Page 81 of Hot Shot
“Nope.” Mom grips my hand. “You’ll help me get brunch on the table.”
“But—”
“You can’t fix this for him—them. No more than I can. And I’m the mom. My need to fix anything wrong for you kids is next level and as much as I want to go over there and talk to him, I’m not going to. He’ll come to me when he needs, if he needs, and I’ll have to be happy with that.”
“Oh.”
“He’ll go to Corbin first. Then your dad. Bran for information the other two can’t give him.”
“I can’t stand to see him hurting.”
“Wait until it’s your child hurting. You’ll be crawling out of your skin.”
Slipping an arm around Mom’s shoulders, I lean my head on hers. “I’m here if you want to talk.”
“Thank you. But your dad’s pretty good at listening and you need to concentrate on you and Branton.” She grins at me. “And a wedding.”
My gaze find hers. I want to see her reaction to what I say next. “Bran wants to get married sooner than later. He wants to start a family too.”
“What do you want?”
“The same as him. We’ve waited a long time to get to this point.” I glance down at my hand, at the ring. “It’s his mother’s ring.”
“I thought I recognized it.”
“I was beginning to think getting married and being a mom might not be in the cards for me.”
“You’re not that old.”
“No. But I never thought about marrying anyone else, being a mother to anyone else’s children. Even when I thought he was in love with another woman and having a baby with her, finding someone else to do those things with never crossed my mind.”
“Well, as much as I’ve pressed for years for more grand babies, I know I’m—we’re—lucky to have Cash. Emma could have not told us about him. Any more in our future will be a blessing.”
“I’m sorry her and Mason didn’t stay together.”
“I’m old, not stupid,” Mom laughs. “I know they were never together as a couple.”
I cringe. “Sorry. I like to think of it like that because the idea of my brother hopping from bed to bed…” I shudder.
“I know. I’m his mother, it’s ten times worse.” Laughing she tugs me toward the kitchen. “Now help me get this food outside.”
“I need to research what we have to do to get married here.”
Mom’s gaze snaps to mine. “Here? As inhere, here? This house?”
“Oh, no. Well, maybe.” I shrug. “I don’t know. Bran wants to get married as soon as we can, and my only request is we do it in Canada. Can we do it here at the house? Where we met and fell in love?”
“Did you fall in love here?”
“Ah, me, no. But Bran did. And I think it would be a nice way to circle back to us. Make our union official in the place we’ve spent a lot of time together. Plus, this is the last place he was close to his mom.”
“All right. We’ll get brunch set out, then you and I will get on my laptop and see what we can find out.”
“You’d let us get married here?”
“Of course. Why wouldn’t we?”
“I don’t know. I never thought about it until you mentioned it and I’m wondering if maybe we should wait, do something bigger where everyone has time to travel, to get here, and Dad can give me away.”
