Last-Minute Marriage

by Marisa Carroll

  “Not very well,” he admitted. He pulled it off, and the red bandanna, too. A lock of hair fell forward. Tessa plunked the almost empty bowl back down on the table, but held on to the rim with both hands to keep from reaching out to brush his hair back.

  “Tessa?” He still wasn’t smiling.

  “Sam’s pumpkin. Did you see it? Of course you did. Isn’t it great? And wasn’t it sweet of him to carve it for me?”

  “He’s a great kid.”

  “Yes. And wasn’t it a great night for trick or treat,” she said, dragging air into her lungs. The baby shifted inside her, reacting to the rush of adrenaline that coursed through her veins as Mitch’s heat and the scent of his skin invaded her senses. Her fantasies of pirate ravishment returned full force. “The moon is gorgeous.”

  “Would you like to walk down to the dock for a few minutes?” he asked. “It will be your last chance to see the moon over the river from there. Charlie’s going to help me take the dock out this weekend.”

  “I…I’d love to.” Tonight there were moonbeams and starshine, ghosts and goblins about, and she had the flesh-and-blood reincarnation of Errol Flynn standing right beside her. And she loved him.

  He took her hand. His palm was warm and slightly rough against her skin. She shivered with desire as he helped her into her coat, and blamed it on the cold air from the open door. They walked outside and down the steps to the dock, their footsteps echoing over the river. Mist hung low above the water, and off in the distance a dog barked. Faintly, from inside Mitch’s house, she could hear Belle take up the challenge, then stop abruptly, silenced, no doubt, by Caleb’s command.

  The moon had begun to wane, but it was still beautiful. She rested her palms on the railing of the deck. They had stood like this once before, when she’d first come to Riverbend. And if she was brave enough to tell Mitch what was in her heart, it wouldn’t be the last. There would be a lifetime of nights for them to stand here this way, side by side, watching the moon rise over the sleeping fields and the slowly flowing river.

  She turned her head slightly so she could watch Mitch as he looked out over the river. His profile was as strong and clean as the moonlight that silhouetted him. She remembered the feel of his mouth on hers, the solidity of his chest against her breasts, the warmth of his arms around her.

  Tessa opened her mouth to speak, but no words came. It was harder than she’d thought. With Brian the words had come so easily. “I love you,” she’d told him many times. And then she found she didn’t love him at all.

  “Mitch?” She wished he would turn to her and take her in his arms and never let go. If he held her close to his heart so that she could feel the steady reassuring beat of it, she could find the courage of her conviction and tell him she loved him.

  “Yes, Tessa?” He turned but made no move to take her in his arms. She had asked him not to, and he wouldn’t until she gave him a sign.

  That she could do. Even if the words were slow to work their way past the knot of emotion that clogged her throat, she could tell him without words.

  Reaching up on tiptoe, she bracketed his face with her hands. He tilted his head down to hers, rested his arms lightly on her shoulders. Then, as their lips met, he slid his hands down her arms to her waist and touched her stomach. Touched her where he had never touched her before, where the child was growing within her. The baby moved. The earth moved, and she opened her mouth to speak.

  “Hey, hello down there.” A tall figure appeared at the top of the steps, backlighted by the security lights from the park across the creek.

  “What the hell?” Mitch growled. He dropped his hands and moved to block her from sight. It was a protective, completely male action. But she didn’t need protection. It wasn’t a stranger’s voice. At least not to her.

  “Oh, God,” Tessa whispered. “It can’t be.”

  “Who are you and what do you want?” Mitch called back up the steps.

  “My name’s Brian Delaney.” The figure came forward down the steps into a beam of moonlight that illuminated his rugged handsome face. “I’m looking for Tessa Masterson. I was told she lived in the cottage up there. I thought I heard her voice.”

  Brian here in Riverbend. Not now when I’ve made up my mind to stay with Mitch!

  Mitch turned his head to look at her. “Your baby’s father?”

  She nodded, mute, unable to confirm the words aloud. He waited for her response. She wanted to turn and dive into the river and swim away, but she couldn’t. She squared her shoulders and stood a little straighter. “I’m here, Brian.”

  “The old guy at the house was right, then. He said you might be down here.” Brian descended the final two steps. “When Callie told me you’d ended up in some one-horse town in Indiana, I didn’t believe her.”

  Tessa found her voice. “Well, now you can see it’s true. Why are you here, Brian?” she asked, afraid she already knew the answer.

  His voice softened, dropped to a low persuasive growl. “I’ve come to take you home with me.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  I’VE COME TO TAKE you home.

  How often had she longed to hear him say those words? But not now. Not at this time, in this place. Not with Mitch listening.

  Brian took her in his arms.

  She felt the jut of his hipbones against her belly, the solidness of muscle and sinew in his arms. The baby moved restlessly. “God, I’ve missed you.” He pulled her close, rested his chin on top of her head, but made no attempt to kiss her, for which she was grateful. She didn’t know how she would have reacted. His jacket was leather, old and soft. She used to snuggle into its heavy folds when it turned cool in the late innings of a game. That all seemed a lifetime ago.

  “Who are you?” Brian demanded of Mitch.

  Tessa stepped away from Brian’s embrace. His arms tightened around her for a heartbeat, but he let her go without a struggle. “Brian, this is Mitch Sterling. He’s my employer and my friend.”

  “Yeah, you two looked real friendly when I was coming down the steps.”

  “Do you want him here?” Mitch asked quietly.

  Brian turned so that Mitch was blocked from her view. “Tessa, I’m here to ask you to come back to California with me. I want us to be a family.”

  There had been a time when those words would have made her the happiest woman in the world. Tonight they only confused her. Brian’s shoulders blotted out the moonlight. She took a step sideways to move out of his shadow and to give herself some time. She stumbled in the darkness.

  Mitch moved swiftly, but Brian was nearer. He scooped her close. “Are you okay? There’s nothing wrong with the baby? This guy hasn’t been working you too hard, has he?”

  She resented the last question and let him know it. “I’m fine, Brian.”

  He smiled, and even in the darkness she could feel some of its power. “I’m glad.” He held up his hand as though to forestall a blow. “And I should have known you would be.” He held out his hand to Mitch. “Sorry, buddy, that last remark was out of line. It’s just that I’ve spent the last three days tracking her down. I didn’t know what kind of situation she might have gotten herself into.”

  “No problem.” Mitch returned the handshake, but his voice was colder than the mist rising off the river.

  Tessa felt something twist and crack inside her. Her serenity. Her certainty that she was making the right choice by following her heart and her dreams into Mitch’s world. But the cold hard reality was that her baby’s father was standing in front of her, and everything she had been certain of just moments before had shifted like sand beneath her feet. “Brian and I do have a lot to talk about.”

  “You understand, right?” Brian said. “We kinda want to be alone.”

  “Of course.”

  “I…I’ll see you at work tomorrow,” Tessa said. It was a plea.

  Mitch only nodded and turned back to the river.

  Brian urged her up the steps. She was out of breath by the time the
y reached the top. “Your friend down there sounded like he wanted me for lunch,” Brian remarked as they neared the boathouse door.

  “You startled us.”

  “Yeah. I suppose I did.” He let it go at that. He stared down at her belly. “You’ve blossomed.”

  “I’m almost eight months pregnant.”

  “I know. I’m the guy who got you that way, remember?” he said with what sounded almost like wonder in his voice. He reached out a hand as if to touch her stomach, but Tessa shied away. Brian drew his hand back and looked at her with a furrow between his dark brows. She felt ashamed of her action and hurried to open the door. He was her baby’s father. If anyone had a right to touch her there, it was Brian.

  “Come in,” she said. She stopped dead at the sight of his duffel sitting on her kitchen table.

  “The door was open, so I unloaded my stuff.” He was the only man she knew who could sound sheepish and sexy at the same time. The trait was one of his most appealing. “You shouldn’t leave it unlocked like that.”

  “This is Indiana, Brian, not L.A. No one locks their door in Riverbend if they’re only going outside to watch the moonlight on the river.”

  “Is that what you call it here in the boonies? Watching the moonlight on the river?”

  She whirled on him. “That’s enough. I told you, Mitch is my friend. He’s also my landlord and my boss.”

  “Oh, so that’s the way it is.”

  “Brian.” The room spun around her for a moment. She grabbed the back of a kitchen chair for support.

  He was beside her in a heartbeat. “I’m sorry. I promised myself I wouldn’t act like a jealous jackass, but here I go already. You’re sure you’re okay?” He took her in his arms and she let her head rest against his shoulder for a moment until the room stopped spinning. He wasn’t quite as tall as Mitch. She didn’t fit as comfortably in his arms. Stop that, she ordered herself. Stop comparing them.

  She moved to the sink and ran a glass of water with trembling fingers. As she took a sip her throat closed, making it hard to swallow, so she poured the rest down the drain. “I’m just tired.” It was the truth. But she was also heartsick and growing more confused and uncertain by the moment.

  “Callie said she thought you were working too many hours.”

  “I’m fine,” she repeated.

  “You should be taking it easy. Lying on the beach or something. There’re some great beaches in Honduras.” Brian was a very determined man. When he wanted something, he went after it with both hands, and for the time being, at least, he obviously wanted her—and their baby—back. She was too vulnerable at this point to give him any advantage.

  “I don’t want to lie on the beach.”

  “How did you end up in this burg, anyway?” he asked, crossing the room with restless strides to peer behind the curtain into her bedroom alcove.

  “I got detoured off the highway by an accident. I got lost and nearly ran out of gas. The chief of police and Mitch Sterling came across me parked by the side of the road reading a map. They guided me into town.” She sank into one of the kitchen chairs. Her head was pounding, and she rubbed the back of her neck, trying to ease the pain.

  “So what did they do? Confiscate your car keys? Why did you stay on?”

  “It was a beautiful day. The river was lovely to watch. The leaves were turning. Mitch offered me a job and I needed the money.”

  He stiffened. “I left you money in our bank account. It hasn’t been touched.”

  She lifted her chin. “I don’t want your money, Brian.” Brian made what most people would call a good living playing baseball, but he also spent almost every cent he earned. He was always in debt. She was a little surprised he hadn’t already spent the money she’d left behind.

  He stopped his restless pacing. “Not even for the baby?”

  “We’re doing fine on our own.”

  “I’ve been half out of my mind worrying about you.”

  “Is that why you left the team and came after me?”

  He smiled but didn’t meet her eyes. “Of course.”

  “Brian, don’t lie to me.” She folded her hands on the cheery yellow place mats and tablecloth she’d bought on sale at Killian’s just the day before, and waited for him to answer.

  “I came after you because I was worried about you. And I hurt my shoulder.” The smile was gone. His eyes, the same blue as the Indiana autumn sky, were bleak.

  “Oh, Brian, I’m sorry. Is it bad?”

  “I saw the team doctor in L.A. just before I flew out here. He thinks it’s going to be okay. He recommended therapy. That’s why I have to get back to the Coast ASAP. If everything works out right, I’ll be ready to play again by the first of the year. You’ll have had the baby. We’ll spend the winter somewhere warm and tropical. How does that sound?” He planted both hands on the table and leaned toward her. “God, I’ve missed you. Every night and every day I was gone.” He rounded the table in a single step, took her hands in his and drew her to her feet. “I want a chance to be a father to my kid. I want a chance for us to get back together. I don’t want us to be apart a minute longer.”

  For a moment Tessa let herself believe he meant every word he said. And he did mean them. For as long as it took him to say them.

  She pulled her hands gently from his grip. “It’s not going to be that easy, Brian. You chose baseball over our child and me. That’s not what a good father does. I can’t forget that. I won’t forget that.”

  His eyes narrowed. For a moment there was a darkness in them she’d never seen before, then he smiled again and the moment of imagined vulnerability passed. “Okay. I didn’t think it would be that easy. But I am here. Doesn’t that mean something?”

  “Yes. It means you think you want a family now. But I won’t fall that easily a second time.”

  He lifted her hands and kissed her knuckles one by one. “Are you sure, Tessa? We were always really good together. We never fought in bed.”

  “We never talked in bed, either.”

  He dropped her hand as if her skin had suddenly burned his fingers. “Talk in bed?” He sounded genuinely astonished.

  Talking about anything but baseball was an alien concept to Brian. She might have smiled if her head didn’t hurt so badly. There was a tight dull pain across the small of her back, too. She pressed her hands to the spot and arched her spine to ease the tension. “We have a lot to talk about.”

  “Okay, if that’s what it takes for you to believe me, we can talk till the cows come home.” His jaw tightened, his lips thinned. It was the way he looked when he was facing a pitcher who had his number, and he was behind in the count. “Where do you want to start?”

  “Not tonight, Brian,” she said gently. “I have a full day tomorrow. You have to go.”

  “Go? Go where? I figured I’d stay here.” His gaze shifted to his duffel on the floor beside the table, then back to her face. “I can bunk down on the couch.”

  She wondered what Caleb and Sam would think when they got up in the morning and saw a strange car parked beside hers in the driveway. She wouldn’t let herself imagine what Mitch would think, or she’d break down completely. “There’s a nice hotel on Main Street. It’s reasonable. And there are a couple of motels out by the highway.”

  “I thought I’d stay here with you.”

  “That won’t do.”

  “Why?” A hint of male challenge sparked in his eyes. “Are you afraid your pirate friend out there won’t like it? What was with that getup, anyway?”

  “It’s Halloween. Mitch was part of the town safety patrol for trick or treat.”

  “A real pillar of the community, eh?”

  “Yes, he is.”

  “Okay, okay, don’t get up on your high horse. I’m sorry for that crack. It won’t happen again.” He held up his hands in surrender. “But don’t make me go. We belong together. You know that.” His voice was the low sexy growl she’d always found hard to resist.

  Tessa
stiffened her resolve. “You can’t just walk back into my life as if nothing’s happened.”

  He folded his arms across his chest. “Yeah, you’re right. There’s a hotel, you say?”

  “On Main Street near the river.” She was surprised he gave in so quickly. He really was trying.

  “I’ll get a room there. I’ll call you—Hell, I forgot. No phone. I’ll be back in the morning.”

  “I have a doctor’s appointment, then I’m going to work.”

  “I’ll go there. Where is the place? Not that it’ll be hard to find. Hell, Main Street’s only three blocks long.”

  Tessa ignored the slight against Riverbend. “I’d rather you didn’t.”

  He opened his mouth to say something, but thought better of it. A muscle jumped in his jaw. “Fine. Whatever you want. What time do you get off?”

  “Six. I told you I’m going in late.”

  “I’ll be here to pick you up. We’ll go to dinner. What’s the best joint in town?”

  “The Grill at the country club, I suppose. I’ve never been there.”

  “This wide-spot-in-the-road has a country club?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll be damned.” He grinned and she couldn’t help herself. She smiled back. “Maybe I’ll play a round tomorrow. See how my shoulder feels. If I don’t freeze doing it. They have some great courses in Honduras. And you never have to worry about frostbite.” He flipped up the collar of his jacket and leaned toward her again, inviting a kiss. Tessa opened the door.

  “Good night, Brian.”

  The rush of cold air on his back and legs seemed to cool his ardor. “I’ll see you tomorrow, but you remember this. I want you and I want our baby. I’m not leaving this town without you.”

  MITCH GRABBED the crowbar and attacked the stubborn spike that was keeping him from freeing the last section of dock.

  “Hey there, buddy, watch out or you’re going to send this whole section down the river with me still on it,” Charlie complained. They were standing waist-deep in cold river water, and Mitch’s chest-high waders had a leak in them. His left leg was soaking wet and numb to the knee.