Spring Fever (25 page)

“I’m just saying,” he started. “Somehow, things spun out of control. I thought I was in love with you. I mean, probably I was. Kind of. At some point, I knew I should man up and tell you how I felt, but then, once you started planning the wedding, it kept getting bigger and more elaborate. And then, there was the country club, and the harpist from Atlanta, and that enormous damned cake, and your aunt was flying in … I just couldn’t … I didn’t want to disappoint you.”

Celia looked like she’d been slapped across the face. “So this is all my fault? Because I wanted a nice wedding day? A day I would have been able to remember my whole life?”

“It’s nobody’s fault,” Mason said wearily. “It just is. Look, I never, ever meant to hurt you, but knowing how I feel about Annajane, how conflicted I am, well, I can understand that you’d want to call off the wedding for good now. Nobody could blame you after the heel I’ve been.”

“Call it off?” Her face crumpled. “For good?”

“It might be for the best,” he said, feeling like more of a heel than ever. “We’re just too different. We want different things. I mean, you hate my car, and you don’t really like living in a small town like Passcoe, and you hate my sister, well, okay, I guess she’s the one who hates you, but you know you never really warmed up to Pokey…”

He was babbling, and he wasn’t normally a babbler. But then he’d never been in a situation like this before, so really, who could blame him?

Mason laid a tender, caring hand on Celia’s arm. “Celia, I know this is pretty rotten right now, but believe me, eventually, you’ll agree it’s all for the best that we didn’t go through with the wedding. It never would have worked out.”

*   *   *

Celia pushed his hand away and ran from the room. She threw herself onto the sofa in the den, burying her face in the cushions.

Things were happening too fast. She had to step back and regroup. Call off the wedding? Just because she and Mason had a little tiff and he’d gotten sloppy drunk and sentimental and ended up giving his pathetic ex-wife a pity fuck? Oh, no. This was not happening. She would not allow this to happen. Mason was hers, and she would not give him up without a fight. She had a plan, a whole new life plotted for herself, and she’d be damned if she’d give it up now and end up like her wretched, welfare-cheating, coupon-clipping, snot-dripping coven of sisters back in Nebraska. But how to win Mason back, when he was convinced he still carried a torch for somebody else?

She knew Mason, better than he knew himself. Knew what mattered to him. Honor. Loyalty. Fidelity. Family. Doing the right thing. It was what he lived for.

*   *   *

Mason trudged stoically into the den. Just when he’d convinced himself that they were almost through with this unending agony, things seemed to go from bad to worse. Probably he should just shut up and leave and let her cry it out. But maybe not.

He sat on the sofa and rubbed her back. “Heey,” he said softly. “I’m so sorry.”

She turned and looked up at him and her face softened. “I knew it,” she whispered. “In my heart, I knew this wedding, this marriage was too good to be true. I knew somebody like you could never really fall in love with somebody like me.”

Even with tears streaming down her face, Mason thought, Celia still managed to look stunning. Her hair wasn’t mussed, her nose wasn’t running, and her makeup wasn’t streaking. It was the damnedest thing.

“I just thought if I wanted it enough, I could make it happen,” she said sadly. “And we came so close.”

He felt like a heel. Like a jerk. Like a dickhead.

“This isn’t your fault,” he said, kneeling down awkwardly on the floor beside the sofa so his face would be level with hers. “Don’t blame yourself.”

Celia sniffed loudly. “No. It’s me. I try too hard. I always have. I don’t know. Maybe because my folks moved around so much when I was a kid, and because I was an only child, I always thought if I were nice and friendly, and tried to be everything for everybody, they would like me. And I thought if I worked really hard, harder than anybody else, I’d be a success. When I came to Passcoe, I thought it would be just another short-term thing. I’d sold my company; I didn’t have anything to prove. But then I met you and … fell in love.”

She sat up and dabbed at her face with the hem of her tennis top. “I didn’t mean to. I’m so stupid. So naive. I really thought we could do something together. With Quixie. That we could build a life together.”

“I thought so, too,” Mason admitted. He sat on the sofa beside her, took her hand, and squeezed it. “That’s what I wanted for us.”

Celia tried to smile. “I don’t blame you for wanting Annajane instead of me.” More tears welled in her eyes. “She’s sweet, and you’ve known her forever. I just wish you’d figured out things between you sooner. Before I came here and fell in love with you, and Sophie and your mom … oh God. Sallie has just been so wonderful. Like my own mom, if she’d still been alive.”

Oh, Christ, Mason thought. Sallie. She adored Celia. What would she say about this bizarre turn of events? His temples were starting to throb. What the hell had he gone and done?

Now Celia was patting his knee, trying to make him feel better, which actually made him feel much worse.

“Don’t worry,” she said, her voice wobbly. “I’m not going to make any more of a scene. I’m sorry I carried on. I don’t know what’s come over me. I guess maybe it’s my hormones.”

“You had every right to make a scene,” Mason said. “And if you want to hit me or something, I’ll go out to the garage and get you a wrench. Or a tire iron.”

“If I thought it would change anything, I still might,” Celia said. She slumped back against the sofa cushions.

“You don’t hate me?” Mason asked cautiously.

“No,” she sighed. “Maybe I should, but I don’t.”

“If it makes you feel any better, Annajane doesn’t actually want me back,” Mason said glumly.

Celia fixed her huge, luminous eyes on his. “She doesn’t?”

“No. She said it was all a mistake. That she really loves this Shane guy. She thinks we were both just … confused.”

“Mason,” Celia gripped his shoulder with her fingertips, her nails digging into his flesh. “Is … is what Bonnie Kelsey said, is it true? Were you two having sex?”

“No!” Mason said. “It was just stupid teenage stuff.”

“You say Annajane doesn’t want you back. But what about you? What do you want?”

“God, I don’t know anything.” He looked over at her. “Except that I don’t want to hurt you any more than I already have. I am truly sorry I’ve screwed everything up so badly.”

“What about us?” She leaned her head on his shoulder. “What happens with us? With all our plans?”

There is no us, Annajane had told him only a few hours ago. She’d been very clear about that. No going back. What was that saying? Love the one you’re with?

He turned and, with his fingertip, wiped away one last lingering tear as it rolled down her cheek. “I don’t know, maybe just step back and really figure out what we both want. Take things a little slower this time. We can still be friends, right?”

“Friends?” her laugh was shaky.

“Well, really good friends,” Mason said. “I still care about you, Celia.”

She grabbed his hand. “Do you mean that, Mason? It’s really over with Annajane?”

His face darkened. “It really is.”

“Thank God,” she said fervently. “Because there’s something else. I didn’t want to tell you like this. I was waiting until after the wedding. I didn’t know how you’d feel about it, but Mason, I just can’t keep it from you anymore.”

Somehow, he knew what she was going to say before the words were out of her mouth. A sense of dread washed over him.

“I’m pregnant,” Celia said. “Mason, we’re pregnant.”

21

When he was eight years old, he and his friend Stevie Heckart stole a package of firecrackers and a box of kitchen matches from Stevie’s older brother. They rode their bikes out to Hideaway Lake and took the firecrackers out onto the dock. It was winter and nobody was around. For a while they amused themselves by lighting firecrackers and flinging them into the lake. But then boredom set in and they began looking for a bigger thrill, a bigger bang. They found a rusty coffee can full of nails in the tin-roofed boathouse. They dumped out the nails and put an entire package of the firecrackers in the can and lit it. The ensuing explosion left him numb and deaf for several minutes, with only a vibrating ringing in his ears.

That was how Mason felt after hearing that Celia was pregnant. It was as if the words she’d uttered had been spoken from the bottom of a well, through a wall of water.

She grabbed his arm. “Say something, please. Tell me you’re as happy as I am. Because I’m, well, I’m delirious. I’ll finally have a family of my own now.”

Too stunned to speak, he simply stared.

“Mason?” She grabbed his arm and shook it.

“I thought you were on birth control,” he said, when his brain started to thaw.

“I was using birth control,” she said. “The patch. But apparently, sometimes things can happen. Remember that upper-respiratory infection I had this past winter? I took antibiotics? They can counteract birth control. And I guess they did. Because here I am … pregnant!”

“But … when? I mean, we haven’t even really been together … like that, since you started planning the wedding.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. “I know. Which was another reason I was so upset that my plans for last night were ruined. It’s been soooo long. But I promise, I’m going to make it up to you tonight.” She laid her head on his shoulder and looked up at him from beneath her uncannily luxurious eyelashes.

He continued to stare at her. “How long, exactly? I mean, if you know.”

“The ides of March,” she said, snuggling against his chest. “I’m due in December. Just think, a Christmas baby.”

He looked at her carefully. She didn’t look pregnant. She was wearing tight jeans and some kind of stretchy top and her belly was as flat as the palm of his hand. When Pokey was pregnant, she swore you could tell the minute her egg latched onto a sperm. But Celia seemed to be saying she was at least six weeks pregnant and she was no bigger around than a twig. “And you’re sure? I mean, have you seen a doctor or something?”

“Of course I’m sure,” Celia said smoothly. “I took two of those home pregnancy tests. Plus I saw a doctor in Charlotte the last time I was there.”

“Oh,” Mason said. He buried his head in his hands. He got to his feet unsteadily. “Excuse me,” he said, ever the southern gentleman. He hurried into the powder room and closed the door firmly.

“We have to talk,” Mason said, when he finally emerged from the powder room, pale and grim-faced. While he’d been retching, she’d moved into the kitchen, washed her face, and combed her hair. She looked radiant, if that was possible.

“Yes,” Celia said, nodding eagerly. “I agree.”

He went to the liquor cupboard, pulled out a bottle of bourbon, poured three fingers into a water glass, and downed it in one swallow.

Celia had never seen Mason drink this early in the day. She slid onto one of the leather barstools at the kitchen counter. But Mason remained standing, his backbone ramrod straight.

“There’s no easy way to say this,” Mason started. “The thing is, even before, well, the thing with Annajane, I guess I’d started to realize maybe we should rethink getting married.”

One large tear rolled down Celia’s cheek. She turned her head and brushed it away with the back of her hand.

“I’m sorry,” Mason said. His shoulders slumped. “I just don’t love you. I thought I did, but I don’t. You deserve better than that. Marrying me would be the biggest mistake of your life, Celia.”

“But, the baby,” she whispered, fighting back the tears. “Our family…”

He sighed. “I can’t lie. The baby complicates things. You said December?”

Celia nodded.

He looked out the kitchen window. A baby. His own flesh and blood. How could he have been so careless? And not just about that. How could he have let his marriage to Annajane dissolve, without a fight? How could he have let the business deteriorate to the point that it was at risk? How could he get himself engaged to a woman he didn’t really want to marry? Had he been asleep for the past five years? What would his old man think of the way he’d screwed things up?

“I will, of course, take care of you and the baby,” he started to say. “Financially, emotionally, whatever. You’ll never want for anything.”

Celia was uncharacteristically quiet.

“You don’t still want to get married, do you?” he heard himself ask.

She shrugged. “I don’t want to force you to marry me.” She sniffled a little. “But I never thought I’d be an unwed mother!” And then she was crying again. Loud, gasping sobs. He put a hand on her arm, and she shook it off angrily, refusing to be comforted. “Just leave me alone,” she said.

22

Annajane couldn’t sleep. She was haunted by the consequences of her actions. By six that morning, she’d decided on a course of action. She had to go to Shane, tell him what she’d done, and ask for his forgiveness.

She threw some clothes into an overnight bag and text-messaged Davis.

“Won’t be coming in today. Maybe not tomorrow either. Sorry.”

Celia, she thought wryly, would be delighted.

It was a six-hour drive to Atlanta. She welcomed the quiet, the chance to think, the absence of distraction. She watched the sun come up over an emerald-green pasture dotted with horses and an old sway-backed mule and, finally, at eight, gave herself permission to stop at a Bojangles’ north of Greenville, South Carolina, for coffee, a biscuit, and a bathroom break.

The restaurant was busy, with construction workers picking up bags of chicken biscuits, office workers lined up in their cars at the drive-through, and two long tables of elderly men who were obviously members of an unofficial coffee klatch.

Her cell phone rang as she was getting back into her car. She glanced at it warily, praying it wasn’t Mason, grateful it was only his sister, Pokey.