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Deidre stilled. “She?” Her voice was quiet, broken.
I smiled and reached out to squeeze her hand. “Yes, she. You’re having a granddaughter.”
Then her tears fell, and this time I pulled her into my arms.
“Mom?” Kip said from behind me. It was only a matter of time before he came to make sure I hadn’t fainted or been abducted by whomever was at the door.
I let Deidre go, and she sniffed, wiping her eyes delicately.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, body coming close to mine.
Despite our argument, I found myself leaning into him ever so slightly.
Deidre’s expression changed. “I’m here to give my son a good telling off for not telling me about my granddaughter!” she snapped, swatting his upper arm. “I had to hear it from Jill Derrick, who, of course, assumed I already knew. She’s already been knitting!” She shook her head. “When were you going to tell me?” she demanded. “After she graduated from college?”
Kip sighed, looking appropriately guilty for keeping the secret, and I had a momentary feeling of sympathy for the man. Everyone had piled onto him while he was dealing with some pretty fucking heavy emotions. Granted, he was not dealing with themwell.
“I was going to tell you, Mom,” he replied, suddenly sounding a lot younger.
Deidre raised her brow and looked pointedly at my belly. “From the looks of it, your wife is about halfway through, and that means I wasn’t there through the horrific first trimester.” She looked at me. “Morning sickness?”
I nodded. “Like the worst hangover of my life.”
She returned a sharp gaze to Kip. “And as sweet as my boy can be, I doubt he provided the support a woman needs during the first trimester because men can never fucking understand it.”
I pursed my lips, leaning into Kip heavier now, even though I should’ve been angered by the not-so-subtle reminder of my first trimester and Kip’s lack of involvement.
“Well, he’ll likely never understand the vivid dreams, the sickness, the cramps, backaches, to name a few, but he does make a mean Dorito casserole,” I said.
Deidre smiled. “Well, yes, he cooked with me every day and night since he was a baby. I was doing Montessori before it was trendy.” She winked. “Now,” she clapped her hands, “I’ve got a lot of time to make up for, and we have things to do, so let’s get inside and you can catch me up on everything that’s been going on.” She looked to Kip. “Be a dear and run to that bakery Fiona works at, get us some treats.”
Then she ushered me inside and left Kip to go get the treats, presumably.
After that, I didn’t get a moment to think because Deidre didn’t let me. I couldn’t decide if that helped me bury my resentment toward Kip or resolve it.
* * *
Deidre stayed for a couple of days, helping me shop for the nursery but not letting me pay for a single thing. Nora and Tiffany were delighted at this turn of events and tagged along.
Kip took a couple of days off work—I wasn’t sure if that was Deidre’s request or if it was his own volition—in order to do some repairs and improvements on the guest room, which was now going to be the nursery.
That meant we no longer had a guest room, but Deidre was happy to stay with Calliope, the two of them apparently good friends.
Deidre was such a force of nature that I didn’t realize we’d gotten rid of all of the furniture in the guest room—I actually, for the life of me, had no idea what was done with it—and put a coat of paint on, adding a fresh rug and a brand-new crib in addition to other furniture that was on its way from various high-end stores.
And it was only after she left that I realized that the loss of a guest room didn’t just mean I couldn’t house guests, but Kip no longer had anywhere to sleep.
He’d been sleeping with me for appearance purposes—his mother turned up bright and early to make us breakfast in the morning and wasn’t shy about bringing it to us in bed. Though I did enjoy that it meant Kip woke me in the middle of the night to fuck me. And I’d slept better than I had in months.
“Did you plan this?” I demanded as Kip cooked dinner. Deidre had left earlier with tears in her eyes and promises to be back as often as possible. No mention of Kip’s father had been made on this visit, but I could’ve sworn I felt underlying tension between them about it.
Kip looked up at me, and fuck him for doing it with his arresting blue eyes that were full of admiration and sexual promise. “Plan dinner?” He shrugged. “Well, you threatened my life if you didn’t get a burrito in the next hour, so it’s more of a survival instinct.”
I scowled at him, my stomach growling for that burrito. “Not the fucking dinner, your mother. Her turning up here and strong-arming me into doing the nursery.”
Kip’s lips turned up. “You can trust me when I say that I absolutely did not plan my mother’s visit, and had I known it was coming, I would’ve tried mild measures to sabotage it, like orchestrating some kind of landslide in order to make the road impassable.” He took a pull of his beer. “But she would’ve figured a way around that.”
I glared at him, wanting to argue but also knowing it was very likely that he was speaking the truth. With all that had happened over the past few months, I couldn’t imagine Kip raring to tell his mother that she was going to be a grandma—again, cue the heart-clenching sorrow at what she’d also lost—when he was planning on abandoning the aforementioned grandchild. I also couldn’t imagine Deidre letting her son get away with something like that.
