Beau’s head tilts, and he glances at DeSoto for answers.
“She’s here,” DeSoto says. “It’s her family ranch.” I’m happy DeSoto can answer him.
“Who?” We both glare at Beau, and his head rocks back. “Oh, shit. No way.”
“Get me out of this. Now.” I stomp up the stairs of the lodge, my boots stopping at a picture of her and her family right there in the center of the wall.
Her smile and that damn dimple are like a sucker punch.
I need out of here, so I head to my room to get my suitcase and get the hell away from Plain Daisy Ranch.
Chapter Four
Romy
Tears slip down my cheeks the minute I break apart from Zander.
Seeing him in the flesh, moments after taking the test that will change my life, has somehow shattered all the anger I’ve been clinging to. The weight of the secret growing inside me has crumpled all the walls I built.
My hand falls to my flat stomach, finally able to settle on this new reality with no witnesses. We’re going to have a child, and I have no idea how to tell him or what his reaction will be when I do. The man didn’t even have the decency to tell me to my face that he was done with me. He let his lackies do it. Surely, he won’t be pleased to find out that I’m having his baby.
Finally reaching my house, I pray Poppy and Scarlett are still with the tour group.
I’m sure everyone has a million questions about how the country singer I’ve been the biggest fan of—hell, I could have been the president of his fan club—didn’t garner the reaction they thought it would from me. Scarlett looked so upset that I didn’t jump him. Had I been the earlier version of myself, I would have screamed, run to him, thrown my arms around him like a crazy fan. Hell, maybe I even would have cried happy tears. Not now that I know the real Zander Shaw.
I walk into the house where I live with my cousins Poppy and Scarlett. Lottie moved in with Brooks after they built a house on her piece of land on the property. Bennett and Delaney are in the process of building theirs next to Lottie’s. I always wondered how long my lot would stay vacant, and it seems a hell of a lot longer than I’d hoped. But if my brother, Bennett, could raise my niece, Wren, in a house with two other men, I can raise this baby in a house with my cousins.
I sit on the couch, wipe the tears from my face, and try to process the fork in the road my lifepath just took in the last hour.
That lasts for about a second because I hear Brooks and Lottie outside, arguing about the back deck being built at their place. We all know Brooks will give in, and Lottie will get her way. It’s just foreplay for them.
I slide to the edge of the couch to escape to my room, but I don’t move fast enough because the screen door opens. Lottie stops when she sees me. Immediately, she turns around to Brooks, puts her hand on his chest, and whispers something to him.
He nods, kisses her briefly, and circles back around.
“You don’t have?—”
“You’re my sister. Now what’s going on?” She sits on the couch next to me. “You’ve been crying.”
As if her words are an explosion against the dam, my tears break free again, falling so fast they topple over one another in a race down my cheeks. I hiccup and shudder for breath, snot running down my nose.
She slides the box of Kleenex off the table and gives me a few of them. “Talk to me, what is it?”
Guilt is like a stone lodged in my throat. How do I say it to the sister who can’t carry her own children, who once cried in my arms over it? How do I say I got pregnant by accident, and by a man who used me?
“I’m so sorry,” I wail, my head falling into my hands.
“For what? The way you treated Zander Shaw?” She huffs. “No one cares. I can’t say I wasn’t surprised. I mean, I thought when you disappeared the night of his concert… like… did you hook up with that DeSoto guy or someone from his road crew? I know if you’d met Zander Shaw, you’d have told us all a thousand times by now. Either that, or you did meet him and were thoroughly unimpressed.”
I peek up through the web of my fingers. “What?”
Her shoulders fall. “You came home at six in the morning, and it was DeSoto who came and got you to take you backstage, right? It looked like him. Maybe all those security guys look alike.”
I nod, silently telling her to go on.
“I figured someone from backstage saw you and requested you. I guess I’m wrong?”
I need to get her off this track since I signed an NDA, and I’m not sure of anything until I talk to Zander myself. But I don’t want her to be surprised or blindsided by my pregnancy either. I want her to hear it from me.
