Chapter 18

Heidi closed her laptop, letting out a deep breath as she finished attending one of her online classes. Balancing law school, her new Teaching Assistant position, and her pregnancy was a lot, but she was managing, at least on the surface. The house was quieter than usual today.

Her father was out at a meeting, and her younger sister was at school. Jalen was outside working on the guest house with his team, the sound of construction humming in the background.

A soft knock at her door pulled Heidi from her thoughts.

“Heidi? Can I come in?”

It was her mother, Sylvia Horner, standing in the doorway with a gentle but observant expression. She was holding two mugs of tea, one of which she extended slightly, an offering and an excuse to stay all at once.

Heidi hesitated for a second but nodded. “Yeah, of course.”

Sylvia stepped inside, closing the door behind her before crossing the room and handing Heidi one of the mugs. Chamomile. The same thing she’d made for Heidi during finals week every year since high school, back when Heidi used to fall asleep at her desk surrounded by flash cards.

Then Sylvia sat on the edge of Heidi’s bed, smoothing her slacks, and studied her daughter carefully before speaking.

“I wanted to check in on you, sweetheart. You’ve been ... different lately.”

Heidi tensed slightly, wrapping her hands around the warm mug. “Different how?”

Sylvia sighed, tilting her head slightly. She had a way of looking at Heidi that always made her feel like glass, like her mother could see the hairline cracks before they spread. It had unnerved Heidi her whole life.

“You’ve been more reserved. You’re not as talkative at dinner, you’re spending more time in your room when you’re home, and when you are around, you just seem ... preoccupied.” Sylvia paused, then added, more quietly, “And you stopped drinking your coffee in the mornings. You’ve had a cup every single morning since you were sixteen. I used to fuss at you about it. Now you won’t touch it.”

Heidi’s stomach dropped slightly. She’d thought the coffee thing was small. Apparently nothing was small to her mother.

“And then Linda told me that you apparently weren’t interested in Hunter? But he’s such a wonderful young man, Heidi! I thought for sure you’d like him.”

Heidi gave a deep exhale absorbing all of her mother’s concerns before she formulated a response.

“I’ve just been busy, Mom. School, work, helping out where I can.” Heidi shrugged, keeping her voice light. “Coffee makes me jittery during my morning classes so, I’m trying to cut back. And as for Hunter ... yes, he’s a nice guy, but ... he’s not for me.”

Sylvia looked at Heidi for a few seconds before nodded slowly, but she didn’t look convinced that there wasn’t more going on. She turned her own mug in her hands, looking out the window for a moment toward the sound of construction in the backyard. Heidi felt her pulse spike, but her mother’s gaze didn’t linger there. It came back to Heidi.

“I know you’ve got a lot on your plate,” Sylvia said. “I do. I see how hard you’ve been working. I’m proud of you for it.” She hesitated, choosing her words with the care of a woman who had spent thirty years learning which words were safe to say in this house. “But this feels like more than just school stress, baby. A mother knows the difference between her child being tired and her child carrying something.”

There was a long pause. Heidi could feel her mother’s gaze searching for something.

“Is something going on that you haven’t told me?” Sylvia finally asked.

The question hung in the air, thick with implication. Heidi’s heart skipped a beat. Her mother didn’t know, at least not yet, but she sensed something was off.

Heidi looked down at her lap, her mind racing. She didn’t want to lie, but she wasn’t ready to tell her yet. She needed Jalen to finish the construction on the guest house before she’d be ready to tell her parents.

And there was something else, something Heidi never let herself say out loud. Part of her wanted to tell her mother. Not her father. Never her father. But her mother was different.

Sylvia wasn’t cruel. Heidi had watched her whole life as her mother folded herself smaller and smaller to fit inside the space Tim allowed her, agreeing with him at dinner parties, nodding along to his sermons about how the world was supposed to work, repeating his opinions back to him like they were her own.

But every now and then, when Tim wasn’t in the room, a different Sylvia would slip out. The one who’d quietly slipped Heidi a twenty when she wanted something Tim deemed frivolous. The one who’d once told Heidi, apropos of nothing, that she’d had dreams of her own before she got married, and then never finished the thought.

Heidi sometimes wondered if her mother would actually understand. If, given the chance, Sylvia might be on her side.

But she couldn’t risk it. Because whatever Sylvia felt privately, she always, always told Tim everything eventually. That was the part Heidi couldn’t get around. Her mother didn’t keep secrets from her husband. She never had. And a secret this size would crush whatever quiet sympathy Sylvia might’ve offered under the weight of Tim’s reaction.

So Heidi swallowed it down.

“Mom, I promise, I’m okay,” Heidi finally said, offering a small smile that she hoped was reassuring.

Sylvia studied her for another long moment. Something flickered across her face, disappointment, maybe, or the particular ache of a mother who knows she’s being held at arm’s length and can’t force her way in. She reached out and tucked a strand of auburn hair behind Heidi’s ear, the way she had when Heidi was small.

“You know,” Sylvia said softly, “when I was about your age, I went through something I couldn’t talk to my own mother about. I thought she’d never understand. I thought she’d be ashamed of me.” She paused. “I spent a long time carrying it alone. I regret that. I regret that more than almost anything.” Her eyes met Heidi’s, steady and warm and just a little sad. “I don’t ever want you to feel like you have to carry something alone in this house. Whatever it is.”

Heidi’s throat tightened. For one dangerous second, the truth pressed right up against her teeth.

But then she heard, faintly through the window, her father’s truck pulling back up the long driveway, the crunch of gravel, the slam of a door. The reminder of exactly what house she was in, and exactly who her mother went home to every night.

The moment passed.

“I know, Mom,” Heidi said quietly. “I know.”

Sylvia held her gaze a beat longer, then nodded, accepting the answer even though they both knew it wasn’t the whole one. She leaned forward, pressing a soft kiss to Heidi’s forehead before standing up.

“Alright. I’ll let you get back to your work.” She moved to the door, then paused with her hand on the frame, glancing back. “Drink your tea. It’s good for the nerves.”

And then she was gone, gently closing the door behind her.

The moment she was alone again, Heidi let out a deep breath with her heart still pounding. She looked down at the mug of chamomile cooling in her hands and felt a sudden, stupid sting of tears.

Her mother hadn’t figured out that Heidi was pregnant yet, but if she wasn’t careful, she would. The coffee. The exhaustion. The retreating. Sylvia was already collecting the pieces. She just hadn’t assembled them.

Time was now more of a factor than ever.

Jalen had just packed up his tools for the day, wiping sweat from his forehead as the late afternoon sun dipped lower in the sky. The guest house project was really coming together, and Tim had just finished his daily inspection, giving his usual nod of approval before heading inside.

Now, it was just Jalen and Heidi, standing near the back porch, the scent of freshly cut wood lingering in the air. Heidi had turned up about ten minutes after her father left.

Heidi crossed her arms, shifting her weight slightly before exhaling.

“My mother is on to me.”

Jalen, who had just slung his tool bag over his shoulder, paused, turning his attention to her fully.

“What do you mean?” he asked, his brow furrowing slightly.

Heidi sighed, glancing toward the house as if making sure no one was nearby. “She’s been watching me closely, asking if something’s wrong. She sat me down today and straight-up asked if I had anything to tell her.”

Jalen exhaled sharply, his jaw tightening. “And what did you say?”

“I stuck to the plan. I told her law school, and my TA work were stressing me out.” Heidi ran a hand through her long, wavy auburn hair. “She bought it ... for now..., but my mom isn’t dumb. If I slip up, she’ll start digging.”

Jalen nodded, his mind already running through worst-case scenarios. They both knew what was at stake. If Tim found out Heidi was pregnant, let alone that Jalen was the father, it would be catastrophic. Tim would flip out and likely retaliate against Jalen. He’d try to terminate the contract before Jalen could finish the guest house, and Jalen would lose out on a massive payday. Worse, Tim might actively try to discredit Jalen’s business.

Jalen set his tool bag down, his eyes locked onto hers. “You think your mom is just suspicious, or is she already putting pieces together?”

Heidi chewed her lip. “Right now, I think she just senses something’s off, but that’s bad enough. If she gets too curious, she’ll start connecting the dots.” She paused, something tightening in her expression. “And honestly? It’s not my dad I’m worried about figuring it out first. It’s her.”

Jalen’s brow furrowed. “Your mom? I figured your dad was the bigger threat.”

“My dad doesn’t pay attention to me like she does,” Heidi said. “He pays attention to his properties, his image, his schedule. As long as I show up to dinner and smile and don’t embarrass him, he doesn’t look any closer than that.” She shook her head slowly. “But my mom watches me. She noticed I stopped drinking coffee. She notices when I leave the table early. She’s gathering little things, and the scary part is she’s not even doing it to catch me. She’s doing it because she’s worried about me.”

Jalen processed that. “So if anybody finds out before you’re ready, it’s gonna be her.”

“Yeah.” Heidi’s voice dropped. “And the messed-up thing is, part of me almost wishes she would.”

Jalen went still. “What do you mean?”

Heidi exhaled, looking away toward the tree line. “My mom’s not like my dad. Not really. She acts like she is because she has to, but underneath all that ... I don’t know. Sometimes I think if it were just her, if my dad didn’t exist, she might actually be okay with all this. With you.” She laughed softly, but there was no humor in it. “But that’s a fantasy. Because whatever my mom feels, she tells my dad everything. Always has. So even if she’d understand, she’d hand it straight to him, and then it wouldn’t matter what she felt anymore.”

Jalen studied her, his chest tightening at the weight she was carrying. “That’s a hell of a thing. Wanting to tell your own mother and knowing you can’t.”

“Welcome to my life,” Heidi muttered.

Jalen exhaled slowly, processing it. “We stick to the plan.”

“I know,” Heidi said, nodding. “I’m not telling them anything until I have my own place. My TA job is secured now so we’re halfway there. Regardless though, they’re not finding out that you’re the father. Not before you finish this job at least.”

Jalen leaned in slightly, his voice lower. “And if they figure it out before you’re out of here?”

Heidi held his gaze, her blue eyes firm. “Then I face the hurricane. I won’t let my father hurt you, Jalen.”

“Heidi,” Jalen began exhaling, “you do realize that whether it’s now, weeks from now, or a year from now, your father will discover that I’m the father of this child, right? Just like Chris Westward will eventually discover that Megan’s baby is mine. It’s inevitable. These secrets don’t last forever.”

Heidi swallowed and a shiver ran town her spine. “I do know that,” she replied. “But we can make it so that by the time he finds out, there’s little to nothing he can do about it. And I have no doubt that Karla will do the same for you and Megan in the divorce case.”

Jalen nodded, his grip on her waist tightening slightly. They both knew this was a game of timing. The guest house had to be finished first if they were going to get through this as cleanly as possible. Until then, Heidi had to keep up appearances.

Jalen studied her for a moment. “Are you good? How are you holding up?”

Heidi opened her mouth to give him the easy answer, the one she’d been giving everyone, but something about the way he was looking at her, like he actually wanted to know, made it stick in her throat.

She let out a long breath, and her shoulders dropped slightly, like she’d been holding them up for weeks.

“Honestly?” she said quietly. “I’m exhausted, Jalen.”

Jalen’s expression softened. He stayed quiet, letting her talk.

“It’s not even the pregnancy. The nausea, the cramps, the being tired all the time, I can deal with that. It’s everything I’m doing on top of it.” She pressed the heel of her hand against her forehead. “I’m taking a full law school course load. I just started the TA position. I’m trying to keep my grades perfect because if they drop, my dad will ask why. I’m getting up at five-thirty every morning so I can throw up before my mom’s awake. I’m watching every single thing I eat and drink at dinner so nobody notices I’m avoiding the wine and the sushi and the soft cheese. I’m rehearsing excuses in the shower.” She let out a shaky breath. “I am performing every second I’m in that house. The only time I’m not performing is the half hour a day I get to stand out here with you, and even this I have to schedule around my dad’s truck.”

Jalen reached out and took her hand. “Heidi...”

“I’m not complaining,” she said quickly, blinking hard. “I chose this. I want this baby. I want you. I’d do it all again. But you asked how I’m holding up, and the real answer is I’m holding up because I don’t have another choice. There’s a difference between handling something and being okay, and I figured ... I figured you’re the one person I don’t have to pretend with.”

“What about your sister?” Jalen asked. “You don’t think you can trust, Leslie?”

Heidi didn’t respond right away as she looked toward the house for a moment. Then she turned back to Jalen.

“I just can’t be sure,” she finally responded. “Maybe Leslie would understand, but I just can’t risk. There’s too much at stake.”

Jalen pulled her into him then, wrapping his arms around her fully, one hand cradling the back of her head. Heidi let herself sink into it, and for a moment she didn’t say anything. She just breathed him in, letting the exhaustion she’d been carrying leak out where nobody else could see it.