The Sweetest September (Home in Magnolia Bend) Read Online Free PDF

baby. Good God.
    “So,” she said. “I’m feeling a little better. I’m embarrassed I sort of freaked out. Guess it was everything built up. I’m not usually so...wimpy.” Her smile was embarrassed, almost pained. “I won’t keep you from your work.”
    John cradled his beer in both hands. “Are you staying in town?”
    “No, I’m going back home to Seattle tomorrow. Besides, staying in town a few days is what got me in trouble in the first place.” She gave a humorless chuckle.
    “This is crazy,” he said.
    “Yes, it is,” she agreed with a nod, “but it’s not the end of the world. I can deal.”
    “I’d like it if you could stay at least a day or two,” he said, suddenly alarmed about the finality in her voice. Did she think she could drop this bomb and walk away...and he’d just go back to cutting cane like the news she’d brought was equal to “I sideswiped your mailbox” or “I accidentally broke your window.” This wasn’t something a person confessed to and then walked away. This was about a child...his child. “Just give me some time to wrap my mind around this and help you.”
    “I don’t need your help,” she said, pushing the teacup away. “I’m not trying to interfere in your life. Just thought telling you about the pregnancy was the decent thing to do.”
    “And that’s it? I get to know and that’s all?”
    Shelby’s eyebrows knotted. “I didn’t think you...” She paused and looked hard at him. “You don’t have to do anything. I didn’t come here asking for money or a way out of this. I’m not a girl in trouble. This isn’t the ’50s or ’60s. I can take care of the baby myself. I’m financially secure and mentally stable...mostly.”
    He made a face.
    “I’m kidding,” she said, her complexion pinking, her eyes resuming a less-tragic glint. “I’m mentally stable.”
    “But it’s my baby, too.” John set his beer aside and leveled her with the same look his father had used on him when he thought to take the easy way out. John wasn’t going away. If that’s what she’d thought, she’d been wrong.
    She gave an exaggerated, slow nod. “Okay, so technically speaking, it’s your child, but you don’t have to be involved.”
    “Too bad,” he said. “You came here to tell me I’m the father of the child you’re carrying. Did you really think I’d say ‘thanks for the info’ and go about my life as normal? What kind of man do you think I am?”
    “I have no idea what kind of man you are,” she said, scooting her chair back, looking as if she might run for the back door. “I didn’t think you would—I never considered anything other than...” She knotted her brow, twisting her lips as if searching for the right way to say she didn’t want him to care.
    “Doing the right thing?” he finished. “I believe that’s the way you put it. So why even tell me if you don’t want anything from me?”
    “Because you have a right to know.”
    “But not a say-so?”
    “Why would you? You ran,” she said, looking up at him. “Remember? You left me in that bathroom, drunk, ashamed and...knocked up. Why on earth would I think you’re the kind of man who would stand with me? And why would I want you to?”
    John felt as if she’d just hit him in the face with a wet dish towel. The kind of man who would run? Yeah. She wasn’t wrong. He’d been running for the past year...from his family, his friends and the grief that consumed him. The only thing he hadn’t run from was the incessant work he did in the fields as some kind of penance to his wife’s family. As if he could make up to Carla Stanton the loss of her daughter by keeping the Stanton legacy alive in some way. Rows of cane and this empty house were all he had left in his life. Even knowing how pathetic it was to close out the people who loved him hadn’t stopped him from soaking himself in work and regret. “Okay. I’ll give you that. I ran. I was a total dick. For that I