Winning my Best Friend's Girl - Piper Rayne Page 0,89
why I’d allow this I’m sure. But I nod. He’s here. He’ll see her at some point and it’s better for me to have my family here supporting me when it happens.
Kingston bends down and scoops her up in his muscular arms.
She signs to him. Who?
King looks over to me for an answer. I shake my head. So, Kingston signs back. Nobody.
Palmer’s curiosity isn’t satisfied though, and she hurries to sign. Why he here?
Kingston blows out a breath, not happy to be in the situation I’ve put him in. This is my responsibility not my big brother’s, so I step forward, but Phoenix’s hand clamps down on my wrist. I shake it off and go around my brothers’ defensive line. I guess I know where Palmer gets her unwillingness to listen.
“Don’t Sedona,” Denver says in a soft tone.
I hold my up hand. “I have no choice. He’s here.”
We talk about Jamison as though he’s not right in front of us. His eyes haven’t left my stomach yet. Not even to look at who the little girl is in Kingston’s arms. The ironic thing is that I look much the same today, as I did the day I walked out on him. He had passed out on the couch and like some sad movie, I gave him one last glance with my suitcase in hand before shutting the door on that chapter of my life.
“Sedona,” Kingston says, and I turn.
Palmer’s signing at me. Mommy. Mommy.
I hold up my finger to her and turn back to Jamison, about to grab him by the arm to drag him outside, but his eyes are locked on Palmer, his feet planted firm.
My heart gallops in my chest like a wild horse racing through the wilderness. I want to run over to Kingston, snatch Palmer out of his arms and run as fast and far away as I can. Granted that wouldn’t be fast or far with how pregnant I am, but still.
Tears fill Jamison’s eyes and I look back at Palmer who’s now fixated on her father. She’s too young to see what the rest of us all do. Their shared blue eyes. Their same thin nose and thick wavy hair. Although her hair is darker than his, resembling more my shade, no one could deny she’s his. And there’s no doubt with his sole attention on her, he just put it all together.
If he’s high or drunk like I left him, he could think he warped back eighteen months ago and I’m still carrying his baby.
He takes his hand off the suitcase he wheeled in and lifts both hands.
Palmer’s gaze focuses on him like she’s watching the Lake Starlight baseball team. My girl loves baseball, something her uncles couldn’t be happier about. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe she sees the resemblance even at her young age.
Jamison signs to her. Hello.
My head whips to Palmer and she smiles, signing back. Hello.
Oh hell no. I grab Jamison’s arm, pulling him out of Terra and Mare.
He follows without a fight this time and I release him as soon as we reach the sidewalk. But seeing all the faces of my family and guests plastered to the window, I grab him again and move us further down the sidewalk out of everyone’s sight.
“You’re pregnant?” he asks.
“That’s obvious. What are you doing here?”
Now that the immediate threat to Palmer is gone, my gaze skates across him. I hate that my body isn’t listening to my brain. He looks good, healthy—and resembles the guy I fell in love with, not the guy I left. His cheeks are rosy with color, his body lean with muscle. His bright blue eyes sparkle, no longer dull and glazed over as they had been for so long.
Our eyes catch as though we both just took a trip down memory lane, except I definitely don’t resemble the woman he fell in love with. I’m far from that seventeen-year-old girl he’d flirt with in the hallway of our high school.
“I’m here for you and our daughter.” He says it as though he can snap his fingers and we’ll grab our bags and be off. But that’s Jamison’s way, everything has always come easy and the one time it didn’t, he decided to destroy his life.
“Sorry, we’re not available.” I cross my arms over my chest and his eyes dip to my cleavage. He probably forgets how big my breasts got with Palmer because a bottle of vodka was more appealing than I was in those days.