by Cindy Kirk
Owen’s voice trailed off, and his smile disappeared. If the wedding was the best day of Mindy’s life, finding his daughter cold and lifeless in her bed the next morning…
“I understand talking about this brings back memories.”
Owen sat back in his seat and fought to bring his rioting emotions under control. It had been six months. Losing his daughter hurt just as much now as it had then. Maybe more.
Yesterday, a song triggered the pain. The pop tune blaring from the truck’s radio had been one he and Mindy had always sung together at the top of their voices. Owen’s fingers had trembled so badly he’d barely been able to switch the channel.
“What is it you want from me, Dan?” Owen shifted his gaze away from the window. His voice sounded hollow, as if he’d spoken in a tin can.
“Your blessing.”
Owen jerked his gaze back to the minister.
“I need to know if it’s okay with you if we call the project Mindy’s Closet.” Dan shifted uneasily in his seat. “When it’s time for the grand opening, you could come and say a few remarks. Or not. Fin and I don’t want to make this uncomfortable for you, Owen. But we’d like to honor Mindy by providing this needed community service in her name.”
Glancing down, Owen saw his hands were balled into fists at his sides. His little girl had possessed an infectious smile and a vibrant personality that drew people to her. While some kids hated being the center of attention, Mindy had embraced the spotlight.
“She’d like this.” Owen pushed the words past lips that felt frozen. “She’d appreciate the project being named after her, and she’d love the idea of helping those in need.”
“Then we have your blessing?”
Owen glanced at the table by the window. Lindsay knew him in a way that no other woman had and would understand his conflicted feelings on this issue.
But the closeness they’d shared after Mindy’s death had ended. His life and hers no longer intersected.
For the best, he reminded himself.
“Owen,” Dan prompted.
Owen met the minister’s gaze. “You have my blessing.”
Two
“You’re pregnant?” Ami’s voice rose, but she pulled it down.
Lindsay saw the shock in her eyes. She had no doubt that she’d had the same look in hers when the doctor had told her she wasn’t sick, but pregnant.
Eliza simply gazed, unblinking, those almond-shaped gray eyes giving nothing away.
Lindsay’s heart beat like butterfly wings in her throat, and she suddenly felt lightheaded. To steady herself, she took a breath and forced herself to look around the café. Anything was better than seeing the shock and questions in her friends’ eyes.
It was a mistake. While Dan talked, Owen stared. At her.
The odd look in his eyes had her heart shifting into overdrive. She’d spoken in a whisper, barely loud enough for the two women sitting across from her to hear. As she wasn’t facing Owen, he couldn’t have read her lips. No, she reassured herself, he hadn’t heard. She was being paranoid.
“Lindsay.” Eliza’s voice held an urgency.
Lindsay returned her attention to her friends. A tightness filled her chest.
She. Would. Not. Cry.
Not here, surrounded by so many people who knew her, knew her mother.
Not here, with Owen so close.
Calling on an inner strength she hadn’t known she possessed, Lindsay forced a smile. “I’ve always wanted a child.”
But not like this. Not without a husband.
“Are you sure you’re pregnant?” Ami asked.
“Sometimes, a missed period is just that.” Eliza spoke with false heartiness.
“The doctor confirmed it this morning.” Being a wife and mother had always been Lindsay’s dream. She couldn’t count the times she’d visualized walking down the aisle in a white dress.
In her mind, the ceremony was small. Lindsay didn’t like big splashes. But the mystery man at the front of the church was always looking at her with such love that it brought tears to her eyes.
The second part of the dream took place a couple of years later. He was at her side, rejoicing in the news when they learned they were expecting a baby.
Not meant to be, Lindsay thought, squaring her shoulders.
“When are you due?” Ami asked.
“March twenty-seventh.”
“We’ll have our babies around the same time.” Genuine excitement, filled Ami’s voice. “It’ll be wonderful.”
“Lindsay hasn’t said whether she’s continuing the pregnancy.” Eliza’s gray eyes never left Lindsay’s face. “Or whether she plans to keep the baby.”
Seized with a sudden urge to lash out, Lindsay curbed the impulse. None of this was Eliza’s fault. Her friend wasn’t advocating those options, simply letting her know she had choices.
But she didn’t have choices. Not regarding the little one growing inside her. “I want him or her. I know it probably doesn’t make sense. Heck, I don’t even have a job.”
To her horror, Lindsay felt a couple of tears slip down her cheeks. She brushed them aside with a quick swipe of her fingers and prayed no one else in the café had noticed.
Ami’s expression softened, and tears filled her own eyes. “Oh, Lin, I—”
“You both know I never wanted to be a single mother.” She didn’t want to interrupt her friend, but if Ami started crying, Lindsay knew she wouldn’t be able to hold it together.
Too late, Lindsay realized she shouldn’t have brought this up in a public venue. She should have thought of an excuse to meet at Hill House, where the Cherries met. Or even trumped up some reason to get together at one of their homes. There, she’d have been assured privacy.
When Eliza opened her mouth, Lindsay continued, not giving her a chance to speak.
“I’ve seen what that can be like. My sister has had a rough time.” Lindsay paused, wondering why she was comparing herself to Cassie. She wasn’t at all like her older sister, who had four children by three different men.
“Your sister wasn’t even sixteen when she gave birth to Dakota,” Ami pointed out. “You’re thirty-one. A mature woman with a stable—”
Ami didn’t finish the thought. She didn’t need to, because Lindsay knew where she’d been headed. Lindsay had a stable job. Now, she didn’t.
Would things have been different if Shirley had dropped her bombshell after the doctor’s visit, rather than before?
For the best, Lindsay told herself, but the assurance rang false.
“You’re a strong woman.” Eliza made the pronouncement, and the look in her eyes dared her to disagree. “When you hold that new life in your arms, you’ll realize you’ve been given an unexpected blessing.”
Some of the tightness gripping Lindsay’s heart eased at Eliza’s confident tone. “You really think so?”
“Darn right I do. And I just realized I’m going to be the odd one out. I won’t have a child to bring to the playdates you and Ami are going to arrange.” Eliza tapped a perfectly manicured fingernail against the Formica tabletop. “Kyle and I will have to step up our efforts.”
Lindsay smiled, not sure if Eliza was joking. But true or not, the thought of playdates with Ami and her children brought a lightness to her heart.
“Have you told Owen?” Despite being voiced in a soft, gentle manner, Ami’s question had Lindsay jerking as if she’d been poked with a cattle prod.
Pure reflex had her blurting, “What makes you think it’s Owen’s baby?”
Eliza chuckled. “Who else? Unless you’ve been hooking up with the minister.”
Lindsay straightened, stiffened.
“Eliza,” Ami chided.
The executive director of the Cherries lifted her hands, a not-so-innocent expression on her face. “I assume nothing. You never know what people do behind closed doors.”
That the statement held some truth couldn’t be denied. Last spring, Lindsay had been engaged to Pastor Dan
Marshall. But their relationship had never been a physical one, and once she’d broken off the engagement, she’d seen him only in passing. And, of course, in church.
“It’s Owen’s baby.” Lindsay swallowed past the sudden lump in her throat. “And no, I haven’t told him.”
“Though neither of you planned this pregnancy, I think he’ll be excited.” Ami continued to speak in a low tone, as if determined to make sure her voice didn’t carry past the confines of their booth. “After Mindy—”
“My child will not be a replacement for Mindy.” The vehemence in Lindsay’s tone took all of them by surprise.
“I wasn’t saying that,” Ami hastened to reassure her. “One child can never replace another. I was just—”
When Ami paused, a look of abject misery on her face, Eliza stepped in. “I don’t presume to speak for Ami, but I thought the same thing. Owen was a loving, caring father.”
“He was.” It was all Lindsay wanted to say on the topic. At least for now.
Owen had been a stellar father. When he and his wife had divorced and she’d moved away, he’d been granted full custody. Mindy had been the light of his life. When she was diagnosed with a brain tumor, he’d been at her side.
When the fight had proved futile, he’d done everything he could to make his smart and funny eight-year-old happy.
Her friends were right. He would want to be a father to this baby.
“When he finds out I’m pregnant, he’ll ask me to marry him.” There wasn’t a single doubt in Lindsay’s mind that that was how the conversation would go.
Ami and Eliza said nothing for several seconds. Then they both nodded.
Eliza lifted a dark brow. “What will you say?”
“I’ll say no.”
Surprise lit the depths of Ami’s green eyes. “You love him, Lin.”
“I do.” Lindsay saw no reason to deny the truth. Besides, she’d already confessed the depth of her feelings to her friends when Owen had dumped her six weeks earlier and broken her heart. “But he doesn’t love me. He didn’t even want to continue to date me.”
That had hurt the most. Lindsay understood his heart was tender. He was still grieving for Mindy. But she’d thought they had a connection, hoped in time friendship would turn into love.
She’d been willing to wait.
Though he’d insisted he wanted to remain friends, he’d made it clear he didn’t want to continue to date her.
“Maybe he’s changed his mind.” The doubtful expression on Ami’s face told Lindsay her friend didn’t believe that any more than she did.
Lindsay shook her head vigorously. When the doctor had given her the news, she’d wanted oh-so-much to travel down a road strewn with hearts and flowers.
Maybe Owen loved her.
Maybe, if he didn’t, after they married, he would grow to love her.
Maybe—
Lindsay pressed her lips together and slammed that door shut. She was going to be a mother. She couldn’t afford to indulge in foolish dreams.
“What is it you want, Lin?” Eliza’s gaze searched hers.
“I want what you have with Kyle. His eyes light up whenever you walk into a room.” Lindsay blinked rapidly to clear the tears that had reappeared and turned to Ami. “I want what you have with Beck. He uses any excuse to take your hand in his, to touch you.”
The women remained silent for several seconds.
“I don’t want someone who’s only with me out of obligation. I already know how it feels to be planning a wedding with fake feelings—because I was the one faking it. I want a man who adores me, who can’t wait to marry me. And I not only want those things from my future husband, I want to feel the same about him. I want real love.” Lindsay squared her shoulders. “If I can’t have that, I’ll go it alone.”
“I’m not usually a fan of weddings, but this one was nice.” Ethan Shaw held out his arm for Lindsay as they left Jeremy and Fin Rakes’s large home, where the ceremony uniting Steve Bloom and Lynn Chapin had been held.
“Your sister’s wedding was beautiful,” Lindsay reminded him. Like this wedding, Eliza’s marriage to Kyle last spring had been a small, intimate affair in the parlor of the house that had brought the couple together.
“I enjoyed that one immensely.” Ethan, Eliza’s younger brother by two years, flashed a grin.
Lindsay couldn’t believe she was out on a date a day after discovering she was pregnant. But then, this wasn’t really a date. Eliza had set her up with her recently returned-to-Good-Hope single brother nearly three weeks ago. Lindsay hadn’t been able to come up with a reason to cancel the plans.
“The best part was when my father saw Eliza’s black wedding gown.” Ethan chuckled. “The look on my dad’s face was priceless.”
Lindsay realized with a start that he was still focused on his sister’s wedding.
“Eliza looked lovely.” Lindsay’s tone turned wistful, despite her efforts to control it. “For me, the best part was the look in Kyle’s eyes when she walked down the stairs toward him.”
“They’re happy.” Ethan, appearing bored by the topic, glanced at the barn up ahead. “I haven’t been to a reception here in several years.”
“It’s become one of Good Hope’s most popular venues.” Lindsay’s heart swelled when her gaze landed on the flowers arranged in large containers on either side of the entrance. Her designs. One of her last assignments before she and the Enchanted Florist parted ways.
While the barn was often decorated in a rustic or country style, neither of those styles suited Lynn, the bride. Elegant and stylish were two words often used to describe the bank executive. When Lindsay had spoken with both Steve and Lynn about their preferences, the high school teacher with the graying ginger hair and wire-rimmed spectacles had taken his fiancée’s hand. All he wanted, he’d told her, was for Lynn to be happy.
The arrangements with a burgundy focus, along with calla lilies and eucalyptus, had made both Lynn and Steve happy. In terms of personalities and sensibilities, the two lifelong residents of Good Hope complemented each other perfectly.
“I bet it seems strange for you.” When Ethan inclined his head, she hurriedly added, “Being back in Good Hope.”
Eliza’s brother had left the township on the Door County peninsula for college and never returned. Most recently, he’d been in a business venture with a friend in Chicago. Lindsay still wasn’t certain what had caused him to move back.
“It’s a bit strange.” He followed her into the barn. “But in a good way.”
Instead of a sit-down dinner, there were tables of appetizers and entrees and dessert. All had required floral accents.
This wedding, Lindsay realized with a pang, was truly her swan song for the Enchanted Florist. Her heart rose to her throat, and to her horror, her eyes filled with tears.
Darn hormones.
Lindsay hurriedly blinked back the moisture and forced her attention to the man at her side. With his dark hair, gray eyes and lean frame, Ethan qualified as a real hunk. When you tossed in intelligent, kind and rolling in money, he was every woman’s dream man.
Every woman but her.
She wished she hadn’t agreed to let Eliza set her up. So much had changed since she’d accepted the offer.
Back then, she’d been concerned what her mother would say if she showed up to the wedding without a date. Her mother had become overly concerned with Lindsay’s love life once she hit thirty.
Lindsay had lost count of the number of times her mom had told her that her chances of hooking a “big fish” decreased every month.
As if thinking of the woman had conjured her up, Anita strolled up on three-inch heels.
“Well, isn’t this a nice surprise?” Her mother’s hazel eyes lit as her gaze slid from her daughter to Ethan, then back to Lindsay. “I didn’t realize you and the illustrious Mr. Shaw were dating.”
Approval ran through her mother’s words, thick as warm honey. Now in her late fifties, Anita could
pass for a much-younger woman. Tonight, her trim figure was showcased in a burgundy wrap dress with a left leg slit that showed off her toned legs.
For the late-afternoon event, Anita had pulled her dark hair into a simple chignon, a style that drew attention to her hazel eyes and high cheekbones.
Lindsay suddenly felt dowdy in her blue jersey dress and kitten heels.
“Ethan and I aren’t dating.” Lindsay spoke firmly, keeping her eyes focused on her mother. “We were just talking. We’re not together.”
When Ethan opened his mouth, she shot him a sharp glance. Lindsay could talk until she was blue in the face about Eliza setting them up simply because they were both at loose ends.
Anita would still see this as a date.
“You look lovely, Mrs. Fishback.” Ethan offered her mother a warm smile. Apparently, he’d decided that when in doubt over what to say, best to lead with a compliment. “I’d never guess you have a daughter Lindsay’s age.”
Lindsay watched her mother blossom like a bud opening to the warmth of the sun. Even during the ceremony, Lindsay had noticed his smile had that effect on women. For some reason, she was immune to his charm.
“Aren’t you the sweet one?” Anita slanted a glance at the man at her side. “You both know Sheriff Swarts.”
The man in the dark suit with the bolo tie looked every bit of his sixty-five years. Though still handsome, his face was weathered and lined. He was tall with broad shoulders and a mop of gray hair that matched his mustache, so it was easy to see how Leonard Swarts, former sheriff, had earned his Silver Fox title.
Lindsay hid her surprise. She hadn’t realized her mother was dating Len. Or perhaps, like she and Ethan, they weren’t together. “It’s nice to see you, Sheriff Swarts.”
“Good to see you both.” Len nodded to her, then to Ethan. “These days, it’s just Len.”
“I have to admit, I still expect to see you driving down Main in a black-and-white,” Ethan joked.
Len chuckled. “Those days are in my rearview.”
Lindsay caught her mother eyeing Ethan again. It took everything in her to keep a smile on her lips. She knew her mother had been invited to the wedding and reception, but she hadn’t been certain she’d make an appearance.
