

“Not necessarily, but
he’s totally into church and being all pure.”

We laughed at her.

“Easton wasn’t too far
off from that,” I reminded her, as she’d had her sights set on him, and maybe
still did for all I knew.

“Well, Easton is a sexy
doctor. He could have been the Pope for all I cared.”

We laughed even harder.

Cheyenne was not
impressed with us. She glared at us and popped a piece of orange roll in her
mouth.

“Maybe you should get to
know Aidan better,” Abby suggested to Rachel.

Rachel thought for a
moment. “I don’t think so. I get the vibe he has a past and maybe some dark
secrets.”

That perked Cheyenne up
again. “Hmmm. Maybe I’ll have to reconsider.”

Jessie threw a burp rag
at her. “You’re hopeless.”

Cheyenne picked up the
burp rag like it was diseased and tossed it back to Jessie, who was cooing at
her babbling son. “Well, at least I can still talk in full sentences,” she
teased her best friend.

Jessie paid her no
attention. “Don’t listen to her, Tristan,” she said adoringly.

Watching Jessie with
Tristan calmed me down some. I did look forward to having one of my own to
hold, but wow did I feel too old for it.

I needed a girl’s night.
I had grown to love these ladies, even Cheyenne. Their laughter and fun conversation
was just what the doctor ordered. We were having so much fun I didn’t realize
it was so late. I stood up to say my goodbyes when Easton came bounding in
through the café doors.

We all looked his way,
surprised to see him. At first I was worried that something happened, but he
ran to me in his dirty practice uniform, picked me up, and swung me around. He
kissed me fervently for all to see.

I pulled back from him
and looked into his smiling eyes. “What’s all this for?”

All the other ladies looked
curiously on.

“I was looking for a band
aid under the bathroom sink and—”

I begged him with my eyes
not to say it out loud.

“I can’t believe you’re
pregnant.” He kissed my cheeks repeatedly.

There was a collective
gasp among my friends and the few patrons left in the café. I could already
feel the heat from the town grapevine burning up at the news.

I took Easton’s face in
my hands. “Honey,” I said through gritted teeth, “I was kind of hoping to tell
you privately, and to keep it between the two of us for a while.”

It was like he couldn’t
physically stop smiling. He was glowing more than me. It kind of made it hard
to be upset with him.

“You can write me another
poem about conception if it will make you feel better. How did the first one
go, again? There once was a—”

I placed my hand over his
smiling lips. “What am I going to do with you?”

“Love me.”

“That I can do.”