Daddy in the Making

by Crystal Green

  Her and Conn, in his truck, making out...

  She wasn’t sure how it had come to this, but when he touched her belly, as if in another question, everything that had gotten her to this point zoomed back.

  Kevin had kissed her like this once... Kevin had left her, just as Conn once had...

  She slid off Conn’s lap, raising a hand to her hair, as if it were the most important thing ever for her to make it neat and tidy again. It had slipped from her barrette in a frenzy of curls, and that’s not how she’d intended for it to be at the beginning of the night.

  It needed to be kept back, controlled.

  As if knowing that anything he said would be the wrong thing, Conn kept silent, settling into his seat to watch the movie.

  Even as Rita tried like hell to get herself back together, she thought she saw a slight smile on his mouth. Instinctively, she almost smiled, too, until she realized that it was the last thing she should be doing.

  * * *

  Slowly but surely, Conn thought as he walked by Rita’s side to his family’s front door a few days later on Thanksgiving.

  At the drive-in, he’d believed that matters with Rita were going straight to hell after that kiss. Their casual night had gotten a little out of hand. He hadn’t intended to put any moves on her, but much to his shock, she was the one who’d started kissing him.

  And he couldn’t have been happier, because day by day, he was surer than ever that he had fallen for Rita on the night they had first met. She had been the one woman who could settle him down, and he had wanted to come back to her for more.

  Yup, progress was being made, even if she had kept telling him over the phone these past few days that she was busy with the hotel and had no time for more drive-in movies or meals.

  But she was here with him now, on his family’s ranch, wasn’t she?

  So was Kristy, and she scrambled up the steps to the door before either Conn or Rita could get there.

  “Beat you!” she said, her curls held back by pink ribbons that matched her skirt set.

  “We’re not far behind,” Rita said. She had followed his advice and donned a light, loose black sweater that ended well past her hips, plus a gray cotton skirt. Both hid her baby bump, although the outfit was probably too warm for the sunny day. Her hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail, pinned by a silver clip, and he wondered when she would let down her curls with him again.

  His stomach tightened, just at the notion.

  Conn waited for Rita to climb the steps ahead of him, then went to the door.

  Kristy peered in one of the long, beveled glass side windows, curious as a monkey.

  “Now don’t let my nephews roughhouse with you,” he said to her before he opened the door to go inside.

  She gave him a saucy glance. “I’m tough. Tommy Griffin tripped me at school once and he didn’t even hurt me.”

  “Tommy did what?” Rita asked.

  Kristy made an exaggerated shrug. “I’m tough.”

  Conn stifled a chuckle, then looked at Rita. She was biting her lip, too, to keep from laughing out loud.

  He bent and gave Kristy a tiny chuck under the chin. “You’re as tough as your mom, aren’t you?”

  Rita said, “It’s in the genes.”

  With a wink at Kristy, then a smile at her mom, he opened the door, indicating that the ladies should go in first. He heard Rita take a deep breath as she walked on by.

  “No pressure,” he said quietly.

  She grinned, just as his mom came around the corner from the hallway.

  “I thought I heard a ruckus!”

  Conn greeted her with a hug and was just about to introduce Rita when Mom laid eyes on Kristy.

  “Oh, my,” she said, hand to her apron-covered heart. “Aren’t you a sweetheart?”

  Kristy, who seemed to be used to the praise, smiled and shuffled her Mary Janes.

  “What’s your name?” Mom asked.

  “Kristy Niles.”

  “I could just eat you with a spoon!”

  “Mom,” Conn said. “This is her mother, Rita.”

  His mom came forward to give Rita a hug, but she didn’t crush her bones as she tended to with her sons.

  “We’ve heard a little about you, Rita,” she said after she’d pulled back from their guest. “You’re the reason Conn went back to St. Valentine.”

  “Conn stayed in my hotel,” she said. “That’s why he remembered me.”

  They had agreed on a cover story, and they would save the more colorful details for a later time, when she couldn’t hide the pregnancy any longer. Of course, Conn had told Emmet not to leak the tawdry details of Conn spending a night with Rita to Mom and the rest of the family, and it looked as if Big Mouth had actually kept his word.

  Conn added, “Rita and I became friends when I went to St. Valentine to investigate. She’s been really helpful in trying to help me trigger memories there, and when I heard her family was out of town, I asked her and Kristy here.”

  “As you well should’ve.” Mom’s full cheeks were flushed, probably from the kitchen. But she looked sort of joyful, too, and Conn realized that Rita might’ve been the first woman he had ever brought home.

  Hell, Mom might as well get used to it...and more with the baby on the way.

  Mom linked arms with Rita and led Kristy toward the back of the spacious house, where everyone else would be. “We’ve got a playroom for the little ones. The twins and Jacob are already in there. I’m sure Kristy would love to meet them.”

  “When Conn told her about the littlest one, she couldn’t stop talking about him the whole way here,” Rita said. “She’s good with younger children at the preschool.”

  The women chatted as Conn followed them down the hallway, with all its family photos on the walls. Apparently he had always been camera-shy, and Emmet had told him that he’d once gone through the collection and pulled all the pictures with him in them, hiding them somewhere on the ranch, much to Mom’s ire.

  Rita seemed to be surveying the walls for a peek at him, but she was out of luck.

  They got to the playroom, which used to be Dad’s ranch office until he’d passed on and Bradon had remodeled a room in his own cabin and taken over desk duties. Now this airy space held a big plastic slide and playground set, plus toys scattered all over the carpet.

  Ned and Nate looked up when Kristy entered while, in the corner, Jacob sat down hard on his butt, a plush turtle in hand.

  Kristy headed straight for Jacob, who widened his eyes and smiled with drool-drenched enthusiasm at the sight of her.

  In another corner, Conn’s sisters-in-law had drinks in hand—wine for Trixie and lemonade for Hayley—as they sat in overstuffed chairs. The women greeted them from across the room, then fixed curious gazes on Rita.

  Mom made introductions all around, and while she went to give hugs to her grandsons, Conn sidled up to Rita.

  “Overwhelmed yet?”

  “Not hardly.”

  “Because I already told you what comes next.”

  “Kitchen duty for you.”

  Although Mom had already let him know that Trixie and Hayley had brought a few side dishes from their own kitchens this year to give Conn a break, cooking most of the food was a job he usually took on with relish. Or so they said.

  “You go on ahead and take care of it,” Rita said. “I’ll hang out here and gab with the ladies. I’d like to watch and see how Kristy’s doing before I leave her alone, anyway.”

  “You sure?”

  “I’ll be in the kitchen hovering over you before you know it.”

  She was so confident, and why not? The woman had been running a business since she was in her early twenties. She knew how to get along with people.

  He didn’t want to crowd her, so he went off to the kitchen, where everything he needed had already been laid out for him on the island in the middle of the bright, window-edged room.

  The aroma of the turkey in the oven poked at a memory, but it
didn’t come to Conn just yet. It was weird how all the details seemed so striking to him, though: the copper rooster clock, the bluebonnet-print curtains, the iron pots hanging over the island.

  On any other normal Thanksgiving, he would’ve been in here, merely taking time off from tagging and feeding calves and weighing bull calves, but not today.

  Now he was wrangling a woman.

  Every time he went to sleep these days, a little more of the brief affair with Rita would return to him. And every flash would fill him with a happiness that he knew he’d never felt before—an emotion that had made him want to stay, holding her, smelling her hair, getting every bit of her inside of him that he could.

  Nobody had to tell him what the old Conn might’ve done in this situation he’d found himself in. But he wasn’t the old Conn.

  He wasn’t even sure he liked him all that much.

  Behind him, he heard movement, and he turned to find his mom entering.

  “You feeling all right?” she asked, her Flannigan blue eyes tinted with concern.

  Conn grinned, and the instant he did, he could tell that Mom was used to being assuaged by the gesture. Not convinced, necessarily, but consoled.

  Picking up a potato peeler, he started to go at a sweet potato he’d already washed. The peels fell into the sink. “I’m feeling fine. Better and better, as a matter of fact.”

  Emmet’s voice sounded from behind them. “Mom, you know that pot rustlers like Conn need their peace while they’re cooking.”

  At the nickname for a chuck-wagon cook, Conn tossed his older brother a sarcastic glance, and Emmet grabbed a carrot stick from the island cutting board, munching on it and grinning. His brothers never let up on the teasing about his talent for cooking, calling him every quaint nickname from a biscuit shooter to a bean master. All Conn could say for sure was that he’d been comfortable in the kitchen when he’d come home from the hospital, his cooking skills intact even if parts of his brain weren’t.

  He went back to peeling. “I sense a varmint in the kitchen.”

  “Just grabbing some football snacks,” Emmet said.

  Mom said, “I want you to meet Rita. She’s in the playroom.”

  “I’ve met her. Kind of.”

  “No, you didn’t,” Conn said.

  “I’ll do it at halftime.” Emmet was already scramming. “Bradon and Dillon will come with me.”

  “No,” Mom said. “They’re greeting our guest now. They know how to be gentlemen, just as I raised you to be.”

  Mom went to the oven to check on the turkey. Meanwhile, Emmet had already moved on, muttering about missing even five minutes of the game, then pausing by a window to peer out of it.

  There was something about the smell of turkey, something about the way Emmet was standing by the window that—

  A flash came to Conn. Emmet looking out a window in the family room, then smiling as a pair of headlights washed over him. She’s here, he’d said, turning around to the rest of them. In his hand, he held a diamond ring as if it were the most fragile thing in the world. Don’t even hint to her about anything, got it?

  He’d been uncharacteristically nervous, unbelievably excited about the woman he loved pulling into the driveway on another Thanksgiving, long before Conn had gotten in the accident and lost his memory....

  Emmet saw the expression on Conn’s face. “You look like you saw a ghost.”

  The smell of turkey, a diamond ring...

  “I remembered you on another Thanksgiving,” Conn said. “You had a ring and—”

  Emmet held up a hand. “Yeah. The Great Thanksgiving Debacle. I was sort of hoping everyone would ultimately forget that year.”

  Although Emmet looked relieved that another piece of Conn’s past had clicked into place, he also seemed a little heartbroken. Then again, the impression was gone before Conn could even be sure.

  Emmet shrugged. “Sarah Humphries. Senior year in college, visiting me on her way to her own family’s Thanksgiving. To make a long story short, she said no.” He nodded in the direction of the front porch, where there was a swing that would be perfect for a marriage proposal. “‘We’re too young,’ she said, and she was right. It’s no big deal, though.”

  But as Emmet took up a bowl of chips and left the room, Conn wasn’t so sure.

  Even worse, he felt like half a person, because he didn’t remember this seemingly big event in Emmet’s life. Actually, he was just getting to know this brother—and the others—all over again.

  Someday he was going to sit Emmet down for a beer and he was going to ask him about Sarah Humphries, not because it might jar a memory, but because he just wanted to be a brother again.

  Would things ever be the same, though? Or would he always be experiencing his family’s lives—and his own—through secondhand stories?

  He continued peeling that potato, watching the skin fall away, as scattered as all his lost memories.

  Chapter Nine

  It hadn’t taken long for Conn’s sisters-in-law to invite Rita to sit with them in the playroom. Instead of Trixie’s wine or Hayley’s lemonade, Rita opted for a bottle of water from a minifridge near the window that overlooked an expansive lawn that seemed to disappear into a sea of windblown green.

  “So Conn brought a girl home,” said Trixie, who was married to Conn’s oldest—and biggest—brother, Bradon. She had long, wavy deep red hair and clover-green eyes with a sprinkle of freckles over her pale skin.

  Hayley, Dillon’s wife, handed Rita her water as she sat down, her short, light blond hair brushing her jawline. “You have to understand what a remarkable occasion this is.”

  “He’s told me all about his playboy days,” Rita said. “But that doesn’t matter much to me. We’re just friends.”

  The other women traded “uh-huh” glances.

  “No, really.” Rita unscrewed the top of her water bottle. “I think he took pity on me and Kristy because we were going to spend Thanksgiving by ourselves.”

  Hayley took a long look at Rita’s water, then her stomach. She put her own glass of lemonade on the low table in front of them, smiling almost secretively.

  Feeling somehow discovered, Rita pulled her sweater away from her tummy. Had Hayley seen a telltale bulge?

  Just then, Jacob started yelling at one of the twins.

  “What’s going on, Jake?” Hayley asked.

  “Toy-tulle!”

  The older boy gave the stuffed turtle back to Jacob and said he was sorry to his aunt, then his cousin. Kristy, like a little mommy, protectively led the two-year-old away from the bigger kids and back toward a pile of plush animals, where she and her new charge had been playing Zoo.

  “Got to love kid drama,” Trixie said, sipping her wine.

  “Best entertainment ever,” Hayley added.

  Rita lost track of time, failing to check in with Conn while he was cooking, because Trixie and Hayley wanted to mom-talk about the highs and lows of raising children—subjects such as the true value of using time-outs as punishment and what sort of preschools were the right kind.

  When Conn came into the room, Rita looked at her wristwatch. “Are you done already?”

  “Yup. My dishes didn’t take all that long and now Mom is herding the guys away from the games on TV and to the table.”

  “Let me get this straight,” Rita said. “You gave up football to cook.”

  Conn shrugged. “The first game was a dud, but I won’t miss the second.”

  He was so easygoing about it. Nothing much ever seemed to faze him, although his life was full of bumps.

  He snuck over to where Ned and Nate were taking apart an oversize train like curious engineers, surprising them with tweaks to their ears.

  “Hey!” both of them said, giggling.

  Rita watched as Uncle Conn easily slid into the groove of playing with his nephews. Kristy, like a bee to honey, wandered over with Jacob, towing him by the hand next to Conn.

  As she listened to him talking about how
trains used to carry people all over the United States in the good old days, Kristy laid a hand on his shoulder, so naturally that it tugged at Rita’s heart.

  Her girl liked having Conn around. Had Kristy been deprived of having a man to guide her and love her just because Rita had been so adamant about being, as Conn said, “Wonder Woman”?

  Rita thought she felt a stirring in her tummy, as if their baby was telling her that she wanted Conn around as much as Kristy did.

  While Conn laughed with the kids, Rita thought about how he would react when he found out that they were having a girl together. Part of her wanted to tell him right now, just so she could see the gleam in his eyes that had been there on the night she’d confirmed that this was his child. But part of her...

  Too soon, she thought again.

  But when would the right time get here?

  Conn’s mom appeared in the doorway. “Dinner’s up!” she said, taking off that cheeky Goddess of the Hearth apron she’d been wearing.

  “Let’s grab it.” Conn picked up tiny Jacob, tucking him under his arm as the boy kicked his stumpy legs and belly-laughed.

  The sound made the women laugh, too, as they followed everyone out the door, to a restroom where they washed up, and then to the dining room.

  There, a long table waited, covered with an orange-and-brown plaid cloth, gold-trimmed china, sparkling silverware and a festive assortment of ribbon-strewn pinecones as a centerpiece. One chair at the head of the table had a gray cowboy hat hanging off the top of it.

  “My dad’s seat,” Conn said, leading Rita to a chair, pulling it out so she could sit. “He had a heart attack and passed on about ten years ago, but we keep it open for him.”

  “That’s a nice tradition.” The patch of skin where he had rested his hand was even now tingling.

  Conn was still carrying Jacob in one arm, and he went to put him at the kids’ table, which was similarly decorated but with paper plates and plastic utensils. Kristy had already claimed a spot next to her adopted little boy, spreading out her dress over her lap like a lady.

  Then Conn sat down next to Rita. When everyone was ready, Bradon brought out the carved turkey to applause. Then Conn’s mom led a short prayer before they dug in to the turkey, an oven brisket with barbecue sauce, tamale-and-green-chile-corn-bread dressing, plus the mashed sweet potatoes, roasted vegetables and cranberry-orange salad that Conn had made.