Page 18 of Hard To Love

“Baby?” my mother finally spoke up as if coming out of some kind of mental fog.

“Baby.” I grinned and let my hand drop to Sandy’s still flat tummy.

“It’s not Auggie’s,” my girl, my sweet, sweet angel blurted out, and now I was the one going solid next to her. “It’s Cal’s. Cal left, and Auggie told me how he felt, how he’s always felt, which is how I’ve always felt about him. I love your son, Mr. and Mrs. West.”

“Jan, hun,” my mom whispered.

“I’ve always loved him. I just… I didn’t think he could ever see me as anything more than a friend. This is not me trying to trap him or—"

“Oh, honey, I know.” My mom snapped out of whatever freeze she was in, left my dad’s arms, and headed straight to Sandy.

Swooping in, she pulled my girl from my embrace. I watched them hug. Tight and genuine. “My babies are having a baby!” My mom squealed with joy, and both Dad and I started to laugh.

The old man walked toward me and hugged me tightly, patting my back. “Happy for you, son.”

“I’m fucking ecstatic.”

“August Nolan West! Watch that mouth yours! You’re going to have a baby!” my mom scolded as my parents switched and she came to hug me.

January West was a five-foot nothing tornado to be reckoned with, and I was not going to get on her bad side. I knew better.

“Love you, Mama,” I muttered into her hair and felt her body shake slightly. My chest absorbed her quiet sob.

“My boy is going to be a daddy!” She pulled away. Her eyes glittered. “Shit.”

“What?” I whispered, worried that whatever was going to come out of her mouth might offend Sandy.

“I’m gonna be a grandma.” Now, there was no quiet in her tears as I held her. I looked over my mom’s head and directly to my dad. Silently pleading for help. I didn’t have to wait too long. He was already on his way to us.

“I got her. She’s fine. We were just talking about how one day, we’d be grandparents. She was going on about Nellie having six already while she didn’t have one.” I started to laugh, but Sandy’s arms wrapped their way around my waist, and I cleared my throat instead.

“Promise I’ll work hard on getting you caught up, Mom.” I winked at her, and when my eyes caught a wide-eyed Sandy, who was turning a little red around the ears from embarrassment from the insinuation I was going to work hard at keeping her bred and knocked up, we all started to laugh.

We ended things with another hug, then walked out of the main house and slowly made our way to our cabins at the end of the property.

“You know, you didn’t have to tell them,” I noted quietly without judgment. “The baby’s mine either way.”

“I know.” She glanced up at me and squeezed my hand. “I’ve never been anything but clear with your parents, and I didn’t want to start lying. Especially not now. I don’t think we need to tell anyone else about it.” She had told her mom when she first found out. Jessie Duarte retired right before Sandy graduated and moved to Taos, New Mexico to be closer to her sister.

Much like my mom, she was over the moon excited about becoming a grandma. Of course, she had been worried about Sandy becoming a single mom and even offered to put her and the baby up in her two-bedroom house, but that was before I came in and claimed her. If I had known her mom offered that, there was no way in hell I would have left Sandy to go back to the horses the morning everything between us changed.

Since then, I’d spoken to Jessie. I told her how much I loved her daughter and the baby she was carrying. Jessie being Jessie, and much like a second mom to me, knew how we’d always felt about one another and was more than happy to give me her blessing. I stopped us mid-step as we faced both our cabins and scratched the back of my neck. Two cabins. Two two-bedroom cabins would not do for the family we wanted to create.

I hadn’t caught Sandy off guard with my comment about us having a big family. Since she was an only child herself, she loved the idea. “You like this spot on the ranch?” I asked. Her brow rose.

“What?”

“This spot. Back here.”

“I love it. It’s…” She shrugged, her light caramel eyes dropped to the ground. I waited until they found mine again. “It’s our spot,” she answered. I had to take a deep breath.

“What do you mean?” I asked when I very well knew the answer.

“You fishing for pretty words, Auggie?” she asked, gently leaning into me.

“Humor me,” I drawled, slowly stroking the ends of her hair.

“Fine. We used to ride our horses all the way out here and sit and have picnics all through high school.”