Pushed Overboard Pregnant, I Crashed My Husband's Wedding novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: Rule Three

I got behind the screen and pressed my back against the wall.

Mason opened the boathouse door.

"Mr. Reeve?" my mother said.

Her voice was thinner than I remembered, and it hit me in the chest.

"Yes, ma'am."

"I'm Hallie Winslow's mother. You were the first boat on the water Saturday night."

"I went out when I heard the call."

"The Coast Guard report has your name in it."

"Yes, ma'am. Please come in."

The floor creaked under her shoes.

I could see her through a crack where the screen's hinge met the wall.

She was wearing the gray raincoat from the news and holding a covered pie dish in both hands.

Her hair had gone white at the temples in five days.

"I brought you this," she said. "I didn't know what else to do. I wanted to thank you for looking."

"You don't have to thank me."

"I do." She set the dish on the table, and her hand shook. "I wanted to ask you something. Did you see anything? Anything at all?"

"No, ma'am."

His voice did not shake.

He had lied to my mother's face.

"Hallie swam on a college team for four years," she said. "She could do a mile in open water before breakfast. She would never have slipped off a boat and not come up."

"I understand."

"They want me to sign things." She pulled a folded paper out of her coat. "The lawyer wants me to sign over her memorial fund and the papers for the baby's name. Wesley says it's what she would have wanted."

"What do you want?"

"I want to see her," my mother said. "I want to see something that isn't a photograph."

She sat down on the crate by the table, because her legs would not hold her.

I put both hands over my mouth.

I could have walked out.

She was only across the room, and I could already feel her arms around me.

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