Local Hero

by Nora Roberts

  back toward the bakery, added a smoldering smile, then sent a wave to Jake, one of the painters. He and the laborer beside him waved back.

  But not Ryder Montgomery, of course. He simply hooked his thumb in his pocket, watched her. Unsociable, she thought again. He couldn’t even stir himself for a casual wave.

  She accepted the slow kindling in her belly as the natural reaction of a healthy woman to a long, shaded stare delivered by a sexy—if surly—man.

  Particularly a woman who hadn’t had any serious male contact in—God—a year. A little more than a year. But who’s counting?

  Her own fault, her own choice, so why think about it?

  She reached the other side of Main Street, turned right toward the bookstore just as Clare stepped out onto its pretty covered porch.

  She waved again as Clare stood a moment, one hand on the baby bump under her breezy summer dress. Clare had her long, sunny hair pulled back in a tail, with blue-framed sunglasses softening the glare of the bold morning sun.

  “I was just coming over to check on you,” Hope called out.

  Clare held up her phone. “I was just texting you.” She slipped the phone back in her pocket, left her hand there a moment as she came down the steps to the sidewalk.

  “Well?” Hope scanned her friend’s face. “Everything good?”

  “Yeah. Good. We got back just a few minutes ago. Beckett . . .” She glanced over her shoulder. “He’s driving around to the back of the bakery. He’s got his tools.”

  “Okay.” Mildly concerned, Hope laid a hand on Clare’s arm. “Honey, you had the sonogram, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And?”

  “Oh. Let’s walk up to Vesta. I’ll tell you and Avery at the same time. Beckett’s going to call his mother, tell his brothers. I need to call my parents.”

  “The baby’s all right?”

  “Absolutely.” She patted her purse as they walked. “I have pictures.”

  “I have to see!”

  “I’ll be showing them off for days. Weeks. It’s amazing.”

  Avery popped out the front door of the restaurant, a white bib apron covering capris and a T-shirt. She bounced on purple Crocs. The sun speared into her Scot’s warrior queen hair, sent the short ends to glimmering.

  “Are we thinking pink?”

  “Are you opening alone?” Clare countered.

  “Yeah, it’s just me. Fran’s not due in for twenty. Are you okay? Is everything okay?”

  “Everything’s absolutely perfectly wonderfully okay. But I want to sit down.”

  With her friends exchanging looks behind her back, Clare walked in and straight to the counter, dropped onto a stool. Sighed. “It’s the first time I’ve been pregnant with three boys fresh out of school for the summer. It’s challenging.”

  “You’re a little pale,” Avery commented.

  “Just tired.”

  “Want something cold?”

  “With my entire being.”

  As Avery went to the cooler, Hope sat down, narrowed her eyes at Clare’s face. “You’re stalling. If nothing’s wrong—”

  “Nothing’s wrong, and maybe I’m stalling a little. It’s a big announcement.” She laughed to herself, took the chilled ginger ale Avery offered.

  “So here I am, with my two closest friends, in Avery’s pretty restaurant that already smells of pizza sauce.”

  “You’ll have this in a pizzeria.” Avery passed Hope a bottle of water. Then she crossed her arms, scanned Clare’s face. “It’s a girl. Ballet shoes and hair ribbons!”

  Clare shook her head. “I appear to specialize in boys. Make that baseball gloves and action figures.”

  “A boy?” Hope leaned over, touched Avery hand. “Are you disappointed?”

  “Not even the tiniest bit.” She opened her purse. “Want to see?”

  “Are you kidding?” Avery made a grab, but Clare snatched the envelope out of reach. “Does he look like you? Like Beck? Like a fish? No offense, but they always look like fish to me.”

  “Which one?”

  “Which one what?”

  “There are two.”

  “Two?” Hope nearly bobbled the water. “Twins? You’re having twins?”

  “Two?” Avery echoed. “You have two fish?”

  “Two boys. Look at my beautiful boys.” Clare pulled out the sonogram printout, then burst into tears. “Good tears,” she managed. “Hormones, but good ones. Oh, God. Look at my babies!”

  “They’re gorgeous!”

  Clare swiped at tears as she grinned at Avery. “You don’t see them.”

  “No, but they’re gorgeous. Twins. That’s five. You did the math, right? You’re going to have five boys.”

  “We did the math, but it’s still sinking in. We didn’t expect— We never thought— Maybe I should have. I’m bigger than I’ve ever been this early. But when the doctor told us . . . Beckett went white.”

  She laughed, even as tears poured. “Sheet white. I thought he was going to pass out. Then we just stared at each other. And then we started to laugh. We laughed like lunatics. I think maybe we were both a little hysterical. Five. Oh, sweet Jesus. Five boys.”

  “You’ll be great. All of you,” Hope told her.

  “We will. I know it. I’m so dazzled, so happy, so stunned. I don’t know how Beckett drove home. I couldn’t tell you if we drove back from Hagerstown or from California. I was in some sort of shock, I think. Twins.”

  She laid her hands on her belly. “Do you know how there are moments in your life when you think, this is it. I’ll never be happier or more excited. I’ll never feel more than I do right now. Just exactly now. This is one of those moments for me.”

  Hope folded her into a hug, and Avery folded them both.

  “I’m so happy for you,” Hope murmured. “Happy, dazzled and excited right along with you.”

  “The kids are going to get such a kick out of this.” Avery drew back. “Right?”

  “Yeah. And since Liam already made it clear if I had a girl he wouldn’t stoop so low as to play with her, I think he’ll be especially pleased.”

  “What about your due date?” Hope asked. “Earlier with twins?”

  “A little. They told me November 21. So, Thanksgiving babies instead of Christmas/New Year’s.”

  “Gobble, gobble,” Avery said, and made Clare laugh again.

  “You have to let us help set up the nursery,” Hope began. Planning was in her blood.

  “I’m counting on it. I don’t have a thing. I gave away all the baby things after Murphy. I never thought I’d fall in love again or marry again or have more children.”

  “Can we say baby shower? A double-the-fun theme,” Hope decided. “Or what comes in pairs, sets of two. Something like that. I’ll work on it. We should schedule it in early October, just to be safe.”

  “Baby shower.” Clare sighed. “More and more real. I need to call my parents, and I need to tell the girls,” she added, referring to her bookstore staff. She levered herself up. “November babies,” she said again. “I should be able to shed the baby weight by May and the wedding.”

  “Oh yeah, I’m getting married.” Avery held out her hand, admired the diamond that had replaced the bubble gum ring Owen had put on her finger. Twice.

  “Getting married and opening a second restaurant and helping plan a baby shower and redecorating the current single guy’s master suite into a couple’s master suite.” Hope poked Avery in the arm. “We have a lot of planning to do.”

  “I can take some time tomorrow.”

  “Good.” Hope took a moment to flip through her mental list, rearrange tasks, gauge the timing. “One o’clock. I can clear the time. Can you make that?” she asked Clare. “I can fix us a little lunch and we can get some of the planning worked out before I have check-ins.”

  “One o’clock tomorrow.” Clare patted her belly. “We’ll be there.”

  “I’ll be over,” Avery promised. “If I’m a little later
, we had a good lunch rush. But I’ll get over.”

  Hope walked out with Clare, grabbed another hug before separating. And imagined Clare telling her parents the happy news. Imagined, too, Avery texting Owen. And Beckett slipping off to check on Clare during the day or just stealing a few minutes to bask with her.

  For a moment she wished she had someone to call or text or slip away to, someone to share the lovely news with.

  Instead she went around the back of the inn, up the outside stairs. She let herself in on the third floor, listening as she walked down to her apartment.

  Yes, she thought, she could just hear Carolee’s voice, and the excitement in it. No doubt Justine Montgomery had already called her sister to share the news about the twins.

  Hope closed herself into her apartment. She’d spend a couple hours in the quiet, she decided, researching their resident ghost, and the man named Billy she waited for.