His surprise visitor shook long dark curls back over the shoulders of a maternity top that was better suited for fall than the middle of winter. Meeting his gaze with a directness that was a little unsettling, Lindsay gave him a pitying look. As they stared at each other, that all-too-familiar smirk crinkled the corner of her mouth. “Observant as ever, aren’t you?”
Brian had no clue what else he could possibly say. While his brain was struggling to wrap itself around her stunning revelation, his hackles began to rise, and he fought to keep his voice down. “Is Jeff the baby’s father?”
“Of course he is,” she snapped, flinging her coat onto the cluttered desk in a fit of the flash-fire temper that had apparently not mellowed much over the years. After blowing out an exasperated breath, she faced him squarely, the spirit that had always captivated him glittering in those incredible sky blue eyes. “I was with him for almost six years. Only him,” she added crisply.
Brian had a few choice words to say about the length of their noncommittal relationship, but he kept them to himself. At twenty-seven, he was a contented bachelor and far from being an expert on pregnancy. But he knew enough to be aware that upsetting her wouldn’t be good for Lindsay or the innocent child she was carrying. Whatever had gone on since she broke his heart and left him behind, it apparently hadn’t ended well. Piling on the guilt would only make her feel worse, and while the bitterness he felt toward his ex was still alive and well, browbeating her over mistakes she’d made in the past would be cruel.
“All right, I’m sorry.” Motioning to the desk chair, he said, “Have a seat and let’s start this conversation over again.”
Her eyes narrowed suspiciously and she nailed him with a mistrustful glare. “You’ll be nice?”
“Sure,” he replied, doing his best to appear as if it didn’t bother him that the troubled girl he’d once loved more than anything had unexpectedly dropped back into his life pregnant with another man’s child.
“Promise?”
Some of the defiance left her expression, and he heard the slightest tremble in her soft voice. It made her sound vulnerable, like a frightened little girl who was searching for someone who would reassure her that everything was going to be okay. “Yeah, I promise.”
In his memory, Brian flashed back to his junior year in high school, when Lindsay Holland had been the pretty new sophomore every guy wanted to date. One afternoon, he’d run across her sitting in the stands after a football game, crushed by the self-centered quarterback who’d just dumped her for a cheerleader. After comforting Lindsay, Brian had tracked down the arrogant jerk and made sure that he never forgot what breaking her trusting heart had cost him.
And now, they were together again, in more or less the same set of circumstances. Plus a baby, of course. The irony of the bizarre circle they’d made didn’t escape Brian, and those old protective instincts kicked in, making him wonder where he might find Jeff Mortensen these days. “I never liked the guy, but I can’t believe he’d leave you and his own child to fend for yourselves that way.”
“He doesn’t know about the baby. I found out I was pregnant shortly after he took off.”
“Is that right?”
“I know that look, so don’t even think about it,” Lindsay warned, as if she’d read his mind somehow. “I don’t want you getting into it with Jeff. We’re not teenagers anymore, and you don’t have to defend my honor. I got myself into this mess, and I’ll come up with a way to get out of it. Eventually,” she added glumly.
How she knew what he’d been thinking was beyond him, but Brian chalked it up to their shared history and the fact that he wasn’t really all that complicated. So he shrugged it off and waited for her to get comfortable. Or as comfortable as a pregnant woman could in a straight-back wooden armchair. Once she was facing him, he started again.
Deciding humor was the best approach, he crossed his arms and leaned against the wall beside the beat-up table he used as a desk. “So, Lindsay, how’ve you been?”
Amusement twinkled in her eyes, and at last she smiled. “Good. And you?”
“Questioning my sanity ever since I came up with the idea of rehabbing this place and getting into the iron decor business.”
“How’s it going?”
“Nowhere,” he admitted grimly. “I’ve got a few contracts, but the problem with specialty work is that once you’ve filled an order, there’s no more coming in behind it. My cousin Jordan’s planning to come help out once his summer season is over, which will make a huge difference in the range of products I can offer. The problem is, I’m nowhere near the artist he is, so I have to figure out how to keep from going bankrupt before then.”
“Jordan, your cousin who does metalwork for the art fairs?” When he nodded, she said, “I remember him being really talented.”
“He is, but his head for business is worse than mine. Which is why I need someone who’s organized and good with computers.”
Lindsay glanced around, angling to look behind filing cabinets that dated back to the turn of the twentieth century. Then she came back to him and grinned. “I don’t see a computer.”
“I don’t even know what to buy,” he confided with a deep sigh. “I’m a hands-on kinda guy. I can build or fix just about anything, but when it comes to technology...”
“You’re clueless,” she filled in, laughing lightly. “It takes a big man to admit he’s got a weakness.”
“You make that sound like a good thing.”
All traces of humor left her features, and she said, “Being honest is. That’s a very good thing.”
Brian wanted to kick himself for making her sad, and then logic reminded him that he had nothing to do with the decisions she’d made that had landed her in her current situation. As she’d so readily admitted, it was her own fault.
But there was a tiny part of him, way back in the corner of his guarded heart, that still loved the girl she’d once been. The one who’d looked up at him like he was her hero because he’d stepped in to defend her when no one else would. Before she’d cast him aside for the hazy prospect of adventure, without an explanation or even a goodbye. “Lindsay, what happened?”
Instantly, she stiffened and glowered at him. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, you hated it here when we were in high school. When you left, I figured you’d never come back.”
She hesitated, as if she was trying to decide whether to confide in him or not. Strangely enough, that was how he knew that whatever she finally told him would be the deep-down truth.
“Believe it or not, much as I detested this Podunk town, it’s the only place I’ve ever lived where I felt like there were some people who actually cared about what happened to me. That’s really important to me right now,” she added, smoothing a hand over her stomach in a maternal gesture that struck a deep chord in him.
“I get you not wanting to be alone because of the baby, but why didn’t you go to your mom?”
“We had a nasty falling-out, and I haven’t seen or talked to her in years. I don’t even know where she is, and if I did I wouldn’t degrade myself by asking her for anything.”
Brian vaguely remembered Vera Holland, a flirtatious single mother whose behavior had made life miserable for her daughter. Through no fault of her own, Lindsay’s reputation had suffered, and more than once he’d spoken out in her defense when some classmate or another had assumed the worst of her.
Taking a deep breath, she went on in a calmer tone. “I’ve been living in Cleveland, and when it occurred to me to come back to New Hampshire, I found out that the newspaper over in Waterford has a website. In their real estate section I found a room to rent here in town. I sent the landlord first and last month’s rent to hold the spot for me and then took the last of my cash to the bus depot.”
“Let me guess. Jeff has the car.”
“Took it,” she clar
ified bitterly. “Along with all the money in our joint account. A few weeks ago, a collection agency called and, after some serious legwork, I found out that he’s been running up the balances on the credit cards that were in both our names. The lawyer I used to work for helped me separate my finances from Jeff’s, but my credit’s shot, and the money’s gone forever.”
“But you must’ve been making decent money as an office manager. I don’t understand how things got so bad.”
“I was okay at first,” she confirmed quietly. “Then I found out I was pregnant, and the stress I was under gave me some pretty serious health problems. Because of that, I couldn’t work consistently, and even the temp agency stopped calling. The lease on the apartment was up, and there was no way I could make the payments, so I had to move out. When I left Cleveland, I had just enough in my wallet for the fare to Liberty Creek and a couple of sandwiches.”
Trusting the wrong guy had all but ruined her life, Brian mused sadly. And now, her flair for poor choices and running away when things got tough had left her well and truly alone. Part of him still had a soft spot for the troubled girl he remembered all too vividly and was inclined to help her.
The other part—the smarter one—recognized that once again she’d fled from her problems without much thought about what she’d do when she reached her new destination. That had always been her MO, and apparently her tendency to dodge the hard stuff hadn’t changed.
For all his wild ways, Brian knew he’d been blessed with a large, loving family that supported him no matter what he did. They’d even warmed up to his crazy idea of reopening the archaic blacksmith shop that had lain dormant for so long the equipment was caked with rust and bat droppings. Knowing that Lindsay was slogging through such a difficult time completely on her own made him sadder than anything ever had.
But he wasn’t about to trust his fledgling business to someone who’d shown such poor judgment and was a proven flight risk. He had a large payment due on his business loan in just nine weeks. If the forge didn’t start turning a profit soon, he’d have to stop his improvements halfway through and find another way to keep the place going. He knew that his family would contribute to the cause, but he didn’t want to do it that way. Quite honestly, he’d rather sell everything he owned to pay the bank rather than beg for cash from anyone.
Thoughts of being strapped for funds prompted a sobering thought. “When did you last see a doctor?”
“About a month ago, when I was six months along. I’m not due until mid-March, and he said everything was fine.”
But it wasn’t fine now, Brian thought grimly. Anyone could see that. She was pale, and now that they weren’t sparring with each other, he noticed the tired circles shadowing her eyes. Hopeful and hopeless at the same time, her cautious demeanor got to him in a way that he’d never experienced before. He barely resisted the urge to take her in his arms and reassure her, but he knew better than to let his guard down around her again.
Standing to put some distance between them, he picked up her coat and held it for her. “It’s not a good day for walking anywhere. I’ll give you a ride to that house you mentioned.”
The hopelessness he’d picked up on finally won out, and she frowned. “You’re not going to hire me, are you?”
He felt like a complete heel, but every alarm in his head was going off, and he couldn’t ignore his instincts. “I really think it’d be better if I find someone else.”
“Of course,” she replied as if that was the result she’d been expecting all along. “I understand.”
There was the professionalism she’d promised him, he mused as she slipped her well-worn coat back on. Calm and competent, it was the kind of temperament that he was looking for in the person he would be trusting to run his front office.
Crazy as it seemed, Lindsay would have been perfect for the job. The problem was, he just couldn’t convince himself to trust her.
Copyright © 2018 by Andrea Chermak
ISBN-13: 9781488090332
The Lawman’s Runaway Bride
Copyright © 2018 by Patty Froese Ntihemuka
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