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“She’s so light.” He echoes my sentiments from the night before.
“No shit, she’s a baby. Of course she’s light,” Rhett says.
“Language,” Duke admonishes him.
Maisie leans over, the lemony scent of her hair drifting to me with the motion. “Are they always like this around babies? They were struggling to change her diaper in the hospital…”
I shake my head. “No. They’re all just crazy. Some sort of baby fever has hit ’em.”
What I don’t say is that same baby fever seems to have hit me too because I sure as hell didn’t want to give Audra up from where she was cozy on my lap.
“It’s kind of cute,” she whispers to me as my brothers continue to harass Jedd into giving Audra up so they can each hold her.
“What festival are they talking about? Is it the one you mentioned when I was getting out of the hospital?”
I tune back in to the table conversation. My family is talking about catching one of the shows this week.
I nod. “Yeah. Every summer there’s a country music festival in town, it brings in a lot of tourists and it’s due to start this week.”
A quick glance shows that Maisie’s plate is empty and the fact that she got to eat a whole meal — while it was hot — leaves behind a warm sense of satisfaction.
I’ve rolled around what happened to her in my head since she told me, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t put myself in her shoes. To leave everything behind, pregnant, alone, and scared to fight and claw for the hope of safety — a basic human right — is unimaginable to me.
“Are you going to eat?” Maisie whispers to me under the cacophony of my siblings.
I glance down to my sandwich, my appetite gone. Maisie’s keen gaze is looking me over, and to reassure her that I’m okay, I pick it up and eat the majority of it with efficiency. I don’t have much longer on my lunch break until I need to get back, but I didn’t want Maisie to retreat to the apartment for the rest of the day without me seeing her for a minute.
“Maisie,” Jedd calls her attention over to him.
“What’s up? Do you need me to take her back?” Her arms lift slightly like she’s reaching for Audra.
Jedd hugs the baby to his chest a little tighter and shoots her a mock scowl. “No. I just wanted to let you know, I finished the estimate of the work on your camper.”
Maisie tenses next to me, and the rest of my family falls quiet.
“Okay,” she says cautiously.
Jedd pulls his phone out of his pocket and taps the screen a few times. “What’s your email? I’ll send it over.”
Maisie rattles off her email address and then her own phone pings with the incoming email.
Her eyes scan the screen before widening at the bottom.
“Holy shit.” She breathes out.
Jedd scratches a hand through his beard. “Yeah. It’s a lot of work and expensive. Which is why I’m pretty sure your insurance is going to total it out.”
“Fuck.” The quiet curse from her has me leaning over to take a look at the email. I note the five-figure total at the bottom, and I blow out my own breath.
I knew the repairs were going to be pricy, but I didn’t think they’d be that pricy.
Emotions flit across Maisie’s face. Worry. Stress. Anxiety, and then finally, fear.
It’s the fear that has me reaching for her. My hand runs up the back of her arm until I come to the top of her shoulder. When she doesn’t flinch, I want to roar with triumph. “We’ll figure it out. It’ll be okay.”
Maisie’s silver-blue eyes fly to mine, the expression in them like a lightning bolt to the solar plexus.
“Harlan,” she chokes out, her voice watery.
