Page 53 of Lavender Lake
“Right.” I nodded.
“There they go again,” Bowman said.
Hadley’s phone buzzed in her pocket and she reached for it.
“Muddy?” I asked.
“Jane.” She looked up from her screen to me. “She’s going to be at the hospital when we get there. Are you going to behave?”
“Do I have a choice?” I asked, my mood beginning to sour.
“Yes,” she said. “It’s going to upset me if you’re upset, and stress isn’t good for the baby. So . . .”
“Oh, playing the baby card, are we?” I teased.
“I tried to play the baby card,” Declan remarked. “And you ignored me.”
“Hush, you,” Hadley quipped to her fiancé.
Declan rose from his seat. “That’s my cue.”
Bowman looked at me. “I’ll wait out front, yeah?”
I nodded.
The two of them left, leaving me alone with my sister. I went to the cabinet and pulled out a thermos.
“Okay, have at me,” Hadley said.
“Have at you, what?”
“We only touched on the Jane stuff yesterday. But we didn’t actually discuss her in detail because you didn’t want to talk about her.”
“Now? You want to do thisnow?Right when we’re supposed to leave?” I filched her coffee cup and went to the sink. I poured the hot liquid into the thermos, careful not to burn myself.
“Salem,” she said quietly.
“Does he love her?” I blurted out.
“Yes.”
“Are they—are they going to get married?”
“I don’t know.” Hadley went to the fridge and pulled out a carton of cream. “Even if they do, it doesn’t take away what he had with Mom. Nothing can ever take that away.”
“I know,” I mumbled.
“He’s not trying to replace her, Salem. Don’t you want him to find someone? Don’t you want him to be happy again?”
“She’s closer to our age than his,” I pointed out.
“Yeah, she is.” She opened the carton and I handed her the cup.
I swallowed. “Does she want kids?”
“I haven’t asked her.”
“Hadley,” I warned.
