Shades of Love

Chapter 4

4

Brenda was still awake when Eva May tiptoed inside her room. She waved her in and ushered her toward the bed. “Quick, quick. Your father checked to see if you were in bed about an hour ago.”

Eva was still trembling, thinking about her strong, handsome fiancé. The way Blue could control her with simply a look from his piercing navy-blue eyes. Though not a big man, he was tall and substantial, and had a way of wrapping her up in his arms, making her feel so safe. “Oh, gosh. What did you do?”

“Nothing. He bought our little ruse, I think.”

Eva looked down at her bed. Before she’d met Blue in the barn, they’d put pillows under the coverlet, and a doll with long blonde hair spread over the sheets made their disguise perfect for anyone looking from the door inside the dark bedroom.

“So, how did it go?” Brenda whispered as Eva pushed aside the pillows and crawled into the double bed, next to her cousin.

“We talked a bit.” And f****d a lot.

“Is he going to confront your father?”

Her breath caught in her throat. She didn’t know what she’d do if they came to raised fists and screaming, over her. “Oh, god, no. I don’t think it’s the best approach. You know how my father is.”

“So what are you going to do?”

Eva pressed her lips together. Some secrets were too precious to speak, even to Brenda. She’d meet with her father once more and tell him about her pregnancy before she lost her nerve, just like she promised her fiancé. Then she would have to convince him to to give her share of her mother’s inheritance. It was her right, after all. Or at least, it should be.

And if he didn’t agree and didn’t support her marriage—if her own father expelled her from his house as he’d been threatening to do—she wouldn’t let that stop her. They’d simply run away and elope, and she’d find a way to get her fortune somehow. Maybe forging a signature. It couldn’t be so difficult after all. Then they’d go all the way to Ireland, and live with his family. All that mattered was that they were together, where they would live happily ever after.

It wasn’t the greatest of plans, of course. She had always dreamed of a large wedding right there on the farm, with Brenda as her maid of honor and everyone smiling and clapping as she married the love of her life. Then they’d go on an amazing honeymoon to some tropical location where she’d lay on the sand with her husband and just live.

The baby kicked again, bringing her crashing back to reality. She rolled over and tried to be pulled down by sleep, but ended up staring at the ceiling, wide awake, as her baby pummeled her from the inside. There wasn’t going to be a fancy wedding or her family being happy about her wedding. There’d be no exciting honeymoon, no beautiful sunsets, or walking hand in hand along a beach.

She plucked the dove pendant from the hollow of her throat played with it absently, channeling her mother. She could almost hear her mother’s soft whisper in her ear.

Honeymoons and sunsets didn’t last forever. Those things didn’t matter. What mattered was love.