Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 93307 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 373(@250wpm)___ 311(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93307 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 373(@250wpm)___ 311(@300wpm)
Just breathe, I coach myself, afraid that I’m going to have the kind of hormonal meltdown that will show my pregnancy cards to my family. Your granddad’s burial at sea is not the time to reveal this kind of news.
Obviously, I’m going to have to tell my family at some point—when the risk of thunder-stealing my gran is off the table—but, even then, it feels wrong to do so without first talking to Mack.
My stomach turns.
The mere thought of how he might react and the fear that’s involved in that sours the breakfast I just ate with my family at Sarabeth’s and threatens to bring it back for a second showing.
I swallow hard against the nausea that won’t quit and shuffle around a group of tourists who already have their cameras out and are snapping photos.
“This is it!” Gran shouts as she steps through the doors and onto the outside deck. She stops right in front of a bench that’s smack-dab in the middle.
The ferry horn honks, indicating its imminent departure, and my mom and dad and I come to a stop right beside Gran.
But instead of focusing on this emotional moment with his mother, my dad decides now is the time to pull his cell out of his pocket. His fingers type furiously across the screen, and my mother nudges him with her elbow. “Kai,” she whispers. “Put your phone away.”
“In a minute, sweets,” he states but doesn’t lift his eyes away from the screen.
The boat’s engine roars to life as we leave the harbor, and my gran steps toward the deck railing with my granddad’s urn in her petite hands. My mother and I follow her, but when I glance over my shoulder, I see my dad is still busy with his stupid device.
Are you freaking kidding me?
“Dad.” I join my mother’s quiet outrage. “Come up here.”
“Just a sec, Katybug.”
My gran is too busy thinking about her beloved husband, but my mom’s eyes now look like they might make an actual departure from her face.
“Kai.”
“Almost done,” he says, and I honestly think my mom might toss him and his phone in the water before Gran has a chance to dump the urn.
But a moment later, he’s shoving it back into his pocket with a smile and looking over his shoulder toward the doors that lead back inside the ferry.
What on earth is he doing?
“Harry, I loved you my whole life,” Gran starts to announce toward the water, and I’m torn between listening to her emotional words and trying to understand why my dad is acting like such a fool. “For sixty years, you were my everything. For sixty years, I was madly in love with your laugh and your smile—”
“There he is!” my dad shouts, making Gran stop midsentence and practically trampling all over her memories of her beloved husband.
I expect her to yell or smack him right in the kisser at the very least, but before she can even raise an arm to dole a blow, she’s staring behind me right along with him.
I turn around, anger and indignation instantly taking a back seat to confusion, only to find the one man in the universe who continually shows up where I’m not expecting him—my baby daddy, Mack Houston.
He looks painfully beautiful as he strides out onto the deck in jeans and a white T-shirt and his red Chuck Taylors. His gorgeous hair blows in the wind, and a part of me feels like he’s some kind of mirage my brain has conjured up from all the stress and emotion I’ve endured over the past forty-eight hours.
“Who is that?” Gran asks from behind me, her voice almost inexplicably loud.
“It’s Mack, Mom,” my dad explains at a normal volume. “Katy’s boyfriend.”
Boyfriend?
My head jerks back to my family at the misnomer, and Gran is all smiles as she greets him excitedly. “Oh! Hi, honey. I’m so happy you made it.”
So happy you made it? Was she expecting him or something? What the hell is going on here?
“And I’m happy I get to be here,” Mack says as he steps up to give my sweet gran a hug and a kiss on the cheek.
“My Harry would’ve loved to have met you,” she says and squeezes the urn tightly to her chest.
“He certainly would’ve, Mom,” my dad agrees, wrapping his arms around my mom’s shoulders. All I can do is stand there, slack-jawed, silently wondering if all these pregnancy hormones that are running rampant inside my body have given me brain damage.
Because unless I’ve been in a While You Were Sleeping-style coma for a couple of days, Mack showing up at this family dumping of a charred relative should be surprising someone other than me.
“Harry, my love…” My gran turns back toward the water. “Now that the whole family is here, it’s time, honey. It’s time to say goodbye.”