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Dad harrumphed, then took a seat on the bench next to her.
“I guess now the whole town will know I’m pregnant too,” Megan said.
“I suspect they will.”
She gave her father a very thorough once-over. “So, you’re not dead. Is Nash okay?”
“He’s only breathing because I suspected you want him to be.” Dad slid his fingers over his beard.
She snorted and shook her head slowly. That was exactly something Nash would have said too.
A long pause followed, and Megan didn’t help him along. She wouldn’t help either Nash or her father. Not anymore. That wasn’t her damn job, she had decided after an hour of walking.
Dad finally huffed. “I know today upset you, but it’s business, sweet girl.”
“No, actually, my life has nothing to do with business at all,” she retorted, giving him a hard look. “This is about pride.”
Dad’s eyes tightened around the corners, and he took off his cowboy hat and set it next to him on the bench. He ran his hands over his face. “Will you please explain to me, why out of anyone, would you pick Nash Blackshaw? What’s the middle one?”
“Chase.”
“Yeah, he seems all right. Even the older one would be better.”
Megan glanced out at a mother pushing her child on the swing set before looking his way again. “Why Mom?” Her dad frowned. Megan pushed on. “Can you ever explain why and how you care about someone?”
A long pause. Then, “Okay, you’ve got me there.”
A longer minute went by as Megan allowed the loaded silence to stay between them.
Another huff, and then Dad said, “Mom told me you’re eleven weeks along now.”
“Yup,” she said.
He dared to look upset. “Why wait so long to tell us?”
She side-eyed him. “Do you really even need to ask me that?”
He paused then released a long exhale, staring down at his roughed-up cowboy boots. “It’s not that I’m not happy about the baby, Megan.”
“It’s the who I’m having the baby with that’s the problem,” she finished for him.
His jaw muscles clenched. His gaze slowly lifted to hers. Held. “Nash does not fit in well with our family.”
“You don’t know that. You never let him try.” She shook her head, seeing the irony in it all. “You two are so much alike it’s ridiculous, which I’m guessing is why you don’t get along. You both have big egos, and strong loyalty to your family . . . and well, you both really care about me.”
“He’s a Blackshaw.”
“You’re a Harrison,” she shot back. “But what does that even mean? What is Nash to you? The son of a man who was your competitor who has now passed on?”
“He’s a pain in my ass,” Dad grumbled.
Megan couldn’t argue there. Nash was often a pain in the ass, mainly because he did things on his terms. She liked that about him. He stood apart from most men because he was ballsy and brave and lived the way he wanted to live. And he fought for those he loved. On the flipside, the fact that he didn’t back down was what got under her father’s skin.
Only proving her thoughts right, Dad said, “He’s also incredibly disrespectful.”
“Because you are,” she reminded him.
“Whatever happened to ‘respecting your elders’?” he asked.
