can’t believe you are okay with this,” Faith said to Dean as they entered the elevator.
“I don’t think anyone was really that interested in my opinion in the first place,” he said, showing his palms.
Sawyer rubbed his forehead. “Don’t be so hard on him. It’s not like he knew we were going to drop a bomb on him.”
“Well...” Faith cringed. “That’s not totally true.”
“I may have been informed last night,” Dean confessed.
“You promised me you wouldn’t tell him! What if Piper hadn’t been okay with you two coming to breakfast this morning?”
“This is how I know you aren’t ready to be married,” Faith said, stepping forward. “The first rule of a good marriage is don’t keep secrets. I think Heath is wrong to keep this from his wife. Honesty is the best and only policy. Lying by omission is still lying.”
Sawyer should have expected his sister wouldn’t be able to stay quiet all night. She and Dean had been through enough because of secrets and lies. It had been wrong of him to ask her to keep him out of the loop.
She was also right about him not being ready to get married. Hopefully he’d be able to pull off playing the doting fiancé. Everyone back home would be a tough sell.
As they exited the hotel, a handful of paparazzi appeared out of nowhere. The rumors had begun and the press was dying for more to the story. Cameras were rolling and the questions were, too.
“Secret rendezvous with your girlfriend?”
“How’s Piper doing?”
“How long have you two been together?”
“Why have you been keeping this romance a secret?”
Sawyer ducked his head as the three of them ran for the car. He kept his mouth shut and could already imagine the look of dread on Piper’s face when she found out reporters were circling the place like vultures.
“What does Heath Starling think about the two of you together?” someone shouted.
Even the paps knew who was in charge of Piper’s life. Sawyer opened the passenger door for his sister and climbed into the back seat. Heath was going to do everything he could to control this situation. Sawyer needed to rise to the challenge.
“MY ANKLE IS a little black-and-blue, but it doesn’t hurt to walk around.”
Telling her father that she was pregnant had somehow been less daunting than sharing the same news with her mother. Maybe it was the impersonal nature of a phone call. Maybe it was the fact that Piper in no way felt like she would ever be as good at being a mom as hers was.
“Good. I wasn’t expecting to hear from you so soon after we spoke last night. Is everything else all right?”
Piper glanced at her father’s bedroom door. He hadn’t said a word to her after everyone had left. He had had Lana run out and buy a home pregnancy test to be sure Piper hadn’t been misdiagnosed. When it came back positive, he had gone into his bedroom and shut the door, leaving Piper to stew about the future and obsess over the way it felt when Sawyer held her hand.
“There was one thing I needed to tell you. I should have told you last night, but I was a little bit overwhelmed.”
“Oh, sweetheart. That’s understandable. You had a crazy day yesterday. What’s going on?”
Piper crossed and uncrossed her legs. She was like the princess who could feel the pea under a hundred mattresses. No matter what she did, she could not get comfortable.
“When I was at the hospital yesterday, they had to do some blood tests before they could give me an X-ray.” The other end of the line went dead silent. “Mom, are you there?”
“I’m here. Please tell me you’re well. There’s nothing wrong, is there?”
“Oh, no, I mean, yes. I’m fine. No problems. But I did find out something I wasn’t exactly prepared for. They told me...I’m pregnant.”
Her mom was quiet again before bursting with laughter. “That’s a good one! I can picture your father’s face when he heard that. What kind of hospital was this? How could they have messed that up so badly?”
Piper put her mom on speaker and pressed her palms over her eyes to stop the tears. Her throat was so tight, she wasn’t sure she could get the words out.
“They didn’t mess up, Mom. I did.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that I fell in love with Sawyer Stratton and we shared a moment of weakness six weeks ago, and in less than nine months, I’ll be having a baby.”
Her hands were no match for the tears that leaked out anyway. It was horrible to have to break the news this way. She couldn’t imagine how disappointed her mother was.
“You’re pregnant? For real?”
“For real. Dad had me take a second test to be sure.”
Her mom was quiet another moment, which was a bad sign.
“How is your dad handling it?” she finally asked.
“He’s disappointed and not talking to me.”
Piper waited for her mom to repeat the same sentiments her dad had spewed before Sawyer and his family left. She had to be devastated.
“I know this comes as a surprise,” Piper said to end the silence. “This is not the way I wanted to start a family, but here we are and I am ready to do whatever it takes to make it right.”
“My baby is going to have a baby? Oh, Piper, this is so exciting!”
Exciting? That was not the word her dad had used. Piper’s mouth fell open.
“You’re happy for me?”
“Well, I realize I just called you my baby, but you’re a grown woman. I know this isn’t how you imagined your first pregnancy would go, but it is what it is. I’m going to be a grandma. Am I old enough to be a grandma? Your brother is going to freak out.”
Piper was so stunned that her mom wasn’t angry with her, she didn’t know what to say.
“Matty’s been a little frustrated lately. He said something yesterday about feeling like he’s missing part of his life. Hearing he’s going to be an uncle is going to put the biggest smile on his face.”
“What do you mean, he feels like he’s missing part of his life? Was he speaking literally about the seizures?”
“He’s had a few absence seizures the last few weeks, but I think it’s more about not having the independence he wants. I worry about him being depressed. I have a call in to the doctors.”
Piper’s stomach dropped. Matthew’s seizures had begun when he was three. He was ten when they considered surgery, only to find he wasn’t a good candidate because the seizures were happening all over his brain. Throughout adolescence, Matthew struggled with significant learning disabilities and behavior problems. His language was impaired as was his memory.
“I wish there was something I could do to help him.” His illness made everyone in the family feel helpless.
Piper’s career and success had become her father’s primary focus in life at the same time the family had come to terms with the fact that Matthew was never going to have a normal life. Since then, Piper had always felt that because Heath couldn’t make things better for Matty, he was committed to making sure she was a star instead.
“We all do, honey. But I am telling you, the baby news