THE BACHELOR PARTY

by Paula Detmer Riggs

  "Oh, no," she exclaimed with genuine dismay. Dangerous as he was to her peace of mind, he had been there for her when she needed a friend. Certainly he deserved more than a polite thank-you, though she wasn't quite sure what, exactly. "To tell you the truth, I'm not sure I'm even making sense."

  "Tired?"

  "I passed that hours ago," she admitted before shifting the drowsing baby from one shoulder to the next. Lashes fluttering, Jessie whimpered a protest around her soggy thumb before letting those feathery little lashes close again.

  Guilt-ridden in spite of the doctor's soothing words, Sophie dropped a kiss on the hot little forehead and tried not to think about the advantages her wealthy in-laws could have provided for their only grandchild. A child needed more than money to make her feel cherished, she reminded herself yet one more time.

  "It's not your fault, you know." For an instant she was certain she'd spoken her thoughts aloud, and panic rushed her veins. It made little difference to tell herself to calm down. The longer she was with Ford, the more she was risking. She'd always known that he was dangerous. Now she added perceptiveness to a lengthening list of reasons to avoid him at all costs from now on.

  Sensing movement behind her, she whirled, only to find that the doctor had returned and was now regarding her with concern in his eyes.

  "Cliff will meet you down to the drugstore," he said to Ford instead of her. "Promised he wouldn't charge extra for openin' special, but you might have to prod him a tad to remember that."

  Ford nodded. "He knows what to give us?"

  "He does, and make sure he includes the extrastrength vitamins for Mrs. Reynolds."

  "Really, that's not necessary," Sophie said quickly, thinking of the twenty-eight dollars and forty-two cents left in her checking account.

  "I think it is, my dear," the doctor said gently, his smile kind but firm. "You're far too pale and, I suspect, underweight, as well. It wouldn't do either of you any good if you collapsed from exhaustion."

  Sophie straightened her aching back. "I'm stronger than I look," she assured the fatherly physician, and then fervently hoped that she was.

  "So long, Doc," Ford said, holding the screen door open for her.

  "'Night, Ford, Mrs. Reynolds."

  "Good night, Doctor, and thanks again," Sophie murmured, moving past Ford without looking at him. Outside, the air had grown colder. Shivering in her light jacket, she drew Jessie's hood over her head and pressed her close.

  Doc's house had a wide wraparound porch like the others on the tree-lined street. Unlike those, however, it had a wheelchair ramp sloping to the sidewalk as well as steps and a wide driveway leading to the rear parking lot. Someone had strung Christmas lights along the eaves, and across the street Santa and his reindeers were outlined in red lights on the lawn.

  Sophie drew a breath, drawing in the familiar scent of burning logs. From the time she'd been a small child, she'd loved the smells and flavors of Christmas. Last year it had come and gone without her taking much notice.

  "Must be nice to have a little one this time of year." Ford offered an easy smile as he slipped the heavy diaper bag from her shoulder and slung it over his own.

  "It is," Sophie admitted, thinking briefly about the room full of stuffed animals and toys in the nursery Wells's mother had had professionally decorated in their riverfront mansion in Portland. As far as she knew, everything was still there, waiting.

  "From the things Miss Fanny and Miss Rose Ruth keep saying, I'm not sure Santa will be able to find room under the tree."

  "I imagine he'll work it out."

  Casually, as though he'd known her for years, he dropped his free arm over her shoulder and led her slowly down the ramp. Sophie stiffened and would have drawn away, but the look he gave her was anything but suggestive. Besides, it felt so good to feel the warmth of a human touch after so many months of shutting herself off from everyone but Jessie.

  "Now you take my sister, Lucy, she just loves the holidays," he drawled as he opened the passenger door to the black-and-white squad car. "It's a wonder that big old house of hers doesn't crumble under the weight of all those lights she strings on just about anything that can't move out of her way. No matter how many times I tell her she's goin' too far, she just gives me one of those looks of hers and keeps on doing things her way."

  Before Sophie knew how he'd done it, he had buckled her and Jessie into the seat and had gone around to climb in behind the wheel. Sophie was too tired to do more than hug Jessie close as he started the car and made a deft U-turn.

  "Your sister sounds like my mother," she murmured, knowing he wasn't really interested, but needing a distraction from the confusion in her head. "As soon as Halloween was over, she was hauling the ornaments down from the attic and sorting through her cookie recipes."

  "Imagine you generally had yourselves a white Christmas where you grew up."

  Sophie started to shake her head, then remembered that she was supposed to be from Montana. "I've always loved winter." That at least was true.

  "Were you raised on a ranch?"

  "No, in town," she murmured, feeling a hard little ball of nerves forming in her stomach.

  "Ever think of goin' home for the holidays?"

  "There's no home left to go to. My father died while I was away at college, and my mother died last May." She remembered the suffering in her mother's eyes the last time they'd talked.

  The pain of that memory was no longer razored, but still sharp enough to cut through the pitifully thin walls she'd tried to shelter behind since Wells's death.

  "Sounds rough." His tone was burred with understanding and she thought about the things she'd learned from Katie about the way he'd lost his parents.

  "It was," she murmured, cuddling Jessie closer. "Jessie was named for her."

  "Did she get a chance to see her grandbaby born?"

  Sophie drew a ragged breath. "No. She died six weeks before I delivered. An aneurysm." If she had lived, things might have been different.

  Suddenly exhausted and lulled by the warmth of the car's heater and the hum of its powerful engine, she closed her eyes and let herself drift. It felt good to blank her mind and relax her body, if only for the few minutes it would take Ford to drive them home.

  Home. Hearing the word echo in her mind gave her a bittersweet feeling of loss mingled with sadness. She drew in a lung full of damp Southern air and wondered if she would ever really be able to provide a real home for herself and Jessie instead of a corner room in someone else's house.

  It didn't have to be fancy—a few rooms would do just fine, as long as those rooms came with big squishy chairs that invited cuddling and windowsills wide enough for pots of flowers and herbs. In the best of the dreams she'd conjured up during the darkest of many dark nights, the windows would have a view of water, maybe not a river as majestic as the Columbia but a stream would do nicely. Or even a pond where she and Jessie could keep a family of ducks, and maybe some fish.

  She'd always loved to fish, especially for the glorious king salmon. Jessie would want to throw them back, just as she had, and together they would watch the imperious king flick his tail at the pure joy of freedom before plunging into the swirling water.

  Her father, bless his heart, had never quite understood how he, an avid fisherman, could have produced a daughter who loved releasing a prize catch more than she relished keeping it. He would have adored Jessie, she thought, and Jessie would have adored him.

  It struck her suddenly that Ford was a great deal like her father—not in looks, of course, since Sven Gundersen had been blond with blunt Nordic features—but like him in the quiet, steadfast way Sven had stood behind those he loved. She didn't know Ford well, nor could she let herself know him better than she did at this moment, but she knew with absolute certainty that he gave far more than he received.

  "Are you warm enough?"

  "Mmm?"

  Watching her lips curve drowsily had Ford kicking himself for disturbing her. Feelin
g the familiar rush of desire low in his gut had him grinding his teeth and resigning himself to a cold shower when he finally called it a night.

  "I can turn up the heat if you're cold," he said when she opened her eyes and looked at him like a very sleepy, grown-up version of the baby sleeping in her lap.

  "No, I'm fine," she murmured, licking her lips and trying hard to focus. Her hair had gotten mussed in the hurried trip and fluffed around her face, its dark sheen contrasting markedly with the pallor of her skin. In the shadowed light, her eyes seemed more purple than blue, her lashes sweeping up and down with the lazy concentration of someone not yet fully awake. He had a hunch she would look just like this when she woke in the morning—or when she'd just made love. Both images had his hands tightening around the wheel and his mouth firming into a hard line.

  He was too old and too experienced to waste time mooning over a woman he scarcely knew. A woman he was certain was dead wrong for him. He liked long-legged blondes, and he liked being a bachelor. Just because he found his mind running along different lines now and then didn't change the fact that Sophie was a mama first, and a woman second. Not once in twenty-some years of dating had he ever found himself more than fleetingly attracted to a woman with children. It was too hard on kids when a relationship ended.

  Lucy had been a mature-for-her-age nine when they'd lost their parents, and he could still remember the nights he'd held her while she'd sobbed out her grief. He'd been helpless to do more than utter words of comfort neither of them believed.

  No, he would never risk letting a child become attached to him. But every time he looked at Sophie, he felt like scooping her into his arms and riding off into the sunset like the matinee cowboys he used to watch on the old black-and-white TV he'd found in the dump and fixed up from parts scrounged from Amos Lincoln's repair shop.

  Hell of it was, while he wanted to make love to her, he also wanted to hold her in his arms and tell her things he'd never in his life told another living soul. Like the soft feeling he got inside when he watched a doe lovingly nudge her still-wet fawn to its wobbly little feet, then lick it dry, or the longing that sometimes came over him to feel a woman's arms welcoming him back to the warmth of their bed after a long terrible night at the scene of a bloody accident.

  It wasn't love he was feeling. He knew himself well enough to accept that he wasn't remotely capable of caring that deeply about anyone but his sister. But he was honest enough to admit it was more than mere sexual attraction, and that's what had him riled up whenever he thought about getting to know her better.

  It was the same helpless, infuriating feeling his friend Mike Flint had described once after a few beers when they'd been talking about women and the things they could do to a man's peace of mind without really trying too hard. And look at old Mike now—about to take that long, fateful trip down the center aisle of the Community Church over on Jackson Street

  .

  Ford didn't begrudge Mike his happiness with Emma. She was a real nice lady, and even he had to admit she lighted up like sunshine whenever Mike was around. As for Mike, he was almost stupid with joy these days. He'd damn near bawled the day he'd asked Ford to be his best man.

  What the hell, Ford thought, turning onto the street leading to Phelps's Pharmacy, maybe Emma and Mike would be the first to beat the odds and actually end up happy together for more than a few sex-crazed years. As for him, he'd pretty much figured out the way things worked in the real world.

  Sex was the most honest exchange between a man and woman. Every woman had a price for her favors, and the honest ones let the man know what it would cost him right up front. The starry-eyed romantics like his sister wanted a man to recite certain words before she let him into her bed, and the more practical ones like Emma Wynn demanded the security of a double-ring ceremony and all the nonsense that went with it, like showers and bachelor parties.

  And then there were women like his own mother who used her beauty and her sexy body to steal a strong, decent man's heart and then take great delight in slowly ripping it to shreds. When his old man had found out she'd been sleeping with half the adult males in Clover, he'd snapped. Ford didn't intend to end up the same way.

  He parked in front of the narrow brick building that had been in the Phelps family since reconstruction and killed the engine. Light blazed around the posters and notices taped to the front window, illuminating the sidewalk in a crazy quilt pattern.

  "Wait here," he ordered, giving Sophie a glance that had her mouth tightening. "I'll be right back."

  "You'll need money," she said, reaching for her purse with one hand while trying not to jar the baby into waking.

  "We'll settle later," he said before getting out and leaving the door ajar.

  Haphazardly dressed in running clothes and bedroom slippers and looking surprised to see Ford standing there, Cliff admitted him almost immediately.

  "Doc didn't tell me you'd be bringing the lady by," he said over his shoulder as he led the way to the prescription counter in the back.

  "I happened to be at Katie's when the baby got sick."

  "On business or purely pleasure?" Cliff asked with a suggestive grin as he slipped behind the counter.

  Ford ground his teeth and thought longingly of the anonymity of a big city where no one cared about your family tree or your private business. He'd always wanted to travel. Maybe someday he would.

  "Rans Talley took a notion to clean out the cash register at the diner and Ms. Reynolds did her best to disabuse him of that same notion," Ford told Cliff.

  "Sounds like ole Rans was dippin' into the jug again."

  "Frenchy Ducette's finest, I hear."

  Cliff chuckled as he typed out a label on an old manual typewriter. The rest of the staff used the computer Cliff had been talked into buying last year, but Ford had heard it said that Cliff himself had sworn never to touch the blasted thing.

  "Sure would have liked to see that little bitty Yankee girl givin' ole Rans what for," Cliff declared, still chuckling. "Must have been a sight."

  "It was a sight all right," Ford said, shoving his hands in his pockets. He doubted that Sophie realized just how close she'd come to serious injury, but he did. And it gave him a sick feeling in his belly to think about what he might have found if he'd shown up a few minutes later than he had.

  "Understand she's a widow," Cliff commented, glancing at Ford over the top of his half glasses. "Must have been hard on her, bein' left with a baby like she was."

  "Guess so."

  "She's a hard worker, I'll say that for her. Peg was sayin' just the other day how she'd have to give her a raise so's she wouldn't lose her to the five-and-dime or that fast-food place out on the state highway."

  Cliff pasted the label on the bottle of pink liquid, then dropped the bottle into a small white paper bag before repeating the process one more time with a vial of yellow pills while Ford prowled the aisles, too restless to stand and wait. At the same time he made sure he kept the squad car in sight.

  "You fixin' to buy yourself some protection, Ford?"

  Ford was annoyed to discover he'd stopped in front of a large array of condoms. "No need," he said, heat climbing his neck. He wasn't a prude, and he'd never pretended to live a celibate life. He just preferred to take his pleasure in private.

  "Yessir, that sure is one sweet-looking little Yankee girl," Cliff commented solemnly, his mouth twitching ever so slightly. "Make some man a fine wife, according to Miss Fanny and Miss Rose Ruth."

  "Provided a man was lookin' to get himself a wife," Ford muttered, reining in his temper with more difficulty than usual.

  "There is that," Cliff agreed. "'Course, a man pushing forty hasn't got that many good years left to him if he's fixin' to be a daddy."

  Ford scowled, far too aware that Cliff Phelps and Morgan Maguire had played football for Clover High School together. His father hadn't hung on to many friends during his later years, but he'd made fewer caustic remarks about Cliff than most. Because
of that, he owed Cliff a certain respect, but that didn't mean he had to listen to nonsense in the middle of the night.

  "How much do I owe you?" he asked, hauling out his wallet.

  "Forty-seven fifty, including the vitamins Doc prescribed."

  Ford slapped down a fifty, then waited impatiently while Cliff made change. "You paying the lady's bills these days, Ford?" he asked before counting it into Ford's hand.

  "You know better than that, and I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell folks I was."

  Pocketing the change, Ford grabbed what he'd come for and headed for the door. By tomorrow noon it would be all over Clover that Ford Maguire was bird-doggin' the new waitress at Peg's. He could almost hear the telephone wires buzzing already. By supper time, half the ladies in town would be planning the wedding while the other half would be wondering how best to warn Sophie off from getting involved with a man carrying his kind of history.

  It wasn't as if they hadn't had enough practice at doin' both. The ladies of Clover over a certain age had been trying to marry him off since the day he'd become solely responsible for his sister. He'd offended more than his share of matchmaking ladies, and he was sorry about that, but his temper tended to shorten when folks messed with his private life.

  After a lot of years of failure, though, even the most persistent had pretty much given him up as a lost cause, for which he'd been enormously grateful. Now the talk was bound to start again, stirring up the ugly gossip. Setting his jaw, he climbed into the car and dropped the bag between them.

  Sophie was resting her head against the seat, her features relaxed and vulnerable, her arms cradling her baby protectively against her breast. The instant he closed the door, however, her eyes snapped open again, and she forced life into her face.

  "How much do I owe you?" she asked, her Northern accent muted by weariness.

  "The receipt's in the bag," he said, firing the engine to life and backing up in one motion.

  He said nothing more as he navigated the dark streets, his face set in hard lines. What had the druggist said to him? Sophie wondered anxiously. Something about her? About something he'd heard or suspected?