Bailey was taking small sips of his beer, giving his hands something to do. We all felt a little awkward. A little off. But Bailey especially, because as far as he knew, I’d been in contact with Parker while she was gone. And that…was a lie.
“Alright, out with it,” I said, stuffing my hands in the pockets of my jacket. “You all have something to say, so say it.”
The three of them exchanged glances. Bailey shifted on his feet, Lennon avoided looking at me, and Reed was straight scowling.
“She’s pregnant,” Reed stated. There was never any fucking around with him. When we were younger, he and I loved to get into loads of trouble around the ranch. Then something changed in him, and women became a sore subject. Being with Brandy was slowly changinghim, but it’d take a lot for Reed to stop being so damn broody.
I gave him a blank stare as if that fact wasn’t obvious.
“She is.”
A cricket chirped somewhere below the deck. A cow lowed out in the field.
Bailey clanked his beer down on the table and slapped his hands together. “Okay. I don’t like this.” He pinned me with his gaze. “We’re all wondering”—he did some weird hand motion—“how.”
I tilted my head. Waited for him to go on.
When I was met with nothing but silence and expectant stares, I said, “Well, when a man and a woman?—”
Lennon took a long sip of his beer while Bailey held a hand up and interrupted. “We all know where babies come from.”
“Okay, then you know how she’s pregnant,” I concluded.
Reed’s frown couldn’t have gotten deeper if it tried.
“Is the baby yours?” Lennon asked, finally speaking up and shoving off the railing.
I rolled my lips together. Parker and I had discussed it in the truck, but we hadn’t come to a final agreement because of Sage’s injury. Either way I put it, I could end up upsetting her. And that was the last fucking thing I wanted to do. I didn’t want her to have to deal with the onslaught of questions about the father if I said the baby wasn’t mine, but I also didn’t want to stake that sort of claim if she didn’t want me being that figure in the baby’s life.At least, for now.
“He’s as mine as he’ll get.” There. That was good enough.
Reed let out a disbelieving half-ass chuckle. “We all know that baby isn’t yours, Beckham. My question is, why does the whole goddamn town think it is?”
“It’s a boy?” Bailey asked right after.
“It’s a boy,” I confirmed before directing my attention at Reed. “How do you know he’s not mine?”
“You wouldn’t have been in such a shitty downward spiral if Parker had been in town,” Reed grumbled.
Lennon nodded his agreement.
“What’s this, gang-up-on-Beckham night?” I knocked back my water, emptying the bottle. “Where’s Callan when I need him?”
“Did you know she was pregnant?” Lennon asked. His look of concern softened me up a bit, but not enough.
“No.” And if I had thought she was off happy with some other man, it likely would’ve tipped me over the edge. I lost Garrett, but losing Parker for good, too? There were only so many things a man could handle.
“So that’s not why you punched me?” Reed arched a brow like he didn’t believe it.
“I punched you because you hit a sensitive topic just to get under my skin,” I gritted out.
Bailey sipped his beer, watching our interaction like we were some form of entertainment. “If you ladies want to hash it out?—”
“How’s that sensitive topic treating you, Beck?” Reed’s question was quizzical, but it didn’t take a geniusto figure out why he was pushing this. “She comes back into town, pregnant?—”
“Leave her out of your goddamn mouth,” I bit out.
“Feeling protective because she’s pregnant with some other man’s baby?” He kept at it, teetering on the fine line that was nearly nonexistent when it came to Parker. Someone so much as thinks of her wrong, I punch them. End of fucking story.
