“Yeah, but I’m loveable.”
Smiling, she shook her head and opened the door. Yes, you are. But she wasn’t about to tell him that.
Five minutes later when Megan learned that Lindsey expected three hundred people at her wedding, she almost backed out. The wedding cakes she’d done in class were sized to serve less than one hundred, and Lindsey had her heart set on one big, glorious cake. She also needed a groom’s cake.
After Megan went online and she and Lindsey looked through the Wilton cake decorating site, she felt better. They found a cake similar to what Lindsey had originally ordered, and she liked this one even better. It wasn’t beyond Megan’s abilities, just bigger than what she’d done before. If she did it well, it would make a great impression on future customers.
Lindsey and Dalton left much happier than they’d been when they arrived. Everyone else left about the same time, but Megan stayed for a few minutes. “Sue, could I use the computer a little more? I need to get directions to the Michaels store in Abilene.” She and Sue had gone there the week after they hired her to pick up more baking equipment, but she wasn’t positive she remembered the way.
“Sure. Use it as long as you need. We’re going to watch TV for a while.”
Megan settled in, printing the directions to Michaels as well as another craft store. Earlier, she’d printed the list of needed supplies and instructions for making and decorating the cake. As she considered printing out some other instructional information, Will walked into the office carrying a large briefcase.
He set it on one of the chairs in front of the desk. “Would all this be easier if you had a computer at your house?”
“Yes. I know as I go along I’ll think of things I need to research, like how to transport the cake to the church.”
He plopped down in the other chair. “Mom will let us use the Suburban.”
“That’s not the part that concerns me. I can’t imagine trying to carry the cake with it all put together. But assembling it there is a little scary too.” She yawned and covered her mouth with her hand. “Guess that’s something to check out tomorrow. It’s past my bedtime.”
Will glanced at his watch. “Five after ten. Past mine too.” He stood and picked up the briefcase as she gathered the things she had printed. “You can use my laptop as long as you need it. There’s a portable printer in here too. The camp house is set up with broadband internet along with the TV cable. Which reminds me, is the television working all right?”
“It’s great.” Megan turned off the lamp and walked around the desk. The day she moved in, as promised, he showed up with an HD TV. He’d also brought her a prepaid cell phone. Now he was providing her with a computer. His generosity still amazed her, though it seemed to be ingrained in the Callahan family. “You don’t need your laptop?”
“No.” He followed her into the living room. “I thought having it in the pickup would come in handy to keep the cattle tally, but it was too much of a bother. Scribbling numbers in a pocket notebook is easier. I haven’t used it for much else, either.”
She bid his parents good night and walked out back to her car with Will beside her. He opened the back door and set the briefcase on the floor. “The house is set up for wireless, so you should be able to use this anywhere, even on the porch. If you have any trouble, holler and I’ll see if I can sort out the problem.”
“So you’re a computer whiz, as well as a rancher, firefighter, and rescuer of damsels in distress?”
“Nope. Can’t claim that title. But I know how it’s supposed to work because my house is set up the same way.”
“I’ll give it a try in the morning. Thank you for being so thoughtful.”
He brushed a tiny bug off his arm. “Just trying to make up for being a jerk earlier.”
“You already did.”
“Good.” He closed the car door and caught her hand before she could open the driver’s door. The porch light softly illuminated the driveway, and the moon played hide-and-seek behind a puffy cloud. “Will you be my date for the wedding?”
15
Her heart skipped a beat as she searched his face in the filtered moonlight. “I’ll be going, but as a worker bee. In case the cake needs a touch-up.” He lightly caressed the back of her hand with his thumb, and she suddenly felt a little light-headed.
“You can do whatever you need to with the cake, but I’d like for you to go with me.” The bright three-quarter moon popped out from behind the cloud the same instant Will smiled. “Ride in together—just us. Sit together. Eat supper and cake together.” His expression grew serious. “I want to spend the evening in your company, Megan, and I want everyone there to know that you’re with me. Not with my family, but with me.”
Oh, how she wanted to! She’d be like Cinderella going to the ball, only escorted by the handsome prince instead of meeting him there. But when the evening was over, her handsome prince wouldn’t come searching for her with a glass slipper. He’d see how foolish he’d been. Merely sitting next to him in church every Sunday caused enough gossip to start a whirlwind.
Though not wanting to stir up more talk was only an excuse. It would be so easy for Will to make her long for things that could never happen. Falling for him and then being spurned by him would be the worst pain she’d ever known. Better to nip it in the bud.
“Thank you, but I can’t.” She eased her hand from his.
“Why not?”
“You aren’t supposed to ask that. You’re supposed to be a gentleman and let it go.”
“Sometimes being a gentleman is overrated. Why won’t you go with me? I want the real reason, not some lame excuse.”
“You’re a heartbreaker, Will. I don’t want to go down that road again.”
Frowning, he muttered, “I’m not a heartbreaker.” He was silent for a few seconds. “Okay, maybe once. But I started out with good intentions. After a while I realized that I didn’t love her. There were a couple of other times when I had high hopes, but the feelings didn’t go deep enough for either one of us.”
He studied her face in the moonlight. “Tell me about the man who deserted you when you needed him most.”
She leaned against the car, considering his words. Though she had shared some of her history with him and had told him she wasn’t married, he’d never asked if a boyfriend might show up at any time. It was odd that none of the Callahans had ever brought it up themselves. Politeness went only so far.
Nor did she believe that they would simply accept what she told the hospital clerk about having no one to contact in an emergency. She knew Will overheard it because he was sitting right beside her. The Callahans were kind, generous, and inherently good people, but they weren’t naive. Why should they take her word about anything?
Maybe her family and her upbringing had made her cynical, but she didn’t believe someone with their kind of money would welcome a stranger into their lives without trying to learn something about her. But by doing so, they put themselves in a pickle. They couldn’t simply announce that they’d run a background check or had her investigated.
“Why don’t you tell me?” she asked quietly, crossing her arms.
Will’s eyes widened. “What?”
“Come on, Will. Surely y’all had somebody check up on me. What did your private investigator find out?” She was taking a stab in the dark, but his sudden unease told her she’d hit the mark.
Stuffing his hands in his jean pockets, he turned, leaned against the car, and stared at the ground. “How did you find out about that?”
“Just a wild guess.”
His head jerked up, and he stared at her. “No wonder you’ve made it on your own since you were a kid.” He hesitated, probably sorting out what he should tell her. “The investigator, Peters, talked to a woman you worked with at the real estate office. I’ve never met him, but he must be a friendly, charming guy. He’s good at getting people to reveal things.”
Sweet Baby wiggled and kicked. Megan uncrossed her ar
ms, resting her hands on her stomach, rubbing the little foot that poked her palm. “Most people are more than willing to share gossip.”
He nodded. “True. She said that you’d never been married, which he confirmed by checking the marriage records. She also said that your boyfriend was a married man, but that she didn’t think you knew it when you were seeing him.”
“I didn’t. He told me he was divorced. Ken was sweet and a lot of fun.” Megan’s sigh was filled with regret. “I thought he really cared about me.”
“Since he has kids, I assume he was older?” Will pulled his hands from his pockets and rested them on the car.
Megan flinched. She’d hoped he hadn’t learned about the kids. “Yes. Thirty-four. I haven’t dated a lot, but all my other boyfriends were about my age. He had me completely fooled. I knew he had kids. He showed me their pictures and talked about them, but I never suspected that he was only separated from his wife. So much for my street smarts.”
“Some men lie well.”
“He was a pro. I learned later that his wife had kicked him out four months earlier because he was cheating on her with someone else. Once I gave in and slept with him, he wasn’t interested in me anymore. Evidently all the time he was seeing me, he’d been trying to get her to take him back. He spent the night at my apartment and moved back home to his wife the next day. He sent me a text message letting me know our affair, as he called it, was over.” She noticed Will’s hand curl into a fist and eased a little farther away. It was an instinctive reaction, though when her brain shifted gears, she knew she had nothing to fear from him.
“He wasn’t man enough to talk to you face-to-face?”
“No. I called him when I found out I was pregnant, but he didn’t want anything to do with me or the baby. I was relieved. He already has four kids and is a lousy husband and father. I didn’t want to break up his marriage or get support or anything. But I thought he should know.”
“You did the right thing.” He relaxed his hand. She wondered if it was a conscious effort or a subconscious one.
“That was the only thing I did right where he was concerned.” She tried to lighten her tone. They obviously didn’t know everything about her family or she wouldn’t still be there. “So what else did Peters find out?”
“He only got as far back as your last restaurant job in Austin. There had been a lot of turnover, and only one person remembered you. Nobody knew where you worked before that. After you mentioned living in San Angelo, he did an initial check there, but he didn’t find anything on you.”
Thank goodness.
When he looked at her, she glanced away. “Oddly, there weren’t any school records on a Megan Marie Smith.”
“After I left, I heard they had a fire in the building that housed the records.” It was true, but there wouldn’t have been anything on Megan Marie. That wasn’t her name back then. By not telling him, was she only protecting herself? Or lying?
There had been a time in her life when lying didn’t bother her a bit. Mrs. Hoffmann had taught her about integrity. She had a feeling her old friend wouldn’t be happy with her right now. Which meant God probably wasn’t either. Please forgive me if this is wrong. But I don’t want him to find out about my family.
“That could be it. There are too many Smiths in San Angelo for him to try to question them all. Or any for that matter.”
“There are a lot of them.” And she wasn’t kin to any of them.
He waited a moment, no doubt hoping she’d enlighten him. When she didn’t say anything else, he said quietly, “Megan, I didn’t like Dad having you investigated. I don’t think he liked doing it, either.” A tiny smile touched his face. “And Mom was ticked. But we had some trouble several years back when my cousin and her new boyfriend came for a weekend visit. We all liked the guy until Dad caught him with a handful of Mom’s jewelry that he’d taken out of the safe. It was always locked, but he opened it.”
“Combination?”
“Yep.”
“So he was a pro.” She tried to keep a straight face when he slanted a quick, questioning glance in her direction. Her cousin Josh had tried his hand at safecracking, but he wasn’t any good at it. He gave up after his second attempt, complaining that he needed a pro to give him some tips, but he couldn’t find anyone who’d do it. “I assume he’d fooled your cousin as well.”
“Yes. He was an auto mechanic by day and a thief by night. So to keep from being robbed—or avoid shooting somebody—Dad hired Peters to investigate houseguests that he didn’t know well. The only thing valuable that my folks keep in the house now is the silver.”
“It would be a little hard for a guest to sneak the teapot out of the house.”
“Might be a little obvious. Still, Dad doesn’t want to risk having a criminal around. I understand his reasoning, but it still doesn’t sit well.”
“But it’s wise.”
He turned to her with a frown. “You aren’t offended?”
“Not really.” Should she come clean? Was it better to tell them that she came from bad blood than have Peters discover the truth? “I learned early not to trust people. If I were in your father’s shoes, I’d want to know the background of anyone staying under my roof or living on the ranch. To be honest, it’s been bugging me because you haven’t asked me more questions, especially about Sweet Baby’s father. So when you asked me to go on a real date, I figured you already knew for certain that I wasn’t married. But how could you tell me?”
“It’s been a dilemma. Now that we have all that out in the open, will you go to the wedding with me?”
“You’re persistent, aren’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He caught her hand in his. “Megan, I understand your fears.”
Not by a long shot.
“The last thing in the world I want to do is hurt you. I don’t want to get hurt, either, though that’s a distinct possibility. But there’s something between us. I think more than friendship. I’d like to see if God has something good waiting for us.”
“It won’t work, Will. We come from two different worlds.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“I’m going to have another man’s baby.”
“That doesn’t matter, either. Honestly, sugar, it doesn’t. Nate loves Zach like his own son, and if God puts us together, I could love Sweet Baby like my own too.”
He gently cupped her face with his work-worn hand. “We may find that friendship is the only relationship for us. We may even get hurt in the process. But we’ll never know what might be unless we hitch up the wagon and ride down the road a spell. I’m willing to try it. Are you?”
Her heart longed to say yes. Her head screamed for her to run the other way. There could never be anything serious between them. He was a Callahan. She was a nobody. Worse than that, she was the only person in her family that hadn’t spent time in jail.
“Will you go to the wedding with me?”
“Yes.”
Please, God, don’t let this be a mistake.
16
The Friday before the wedding, Will pulled up in back of Megan’s house at twelve o’clock on the dot. She wasn’t expecting him, but he didn’t think she’d turn him away. At least not until after they ate.
She met him at the back door. “Do I smell French fries?”
He grinned as she opened the screen door. “Yes, ma’am. Supersized. I thought about getting pizza, but since you mentioned craving fries again yesterday, I opted for the burger. Along with cherry 7UP and two gallons of orange swirl ice cream.”
“You do know the way to a girl’s heart.” She took the beverage holder he was juggling.
“I’m tryin’.” If all it took to win her heart were fries and ice cream, he’d have it made. “How are you doin’?”
“Hungry and ready for a break. Perfect timing.” She glanced around the kitchen. “But we’d better eat in the living room.”
He surveyed the room. Dirty mixing bowls, cake pans, and utens
ils filled the sink. There were pages of instructions scattered on the table, along with a roll of white satin ribbon, a long box labeled Silver Fanci-Foil Wrap, three packages of twisted, crystal stick-like things, a roll of masking tape, and several flat boxes of varying sizes.
The counter also contained tools of the trade. The big mixer, pastry bags, numerous tips, a small ruler, two different-sized bowls, a can of meringue powder, a bag of powdered sugar, and a can of vegetable shortening.
Next to all that was a wide empty space with a few dollops of white icing on the counter. On the other side of her work space was a sheet of wax paper with seven rows of white icing roses. He paused to make a quick count. Ten flowers to a row.
“That’s a lot of roses.”
She set the beverage carrier beside the sink and removed the drinks. “It’s not as many as I started with. The recipe calls for eighty-five rosettes, but I made a bunch extra in case some got messed up. Some are already on the cake. After we eat, I’ll show you what I’ve accomplished so far.”
He set the white paper bag of burgers and fries on the counter and put the ice cream away in the full-sized freezer while she removed a couple of plates from the cabinet.
“Are the burgers the same?”
“Yes.” He closed the freezer door and walked over to join her. “Tomato, extra pickles, and no onion.”
“Just the way I like it.” She smiled and scooted a plate over to him as he opened the bag.
“Me too. Sometimes I add onion, but not when I’m eating with a pretty lady.” He winked at her and handed her a burger and the supersize box of French fries. “If I’m with Chance and Nate, they can just put up with it.”
“They probably do the same.”
“Not since they got married. Dalton got just as bad after he started dating Lindsey. Before that, he didn’t care if he knocked over the bad guys with onion breath.”
She dumped the potatoes out on her plate, laughing when they almost took up the whole thing. “You could have skipped the sandwich.”
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