The Plan (Off-Limits Romance, #4)

My brother told me Kat had gotten a phone call from Mom, who had a question about a recipe she’d gotten from Kat. Apparently my bestie dropped by after work and, when my mother didn’t answer, used the spare key Mom gave her a few years back to get inside. Where she found Mom bleeding from the head.

I cry right now for Kat, and then I cry some more because if I’m pregnant, Mom will never know. My child will never have a grandmother. I cry because the baby probably won’t have a dad either. Why did Gabe come here with me? He doesn’t want me. I’ve worked myself into a steady sob when the door opens, and the nurse steps back in.

When I see her face, I know. I feel it in my bones, and in my soul, which seems to expand as she looks down at her clipboard.

“Well—I think we’ve got this figured out, Miss Roberts. It looks like you’re pregnant.”

My eyes fly to Gabe, finding him wide-eyed and open-mouthed, as if someone just slapped him.

“You must be the father.” The nurse gives him a knowing smile.

He nods. I wipe my eyes. I feel like we’re in a movie. One I walked into the middle of. None of this feels real. This whole night… I wipe more tears from my eyes as the nurse nods and says, “The doctor will be in.”

When she’s gone, it’s only Gabe and me. Not lovers or long-time friends, but two dumb people who have chemistry. God—I’m pregnant, but I’m on the verge of losing it again, because I think I’ve made a huge mistake.

I wipe my face and blink at Gabe; from where I’m sitting, I can only see his profile.

“Well…we did it.”

He turns toward me. “Jesus. Are you okay?”

My fear and sorrow mix with anger, and I shake my head. “Why would you ask me that? It’s not a death sentence! Or is it for you?”

“No. I didn’t—”

“Go! Just go, Gabe! Send Kat—please. I need Kat.” I’m crying. I don’t have the wherewithal to be embarrassed. “I need Kat. Go get her.”

“Marley. I’m sorry. I left and I was riding to—”

“No.” I sit up, and the door bursts open. “I don’t want to talk to you,” I sob as the nurse blinks from me to Gabe. “I want Kat!”

The nurse gives Gabe a stern look. “Sir, is there a problem?”

He looks at me pleadingly. “Marley, please. If I can—”

“I said I don’t want to!”

Gabe raises his hands. “Okay. I can go. Do you want me to wait while she—”

I’m still shaking my head, so he stops talking.

“I’m sorry. I just need some space! I need a break from this.”

“We’re going to take good care of you,” the nurse says, waving Gabe toward the door. “Who do you want me to call, sweetheart?”

“My friend,” I say, wiping my eyes. I feel all of ten years old right now.

The door cracks open. “This one?” Tears stream down my face as Kat walks over and starts fussing over me.

“What’s going on, babe?” she asks gently.

I sob, “I’m an idiot.”

“Aww, Mar, no you’re—”

“I’m pregnant!”



*

I tell Kat the whole, sordid story, from beginning to the bitter end, pausing as I talk to my nurse, and then a doctor, quieting as we walk outside and picking up again as Kat and I get in her car. She doesn’t need to ask me where to go as I talk. She knows to make a beeline for the back-roads, those illusive dirt roads only small-towns have and only locals know.

I pour my heart out as she steers past cow pastures and over rickety wood bridges, all around the town’s outskirts, across the lake and back. Each time one of our phones ring, I pause and Kat answers. She has my brother and Lainey clear my mother’s house of mourners. She has Lainey go to Miss Shorter for an extra key, and swing by my place for a bag. And then, as if it’s nothing but a grown-up slumber party, she takes me to her house, where she plants me on her sofa with a blanket and a glass of water, and says, “Carry on, friend.”

By the time I’ve finished my story, I’ve decided Kat deserves an Olympic gold medal for Facial Control in Insane Situations. She hasn’t widened her eyes once or given any “you are crazy” looks.

“Well, Marley.” She shakes her head. “I’d say you take gold for craziest night.”

I laugh, because of course she says something almost exactly like what I’m thinking. “I love you.”

She smiles. “I love you. And Mar? You’re gonna to be okay.”

I need those words so badly, I’m crying again, and Kat is on the couch beside me. “Marley and Miss Itty Bitty.” She rubs my belly, beaming with such gladness, it makes my heart ache.

“I’m a bad mom already,” I wail, pressing my face into my hand. “Why did I ask him, Kat? What’s wrong with me? He doesn’t love me.”

“Whoa there, sister. Let’s back up a few steps.”

I grab Kat’s hands. “I’m so sorry. That you were who found Mama.”

We’re both crying again as Lainey walks in, and so of course, she’s crying, too. We’re hugging on the couch, all three of us, and there’s so much estrogen in the room, I think I see it sparkling in the air.

“I can’t believe Mom’s gone.”

I wipe my eyes. “I can’t believe I did this. He just doesn’t want me like I want him,” I say, wiping my eyes with a tissue. “He doesn’t want me. I was dumb to think we could just do the baby-making part.”

Kat and Lainey handle me like champions, like Marley experts—which they are. They let me cry, and say whatever I need: that he’s hot and they get why I hopped in bed with him; that he’s nothing special, I can find somebody else; that it might work out in the end. Kat says he had wet eyes when she passed him in the hall. Lainey says she thinks he’ll be knocking on my door tomorrow. They both swear their loyalty as my kid’s aunts.

“And all you need in life is awesome aunties. Everybody knows that,” Kat says, smiling proudly.

“I want him or her to have a grandma.”

My breakdown goes on until just after one, when I can’t hold my head up anymore. Kat leads me to her bed and covers me with blankets. She turns on a box fan, puts a cup of water by my bed, and grabs one of her soft, insulated tailgate coolers. “Just in case you need a barf bag.”

I wipe my aching eyes, smiling a little, maybe out of pure delirium. “I could just walk to the bathroom,” I say hoarsely.

“No you can’t. No walking. You’re my pet project tonight, Marley Marie. I’m going to take good care of you.”

And I sob over that, because only Mom and Kat have ever called me Marley Marie. And Mama’s gone. She was here with my new baby for maybe a few brief days.

I hug a pillow to my chest and drift off, crying still, thinking of how brief and fragile life is—and how many things can heal or hurt a heart.





Part Four





“There is no intensity of love or feeling that does not involve the risk of crippling hurt. It is a duty to take this risk. To love and feel without defense or reserve.”



–William S. Burroughs





1





Marley