Page 54 of The Homewrecker's Fate

“That’s what I’m here for.”

“I’m going to marry you one day.”

“Looking forward to it, sweetheart.”

In another blink of an eye, we pulled into the driveway that led to my mother’s house. She had a long drive that ran up to a covered carport on the right of the house. My father always wanted to have a garage built, but Mom wouldn’t hear of it. She said it was a waste of money, since he didn’t know a thing about fiddling with cars and we didn’t have the kind of weather that required a house for them. Mom was a hoot when she put her foot down about things. We all knew what she really wanted to spend the money on, and she got her wish. There was a lovely in-ground pool out back. It wasn’t huge or ostentatious. There were no bells and whistles to make it something fancy. It was a functional pool that our small family had enjoyed over the long, southern summers.

It was something I enjoyed even now, when I had the energy to get in and swim around a bit to cool off.

“Let’s go upstairs for a minute,” Braxton insisted the minute we walked through the door.

“Noooo!” I whined. “If I go all the way up the stairs, I’m just going to want to crash.

“So, you don’t want to get out of those uncomfortable clothes and change into something more relaxing?” He questioned.

I poked my bottom lip out at my man. “Well, when you put it like that.” I hesitated a moment. “You could always bring me something to change into down here.” My grin was supposed to convince him that he wanted to do just that, but it failed me. It was probably the first time since I started dating Brax that he had denied me.

“Come on, sweetheart. If you’re too tired, I’ll carry you down to eat dinner with your mom and then carry you right back up when we’re done.”

“You know how I feel about you throwing your back out,” I teased. The playful tone was sort of lost to a yawn, though.

“All right, sleeping beauty, I promise it will be well worth your time to go up those stairs.”

I could have sworn I heard giggling from upstairs. That was odd because no one should have been up there. My mom couldn’t climb the stairs anymore and as a result, Amelia had no reason to be up there.

Still, I let all that slip free of my mind as I grudgingly trudged up the steps beside Brax. He kept his arm braced behind my back, obviously worried that I might try to fall asleep while ascending the steps and fall down. Honestly, me too!

When we got to the top of the stairs, Braxton grabbed my hand and pulled me down the hall. “Stop,” I called out but continued to follow along as he passed my bedroom and moved to the next door down. Brax turned and grinned at me before he threw the door open and everyone yelled, “Surprise!”

“Oh shit! I think I just peed my pants a little bit,” I declared. Mel’s kids laughed at me as she chuckled along.

“I told him a surprise of this caliber probably wasn’t the best idea in your condition.”

“Who cares about a little pee?” My mother blurted out. “We all wear diapers at some point in our lives.”

“I’m not wearing diapers, Mom.” I huffed at her, but stopped caring about the little bit of pee I might have released or the fact that everyone was witness to it because what I’d failed to notice, thanks to the room full of people, was the room itself.

“It’s a nursery.” My voice was full of disbelief as I turned to Brax. “It’s a nursery!” I was louder that time.

“Yeah, sweetheart, it’s Janine’s nursery.” He gently pulled me into the room, so that I could inspect everything. There was a beautiful natural wood crib and all the furniture in the room matched. Everything was accented with beautiful filigree and there was a sprinkling of pastel pink, green, and yellow cushions and bedding throughout the room to pull it all together. The glider rocker in the corner called to me, so I took off and parked my butt in it. The minute I started rocking and propped my feet up on the gliding ottoman, there wasn’t a hope in hell of keeping me awake.

“She was exhausted before we ever got here,” Brax explained.

“It’s okay, I feel her exhaustion. Let her sleep for a bit,” I heard Mel say.

“Come on, Jane, I’ll help you down the stairs.”

“Son, this is the second time you’ve lifted me up and carried me. You better start calling me Mom before my imagination runs wild with the different scenarios.”

I would appreciate that feisty response from my mother later. After a short nap. After I had time to process that I now had a nursery to bring my daughter home to when we left the hospital. That was all thanks to Brax.

Chapter 22

“I can do this. I can do this. I can fucking do this.” I punched my steering wheel when I couldn’t figure out how to get the damn thing to move out of my way. Then the tears started to flow because the only way to get my belly out of the way was to back the seat up further, but if I did that, then my feet couldn’t reach the stupid pedals.

“Why aren’t cars made for pregnant women?” I yelled at the stupid Jeep. Finally, after finagling with all the knobs and switches, and seat movers, it fell into the perfect sweet spot where I could program that seat adjustment to one of the numbers on the door. Then, all I would have to do was push that number next time I wanted to get in and this nightmare would never have to happen again.

“Whew!” I said to myself when I finally got on the road. “Janine, I can’t wait for you to be here so mommy can have her belly back to normal.”

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