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Last-Minute Marriage
Marisa Carroll


YOU ARE NOW ENTERING RIVERBEND, INDIANARiverbend…home of the River Rats–a group of small-town sons and daughters who've been friends since high school. The River Rats are all grown up now. Living their lives and learning that some days are good and some days aren't–and that you can get through anything as long as you have your friends.Mitch Sterling has a lot on his plate. He owns a hardware store that's competing with a big national chain. He's taking care of his elderly grandfather–though Granddad might argue about that–and he's a single father to a young child. On top of that, he's just met a very pregnant, very stranded, very single woman who needs a friend. And if Mitch is honest with himself, he'll admit that he wants to be more than her friend.…












#942 LAST-MINUTE MARRIAGE

Riverbend

Marisa Carroll

#943 BECCA’S BABY

Shelter Valley Stories

Tara Taylor Quinn

#944 THE DAUGHTER MERGER

Janice Kay Johnson

#945 OBSESSION

Kay David

#946 THE HOUSE AT

BRIAR LAKE

Roxanne Rustand

#947 THE MAN BEHIND

THE BADGE

Count on a Cop

Dawn Stewardson




Dad, can I stay up late tonight?”


“Not on a school night,” Mitch said. “Now, why don’t you go show Granddad your drawing, then get to your homework?”

Sam grumbled something unintelligible and went inside with his head hanging. By the time he’d greeted their yellow Lab and shown his grandfather his drawing, he was in a better mood.

Mitch watched the two most important people in his world for a moment. But a part of his brain refused to focus on the scene. Instead, it kept pestering him to check out the car in the lot near the park’s rose bed. Unless he missed his guess, it was a red compact. And as far as he knew, there had only been one red car there today.

But Tessa Masterson was supposed to be safely ensconced in her room at the River View, not sitting in a dark parking lot on a wet October night.

“I’m going out for a quick run,” he informed Sam and his grandfather.

“It’s raining,” Sam observed.

“Your dad’s losing his marbles, going out for a run on a night like this,” Caleb said, drawing circles on his temple with his index finger.

Maybe he was crazy, Mitch thought. Crazy enough to have to see for himself if the car in the parking lot had California plates and a pregnant, sad-eyed woman inside.

*


Dear Reader,

Over the past year and a half, Riverbend, Indiana, has become very real to us. It has come to life in a manner we would have never thought possible when we were first asked to help create this wonderful little town and the people who inhabit it. And along the way, we’ve gained new friends of our own—the other authors in the series.

We’ve come together from across the country to find that even though none of us has ever been to Riverbend, our visions of what we wanted it to be were very much alike. No matter where we grew up, north or south, city or country, we all hold a place much like it in our hearts.

We hope you enjoy reading Tessa and Mitch’s story as much as we enjoyed writing it, and that all the Riverbend stories will find a permanent place in your hearts.

Sincerely,

Carol and Marian (writing as Marisa Carroll)




Last-Minute Marriage

Marisa Carroll





www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)




CAST OF CHARACTERS


Mitch Sterling: Single father, owner/operator of Sterling Hardware and River Rat

Tessa Masterson: Unmarried, seven months pregnant, stranded in Riverbend

Sam Sterling: Mitch’s ten-year-old son

Caleb Sterling: Mitch’s grandfather, lifelong Riverbend resident

Brian Delaney: Father of Tessa’s child

Tom Baines: Prize-winning journalist, estranged father and River Rat

Lynn Kendall: Minister and newcomer to Riverbend

Ruth and Rachel Steele: Tom’s twin maiden aunts, operators of Steele’s Books

Kate McMann: Manager of Steele’s Books and Lynn’s best friend

Charlie Callahan: Contractor, temporary guardian and River Rat

Beth Pennington: Physician’s assistant, athletic trainer and Charlie’s ex-wife

Aaron Mazerik: Former bad boy, current basketball coach and counselor at Riverbend High

Lily Bennett Holden: Golden Girl, widow, artist and River Rat

Abraham Steele: Town patriarch and bank president, recently deceased




CONTENTS


CHAPTER ONE (#u3bf976fa-000f-591a-87f0-90090509d128)

CHAPTER TWO (#u053a6e7c-0fd1-56bf-86d1-3b254e72ef42)

CHAPTER THREE (#ufc509323-53fc-5eb5-8a95-c7371e38d99b)

CHAPTER FOUR (#u8a5f1b25-946a-5b6c-af50-90d7018a1b6e)

CHAPTER FIVE (#u7507b736-d93f-5acb-a386-dcc4ab3d267a)

CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)




CHAPTER ONE


SHE WAS LOST.

There was no getting around it. She was thoroughly lost on the back-country roads of rural Indiana. Lost, almost out of gas, and totally shaken by her near miss with a gargantuan piece of farm machinery at the last crossroads.

Tessa Masterson got out of the car and took a couple of deep breaths. It wouldn’t help her baby if she went into a fit of hysterics. And even if she allowed herself to give in to the urge, what good would hysterics do in the middle of nowhere?

And she was in the middle of nowhere. She looked around. Cornstalks nine feet high lined both sides of the narrow road. They stretched away, ahead and behind her, like a long golden tunnel, blocking the view of the tree-studded, nearly flat landscape. Overhead the sky was a bright autumn blue, not a cloud in sight. But she knew the blue sky and the warmth of the October afternoon were an illusion. The air would grow cold when the sun went down, and storm clouds were gathering along the western horizon. She’d watched them piling up in her rearview window for the past couple of hours.

Grasshoppers whirred around her, leaping in the dry brown grasses growing along the banks of the shallow ditch that paralleled the road. It was a much smaller ditch than the one she’d nearly driven into trying to avoid the huge green combine with its wicked-looking, spear-tipped attachment that took up almost the entire road.

The wizened farmer in the cab of the machine probably hadn’t even seen her predicament. If he had, he didn’t bother to stop and help. By the time she’d righted the car and stopped shaking enough to drive on, she’d lost track of the directions the highway patrolman had given her as he’d waved her off the main highway to detour around a jackknifed eighteen wheeler. She reached into the back seat, took a map out of her backpack and spread it open on the hood of the car.

Was she supposed to go left at County Road SW-6 or stay on this county road until she came to E-7? She should have written the instructions down, but there’d been cars behind her, their drivers impatient and obviously more familiar with the area than she was. She knew she needed to keep heading east, and she was doing that, but in this part of the state, major highways were few and far between. As was just about everything else but cornfields and silos.

Tessa pushed a strand of her shoulder-length, honey-blond hair behind her ear and looked around. No landmarks of any kind could be seen, dwarfed as she was by cornstalks. A large brown grasshopper landed on a fringed circle of Queen Anne’s lace by her foot. He swayed there for a minute, surveying the world from an even more limited viewpoint than Tessa’s, and then hopped away, leaving the flower swinging in his wake.

No help there.

She had to find a town, or at least a gas station, or she and her temperamental car would be stranded out here in the boondocks for the night. The Wabash River ought to be somewhere to the south. If nothing else, she could head in that direction until she ran into it, and then turn east. But she didn’t know how far south the river was.

She’d caught a glimpse of a blue water tower just before the incident with the combine, but it had disappeared behind the distant line of trees by the time she reached the next open field. If she was reading her map correctly, the water tower belonged to a small dot on the map called Riverbend.

Already the sun was riding low above the cornstalks. The shadows were long, and the whirring of the crickets and grasshoppers had slowed in just the short time she’d been standing at the side of the road. She folded the map, getting it almost right on the first try. She had to find her way to this Riverbend place. And soon. For all she knew it was so small they rolled up the sidewalks at five-thirty and the whole town went home to supper, including whoever ran the filling station. But evidently it was the only town for miles around.

She was so tired. She’d driven most of every night and half the next day for the past four days. She’d gotten into the habit when crossing the desert, because it was cooler driving. But by the time she’d reached the plains of Kansas, she was doing it to save money. Motel rooms were expensive. Even the cheapest, no-frills ones cost more than she could afford. She couldn’t—wouldn’t—arrive at her sister’s home in Albany seven months pregnant, unmarried, and with nothing but the clothes on her back.

I’m going to have a baby in two months. As always, the thought gave her a little shock of anxiety mixed almost equally with joy.

She might have picked the wrong man to be the father of that baby. She might have made a mess of her life in a lot of ways. But she was determined to be a good mother, even if that meant going home to Albany in disgrace, putting up with her older sister’s I-told-you-so’s and going on welfare until the baby was old enough for her to get a job. Even if it meant giving up her dream of teaching history to spend the rest of her life working to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads.

She already loved this baby. She was going to keep it. And she was going to raise it the best way she knew how. But she didn’t dare think too far ahead, because the enormity of it all scared her to death. One day at a time. One step at a time. That was how she’d made it so far. It was how she intended to keep on.

And the very first thing she needed to do was buy gas for her car.

“LOOKS LIKE RAIN,” Ethan Staver said, lifting a finger off the steering wheel to point at the horizon. “Clouds been piling up all afternoon.”

“Radio said it would start before sundown,” Mitch Sterling replied. “Supposed to rain all night and all day tomorrow.”

“That’ll have the farmers on the move.”

Mitch surveyed the fields of yellowing corn that bordered the county highway through the bug-splattered windshield. “None of them like to get bogged down in wet fields.”

“And the longer it takes for them to get their corn in, the later it’ll be before they can take off for Florida for the winter.”

Mitch grinned. Ethan hadn’t lived in Riverbend, Indiana, all his life the way he had, but the police chief knew farmers.

“What did you think of the renovations to the regional jail?” Mitch asked him. They’d spent the afternoon touring the facility—Ethan as the representative of Riverbend’s small police force, and Mitch as a member of the town council.

“The place looks pretty good. Not that we send a lot of people there, but it’s good to know there’s a secure facility when we need one.”

Riverbend was the seat of Sycamore County, Indiana. It had its own jail in the courthouse, but these days it was pretty much just a holding station for prisoners. There was no way the county, or the town, could afford a state-of-the-art facility like the regional jail.

“And the extra revenue we get from renting our unused bunk space to the guys from Indianapolis is a shot in the arm to my budget,” Ethan said.

“Amen to that,” Mitch answered. Keeping the town budget balanced while juggling the needs and wishes of a population bordering on nine thousand was quite a job. Mitch enjoyed being on the council, but he also had his own business to run.

He glanced at his watch.

Ethan noticed. “I’ll have you back at the lumberyard before three,” he said.

“It’s Granddad’s first day back since his hip replacement,” Mitch reminded his friend. “I don’t want him to overdo it.”

“Sam going to the store after school?”

“He’s got an art lesson with Lily Mazerik after school. I told him he could go home from there if I didn’t come to pick him up. He’s at the age where he thinks he should be able to stay alone.”

“He’s what? Ten? Eleven?” Ethan asked.

“Ten going on forty,” Mitch replied. Sam was growing up fast, too fast, Mitch thought some days.

“How’s he doing in school this year?” Ethan wanted to know. Sam was hearing-impaired. He attended regular classes and got good grades, but he worked hard at it. And so did Mitch. He spent a lot of time with Sam’s teachers and his math tutor, trying to stay ahead of any problems.

“He’s off to a good start. But he was really disappointed not making the Mini-Rivermen football team. He had his heart set on the starting-linebacker position.”

“He’s pretty small to be a linebacker.”

“Yeah. And football is one sport where his handicap really holds him back.” Even with his hearing aid Sam couldn’t hear the play calls or the coaches’ instructions. There was no getting around it.

Sam had done pretty well in Coach Mazerik’s summer sports camp, Mitch had to admit, especially at swimming. And he’d played Little League baseball. The trouble was, as Ethan had just pointed out, Sam was small for his age. In football and basketball, his two favorite sports, that was as much of a handicap as his hearing impairment.

“He’ll have a growth spurt in the next year or two, and then watch out,” Ethan said.

That was probably true. Mitch himself had been something of a runt, the shortest in his group of friends until nearly eighth grade. And then he’d shot up six inches in a year. Maybe it would be that way for Sam, too. He wanted to see his son get as much fun and satisfaction out of playing school sports as he had.

Ethan’s scanner squawked into life, interrupting Mitch’s thoughts.

They both listened for a moment or two as the dispatcher and another disembodied voice discussed the status of the jackknifed rig ahead of them on the highway. “Sounds like the state boys are handling it just fine,” Ethan said. “No need for me to get involved.” He flipped on the cruiser’s turn signal and headed off onto a county road that ran into the outskirts of Riverbend near the golf course. “We’ll make better time this way.”

Five minutes later they topped a low rise that brought a fleeting view of the Wabash winding away toward the west. The sky was blue, darkening to almost black on the horizon. The trees were shades of gold and yellow and brown, with a splash of maple red and the near purple of sumac here and there. Mitch could see tractors and combines working in half-a-dozen fields before they disappeared behind rows of unharvested corn.

Ahead of them a small red car was parked on the side of the road. A woman was standing outside it, looking at something spread out on the hood. She was wearing a long denim jumper and a pink blouse. Her hair was blond and shoulder-length, but since her back was to them, it was hard to pick out any further details.

“That’s an out-of-state plate—can’t quite make it out, though,” Mitch commented.

“California,” Ethan replied tersely. His eyesight was evidently sharper than Mitch’s.

“Suppose her car’s broken down?”

“Could be.” Ethan turned on his emergency lights, but not the siren, and slowed as he approached the car.

Mitch saw his friend’s lips tighten. He couldn’t see Ethan’s eyes behind his mirrored sunglasses, but he knew they would be steady and gray. Ethan was an ex-army Green Beret and all cop. The woman standing beside her car was probably perfectly innocent of any wrongdoing. But until Ethan proved that for himself, he wouldn’t let down his guard.

The chief got out of the cruiser, his hand resting on the holster of his service revolver. The woman turned, surprise and wariness widening her eyes as she swung around, a crumpled road map held in front of her like a shield.

She was pretty, in a bland sort of way, Mitch noticed from his seat inside the police cruiser. Not too short, not too tall and very pregnant. Six months or so, at least, he estimated. She looked downright fearful as Ethan approached, his black police uniform, military haircut, and sidearm making him more than a little intimidating. She shrank back against the door of her car and swallowed hard. Mitch could see the muscles in her throat working from where he sat.

Ethan probably didn’t mean to scare the living daylights out of a pregnant woman, but he was doing just that.

Mitch undid his seat belt and climbed out of the car. Ethan asked to see the woman’s license as Mitch walked up. She cast him a harried glance and leaned into the back seat of the red compact to fumble in a pack that looked as if it had seen better days.

Come to think of it, the car had seen better days, too. The dust and grime of a lot of miles coated the bumper and partially obscured the numbers on the California plate. But the windshield was clean. And so was the back seat. Or what he could see of it, covered as it was with boxes and neatly tied plastic bags. Mitch would bet a week’s profits from the lumberyard that everything she owned was in that car.

Ethan motioned Mitch to move behind him. His hand remained on his weapon, even though the woman he was confronting didn’t quite come up to the level of his chin. She turned back, wallet in hand. A few freckles stood out on her cheeks and across her nose, and her eyes were big and blue and ringed with dark shadows.

Kara had been emotional when she was pregnant with Sam. She would have been sobbing openly by now. But not this woman. She was made of sterner stuff than his ex-wife, pregnant or not. She opened the wallet and offered it to Ethan.

“Here you are, Officer,” she said, only the faintest hint of a quaver in her voice.

“Is this your current address?” Ethan asked, handing it back to her after a few moments’ study.

“I…it was.” She lifted her chin. “I’m moving back to New York. I was detoured off the highway by an accident and I’ve lost my way.” She gestured to her car, the movements of her hands graceful and feminine. “I’m almost out of gas. Can you direct me to the nearest filling station?” She turned her head slightly to include Mitch in the query. “And I do mean the nearest.”

“Riverbend’s about two miles straight ahead,” Ethan said in a friendlier tone, evidently satisfied they hadn’t stumbled on some hardened criminal masquerading as a pregnant woman. “You can get your tank filled there.”

“Thank goodness. Much farther and I’d have to push my car the rest of the way.”

“I don’t think you’re in any condition to push a car, ma’am,” Ethan said, hands on hips.

“I don’t think I’d get very far trying,” she admitted, the tiniest hint of a smile curving her lips.

“I would have offered my friend Mitch Sterling here to do it for you.”

She turned to Mitch. She smiled just a little more, her eyes crinkling around the edges, and Mitch felt a surprising jolt of awareness. “That would make you a really good Samaritan, Mr. Sterling. But I’ve got enough gas to make it two more miles—I hope,” she added under her breath.

“I can ride into town with you if you’d like,” Mitch heard himself offer.

The wariness came back into her big eyes. “No thank you.”

Mitch felt like an idiot. Where she came from, women did not accept rides with strange men. They didn’t much around Riverbend, either, come to think of it. But he’d been brought up to offer his assistance to people in distress. “No problem,” he said to fill the awkward silence that followed her words.

“The first gas station is just three blocks inside the town limits,” Ethan told her. “You follow us and we’ll have you there in no time.”

“Thank you.” She got into her car and fastened the seat belt over her distended middle. “I’m ready when you are.”

Ethan nodded, tipped the bill of his hat and walked back to the cruiser, Mitch behind him.

“She’s pretty far along to be making a cross-country jaunt,” Mitch said as they passed the little red compact and its occupant. Mitch watched in the side mirror as she followed them onto the road.

“Yeah, she is pretty big,” Ethan agreed. He picked up the receiver of his radio and pushed the toggle switch. “We’ll just run a routine search on her license plate and ID.”

“Jeez, Ethan. You don’t trust anyone, do you?”

“Nope. Ain’t that why you hired me?” Ethan retorted with a grin.

Mitch shook his head and settled back in his seat for the rest of the trip into town. Ethan was a damned good cop. And good cops were suspicious cops. Yet anyone with half a brain and one good eye could tell that the woman in the car behind them wasn’t a threat to anyone.

Except maybe a man’s heart, with those big blue eyes and that lost-little-girl smile.

Mitch caught himself looking in the side mirror again, wondering what she’d look like if she smiled fully and without restraint. She’d be a real beauty.

Where the hell had that thought come from? He hadn’t had the energy or inclination to look at another woman in a long, long time. He sure wasn’t about to start now. She was a perfect stranger. She was pregnant. She was just passing through. In an hour she’d be gone from his life.

He leaned his head against the back of the seat and watched the clock tower on the Sycamore County Courthouse come into view, then the water tower and the elevator rising above the trees and the flat Indiana farmland he loved. The three tallest points in Riverbend.

This was the place where his roots went deep into the dark fertile soil. This was home. But his mind wasn’t interested in the familiar view. It was still focused on the pregnant woman in the red compact.

He turned his head enough to bring Ethan’s profile into view. “What did you say her name was again?”




CHAPTER TWO


TESSA LEANED BACK in the wooden glider located in the center of the little park and set it swinging with a push of her feet. She looked out over the Sycamore River to the far shore. It wasn’t that far away, maybe a few hundred yards? She’d never been a very good judge of distance. The water was a mixture of shades, blue and green and brown, deep and slow-moving. It seemed tamer, more sedate, than its famous neighbor, the Wabash, of which she’d caught glimpses from the car.

A rowboat with a small outboard motor putt-putted its way to a landing across the river where houses lined the bank. Some were older and looked as if they could use a little loving care. Some were new, a few large and substantial, with landscaped lawns and big wooden docks jutting out into the river. But beyond the manicured lawns the land was claimed by cornfields. Two-story white farmhouses and red-and-white barns stood in tree-filled yards as big as city parks. Cylindrical blue silos dotted the cloudy sky above pastures of black-and-white cows. For a moment Tessa wondered if she’d landed in her own private version of Oz. The town behind her looked like a Norman Rockwell painting. A town of her dreams.

She settled back in the swing and kept it going with a gentle push now and then. As she watched the reflections of clouds and trees in the water, she felt her eyes grow heavy. She wished she could stay here for the night. Catch up on her sleep, get her hair and her clothes really clean. It would be heaven. Certainly this little town, with the river at its feet and the late-afternoon sun and the scent of a few fading roses in a nearby flower bed, seemed about as close as you could get.

Her quiet reverie was broken by the sound of a car pulling into the parking lot behind her swing. She didn’t turn around to see who it was. She didn’t know a soul in Riverbend.

No one but the cop who’d eyed her so suspiciously and then escorted her into town. And the man who’d been riding with him. The one with eyes the same rich brown as the plowed earth and a smile that lifted the left corner of his mouth a littler higher than the right. Mitch Sterling, the cop had said his name was. She wondered if he had anything to do with the big hardware and lumberyard she’d passed on her way down to the river. It had looked like a going concern. Not as big as the Home-Mart she’d worked for in Albany, but impressive for an independent in this age of mega-chain stores.

“Hi there. Remember me?”

She turned her head to find the man she’d been thinking about smiling down at her. His voice was low-pitched and a little rough around the edges, but as warm as his smile.

She didn’t smile back, although she was tempted. You didn’t smile at strange men in California. Or in New York, for that matter.

“Are you enjoying the view?”

“Yes,” she said. This time she did smile. She wasn’t in L.A. anymore. She was in God’s country. Or so one or two signs she’d seen along the roadside had proclaimed. “It’s very peaceful here.”

“It’s one of my favorite views.”

“You come here often?”

He propped one foot on the rose bed’s border, which was made of railroad ties stacked three deep. Real railroad ties, she’d noticed. Not those anemic landscape ties they’d sold at Home-Mart. This rose bed was going to be here for a long, long time. That was the way you built things in a place you never intended to leave.

“Most everyone in town does. But it’s the same view I get from my kitchen window.” He pointed down the way to a wide stream that emptied into the river. “I live in the yellow house over there.”

Tessa turned to follow his pointing finger, but she already knew what she would see. The house wasn’t yellow. It was cream-colored. Craftsman-styled, foursquare and solid with a stone foundation and big square porch posts. Roses grew on trellises on either side of the wide front steps. Pink roses, with several still blooming, like those in the park.

She loved history. Not so long ago it had been her intention to share that love of history by teaching. Not ancient history, or Colonial history. Not even Civil War history. But the history of the century just past. The enthusiasm and hubris of the early decades. The heartbreak of the Great Depression and the sheer determination required to survive those years. The heroism and sacrifice of the Second World War. The optimism and opportunism of the fifties. Even the strife and intergenerational warfare of the sixties.

The house Mitch Sterling indicated had seen it all. She wouldn’t be a bit surprised to find it had always been in his family. Riverbend seemed that kind of place, a town where families passed down houses and businesses and recipes from generation to generation. “It’s a great house,” she said. “How long has it been in your family?” The words had jumped off her tongue before she could discipline her thoughts.

“About ten years,” Mitch said, not looking at her but at the house. “I bought it when my son was born.”

“Oh.” She tried hard to keep the disappointment out of her voice. Such a little thing, the house not being in his family for a hundred years.

“I bought it from the family my granddad sold it to in ’74. My grandmother wanted something all on one floor, so he built her a ranch-style out by the golf course. But his grandfather built this house in 1902.”

“Your great-great-grandfather built the house?” She didn’t even know her great-great-grandfather’s name. And she envied him the luxury of knowing who had owned this house, when, and for how long. It meant he had ties here, roots that went deep.

“Yup. I thought it should stay in the family.”

“When I was growing up, I never lived more than three years in one place.” What in heaven’s name had possessed her to tell such a thing to a total stranger? She must be more tired than she thought. She stood up, levering herself off the swing with one hand on the thick chain that held it to the wooden frame.

Mitch Sterling leaned forward to steady the swing, but he didn’t try to touch her. She was oddly disappointed that he didn’t put his hand on her arm. She had the feeling his touch would have been as warm and strong as his voice and his smiling brown eyes.

She smoothed her hand over her stomach. The baby was sleeping, hadn’t made a move in an hour. Perhaps she’d been lulled by the sound of the river and the rustle of the wind through the trees along the bank. Tessa hadn’t let the doctor back in California tell her the sex of her baby. But she knew in her heart it was a girl. A daughter. Hers and hers alone. She raised her eyes to find Mitch watching her with the same quiet intensity she’d noticed the first time she’d seen him on the road outside town.

The silence was stretching out too long. “I have to be on my way. I want to make it to Ohio by tonight,” she blurted.

“You’ve got a long way to go.”

“I’ve come even farther.” All the way from Albany and back again, with a detour through Southern California. But Albany was home, because that was where she and Callie had settled after their mother died. It was where she’d worked days at the Home-Mart and gone to school at night to get her history degree. Until she’d met Brian Delaney, a high-school friend of her brother-in-law’s, and fallen head over heels in love with him, giving up everything she had to follow him to California.

She blinked. Lord, she’d been close to saying all that aloud to this stranger. It must be something in the clean clear air, too much oxygen maybe, and not enough smog. She took a step away from the swing, trod on a stone and stumbled a little.

This time he didn’t hesitate. He reached out and steadied her with a hand under her elbow. She was right. His touch was as warm and strong as the rest of him. “Are you sure you should be driving any more today? You look pretty done in to me.”

He didn’t mince words, obviously. Nothing like Brian, who tap-danced his way around everything—until it came time to tell her he was leaving her and the baby to follow his dream and play winter baseball in Central America.

“I’m fine, really,” she assured Mitch.

He didn’t look convinced. “It’s going to be dark in an hour. It’ll take you another hour after that to make it to the interstate. Why don’t you stay the night here? The hotel on Main Street was restored just a couple of years ago. The rates are reasonable. And it’s clean. It’s even supposed to be haunted. And the restaurant’s not half-bad, either,” he added, deadpan.

“I don’t believe you.”

He made an exaggerated X on his chest. “Cross my heart, the food’s good.”

A chuckle escaped her. “I mean, I don’t believe the hotel’s haunted. I always thought ghosts were unhappy spirits doomed to wander the earth until they were set free. What could have happened in a town like this to cause a ghost?”

His face clouded slightly. She felt the same chill she had when the sun dipped behind a cloud a few minutes before he showed up. “Riverbend’s not paradise,” he said. “Most small towns aren’t.” Tessa waited, wondering what he would say next. He was silent a moment, glancing out over the river. Then his frown cleared and the sunshine came back into his face. “But this place is probably as close as you’ll come to it. And as a member of the town council and the Chamber of Commerce, it’s my duty to roll out the welcome mat. Get in your car and I’ll show you the way to the hotel.”

“That’s not necessary.” She had no intention of spending the night in Riverbend or anywhere else. She couldn’t afford it even if the hotel rates were more than reasonable. They’d have to be giving the rooms away free.

She had no health insurance and less than two hundred dollars to her name. One hundred and seventy-nine dollars, to be exact. And her credit card. It was paid off, thank goodness, but she’d have to live on the credit line, and it was by no means a large one. It scared her to death to think about how nearly penniless she was.

But she wasn’t about to tell Mitch Sterling any of that, no matter how warm his eyes and his touch. How could he know how truly desperate she was? And how determined she was not to be beholden to a man to whom she and their baby were just an afterthought? Mitch Sterling was a member of the Chamber of Commerce and the town council. He lived in the sort of storybook house she had yearned for all her life, in a town that was the embodiment of the American dream. In a place like Riverbend, a man didn’t make a woman he professed to love pregnant and then leave her to follow his own dreams.

She had her pride left, even if she’d lost most everything else. And her pride wouldn’t let her tell this confident, self-assured man that she had no intention of sleeping anywhere but in her car. So she let him walk beside her the short distance to the parking lot. She followed him out, onto Main Street, and then, after he waited for her to park her car, into the high-ceilinged, spotlessly clean lobby of the River View Hotel. She smiled when he introduced her to the clerk, a gray-haired woman standing behind an antique partners desk that served as a reception counter. He told the clerk that Tessa was a stranded traveler and to give her the best room in the house.

Then he had shaken her hand and said goodbye. “I’m late picking up my son from his art lesson. It’s been nice meeting you.”

“Thank you,” she said, equally formal in front of the inquisitive eyes of the desk clerk. “I’ll always remember your kindness.”

“Goodbye, Tessa Masterson. Good luck in your journey.” He turned and left the building.

Where had Mitch Sterling learned her name? From his friend the cop, she supposed.

“Now,” said the clerk, “I imagine you’ll be wanting a nonsmoking room.”

“I…” She was going to say she didn’t want a room at all. But she betrayed her resolve by asking what the room rates were, instead of turning on her heel and marching out of the building to her car.

“Fifty-nine dollars a night, plus tax,” the woman said, spinning the antique desk ledger toward her. More than reasonable. But still too much. “We take credit cards,” she prompted.

Tessa was tempted. So very tempted. Just one night. She started to reach for the pen but caught herself. “I’m sorry. I’ve changed my mind. I really must cover some more distance tonight. I…I have such a long way to go.”

The woman’s smile faltered for a moment, then returned, polite but more distant now. “Certainly. I’m sorry you won’t be staying with us. Have a safe trip.”

“Thank you.” Tessa turned and hurried out through the etched-glass double doors and down the steps to her car.

She did need to cover more miles tonight. She really did.

The sun was still shining even though the rain clouds on the horizon were moving steadily closer. There were only a few more minutes of the beautiful autumn afternoon left. As long as the sun was shining, she would sit in the park and soak in the warmth and dream a little more of what her life might have been if she’d grown up in a town like this, with deep roots and strong family ties, instead of in the run-down part of a city in a series of shabby apartments with a mother who searched for love in all the wrong places and a father she couldn’t even remember.

She could do that. It would cost her nothing but another hour or so of her time. And it would give her back so much more. A few moments of peace and serenity that were worth their weight in gold.

IT STARTED TO RAIN just before sundown. The weather forecaster on the radio had said it would go on all night and most of the next day. Heavy fog was predicted for the morning, and school delays were a possibility.

If they canceled school he’d have to find someone to look after Sam, or else take him to the store with him. At ten and a half his son thought he was a grown-up. But Mitch didn’t feel right leaving him home alone all day. Even in a town like Riverbend, a kid could get into trouble. Especially a kid with a handicap.

If school was canceled, he’d take Sam to the store and let him price the new shipment of Christmas lights that had shown up yesterday afternoon. He’d even offer to pay him double his usual rate of two bucks an hour. Mitch wanted that Christmas-light display up before the end of the week. The big chain hardware out near the highway had had its Christmas lights out for weeks.

People in Riverbend were loyal to Sterling Hardware and Building Supply, had been for the seventy-five years since his great-grandfather had first opened the doors. They knew it might take Mitch a week longer to get his shipments of such must-have items as icicle lights, but he’d get them. And he’d come damned close to matching the big store’s prices. So they waited.

And Mitch tried his best to make sure they didn’t wait a minute longer than necessary.

Thinking of the new store out by the highway brought a frown to his face. He’d lost his best employee, Larry Kellerman, to them just the week before. Mitch was going to have to find someone to replace him soon. Trouble was, no one with Larry’s experience or business training had applied for the job yet, and with the Christmas season less than a month away, Mitch couldn’t afford to put a novice on the front lines. He’d have to take up the slack himself.

And then Sam would get the short end of the stick.

Not if he could help it, though. Sam had gotten the short end of the stick too often in his life. An ordinary sore throat when he was two had developed into a serious strep infection. His temperature had soared and for two days his life hung in the balance. Then when he’d emerged from the semiconscious state he’d fallen into, it had taken weeks for him to fully recover. And sometime, somehow, during the illness, Sam had lost a significant portion of his hearing.

Mitch’s world had rocked on its foundation. Some days it was still a little wobbly. Kara had tried, she really had. But Sam wasn’t an easy child to raise. There was the extra vigilance required to keep an inquisitive, hearing-impaired toddler safe, and all the therapy sessions and special preschool classes at the regional rehabilitation center forty miles away. If it hadn’t been for Mitch’s mother being there to help out…well, his marriage probably wouldn’t have lasted as long as it did.

But when Sam was six, his parents had died in a car accident on the sort of foggy night tonight promised to be. Kara had called it quits soon after, taking off for the bright lights of Chicago, where she could be free to find herself without the impediment of a handicapped son and a husband she’d “outgrown.” Now it was just Sam and Mitch and Mitch’s granddad, Caleb. And if it wasn’t the ideal arrangement for raising a child or living your life, Mitch was mostly content with the way things were.

He coasted to a stop in front of Lily Mazerik’s big old Victorian house and headed up the walk to the front door. He could have buzzed Sam’s pager and had him meet him at the curb. It was a special one that vibrated, instead of beeping when a message came in. But he wanted to say hello to Lily and ask her how Sam was coming along, so he hadn’t bothered. He turned the key on the old-fashioned metal doorbell and waited.

A moment later Lily appeared at the door wearing a paint-stained smock. Her silvery blond hair was pulled into a soft knot on top of her head. There was a smudge of paint on her cheek and a smile on her lips. “Hi, Mitch,” Lily said, stepping back so he could enter the house. “Do you have time to see Sam’s latest masterpiece, or are you in a hurry to get him home?”

“I’ve got time.”

“Good.” Her smile widened.

They’d been friends all through school and fellow River Rats, which was the name given the gang of kids who used to hang out together by the river. Over the summer Lily had fallen in love with Aaron Mazerik, the high-school coach and proverbial bad-boy-made-good. Aaron had also turned out to be the illegitimate son of Abraham Steele, the president of the bank and Riverbend’s leading citizen, who’d died of a heart attack back in the spring. The revelation had created speculation and gossip that had lasted most of the summer.

Mitch followed Lily to the back of the house. Aaron was nowhere to be seen, and Mitch figured he was probably at the gym. Preconditioning for basketball season had started that week even though football season was still in high gear. Lily and Aaron’s romance had had tough sledding for a while, but it looked as if everything was working out for them now. They’d been married in a quiet ceremony right after Labor Day.

Actually, when he thought about it, a lot of his old River Rat pals were pairing off. Charlie Callahan and his ex-wife, Beth, were back together after a fourteen-year separation. Mitch had promised Charlie he’d be best man when they retied the knot on Valentine’s day. Lynn Kendall, the pastor at the Riverbend Community Church, and Tom Baines were seeing a lot of each other, and Mitch wouldn’t be a bit surprised if something serious developed there.

He was the only one of the bunch left single except for Nick Harrison, who was now his lawyer, and Jacob Steele, Abraham’s legitimate son. But for all he knew, Jacob could be married with a dozen kids by now, or he could be in jail, or dead. No one in town had heard from him in years, not even his aunts Ruth and Rachel. His old friend hadn’t even come home for his father’s funeral, and Mitch didn’t have any idea why.

“Dad!” Sam looked up from the table in Lily’s kitchen where he was sitting. “See what I did?”

“Hey, tiger,” Mitch greeted him, moving past Lily to look down at Sam’s drawing.

“It’s…Mothra destroying Tokyo and…Godzilla’s coming to the rescue of everyone in that building Mothra’s going to step on.” Sam smiled and shrugged. “How’d I do?” He’d made a hash of the monsters’ names, but Mitch wasn’t in the mood to correct him.

“Not too bad. We’ll add them to your vocabulary list and practice later. Your picture’s great.” Mothra and his nemesis, the legendary Godzilla, were towering over the hapless Japanese capital, tiny human figures cowering at their feet. Perspective had obviously been the lesson of the day.

“He’s one awesome dude.” His son’s smile reminded Mitch of Kara. Sam had his mother’s blond hair, which turned almost white under the summer sun, blue eyes and one crooked front tooth. But Mitch also recognized himself in the boy. He had the Sterling square jaw and a nose that was going to be too big for his face for a few years to come.

He ruffled Sam’s hair. He was a good kid—an antidote to all the lonely nights and lonely years that stretched ahead of Mitch. There he was, thinking about being alone again. “Tell me how you did this,” he said a bit grimly.

“It’s called perspective,” Sam explained, enunciating as clearly as he could. Mitch shot Lily a grateful look. It was obvious she’d taken the time to help Sam with the word. “I’m learning how to make things look bigger and smaller just like you see them in real life. See, Mothra is fifty feet taller than Godzilla, but that doesn’t mean anything. He’s still going to get his ass whipped.”

“Sam!” Lily’s eyes widened, but the corners of her mouth twitched in a suppressed smile.

“Whoa, son.” Mitch laid his hand on Sam’s shoulder and applied some pressure so Sam would understand the importance of his words. “That’s not a term you use in front of ladies. In fact, it’s not a word you should be using at all.”

Sam clapped his hands over his mouth. “Oops, sorry,” he said, signing the apology for good measure. “It just slipped out. I mean, Godzilla’s going to kick butt.”

“Well, that’s some improvement,” Mitch said.

“You’re forgiven,” Lily told Sam. “How do you sign �forgiven’?”

Sam showed her and she tried to repeat the swift movements of his hand and fingers. Mitch encouraged Sam to use spoken words as much as possible even though he knew sign language. It was a controversy in the world of the hearing impaired, sign versus speech, and Mitch had listened to both sides. But he’d decided that everyone Sam encountered would speak to him, and only a very few would sign. So they’d put most of their emphasis on speech therapy.

“Slow down,” she said with a laugh. “I can’t keep up.”

“Practice,” Sam teased, but the r sound slid away as it so often did. Consonants were particularly hard for his son to reproduce, since he’d lost his hearing before he was fully verbal, but Lily understood and rolled her eyes.

“Very funny. I’ll practice signing. And you practice your perspective. Is it a deal?”

“Deal,” Sam said.

“Okay. Your assignment for next week is to draw something you can see from your bedroom window using the proper perspective, okay?” She had been looking directly at him as she spoke. She formed her words carefully and didn’t speak too quickly so Sam could read her lips.

“I promise. Can I take my picture home tonight to show Granddad?”

“Sure.” Lily produced a heavy cardboard folder to protect Sam’s picture from the rain on the trip home. “See you next week, Sam.”

“See you. Come on, Dad. I want to watch Unsolved Mysteries.”

“Homework first.”

Sam wrinkled his forehead into a frown. “I’m sick of school already.”

Lily laughed. “It’s only October.”

“Tryouts for basketball are in four weeks,” Sam told her. This was Indiana. Basketball season was as real an indicator of the passing year as falling leaves.

“You’ll make the team this year, I know it,” Lily said. “Aaron’s told me how hard you’ve been working all summer.”

“Really?” Sam brightened at the praise.

“It all depends on your report card,” Mitch reminded him with a touch on his shoulder so Sam would look his way. “Now come on. Granddad is waiting for us, and he’ll want to see your drawing, too.”

Sam picked up his backpack where he’d left it beside the front door. “He’s very talented, Mitch—before you know it, I’ll have taught him all I can,” Lily said, stopping Mitch with a hand on his arm. “If he keeps progressing at this rate, we’ll have to contact someone at the university to work with him.”

“Whoa. You’ve only been giving him lessons since school started. You’re making it sound like I’ve got a budding Rembrandt on my hands.”

“Well, I may be overstating things just a bit,” Lily admitted. “But he’s good.”

“If he works at it,” Mitch added.

“That, too. But he is only ten. Discipline comes with maturity.”

“And he’d rather be Michael Jordan than Michelangelo.”

Lily sighed. “Yes.” She knew how sports crazy Sam was. And that his small size and his hearing impairment were holding him back from competing with the same skill and success as his friends. “You’ll work it out.”

“Yeah. We’ll manage.” Mitch shoved his hands in the pockets of his jacket. “We always do. At least with old Abraham’s bequest to Sam, finding money for special lessons won’t be a problem.” He still had no idea why the town patriarch had left his son nearly $27,000, and he probably never would, although his grandfather Caleb insisted it had something to do with him fishing Abraham out of the river after he’d fallen through the ice when they were boys. “Tell Aaron I said hello.”

“I will. Goodbye, Mitch.”

“Goodbye, Lily.”

“Bye, Sam,” she called. But he was already halfway down the brick sidewalk and couldn’t have heard her, anyway. “Tell him I said goodbye.”

“Will do.”

They didn’t talk in the car on the way home. It was too dark for Sam to read lips, or sign and be seen, for that matter. They drove past the park, and Mitch caught the quick reflection of taillights in the parking lot as they made the turn. He wondered who was there after dark on a rainy night like this.

No matter. Ethan or one of his men would take a swing through the park later, and if the car was still there, they’d check it out.

He pulled the truck into the driveway, and Sam hopped out, holding his drawing carefully in both hands. He sniffed the wet air. “Smells like fog,” he said, turning so that he could see Mitch’s response in the fitful glow of the porch light.

Mitch laughed. “How do you know it smells like fog?”

“It just does. Granddad says he can smell rain and fog and snow on the wind.”

“Granddad’s good at predicting the weather. But he also listens to the weather report on the radio every hour on the hour.”

“And he watches the weather channel a lot. Will it be bad enough they’ll cancel school tomorrow?” his son wanted to know.

Mitch helped open the storm door for Sam to enter the back porch. The front of the house faced River Road, but almost no one except the mailman used the front door. Everyone else in Riverbend came down the driveway and around to the back.

“I’m not sure they’ll cancel. But there’ll probably be a delay and you can sleep in an hour in the morning.”

“And stay up an hour later tonight?” Sam asked hopefully.

“Wrong,” Mitch said. “Now, get in there and show Granddad your drawing and then get to your homework while I fix supper.”

“But, Dad—”

“No buts. Or no Unsolved Mysteries.”

Sam grumbled something unintelligible and went inside with his head hanging. But by the time he’d greeted Belle, their yellow Labrador, and encountered his grandfather seated in the breakfast nook reading the paper, he was in a better mood. He held out his drawing for Caleb to see, explaining the finer points of the battle between Mothra and Godzilla.

Mitch watched the two most important people in his world for a moment as blond head and white were bowed over the drawing. But another part of his brain refused to focus on the scene. Instead, it kept pestering him to check out the car in the parking lot near the rose bed in the park. Unless he missed his guess, it was a red compact. And as far as he knew, there had only been one red car parked there today.

But Tessa Masterson was supposed to be safely ensconced in her room at the River View, not sitting in a dark parking lot on a wet October night.

“I’m going out for a quick run,” he told his grandfather, who waggled his finger so that Sam could turn his head and watch Mitch repeat the words. “When I get back, we’ll order pizza. How does that sound?”

“It’s raining,” Sam observed.

“I know. I won’t be gone long.”

“Your dad’s losing his marbles, going out for a run on a night like this,” Caleb informed his great-grandson, drawing circles on his temple with his index finger.

Sam nodded, repeating the gesture and rolling his eyes for emphasis.

The old man laughed, but he looked at Mitch with inquisitive eyes that had once been as brown as Mitch’s own.

Maybe he was crazy, Mitch thought. Crazy enough to have to see for himself if the car in the parking lot had California plates and a pregnant, sad-eyed woman inside.




CHAPTER THREE


TESSA SNUGGLED MORE DEEPLY into her big chenille sweater. It was the warmest thing she owned right now. She’d gotten rid of all her New York clothes when she followed Brian to California. Who needed parkas and wool gloves and snow boots in L.A.? But some nights it did get cool at the ballpark, so when she’d seen the sweater in a trendy boutique, she’d bought it without a second thought.

That had been seven months ago. Just about the time she got pregnant. The purchase was the second-to-last impulsive act she’d committed. The last had been to let Brian make love to her without protection one romantic weekend in Mexico, where he’d played a series of exhibition games. She’d been foolish enough to believe she knew her body’s cycles well enough to get away with unprotected lovemaking. She’d been wrong. And she would never, ever be so impulsive or so foolish again.

She pulled the folds of the sweater more tightly around her. She didn’t want to wake up from her half doze just yet and be confronted with reality: a bad choice in love, a nearly empty pocketbook and almost a thousand miles still to drive. She wanted to go on floating half-in and half-out of her dreams, the anxiety that dogged her every waking moment temporarily held at bay.

Knuckles tapped against the passenger window, and Tessa sat upright with a jerk. She turned her head toward the sound and at the same time reached for the door-lock button to make sure whoever was outside her car stayed there.

“Tessa?” She recognized the whiskey and honey voice, and the square-jawed profile outlined by the pinkish glow of a nearby street lamp.

It was Mitch Sterling.

“Oh, damn,” she muttered under her breath.

She glanced past his concerned face. It was fully dark now, the kind of darkness a rainy night produced. She had no idea what time it was. She couldn’t see her watch, and the clock on the dash didn’t light up unless the engine was running.

She’d bought a cheese sandwich and a bottle of water at a place called the Sunnyside Café and brought them to the park. The storm clouds had rolled in while she ate. She’d watched the patterns the raindrops made on the river, watched the mist rise from its surface to writhe among the tree branches and creep forward to swathe her car. She’d only meant to rest her eyes, but instead, she’d fallen asleep. For a cowardly moment she thought of turning on the engine and driving away as fast as she could without saying another word to the man standing in the rain outside the car.

But she wouldn’t take the easy way out. She wasn’t that much of a coward. She lowered the window.

“Hi,” he said. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” She wasn’t really, of course. She was twenty dollars poorer than she’d been when she encountered him the first time. She wasn’t one foot closer to her destination. She’d lost four hours of driving time. It was dark and raining and getting foggy, and would continue to be that way for the next hundred miles or so, according to the weather forecaster on the local radio station. She was tired and discouraged, and she had to go to the bathroom. The last problem, a natural consequence of drinking an entire half-liter bottle of spring water and being seven months pregnant, loomed largest at the moment.

“You’re sure you’re okay?” He dropped onto his haunches in that infuriatingly graceful way men had, laid his arms along the open window and brought his face level with hers.

“I was a little sleepy, so I took a nap.”

“Is your bed at the hotel that lumpy?” She couldn’t see his smile but guessed it was there.

She was too uncomfortable and too embarrassed to be polite or equivocal. “I didn’t take a room at the hotel, after all. Thank you for being concerned about my welfare, but please don’t bother yourself anymore. I’m leaving town right now.”

“You’re not planning on driving in this weather.” It wasn’t a question, it was a statement. Tessa guessed the smile on his face had disappeared along with the one in his voice.

“I’ll be careful.”

“Careful might not be good enough.”

“Look. I don’t want to argue with you. You’ve been very kind and helpful today, but I really have to be on my way. My sister’s expecting me.”

“Not tonight, she isn’t.” His voice had taken on a hard edge, one she so far hadn’t heard before. He reached inside the open window, unlocked the door and got inside.

Her car wasn’t very big to begin with. Now it seemed even smaller with Mitch Sterling sitting beside her. Tessa forced herself not to shrink away. “Get out of my car.” She wasn’t afraid of him. Not really. But no woman with any sense let a strange man into her car. Even one who rode to her rescue in a police cruiser and came out in the rain to check on her.

“I will when you answer my questions.” He folded his arms across his chest. He was wearing a T-shirt and sweats, wet from the rain, and the play of muscles in his arms and across his chest was just visible in the dim light.

“Look. What I’m doing here is none of your business.”

“Maybe it isn’t, but Ethan Staver or another of Riverbend’s finest will be by any time, and they’ll make it their business.”

Tessa had no illusions at all that the grim-faced chief of police would even think twice about hauling her off to jail on a vagrancy charge. “Don’t threaten me.” She grabbed the door handle to get out of the car. But everything she owned in the world would still be inside with him, so she stayed put.

“I’m just trying to figure out what the hell you’re doing sleeping in your car when you could have a perfectly good hotel room.” He turned to lean against the door, and his face fell into even deeper shadow. Her face, she suspected, was perfectly visible to him.

She didn’t want to tell him she couldn’t afford a room at the hotel, but her bladder was screaming for attention. Suddenly she didn’t care if he knew the truth about her circumstances or not. “I can’t afford it,” she said bluntly. “I have less than two hundred dollars to my name. I’ve been driving all night and sleeping during the day in my car for almost a week now. I’m probably as close to a homeless person as you ever see here in Our Town, Indiana. There, are you satisfied? Now that you know all the details of my sordid little story, will you please get out of my car?”

“No.”

She laid her head on the steering wheel and fought tears of embarrassment and fatigue and discomfort. “Go away. Please. There’s nothing you can do. I have to find a bathroom, and then I’m leaving this place as fast as I can.”

“What?” He sounded bewildered and alarmed, no longer threatening.

“You heard me. I have to go to the bathroom. Don’t tell me you didn’t notice I’m pregnant. A lot pregnant. And pregnant women have to pee all the time.” She didn’t care how inelegant she sounded. She was desperate to be away from him. She sniffed, swallowing another lump of tears and looked around for the box of tissues she always kept on the seat. It was wedged half-under his thigh, the hard muscles covered only with a thin layer of cotton. She wouldn’t have reached for the tissues if her life had depended on it.

“Hell,” he said softly, not touching her with anything but the raspy warmth of his voice. He ran his hand through his hair, dislodging raindrops, which splashed on his broad shoulders. His hair was thick, she’d noticed earlier. Not too long or too short, and the same rich brown as his eyes. “Don’t cry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Well, you did,” she said defiantly. “Hand me my tissues, please.”

“What?”

“You’re sitting on my tissues.”

“Oh, sorry.” He looked where she was pointing and handed her the box.

“Thank you.” She took one and blew her nose.

“I’m not usually in the habit of bullying pregnant women.”

“Well, you’re doing a damned good job of it.” She took another tissue and dabbed at the corners of her eyes.

“My parents died in a car accident on a night like this,” he said quietly.

Now it was Tessa’s turn to feel like a jerk. “Oh, God. I’m sorry.” That explained a lot about his actions of the past few minutes.

“That’s why I’m not going to let you drive out of town tonight.”

Lord, but the man had a one-track mind. “Thank you for your concern, but—” She never got a chance to finish the sentence.

“I know a place you can stay for nothing.”

“I won’t—” She wasn’t reduced to the level of a women’s shelter yet. And she found it hard to believe there was such a place in a town this size.

“Yes, you will. There’s a dead bolt on the door. And a bathroom.” She could hear the smile return to his voice. “And it’s only a thirty-second drive from here. So you can, um, take care of that other need you have.”

“I can’t go home with you.”

“It’s not my home. It’s my boathouse. Come on. I meant what I said. I’m not letting you leave town tonight. You can come with me or you can spend the night in the Riverbend courthouse jail. It’s not nearly as nice as the boathouse.”

“I’ve never set foot in a jail in my life,” she said indignantly. The state of her bladder wasn’t going to allow her to continue this argument much longer. She opened her mouth to give it one last try, then closed it again.

He let the silence stretch out for a few seconds. “Good. Then it’s settled. I’ll get you the key and in less than five minutes you’ll be…” Mitch hesitated, and she could have sworn she saw his face darken in a blush, but of course, it was too dark to see any such thing. “Cozy as a bug in a rug,” he finished lamely.

Tessa sighed and turned the key in the ignition. The prospect of a clean bed and a chance to shower and wash her hair was irresistible. She would figure out some way to repay him later. But right now it looked as if she was going to spend the night in Riverbend whether she wanted to or not.

“DAD! WAKE UP!”

Mitch’s eyes shot open. Sam was standing a foot from his head. “Not so loud, tiger.” He made a tamping-down motion with his hand.

“Sorry, Dad.” Sam tried hard to keep his voice at a conversational level, the way he’d been taught by his therapists. But it wasn’t always an easy thing to do.

“What’s up?” Mitch signed, stifling a big yawn.

“There’s a car parked in front of the boathouse. A red car. With California license plates.” Sam didn’t bother signing. He had already bounded over to Mitch’s bedroom window to look down at the brown-shingled boathouse below. He looked back over his shoulder to see Mitch’s response to his news.

“I know. I let a lady stay in the boathouse last night.”

Sam’s blue eyes widened. “A lady? I didn’t know you knew any ladies.”

Mitch laughed and swung his feet over the side of the bed. He doubted if Sam’s Sunday-school teacher, or Lily Mazerik, or Ruth and Rachel Steele would appreciate his son’s last remark.

“Who is she?”

Sam had been doing homework when Mitch brought Tessa Masterson to the boathouse the night before. He hadn’t heard her car drive in, of course. Neither had Caleb, who was dozing in his favorite chair in front of the TV with the volume so loud he was as oblivious to outside noises as Sam.

“Her name is Tessa Masterson. What were you doing looking out the window at dawn?”

“I wanted to draw the boathouse.”

The answer surprised Mitch a little. “I figured you were checking to see how foggy it was.”

Sam grinned. “I was doing that, too. School’s going to start two hours late. Tyler Phillips sent me an e-mail already. Can I come to the store with you?”

“Sure, tiger.”

Sam looked out the window again. He was still in his pajamas, his blond hair sticking up in spikes all over his head. Mitch glanced at the bedside clock. It was a little before seven. He was due at the store in less than half an hour. He opened early, because contractors and farmers started work early. “Damn,” he muttered, heading for the shower. He’d overslept because he’d forgotten to set his alarm. And he’d forgotten to set it because he’d had three beers before going to bed in an attempt to keep his thoughts away from Tessa Masterson sleeping fifty feet away in the boathouse. It hadn’t worked.

“It’s a good thing you remembered to set your alarm or we’d be late for work.” Sam’s alarm clock was connected to his bedside lamp. When it went off, the lamp flashed. There was also a vibrator under the mattress that alerted him it was time to wake up.

“What’s she doing in our boathouse?” Sam wasn’t going to be diverted from the subject he was most interested in. And his curiosity had saved Mitch from the indignity of rushing over to his bedroom window to see if she’d gotten up before dawn and left town without a thank-you or a goodbye.

“She was lost and needed a place to stay so she didn’t have to drive in the fog.” Mitch thought that was as good an explanation as any for a curious ten-year-old.

“How’d you find her?” Sam was looking out the window again.

Mitch clapped his hands sharply, bringing his son’s head around. “I’ll tell you all about it at breakfast. Is Granddad Caleb up yet?”

“He’s still snoring.” Sam grinned. Oddly enough, Caleb’s snores were one of the things, like the clap of Mitch’s hands, that Sam could hear. Probably because of the vibrations. His son wasn’t totally deaf, but his impairment was serious and affected every aspect of his life.

Mitch had come as close as he could to getting over his guilt about the illness that had caused Sam’s handicap. He and Kara had taken him to the doctor at the first sign of the fever that had escalated into a life-threatening infection. The doctor had prescribed the most effective antibiotic to treat it. But nothing had worked. And no one could be blamed. But Sam’s life had been altered drastically, and and that fact had to be lived with. And worked around.

“I’m starved,” Sam said. “Let’s get breakfast or you’ll be late opening the store.”

“How come this sudden urge to be the fifth generation of Sterlings to run a hardware?” Mitch asked.

“No reason,” Sam replied, trying to look innocent and angelic and missing both by a hair.

“Come on—spill it,” Mitch demanded, sticking his head out of the bathroom so that Sam could read his lips. “What’s up?”

“I want a new basketball, and you won’t let me use my bequest to buy it.”

Sam wasn’t even close on bequest, but Mitch didn’t correct him. “We agreed the money was to be used for special things. A basketball—”

“—isn’t special. I know. But practice for fifth- and sixth-grade teams starts in two weeks. Tryouts are only a month away.”

“I thought you were going to wait until Christmas to get a new basketball.”

The glint in Sam’s eyes intensified. “I’m going to make the team this year. The first team, Dad. Coach Mazerik said I was a hundred percent improved from the beginning of summer. I know to keep my eyes on the other guys. And I can hear the whistle sometimes if the ref blows it loud enough.”

It was hard to take a stand against such determination. If Sam wanted to try out for the team, then Mitch would do everything he could to facilitate that. If his son made it, Mitch would cheer the loudest. If his son failed, he’d be there to pat him on the back and give him the encouragement he needed to try again the next year.

“Okay. It’s a deal. Now hop in the shower and then we’ll go invite our guest to breakfast.”

“You’d better tell Granddad about her first.”

“Good idea.” Mitch’s grandfather was as sharp as a tack and just about the most outspoken old coot in Riverbend. There was no telling what he’d say to Tessa if he thought he could get away with it. His nosiness was, in Caleb’s words, “just being neighborly.”

Mitch wanted his son and grandfather to make a good impression on Tessa Masterson. He knew it was foolish to care what she thought of the three of them, or what she thought of him. It wasn’t as if she was going to make Riverbend her home. In an hour, maybe two, she’d be gone from his life for good. And with any luck the allure she held for him would dissipate as quickly as the fog would burn away under the October sun.

TWO PAIRS OF EYES watched her intensely as she sipped her orange juice. One set was blue, friendly and unblinking. The other was brown, faded with age, and they studied her with wariness and reserve.

Mitch wasn’t watching her. He was standing and looking through the middle one of the boathouse’s three double-hung windows that faced out over the river. A couch and a reading chair sat at right angles to each other a few steps behind him. To his right was the tiny kitchenette where she sat. It had white metal cupboards, a round-shouldered refrigerator and a stove and sink, both as old as the refrigerator. Against the outside wall was an equally small bathroom, and directly across from it, in a small alcove, was the bed, separated from the living area by a curtain hanging from a wooden pole. Above the head of the bed was another window, which didn’t have a view of anything but Mitch’s woodpile.

“More toast, Miss Masterson?” Mitch’s grandfather asked politely. Caleb was a little stooped with the weight of his years, but in his youth he would have been as tall and broad-shouldered as his grandson. And as good-looking.

“More pancakes?” Sam added, watching his grandfather speak. Mitch’s son was a slender boy, as blond as his father was dark. His blue eyes were fringed with long, luxuriant lashes. And because his smile was infectious and he looked so anxious to please, she intended to eat every morsel of overdone pancake and leathery egg on her plate.

Twenty minutes earlier the Sterling men had arrived at the tiny apartment over the boathouse bearing a breakfast tray loaded with food.

“Good morning,” Mitch had said. “I’m glad we didn’t wake you, but my son and grandfather wanted to meet you before we left for the store.”

“I’ve been up for an hour,” she’d told him. That was true. She’d been awake long before dawn. Twice she’d almost gotten in her car and driven away into the foggy darkness. But she’d made herself stay. Mitch had been right last night, and driving would still have been dangerous. It was foolhardy to put herself and her baby in harm’s way for no better reason than to avoid seeing Mitch again.

He had stepped aside. “Tessa Masterson, I’d like you to meet my grandfather, Caleb.”

“It’s a pleasure, miss,” the old man had said with a dip of his head. “Welcome to Riverbend.” He’d held out the tray he carried. “We brought you some breakfast.”

“Thank you.” She’d stepped back so that he could enter the small apartment.

“Hope you were comfortable last night,” he’d continued. “Hasn’t been anyone staying in this place in a couple of years. Not since the last time my old army buddy from Florida visited. When was that, Mitch? Two, three years ago?”

“Three, I think.”

“Hi. I’m Sam.” Tessa had blinked at the forcefulness of the boy’s words.

Mitch laid a hand on his shoulder and squeezed a little.

Sam turned his head. “Too loud, Dad?”

“A little,” Mitch had responded, making gestures with his hands. Signing.

That was how Tessa had learned Mitch’s son was hearing-impaired.

Sam had chattered the entire time she was eating. She’d tried hard to follow what he said, but it was sometimes difficult. Certain words were slurred, others hard to recognize. But Sam didn’t seem discouraged by her apologies for not understanding. He’d repeated himself patiently, as though it was second nature.

“Did you live in California very long? Did you ever meet a movie star? Did you go to Disneyland?”

“No and no and no,” Tessa had replied, laughing. “I’m afraid not.”

“That’s okay. I’ve been to Disney World. That’s in Florida, not California,” Sam had told her. “It was great.”

He hadn’t commented on her pregnancy, although she’d caught him sneaking a peek or two at her tummy.

“Dad,” he said now, watching her finish the last of her pancake. “It’s time for the school updates. If they cancel school, I won’t have to take my books to the store. Come to the house with me and listen for me.”

His words were matter-of-fact, without an ounce of self-pity, but Tessa thought Mitch’s eyes darkened a fraction, as though some old familiar sadness had stirred to life inside him.

“I’ll be along in a minute,” Mitch promised Sam.

“Take your time, son. I’ll go along with the young one.” Caleb held out his hand to Tessa. “It was a pleasure meeting you, young lady,” he said courteously.

“Thank you,” she said, and meant it. “And thank you for the lovely breakfast. I…I wish I could repay you somehow.”

“No payment necessary. It was the neighborly thing to do. When I was a boy, my mother always had a meal or a dry place to sleep for a soul in need.” He picked up the tray and moved a little stiffly toward the door. “Have a safe journey, miss.”

“Thank you.”

“Glad me and mine could be of help.”

“Granddad!” Sam hollered from somewhere outside.

“That boy’s got no patience, just like his ma,” Caleb muttered as he left.

She was alone with Mitch. He was still standing in the same place, but he’d turned his back to the windows. Behind him she could see ghostly shapes of trees beyond the river. The fog was beginning to lift. It was going to be a lovely autumn day.

“Thanks for being so patient with Sam.”

“No, you thank him for being so patient with me.”

“Sam forgets strangers sometimes have trouble understanding his speech. His world is still small enough that, thankfully, it hasn’t been a big problem yet.”

“Do you all know sign language?” She shouldn’t be having this conversation. She shouldn’t be giving in to the urge to learn more about him. She should be shaking his hand and picking up her backpack, then climbing into her car and driving out of town.

“Some of his friends are learning a few words and phrases. It’s not just a translation of English words into ASL—American Sign Language—like most hearing people think. It’s a complete language, with French derivation. The sentences are constructed differently from English. It’s confusing sometimes. He’s in regular classes at school, and none of his teachers have had the time to learn sign. His speech therapist uses it. Granddad and I sign with him, but mostly we encourage him to read lips. Actually, it’s something of a controversy in the deaf world. To sign or to speak.”

“I wasn’t aware of that.”

He raked his hand through his hair and turned back to the windows for a moment. “It’s probably more than you wanted to know.”

“I’m not that shallow,” she defended herself, and was again surprised how much his good opinion of her mattered. “I just haven’t had much contact with hearing-impaired people. And none with hearing-impaired children.” She smoothed a hand over her stomach. “Was Sam born with his handicap?”

Mirch had turned back in time to see her instinctive protective gesture, and he raised his eyes to hers. “It’s the result of an illness when he was two. It was just one of those things that happen from time to time. No one’s fault.”

“He seems happy and well-adjusted. You and his mother must be very proud of him.”

“I’m divorced. His mother hasn’t seen him in sixteen months.”

“Oh. I…I’m sorry.” Now she really had to go. They were moving into personal territory. She was a private person. She didn’t talk like this to strangers. He seemed uncomfortable, too.

“And you don’t want to hear about that, either. Look, I’m keeping you from being on your way. The fog will be gone in an hour. It’s probably already lifted east of town. I have to get the store opened. My manager quit to take a job with one of the big chain hardwares. I’ve got to interview a couple of temp workers today.” He’d channeled the subject away from Sam’s mother with deliberate intent. The hard set of his face told her no questions about his ex-wife would be welcome.

“I worked in one of those stores for four and a half years,” Tessa said.

“You did?”

“Uh-huh. While I worked my way through college. I’m a history major. I…I would have graduated in the spring.” But now in the spring she would be taking care of her baby and trying to find a job and some sort of day care. Day care. Leaving her baby with strangers. The thought squeezed her heart.

“I would never have pegged you for a history major.” Mitch shoved his hands in the front pockets of his khakis and took a step toward her. He seemed to fill the small room, and Tessa fought against the impulse to take a matching step backward.

“Twentieth-century history,” she responded. “I had visions of getting my master’s and teaching. High school, maybe junior college. But—” She shut her mouth with a snap. There she was, confiding in him again! “But now I have my baby to think about, and making a home for the two of us comes ahead of getting my degree.”

“What about the baby’s father?”

“I don’t know how dependable he’s going to be. So I’m not going to depend on him at all.” Her chin came up a little and she looked him square in the eye. Somehow she couldn’t envision any woman ever having to admit that about Mitch.

“How about a job?” Mitch surprised her by asking, one corner of his mouth turning up in a rueful grin. “A temporary job at Sterling Hardware and Building Supply.”

“What?”

“I was going to pay the temp service eleven bucks an hour so they could give some poor guy seven and a half. I’ll give you the same. Eleven, I mean. Not seven-fifty.”

Almost five hundred dollars a week. She needed the money badly. But staying in Riverbend, even a couple of weeks, wasn’t part of her new life plan. A plan as carefully worked out as she could make it. Nothing left to chance. No impulsive decisions. No acting on her instincts, which had proved so wrong, ever again. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t possibly.”

“Sure you could. What department did you work in at your old job? Paint and wallpaper?”

“I was the assistant manager,” she said a little sharply. “And I was the head of plumbing and electrical before that.”

“Sorry, sexist remark,” Mitch said with a grin guaranteed to melt a harder heart than hers. “I ought to know better. My grandmother and mother both knew more about the hardware business than I ever will. What do you say? It would help us both out. The son of a friend of mine, Mel Holloway, is getting out of the army just before Thanksgiving. I promised to give him an interview if the job’s still open. I’d like to help the kid out. We need new blood in town. But until then I’m strapped. What do you say? It’d give you a little nest egg for your baby. And get me out of a bind.”

“I don’t have a place to stay.”

“You can stay right here in the boathouse. The place is winterized. It’s small, but it’s got everything you need.” She was tempted. Oh, so tempted. A few more weeks of independence, of not having to disrupt her sister Callie’s household and routines. Of not being beholden to anyone. She was in danger of acting on impulse again. She’d heeded just such an overwhelming urge when she followed Brian to California. And look where that had gotten her.

“I can’t. I have to get to my sister’s. I have to find an obstetrician. I have to establish residence.” So she could go on welfare. The words hung there unspoken between them. She felt her face grow warm. “It just wouldn’t work out.”

“Dad!” Sam’s shout from the driveway cut through the tension in the little room. “It’s time to go.”

“I have to leave.” Mitch came a little closer. “You’re welcome to stay here as long as you want. But promise me you won’t go before the fog lifts.”

“I promise.”

“Drive safely, Tessa.”

He held out his hand. For a wild moment she hoped he would try again to talk her into staying and taking the job in his store. But he didn’t say anything more. He just stood there waiting, with his hand out.

She took it. “Thank you for everything, Mitch. Goodbye.”




CHAPTER FOUR


FOR THE PAST HALF HOUR Harvey Medford had been debating the pros and cons of buying a new lawn mower now, while Mitch had them at rock-bottom prices, or waiting until spring, when he really needed one.

“My old one probably has a good couple of Saturday afternoons left in her,” he said, taking off his green John Deere cap to scratch his bald head. “It’s already coming on to the middle of October. Supposed to get a hard frost end of the week. Probably won’t have to mow again at all this year.”

“Might not,” Mitch agreed, laying both hands on the big lawn tractor, leaning his full weight on the sturdy housing, a gesture not lost on his potential customer. “Then again, it might stay warm for another couple weeks. You never can tell about the weather this time of year. Grass will grow some with this rain we’re getting.”

“You’re right there.” Harvey continued to ruminate, running gnarled fingers over the two-day stubble on his chin. He moved his cud of chewing tobacco from one cheek to the other, and Mitch couldn’t help but think how much the old man looked like one of his prize milk cows.

“You got nearly two acres all told to mow, Harvey. You won’t get this good a deal on next year’s model in the spring.” Mitch didn’t let the slightest hint of impatience show in his voice or on his face. Dickering a little was part of the ritual of buying from the hometown merchants. If Harvey had wanted to plunk down cash for a lawn tractor without any conversation to go with it, he’d have gone to one of the big chain stores.

“I’ll tell you what, Harvey. It’s worth another twenty-five dollars to me not to have to store this baby over the winter. I’ll give you as good a deal as you’ll get anywhere on the snowplow attachment. And if it does up and freeze next week, you can run her over the yard and chop up the leaves so they blow over onto Roger Nickels’s place.”

Harvey’s rheumy blue eyes shone with a wicked light. He and his neighbor hadn’t spoken a civil word to each other since Mitch was in grade school. No one in town remembered what had caused the falling-out. Maybe not even Roger and Harvey. No one knew or cared anymore. But they respected the old codgers’ right to carry on their feud. “You got a deal,” Harvey said, then held out his hand. “Darned if you don’t drive near as hard a bargain as your granddad.”

“Who do you think taught him what he knows?” Caleb said, coming up to them. “I’ll write up the bill for Harvey’s mower, Mitch. There’s someone wants to talk to you in the office.”

“Thanks, Granddad.” Probably another salesman, although Mitch didn’t remember having any on his appointment schedule for this morning. He really had to get some more help. Too many things like this were falling through the cracks since Larry had quit.

His office was in the oldest part of the building. It was situated at the top of a flight of stairs, open to a view of the sales area below. The walls were bare brick, the ceiling beaten tin in a wheat-and-sheaves pattern that was worth its weight in gold these days. It was still up there on the ceiling, but not because his granddad or his father, or even Mitch himself, had known there was going to be a revival of such things. It was there because when times were bad, remodeling the office was the last place to spend scarce capital. And when business was good, like now, there wasn’t time.

Mitch took the stairs two at a time and looked over the half wall, expecting to see a copper-tubing salesman or the guy who sold the new brand of tools. Both were due to call in the next week or so. Mitch figured they’d just gotten into town ahead of schedule.

But the figure seated in the chair beside his desk wasn’t a salesman. It wasn’t a man at all. It was a woman. A pregnant woman.

Tessa Masterson rose to greet him. “Hi,” she said with that smile of hers, half shy little girl, half siren. The image had stuck in his mind like a burr since yesterday.

“I thought you’d be halfway to Ohio by now.” He didn’t smile back. He’d spent the last three hours attempting to forget he’d ever seen that smile or the woman who wore it.

He’d taken Sam to school the long way around when the fog lifted. He’d been determined to eat lunch at the Sunnyside Café and not go home to let the dog out, in case she was still there. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t set foot in the boathouse until her scent had dissipated and the imprint of her head on the pillow was gone.

Her smile faded as she regarded him. She tugged nervously at the hem of the fuzzy sweater she wore over her denim jumper. Today her blouse was lime green. A bright cheerful color, he supposed. But somehow it only served to underscore the paleness of her skin and the dark bruiselike smudges of fatigue that shadowed her blue eyes.

“I came to see if the offer of a job is still open,” she said.

“I still need help,” Mitch admitted. “That hasn’t changed since this morning. But since you’re here, I’m figuring you’ve changed your mind about taking it. Why?”

“It’s a woman’s prerogative, changing her mind.” He walked to his desk and rounded it, facing her across the cluttered expanse of scarred walnut. “Not in this day and age.”

“You’re right.” She took a quick little breath and spoke in a rush, as though she was afraid she’d lose her nerve. “I wanted to say yes this morning, but I needed to consider my options.”

“You weren’t prepared to act on impulse.”

Her chin rose a little and her eyes narrowed. Then she nodded. “Exactly.”

“I can understand that.” He motioned for her to take a seat. She lowered herself carefully into the chair. She wasn’t clumsy in her pregnancy, but neither had Kara been until the end. He wondered exactly how pregnant Tessa Masterson was.

“I’ve learned the hard way not to walk into a situation without both eyes wide open,” she said, and he thought he heard sadness, laced with an undercurrent of resignation, in her voice. She looked past him for a moment, as though his scrutiny had made her uncomfortable. He didn’t fool himself that she was looking at the Riverbend Farmers’ Co-op calendar hanging on the wall behind him.

He waited for her to go on. It was quiet in the office area. Linda Christman, the bookkeeper, had gone to lunch. His granddad was still chewing the fat with Harvey. Someone was loading lumber out in the yard. He could hear Bill Webber’s amplified voice calling for the yard boy to bring up the forklift. But Tessa took her time, ordering her thoughts, or gathering her courage, or both.

“I had every intention of leaving town this morning. But as I said, circumstances have changed. I called my sister from the phone booth in front of the courthouse. My nieces have been exposed to chicken pox. I’ve never had chicken pox.” She was looking at him again, not past him, and he didn’t have to guess about the emotion in her cornflower-blue eyes. It was plain to read. Fear. Not for herself but for her unborn child. “I can’t take the chance of catching it from the girls and risk harming my baby.”

Mitch nodded his agreement.

“I would have to find someplace to stay if I go on to Albany. I need money badly. Another job like this one isn’t going to fall into my lap.” She gave him another little half smile. “Not that I have much of a lap left these days.”

He liked that about her, too. Her determination to see the lighter side of things.

“So you decided to stick around Riverbend as an informed choice and not on impulse. I’d probably do the same thing if I were in your shoes.”

“I can’t promise you how long I’ll stay. My baby’s due the middle of December. I need to be settled in Albany and to have found an obstetrician before then.”

“What will you do about prenatal care while you’re here?”

“I have my medical records with me. I saw my old doctor just a week ago. I’m healthy. But…”

“One of the docs at the hospital is a friend of mine. I’ll give her a call and set you up with an appointment.”

Her lips tightened almost imperceptibly, and her eyes sparkled with challenge. For a moment he thought she’d refuse his offer. But in the end she swallowed her pride. “Thank you. Does that mean I get the job?”

“I’m as desperate as you are, Tessa. I’m making an informed choice, too. Yes, the job’s yours for as long as you care to stay. The apartment above the boathouse, too. Just like I told you this morning.”

“I won’t stay there for nothing. I’ll pay fair rent. Is a hundred dollars a week enough?”

Mitch snorted. He couldn’t help himself. For a moment the fear was back in her eyes and he was immediately sorry. She probably figured he was going to ask for more. “This isn’t California. Three-bedroom houses might rent for a hundred dollars a week in these parts, but not the boathouse. I’ll tell you what. I can’t offer you any benefits. My insurance carrier won’t cover you until you’ve worked here for six months. And they won’t cover your pregnancy even then.”

“I understand that.”

“Consider the use of the apartment the only fringe benefit I can offer.”

“I—”

“Take it or leave it.”

Once more she surprised him, this time by not arguing. “I’ll take it. Providing I can start work as soon as possible.”

“First thing tomorrow.” Mitch stood up. She did, too, and he motioned with his hand for her to precede him down the stairs.

She stayed put. “I want to start today. Now. Or the deal’s off.”

“You drive a hard bargain.” He didn’t want to push her any further, or she might bolt and run. She was going to be staying in Riverbend for at least a couple of weeks. He felt like a kid who had made a wish on a star and had it come true.

The only thing he had to remember now was not to get too close to that star, or he might find himself blinded by the brightness.

“SHE’S GOING to be staying in the boathouse,” Caleb told Sam as they were setting the table for supper. He stopped putting down forks and spoons so that Sam could watch his lips. “She’s going to work at the hardware for a couple of weeks.”

“To help you and Dad.”

“That’s the idea.” His great-grandfather’s lips were pulled into a tight line. That meant he wasn’t happy.

“It’s hard working at the store,” Sam said. “She’s going to have a baby. Should she be doing that work?” He’d noticed she was pregnant right away. It was pretty hard to miss.

“Having a baby is a natural thing. As long as we don’t let her lift anything too heavy, she’ll be okay.”

“Where’s her husband?” Sam set a glass of water by Caleb’s plate. He didn’t sign much with his great-grandfather. Caleb’s arthritis was too bad.

“I don’t know she has one.”

“Why not?” The pregnant ladies he knew in Riverbend had husbands.

“Haven’t got the foggiest notion why not.” The old man shook his head and frowned. “The world’s changing fast. In my day a pregnant woman didn’t go gallivanting around the country by herself. She stayed home and let her husband take care of her. Women don’t think they need husbands to raise kids these days, more’s the pity.”

Sam couldn’t catch all the words. Caleb liked to ramble on to himself, and he didn’t always remember to look at Sam while he did it. Granddad Caleb was losing his hearing, too. Pretty soon, he said, he and Sam would be in the same boat.

Except Granddad Caleb had been able to hear things all his life. He didn’t have to guess what a bird singing sounded like. He didn’t have to wear a hearing aid and use an augmenter in class and feel like a geek.

“She’s pretty,” Sam said. “Her hair’s the same color as Mom’s.”

“She doesn’t look anything like your mother.” Caleb rounded on him with narrowed eyes. With his big nose and white hair, he looked just like an eagle when he did that.

“I know. Mom’s shorter than her. And skinnier.”

“Yeah, I guess she does have the same color hair now that I think on it. But that’s all they’ve got in common, I hope.” Caleb turned away as he said the last words so that Sam wouldn’t see him. But he was too slow. Granddad Caleb didn’t like Sam’s mom. He’d never said so out loud, but Sam knew. He couldn’t hear everything people said, but he was pretty good at figuring out what they didn’t say.

“I hope she stays awhile. If she helps out at the store, maybe you and Dad won’t be so busy all the time.” He was worried that if he made the basketball team this year, his dad would always be working and never be able to get to the after-school games.

“It would be nice to slow down a bit. But your dad up and hiring a woman practically off the street isn’t my idea of the way to go about it. I don’t see any good coming of this.” Caleb saw him watching his lips and abruptly stopped talking. He motioned to the refrigerator. Sam took his cue and went to get the sliced ham and homemade baked beans that Granddad Caleb’s friends Ruth and Rachel Steele had brought over for them two days ago. They’d also brought an apple pie. But that hadn’t lasted long.

“Do you suppose she knows how to bake apple pies?”

Caleb shrugged, looking at the clock. “Danged if I know. Probably not. Women these days don’t like to cook no better’n men.”

“Dad’s a good cook.”

“By necessity, not temperament.”

Sam wasn’t sure what his great-grandfather was talking about. “What’s temperament mean?” He tried hard, but he knew he didn’t get it right. Sam sighed. Another word to add to his practice list with his therapist.

“I’ll explain later. Let’s eat. It’s been a long time since I had my lunch.”

“Do you suppose the lady in the boathouse has anything to eat for supper?” He’d seen her red car drive in a little while ago. He could see lights in the boathouse from the kitchen window.

“I reckon she got herself all this way from California, she can find her way to the grocery and buy some food.”

“And milk for her baby. I know that women who are going to have babies are supposed to drink a lot of milk so their babies are big and strong.”

“Who told you that?”

“Tara Webber’s stepmom had a baby last spring, remember? She told me.”

A lot of his friends’ moms were having babies. He wouldn’t mind a baby brother or sister himself. Except his mom didn’t live with them anymore. He could hardly remember when she had. She’d moved to Chicago so long ago. Chicago wasn’t all that far away. He’d looked it up on the map once. But she hadn’t been back to Riverbend since a year ago last Fourth of July. She hadn’t even called him on the phone for weeks and weeks. Not even since he’d got his own phone. The one with the special earphones so that he could really hear her voice.

She didn’t have a computer, so he couldn’t e-mail her. She said she’d get one if his dad sent her the money. She said she couldn’t afford to buy one on her own, and she wasn’t allowed to e-mail him from work. Sam wanted to believe her. But the truth was, his dad did send her money, and she always had something else to spend it on.

He was almost getting used to it—his mom not doing what she said she was going to do didn’t hurt so much anymore. Most of the time. But it would be nice to have a mom again. If he couldn’t have his own mom come back to live with them, maybe his dad could find another woman to be his mom.

Sam bent his head and pretended to study the piece of ham on his plate. Only he really wasn’t checking out the fat on the edge of his ham slice. He was thinking. Thinking real hard.

His dad must like the lady in the boathouse. If he liked her some, maybe he could learn to like her a lot. And if he liked her a lot…well, wasn’t that how grown-ups sometimes fell in love?

When Sam’s mom had first left, he hadn’t wanted his dad to have any girlfriends. He figured if his dad had a girlfriend, then his mom would never come back. But as a guy got older he saw things differently. In January he would be eleven. Practically a teenager. Almost a grown-up. He could share his dad now. With the right woman. Maybe Tessa was the right woman.

She didn’t have a husband, as far as Sam could tell.

And she was already going to have a baby.

That was good, too.

Once, just before his mom left, he’d come into the room while she was arguing with his dad. Her face was all red and scrunched up like it got when she was going to cry. His dad had seen him and tried to make her be quiet, but she wouldn’t. Sam was getting pretty good at reading lips by then, and he’d seen what she was saying before she figured out he was there. Sam had never forgotten that one sentence. She’d said, No more babies, Mitch. No more babies like Sam.

But Tessa’s baby wouldn’t be like him. Her baby would be able to hear.

Tessa didn’t have a husband. His dad didn’t have a wife. And Sam didn’t have a mom, or a baby brother or sister. If he could get his dad and Tessa together, he’d have everything he needed to make a family again.




CHAPTER FIVE


“I DON’T KNOW, Ruth. I can’t decide whether I want stripes or a floral pattern in the bathroom. I wish you’d tell me which you like best.”

“I don’t think stripes will work, Rachel,” said Rachel’s twin sister in a tone of long suffering. “The house is as old as we are and the walls aren’t all that straight.” The two women sat surrounded by sample books at the old-fashioned oak library table in the middle of the hardware store.

Rachel pursed her pink lips. “But this one is so pretty.”

Everything about the two old ladies, Tessa had noticed, was pink and white. From the tops of their curly white heads to the tips of their toes.

Rachel Steele—they’d introduced themselves the moment Tessa walked up to ask them if she could be of help—was dressed in a pink sweat suit, with colored bands of rose and mauve on the sleeves. Ruth wore a raspberry sweatshirt and matching sweatpants. Both were wearing identical pairs of pristine white tennis shoes. They were small and plump and looked like two pieces of candy that had somehow found their way out of their gilded box and into the wallpaper-and-paint department of Sterling Hardware and Building Supply.

“Rachel. Ruth.” Caleb looked over the waist-high wall that blocked off the view of the office on the upper floor. “Good morning, ladies.”

“Good morning, Caleb.” Rachel glanced up from the sample book, the frown that had marred her face disappearing in a smile that deepened myriad tiny wrinkles around her mouth and eyes. “The search goes on. I’m almost in despair of ever finding the right wallpaper pattern for my bathroom.”

“The paper on the walls now is just fine,” her sibling insisted. “We’ve got better things to do this morning.”

“You always say that. I’m determined this time to find just the right paper.”

“Perhaps a floral stripe?” Tessa suggested, pulling sample books from the shelves. She’d told Mitch the day he hired her that she didn’t intend to spend her time in paint-and-wallpaper, but that’s where she’d ended up.

Working for Mitch, she was finding, wasn’t the same as working at Home-Mart, because Mitch’s hardware store was different, and so were his customers. Some of them had been coming to Sterling’s since long before he was born, she suspected. Many of them were friends and contemporaries of Caleb’s, like the ladies she was helping at the moment, and probably of Mitch’s late parents’. The men smiled politely, tipped their feed-company hats and headed for Mitch or Caleb for their electrical and plumbing needs, or sought out Bill Webber in the lumberyard.

The women did the same if they were buying hardware. But if they were looking for paint or wallpaper, they brought their questions to her. Riverbend was a traditional place, she was coming to learn. And one of the traditional things about it was the unwritten rule that men didn’t like to look at wallpaper books or paint-chip cards. Even men whose business it was to know about such things.




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