All I Want

“Yes.”

“In how involved I want to be. With my...” He couldn’t form the word. Not with his mouth, not so it echoed down the aisle of a crowded summer afternoon at the farmers’ market. He didn’t belong here. He took a deep breath. It didn’t matter. Nothing about the self-centered pity party of the past month really mattered, not when he was faced with this.

“It’s a lot to process. Take some time, and when you’re ready...” She offered him a card, which he stared at without taking it. Because she’d handed him her card before. He fished his wallet out of his pocket, flipped it open and thumbed open the crease.

There was the card. He hadn’t been able to throw it away. So it had sat there. In his wallet. Like a very weird omen.

“I’ve got it,” he said, his voice sounding rusty and out of place.

When he looked up from the card to her face, her lips were curved. But she didn’t say anything, just gave a little nod.

“Moonrise,” he blurted, shaking his head at the total lack of finesse he was doing this with. “What time could you meet me at Moonrise Diner?”

She glanced at the delicate watch on her wrist. He’d held that hand, had sex with this woman—made a child, and he only remembered bits and fuzzy pieces. He’d been struggling to accept that before, but now?

“One thirty? But I’ll only have about half an hour before I need to get back to the farm.”

“It’ll be a start.”

It would have to be a start.

* * *

MOONRISE DINER WAS one of Meg’s favorite places in New Benton. While she’d had this picture of idyllic small-town life growing up in well-to-do suburbia, New Benton hadn’t lived up to most of it.

It was old and run-down, and a lot of the people weren’t sweet, quirky characters from a sitcom. They were rough, they were hard and they didn’t much give a damn who you were or where you came from.

But Moonrise was like something out of a movie. A diner still firmly planted in the past that did a bustling business to locals and very little else. The waitresses weren’t overpolite, more harried than charming, but she stepped into the bustle and felt like she’d found something.

Community, in a loose way. The waitresses knew her name. Some of the ladies would ask her about her goats or her soap. If she saw Dan, she always bought him a cup of coffee, and while she didn’t feel that sort of warm bloom of instant belonging she’d hoped for when she set out on this road, she didn’t feel like a stranger either.

So much of her life had been about feeling like a stranger. In her own home, to herself when she was high, to the friends who didn’t want out of that ugly cycle and to the friends who didn’t want to look her in the eye because they might remember and want a hit.

Meg blew out a breath as she slid into an empty booth. Between Grandma and pregnancy, all the old crap was getting stirred up and she needed to get a handle on it.

It hit her then, like a bolt of lightning straight through the diner roof and into her chest. She’d lost Grandma and created a life within the same week.

She placed a hand over her belly, where everything she read told her what was growing inside her was barely larger than a speck.

She’d lost one light and been given another. She had to believe that. It solidified her resolve, the choice she’d made. And if you’re a girl, your name will be May. Which was more than likely getting ahead of herself, all things considered. But it was only right. It had to be right.

She blinked at the tears, hoping to have them under control before Charlie arrived. She was going to have to come to terms with the fact that tears would be part of the next eight months. That was okay, but for the next however long Charlie wanted to talk, she needed to be in control.

She didn’t know Charlie. The kind of man he was. If he’d want a piece of this responsibility. She thought it might be easier if he didn’t, but that was easier for her and she understood that some of the choices she was going to have to make in the next few months were about her child—not her.

She had a responsibility to protect both of them. It had to be the mantra she held on to while she navigated some really tricky and unknown waters. She wouldn’t let that spiral her back to where she’d come from, and she wouldn’t let a few mistakes break her down.

She had to be calm, rational and above all...a mother.

A mother.

Better than my own. I will be better than my own. She would love this child no matter what he or she looked like, or acted like, or wanted out of life. She would always love them so much more than she cared about her reputation or image. Always.

If that was the thing that kept her going, so be it.

She glanced at her watch, trying to calm her nerves and her worries with the prospect of the business at hand. It didn’t surprise her that just as the second hand hit the twelve to make it one thirty exactly, Charlie walked through the front door.

He seemed like that kind of man. Prompt and responsible and dutiful. At least in business. Her father’s ethics and morals had lacked plenty, but he’d never been late to a meeting. Never shirked a business responsibility.

She hoped against hope that Charlie was a better man than her father.

He gave her a slight nod and walked to the booth, all seriousness.

He was handsome. The nice jeans, the preppy fashionable sneakers, the T-shirt he’d probably bought from some high-end department store—none of it detracted from the way his face was put together. Strong jaw, sharp nose.

He didn’t ooze charm like his brother had at the market, but there was something attractive about his self-assurance. The way he moved like he knew exactly where he belonged.

It disappeared the moment he sat down, and she found that endearing too. Because God knew she was working with a big old question mark. The least he could do was feel the same.

“Hi,” she offered.

“Hi. Are you eating?”

She glanced at the counter, where Mallory was chatting with some customers. “Maybe.”

He gave a slight nod.

And then there was nothing but silence.

Meg waited, searching her mind for some way of bringing up the pregnancy in a way that would be fruitful instead of “what the hell are we doing?” and “how did this happen?” Because her brain had done enough of that, and she was ready for the part where they moved forward.

“It’s a lot to take in. If you need more time—”

“What are your plans?” he asked, and she might have gotten offended by the demand in his voice if he hadn’t winced after he said it.

“My plans?” she repeated, because even with the wince she wasn’t quite sure what he was after.

“I mean, insofar as you’ve had more time to think about this than I have, what is your current plan of action?”

Plan of action. She wanted to be calm. She wished she were the type of woman who could hide the look of disgust that passed over her face, but it was a part of the reason she’d never fit in her parents’ world. She didn’t have a poker face. She didn’t have a coat of armor to put on over herself when the vultures were circling. Everything she was or thought was there, and she didn’t know how to hide it.

“So you haven’t thought that far ahead,” he said gently.

A gentleness that made her stomach turn. It reminded her of the teacher in school who assumed she was dumb. You just don’t understand. That’s all right.

No, she understood. She understood this better than him. She had a plan of action, but it was her own and her own way, and hell if she’d let a stranger wreak havoc on the sliver of confidence she’d built for herself.

“The plan of action, Charlie, is to spend the next eight months growing a life inside me. And then push it out my vag—”