Runaway Bridesmaid

by Karen Templeton

  Which would have been the worst thing in the world, given what she thought she knew at the time.

  That had left giving the baby up for adoption. With an open adoption, she’d rationalized, at least she’d get to hear how the child was doing from time to time, maybe even see it occasionally.

  Her mother had been horrified. Thrilled at finding herself pregnant again at forty, Vivian couldn’t imagine ever being able to give up something that had grown inside you for nine months. To tell the truth, Sarah was having none too easy a time coming to terms with the idea herself, but it seemed, for a while, like her only choice. And one that would be good for the baby, she’d told herself.

  But Vivian miscarried her baby…and that’s when the final plan evolved.

  Please, Vivian had begged in tears one day about a week after her loss, please don’t give up the baby, let me raise it as mine instead. No one will know if we handle it just right. That way you’ll be around your child almost every day, you know? Get to see him or her grow up, know what your baby sounds like, feels like in your arms… We can make this work, you’ll see, she had pleaded. And this way, Dean won’t have to know…

  Sarah capitulated, and her mother took on the project with the zeal of an undercover agent, a plan that had only worked because her mother always looked a bit pregnant, anyway, and Sarah didn’t show at all until her sixth month, and even then, she’d been able to conceal the pregnancy with baggy sweatshirts.

  How perfect it had all seemed. How foolproof.

  Until Sarah woke up from the dream her mother had plunged them both into and realized the flaw in the plan. For the birth certificate, of course, listed Sarah as Katey’s mother, not Vivian.

  And Dean as her father.

  She could have pretended ignorance, she supposed. Omitted his name, let the record state instead “Father Unknown.” But when it came right down to it, when she lay there in the hospital bed, her baby girl cooing in her arms, the only thing she could think of was the miracle that one night of lovemaking had produced, clichéd and corny as the thought may have been. So she put down Dean as the rightful father of that miracle. Even if he never saw her, let the record show whose genes this beautiful child carried.

  But her sentimentality had a price. Even though Vivian had home-schooled the child, sooner or later, Katey would need her birth certificate. And then she’d know. And Vivian had a point; the longer they waited, the worse it would be.

  Could things possible get more complicated?

  “Sarah!”

  She jerked at the sound of Katey’s voice, thinking she’d been more hidden.

  “Come see all the fish me an’ Dean caught!” The child seemed to fly over the thirty feet between them and grabbed Sarah’s hand, yanking her toward the embankment where Dean was slowly rising to his feet. “Dean says we can cook ’em tonight! And he’ll let me help! Oh! And he said he’s going to make me a chair just like the one he made for Jennifer and Lance, but small enough so my feet’ll touch the floor…”

  Sarah barely heard the little girl’s ramblings. Dean’s moss-green eyes had ensnared hers from the moment Katey started to pull her toward him. As she got closer, the look in them changed from surprise to something soft and smoldering and gentle. She knew she was just projecting her own anxieties, but…it was almost as if he knew.

  But of course, he didn’t.

  Katey dashed back over to the creek and all its treasures, leaving Sarah—confident, cocky, never-at-a-loss-for-words Sarah—unable to think of a single thing to say.

  He’d seen her before Katey had, standing by that tree like a cautious doe, so focused on Katey she’d been oblivious to his presence. She’d kept dead still, the breeze teasing her hair, stirring the neckline of the simple white cotton shirt she wore tucked into a pair of baggy shorts, and Dean had been almost afraid to breathe, for fear that, like a doe, she’d start and disappear back into the woods.

  Now she was close enough for him to catch a whiff of her hair conditioner every time the wind shifted. He caught her eyes as well, willing them to mesh with his. He saw them widen, almost in alarm, and noticed the red rims.

  “Hey, what’s this?” He itched to touch her cheek, refrained. “You’ve been crying?”

  She scrubbed her palm into one eye, then the other, jerking her head in denial. Sniffed. “No…it’s just…a little reaction to all the dust in the air today.”

  Right. Sarah wasn’t allergic to anything. She could stand out in the middle of a hayfield and not even sniffle.

  He wanted to take her in his arms, tuck her head against his chest. Hold her and rock her and plead with her to trust him. Instead, he tucked his thumbs in his jeans pockets, wondering what was different about today. Yesterday she as good as told him to go to hell. Today…today was just different, that’s all.

  One side of his mouth lifted as something struck him. “Your mother didn’t tell you Katey was with me, did she?”

  She shook her head, then cleared her throat, lifting that pointed chin to cover up whatever she was really feeling. Apparently, she’d forgotten who she was trying to kid. “I don’t suppose that would have served her purpose.” Now she made a sound that was half laugh, half sigh. “The woman is incorrigible.”

  Dean couldn’t think of a single reply that wouldn’t get him into trouble. Except one. He extended his hand, his head cocked. “Truce?”

  After a moment, she nodded again, then slipped her hand into his. “Truce,” she agreed, immediately breaking the contact. He wasn’t sure, but he thought maybe he saw a faint tinge of pink wash over her cheekbones.

  She glanced around her for a moment, toying with the high-school ring she still wore, then walked past him to the cooler. She lifted the lid and gave a short, startled laugh. “How many people you plan on feeding tonight?”

  “Katey had a good day.”

  “More like a good week. Y’all leave anything in the creek?” She let the lid slam shut, then made her way to a grassy patch near the water’s edge. Shielding her eyes with her right hand, she watched Katey splashing in the water about twenty feet downstream for a moment, then sank cross-legged to the ground.

  Cautiously, Dean joined her, close enough to talk, far enough away not to spook her. He leaned back on one elbow, one leg straight out, the other knee bent, tilting his torso just slightly in her direction while keeping his attention directed toward the opposite bank. He heard Sarah pick up something, then send it skipping across the creek.

  “The flowers are…really beautiful,” she suddenly said. “Thank you.”

  He almost jumped. “You’re welcome.” He stole a quick peek at her face, then looked back out over the water. “I was afraid you’d be mad.”

  “Oh, I was,” she replied matter-of-factly. “Madder ’n a cow with a fly up its nose. At first. But…” She shrugged in lieu of finishing the sentence.

  “I meant what I said,” he ventured. “In the note.”

  She nodded, squinting in the sun. “I know you did.”

  He didn’t breathe, waiting for the objection. But there didn’t seem to be one. As casually as he could manage, he let his eyes seek out her face, which she was keeping deliberately masked. But this was Sarah. His Sarah. Her face may have been still, but he was sure her brain was working overtime.

  He wanted to touch her so badly his fingers tingled. A slight breeze crept across the creek; she shivered, just for a second, and he saw a little coterie of goose bumps crop up on her forearms. How soft she was, he remembered, every part of her silky and smooth, so cool and warm at the same time, balm to his hands and his soul.

  He remembered. And he ached.

  He agonized for a full minute, like a kid on his first date trying to screw up the courage to take the girl’s hand in the movie theater. When he finally decided to just do it—what did he have to lose?—he felt her fingers tense. But she didn’t pull away, even when he began to gently stroke her knuckles with his thumb.

  “Hey, y’all!” Katey cried. “Look a
t me!”

  Sarah immediately shot to her feet at the sound of Katey’s high-pitched voice streaking over the rasping shrill of a cicada. Dean could see the little girl hopping from one exposed rock to another, flapping her thin arms every few seconds or so to regain her balance.

  Sarah picked her way through the bushy growth on the bank. “Katharine Suzanne—just what the blazes do you think you’re doing?”

  Katey froze at the harshness in Sarah’s voice, the dark, finely haired brows pulled tightly together over the bridge of her nose.

  “I’ve done this hundreds of times,” she whined, wiggling a little to adjust her balance. “It’s no big deal.”

  Sarah was quiet for a moment. Dean knew better than to interfere, to suggest that maybe Katey was just fine. Or worse, to confess that the child had been performing her balancing act without mishap for the last hour. Finally, he saw Sarah’s shoulders rise, then fall sharply, he assumed from a sigh.

  “Just…be careful, okay?”

  Katey’s face lit up as she nodded with such vigor she nearly lost her balance again. Sarah walked back up the embankment, her hands in her pockets, her wide, unlipsticked mouth pulled into more of a grimace than a smile. “So sue me. I worry.”

  He chuckled. “Isn’t that a mother’s prerogative?”

  Sarah had glanced back over her shoulder at Katey as she made her way back; now she whipped her head around, her eyes dark and wide. Then her expression neutralized, and she hunched her shoulders in a half shrug. “I suppose.” She flopped back down beside him. “I’m just standing as proxy.”

  There she sat, her arms loosely clasped together around her knees. Not going anywhere. Not angry or defensive or hostile. Again, the thought came to him that something had changed. And he knew it was more than the roses.

  They should talk. Somebody should talk. He thought about that for a full minute until he just came out and said, “I’ve been thinking…about what you said yesterday.” He had, too. A lot. “About whether or not I might have ever come back if it hadn’t been for Lance and Jennifer getting married.”

  Sarah slanted him a quick look, then glanced away. “Oh?”

  “You’re right. I probably wouldn’t have.”

  Her hand found its way to her hair, damp with the increased humidity this close to the water, forking through it as she squinted out over the creek. “That’s why I said—”

  “No, please…” He touched her arm. It was damp, too. And cool. “Let me finish, okay?”

  She folded her hands together again, then nodded, not looking at him.

  “You know how you said you thought I’d forgotten about you?”

  Her voice was tight. “Yes.”

  “Well…I figured, after what I’d done, you’d forget me.” He studied a small section of the creek where bubbles kept coming to surface and popping, idly wondered if a catfish was lying on the bed underneath. “Hell, Sarah…I was scared to death to come home. Figured it just wasn’t worth it, you know? I mean, I’d made a new life. And it wasn’t as if I had any right to expect you to forgive me…” He shrugged, tossed another stone.

  “Then, Lance asked me to do this, and I thought, shoot, I can’t turn down my only brother’s request for me to be his best man, can I?” He looked up at her. “But I was still scared out of my wits. Scared you’d hate me. Or that you’d found someone else.” His chest heaved in a heavy sigh. “Not that I had any right to think one thing or another about that. I could hardly have blamed you for looking elsewhere. But, still…” He shook his head.

  For a long moment, she just stared straight ahead, twisting that ring around and around her finger. Then she said on a sigh, “Things…can’t go back to the way they were, if that’s what you’re thinking. We’re not the same people we were then.”

  He laughed softly. “I hope not.”

  She turned those liquid amber eyes to him, her mouth set. “No, Dean. You don’t understand. Forgiveness is not even the issue here.”

  He wasn’t sure what she was trying to say, but he was damned if he was going to let her wriggle her way out of it this time. “Then what is the issue?”

  The grass beside her legs seemed to suddenly consume her interest. Since she didn’t answer his question, he assumed there was no answer.

  “Hey, you,” he said softly, stroking the top of her hand, “What I cared about then is still there. People don’t change like that. We’re both older, maybe a little smarter, but we’re still us.”

  She swatted at a buzzing something or other, her face betraying nothing of what she might be thinking or feeling. So, on a deep breath, he went on. “If I can find a place, I think I’m going to manufacture that new line of furniture right here.”

  Her eyes zipped to his. But still she said nothing.

  “I’d still have to be in Atlanta from time to time,” he said carefully. “But my home would be here.” He paused. “Where it’s supposed to be.”

  The gazes tangled for several seconds before she picked up a stone and tossed it out over the water, her mouth pulled down at the corners.

  “Would you…rather I didn’t come back?” he asked.

  Her sigh blended with the breeze. “I just don’t…I don’t want you making any decisions based on what I may or may not do.”

  In the long pause that followed, Dean’s thoughts threaded with Katey’s screeches of glee, the soft whirring of wind-teased willow leaves, the creek’s gentle gurgling.

  “I know you might find this hard to believe,” he said quietly, picking at a piece of long grass in front of him. “But all I really want is to see you happy. After all, we were best friends before we were…” He took a deep breath, a breath filled with the smell of sweet, clean water and damp earth. And Sarah. “Before things got serious. I sometimes think I miss that most of all.”

  He heard a little gulp next to him. Before he could touch her, she scrambled to her feet and started to walk away.

  “For God’s sake, Sarah—” Dean jumped up and took off after her. “Stop running!”

  “I’m not!” she tossed over her shoulder as she increased her pace, her arms clamped across her ribs.

  “The hell you say!” He grabbed her as she ducked underneath a low-hanging willow, turning her around so sharply her body slammed into his. “Every time we get into a serious discussion, you’re off like a damn greyhound.”

  Her mouth was far too close. And not nearly close enough. The old bent willow gently slapped their faces and shoulders with her slender green fingers, as if admonishing them for their foolishness. Sarah opened her eyes wide, those intoxicating whiskey eyes inviting him in whether she wanted to or not…and with a little cry, she looped her arms around his neck.

  His hand cupping her jaw, he let his mouth drop to hers, wishing he could somehow convey everything he felt with this one kiss. He stroked her cheek with his thumb, his fingers massaging the little dip in the back of her neck, his only desire, at that moment, to make her understand how much he cherished her.

  And always had.

  For a few precious seconds, she was his. She melted into him, her tongue meeting his in a slow, tantalizing dance. He kissed her again, and again, his other hand slipping around to the small of her back, gently massaging that sensitive spot at the base of her spine, and she nestled against him with a little moan. Her hands threaded through his hair, the warmth of her through his shirt making him shiver. Her mouth, her body were perfectly aligned with his, and he could feel her temperature rise, her heart rate increase, her breathing almost stop as they savored each other and yearned for more.

  Then she pulled away, her eyes so filled with tears he was amazed they weren’t streaming down her cheeks.

  “This…isn’t fair” was all she said, then started back toward the cooler, her hands raised as she shook her head. In the distance, thunder rumbled.

  “Sarah—”

  “Call Katey, would you?” she said, so coolly that Dean wondered if he’d just dreamed the kiss. “There’s a stor
m coming. We need to get out of here.”

  All Dean could do was stand there and feel stupid. Something he’d been doing a lot lately. What wasn’t fair? The kiss? His coming back? What?

  Then he heard the splash.

  A few feet away, Sarah turned around with a resigned sigh. “There she goes. Did my mother pack an extra set of clothes?”

  “Uh, yeah…” His brain was definitely split into several noncoordinating pieces. “In the hamper.”

  “Go fish her out, then. I’ll get her changed.”

  All Dean could do was obey. He trudged downstream to where he expected Katey to be, only to find no sign of her at first. His heartbeat pounded in his ears as he frantically scanned the expanse of water—

  “Sarah!” he bellowed. “Get over here!” Panic ripping through his gut, he scrambled down the embankment to where Katey lay in the water.

  Which was quickly turning a garish shade of red around her head.

  Chapter 9

  There was so much blood! Dull, blurred streaks all over Katey’s clothes, ghastly red splotches on Dean’s, oozing out from underneath Dean’s palm, tightly pressed against Katey’s forehead—

  “She’s knocked out, but she’s breathing okay,” Dean said, trying to assure her, looking as though he could use a stiff drink. “But this is one nasty cut.”

  Sarah managed a shaky nod as she knelt beside the little girl. Her own heart racing so fast she feared she might faint, she pressed quaking fingers against Katey’s neck to feel her pulse, which seemed strong enough.

  She’d dealt with much more severe injuries in animals and never panicked. But this was a child. Her child. And her child was not only unconscious but bleeding far too much for Sarah’s comfort. Cripes—the most Katey’d ever done to herself was scrape the skin off both knees at the same time when she first started riding her bike…

  “We need a bandage,” Dean said calmly, and she nodded again, willing her brain to work. Her eyes lit on Dean’s shirt, a soft chambray, clean and absorbent. Damn…it looked brand new.

  “Your shirt?”