Page 148 of The Reason I Married Him
I felt it in the pit of my stomach.
I felt it knocking on my head, telling me something was there. Something I’m ignoring and not ready to face just yet.
And because of that, I push it all to the side and to the back of my mind where I won’t touch it.
I won’t even go near it.
Because I’m afraid if I do . . . I might get hurt again.
Chapter Fifteen
AUBREE
“Oh my God, this will be so great,” Maggie says as she claps her hands together, far too excited about a wedding I don’t want.
When I came into The Almond Store to talk to Hattie about stocking up on honey this week, I forgot about Maggie coming in. I blame the commotion from yesterday . . . that kiss, and the awkward night I had of trying not to breathe too heavily while Wyatt held me last night. I considered kicking him away, telling him not to curl into me, but every time I got the courage to say something, I remembered how well I sleep when he’s snuggled into me. And I really value my sleep. So I didn’t kick him away. But I sure as hell booked it out of the guest house this morning and went straight to work. On a Sunday. I did everything I could think of, which included scouring the potato fields for any wayward trash that seemed to be dragged in by the wind from careless litterers.
And my avoidance served me well up until the point when I was starving. Wyatt texted me if I wanted him to make me lunch, and I politely declined, hightailed it out of the farm, and cameinto town. I was going to grab a chicken salad sandwich and discuss honey, in case Wyatt asked.
But instead, I ran into an overzealous Maggie and her new boyfriend.
“I really don’t want to make a big deal out of this wedding,” I say. “Seriously, we’re probably just going to find a courthouse and do it that way.”
“I refuse to let that happen.” Maggie caps the pen she was using to outline a—what she calls—simplistic yet chic wedding. “It will be in the barn, the family will sit on hay bales covered in lace?—”
The doorbell rings above the front door, and I thank the high heavens for the distraction until I hear Mac’s voice yell, “Maggie!”
Then her little feet patter across the floor, and she leaps into Maggie’s arms.
“Hey there, Mac. How are you?”
“Good.” Mac looks over at Brody, Maggie’s boyfriend, and asks, “Who is this?”
“This is my boyfriend. His name is Brody.”
Mac looks him up and down but ignores him and says, “Aunt Aubree has a boyfriend, and they’re getting married.”
“So I heard,” Maggie says in an evil tone as if she just realized her key to making her barn wedding dreams come true. “I was just talking to your aunt Aubree about her wedding.”
“Maggie,” I warn, seeing where she’s going with this.
“And you know what she told me?”
“Maggie, I swear.”
She just smiles at me and says, “That she doesn’t want a wedding.”
Mac’s head whips around to me, and those big eyes that grow three times their size in seconds stare back at me. “You don’t want a wedding?”
Yup, Maggie did it all right.
“I just don’t want a big one,” I answer gently.
“But . . . that means I can’t be your flower girl, and Uncle Ry Ry said I could be your flower girl.”
Ryland, who leans against one of the islands in the store, arms crossed, just smiles back at me as if he knows exactly what he did.
You know what? It’s not fair to use a child to get what you want. There should be a law against that. Just because you have a child in your life doesn’t mean you can use them to your advantage. Although I would say many parents would disagree with that statement. It’s probably one of the benefits of having a child, besides the whole fulfilling part of raising a human and the unconditional love thing.
