Miranda had cried herself out entirely by the time Kayla made it to her bedroom. She barely had the energy it took to get off her bed and unlatch the door.
"There you are," Kayla said. "I've been searching the grounds looking for you. I was getting worried."
"I'm sorry," Miranda said. "I just got some disturbing news and I—"
"I know all about your disturbing news." Kayla wrinkled her nose in disgust.
"How?"
"Well, Mrs. Harper was worried when you ran off like that, so she asked me to check on you. I would have been here a while ago, but it took me a good ten minutes to get the whole story out of her." Kayla grinned. "It's not that she didn't want to share the information, mind you. I think she was more interested in seeing if there was anything else I might be able to tell her about it, first."
"Sounds like Mrs. Harper." Miranda sighed and lay back on her pillow. She didn't have the energy to sit up.
"Yeah," Kayla said. "Well, I would have come after you sooner, but it took a little longer to give Drew the beat-down than I thought it would."
"What? You went after Drew?" Miranda sat up. This was suddenly getting more interesting.
"Yup." Kayla grinned, looking altogether proud of herself. "Gave that little snit Susie a piece of my mind, too."
"You didn't." Damn. She almost wished she had stuck around to witness it.
"I did. And you'll never guess what I found out."
Miranda was afraid to guess. The way this day was going, who knows what it might be.
"Drew is not the father of Susie's baby." Kayla paused for effect. "That girl is such a drama queen, who knows if there's even a baby at all?"
"Maybe."
"A couple of Susie's friends were around, so she tried to act coy about it, but Drew was so pissed, he told me flat out he'd never slept with Susie. He said—let me think for a second. I want to get this right." She wrinkled her brow in concentration. "He said he only slept with real women, not with little girls. He said the next woman he slept with would be his wife and that would only be Miranda Patrick."
"Wow. He said all that?"
"Uh-huh, right before he stormed off toward the hill."
"What did Susie say?"
"She didn't say anything. She just kind of sputtered for a bit, then ran off after Drew."
"She actually ran after him, after he said all that?"
"I know—crazy, isn't it? You just can't stop a girl like that. She won't rest until they're walking down the aisle—maybe not even then." Kayla's laugh was halfhearted, at best. "Well? What are you going to do?"
"What am I supposed to do?"
"I just told you everything Drew said, and you're not planning on doing anything about it?"
"What am I supposed to do? You said Susie ran after him. They're probably somewhere making up right now."
"What is the matter with you, Miranda?" Kayla's voice was tinged with frustrated disbelief. "You've never given up on anything you really wanted. Why are you so willing to sit back and let Drew fade from your life?”
"I'm afraid." A tear stole quietly down her cheek.
"I know, honey." Kayla sat on the edge of the bed and wrapped an arm around Miranda's shoulders. "You've been fighting for so long, I don't think you know how to stop."
Kayla was right. She had been fighting for a long time. Most of her life. Fighting to define herself during her teenage years, without a mother to guide her. Fighting to make it through a difficult pregnancy and raise Tommy as a single parent. Fighting to make it past the death of her father and deal with the fact that she was now essentially an orphan. Fighting to create a thriving business from scratch. And now, fighting to keep her true feelings under wraps in order to keep from getting hurt. But, it wasn't working anymore. She hurt anyway. And, she was tired. So tired of always towing the line. Fighting for what her head told her was the right thing to do, rather than listen to the quiet voice inside of her that begged her to listen to her heart. It scared her to think that maybe, all this time, she'd been fighting for the wrong thing. Instead of waiting for Drew to come home, maybe she should have gone after him. Instead of pushing him away, maybe she should have been pulling him closer.
"You have to keep going," Kayla urged. "Fight for Drew. For yourself and for Tommy. But most of all, fight for me."
"For you?"
"Yes, for me. Did you think I was kidding when I said I couldn't stomach Susie Billings as a sister-in-law?" She grimaced. "They're probably on their way up to Drew's house. I could hear her whiny voice complaining about it when she ran by."