Staring in increasing revulsion at the mushroom-and-Swiss-
cheese omelet on the plate in front of her, Shelby
Franklin was distinctly aware of each cold, tingling bead
of perspiration that erupted on her forehead. Whatever had
possessed her to order eggs? Accepting this breakfast
invitation had been dumb enough, but she'd reached the
summit of stupidity by ordering eggs.
Her stomach endorsed that opinion with a rebellious
squeeze. Breathing deeply through her nose, Shelby shifted
her gaze to focus on the upside-down reflection of her
face in the shiny bowl of her unused teaspoon. If she
concentrated, maybe she could hold this back.
A sudden, sharp noise made her flinch, but she didn't look
up as the clatter of metal on thick ceramic echoed through
the nearly deserted restaurant. The realization that her
companion had dropped his fork and must now be studying
her with those alert, coffee-brown eyes of his caused
Shelby's heart to plummet into the roiling cauldron of her
stomach. Did he have to notice everything? "Shelby?"
Tucker Sharpe's deep voice rumbled like distant thunder.
She lifted both hands to deflect his concern. "I'm okay,"
she insisted, not daring to look up. Her mind spun in
desperate circles as she struggled to think up an excuse,
an explanation, anything that would prevent him from
guessing what she wasn't ready for him to know. "I haven't
been sleeping much," she offered, staring hard at the
spoon.
Tucker would buy that. Judging by his haggard look when
he'd greeted her earlier, Tucker hadn't been sleeping
much, either, these last three weeks. He and his brother
had been unusually close, and losing David had hit him
hard.
Maybe almost as hard as it had hit Shelby. "How far along
are you?" Tucker queried softly. Shock jerked her head
up. "What?" A muscle twitched in his angular jaw as his
mouth tightened and his dark eyebrows slammed together,
creating the remote, disapproving expression Shelby had
come to know well in recent months. Her best friend said
Tucker was great looking, and maybe he was, with that
lean, wholly masculine face and that luxuriant chestnut
hair that rioted in little waves and spikes on top of his
head. But every time he looked at Shelby, his shapely
mouth thinned into a hard, straight line and his dark eyes
sparked with silent accusations.
"You heard the question, Shelby. How far along are you?"
Shame caused her head to droop like a rain-drenched garden
rose on a weak stem. "Just a few weeks," she whispered.
She didn't need a doctor to tell her when it had happened.
There had been only the one time, just four days before
David's accident. Shelby hadn't felt right about it, not
even when David had reminded her — as if it could have
slipped her mind even for a moment — that their wedding
was less than a month away. Catching her bottom lip
between her teeth, Shelby bit down hard. She had broken
God's rules, and now she must face the consequences.
She tucked her curly, shoulder-length hair behind her
ears, then instantly regretted the nervous gesture because
it exposed more of her guilty face to Tucker, the mind
reader.
"You just found out." He released a heavy breath that
sounded as though he'd been holding it awhile. "You didn't
know on Sunday."
No, if she had known then, when she'd sat beside him in
church, he'd have read her as effortlessly as he was doing
right now.
"I'll marry you," he said quietly.
Shelby looked up, certain she couldn't have heard him
correctly. "M-marry me? You?"
He nodded almost imperceptibly, then just sat there, tall
and straight and silent as a lighthouse, watching her.
Tucker was a friend to everyone in town. He'd even been
Grand Leprechaun at this year's St. Patrick's Day parade,
a very big deal here in Dublin, Ohio. But it was clear he
didn't like Shelby. She hadn't been good enough for his
younger brother.
After David's funeral she had expected to be forgotten,
but she'd quickly learned that straight-arrow Tucker would
not allow his personal feelings to interfere with what he
saw as his duty to look after David's bereaved fiancée. If
she happened to sit down alone at church, Tucker would
materialize at her side, grave and solicitous. He was
constantly inviting her out for meals, inquiring whether
her ancient car was running okay, asking if she needed
anything.
Yeah, she needed something. She needed Tucker to get out
of her life so she could concentrate on rebuilding it.
Twisting the diamond ring on her left hand, she shook her
head, declining Tucker's ridiculous proposal. Then because
he still seemed to be waiting, she gave him some
words. "No. Thank you. There's no need for...that."
His eyes widened in apparent horror. "But you're going to
have the baby, aren't you?" He glanced over his shoulder
as if afraid someone might overhear them, but it was late
and the breakfast crowd was gone. He leaned forward and
lowered his voice, anyway, his dark eyes urgent. "Please
tell me you're not thinking about —"
"No," she interrupted, shocked. "I could never do that."
His shoulders slumped and the vertical line between his
eyebrows almost disappeared as the tension drained out of
him. "Then marry me. You don't have to go through this
alone."
Didn't she? She'd been alone all her life. Until six
months ago, when she had foolishly allowed herself to
begin dreaming of marriage and children. When she had
accepted David, she'd thought God was finally going to
allow her to taste happiness. But after dangling it in
front of her, he had snatched it away.
"The baby deserves a father," Tucker pressed.
Why did he assume that having the baby meant keeping the
baby? She couldn't do that, not without money or parental
support, and she had neither. Oh, sure, Tucker was
offering to marry her. But even if she could disregard
that pesky detail about not being in love with him, she'd
have to be crazy to sign up for a lifetime with a man who
so clearly disliked her.
She knew what she had to do. On a violin teacher's salary,
she had no other choice. But she pressed her lips together
as her stubborn heart fought to override her common sense.
From the moment she'd realized her body sheltered this
little spark of life, Shelby had been gripped by a fierce,
protective love that went beyond all reason. This was her
baby. How could she ever put it into another woman's arms?
"You can't do it." Slowly tracing the rim of his coffee
mug with a long, square-ended finger, Tucker watched her
intently. "You can't give it up."
How did he do that? How did he look inside her, read her
mind? He often finished sentences for her, but there was
nothing endearing about it, as might have been the case
had David possessed the ability. It frustrated her no end,
being unable to entertain a thought without Tucker picking
it up and saying it out loud.
But maybe, just this once, it was all right, because the
turmoil inside Shelby was threatening to rip her apart.
Maybe a full confession would assuage some of this awful
guilt. And there was no need to worry about Tucker's good
opinion, was there? Because she couldn't lose something
she'd never had.
"It was just one time." She said it fast, before she lost
her nerve. "I know it shouldn't have happened at all, but —
"
"You don't have to tell me this."
"Yes, I do." She sucked in a breath and forced herself to
continue. "I know what the Bible says, and I meant to
honor God by waiting, but then I didn't wait. I felt
horribly guilty afterwards, so we agreed —"
"You don't owe me this," he interrupted again. "It was
between the two of you and God."
"But if I...marry you..." Had those words actually come
out of her mouth? She had no intention of marrying Tucker.
He shook his head. "I want this child to have David's name
and be brought up by the people who loved his father.
Right now, that's all I care about."
That was all he cared about? Shelby swallowed hard. "Do
you mean you wouldn't expect —"
"You need time to grieve." Tucker's voice broke on that
last word and his thick black eyelashes dipped low,
reminding Shelby that he, too, was grieving. She had a
feeling he blamed himself for not preventing David's
accident, but she knew as well as anyone how difficult it
had been to talk high-spirited David Sharpe out of
anything. He'd wanted to ride his motorcycle in the rain;
what could his brother have done to stop him?
Tucker raised his eyes and pinned Shelby with a sober
gaze. "We could have separate bedrooms until the baby
comes. What happens after that will be up to you."
"But how could you be content with that kind of
arrangement?" she blurted. "Why would you saddle yourself
with a woman you don't love?" Or even like, she added
silently.
From the way his mouth tightened, she knew he'd read her
mind again. "We'll get along fine," he said.
Yeah, she'd believe that in about a million years. "Do you
even like babies?" she challenged.
"I've never been around any." Above the collar of his
black T-shirt, his Adam's apple took a long, slow
dip. "But I'll be a good father. And husband."
"No." Shelby managed to gather her wits enough to give her
head an emphatic shake. "I couldn't."
"Just think about it."
She sure would. The next time she needed a good laugh,
she'd just think about marrying Tucker Sharpe. Wouldn't it
be delightful, sitting down at the breakfast table every
morning and being treated to that scowl of his?
He lifted his coffee mug with a hand that trembled
slightly. "Have you told your parents?"
"Last night." Resenting the way his gaze roamed over her
face as though cataloguing each of her hated freckles,
Shelby turned her head and looked out the window next to
their table.
A light breeze ruffled a sea of pink tulips on the berm
underneath the restaurant's sign post. It was a perfect
spring morning, all blue sky and cotton-ball clouds, and
even through the glass Shelby could hear the
sweet "cheerio" of a robin. The world was still turning,
just as if David hadn't died. And it would keep on
turning, no matter what happened to his baby.
"They won't support you," Tucker said flatly. Shelby's
gaze jerked back to his face, but she said nothing because
he wasn't wrong. She loved her mother, and her stepfather
was all right, but Diana and Jack Dearborn had never been
the kind of people to make a stand as a family.
"So what are your options?" Tucker pressed. David had
talked about buying life insurance and naming Shelby as
the beneficiary, and if he had followed through on that,
she'd be okay right now. But all he'd left behind was the
wrecked motorcycle, a flashy car that wasn't paid for and
a couple of thousand dollars in credit-card debt.
She couldn't give up the baby, but how could she keep it?
Just two years out of college, she was still paying off
loans and existing month to month on her meager salary as
a middle-school strings teacher in nearby Columbus. She
had a handful of private violin students and she jumped at
every opportunity to pick up her own instrument and
perform with a friend's quartet, but she was barely making
it.
Tucker lifted one of his giant hands and rubbed the back
of his neck. "You know, there are lots of places in the
world where this kind of marriage wouldn't even raise an
eyebrow."
Shelby raised two eyebrows, then said with some
asperity, "This is not one of those places."
He folded his arms on the table, nudging his plate away
with an elbow. "Well, I don't know of any Bible verse that
says a couple has to be 'in love' before they marry. So as
long as we're both fully committed to providing this baby
with a real family, why shouldn't it work out?"
There were lots of reasons. Shelby was just too upset
right now to think of any.
"As a matter of fact," Tucker continued, "it could be a
real plus, going into marriage without any foolish
romantic expectations to trip us up."
So romantic expectations were foolish, were they? Did he
honestly believe marriage could be reduced to a business
arrangement? "That isn't enough, Tucker. Not for me."
Shelby shook her head at him. "And not for you, either."
"This isn't about us. This is about a child."
Shelby looked down at the hands she'd clenched together in
her lap. She turned the left one slightly and watched her
three-quarters-of-a-carat diamond solitaire flash red and
purple sparks. She could sell the ring, she realized. She
could get a smaller apartment and give up regular haircuts
and premium chocolate and those ridiculously expensive
caffe lattes. If the pregnancy and birth were
uncomplicated and the baby was healthy, she might be able
to manage.