Keri sat in a straight-back chair, eating cake and sipping a
tangy fruit punch. The living room of the beautiful old
Victorian house was decorated with pink-and-blue crepe paper
and balloons. Adding to the vivid atmosphere were lots of
brightly dressed women, the same women who had welcomed her
with open arms to Jake McCoy's town, even though they
only had Keri's word that Jake was the father of her
baby, due any day. Fainting was apparently a reasonable
measure of truth telling.
Her child wouldn't lack for anything, Keri thought,
looking at the colorful array of baby clothes and gear, the
largesse of the baby shower now winding down. Some items
were new and store bought, others were handmade, repaired or
recycled with loving care. Her eyes welled at everyone's
generosity.
"Don't you go crying on us again," Dixie
Callahan warned from the chair next to her. "I've
already had to redo my mascara twice."
"Switch to waterproof," Keri teased the woman, who
had quickly become her best friend, the curly-haired blonde
from the Take a Lode Off Diner that life-changing day last
December. Along with Donovan, Dixie had kept Keri from
sliding off the chair when she fainted and had felt
proprietary ever since. "It's hormones, Dix. I have
no control over them. Anyway, I'm not sad. I'm
happy."
As happy as a nine-months-pregnant, thirty-year-old woman
could be, she supposed, when the father of her baby
hadn't been heard from for five months. Had he been
injured during his assignment, whatever that was? Would
someone inform them of that—or if he died? Would he
ever know he'd fathered a child?
Not that he'd ever sought the role of father. Far from
it. Since Keri had landed in town, she'd learned that
all three McCoy brothers were commitment-phobic, although
the youngest brother, Joe, had been engaged briefly to Dixie
last fall after fifteen years of an on-again, off-again
relationship that had started when they were high school
freshmen.
Keri had moved too often and had lived outside of the U.S.
most of her life, so she'd never known that kind of
long-lasting relationship. "Having roots" was just a
concept to her, not a reality.
"How're you doing, angel?" Aggie McCoy,
Jake's mother, asked, bending close, worry in her eyes.
Aggie was the world's best hugger, her cushy body like
Mother Earth personified, her bottle-black hair and vibrant
blue eyes suited to her personality. Keri adored her.
"I'm not in labor, Aggie," she answered with a
grin. She'd had two false alarms in the past week, so it
was no surprise that everyone was anxious. "How's
Nana Mae? Is she tired after all this noise and activity?"
"She's loving every second of your party. Holding
court, as you can see. Mama's in her glory. You've
been so good for her."
"I'm the lucky one." By the end of Keri's
first day in town, she'd been hired as a live-in
attendant for Maebelle McCoy, Aggie's
eighty-nine-year-old mother-in-law. Nana Mae needed help but
would never admit it. Keri needed a place to stay but
wouldn't accept charity. Two birds, one stone, Joe and
Aggie had pointed out. So, Keri earned her keep by helping
out Nana Mae, a job that required more domestic duties than
the nursing care that Keri was trained to give.
Aggie took Keri's hand. "I wish with all my heart
that Jake would walk through that front door right this
second."
"Me, too," Keri said, her heart doing a little dance
at the thought. She'd been fretting about his return for
what seemed like years instead of months. She just wanted to
get the conversation over with, so she would know how he
felt and what they would do about it. Even her dreams
weren't immune to her tension, having become much more
intense lately, more detailed.
"I know, angel. And I know how much you love him."
Choked up, Aggie squeezed her hand.
Keri looked at her lap. She couldn't tell Aggie the
truth. Jake needed to be the one to decide what he wanted
his family to know, not Keri. Still, she felt guilty for
keeping things from them. And also worried about him coming
home and finding her pregnant. Her emotions were jumbled,
changing daily, sometimes hourly.
"Joe's got some empty boxes," Aggie said after a
moment. "He'll take everything to Mama's for
you. A bunch of us will come along and help you put
everything in place. You shouldn't be moving heavy
things now."
"Thank you, Aggie. I don't know what I'd do
without you and your generous friends and family. You were
so kind to host this shower for me."
"It's my grandbaby." She may have eight children
and sixteen grandchildren, but this yet-to-be-born child was
her Jake's child.
People started saying their goodbyes, the noise escalating,
punctuated with laughter. Then Aggie opened the front door
as the first few guests were leaving.
"Oh, my word!" She stood utterly still, before
suddenly shaking herself, a huge smile spreading over her
face. "Jake! You've come home. Jake!"
Keri couldn't see him—too many people blocked her
view—but her instincts took over. She stood, looking
for a place to hide, panicked, the urge to avoid him
stronger than the urge to see him. Five months ago she
could've hidden her news until she'd told him. Now
he could see for himself, without any softening of the blow
first.
And in front of his family and friends.
The sea of people parted, putting her at one end of what
felt like a dark tunnel, with Jake at the other end, his
arms around his joyous mother, Donovan at his side.
Donovan's gaze fired straight at Keri. She ignored it to
take in Jake's appearance, her heart sinking. He'd
lost weight. His hair hadn't been cut in who knew how
long. He looked as if he hadn't slept for… well,
months.
Tears pushed at her eyes and burned her throat.
What
happened to you?
He scanned the crowd. Everyone seemed to be holding their
breath, waiting for him to spot Keri, but his gaze
didn't linger on her, giving her just a brief, blank
stare before continuing on.
He wasn't even going to acknowledge her? Or worse, he
didn't recognize her? Keri set her hands protectively on
her belly, shielding her baby from the hurt she felt
herself. She hadn't realized how much it mattered that
he accept her and their—
His gaze zoomed back to her and zeroed in, frozen.
"What's going on here?" he asked his mother, who
still had an arm around him.
"We're having a baby shower. Aren't you going to
say hello to her?" she asked in little more than a whisper.
Keri managed a smile, knowing everyone expected her to run
to him.
The problem was, she could barely manage to breathe, much
less run.
"Well, go on, son," Aggie said, grinning. "Kiss
the woman you love."
Jake's blue eyes lasered Keri's then lowered to her
abdomen and back up again.
"Welcome home," she said, her voice shaky, her whole
body quivering.
"Yeah, go kiss her, Papa," Dixie shouted.
"She's been waiting a long time for you."
Keri could see it was all too much for him. Whatever
he'd been doing had only been made worse by coming home
to find he was about to become a father. He was
thirty-seven, but he looked years older.
He started to speak, then spotted Nana Mae, who had made her
way over to him. His eyes went soft. Tenderly, he gathered
his grandmother close.
"I missed you," she said, patting his back.
"There'll be plenty of time to catch up with the
rest of us. You go ahead and greet your girl."
He headed toward Keri. A smile came over his face. He picked
up speed.
She trembled with relief. Everything was going to be okay.
He was in shock, but he wasn't rejecting her. Okay,
good. Okay. Good. Breathe…
Then he was there, within touching distance. He curved his
hands around her arms. "Look at you," he said, as if
he'd been waiting for her. Then he took her into his
arms. She hugged him back—
"I'm going along with this only because of my
grandmother," he whispered in Keri's ear then
released her, keeping her hand in his as Aggie started
shooing people out.
Stunned, Keri said nothing, couldn't have mustered a word.
"Mom," he said. "You don't need to do that.
We'll just step into the kitchen for a minute."
He led Keri away, a journey that seemed to take an hour,
during which she plastered a smile on her face. When the
door was shut and they were alone, he released her.
"We're in love?" he asked. "I—"
"And this—" he gestured toward her belly
"—is mine?"
"Yes."
"I'm supposed to just believe that?"
"You can do the math. If that doesn't work for you,
we can do DNA tests after it's born. I don't need
proof, but I figure you do."
"It? You don't know the gender?"
"I decided not to find out. Where have you been, Jake?
Why couldn't you call home?"
His mouth hardened. His eyes lost their sheen. "In
Venezuela. Nothing like a little kidnapping to stir things
up, eh? And revenge. Only sometimes it's not so sweet."
Jake turned away from Keri's horror-filled eyes. He
shoved his fingers through his hair and stared at the floor.
All he wanted was some peace and quiet. To sleep in his own
bed. To take a shower whenever he felt like it, for as long
as he wanted. To eat something he could identify.
Instead he'd been blindsided with a pregnant Keri
Overton, the woman who'd consumed his thoughts night and
day for far too long. The woman he'd been locked up
with—because she thought she knew better than he about
how criminals operate.
And then there was his brother. Yeah, Donovan was a dead
man. During the almost three-hour drive from the San
Francisco airport to Chance City, he hadn't once
mentioned Keri, who was not only pregnant but on the brink
of giving birth. To
his child. The result of a
one-time, "are we going to get out of here alive?"
moment after they'd been kidnapped together, along with
her boss/patient. One damned time. And apparently she had
everyone in Chance City snowed, convincing them they'd
been in love.
"Did you even recognize me?" she asked from behind him.
He blew out a breath. "Not at first." He should
have, considering everything, but he'd been caught off
guard, especially by her pregnancy. Would never have thought
of her in terms of being pregnant. She'd had months to
call and tell him that bit of news, all that time from Labor
Day until Christmas before he'd gone deep undercover.
She hadn't called, so he'd decided he was safe from
that worry.
"Would you have recognized
me?" he
countered, facing her.
"I don't know. You've lost weight, and your hair
is long. You look older. Maybe it's the beard."
He laughed coldly. Yeah, he'd aged about a hundred
years. "Well, you've
gained a lot of
weight, and your hair is much longer, too." She'd
had short, straight hair before. Now it was almost shoulder
length and wavy. But still a rich, shiny brown, a much
deeper shade than her eyes—
The kitchen door swung open, and Donovan came in.
"Thanks for the heads-up," Jake muttered.
Donovan ignored his sarcasm. "Everyone's gone except
family. Everything okay here?" he asked, looking from
Jake to Keri.
"You should've called ahead," Keri said.
"That kind of shock can send a woman into labor, you
know. And what about your mom and grandma? I thought you
were in Alaska, anyway."
"I was, until Jake called. We coordinated our flights to
arrive in San Francisco at the same time."
"Give us a minute more," Jake said to his brother,
not wanting dissension, too tired to participate. He shoved
his hands in his pockets, found the small gold medallion he
carried with him, rubbed it enough to heat it up.
"Sure," Donovan said. "I just wanted you to know
who was still here."
As soon as the door shut, Jake focused on Keri. "Why
does everyone think I'm in love with you?"
Her cheeks pinkened. "I didn't think it was
necessary to disillusion them. Besides, I was protecting
your image."
"And yours."
"Yes. And our child's. Your town… adopted me.
But also I needed them, so I let them think what they
wanted."
He recalled the excited, hopeful look on his mother's
face as she'd waited for him to kiss Keri, the woman he
loved. He closed his eyes, exhausted.
"You need to sleep," Keri said, touching his arm.
He pulled back. "Where are you living?"
"With your grandmother. I've been helping take care
of her."
What now? He couldn't live apart from her.
© 2003-2026