I wasn't at all surprised when no one answered. Gulping in absolute worry for her, and even a little for Mason, I tried to calm her. "Maybe . . . maybe they meant . . . "
Reese glanced sharply at me. I winced. She muttered a couple more obscenities before grabbing her phone and shoving open the driver's side door.
"Ree Ree?" I squawked, not sure how I was going to physically restrain her if she actually did try to kill someone. I lurched out of the Jeep behind her, waddling pathetically in an effort to catch up. "What're you doing, sweetie?" I tried to sound soothing.
Totally didn't help.
"I'm going to find my goddamn boyfriend and figure out what the hell is going on."
Oh, double crap. I hurried after her. Her phone began ringing as soon as we hit the sidewalk. She answered without hitting the speaker to let me hear this time.
As she shoved open the front doors of the bar, she growled, "Let me guess. Mrs. Garrison just showed up to announce you'd put a baby in her."
I followed her inside, only to pause briefly in the entrance. Since the place had already closed, it was cleared out save for five guys—all employees because they wore the same kind of black T-shirt Mason always wore to work—and one woman. They had gathered around the bar in the back.
On the other side of the long counter, Mason dropped his phone from his ear and let out a long sigh. "Yeah. Pretty much," he confessed, looking more troubled than I'd ever seen him.
Worry gnawed at my stomach. I'd just decided Mason wasn't the anti-Christ and now this? According to Reese, if he had knocked up Mrs. Garrison, it wasn't because he'd wanted to be with her. But still, how could Reese stay with him after learning he'd fathered a child with someone else?
Even more shocking, I didn't want them to break up.
It was such a perplexing thought for me since I'd spent the first six months of their relationship trying to get them to do exactly that.
But they loved each other, they were good for each other, and they gave me hope that happily ever after existed. Or at least they had up until now.
"I had a feeling we hadn't gotten rid of her so easily," Reese said as she hurried toward her man.
I bumbled after her because, yeah, I felt totally out of place being seven months pregnant and pretty much wearing my PJs—a nightshirt and gray yoga pants—while inside a bar with a bunch of complete strangers. I mean, sure, every guy in the place was hot, but they were still strangers.
"I say, if a stake through the heart doesn't work, we try cutting her head off."
I rolled my eyes and gave a soft smile. Only Reese would say that.
Mason laughed as if relieved by the way his girlfriend was taking all this. But he just as quickly sobered and shook his head. "I am so . . . so sorry."
When I saw the hint of tears in his eyes, I had to blink and glance away because I'd never seen Mason anywhere near tears before. It was hard to watch him like this. Lately, I could not let anyone cry alone. I even wailed over those dog adoption commercials, and I totally wasn't a dog person.
Freaking pregnancy hormones.
Too-forgiving Reese merely shrugged. "Hey, if there isn't some insurmountable obstacle in our path, we wouldn't be us, would we?" But there was still a tremor in her voice, letting me know she was just as freaked out as Mason was.
He didn't seem to want to be forgiven quite so easily, though. He brought her hands to his mouth and shook his head. "You shouldn't have to deal with this. You shouldn't—"
"I think she was lying," I blurted out, unable to watch them go through this torture. I felt so strongly against the whole idea, I absolutely refused to believe this could happen to Reese.
Winded from chasing her across the street, I plopped down on a stool at the bar beside Reese. When I spotted a bowl of beer nuts, the pregnant munchies struck with a vengeance.
I reached for them, not even caring how much the salt in them was going to make my ankles swell. Already tasting the tart nutty flavor, my mouth began to water. But mere inches away from scooping up the biggest handful I could manage, I was shut down. Warm fingers wrapped around my wrist, stopping me while another hand yanked the bowl away.
Ack! My nuts! That yummy, yummy salt and—
I looked up, ready to lambaste whoever was keeping the famished pregnant chick from her food.
But the dark brown eyes of the guy staring back at me caught me totally off guard. Wow.
He was—
I didn't even know how to describe him. A surface description would be tattooed and pierced. There was a metal hoop caught in his eyebrow, and two right next to each other through the corner of his bottom lip. His tats spread down both arms, making him look like he was wearing long sleeves instead of a short-sleeved shirt and one colorful design flared up the right side of his neck.