“Well, if it ain’t mopey drawers,” Ida Sue complains, taking the rocking chair beside me. I could pretend she’s not talking to me, but there’s no point. I look over at my aunt, taking her in. She has soft brown hair that falls around her head in a long bob cut. It used to be shorter, but over the past year she’s let it grow out. She’s got sparkling green eyes and despite her age she could pass for forty—which she is not. God, I hope I inherited my father’s genes and age that well.

“Well, if it ain’t Sponge Bob Smart Ass Pants,” I grumble, turning my gaze out to the yard. I don’t want to see Ida Sue’s you-know-better face. I’d rather stare as Hamburger chases his tail. I’ve never seen a cow chase its tail before and it’s kind of interesting—especially when the damn thing gets dizzy.

“That don’t make a lick of sense. Then again, most of the crap you’ve been doing doesn’t.”

I close my eyes. Aunt Ida Sue is starting to sound like my sister Hope and I really can’t handle that.

“Can we not start the day off with another lecture?” I ask her, knowing it will definitely end up in another lecture.

“Maybe we could if you’d quit using the brains from your mother’s side of the family to work with.”

“My mother didn’t have any brains,” I mutter.

“My point exactly. There’s Lucas blood in there somewhere. You best start using it before you ruin your life.”

“You’re sounding just like my sister. So I got drunk and married a stranger in Vegas. I signed the annulment papers. I’m no longer Titan Marsh’s wife. Mistake fixed and erased from the history books. No life-ruining shit can spread further,” I tell her, my eyes closed as the wave of pain hits. It doesn’t make sense, but I liked being married to Titan.

I’ve been at Aunt Ida Sue’s for a month and a half now, and each day not seeing Titan has been painful. There was a part of me that thought he would follow me here. Chase me down and tear up the annulment papers and tell me he wanted to try staying married. It was crazy, but the thought—the hope—was there and it hurt when he didn’t show. Then two weeks ago, I got the papers in the mail. An announcement that I had been “annulled.” The papers didn’t come from Titan; they came from a law firm in California instead. When I told Hope, her whispered “Thank God” was like a punch to the gut. I haven’t talked to her since. I was about to tell her how much I really liked Titan and how I thought we could have been good together. Her snide remark stopped me from sharing my views. Her comment of: “You really have screwed up in the past, Faith. Your ex was proof of that, but getting married to Titan? God, Faith, that tops them all.” pretty much ended all conversations. I did remind her at least I didn’t lie to my husband and convince him we were married when we weren’t—right before I hung up and proceeded ignoring her attempts to call back.

I’m so sick of being viewed as Faith the Screw-up by my sisters. Neither one of them have great track records, but they conveniently forget that. Hope is all happy and she and Aden are so in love they stink of it now, but it wasn’t exactly a great start between the two of them and I’m kind of tired of Hope being a bitch about it all.

“Are you hearing me, Faith Lucas?”

I let out a deep, frustrated breath. I didn’t hear her, mostly because I was blocking her out and being depressed. Which is apparently something my aunt doesn’t like. I really need to find a place of my own. When Ida Sue offered me Petal’s old room for free it seemed like the perfect answer.

Boy, was I wrong.

“Don’t you breathe like that to me, young lady. You might not be from my loins, but you’re my blood.”

“Ida Sue—”

“And I reckon being from my blood means I can slap the stupid right out of you since my brother can’t. That means I’ll be slapping you for a damn long time, because your brand of stupid seems to taking over. So you might want to prepare.”

“I told you the problem is all fixed now,” I all but growl.

“Bull hockey. Is that fine piece of Godiva chocolate sitting here beside my Faith, making me—her—smile?”

“What?” I ask, confused. “Of course not.”

“Then it most certainly is not fixed.”

“But… He’s getting married. He had plans. He was just drunk when we got married, Ida Sue,” I tell her, whispering the words and ignoring the pain they cause.

“Big deal. Hell, Hope’s man didn’t know who he was when she grabbed him. That didn’t stop her. Men are like making meatloaf, Faith.”

“Making meatloaf?” I question—almost afraid to ask. With my aunt you never know what she will say next.

“Exactly that. They have all the ingredients buried in there. But it’s not finished. You got to use your hands to squish them up and make them look like you want and add the little small things that give them flavor,” she says and I blink. What she says actually makes sense. Not that any of it matters, because it’s all finished now. So I just don’t say anything. “Of course you have to make sure that when you’re finished with them they’re not the kind of man that actually lets their meat loaf. That’s unacceptable. There’s too many vitamins and herbs that can fix a limp dick these days. Why, when it comes to Jansen, I—”

“Annnnnd we’re done. The day I hear about Jansen and his meatloaf is the day I need to be put away in a padded cell.”

“I do like meatloaf,” he says, coming around the corner of the house. “Is that what’s for supper tonight, lovey?” he asks Ida Sue. He walks over to her rocking chair and leans down to give her a soft kiss.

“God I hope not,” Ida Sue grins. “But I am hoping for some meat on that old kitchen table.”

“Oh Lord, just shoot me now and put me out of my misery,” I whine, scared they’re going to start talking about sex—which they usually do.

“Quit being so over dramatic, Faith. What you need to be doing is going upstairs, packing your bag and loading your ass up and going to California to tell that fine-ass man to not give up on you.”

“It’s too late.”

“It ain’t over until another woman is sleeping in your man’s bed and has him all twisted up in her. Which means you got time, so you need to get hopping. I need that cinnamon swirl back in my life.”

“Say what?”

“In your life. I meant your life.”

“Cinnamon swirl?”

“Fine, sprinkles of pretty deep brown that spice up your life. Tell me that’s not Titan to a ‘T’.”

“Ida Sue, I love you, but it’s just too late. And besides, Titan didn’t want to stay married to me. If he did—he would have.”

“Then make him want to,” she says like that’s so simple.

“How would I do that?”

“For starters, you could tell him about that bun you got baking in your oven.”

I stop breathing. I haven’t told a soul; I’ve been afraid to say the words out loud. My hand goes to my stomach and I hold it there.

“Ida—”

“Don’t even try to start lying to me, Faith Lucas. You aren’t so big that I can’t bend you over my knee.”

“How did you know?”

“Oh please, you’ve been kneeling at the altar of the porcelain gods every morning at six, like clockwork.”

“I don’t know how to tell him.”

“My Titan deserves to know he’s going to be a daddy.”

I let the “my” part of her sentence pass. It almost makes me want to smile.

“What if he doesn’t believe me? I told him there was no way I could be pregnant. I was on the best birth control on the market, damn it,” I whisper, feeling more than a little lost.

“If he doesn’t believe you then you tell him to kiss your Lucas ass, and walk out with your head held high. What you don’t do is let him hitch his horse to another woman before you tell him.”

“I’ll think about it,” I answer—knowing I won’t be able to think of anything else.

“You do that, but do it packing. Black will be here in about thirty minutes.”

“Black?”

“Yeah, precious. He’s flying out to California with you. You don’t need to be flying alone in your condition.”

“But—”

“You better just do it. There’s no arguing with my woman when she gets an idea in her head,” Jansen tells me and I just look at the two of them.

“I’m not ready to go to California. I need to think about this.”

“Think about it on the plane. As it is, you’ll barely make it to that big fancy church before Titan says I do.”

“What?”

“He’s getting married this evening.”

“Then it’s already too late,” I murmur, feeling like the world is coming down around me.

“The hell it is. You’re a Lucas. We never let go of our man. Even when that man is an asshole. Ask Petal. She wouldn’t give up on Orange and as much as I hate to admit it, she was right about that one.”

“His name is Luka, lovey,” Jansen reminds her gently.

She shrugs and ignores him. In the time I’ve been here, Orange is all she calls him.

“You really think Titan would want…”

“You’ll never know until you grow a pair and go talk to him,” she answers with a shrug. It’s not exactly comforting or even confidence building, but when I look at her, I know she’s right. Titan deserves to know he’s going to be a father. It will be up to him what he does with that information.

“I’ll go pack,” I tell her, getting up out of the chair.

“That’s my girl. Now, when you get back, we need to discuss names.”

“Names?” I ask over my shoulder, already heading to the front door.

“For little Titan. A name is very important. Titan is a god among men, so his daughters and sons should be too. I’m thinking Zeus for a boy and maybe Eris if it’s a girl.”

“Eris?” I ask, standing at the door, waiting to go in.

“Supposedly she’s a goddess of chaos. It seemed fitting,” she says with a sly grin.

“Lord help us,” Jansen says with a chuckle. I close the door on Ida Sue telling him how Eris is a perfectly good name.

I have to pack… and get to California… and see my ex-husband… and his new wife to be… and panic.

Definitely panic.