The Pregnant Bride Wore White

by Susan Crosby

  Jake followed her into the house. “So the Falcon brothers are off the market. That was a long time coming.”

  “Not as long as for the McCoy brothers,” she said, keeping her tone light, glancing behind her.

  He shrugged. “I suppose it’s a record that’ll hold for a while longer. Unless Joe comes to his senses about Dixie.”

  The fact that he didn’t even consider he might get married himself cut into Keri like a knife. She didn’t know what she’d expected, but she’d thought it would at least be something he’d think about. As she had.

  That’s what she got for having expectations. They almost always turned out different from reality.

  And if Jake wondered why she hardly said a word to him the rest of the evening, he didn’t ask.

  Chapter Three

  Jake watched Keri keep herself busy all evening. When he wouldn’t let her heat up his soup, she disappeared into his office and began going through the stacks of baby items, coming out with tiny clothes and blankets to put in the washer, apparently a requirement before letting a baby’s skin come in contact with them. Then she sat at the dining room table to write thank-you notes. They hadn’t spoken, unless out of necessity, since he’d come indoors.

  He’d probably said something that bothered her, but he didn’t know what—and she wasn’t talking.

  Anyway, he was ready to be alone, and it didn’t look like she was headed to bed anytime soon.

  He’d channel surfed the television stations as much as he could stand it, sometimes paying attention for a while, sometimes zoning out, the volume not up loud enough to intrude into his thoughts if he didn’t want it to. Sometimes he watched Keri as she made her way to and from the laundry room, her belly a constant reminder of the time they’d shared, and the unknowns of the future.

  Donovan would probably insist they get a DNA test, as Keri had offered, to make sure the baby was Jake’s, but he didn’t doubt her. She may have defied him—with what she considered good reason—but she hadn’t ever lied, even when it made her look bad.

  “You can have the bedroom,” he said when he saw her finally yawn and stretch. It was almost eleven o’clock.

  “Of course I won’t do that. You need good rest. I’ll be fine on the couch.” She stacked her thank-you notes neatly, set her pen precisely beside them and came into the living room space.

  “You’ll take the bedroom,” he repeated, an order this time. He needed to be able to move around, not feel hemmed in. To be able to go outdoors if he wanted.

  She sat on the coffee table, facing him, their knees almost touching. “Do you need to be alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “All you have to do is tell me, Jake—whatever it is you need. I can’t anticipate it. Please just be direct. It’ll save us both a lot of grief and confusion.”

  “All right.” Would she do the same?

  She headed out of the room but turned around when she reached the hall. “I usually have to get up a couple of times during the night,” she said, gesturing toward the only bathroom in the house.

  He wasn’t sure why she was telling him that. “Do you need a light kept on?”

  “No. I just didn’t want to startle you.”

  “I appreciate the warning. I’ll keep my boxers on so I don’t startle you.”

  She laughed, the pitch almost hurting his ears. He realized he hadn’t heard her laugh before. It was a good sound, a healthy one. After months of hearing only men’s voices, men who spoke only Spanish, her laugh seemed musical.

  She grinned. “Feel free to be comfortable, whatever that means to you.”

  “And since you’ve already seen it all…”

  “That’s not true,” she said softly. “It was dark. I only…felt.”

  A heavy curtain of silence dropped between them, the moment of humor gone because of a memory that could never fade. A child would be born of it.

  He’d only felt, too—Keri’s long, lean body and firm breasts and smooth rear. Her mouth—God, her mouth.

  As if she heard his thoughts, she pressed her fingers to her lips. He stared.

  “Good night, Jake,” she said, a little breathless, then hurried down the hall.

  He didn’t expect to sleep. Earlier he’d fallen asleep instantly in his own bed, but it was dark now, and quiet. No sounds of men snoring, or shouting as they slept. No witnessing violence done to others, unable to stop it without blowing his cover. He’d had to keep the bigger picture in mind.

  He wished he could snap his fingers and have the memories disappear. Instead they held court in his head. After hours of pacing and prowling, he dropped onto the sofa and turned off the television, stretching out, still fully dressed, and tucking a small pillow under his head. He shoved his fingers through his hair. He needed to get it cut, take away yet another reminder of where he’d been.

  He closed his eyes but still saw too much. He probably should take the sleeping pills Donovan had gotten from Doc Saxon for him—except he needed to be able to hear the sounds around him.

  He jolted as he heard a door open, then realized it was Keri. Light from the bedroom spilled into the hallway enough that he could see her glance toward the living room as she crossed to the bathroom on a whisper of sound. When she came out, she headed toward him instead of the bedroom. He closed his eyes. The last thing he wanted was to talk.

  But after a few seconds he felt something being laid over him—an afghan Nana Mae had crocheted for him one Christmas. He usually kept it on the back of an overstuffed chair.

  Jake felt the warmth of the blanket even before she turned away. It smelled…clean.

  “Keri.” He propped himself up on an elbow.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry. Did I wake you?”

  “I was awake. Be glad I was.”

  She frowned. “Why?”

  “It’s risky, okay?”

  “What? To touch you? I didn’t touch you.”

  “The blanket did. Just don’t do it. For your own sake.”

  “All right.”

  “Have you slept?” he asked.

  “Mostly, yes.”

  “Even though you’re in a new place with a man you barely know and are about to give birth?”

  “I’ve had nightmares for months. Tonight I didn’t.” She gave a little wave and left.

  Nightmares. Were hers anything like his? Did she wake up swinging?

  Unable to fall asleep, he turned on the television again, settling on a rerun of Friends. He must’ve slept a little, but as soon as the sky lightened, he grabbed his car keys and left the house, needing to get out where he could breathe. Needing not to talk to Keri until he’d given more thought to their situation, wanting to reconcile his memory of her and how he’d clung to it all this time, with the facts before him—that she was here in his hometown. And pregnant.

  Primal, protective instincts were overtaking him. He needed to think more logically about everything. Which meant not making small talk first thing this morning.

  He drove without a destination, then ended up at Joe’s place. Donovan would be bunking with their youngest brother.

  Jake pulled up beside the house, one Joe had shared with Dixie for the better part of ten years, on and off. Off again now, though. Jake didn’t mind waking Joe up, but he would’ve thought twice about dropping in so early had Dixie still cohabited.

  Joe was already up, however, walking through his garden, a mug of coffee in hand as he deadheaded flowers. His job as a landscaper started early each day.

  “Got some more of that?” Jake asked, indicating the mug.

  “Donny’s here. What do you think?”

  Which meant there was always a pot being brewed.

  Jake followed his brother into the house, then into the kitchen. “The place looks good. You painted the outside.”

  “Yeah. Group project.”

  “Family project.”

  Joe nodded, a slight, aggrieved smile on his face. He took a mug from the cupboard, poured Jake a cup the
n they both leaned against the counter and sipped.

  “Looks like you’re doing most of the gardens in town, Joe. It’s all photo worthy.”

  “I have a crew of twenty now. We’re busy all the time. Not just residential but quite a few commercial accounts. It’s steady and profitable.”

  Jake wondered at Joe’s low-key responses and tone. He used to be the liveliest brother, the most outgoing and talkative. He looked the same—his shower-wet brown hair was tied back in the ponytail he’d had since he was fourteen, and he wore a T-shirt, shorts and work boots, as usual—but something had changed.

  “Think Dixie would cut my hair?” Jake asked.

  “I’m sure of it, but are you sure you want her to? She’ll ask questions.”

  “Doesn’t mean I have to answer them.”

  Joe shifted slightly. “Thanks for having Donny tell me what was going on. I worried less. Sort of,” he added with a small smile.

  “I figure Donny’s in risky situations often enough, too. I wanted more than just him to know what was happening. Who to contact. You’re the only one who came to mind. I know a lot of extra responsibility has been put on you, Joe, since Dad died.”

  “I can handle it.”

  “I know that, too. I just wanted you to know I appreciate it.”

  “Me, too,” Donovan said, coming into the kitchen and heading straight for the coffeepot. “I don’t say it often enough.”

  “True.” Turning to Jake, Joe said, “Speaking of extra responsibility and what you’ve been doing these past months, I don’t know how Keri fits in. Where she fits in.”

  Jake hoped by talking about it, some of the memories would fade. He was tired of living with them all the time. “Keri and I were kidnapped together, along with the man she’d been private nurse to for several months.”

  “Kidnapped? And this is the first I’m hearing about it?”

  “I’m telling you now, Joe. Hidalgo Escobar, Keri’s patient, had been on the waiting list for a liver transplant for months.”

  “In Venezuela?”

  “Yes. I was on an assignment there and had come across intelligence that Escobar was a target of a hardcore kidnapping group, one that makes a living off ransoming people. I tracked down Escobar and warned him—and Keri, too, since she was always with him. They were supposed to wait for a helicopter to take them to the hospital when they got the call that a liver had been found for him. The helicopter never showed, so they headed to the hospital, a two-hour drive from Caracas.”

  He and Keri had argued that first time he’d met her, but that wasn’t something he would tell Joe. In the end, she hadn’t taken his advice, had specifically gone against it, in fact, because she felt she had to, that Escobar’s survival depended on it.

  “She didn’t call you?” Joe asked.

  “They hadn’t hired me, but when the copter didn’t show, she did call me.” He’d told her to stay put, but she’d insisted the transplant team wouldn’t wait long before contacting the next person on the list. “What was I supposed to do? Let her take Escobar alone? Unfortunately, for medical reasons, she refused to wait. I met them on the road to Caracas, but it was too late. We were accosted by armed men, forced into their van, blindfolded and taken to a location miles away.”

  Jake dumped his coffee down the drain, the taste suddenly bitter. “It was an inside job, involving someone at the hospital who knew all the details—Escobar’s address and when he would be on his way. The helicopter was prevented from taking off. My presence was a surprise, but everything else was according to plan. They knew they could get a lot of money for Escobar anytime, but especially right at that moment, when his life depended on it.”

  Joe joined him at the sink. “So he was ransomed?”

  “Within hours.”

  “But not you?”

  “Or Keri.” The leader of the gang, a loose cannon named Marco, had taken a fancy to her. They’d decided to demand a ransom for Jake but keep Keri for a while. Jake wouldn’t give them a contact for himself. He wouldn’t leave Keri alone, period.

  “What happened?”

  “One of the kidnappers got us out.” There was much more to it, of course, an internal power struggle, a disgust of Marco’s intentions by José, the man who helped Jake and Keri escape. José had been killed for it.

  “So, when you were home over Labor Day last year,” Joe said, “this had already happened? That was why you were keeping to yourself so much?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How does Keri fit in? Why didn’t she come back with you?”

  Jake rested a hand on Joe’s shoulder. “That’s all I want to say about it for now. And it’s between us, okay?”

  “Hey. Goes without saying, Jake.”

  The sound of the front door stopped further conversation.

  “Where are my boys?” Aggie’s voice filled the house.

  “In the kitchen, Mom,” Joe called out, then fired a “good luck” look at Jake.

  Aggie breezed through the doorway. She was a vibrant sixty-seven-year-old widow of ten years with a great laugh and a big heart. The McCoy children had been raised to know unconditional love—and little privacy, which some of her children handled better than others.

  “I saw your car out front,” she said to her oldest son, passing him a plastic container. “Apple turnovers.”

  “I was coming to see you next,” Jake said honestly, giving her a hug.

  “Isn’t this a rare treat, having all my boys here at the same time.” She accepted the mug of coffee Donovan handed her. “I expect you’ll be gone soon, though, hm, Donny?”

  He shrugged. “I’m thinking I’ll hang around a while longer, if Joe doesn’t mind. Or maybe I’m cramping your style?”

  Joe looked over the rim of his mug at Donovan. “Nana Mae’s going to need some help now that Keri has moved out.”

  Jake laughed. He’d missed this, being with his family, the comfort of familiarity, even as he didn’t know them as well as he used to or should.

  “Didn’t you hear?” Aggie said. “Dixie’s moved in with Mama to help.”

  All eyes turned to Joe. Jake wondered why his youngest brother and the love of his life, Dixie, hadn’t managed to find their way back to each other this time. They’d never stayed apart more than a month before, and this made six months.

  “Good of her.” Joe turned away as he spoke. He rinsed out his mug and set it in the sink, the motion deliberate. “Well, some of us have to work.” He kissed his mother’s cheek and grabbed a turnover from the container Jake opened and held out to him. “See you all later.”

  Donovan excused himself, as well, after also snagging a turnover. Jake set the container on the counter. He didn’t think his stomach was ready for the high-fat, high-sugar treat. “Do you want to go into the living room?” he asked his mother.

  “Sure. Bring those things along. You need to eat, Mr. Skin and Bones.”

  He guided her out of the kitchen. “Not now, Mom. I appreciate your making my favorite, though. I’ll take them home with me.” They sat on the sofa. He saw the unspoken maternal concern in her eyes. “You look like you’ve dropped a few pounds, too.”

  “Not too much room for food in a stomach when it’s full of worry.”

  He took her hand. “I’m sorry. I wish I could’ve gotten word to you.”

  “Where were you, son?”

  He debated how much to say. “Helping take down a kidnapping ring.”

  Her face paled but her gaze held steady. She wasn’t one to crumble. “One you infiltrated, I suppose. I’ve seen enough movies and TV shows about that kind of thing.”

  “Then you have an idea.” Although she really couldn’t. No one could imagine what went on unless they lived through it.

  “And that you probably can’t say more than that,” she added authoritatively.

  “You got it.”

  “We kept your Christmas presents,” she said, her eyes lighting up. “I figure we can have a Christmas-in-May party.”


  He smiled at that. “Give me time to shop first.”

  She squeezed his hand. “Your being home is gift enough. And the new grandbaby you’re giving me.” She settled herself in the sofa cushions. “How’d it feel seeing Keri? I’ll bet you were surprised at how big she is.”

  The understatement of the year. “Yes.”

  “We think the world of her, you know.”

  “She told me you all adopted her. I appreciate everything you did.”

  “She’s a sweetheart. And so brave.”

  Those particular traits of hers, along with extreme stubbornness, were what had led to their capture. “You’ll get no argument from me.”

  “So when’s the wedding?” Aggie asked, lifting her mug.

  Wedding? “Uh, we haven’t talked about it yet.”

  “Don’t you think you need to get to it? She could pop any second. She’s already had two false labors.”

  “She has?” He didn’t know exactly what that entailed.

  “A real trouper, that one.” Her eyes, deep blue and direct, took aim at his. “We’ve had a few ‘early’ babies in our family, but none as close to the wire as this one.”

  And no divorces. Jake didn’t say the words out loud, but they clanged in his head like the bell at Notre Dame, reverberating, deafening. “When Keri and I decide what we’re going to do, you’ll be the first to know.”

  Aggie pursed her lips. “I don’t see how there could be any hesitation—or doubt.”

  “Just give me a chance to breathe, okay?” His jaw hurt, his hands clenched.

  After a long silence, Aggie said, “How is Keri feeling this morning?”

  “I don’t know. I left before she woke up.” He could see her debating what to say. He was, after all, one of her children who ignored what she called her “mother’s right to know,” as all eight siblings had been told forever. To forestall any unwanted advice or recrimination, he stood. “I’ll go home right now and check.”

  “Would you like to come to dinner?”

  He forced himself to keep his voice level, reminding himself that she didn’t understand all he’d been through and that he needed time and space—something Keri had recognized. Score one for her. “Not tonight, okay, Mom? I’ll talk to you later.”