Be My Hero (Forbidden Men #3)(18)

But Reese had a way of smoothing the waters. And she eased the why-was-I-in-Mason-Lowe's-Jeep nerves by trying to guess the name I'd finally decided for my baby.

"Gabriella? That one's pretty."

From the passenger seat, I grinned and shook my head. "Nope."

"No Gabby? Okay then." She pulled into the parking lot across the street from the bar and had to slam on the brakes when a pair of stumbling drunk girls walked right in front of the headlights.

As I watched them sling their arms around each other and giggle together, leaning heavily against one another and wobbling in their high heels, it struck me: I could've easily been one of them. If I hadn't gotten pregnant, I would've remained a party animal to this day, living it up every night and getting wasted, trying to find something loud and boisterous to fill the void that was my empty life.

But instead, here I sat, rubbing my huge belly and talking baby names with my best friend. The strangest part of all was that I felt grateful to be where I was.

"Next," I said, after the girls passed in front of us and Reese could finally drive again.

"How about Hayleigh?" she guessed. She liked going through the alphabet and coming up with a name for each letter.

Grinning because I knew Isabella would be next—she always guessed Isabella for the I—I laid my head back and closed my eyes. "Do you realize if I wasn't pregnant right now, we'd probably be talking about some cute pair of shoes we wanted to buy, or the next party we wanted to attend, or I'd be making fun of some person I didn't like while you'd be defending them?"

Reese made a humming sound in the back of her throat as she parked. "What a difference a few months makes, huh?"

"I was so shallow." Shame washed over me.

Her warm hand covered mine where it rested on my stomach. "You were not shallow. You were . . . "

When she couldn't come up with a complimentary description within five seconds, I opened my eyes and glanced at her. As I lifted my eyebrows expectantly, she colored, and then cleared her throat discreetly. "Okay, you might've been a teeny tiny bit . . . self-absorbed. But that was . . . that was before. Now your life has meaning, and substance, and—"

"I want to be a good mom," I said to stop her rambling. "I want . . . I just want her to be happy, and content, and proud of who she is as a person." Completely unlike the way I'd been raised.

Reese let out a small sigh before patting my fingers and squeezing them. "You will. The way you already put her before everything else, I know you'll be a great mom. And I think she'll be lucky to have . . . "

When her words trailed off and she stared transfixed out the front windshield, I turned to look too but didn't see anything out of the ordinary. The way we were parked, the Jeep faced across the street toward the front entrance of the club where Mason worked.

"What?" I asked.

"I just . . . " She shook her head. "No. I must've been seeing things. It couldn't have been her." Bringing her index finger to her mouth, she began to chew on a fingernail. Since I'd never known her to be a nail biter before, I turned back to the bar and tried to scan for whatever—or whoever—she was talking about.

I was about to ask her who she thought she'd seen, when she began to ramble to herself, which was definitely one of her nervous ticks. "I must be totally losing it. I mean, it's dark. The shadows could be playing tricks on my eyes. And we're all the way across the street, way too far to be sure it was her, and—"

Unable to handle a second longer of her panic attack, I lost it. "Oh my God, stop! Who do you think you saw?"

"I don't . . . I'm not . . . " She turned to me, her eyes huge and almost scared. "That lady who just entered the club, wearing a trench coat . . . I don't know, but I swear to God, she looked just like . . . Mrs. Garrison."

I blinked, and it took me a second to place where I knew that name. When it hit me, my eyes widened. "Mrs. Garrison? You mean, Mason's Mrs. Garrison?"

She gasped, and the hard expression on her face told me she was a second from clawing my face off. "Don't you ever call her Mason's anything. That bitch has no claim on him whatsoever."

"Okay." I lifted my hands in surrender and cringed out an apology. "Sorry. I just . . . I meant, Mrs. Garrison, the . . . the rapist?" When Reese's shoulders relaxed at that label, I frowned. "But what would she be doing here? Florida is a good nine hundred miles—"

"What do you think she's doing here?" Reese exploded. "She's stalking my man. What else has she ever done? She's obsessed with him. She's probably never going to leave him alone until someone finally takes her out."

Eyes lighting with intent, she grabbed my hands and squeezed them hard. "Oh my God, E. Let's take her out. Together. We're in a big-ass Jeep." Her fingers clamped even tighter around mine. "When she comes back out, let's gun the engine, pop this curb and run her wicked ass over. Oops, total accident. What was she thinking by jaywalking across a busy street in the middle of the night? And then . . . " She nodded, as if coming to the best part of the story. "While the car's lying on top of her and the only things poking out are her glittery red Christian Louboutins, I say we steal her shoes and run."