Last-Minute Marriage

by Marisa Carroll

  “Riverbend’s about two miles straight ahead,” Ethan said in a friendlier tone, evidently satisfied they hadn’t stumbled on some hardened criminal masquerading as a pregnant woman. “You can get your tank filled there.”

  “Thank goodness. Much farther and I’d have to push my car the rest of the way.”

  “I don’t think you’re in any condition to push a car, ma’am,” Ethan said, hands on hips.

  “I don’t think I’d get very far trying,” she admitted, the tiniest hint of a smile curving her lips.

  “I would have offered my friend Mitch Sterling here to do it for you.”

  She turned to Mitch. She smiled just a little more, her eyes crinkling around the edges, and Mitch felt a surprising jolt of awareness. “That would make you a really good Samaritan, Mr. Sterling. But I’ve got enough gas to make it two more miles—I hope,” she added under her breath.

  “I can ride into town with you if you’d like,” Mitch heard himself offer.

  The wariness came back into her big eyes. “No thank you.”

  Mitch felt like an idiot. Where she came from, women did not accept rides with strange men. They didn’t much around Riverbend, either, come to think of it. But he’d been brought up to offer his assistance to people in distress. “No problem,” he said to fill the awkward silence that followed her words.

  “The first gas station is just three blocks inside the town limits,” Ethan told her. “You follow us and we’ll have you there in no time.”

  “Thank you.” She got into her car and fastened the seat belt over her distended middle. “I’m ready when you are.”

  Ethan nodded, tipped the bill of his hat and walked back to the cruiser, Mitch behind him.

  “She’s pretty far along to be making a cross-country jaunt,” Mitch said as they passed the little red compact and its occupant. Mitch watched in the side mirror as she followed them onto the road.

  “Yeah, she is pretty big,” Ethan agreed. He picked up the receiver of his radio and pushed the toggle switch. “We’ll just run a routine search on her license plate and ID.”

  “Jeez, Ethan. You don’t trust anyone, do you?”

  “Nope. Ain’t that why you hired me?” Ethan retorted with a grin.

  Mitch shook his head and settled back in his seat for the rest of the trip into town. Ethan was a damned good cop. And good cops were suspicious cops. Yet anyone with half a brain and one good eye could tell that the woman in the car behind them wasn’t a threat to anyone.

  Except maybe a man’s heart, with those big blue eyes and that lost-little-girl smile.

  Mitch caught himself looking in the side mirror again, wondering what she’d look like if she smiled fully and without restraint. She’d be a real beauty.

  Where the hell had that thought come from? He hadn’t had the energy or inclination to look at another woman in a long, long time. He sure wasn’t about to start now. She was a perfect stranger. She was pregnant. She was just passing through. In an hour she’d be gone from his life.

  He leaned his head against the back of the seat and watched the clock tower on the Sycamore County Courthouse come into view, then the water tower and the elevator rising above the trees and the flat Indiana farmland he loved. The three tallest points in Riverbend.

  This was the place where his roots went deep into the dark fertile soil. This was home. But his mind wasn’t interested in the familiar view. It was still focused on the pregnant woman in the red compact.

  He turned his head enough to bring Ethan’s profile into view. “What did you say her name was again?”

  CHAPTER TWO

  TESSA LEANED BACK in the wooden glider located in the center of the little park and set it swinging with a push of her feet. She looked out over the Sycamore River to the far shore. It wasn’t that far away, maybe a few hundred yards? She’d never been a very good judge of distance. The water was a mixture of shades, blue and green and brown, deep and slow-moving. It seemed tamer, more sedate, than its famous neighbor, the Wabash, of which she’d caught glimpses from the car.

  A rowboat with a small outboard motor putt-putted its way to a landing across the river where houses lined the bank. Some were older and looked as if they could use a little loving care. Some were new, a few large and substantial, with landscaped lawns and big wooden docks jutting out into the river. But beyond the manicured lawns the land was claimed by cornfields. Two-story white farmhouses and red-and-white barns stood in tree-filled yards as big as city parks. Cylindrical blue silos dotted the cloudy sky above pastures of black-and-white cows. For a moment Tessa wondered if she’d landed in her own private version of Oz. The town behind her looked like a Norman Rockwell painting. A town of her dreams.

  She settled back in the swing and kept it going with a gentle push now and then. As she watched the reflections of clouds and trees in the water, she felt her eyes grow heavy. She wished she could stay here for the night. Catch up on her sleep, get her hair and her clothes really clean. It would be heaven. Certainly this little town, with the river at its feet and the late-afternoon sun and the scent of a few fading roses in a nearby flower bed, seemed about as close as you could get.

  Her quiet reverie was broken by the sound of a car pulling into the parking lot behind her swing. She didn’t turn around to see who it was. She didn’t know a soul in Riverbend.

  No one but the cop who’d eyed her so suspiciously and then escorted her into town. And the man who’d been riding with him. The one with eyes the same rich brown as the plowed earth and a smile that lifted the left corner of his mouth a littler higher than the right. Mitch Sterling, the cop had said his name was. She wondered if he had anything to do with the big hardware and lumberyard she’d passed on her way down to the river. It had looked like a going concern. Not as big as the Home-Mart she’d worked for in Albany, but impressive for an independent in this age of mega-chain stores.

  “Hi there. Remember me?”

  She turned her head to find the man she’d been thinking about smiling down at her. His voice was low-pitched and a little rough around the edges, but as warm as his smile.

  She didn’t smile back, although she was tempted. You didn’t smile at strange men in California. Or in New York, for that matter.

  “Are you enjoying the view?”

  “Yes,” she said. This time she did smile. She wasn’t in L.A. anymore. She was in God’s country. Or so one or two signs she’d seen along the roadside had proclaimed. “It’s very peaceful here.”

  “It’s one of my favorite views.”

  “You come here often?”

  He propped one foot on the rose bed’s border, which was made of railroad ties stacked three deep. Real railroad ties, she’d noticed. Not those anemic landscape ties they’d sold at Home-Mart. This rose bed was going to be here for a long, long time. That was the way you built things in a place you never intended to leave.

  “Most everyone in town does. But it’s the same view I get from my kitchen window.” He pointed down the way to a wide stream that emptied into the river. “I live in the yellow house over there.”

  Tessa turned to follow his pointing finger, but she already knew what she would see. The house wasn’t yellow. It was cream-colored. Craftsman-styled, foursquare and solid with a stone foundation and big square porch posts. Roses grew on trellises on either side of the wide front steps. Pink roses, with several still blooming, like those in the park.

  She loved history. Not so long ago it had been her intention to share that love of history by teaching. Not ancient history, or Colonial history. Not even Civil War history. But the history of the century just past. The enthusiasm and hubris of the early decades. The heartbreak of the Great Depression and the sheer determination required to survive those years. The heroism and sacrifice of the Second World War. The optimism and opportunism of the fifties. Even the strife and intergenerational warfare of the sixties.

  The house Mitch Sterling indicated had seen it all. She wouldn’t be a bit surpris
ed to find it had always been in his family. Riverbend seemed that kind of place, a town where families passed down houses and businesses and recipes from generation to generation. “It’s a great house,” she said. “How long has it been in your family?” The words had jumped off her tongue before she could discipline her thoughts.

  “About ten years,” Mitch said, not looking at her but at the house. “I bought it when my son was born.”

  “Oh.” She tried hard to keep the disappointment out of her voice. Such a little thing, the house not being in his family for a hundred years.

  “I bought it from the family my granddad sold it to in ’74. My grandmother wanted something all on one floor, so he built her a ranch-style out by the golf course. But his grandfather built this house in 1902.”

  “Your great-great-grandfather built the house?” She didn’t even know her great-great-grandfather’s name. And she envied him the luxury of knowing who had owned this house, when, and for how long. It meant he had ties here, roots that went deep.

  “Yup. I thought it should stay in the family.”

  “When I was growing up, I never lived more than three years in one place.” What in heaven’s name had possessed her to tell such a thing to a total stranger? She must be more tired than she thought. She stood up, levering herself off the swing with one hand on the thick chain that held it to the wooden frame.

  Mitch Sterling leaned forward to steady the swing, but he didn’t try to touch her. She was oddly disappointed that he didn’t put his hand on her arm. She had the feeling his touch would have been as warm and strong as his voice and his smiling brown eyes.

  She smoothed her hand over her stomach. The baby was sleeping, hadn’t made a move in an hour. Perhaps she’d been lulled by the sound of the river and the rustle of the wind through the trees along the bank. Tessa hadn’t let the doctor back in California tell her the sex of her baby. But she knew in her heart it was a girl. A daughter. Hers and hers alone. She raised her eyes to find Mitch watching her with the same quiet intensity she’d noticed the first time she’d seen him on the road outside town.

  The silence was stretching out too long. “I have to be on my way. I want to make it to Ohio by tonight,” she blurted.

  “You’ve got a long way to go.”

  “I’ve come even farther.” All the way from Albany and back again, with a detour through Southern California. But Albany was home, because that was where she and Callie had settled after their mother died. It was where she’d worked days at the Home-Mart and gone to school at night to get her history degree. Until she’d met Brian Delaney, a high-school friend of her brother-in-law’s, and fallen head over heels in love with him, giving up everything she had to follow him to California.

  She blinked. Lord, she’d been close to saying all that aloud to this stranger. It must be something in the clean clear air, too much oxygen maybe, and not enough smog. She took a step away from the swing, trod on a stone and stumbled a little.

  This time he didn’t hesitate. He reached out and steadied her with a hand under her elbow. She was right. His touch was as warm and strong as the rest of him. “Are you sure you should be driving any more today? You look pretty done in to me.”

  He didn’t mince words, obviously. Nothing like Brian, who tap-danced his way around everything—until it came time to tell her he was leaving her and the baby to follow his dream and play winter baseball in Central America.

  “I’m fine, really,” she assured Mitch.

  He didn’t look convinced. “It’s going to be dark in an hour. It’ll take you another hour after that to make it to the interstate. Why don’t you stay the night here? The hotel on Main Street was restored just a couple of years ago. The rates are reasonable. And it’s clean. It’s even supposed to be haunted. And the restaurant’s not half-bad, either,” he added, deadpan.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  He made an exaggerated X on his chest. “Cross my heart, the food’s good.”

  A chuckle escaped her. “I mean, I don’t believe the hotel’s haunted. I always thought ghosts were unhappy spirits doomed to wander the earth until they were set free. What could have happened in a town like this to cause a ghost?”

  His face clouded slightly. She felt the same chill she had when the sun dipped behind a cloud a few minutes before he showed up. “Riverbend’s not paradise,” he said. “Most small towns aren’t.” Tessa waited, wondering what he would say next. He was silent a moment, glancing out over the river. Then his frown cleared and the sunshine came back into his face. “But this place is probably as close as you’ll come to it. And as a member of the town council and the Chamber of Commerce, it’s my duty to roll out the welcome mat. Get in your car and I’ll show you the way to the hotel.”

  “That’s not necessary.” She had no intention of spending the night in Riverbend or anywhere else. She couldn’t afford it even if the hotel rates were more than reasonable. They’d have to be giving the rooms away free.

  She had no health insurance and less than two hundred dollars to her name. One hundred and seventy-nine dollars, to be exact. And her credit card. It was paid off, thank goodness, but she’d have to live on the credit line, and it was by no means a large one. It scared her to death to think about how nearly penniless she was.

  But she wasn’t about to tell Mitch Sterling any of that, no matter how warm his eyes and his touch. How could he know how truly desperate she was? And how determined she was not to be beholden to a man to whom she and their baby were just an afterthought? Mitch Sterling was a member of the Chamber of Commerce and the town council. He lived in the sort of storybook house she had yearned for all her life, in a town that was the embodiment of the American dream. In a place like Riverbend, a man didn’t make a woman he professed to love pregnant and then leave her to follow his own dreams.

  She had her pride left, even if she’d lost most everything else. And her pride wouldn’t let her tell this confident, self-assured man that she had no intention of sleeping anywhere but in her car. So she let him walk beside her the short distance to the parking lot. She followed him out, onto Main Street, and then, after he waited for her to park her car, into the high-ceilinged, spotlessly clean lobby of the River View Hotel. She smiled when he introduced her to the clerk, a gray-haired woman standing behind an antique partners desk that served as a reception counter. He told the clerk that Tessa was a stranded traveler and to give her the best room in the house.

  Then he had shaken her hand and said goodbye. “I’m late picking up my son from his art lesson. It’s been nice meeting you.”

  “Thank you,” she said, equally formal in front of the inquisitive eyes of the desk clerk. “I’ll always remember your kindness.”

  “Goodbye, Tessa Masterson. Good luck in your journey.” He turned and left the building.

  Where had Mitch Sterling learned her name? From his friend the cop, she supposed.

  “Now,” said the clerk, “I imagine you’ll be wanting a nonsmoking room.”

  “I…” She was going to say she didn’t want a room at all. But she betrayed her resolve by asking what the room rates were, instead of turning on her heel and marching out of the building to her car.

  “Fifty-nine dollars a night, plus tax,” the woman said, spinning the antique desk ledger toward her. More than reasonable. But still too much. “We take credit cards,” she prompted.

  Tessa was tempted. So very tempted. Just one night. She started to reach for the pen but caught herself. “I’m sorry. I’ve changed my mind. I really must cover some more distance tonight. I…I have such a long way to go.”

  The woman’s smile faltered for a moment, then returned, polite but more distant now. “Certainly. I’m sorry you won’t be staying with us. Have a safe trip.”

  “Thank you.” Tessa turned and hurried out through the etched-glass double doors and down the steps to her car.

  She did need to cover more miles tonight. She really did.

  The sun was still sh
ining even though the rain clouds on the horizon were moving steadily closer. There were only a few more minutes of the beautiful autumn afternoon left. As long as the sun was shining, she would sit in the park and soak in the warmth and dream a little more of what her life might have been if she’d grown up in a town like this, with deep roots and strong family ties, instead of in the run-down part of a city in a series of shabby apartments with a mother who searched for love in all the wrong places and a father she couldn’t even remember.

  She could do that. It would cost her nothing but another hour or so of her time. And it would give her back so much more. A few moments of peace and serenity that were worth their weight in gold.

  IT STARTED TO RAIN just before sundown. The weather forecaster on the radio had said it would go on all night and most of the next day. Heavy fog was predicted for the morning, and school delays were a possibility.

  If they canceled school he’d have to find someone to look after Sam, or else take him to the store with him. At ten and a half his son thought he was a grown-up. But Mitch didn’t feel right leaving him home alone all day. Even in a town like Riverbend, a kid could get into trouble. Especially a kid with a handicap.

  If school was canceled, he’d take Sam to the store and let him price the new shipment of Christmas lights that had shown up yesterday afternoon. He’d even offer to pay him double his usual rate of two bucks an hour. Mitch wanted that Christmas-light display up before the end of the week. The big chain hardware out near the highway had had its Christmas lights out for weeks.

  People in Riverbend were loyal to Sterling Hardware and Building Supply, had been for the seventy-five years since his great-grandfather had first opened the doors. They knew it might take Mitch a week longer to get his shipments of such must-have items as icicle lights, but he’d get them. And he’d come damned close to matching the big store’s prices. So they waited.

  And Mitch tried his best to make sure they didn’t wait a minute longer than necessary.