Harlequin Heartwarming May 2016 Box Set: Through the StormHome for KeepsThe Firefighter's RefrainTo Catch a Wife

by Rula Sinara

  Emily swung away from the window and faced herself in the bathroom mirror. She had been only four years old when her mother left them, and she had been waiting for her to come back ever since, a silly childhood fantasy she had never outgrown. She stared hard at her reflection. No matter how the future unfolded, she would figure this out, and she would always be there for this little one. Always, always, always.

  “And, please, be a girl,” she whispered. She didn’t know anything about boys, and at that moment, she didn’t like them much, either. At least not the ones who stayed the night and never called.

  She looked down at the plastic pregnancy stick and wondered for the umpteenth time how she could have let herself get so caught up in the moment. Because it had been the moment, she reminded herself, the one she had fantasized about since she’d started high school and her hormones had kicked in. She had been an underdeveloped fourteen-year-old. Jack Evans had been sixteen and in lust with Belinda Bellows, the knockout who had been crowned queen of Riverton’s Riverboat Festival, with the requisite physical assets needed to pull it off. Emily had been invisible back then, and she had stayed invisible, as far as Jack Evans was concerned, until her brother-in-law’s shocking death had put her on a collision course with the heart-searingly handsome Chicago PD detective.

  During a cozy dinner conversation about pasts and futures—his and hers and Riverton’s—she had been surprised to learn they had things in common. A lot of things, actually. They both preferred dogs to cats, marinara to alfredo, red wine to white. Regrettably, they had shared a bottle of wine over dinner. Red, of course. And then he had walked her back to her little apartment above the newspaper office...and that was how she’d ended up here, two months later and too many weeks late, holding this stupid stick with its two colored lines. She hadn’t heard from him since. No phone calls, no emails. Not even a lousy text message. Calling him would have made her seem desperate, so she hadn’t.

  The shuffle of footsteps in the hallway was followed by a light knock on the bathroom door.

  “Emily?” Annie asked. “Are you still in there?”

  “Be right out.” She tossed the remains of the pregnancy test into the trash and unlocked the door. As her father had often reminded her when she’d landed herself in trouble, it was time to face the music.

  CHAPTER THREE

  AFTER A RIDICULOUSLY tearful conversation with her sisters, during which Emily extracted promises they wouldn’t breathe a word of her pregnancy to anyone, especially not their father, it was now almost lunchtime, and she was back in town. Standing in front of Morris’s Barbershop, she closed her eyes and took a deep, steadying breath. She opened them again and yanked on the door handle before her courage fled and dragged her away with it. The bell jangled, and the open sign clattered against the glass. No turning back now.

  Fred was sweeping the worn black-and-white tile floor as he always did after finishing up with a customer. She had been anxiously watching from the newspaper office across the street, waiting for Elroy Ferguson to leave. Fred was alone now, whisking Elroy’s salt-and-pepper hair clippings into a tidy pile. Her best friend’s familiar, slightly lopsided smile should have made her feel at ease. He glanced at the big clock above the door.

  “You’re early. Is that lunch?” he asked, eyeing the brown paper bag she carried.

  She nodded and managed a weak smile. She set the bag on the counter. “I need to talk to you about something.”

  “What’s up?” he asked, bending his tall, lanky frame to brush the sweepings into an old metal dustpan, its yellow paint chipped from many years of service.

  She flipped the lock on the door, turned the sign to Closed and pulled down the roller blind, its frayed edges barely covering the glass. She was a little misty-eyed by the time she turned back to face him. More tears? Seriously, what was the matter with her?

  “Wow, must be important,” Fred said, dumping the hair clippings into the trash bin. He leaned the broom in a corner, hung the dustpan on a hook next to it, and then he looked at her, really looked at her. His amusement turned to concern. “Emily? What’s wrong? Is it your family? Your dad?”

  She shook her head. Her throat had squeezed shut, and the words wouldn’t come.

  Fred crossed the floor in a flash and pulled her into a hug. “Hey. Whatever it is, it’s going to be all right. Just don’t cry, okay?”

  “O-o-kay,” she hiccupped, but now that the waterworks had started, she couldn’t stem the flow. What was wrong with her? She never cried.

  Fred didn’t say anything more. He simply held her, letting her tears soak into his shirt, patiently waiting for her to compose herself.

  He smelled like shaving soap and styling mousse. His shoulder, more bony than muscular, had always been available for her to lean on. They were best friends. She had known him forever. He knew her better than anyone else ever had or ever would.

  Dear, sweet Fred. Loyal, down-to-earth, dependable. He’d make a great dad. Perfect, really. He would always be there for his kid, just as her dad had been for her. Steady, patient, reliable. Exactly what every child needed in her life. Or his life, since there was only a fifty-percent chance she was having a girl.

  After she stemmed the flow of tears, she gripped his upper arms, tipped her head back and stared up at him.

  “You look awful,” he said.

  “Gee, thanks. Just what a girl wants to hear. I’m glad I ruined your shirt.” The crisp white cotton was smeared with dark mascara and tan-colored eye shadow.

  “That’s okay. I have a clean one in the back.”

  Of course he did.

  “Just in case,” he added.

  This was the Fred she’d always known. Mr. Just-in-case. Mr. Always-prepared.

  Why couldn’t he be her Mr. Tall-dark-and-dreamy?

  She gave him a long look, taking in his wavy sand-colored hair, unruly eyebrows, gold-flecked hazel eyes and nicely shaped mouth. For the first time in all the years she’d known him, she wanted to feel something when she looked at him, that special something for that one special person. But she didn’t. It just wasn’t there.

  What was wrong with her? How could she feel all fluttery for someone like Jack, someone who would never be there for her, when she already had this great guy in her life? Fred would make a perfect father and a wonderful husband...for someone. Not for her, though.

  “Em?”

  “What?”

  “You’re kind of scaring me.”

  “Sorry.”

  “What’s going on?”

  She took a deep breath, held it, exhaled in a rush. “I’m pregnant.”

  Fred stared at her, opened his mouth, closed it again, leaving his first thought, whatever it was, unspoken.

  She waited.

  “Um, wow, I...” He stepped back, looked her up and down, his gaze finally coming to rest on her midsection. “You...you’re having a...”

  She nodded. “A baby.”

  “Jack Evans’s baby.”

  Now it was her turn to stare. “How on earth did you figure that out?”

  “The day of Eric’s funeral, I closed the shop for a couple of hours so I could go. Later that afternoon, I came back here, and it was business as usual. Before I closed up, I saw the two of you going into the café down the street. What was that, two months ago? And now you’re...”

  Having a baby. Fred seemed unable to say the actual words out loud.

  “What did he say when you told him?”

  “Well, that’s the thing.”

  “You haven’t told him?”

  She shook her head.

  “Em! Why not?”

  “Because I only found out this morning.” Because the thought of telling Jack terrified her, and because some secret little part of her hoped she wouldn’t have to. She hoped having
her family and her best friend to support her and this new little person would be enough, even though in her heart she knew it wasn’t the right thing to do.

  He hugged her again. “So I’m the only person who knows?”

  She shook her head against the soggy mess she’d made of his shirt. “My sisters know, too. CJ found the pregnancy test in my bag, and they made me take it while I was out at the farm this morning.”

  “That must have been interesting. How did they react when you told them it was Jack’s?”

  “I didn’t tell them.”

  “Your sisters didn’t ask? Didn’t try to pry the truth out of you? That’s hard to believe.”

  “They did. I kind of lied.”

  Fred leaned back and stared down at her, momentarily confused. “You told them it was somebody else’s?”

  She glanced up at him but couldn’t bring herself to confess. She didn’t have to.

  He let go of her and abruptly stepped back. “You didn’t. Emily, tell me you didn’t tell your sisters that this...”

  She lowered her head and fixed her guilty gaze on the toes of her beige ballerina flats.

  “You did. You told them... You told them...” His voice had risen a full octave. He stabbed the fingers of both hands through his hair, held them there. He had a tendency to blush when he was embarrassed or angry. Right now even his ears were crimson, and he was looking a little wild-eyed, too. “You told them it was mine? That I...? That we...? Why would you do that?”

  Her sisters would find out the truth soon enough, but since she had humiliated her best friend in the whole world, she owed him an explanation now.

  “I don’t know. It was all so unexpected. I drove over to Wabasha early this morning and went to the pharmacy there.” If she’d bought the test in Riverton, half the town would know by now that she might be pregnant.

  “On my way back to town, I stopped at the farm for my usual Saturday-morning coffee date with my sisters. I had no intention of actually doing the test while I was there. I was going to wait till I was alone at home, but then my phone rang and CJ opened my bag to look for it and...surprise.”

  Fred’s color was gradually returning to normal, and he’d stopped pulling at his hair. Now he stood, arms folded, silent and waiting.

  “I was hoping I wasn’t pregnant,” she continued. “I was hoping I was late, you know? It happens a lot, but I’ve never been this late—”

  Fred’s color deepened again. “Stop. Too much information. I don’t need to know how late or how often you’re... Geez, Em. That’s just...”

  “Okay, okay, I get it.” Too much information. She was feeling woozy all of a sudden, which made no sense, and she reached for the back of one of the barber chairs for support. The chair pivoted away from her, and she lost her balance.

  Fred caught her.

  “Can we sit down?” she asked. “I brought lunch, remember?” She pointed to the brown bag on the counter. Maybe she’d feel less light-headed if they were having this conversation on a full stomach.

  “You thought you could butter me up with lunch?”

  “Annie made sandwiches. Ham and Swiss on rye, with extra mustard.”

  He narrowed his gaze, but she could see she had his attention. It was one of his favorites. “She sent some of her apple strudel, too.”

  His features softened a little. “You sort of had me at extra mustard, but no sane person ever turned down your sister’s strudel.”

  Emily smiled. Given Fred’s appetite and the universal appeal of Annie’s pastries, she’d known the strudel was her ace in the hole.

  “Come on,” he said. “We can sit in the back office. Just don’t think that one of your sister’s killer lunches gets you off the hook.”

  Fred led her into the cramped office-slash-storage room off the back of the barbershop and sat her in a chair. He unpacked the sandwiches and two generous slices of strudel and set them on the narrow wooden table, then pulled two bottles of water from the mini-fridge.

  Emily found the small, familiar space vaguely reassuring. She’d always liked this little room, couldn’t begin to count the number of hours she and Fred had spent in it over the years—playing Go Fish when they were kids, working on high school assignments, catching up on town gossip during her brief visits home from college. These days they usually met for lunch at the Riverton Bar & Grill down the block, but today’s conversation was not for public consumption.

  Fred sat across from her, peeled the plastic wrap off Annie’s signature sandwich, bit off a mouthful and slowly chewed while he studied Emily through narrowed eyes.

  She didn’t know what to say, and Fred was in no hurry to fill the awkward silence. This must be how a criminal felt, sitting in an interrogation room, trying not to squirm beneath the steely gaze of a hardened detective. Like Jack. He would be cool and collected, in spite of feeling disillusioned about his job. Over dinner that night he had told her being a homicide detective was taking a toll on his work life, his personal life...his life. Still, he had been surprised when she’d asked if he had considered making a change. Never, he’d said. He had known since he was a kid that he was going to be a big-city cop. He had invested everything in his career. Change wasn’t an option.

  Well, Jack Evans was in for a surprise. Emily Finnegan, the one-night stand who hadn’t been interesting enough or attractive enough to warrant so much as a phone call, now had some news that would change his life forever. Forget calm, cool and collected. Jack Evans was going to go ballistic.

  “So here’s what I don’t understand,” Fred said. “After all this time, you finally got what you wanted, but you didn’t say anything to anyone. Not me, not even your sisters.”

  “What are you talking about? I’ve never, ever said anything about wanting a baby.” She’d never said she didn’t want one, either. Having a baby had always been one of those someday things that would happen eventually. Someday.

  “I’m not talking about kids. I’m talking about Jack Evans.”

  Emily’s face heated up. “I had a crush on him in high school.”

  “And now?” Fred challenged her with his unwavering gaze.

  She shrugged. “He has an interesting job. He’s smart and he’s...”

  “Hot?”

  That made her laugh. “Yes,” she conceded. She could always be honest with Fred. “No one’s going to argue with that, but for me he’s always been...you know. Haven’t you ever felt that way about someone? Your head is telling you this person is completely wrong for you, but your heart goes all wobbly, and your brain turns to mush every time you see her?”

  He solemnly shook his head, and her heart broke for him a little. He was a great guy, and he deserved to find a woman who would fall completely head over heels for him. “It’ll happen,” she said.

  “In Riverton?”

  “Stranger things have.”

  “I suppose. And nice try, by the way.”

  “What did I do?”

  “Shifted the subject from you to me. You do that all the time.”

  It was true. It was the reporter in her.

  “Sorry.” And she was, sort of, as she gave him a long look. Really looked at him, willing herself to feel something more than sisterly affection. Fred was a nice guy, and he’d be a great dad. They’d been best friends for such a long time. It could work, maybe. Couldn’t it?

  “Em?”

  “What?”

  “Don’t look at me like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like you’re going to try to talk me into being part of whatever crazy story you told your sisters.” He was blushing again. “Not going to happen.”

  She dropped her gaze, nibbled at the crust of her sandwich.

  “You know I’m here for you,” Fred said. “Always have been, always wil
l be.”

  She tipped her head back and took a sip from her water bottle, then hastily dropped her gaze, so Fred couldn’t see her eyes getting watery. More tears? This was getting ridiculous.

  “You should be happy, Em. You deserve to have someone special in your life, too.”

  Tears rolled down her cheeks. “He isn’t in my life. He went back to Chicago the next day, and I haven’t heard from him since.”

  “You’re joking.” Fred handed her a paper napkin to stem the waterworks. “You mean he...? And he didn’t...? I think he and I need to have a talk.”

  “No, you don’t. I’ll talk to him myself, I just have to find his phone number.”

  “You can’t pick up the phone and call him.”

  “Why not?”

  “Why not? Em, this is huge. We’re talking life-changing huge. You owe it to him to break the news in person.”

  “I was thinking I don’t actually owe him anything. He didn’t call me, so apparently he doesn’t think he owes me anything, either.”

  “He owes you eighteen years of child support, but that doesn’t let you off the hook. This kind of news must be delivered in person.”

  “He hardly ever comes to Riverton.”

  “Then you’ll have to go to Chicago.”

  “I don’t know where he lives.”

  It sounded lame as she said it. Apparently, Fred thought so, too.

  “Ever heard of a little thing called the internet? Or you could ask his mother.”

  She had already tried the internet and hadn’t come up with anything, not that she’d tried terribly hard. And there was no way she was going to ask Norma Evans—her baby’s grandmother!—for her son’s phone number. She would demand to know why Emily wanted it. What would she tell her? Hi, Mrs. Evans. Remember me, little Emily Finnegan? Your son and I hooked up a while ago, and now... Oops... I’m having his baby.

  “I am not asking his mother.”

  “Fine, don’t. I’ll ask her. I’ll even go to Chicago with you.” Fred made a fist and hit the palm of his other hand to indicate how he intended to handle the situation if called upon.