Free Married by June by Ellen Hartman Page B

him.
    “It’s a lot of insider politicking,” Cooper said. “But I have to do it, Jorie. My brother screwed up big-time. He left the entire family hanging, and if we can’t hold the seat until Theo can run, I don’t…Ican’t see how Bay’s going to be able to fix his relationship with my parents. He’s going to have a baby. Can you believe that? And I don’t want him to have to raise the kid without the family. Bailey is sick of being a Murphy right now, but he’s going to need us. I have to do what I can to help hold the seat or I’m afraid my parents will cut him off for good.”
    There was a lot about her own childhood that had been unsettled, but the one thing she’d never doubted was her mom’s love. When Jorie was nine, her mom had been involved with a guy who owned a tobacco farm in Virginia, a partnership in a hedge fund, and a racing stable in Kentucky. He traveled every week, constantly moving to keep his thumb on the pulse of each business. He got frustrated when Chelsea wouldn’t travel with him as much as he wanted because Jorie was in school.
    One night, she’d been up late, reading Caddie Woodlawn under the covers with a flashlight, when she’d heard her mom arguing with the guy… Curtis was his name. Curtis wanted to send Jorie to boarding school but Chelsea refused. There’d been a long, tense argument. She couldn’t hear the whole thing, but her mom had repeatedly said, “She’s my daughter.” They hadn’t moved out right away. Her mom’s affairs rarely ended in blow-ups, but within two months the relationship was over and they were in Arizona, staying with her mom’sold college roommate at the spa she owned. They always ended up there when her mom was in what she called a regrouping phase.
    As focused as her mother had been on finding Mr. Right, she’d put Jorie first every time. Jorie had never doubted her place in her mom’s heart. She couldn’t imagine how Cooper was feeling now, knowing that his parents might cut Bailey off.
    She almost asked if it was a real possibility, because surely not even Nolan and Rachel Murphy would sever their relationship with a son over politics, but she didn’t. Cooper believed it was possible and was throwing himself into the breach to fix the situation. Acting with his heart, not his head. She wouldn’t have expected anything different. He was going to do everything he could to help keep his family together.
    Even if it meant getting back together with her. She folded her arms across her stomach and waited to hear what he had to say.
    “I know this is a lot to ask and I know I have no right to do it, but if I’m going to get the appointment, I can’t be in the middle of a broken engagement. We don’t have to actually get married. We’ll postpone the ceremony and then bow out gracefully as soon as we can. The longest it would be is until after the election in November or maybe the inauguration.” He was looking at the drink in his hands, not at her,as he went on with less animation. “If we break up now, with Bailey’s problems in the news, it’s going to be a big story. If we wait, maybe we can control the damage. No one will notice.”
    “Stop.” She curled her fingers into the sides of her T-shirt, desperate to hold on to something. “How did this happen?” she asked quietly. If she was ever going to be able to cry again, surely this was the moment, but the tears didn’t come. “How did we get to be people who have to ‘control the damage’ around our wedding? When we got engaged, we were in love, right?”
    “We were trying to do the right thing.”
    “We were?” She wasn’t sure she wanted him to answer. At that moment, she really wasn’t sure of anything.
    “Your mom was dying.”
    “I knew better.” That was probably the thing that bothered her the most. Back when she said yes the first time, she’d known better than to agree to any idea involving her mom, a man and plans for a future. She’d known better