His Best Friend's Baby Read Online Free PDF

maybe. Too proud.
    New beginnings , she reminded herself.
    “Momma,” Ben cried, dodging Ron’s washcloth. Agnes and Ron turned toward her, their smiles radiant.
    “We heard him wake up and knew you needed your rest so we brought him downstairs, hope you don’t mind,” Agnes said with a bright smile before focusing on her grandson again.
    “Of course not,” Julia croaked, her voice rusty from nearly twelve hours of sleep. Despite her assurance, something in her chafed at the idea that they had come into her room while she slept.
    Really, you’re gonna get mad because they let you sleep an extra hour? She tried to relax. Clearly she had been on her own for too long.
    Ben struggled to lift himself out of the chair with one hand and reached for Julia with the other.
    “Stay there, Ben.” She walked over to kiss his cheeks and his hands, rub her nose with his damp one. All of their morning rituals. He laughed and clapped in response.
    “Hog heaven, huh, buddy?” she asked, letting him put his hands on her face leaving sticky hand-prints on her skin. “Pancakes and blueberries.”
    “Nana,” he said, pointing to Agnes, but watching Julia.
    “That’s what I told him to call me,” Agnes said with an embarrassed laugh, pulling at the neck of her yellow T-shirt. “I’ve always wanted to be a Nana.”
    “Sounds good.” Julia swallowed a lump of emotion.
    “Ron.” Ben pointed to Ron and everyone laughed.
    “Grandpa is for old men,” Ron said with a grin. The metal frame of his glasses caught the sunlight and winked, making him seem particularly merry. “Besides, Ron is easier to say.”
    He looked young, trim and healthy with his blond hair shot through with a little silver. He appeared younger than his wife and Julia wondered if Mitch would have looked that way. Respectable. Dependable.
    She doubted it.
    “Ron, it is.” Julia nodded definitively as if she were checking that off a list. What to call Grandfather—check.
    “Ron,” Ben mimicked Julia’s nod and tone.
    “He’s such a sweet baby,” Agnes said.
    “The sweetest,” Julia said, smiling in agreement. She ran her fingers through her son’shair to try and work out a knot of maple syrup near his ear.
    “Look at us, forgetting our manners.” Agnes stood, suddenly a flurry of activity.
    “Would you like something to eat, Julia?” Ron patted the chair next to him at the small kitchen table. “Some coffee?”
    “Coffee would be a dream.” Julia sat and an uncomfortable silence blanketed the room. They had covered the basics last night. Weather. Flights. How they must just be exhausted. This morning all the unsaid things and the hurt they had caused each other in the past pulled up chairs and sat at the table.
    Julia curled her bare toes into the braid rug under the table and folded her hands into her lap, trying to look the opposite of a gold-digging whore. She felt shabby in Mitch’s old army T-shirt and pajama bottoms.
    I should have worn something nicer , she thought, when unease and doubt slipped under her guard. I don’t have anything nicer .
    “How did you sleep?” Ron asked.
    “Like a rock,” Julia said brightly and wondered how she could stretch that answer for another hour of conversation. “Very well, thank you.”
    More silence.
    “You have a lovely home.” She hoped that didn’t make her sound like a gold digger. She was only telling the truth. Every room was filled with books and art and warm rich colors, rugs, beautiful wood floors, light stucco walls with dark wood support beams across the ceiling.
    “Thank you.” Ron nodded and took a sip of coffee.
    Kill me now , Julia thought.
    Agnes cleared her throat and Julia looked over to where the woman, short and round, stood in a pool of light from the window above the double ceramic sink. Tears glittered on Agnes’s cheeks.
    “I am sorry, Julia,” she whispered and shook her head. Squeezing her eyes tight. “I was horrible to you and—” She stopped and a single