Page 64 of Easy On Me

Maggie nodded. I wound my hands together in my lap, fiddling with my rings. I'd tried to take them off the night before - and couldn't. I loved him, despite this mess, and removing his ring felt too permanent.

Too wrong.

“So, I'm not influencing you. Or rushing you.” Marilyn spoke with exquisite care. “I can't imagine what you're experiencing-“

I nodded. If she only knew.

“--but I would want to gut Joey if that snotty little Houston high-society hoochie he proposed to when he was twenty showed up with a baby she said was his.” Marilyn scowled. “Even if it was before me, because still ... it would be hard.”

“It was before you,“ Maggie said, quiet and subdued.

I twisted my wedding band around my finger again. “I know. That's not the problem. He's not the problem.”

“Is the baby really the problem?? Marilyn held my gaze, her own gentle and sympathetic.

“I don't know. It can't help who its mother is.” We all knew who the problem was. What I had to decide was whether I could accept the presence of that problem.

Decide if Jase was worth that complication.

“So, we'll support you in whatever you decide.” A weighted glance passed between my friends, and Maggie leaned forward to cover my clenched hands with hers. “However we can because we're family and we love you.”

My eyes burned and I blinked hard, firming, my trembling lips into a smile. “I love you, too.”

“Tyler.” Marilyn spoke with hushed seriousness. “We all know there is no one more suited than you to realize that baby's needs. Or your baby's needs. You're going to be an amazing mother because you know how important the

role is. Whatever you choose, that will be the right choice because you'll choose what's best for your baby.”

I nodded, letting her reassurances settle in my soul. Lovely words, from two of the people I loved best in the world.

They trusted me to find the right way.

If only I trusted myself as much.

Chapter Nineteen

Jase

Dusk cast shadows across the yard when I pulled to a stop under the carport. Tyler’s SUV sat in its spot, so she was here although the realization brought no joy.

She didn’t have to leave the house to leave me. Arms and shoulders aching – I’d busted my ass today, trying to keep my mind occupied – I rested my forehead on the wheel. An exhale shuddered out of me, my lungs squeezing.

So damn fucked.

Sitting in the truck feeling sorry for myself wouldn’t make me less fucked, though.

I allowed myself two more deep breaths, then snatched the keys from the ignition and straightened. The dread sitting heavy in my chest was far from the excited joy I’d felt coming home to Tyler just a few short days ago.

My boots scraped on the concrete, and I toed out of them at the steps, like I always did. My limbs hung heavy, too, all of me weighted down, a weariness deeper than wrestling hydraulics in a wet field.

Something spicy and rich met me when I opened the back door. At the stove, Tyler stood stirring in the stockpot I’d inherited from Grandma, and I froze, the moment like a hallucination of the life we’d been building. Loss clutched at my throat. I’d wanted us, so damn bad, and all of it lay in ruins.

She glanced sideways at me, her gaze shuttered, mouth in a dejected line. “Hey.”

“Hey.” Her sorrowful air slugged me in the gut. I’d hoped with a little time we’d find our way through this together. But she was unhappy. I could not – would not – ask her to stay with me in a scenario in which she was miserable.

I loved her too much for that.

“I made a pot of vegetable soup.” She set the spoon aside, turning to face me full on. She fiddled with her rings, and I followed the tense movements, envisioning her hand bare again. The idea of her taking them off punched dead center of my chest, winding me. “Can we talk over supper?”