Pregnant & Practically Married (The Bridal Circle #3)

by Andrea Edwards

  He forced himself to smile at Marge. “Morning, ma’am,” he said brightly. “I trust you slept well. It was a fine cookout in the cornfield.”

  “Don’t try to change the subject. You two can’t still be arguing.”

  “I’m afraid this is serious, ma’am,” he said, feeling a bit like a scoundrel. He picked up his jeans and pulled them on over his boxers. “It’s a real sticking point for both of us.”

  “Oh, fiddlesticks,” she snapped. “It’s Karin dragging her feet, isn’t it? You can’t let her do it.”

  “There are some things a man’s got to stand up for.” Half-dressed, he picked up his sheet and pillow. “If thing’s aren’t going to work out, best to know it now.”

  “But there’s a baby involved,” she cried.

  Jed clutched the bedclothes closer to his chest. “A man’s got to respect himself before he can expect it from anyone else.” Why did the words seem to be so hard to hear, coming from his own lips?

  “I thought better of you,” she muttered. “I thought you were different than those jerks I married.” She gave him a withering look, then stomped off into the bathroom, slamming the door.

  Jed sighed and dropped the bedclothes back onto the sofa. He went into the kitchen to start the coffee. Not that it was going to help him feel less like something that ought to be run out of town, but maybe he’d feel more awake for his hanging.

  “Daddy,” Lissa said.

  He turned. She was standing in the kitchen doorway, holding Marge’s cat and frowning at him.

  “Why, good morning, darlin’.” The one bright spot in his life. He went over and kissed the top of her head but she stayed stiff.

  “Are you and Karin still fighting?” she asked.

  He pulled away from her, glancing over toward the bathroom. The shower was still running, so it was safe to talk. Stooping down so he was eye level with Lissa, he smiled at her.

  “It’s just part of our little game,” he said. “You know, make-believe.”

  “So you aren’t mad at each other?” Lissa persisted.

  He shook his head. “Nope.”

  Lissa visibly relaxed, her normal smile breaking out on her lips. “That’s good,” she said. “I was worried.” That worried him. “Why?” he asked. “You know this is just pretend.”

  “Yeah, but I like Karin. She treats me like I’m not just a little kid.” She put the cat down on a kitchen chair and then went over to the cabinet to get a box of cereal. Not Crunchy Flakes, but a competitor’s. She poured herself a bowl, then got the milk out of the refrigerator. “I think she’d be a great mother, don’t you?”

  “Sure,” Jed said carefully, not certain where this was going. “But this is just a little game for while we are in town.”

  Lissa brought her bowl over to the table and sat down next to the cat. “I like Chesterton,” she said and spooned a little bit of cereal onto the table in front of the cat. “Here you go, Shilah,” she said softly then, once the cat started to eat, looked back at Jed. “Everybody’s really nice here.”

  His worries were growing. He took the seat across the table from her. “Lissa, we have a life back in Los Angeles. You have friends there, and a school you like, and your job for Crunchy Flakes.”

  “But it hasn’t felt like home since Mommy died,” she said and swallowed a spoonful of cereal herself. “And Crunchy Flakes isn’t forever. Aaron says they think I’m starting to look too old and they want me to wear dumb little-kid clothes. I don’t know if I want to sign another contract with them.”

  Jed wasn’t surprised though her agent hadn’t mentioned that to him. “How long you stay with Crunchy Flakes has always been your decision,” he said. “But that doesn’t change the fact that our life is in California.”

  She stopped eating, a flicker of hope in her eyes. “If we moved here, you could go back to riding in the rodeo and I could stay with Grandma.”

  He stared at her, his stomach being eaten away by dread. “Lissa, honey,” he said softly. “You know she’s not your grandmother. You know this is all pretend.”

  “But it doesn’t have to be. You said you like Karin.”

  “Yes, but that doesn’t mean we should change our lives around.”

  “Changing them could make them better,” she pointed out and gave the cat another spoonful of cereal.

  “Only if you change them because of love,” he said. “And I’m not in love with Karin.”

  “How do you know?”

  Because he was never loving again. But he couldn’t explain that to Lissa. “Because when you love somebody, you stop being who you are and become somebody else.”

  She stopped eating to give him a confused look. “You mean you wouldn’t be a cowboy anymore?”

  It wasn’t exactly what he meant, but how did you explain to an eight-year-old that love makes you better, stronger, more complete until you weren’t the same anymore? “And since I’m still me,” he said, “we’re still leaving here the day after tomorrow like we planned.”

  Her eyes turned stormy and her jaw took on that stubborn tension he knew only too well. “But I don’t want to go,” she cried. “That is so not fair. How come I don’t get a vote?”

  How had things gotten out of hand like this? “Because it’s not a topic for discussion,” he snapped.

  She jumped up, grabbed Shilah in her arms and gave him a look hot enough to melt sand. “You are a mean, mean daddy and I’m never ever going to like you again.” She turned and ran from the room.

  Jed sighed and braced himself for the inevitable slamming of the bedroom door. He still flinched when it happened, but he went on cleaning up the remains of Lissa’s breakfast. She was mad at him, but she’d get over it. Once they got back home, she’d forget all about this place. Just as he would.

  “Lots of door slamming going on here.”

  He turned. Karin was in the doorway. Dressed in a cotton robe and slippers, she still looked so beautiful it took his breath away. Lucky he’d been careful. It would have been all too easy to fall in love with her.

  “Good morning,” he said. “Are you sure you want to associate with me? I’m on just about everybody’s bad side.”

  “Poor baby.” She laughed and poured herself a glass of orange juice. “What have you been doing to get everyone so ticked off at you?”

  “Just being myself,” he admitted and sat down. He wasn’t so sure he wanted to elaborate. “So the festival starts today. I can’t wait.”

  She came over and sat down, giving him a look that clearly said he was nuts, but he didn’t care. He had to get his mind off her.

  “So what are you doing this morning?” he asked, trying hard not to notice how cozy this all was. Or how right it felt. He liked starting the day with someone, that was all. “I know there’s an opening ceremony this afternoon and a dinner tonight, but I thought if you weren’t booked up already, we could do something this morning.”

  “Wouldn’t that kind of spoil the effect of our argument?”

  Damn, that was dumb. How could he have forgotten? “Yeah, you’re right,” he said quickly. “And we don’t want to stage that over again. It was hard enough to be convincing the first time.”

  “I didn’t think it was that hard,” she said. “All you have to do is get all macho again and we’ll be fighting.”

  “Just what does ‘getting macho’ mean?” he asked.

  She put down her orange juice and frowned at him. “Oh, come on. You know what it is. Getting all bossy and caveman-like. The big man in charge of the little woman.”

  That stung. “I was not being the big man in charge of the little woman,” he said irately. “And I don’t see how wanting to take care of my family is being bossy or caveman-like.”

  “It is when you get all huffy about using a woman’s earnings.”

  “Given your mother’s experiences, I would think you’d appreciate a man who wants to pay your way. Or are you only attracted to men that you can have under your thumb?”

/>   She paled at his words. And so did he. What had possessed him—

  “That’s a terrible thing to say,” she cried and got to her feet.

  “It was,” he agreed quickly and got to his feet also. He couldn’t tell if she was angry or on the verge of tears, but prayed it was anger. He couldn’t take tears. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I said it.”

  “Maybe it’s just as well we’ve argued,” she said. “It certainly is going to make the next few days easier to get through. No more need to pretend we care about each other.”

  Suddenly her anger wasn’t that much easier to bear. “I really am sorry,” he said again. “It was just the stress talking.”

  “The stress?” she snapped. “Of what? Pretending to care about me? Oh, that certainly is nice to hear.”

  Jeez, she wouldn’t give him a break. “Well, it hasn’t been a picnic. Not the kind of vacation a travel agent would book for me.”

  “Nobody forced you to stay.”

  “Just my sense of honor.”

  “Oh, spare me,” she cried and, turning on her heel, marched from the room. Another door slammed.

  He sank back into his chair. A few hours’ walking around town and he should have everyone in Chesterton mad at him.

  At least he was free of the pretend engagement. He should be relieved. So why wasn’t he?

  “I now declare the Oz festival has begun,” Karin said loudly and cut the ribbon.

  The covering came off a large cake constructed to look like Dorothy’s house after it landed in Oz, and everyone cheered. Karin pretended to also, but hoped no one was watching her too closely. She wasn’t in the mood for all this partying.

  They were in the library parking lot, where Munchkinland had been set up. At the start of the yellow brick-painted road, a small stage had been placed for the opening ceremony. Karin and Elmer, in their costumes, were on it along with Betsy McKinley, the festival chair this year. The townsfolk, most of them in Oz costumes, were gathered around the stage.

  “Mrs. Brewster is going to cut the cake now,” Betsy announced to the crowd. “So get in line for your piece.”

  Karin and Elmer, as grand marshals of the festival, got their slices first and Karin tried to eat hers, but her mood for cake was about as nonexistent as her mood for partying. She tried to look happy and excited and enthusiastic about her role as Glinda the Good Witch, but all she could think about was that she hadn’t been very nice to Jed that morning.

  He’d been right about that whole money issue. She should be pleased to learn there were men out there who didn’t want some woman to pay their way. From her mother’s experiences, she wouldn’t think there were. She would think that all men were out to use women and then move on. But Jed wasn’t like that and rather than commend him for being different, she had given him hell for it.

  “Is something wrong with the cake?” Mrs. Brewster asked.

  Karin started and realized that the woman had been staring at her, and her untouched piece of cake. “No, it’s fine,” Karin assured her and took a bite. “It’s great.”

  The ceremony was over. Just the mingling and posing for pictures were left for the moment. She put down her cake on the railing around the back of the stage and went on into the crowd.

  “How wonderful you look,” someone said to her.

  “Like a princess, not a witch,” someone else said.

  “Where’s your young man?” a woman asked.

  “You aren’t still quarreling, are you?”

  Karin went through the crowd, smiling and nodding and listening to advice from everyone. Don’t let a man get the best of you. Nothing’s worth risking your love for. Learn to compromise. Make him an apple pie.

  If only it was that simple, she thought with a sigh. Not that any of these ideas really were apropos since she and Jed weren’t in love. But still, she didn’t like having anger lying between them.

  “Hi, Karin. Gosh, you look so cool.”

  Karin turned to find Lissa and her friends beside her. Lissa was dressed as Dorothy, while two of her friends were scarecrows and another was the Cowardly Lion. Karin was going to miss the girl. It had been fun to share girl talk over meals. But she wasn’t going to think of things that couldn’t be.

  “You guys look pretty great yourselves.” Karin took a deep breath for courage. “Is your dad here?”

  Lissa’s face darkened slightly. “No, I came with Ginger. Daddy said he was going to watch the bar for Grandma.”

  “That was nice of him.” That was such a big part of the problem—he was just a really nice guy.

  “I guess,” Lissa said, apparently not ready to forgive him herself. “Grandma said he could because she wanted to come take pictures, but she said she was still mad at him.”

  The poor guy. He couldn’t win, and it had all started so innocently. Maybe it was time to unbend a little. There wasn’t any love to protect, but she could bring him some cake.

  She hurried back up onto the stage, slipped in behind the cake table and took a fresh piece of cake and the slice that had been cut for her earlier. She couldn’t keep a smile from her lips and a bounce from her step as she hurried through the crowd, and over the few blocks to her mother’s bar.

  Jed turned off the television in the corner and sank onto a bar stool to finish reading the newspaper. It wasn’t the local paper that had been delivered that morning—that was filled with festival news and pictures of Karin. Or was it just mentions of her? Or maybe it hadn’t even been that. Maybe they had implied her presence, but it was too much either way.

  So he’d walked to the drugstore and bought a copy of the Chicago Tribune. Fine paper. Good paper. Not one mention of the Wizard of Oz in it. So why was he finding it boring as hell?

  Almost as boring as manning the bar this afternoon. Marge had said she would just close, but he hadn’t wanted to see her lose business so he’d offered to run it for her. Big favor. How was he supposed to know everyone in this town attended every festival function? Oh well, at least his absence was helping the town to accept his and Karin’s breakup. That was a bonus, even if it didn’t exactly feel like one.

  He wandered over to the wall where Marge’s cowboy-hat collection was hanging. He plucked one off a hook and looked at it. It was a nice one but not new. Where did Marge get them? Did she steal them off sleeping cowboys’ heads? He’d have to keep a close eye on his own.

  The bell on the door rang as it was opened and he spun around. It was Karin. His heart leaped as he tossed the hat back on its hook.

  “Boy, you look busy,” she said. Her tone was light and laughing.

  He smiled in return “You wouldn’t believe the crowds.”

  “That amazing, huh?” She closed the door after her and seemed to glide across the room. Maybe that was how witches walked. “I brought you some cake. It’s a corner of Dorothy’s house.”

  “Thanks.” He took it from her. Cake had never looked so good before. “Sorry I missed the ceremony. How did it go?”

  “I was splendid.” She sat down at a table and grinned at him, sending his heart into overdrive. “A cake was never unveiled so expertly.”

  “Surgical precision, I take it?”

  “The Journal of the American Medical Association sent a reporter. Aren’t you going to have your cake?”

  “Oh. Yeah. Right.” He sat down and picked up the plastic fork she’d brought. “You sure this won’t wreck the story we’ve been building?”

  “Everyone’s at the ceremony still,” she said and started eating her own piece. “No one was paying any attention to me.”

  She had a little smear of icing on her upper lip that seemed to hypnotize him. He had the strongest urge to wipe it off with his finger. To kiss it off. To—

  He took a deep breath and concentrated on his cake. “Great cake,” he said brightly. “Never knew a house could taste so good.”

  “I’m glad you like it. House has always been my favorite flavor.”

  “Mine too, but you can�
�t get it much back in L.A. More skyscraper cakes than house ones.”

  “What a bummer.”

  “That’s for sure.” He ate the rest of the cake with lightness riding high in his heart. How was it she was so easy to talk to?

  “I’m sorry about this morning,” she said, catching him off guard as she pushed her plate away. “I shouldn’t have taken insult.”

  “I shouldn’t have said what I did.”

  “Why not? You were right. I don’t know about Mom’s thinking, but I’m sure keeping power would be important to me in a relationship. I saw too often what happens when you give it up.”

  He pushed his plate away and leaned back in his chair. “No,” he said softly. “You saw what happened when you didn’t. Your mom never gave up power, and she lost always. She didn’t trust.”

  “Didn’t trust?” Karin’s laugh was tinged with bitterness. “She trusted too easily, I’d say.”

  He shook his head. “If she went into a relationship believing the guy had to carry part of it, she never would have stayed with any of them. She felt if she carried the whole load, they would love her more and that’s not how love works.”

  “No, I guess not.” She rubbed her stomach absently. “Maybe she knows as little about love as I do.”

  “But you’ll learn.” He scooted his chair closer to hers. “Junior practicing acrobatics again?”

  She nodded, putting his hand on her stomach. He could feel the baby moving, but his eyes were on her face. The wonder and awe there were spellbinding. He was only vaguely aware of the baby, his heart was filled with her.

  “You’re going to be all right,” he said. “You know that, don’t you?”

  She shrugged but the soft smile stayed on her lips. “I’m starting to think I might be,” she admitted. “But still a little scared.”

  “It’s okay to be.”

  She nodded. “I’ve got a lot of thinking and planning to do. But Mom’ll be here to help. All I have to do is ask.”