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Her father covered his eyes with one hand. His chest rose and fell with frustrated breaths. He dropped his hand, and his glare zeroed in on Sawyer. “There’s only one way to salvage this. You will marry my daughter.”
* * *
MARRY PIPER? SAWYER felt nauseous. The only Stratton getting married anytime soon was Faith. He glanced at Piper and those baby blue eyes. She had this sweetness about her that sucked him in. Maybe he had believed for half of a second that Piper could be the person he wanted to spend the rest of his life with, but she’d quickly proved she was not. She wasn’t as innocent as she looked. She was as conniving as her father.
“I won’t make Piper do any of this alone because this baby is my responsibility, too, but I can’t get married. To me, people should only get married when they plan to stay married.”
“I don’t really care what your feelings on marriage are. You will make an honest woman out of my daughter before the press finds out.”
Dean interrupted, “Heath, you can’t force him to get married. Let’s be reasonable about this.”
“I am being reasonable! Aren’t you the one who wanted to force my daughter to pretend she was in love with this boy? How is my request any less reasonable?”
Dean had no comeback.
Piper spoke up instead. “I know you’re not in love with me,” she told Sawyer, letting go of his hand. “I know you don’t want to spend the rest of your life with me, but we are having a baby. We are going to be parents. My image can survive a divorce from the father of my child. I’m not sure it could withstand the beating it will take if the truth comes out.”
There were a million things he would do for her, but marriage was off the table. “I can’t marry you. We have to come up with another plan. What if being honest won’t be as bad as you think? Our time together wasn’t as meaningless as your father is acting like it was. I care about you.”
“It will be just as bad as, if not worse than, I think it will be. You say you care about me. I care about you, too. Isn’t that enough?”
Sawyer couldn’t believe she was this afraid of hurting her career. A loveless marriage was not worth all the success in the world. “Marriage should be based on love. I’m not in love. I like you, and I respect you too much to marry you knowing we’re going to get divorced a couple months later.”
Piper’s shoulders slumped. “Do you really believe I want to marry someone who doesn’t love me? This isn’t about what I want, it’s about what I need. I need you to do this for me, for the baby.”
Faith pounded the table with her fist. The plates clattered and everyone’s eyes turned on her. “My brother is not getting married. Period. You need to come up with a different plan. I don’t care what it is as long as it does not include my brother making a vow in front of God that he does not intend to uphold. That is not the way we were raised.”
“Well, I am pretty sure that God would take issue with him getting my daughter pregnant before making those vows.” Heath raised his voice.
Sawyer had to stop himself from storming out. This was getting them nowhere and people were going to start saying things they didn’t mean.
“Can we find a compromise?” he asked. “Can we say we’re dating? Heck, I’ll even go along with a fake engagement. I won’t go through with a fake marriage, though. That’s the line I won’t cross.”
“Engaged. Publicly?” Piper clarified.
Sawyer took a deep breath and nodded. “Publicly. And once enough time has passed, we call the engagement off.”
“Are you sure about this, Sawyer?” Faith asked. “You don’t have to agree to anything. We can think about it. Give everyone time to cool off.”
“An engagement would be better than dating,” Heath mused aloud without any apparent concern for Sawyer’s certainty or lack thereof.
“Everyone on social media already thinks we’re together,” Piper added. “They’ve handed this to us on a silver platter. No one will doubt it.”
Sawyer stared across the table at his sister. She had to know what he was thinking. He was just about to embark on a new life. One without any responsibilities tying him down. He was going to spread his wings and focus on himself. He’d spent his life working on the family’s therapy farm, doing what his dad wanted and then helping his sister run Helping Hooves after their dad died. This was supposed to be his time.
He couldn’t think like that. He had been raised by a father who was the rock to their mother’s roll. A father who always put his children first despite their mother’s selfish desire to be free.
He would never be his mother. “You’re right. The ball is already rolling in that direction. Let’s go with it.”
“It works in your favor, really,” Piper said. “In return for going along with this, you get to go on tour with me, get your music in front of more people than you could on your own. You can take advantage of the love my fans have for me, fans who will surely melt for the guy I tell them I want to marry.”
He couldn’t deny the positives that would come from being connected to her a little longer. Ever since Dean had suggested it, he couldn’t stop thinking about how much exposure he’d get joining her tour. Raising a child was a lifelong commitment. But maybe he wouldn’t lose every part of the new life he’d been building for himself.
“Don’t do it unless you’re absolutely sure,” Faith said, trying her best to throw Sawyer a lifeline.
“It’s not a bad plan,” Dean said. Faith frowned. “I mean, it’s not good that they have to lie, but it will help them both professionally. The better they do, the better they’ll be able to support the baby. The sales will be off the charts. People are going to listen to every song on Piper’s album, trying to figure out which ones are about you falling in love with one another. Then, they’ll all turn around and buy a ticket to the show to see the lovebirds up close and in person.”
Leave it to Dean to be able to put a positive spin on this whole thing. Sawyer wished he had his optimism.
“We’ll need to come up with a story,” Heath said, switching into business mode. “How you met, how you fell in love, how he proposed. All of that needs to be consistent whenever you talk to anyone.”
“Sawyer and I will work out the details,” Piper said. “We’ll keep it simple so we don’t get tripped up.”
“I have a couple of conditions, as well,” Heath said, raising two fingers in the air. “No one else can know the engagement isn’t real, including Piper’s mother.” He fixed his gaze on Sawyer. “That means you will not flirt with any other women. You will appear completely devoted to Piper at all times, but public displays of affection will be kept to a minimum. Second, when the time comes to call it off, you will break the engagement, not Piper.”
“Why does it matter who breaks it off?” Faith asked.
“Because if he does it, it makes Piper more sympathetic. We can’t have her come off like an insensitive heartbreaker. Sawyer’s much more appropriate for that role.”
Sawyer tried hard not to roll his eyes. “Make me the bad guy. I really don’t care.”
“Well,” Dean said, taking the napkin off his lap and setting it beside his half-eaten plate of food, “I guess all that’s left to say is congratulations.”
He stood up and walked around the table to give Piper a hug.
“Thank you, Dean,” Piper whispered.
“Marriage or no marriage, this baby makes you family,” he said. “And the Stratton family is a good one, I promise.”
Piper’s eyes watered. “Thank you.”
“I think it’s time everyone goes,” Heath said. “Piper and I have some things to discuss before we meet with the tour company and inform them we will only be signing on for a six-month tour. She also needs to call her mother and tell her the...news.”
Piper’s face paled. She had so many more people to answer to than Sawyer did. He stood and took her by the hand.
“It’s going to be okay. And in the end, you’ll have plenty of material for a great song about the jerk who broke off your engagement.”
She managed to crack a smile for the first time since he’d arrived. “That’s one way to look at it.”
Sawyer reached up and brushed her cheek with his thumb. She leaned into his touch.
Heath cleared his throat. “I believe I said we have things to do.”
Sawyer dropped his hand to his side. When the time came, it would not be difficult to convince the world they’d broken off their engagement because of her overbearing father.
“See you soon, Heath. Betcha can’t wait. Maybe I can start calling you Dad. Yes? No?”
Heath pointed at the door. Dean grabbed Sawyer by the elbow and guided him out into the hall.
“Let’s not poke the bear, okay?”
“I can’t believe you are okay with this,” Faith said to Dean as they entered the elevator.
“I don’t think anyone was really that interested in my opinion in the first place,” he said, showing his palms.
Sawyer rubbed his forehead. “Don’t be so hard on him. It’s not like he knew we were going to drop a bomb on him.”
“Well...” Faith cringed. “That’s not totally true.”
“I may have been informed last night,” Dean confessed.
“You promised me you wouldn’t tell him! What if Piper hadn’t been okay with you two coming to breakfast this morning?”
“This is how I know you aren’t ready to be married,” Faith said, stepping forward. “The first rule of a good marriage is don’t keep secrets. I think Heath is wrong to keep this from his wife. Honesty is the best and only policy. Lying by omission is still lying.”
Sawyer should have expected his sister wouldn’t be able to stay quiet all night. She and Dean had been through enough because of secrets and lies. It had been wrong of him to ask her to keep him out of the loop.
She was also right about him not being ready to get married. Hopefully he’d be able to pull off playing the doting fiancé. Everyone back home would be a tough sell.
As they exited the hotel, a handful of paparazzi appeared out of nowhere. The rumors had begun and the press was dying for more to the story. Cameras were rolling and the questions were, too.
“Secret rendezvous with your girlfriend?”
“How’s Piper doing?”
“How long have you two been together?”
“Why have you been keeping this romance a secret?”
Sawyer ducked his head as the three of them ran for the car. He kept his mouth shut and could already imagine the look of dread on Piper’s face when she found out reporters were circling the place like vultures.
“What does Heath Starling think about the two of you together?” someone shouted.
Even the paps knew who was in charge of Piper’s life. Sawyer opened the passenger door for his sister and climbed into the back seat. Heath was going to do everything he could to control this situation. Sawyer needed to rise to the challenge.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“MY ANKLE IS a little black-and-blue, but it doesn’t hurt to walk around.”
Telling her father that she was pregnant had somehow been less daunting than sharing the same news with her mother. Maybe it was the impersonal nature of a phone call. Maybe it was the fact that Piper in no way felt like she would ever be as good at being a mom as hers was.
“Good. I wasn’t expecting to hear from you so soon after we spoke last night. Is everything else all right?”
Piper glanced at her father’s bedroom door. He hadn’t said a word to her after everyone had left. He had had Lana run out and buy a home pregnancy test to be sure Piper hadn’t been misdiagnosed. When it came back positive, he had gone into his bedroom and shut the door, leaving Piper to stew about the future and obsess over the way it felt when Sawyer held her hand.
“There was one thing I needed to tell you. I should have told you last night, but I was a little bit overwhelmed.”
“Oh, sweetheart. That’s understandable. You had a crazy day yesterday. What’s going on?”
Piper crossed and uncrossed her legs. She was like the princess who could feel the pea under a hundred mattresses. No matter what she did, she could not get comfortable.
“When I was at the hospital yesterday, they had to do some blood tests before they could give me an X-ray.” The other end of the line went dead silent. “Mom, are you there?”
“I’m here. Please tell me you’re well. There’s nothing wrong, is there?”
“Oh, no, I mean, yes. I’m fine. No problems. But I did find out something I wasn’t exactly prepared for. They told me...I’m pregnant.”
Her mom was quiet again before bursting with laughter. “That’s a good one! I can picture your father’s face when he heard that. What kind of hospital was this? How could they have messed that up so badly?”
Piper put her mom on speaker and pressed her palms over her eyes to stop the tears. Her throat was so tight, she wasn’t sure she could get the words out.
“They didn’t mess up, Mom. I did.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that I fell in love with Sawyer Stratton and we shared a moment of weakness six weeks ago, and in less than nine months, I’ll be having a baby.”
Her hands were no match for the tears that leaked out anyway. It was horrible to have to break the news this way. She couldn’t imagine how disappointed her mother was.
“You’re pregnant? For real?”
“For real. Dad had me take a second test to be sure.”
Her mom was quiet another moment, which was a bad sign.
“How is your dad handling it?” she finally asked.
“He’s disappointed and not talking to me.”
Piper waited for her mom to repeat the same sentiments her dad had spewed before Sawyer and his family left. She had to be devastated.
“I know this comes as a surprise,” Piper said to end the silence. “This is not the way I wanted to start a family, but here we are and I am ready to do whatever it takes to make it right.”
“My baby is going to have a baby? Oh, Piper, this is so exciting!”
Exciting? That was not the word her dad had used. Piper’s mouth fell open.
“You’re happy for me?”
“Well, I realize I just called you my baby, but you’re a grown woman. I know this isn’t how you imagined your first pregnancy would go, but it is what it is. I’m going to be a grandma. Am I old enough to be a grandma? Your brother is going to freak out.”
Piper was so stunned that her mom wasn’t angry with her, she didn’t know what to say.
“Matty’s been a little frustrated lately. He said something yesterday about feeling like he’s missing part of his life. Hearing he’s going to be an uncle is going to put the biggest smile on his face.”
“What do you mean, he feels like he’s missing part of his life? Was he speaking literally about the seizures?”
“He’s had a few absence seizures the last few weeks, but I think it’s more about not having the independence he wants. I worry about him being depressed. I have a call in to the doctors.”
Piper’s stomach dropped. Matthew’s seizures had begun when he was three. He was ten when they considered surgery, only to find he wasn’t a good candidate because the seizures were happening all over his brain. Throughout adolescence, Matthew struggled with significant learning disabilities and behavior problems. His language was impaired as was his memory.
“I wish there was something I could do to help him.” His illness made everyone in the family feel helpless.
Piper’s career and success had become her father’s primary focus in life at the same time the family had come to terms with the fact that Matthew was never going to have a normal life. Since then, Piper had always felt that because Heath couldn’t make things better for Matty, he was committed to making sure she was a star instead.
“We all do, honey. But I am telling you, the baby news is going to cheer him up. I can’t wait to tell him. When are we going to meet this Sawyer fellow?”
“Soon, I guess. We’re planning on getting married.”
“Married? Are you in love with him or are you getting married because of the baby?”
This was the part she hated the most. The lie was like a noose around her neck, tightening so she couldn’t breathe. “Of course we’re in love, Mom. We fell in love writing the album. We were scared to say anything, because you know how Dad is.”
“Your father is going to have a terrible time. When a woman gets married, her father is no longer the most important man in her life. Always put your husband first, Piper. Even if it’s going to be a tough pill for your father to swallow.”
Well, he wouldn’t have to swallow it anytime soon. There would be no marriage, no vows to make her and Sawyer man and wife.
They were saying their goodbyes just as her father’s bedroom door opened.
“Mom says hi.”
“Tell her I’ll call her later.”
“Did you hear that?” Piper asked her mom.
“Tell him I said to go easy on you. You’re with child. He needs to pamper you.”
Piper hung up and put her phone on the coffee table.
“She said she’s excited about the baby. She hopes you and I can figure out how to be happy about it, too.”
Heath exhaled a sigh. “Your mother has always been able to see the glass as half-full even when it was empty. I’m not sure how she does it.”
Piper’s phone chimed with a text from Sawyer.
Call when you can talk
She tensed. Had he changed his mind already? The fear that he might back out was real. She got to her feet and retreated to her bedroom, closing the door behind her.
As the phone rang, she paced back and forth in front of the four-poster bed while trying to control her breathing.
“Hey, I hope I’m not bothering you,” Sawyer said when he answered.
“No, it’s fine. What’s up?”
“My sister wants to know if you have plans to see a doctor.”
“I can’t see a doctor right now,” Piper said, sitting on the edge of the bed. “We’re meeting with the tour promoter today. I’m doing television promotion for the next week. I go home for Thanksgiving and then have rehearsals until the tour starts.”
“Piper, you’re pregnant. You need to see a doctor. My sister knows a midwife here in Nashville.”
“I’m sure the paparazzi would love to get a picture of me walking into a midwife’s office. That would be super helpful.”
“What if I told you all you had to do was visit Boone Williams?”
“Boone Williams is a midwife?”
“No,” Sawyer said with a breathy laugh. “But he is dating one.”
* * *
SAWYER HAD MET Ruby Wynn a handful of times when she’d brought her daughter, Violet, to Helping Hooves to work with Faith and the social worker on staff last summer. Her relationship with Boone had started while he was staying on the farm, writing his new album.
“You’re sure Faith made it clear that no one else could know about the baby?” Piper asked as they pulled up to Boone’s gated estate.
“Boone and Ruby are sworn to secrecy.”
“But they think we’re a real couple?” she asked as she tugged at the hem of her dress.
Sawyer threw his truck into Park. “We are in full fake-engagement mode.”
Boone’s mansion was something out of Sawyer’s dreams. Set in the middle of a couple acres on the outskirts of Nashville, the house was an all-brick beauty. Being rich wasn’t Sawyer’s reason for going into music, but it sure wasn’t something he’d complain about if he managed the success Boone had.
“Well, if it isn’t the talk of the town,” Boone said when he opened the door. “I knew you’d make some amazing music together, but I gotta say, you surprised me with the baby making.” The megastar shook Sawyer’s hand. “Congratulations.”
“We really appreciate your help,” Piper said, accepting a hug from him.
“I’m happy to give it. I know all too well what it’s like to have my personal business splashed across the magazines and internet. You two deserve to keep this to yourselves for as long as you want.”
Boone was no stranger to scandal. He was preparing a big comeback next year now that he was clean and sober and a million times happier than he had been when Sawyer first met him. That probably had a lot to do with the redheaded woman standing behind him.
Boone introduced Ruby even though they had both met her in the summer. She had kind eyes, which was important to Sawyer. He believed he could tell quite a bit about someone by looking them straight in the eye.
“Dinner is supposed to be delivered in about an hour. If you want, we can take care of business before we eat. It’s completely up to you,” Ruby said.
Piper fiddled with her bracelets. “That would be great. Thank you.”
Ruby led them all down the hall and into an office off the family room. Concert photographs decorated the walls. Boone had performed for millions of people all over the world during his career. He was a big reason Piper had gotten into the business and someone Sawyer admired as a musician and songwriter.
There was an ache in Sawyer’s chest as he looked at the photos. Two days ago, he had been filled with the anticipation of getting out on the road and standing on stages like the ones Boone performed on. He glanced back at Piper, who had taken a seat across from Ruby. The thrill of touring had quickly been replaced by fear and anxiety. How was he going to convince the world he was happily engaged when he was currently miserable? All his hopes and dreams had to be put on hold once again. And then there was the fear of parenthood. What kind of dad would he be? What kind of dad would Heath let him be?
Ruby explained she’d be gathering a family history, drawing some blood and doing a thorough physical.
“Here?” Sawyer asked.
“The nice thing about a midwife is that we do house calls. It’s not unusual for me to check on a patient in their home. I came prepared.” She pointed to the medical bag by the chaise lounge. “Almost everything we need to do, I can do here, except for an ultrasound. I have a machine at my office, but we don’t need to do one this early in the pregnancy. In a couple months, you should definitely have one done, though.”
“I’m going to go set the table for dinner,” Boone said, excusing himself. He gave Ruby a kiss on the cheek. “I’m leaving you two in capable hands, I promise.”
This probably wasn’t how Piper had imagined her first prenatal appointment. She spun her bracelets around her wrist.
“We’re going on tour in a month. Is that going to be a problem?” Sawyer asked, taking the seat next to Piper.
“I don’t know if I can answer that right now. If she’s in good health, she should be fine. You guys will have to keep up with regular checkups, though.”
“We’ll figure something out,” Sawyer said since Piper remained quiet.
“How have you been feeling so far?” Ruby asked her.
“Fine, I guess. A little nauseous sometimes. Mostly tired, but that could be from my crazy schedule.”
“She fainted onstage yesterday,” Sawyer interjected. “That can’t be good.”
Ruby frowned. “That is definitely not good.” She asked Piper a bunch of follow-up questions, jotting down notes as they spoke.
As hard as Sawyer was fighting not to feel overwhelmed, everything about this made him anxious. There was so much to worry about before the baby was even born. Piper worked harder than most people he knew. How was she going to take care of herself and this baby? How was he supposed to help when they weren’t really a couple?
Ruby asked questions about their family history. Piper pulled a sheet of paper out of her purse. She was more prepared than Sawyer.
“My brother has epilepsy. Is that hereditary?” Piper asked, handing over a list of family medical concerns.
“Genetics play a role in epilepsy, but just because your brother has it doesn’t mean your child will. The baby would be slightly more at risk, but that risk is small.” Her smile seemed to reassure Piper. “What about you, Sawyer? Any significant family medical history?”
“My dad died of a heart attack at fifty. I don’t really know anything about my mom. She could be dead, too, for all I know.”