My hand flew to my belly when I pulled open the pantry door and saw my husband kissing my mother.

For a moment, I couldn't move, though I could hear our baby shower continuing in the living room.

“Mom?”

Darla jerked away so fast she knocked a cup sideways.

Cole remained beside her, close enough that I didn't need either of them to explain what I'd seen.

Then I glanced at my mother's hand.

She'd placed it on my stomach ten minutes earlier, smiling when our daughter kicked beneath her palm.

“You felt her kick,” I said.

“Ten minutes ago.”

Darla began crying, and Cole stepped toward me.

I held up my hand to stop him, but he kept coming.

“You were touching my baby.”

I laughed once, though I was already crying and could barely draw a full breath.

When Cole took another step, I snatched a stack of paper party cups and threw them across the kitchen.

“GET AWAY FROM ME!”

The cups scattered over the floor as someone called my name from the living room, sounding happy to find me.

Darla reached toward me then.

I covered my belly with one arm and backed away from her.

I still had to step out of that kitchen and decide what to tell the people celebrating my daughter.

And after they went home, I would have to decide what place, if any, her father and grandmother could have in the life we'd been planning for her.

What will she do when Cole and Darla face her after the guests leave?

Comment “NEXT” for Part 2.