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

by Rula Sinara

  “I had a crush on Jack when I was fourteen, not since I was fourteen. Either way, that’s no reason to rush into anything.”

  Fred made a big production of clearing his throat.

  “Don’t you dare say it.” She could read him like a book. “I did not rush into this thing with Jack. It just happened, and now I’m being rushed into motherhood, and I’m not ready for it, so I’m not rushing into marriage.”

  Tadpole cracked the remaining shell, crammed in the second nut, one cheek pouch bulging, and sniffed around the cage for more. The little critter’s face, now comically distorted, made her smile.

  “Your two-wrongs-don’t-make-a-right analogy is all well and good,” Fred said. “But what about your family, Jack’s family? Everyone will have something to say about this.”

  Everyone in town would have plenty to say about plain-Jane Emily Finnegan having Jack Evans’s baby. Maybe she should move to Chicago. “Trying to avoid gossip is not a good reason to rush into marriage.”

  “Fair enough. I hope you’ve talked to your sisters. I still can’t believe you told them I was the father.”

  “Not yet. I need to do that in person.”

  “You can’t call them?”

  “No way. They’ll want to know who the real father is, and I’m not explaining that over the phone.” With her free hand, she pulled her laptop out of her bag and set it on her desk beneath the window overlooking Main Street.

  “You can’t run out there this afternoon?”

  “No time. I have to get ready for my—” Hmm. She hadn’t meant to let that slip.

  “Ready for your...?”

  Fred would find out sooner or later. Probably sooner, since it seemed the barbershop was the hub of Riverton’s rumor mill. “Jack and I are going out for dinner.”

  Fred let out a long whistle. “A date. Interesting.”

  “It’s not a date. We have things to talk about, stuff to figure out.” Fred did not need to know about the getting-to-know-each-other portion of the evening.

  “And you plan to do that at the Riverton Bar & Grill? Gee, that won’t attract any attention at all.”

  “That’s not where we’re going.” And if Jack suggested that’s what they do, she would veto it.

  The whistle of the kettle drew her back to the kitchen. “I have to go,” she said, filling her mug and inhaling the fragrant minty steam rising from it. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  “Right after you’ve straightened out this mess with your sisters.”

  “I’ll call you. Goodbye, Fred.” She disconnected before he thought of another reason to prolong the conversation. She should work on an article for the paper and update her blog. Most important, she needed to figure out what to wear tonight. She hadn’t wanted to admit to Fred that it was a date, but it was. Jack had said so.

  CHAPTER SIX

  THE RIVERTON POLICE STATION was attached to the back of the new town hall building, just east of the historic downtown district. Technically, the low, sprawling complex wasn’t that new, having been built in the eighties, but it was significantly newer than the original town hall, which had been constructed more than a hundred years before that. That particular building, a more imposing two-story redbrick structure, still stood at the corner of First and Main and housed the town’s library and the county museum.

  Jack swung his Jeep into the lot and parked next to a patrol cruiser. In spite of being much later than he had planned to be here, he sat for a moment and stared at the Visitor Parking sign on the cinder block wall in front of him.

  A quick shave and a haircut. That’s all he’d stopped for. He’d ended up with neither. Instead...instead...unbelievable. Un-be-lievable. He fast-forwarded through the events of the past hour and a half, hitting pause at a few critical moments.

  In no way, shape or form had he been prepared for Emily’s appearance at the barbershop. Judging by her reaction to finding him there, the feeling had been mutual. Flustered and evasive at first, she had finally confessed to what had her on edge. She was having a baby, and the baby was his.

  Over the years, he’d known several guys who had found themselves in this situation, but he had always been responsible, taking precautions to make sure it never happened to him and the woman he was involved with. He could recall several instances in which those guys felt they were being trapped into a lifetime commitment they weren’t ready to make. One had even suspected he was being manipulated into taking responsibility for somebody else’s child.

  Jack locked gazes with himself in the rearview mirror. Why wasn’t he feeling any of those things? Why was he accepting this at face value, acknowledging the child was his? Because in his heart, he knew Emily was telling the truth, and he knew she hadn’t planned this any more than he had. Their share of the blame was an even fifty-fifty split, and so was their responsibility.

  She thought he didn’t know her. But he knew about her, and he knew her family. Emily Finnegan was as transparent as Wisconsin sunshine on a cloudless spring day. She had flatly rejected his hasty suggestion they get married—and honestly, what had he been thinking? If he hadn’t made the unexpected trip home, if he hadn’t given in to impulse and dropped into the barbershop, if Emily’s friend Fred hadn’t already known the secret and engineered their meeting, he wasn’t completely convinced she ever would have told him.

  He plucked Emily’s card from his jacket pocket. He had intended to call her as soon as he’d wrapped up this interview, or possibly drop by her apartment and surprise her. He had been fairly certain she would have been furious he hadn’t called or surprised he thought she cared. Either way, after flatly refusing his offer of marriage, she had agreed to have dinner with him tonight. He should be in denial, panicking, freaking out. Instead, he stared at her business card and cursed himself for being the jerk who had slept with a woman and never bothered to call. Now she didn’t trust him, probably didn’t believe a word he said. And he couldn’t blame her. Convincing her otherwise meant he had his work cut out for him. Good thing he was never one to back away from a challenge. This time was no exception. He slid Emily’s card into his pocket and headed into the station.

  “Hey, Doug,” he said to the young officer manning the front desk. “Sorry to be so late. Something came up, and I had to deal with it.” Talk about an understatement.

  “No problem. How was the drive from Chicago?”

  “As long as ever. How’s my witness holding up?”

  “Ticked off we’re keeping her here ‘against her will,’ but we weren’t letting her go till you got here.”

  “Appreciate that. Thanks.”

  The door of Chief Fenwick’s office swung open. “Detective Evans, as I live and breathe. Good to see you. Who’d’ve figured you’d be here on official business instead of just paying us a social visit.”

  Jack crossed the room and accepted the man’s firm handshake. He always made a point of dropping by the station when he was in town, and over the years he and Gordon Fenwick had forged a close working relationship. In his early days with the Chicago PD, Chief Fenwick had been the person Jack looked up to the most, a mentor, a father figure of sorts, even though he had a close relationship with his own dad. As Jack’s responsibilities and experience with vice and then the homicide unit expanded, their friendship had been on a more equal footing. From time to time, Gordon would call and ask for his opinion and advice on a police matter.

  “Chief, always good to be here.”

  “You got a minute?” Gordon asked. “There’s something I’d like to run by you.”

  “Sure. I can spare several, actually.” Rose Daniels was getting antsy, but a few more minutes weren’t going to kill her, he decided, and followed the man into his office.

  Chief Fenwick closed the door. “Have a seat,” he said, settling himself into the chair behind his massive des
k.

  Jack sat, expecting to hear about a new case or perhaps field a few questions about the young Daniels woman. “What’s up?”

  “I’ve decided to retire.”

  “Seriously?” Chief Fenwick was a Riverton institution, and Jack couldn’t imagine the town without him.

  “Not many people know about it yet, including my team here, so I’d appreciate you keeping it under your hat. The mayor’s going to make the official announcement at the town council meeting on Monday.”

  “Of course. I have to say this seems awfully sudden.”

  “Been mulling it over for the past couple of months. The missus had surgery back in February. Not sure if I told you about that.”

  “My mother mentioned it.” Jack’s mother and Eleanor Fenwick had known each other for years, and Norma Evans had been beside herself when her longtime friend was diagnosed with breast cancer.

  “She’s been going into the city for radiation treatments. Now that that’s done and she’s starting to feel more like her old self again, the docs are saying the prognosis is excellent.”

  “I’m happy to hear that.”

  “So are we, son. So are we. And it’s been one of those wake-up calls for us. Eleanor would like to spend more time with the grandkids. We both would. They’re all over the map these days—Pittsburgh, Fort Worth, Seattle—and Eleanor’s always talked about spending the winter in Florida. So we’re thinking about getting ourselves a motor home and discovering America, so to speak.”

  “Then you should do it.” Jack wished his own parents would get around more. His sister, Faith, who lived in San Francisco, was constantly after their parents to fly out for a visit, but their mother hated leaving the house to sit empty, and their father wasn’t fond of big cities. “The Riverton PD won’t be the same without you, though.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that. Everyone’s replaceable.”

  That might be a sound philosophy in many cases, but Jack wasn’t sure it extended to Chief Fenwick. The man had a reputation for remaining calm during a crisis and for inspiring his staff to rise to the same high standards he set for himself. Finding someone to fill those shoes wouldn’t be easy.

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Gordon continued. “Last time you were in town, I got the impression working homicide was starting to take a toll, that you were starting to feel burned out.”

  The man knew him almost as well as he knew himself, but where was he going with this?

  “I’ve been considering a change,” he admitted. There were only a handful of people Jack felt comfortable confiding in, and Gord Fenwick was one of them. “Maybe back to vice, maybe something completely different. I’ve worked hard to get where I am, though, and I don’t want the department to think I can’t take the heat anymore.”

  Gord tilted back in his big black leather desk chair, making Jack the sole subject of his intensely thoughtful gaze. “Looking for change doesn’t make you a bad cop. I’ve seen lots of guys—good cops—happily walk the same beat their whole career. Others, like you, quickly rise up through the ranks. I’ve seen your track record for cases solved, and it’s a lot higher than most. So, no, feeling restless doesn’t make you a bad cop,” he repeated. “It makes you one who’s ready to take on a new challenge.”

  Jack studied the man on the other side of the desk. He had a hunch he knew what was coming next, and he wasn’t sure he was prepared for it.

  “I’ve told the mayor I want to step down as soon as he can find a replacement, so he asked if I had any recommendations.” Chief Fenwick had a direct way of looking at people, as though he was challenging them to sit up straighter. That’s how he was looking at Jack right now.

  Jack adjusted his posture accordingly.

  Gord straightened his chair, picked up a gold pen off the desk and, holding the ends in the fingers of both hands, rolled it thoughtfully. “I told the mayor I knew only one person who could step in here and take over tomorrow.” He glanced away from the pen and back up at Jack. “That person is you. You know the town, the people. You already have a great rapport with everyone here in the department. This opportunity would take your career in a whole new direction, give you a fresh outlook on police work. I hope you’ll give it some serious consideration.”

  Two hours ago, Jack might have brushed the offer aside, laughed at it, even. Chief of Police? Practically unheard of for anyone at this stage of their career. “I don’t know what to say, Chief. I’m flattered, of course, and honored, but this isn’t something I’ve ever aspired to. I’ve never seen myself behind a desk, being the one in charge. And, yes, I’ve been feeling a little burned out, but I love what I do, being on the street in the thick of things. I don’t think I’m the right guy for the job.” He debated whether or not to tell Gord about the baby and his plan to convince Emily to move to Chicago with him, then decided against it. Emily still needed to share the news with her family, and he would need to figure out a way to tell his folks, too. His father would be disappointed in him, but he was pretty sure his mother would bust out the knitting needles and get started on the baby’s first wardrobe.

  “How long have we known each other?” Gord asked.

  Jack pondered the question. “Almost twenty years?” Since that fateful night when he and his friends Eric Larsen and Paul Woodward had foolishly let themselves get drawn into a Halloween prank instigated by Jesse Wilson and his loser friends. They’d spent the next four Saturday mornings at the station, washing and waxing police cruisers.

  The man nodded. “Even then I knew there was something special about you. Then, years later, after you’d graduated college and told me you were going into the police academy, I was as proud as I’d have been if you were my own son.”

  Jack smiled at the recollections. “You do remember why I was here in the first place?”

  Gord grinned. “Could’ve made a lot of omelets with all those eggs you boys were tossing around town.”

  Not to mention the numerous rolls of toilet paper they’d used to festoon the trees lining the street in front of the high school.

  Jack shook his head sheepishly. “You let us off pretty easy.”

  “Let the punishment fit the crime, I always say. You and your buddies learned your lesson.”

  “We sure did.”

  “Wish the same was true for Jesse Wilson, but it seems some fellows never grow up.”

  Jack glanced at his watch and stood. “I appreciate the vote of confidence, Gord. I’ll think about it, I really will, but right now I have a witness to interview.”

  Chief Fenwick stood, too, and extended his hand across the desk. “You do that. Just don’t take too long. Mayor Bartlett has assured me the job belongs to the person I recommend, and I’m recommending you.”

  They shook on it. “Give my best to Eleanor, will you?” Jack said as he left the chief’s office.

  On his way to the interview room and his waiting witness, the events of the past few hours swirled in his mind. A family in the making, Emily’s reluctance notwithstanding. An incredible career opportunity, albeit one he had no intention of taking. Sitting at his desk that morning, which now seemed a lifetime ago, he’d felt deflated by a job that had become a drain. Now, instead of freaking out, he was energized by the prospect of change. Was he being naive? He didn’t think so.

  * * *

  EMILY GRIPPED THE edge of her desk. She couldn’t breathe. She pulled in a quick breath, then another, then another and another. Her heart raced. The images on her laptop monitor blurred. The room tilted from side to side, and her stomach followed. Her face warmed, and she could feel her forehead getting damp. With her fingers still clamped to the edge of the desk, she squeezed her eyelids shut and tried to force herself to stop panting.

  Calm down, she told herself. You know how to get through this. Breathe slowly. Breathe in, two, thr
ee, four. Out, two, three, four. You can do this.

  By degrees, she relaxed her death grip on the desk and slowly opened her eyes. She forced herself to focus on the words on her computer screen. Her heart still felt as though she’d run a marathon, but it was no longer hammering its way out of her chest.

  “You need to keep it together,” she said out loud after she was more or less breathing normally again. Would panic attacks be bad for the baby? They probably weren’t good.

  She pushed back her chair, stood shakily, wobbled unsteadily into the bathroom and leaned on the sink. These episodes left her drained and weak, physically and emotionally. She hated them. They’d started while she was away at college, pushing herself to keep her GPA high enough to maintain her scholarship, knowing her family was enormously proud of her while she missed them desperately and wished more than anything she was back in the big old farmhouse, being bear-hugged by her dad, dining on one of Annie’s sumptuous meals instead of eating cafeteria food, and even enduring CJ’s endless attempts at one-upmanship.

  Emily had come home for Thanksgiving with a prescription for antianxiety medication, and her father had sat her down for a heart-to-heart. He had warned her against taking them and advised she find another way to cope. Following the debilitating injuries he’d suffered during the Gulf War, he’d found himself relying heavily on medications to relieve the pain and trauma he’d experienced. Taking them had been easy. Stopping had not. Not wanting to disappoint her father, Emily had flushed the pills. When she returned to school, she had made an appointment with a counselor on campus who’d taught her breathing techniques to control the hyperventilation. He had also recommended more exercise and less caffeine. She had done everything except give up coffee. The techniques had worked, and after moving back to Riverton, she was seldom bothered by the attacks. Now they were back.

  Jack Evans had proposed to her, and she had turned him down. Had she done the right thing? She stared at her reflection in the bathroom mirror. Of course she had. Technically, it hadn’t been a proposal. He hadn’t asked, “Will you marry me?” He had hastily stated, unequivocally, “We’ll get married.”