by Tina Leonard
“Did I tell you I had a chat with Robert Donovan?” he asked, and they automatically shushed him.
That was the biggest piece of news he had, and if they weren’t interested in that, he was literally just a fourth wheel on their nocturnal excursion. Cosette and Jane went behind some trees, and suddenly, they disappeared. John stopped, waiting, glancing at Dennis, who pointed to a rock wall.
“Go,” the sheriff said.
John didn’t move. “What about you?”
“I’m the lookout. In case you don’t come out.”
“That makes me feel better,” John said drily, but suddenly, a small feminine hand grabbed his, jerking him behind the rock and down a long incline that seemed to go on and on forever. John had new respect for Cosette’s and Jane’s ability to power walk, allowing himself to be dragged deeper into the cavern. Clearly this was a secret kept from the general public, and probably known only to these three stalwarts of Bridesmaids Creek. He figured they were a good bit under the creek now, far deeper than he cared to be subterranean with only the ladies’ flashlights to light the way.
Suddenly a room appeared, grand in scope and design. He stayed very still as the ladies lit torches on the walls, revealing a place so hauntingly beautiful it might have been spun by prehistoric fairies. “Holy Christmas.”
“Indeed.” Cosette gazed at the room. “You are now in the presence of the secret of Bridesmaids Creek.”
Chapter Six
“Well, this is one of the secrets of Bridesmaids Creek,” Jane clarified. “This cave was discovered by my great-great-great-grandmother, Eliza Chatham, who was the original founder of our town. This secret has been passed down in my family, and I’ve shared it with only the people here tonight.”
“I’m honored.”
“You should be.” Cosette looked around the room. “This place has withstood every kind of weather condition imaginable. Never flooded, never cracked from a tremor. It’s clearly a marvel of engineering.”
“Who built it?” John looked at the medieval decor with some fascination.
“We’re not sure. There were Native Americans in this area at the time, but some of the carvings appear more French or Spanish in nature.” The ladies seated themselves at a carved rock table, pulled a box from a hiding place in the center of it.
“Why are you showing this to me? I’m not a son of BC.”
“No,” Jane said, “but would we trust this knowledge to Daisy’s gang?”
“Why trust it to anyone?”
They gazed at him, their faces sincere in the lamplight. “It’s time to pass the knowledge on. We chose you,” Cosette said, “to be the guardian.”
“Why?” He found this hard to believe. He wasn’t a true son of BC, not the way Ty Spurlock was. “Why not Mackenzie or Suz or Jade?”
They considered him, as if he were slow on the uptake.
“The magic is here,” Jane said. “And you need the magic more than most.”
That was probably an understatement. “You’re feeling sorry for me because I never got the girl. In fact, the girl in question barely looked my way for years.” He shrugged. “Thanks, ladies, but I’m not sure there’s enough magic in BC to get that one to the altar. At least not with me.”
“What did you and Robert discuss?” Cosette asked.
“Daisy.” Just saying her name made him happy, then gave him a sense of despair. “He wouldn’t tell me where she is. Says she doesn’t want to be found.”
“All right. Focus,” Jane said, placing the box in the middle of the table. “We’re going to figure out the best way to get Daisy back.”
“How are we going to do that?”
“We’re going to talk about it,” Cosette said, her tone perplexed. “Did you think we have a crystal ball?”
John laughed. “I wouldn’t put it past you.”
They stared at him in bemusement.
“Sometimes I wonder about this younger generation,” Jane said. “No seriousness at all.”
He forbore to say that, at times, both these ladies had been known to have their humorous and maybe even irreverent moments.
“We put a private eye on Daisy,” Cosette said. “Not to spy on her, just to locate her, you understand.”
He leaned back. “I don’t think that’s quite the way I want to locate Daisy. It might be creeper-like, if you ask me.”
Jane sniffed. “Okay, we have one handsome prince who doesn’t care to travel to Australia.”
“Australia! Are you serious?”
They peered at him, their faces concerned.
“Okay, okay,” he said. “I get it. This is a serious night. Poor choice of words.”
“Yes,” Cosette said sourly. “Now, then, what are you going to do about it?”
“Look, why don’t I just do the simple thing and call her?” John thought that sounded reasonable.
“How do you know she’d answer?” Jane asked.
“Why wouldn’t she? She’s not angry with me. She’s just—” John told himself to slow down, not let the ladies stir him up. “Daisy’s on an important mission to find herself.”
“With a baby,” Cosette said.
“Maybe your baby,” Jane said. “Does that add up to you?”
He felt a cold splash of reality hit him. “Why are you two so positive she’s having my baby?”
Jane looked reluctant to spill, but then the dam burst. “Because Daisy was taking the same medication Suz and Mackenzie and Jade Harper were taking, to boost their chances of pregnancy. We know you spent time together in Montana. Before you, Daisy had never had a—”
He looked at them. “Never had a what?”
“A real man,” Cosette said, and he coughed.
“Any man,” Jane said. “She’s never, ever had a boyfriend, even. Robert was far too protective for silly boys hanging around his princess, you may be sure. In fact, we always thought Daisy’s gang were handpicked plants. Robert knew every one of those five guys were no threat to his princess, his baby girl. Or his kingdom. They didn’t have the firepower nor the candlepower to warm Daisy’s heart.”
The cold splash turned positively glacial, chilling him. It wasn’t possible. Daisy Donovan couldn’t have been a virgin. He would have known—wouldn’t he?
He thought back, realizing that she had seemed a bit more heated the second and following times they’d made love. He’d put it down to the fact that she’d been shy the first time they’d made love. Not shy—a virgin.
The chill intensified. She’d been on the secret, super-duper ovary-booster of which Mackenzie, Suz and Jade had spoken of. All of those women had given birth to multiples. He wondered why Daisy would have needed—or wanted—to take a drug like that, couldn’t focus on that for more than a second before he realized the implications: he could wind up a father of multiples—if Daisy was, as Cosette and Jane seemed to believe, pregnant from their very sexy interlude in Montana. “How do you know Daisy was on that medication?” John demanded.
“Suz told me. Daisy was hoping to have a baby one day, figured it would take a long time for the medicine to start working. I believe she started the medication right before she went to Montana.” Cosette shrugged. “You could be in for a big shocker, John Lopez Mathison. You may not want to go to Australia, but you’d better figure out a way to get our hometown girl back home where she belongs!”
* * *
FIVE HOURS LATER, after coffee-klatching with the ladies until the crack of dawn, John rolled into the kitchen at the Hanging H with a new sense of purpose.
“Whoa,” Justin Morant said, pouring fresh coffee into a mug, and adding another mug when he saw John’s face. “Who pounded steel into your spine this morning?”
“I’ve had a revelation.” John hesitated. “Hey, remember when you
first came to Bridesmaids Creek?”
“I do, thanks to Ty Spurlock, it’s burned in my mind forever.” Justin laughed. “Best thing that ever happened to me.”
“You love being a father to those four girls.”
Justin nodded, grinning. “Those little ladies make my every day a reason for happiness. And, good news, just between you and me, Mackenzie is expecting another baby.” His grin grew more huge. “Thankfully, this time it’s a single.”
“Congratulations.” John high-fived Justin, raised his coffee cup. “If I can do as good a job as you are of being a father, I’ll consider myself a success.”
Justin looked at him, dug out a couple of slices of homemade cinnamon cake for both of them and slid a plate over to John. “So, Daisy’s having your baby. You ready for fatherhood?”
“I wasn’t yesterday.” John shrugged. “But I figure you stepped up for Mackenzie and her four. I can handle one little baby.” He sipped his coffee. “I hope.”
Justin raised his mug. “I have faith. It’s easier than it looks.”
“Becoming a father to four doesn’t look easy at all.”
“You’d be surprised how much fun it is.” Justin forked up a bite of his cake, chewed thoughtfully. “Those little ladies just wrap you around your finger, and the next thing you know, you’re hooked like a prize fish.”
John felt hooked, reeled in, and tossed into the boat freezer. “Hey, I’m thinking about taking a sabbatical.”
Justin raised a brow. “To Australia?”
“How’d you know?”
Justin laughed. “It’s all over the town grapevine. You’re going to bring the hometown girl home.”
“Yeah.” John shook his head. “I’m not sure it’s a good idea, but the sweet busybodies seem to think I should give it a shot. Personally, I feel I should give the lady in question some space.”
“Too long apart can make her forget you ever made her happy.”
“I don’t want to think about that.”
“And a little morning sickness can actually make her hate your guts, especially since she’s suffering on her own.” Justin laughed at the expression on John’s face. “Well, it’s just an idea. What do I know about love?”
John polished off his cake and headed out the door. It would take him two days’ travel to get to Australia—and every second counted.
He was astonished to find Daisy Donovan sitting on her motorcycle, just like old times, wrapped in black moto wear and looking hotter than summer. “Hello,” he said, too shocked to say more.
She gazed at him for a long moment. “Do you have a minute? There’s something we should talk about.”
The cold chill that had cast itself over him ever since his nocturnal kidnap by Cosette and Co. completely evaporated, to be replaced by a raging inferno of sexual desire. And a lot of other emotions, none of which he had time to dissect. “Sure. I’m good for a chat.”
“Hop on.” She jerked her head to indicate the portion of seat behind her, and John had never grabbed a helmet so fast in his life. He was on the bike in record time, carefully wrapping his hands around her waist, noticing a couple of inches that hadn’t been there before. Actually, without letting his fingers wander, he very much detected quite a bit of a rounding tummy, maybe four inches worth.
John grinned to himself. He was going to be a father.
At least he hoped so.
* * *
DAISY TOOK HIM to The Wedding Diner, which wasn’t open yet due to the early morning hour, but Jane seemed to be expecting them. She ushered them in through the back door—apparently as expected. She seated them in a corner, away from prying eyes and ears, which seemed odd to John as there was no one there but Jane and a couple of kitchen helpers. Still, he wasn’t going to complain about the location of the white vinyl booth since it meant he was almost virtually alone with the woman with whom he wanted to speak badly.
Jane set a teapot of hot water with its accompanying tea basket and a blue-checked cloth-lined basket of zucchini and pumpkin mini muffins in front of them, and then went to seat another group. Daisy poured hot water into both their cups, they selected some teas from the basket, and John waited with his heart hammering in his throat.
“When did you get back?” he asked, by way of icebreaker. It seemed like a safe topic, but then again, there was really no such thing in BC.
“Last night. My father said you wanted to see me.”
“I didn’t figure he’d tell you I went to rattle his cage a bit.”
“Actually, he claimed you asked for my hand in marriage.”
Now this seemed promising. John perked up. “In fact, I did.”
Daisy gazed at him, no smile on her face, but a steady look that didn’t speak of revulsion, either. He took that as a good sign and swiped a pumpkin muffin just to look like he was casual about the whole going-by-to-see-your-dad-and-asking-for-your-hand thing—which he most certainly was not.
“So?” Daisy said.
“So nothing. We had a bit of back and forth, and that was it.” He saw no reason to go into more detail. “I felt it was a good conversation, with points of view presented on both sides.”
Daisy sipped delicately from her teacup, her gaze locked on him over the rim. “Dad says he told you he’d rather have a village idiot for a son-in-law.”
John laughed. “Your father talks big. And yet here you are, clearly open to my suit.”
“You’re pretty sure of yourself.”
He grinned. “You’re having my baby, aren’t you?”
It wasn’t a question; it was a bald statement of fact—the little ladies had convinced him that it could be no other way. Daisy was finally going to be his. He could hardly wait to shout it from the rooftops.
“I’m having your triplets,” Daisy said, and the smile blew off John’s face. His head spun. All he could do was stare at her in stunned silence.
Daisy put her cup down. “I didn’t mean for that to happen, honestly.”
“I think someone’s telling a wee fib,” John said. “Our dear friends tell me that you were on some kind of miracle ovary juice. That isn’t the mark of a woman who doesn’t want a man’s child.”
“I meant,” Daisy said calmly, “that I didn’t mean to have your child.”
He raised a brow. “We did use condoms every time.”
Condoms being plural, of course, which spoke to the truth, which was that each and every time he’d gotten his hands on this deliciously wild woman, he’d made the most of it.
There could have been some slippage. A misfire of eagerness, perhaps, with a condom not being appropriately placed. The thing was, Daisy’s hands were so small, so feminine, so deft, that when she stroked him, helping with the condom, it was all he could do not to—
“The thing is,” Daisy said, and John forced himself to focus on her lips and not the sweetest times, “it wasn’t my intention to rope you into a wedding. And I’m afraid that’s what you think, judging by the fact that you bearded the lion in his den.”
“Your father’s not much of a lion these days,” John said absently. “Why did he tell you all this? And why didn’t you tell me you were expecting in the first place, Daisy? Why’d you leave?”
“I left because it was crazy-town around here. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do.”
“It’s always crazy-town. You didn’t expect BC to change, Daisy?”
“I didn’t want you to feel compelled to marry me. I don’t need a husband.”
“And yet, you’re going to have a husband.” He frowned at her. “Daisy Donovan, you’re going to marry me, next weekend as a matter of fact. Enough lollygagging and floating around. I’ve pursued you for years, and whether you want to admit it or not, you’ve enjoyed being the princess of my passion.”
She raise
d a brow. “I’m not getting married.”
“Yeah, you are.” He sipped his tea, stuffing more pumpkin muffin into his mouth. “Eat up. If you’re eating for four, you’re going to need your strength.”
His blood got weird, sort of wobbly, when he voiced aloud the idea that he was going to be a father to triplets. A triple whammy. Still, he’d seen three of his friends adapt quite nicely to the father role, and the good news was, between the four of them, they could now field a decent-sized girls’ soccer team. He pondered that. Heck, counting Justin’s new one, if it was a girl, they were well on their way to having enough to justify buying their own bus for the Hanging H.
“John, I’m not marrying you,” Daisy said softly.
He looked up at her. “Those little girls need me. They need their father. I’m going to be a helluva lacrosse coach, you wait and see. I’m not so much for ballet and hair buns and the girlier stuff, but I’ll suck it up and work on it.”
“We’re having boys,” Daisy said, and John’s head started swimming again.
“Boys?” He gulped. “Three boys?”
She solemnly nodded.
“I thought everyone in Bridesmaids Creek had girls. That’s why there’s, like, five thousand women to every man here. There’s something in the creek water that does it.” He slipped off his Stetson, wiped his brow, realized he was still light-headed, and was babbling like a baby. The muffins weren’t helping his sudden brain fog.
She’d blown his mind. Again.
“Strangely, we’re having boys.” Daisy reached for a muffin. “And as I know your family raised you on the circuit, I hope you’ll appreciate that I want something more stable for my sons.”
He blinked, came back to earth. So that was what this sudden meeting was about. Her sons. She was staking out territory, letting him know that she didn’t want an itinerant lifestyle for their family—in which she didn’t appear to be including him.
Yet in his heart, he believed that she was meant to be his. He didn’t know how, he just knew it in his gut.
Plus, he didn’t think the wise elderly troublemakers—er, pillars—of Bridesmaids Creek would have revealed one of its major secrets to him unless they considered him a favored son, and even an important part of this town and this woman’s life. Cosette, after all, had never given up her matchmaker’s crown, even though she’d lost her shop.
