“I’ll sure stop by,” Suze promised, meaning it. As intimidating as the math teacher had been, she’d pushed and prodded her students to their limits. Suze owed her scholarship to OU in no small part to the dedicated teacher’s determination to see her students achieve their full potential.
By the time she finally reached the back of the diner, her mouth ached from forced smiles. “Lord,” she muttered when she slid into the booth. “Looks like everyone in town still comes in for Ruby’s sour cream chicken enchiladas.”
“Pretty much. Did Doc Peterman tag you for the Fourth of July parade?”
“He tried, but I’m not ready to assume the hometown hero mantel.”
“Why not? You earned that Bronze Star.”
“Cedar Creek can boast more genuine heroes than me. You, for instance. Do I need to remind you that you logged more combat hours than I did before you separated?”
He didn’t alter his lazy slouch against the back of the booth, but Suze could see the skin tighten across his cheekbones. “Let’s not get into another debate over whether toggling a joystick to take out a target three thousand miles away qualifies as combat. I saw Dave Forrester give you his card. What’s up with that?”
“He said you told him about the spill back at Luke. He wants to talk about those ‘pesky’ environmental issues involved in cleanup.”
“About damn time he talked about them with someone who has some smarts!”
He shot a frown at the man now exiting the café. Suze craned around the edge of the bench in time to see Forrester loop a casually possessively arm around Alicia’s waist.
She swung back around, her gaze locked on Gabe’s as she heard the echo of his cool, flat comments this morning.
It’s over between him and Alicia. They shifted their friendship back into neutral.
His decision? Or Alicia’s? Suze couldn’t help wondering as disgust underscored his next comment.
“The town council and I are fed up with his stall tactics. We’re about two depositions away from suing his ass off.”
“Whoa! That serious, is it?”
“I’ll take you out to the Jones place, if you want. You can see the oil seepage on their property and...”
He broke off, wincing. “Hell! I can’t believe I suggested that! Last thing you need is to risk the health of our baby by breathing in more toxic fumes.”
Suze braced herself. Not the smoothest transition to the reason for this face-to-face but, abruptly, here they were.
Or not.
Smothering another curse, Gabe leaned toward her. “Meeting here at Ruby’s has to rank up with one of my stupidest ideas of all times. What do you say we get our dinners to go?”
“Okay by me.”
He hooked a finger at their young server. “We’ll take our two specials to go, Tyler.”
“Sure thing, Mr. Mayor. I’ll bag ’em right up for you.” He turned a shy smile on Suze. “It was sure good to see you again, Captain. You won’t forget to stop by and see Gram, will you?”
“I’ll try to visit her tomorrow.”
“She’ll be totally jazzed to see you.”
He was back within minutes with the two boxed and bagged dinners. “I put your drinks in the bags, too.”
“Thanks. Tell Ruby to add the dinners on my tab.”
“Sure will.” He pocketed the generous tip Gabe passed him. “And thanks again for getting Shelby that summer job as a lifeguard. She’s totally hyped about it.”
“You’re welcome.”
“We’re hoping this lifeguard job will help her turn the corner.”
Suze waited until she and Gabe had rerun the gauntlet and exited into the evening heat to ask. “What corner does his sister Shelby need to turn?”
“She hooked up with the wrong crowd last year. Got bad into meth”
“Oh, no!”
The thought of the lively, inquisitive Shelby Lee glassy-eyed and stupid from drugs made Suze’s heart hurt. It must have done the same to her steel-spined grandmother, the very scary Mrs. Lee.
“Shelby can’t be more than, what? Sixteen?”
“Fifteen.” With a light grip on her elbow, Gabe steered her toward Ole Blue. “Jeff Hendricks found her stumbling along Route 9 three months ago and took her into custody. The kid was high out of her mind. Her folks can’t afford private rehab, but we worked with DHS to get her into a state-sponsored program.”
Suze didn’t have any trouble substituting “I” for “we.” That was Gabe to the core. Every one of his constituents, no matter how young or how old, could expect 150 percent from their mayor.
“How’s she doing?”
“So far, so good.”
When he opened Ole Blue’s passenger door and she hoisted herself into the front seat, the cracked leather greeted her like an old friend. She refused to let herself think about the times she and Gabe had tussled on this same seat. Or the countless hours they’d steamed up the front windshield. Despite her best efforts, however, the memories wrapped around her like Saran Wrap as he deposited their dinners on the floor between them and backed out of the parking slot.
“Where are we going?” she asked, slanting him a quick look.
“Beats the hell out of me.” He shifted into Drive. “You know any place we can escape our past and focus on the future?”
The question nicked an unexpected nerve. Stung, Suze had to remind herself that focusing on the future was the reason she’d driven all the way from Phoenix to Cedar Creek. Yet the fact that she was now carrying Gabe’s child seemed to add to, not detract from their shared past. She didn’t want to escape it. Not anymore. This small town with all its triumphs and tragedies formed a major part of their baby’s heritage.
Thrown off-balance by the thought, Suze had no answer to his question. “I can’t think of any place within a hundred miles.”
They cruised Main with the scent of the spicy sour cream sauce tickling their nostrils. When Gabe cut right on 5th, then left on Poplar, she guessed where he was heading even before he made another turn. A short drive from there took them to the small park carved out of a bend in the creek. The tiny green space was just big enough for a swing set, two picnic tables and a pebbled walk along the creek bank. A historical marker indicated that the town’s first settler, Jacob Neumann, had registered a claim to this quarter section on April 22, 1889—the same day of the land run—and subsequently donated the land for this stamp-sized little park.
The tiny retreat was far enough off the town’s main streets to give at least an illusion of privacy. As an added plus, the park’s thick canopy of trees provided cooling shade from the early evening sun. Buzzing cicadas and the sluggish ripple of the creek sounded familiar refrains as Suze and Gabe claimed a table tucked under a massive, scaly-barked sycamore.
“This is better,” he said as he opened the sack. “Much better.”
“Still neutral territory,” Suze agreed, “but at least we can talk without interruption. And eat,” she added as Gabe extracted a half-dozen takeout containers, along with plastic utensils, straws and paper napkins.
Once the cartons were opened, drinks distributed, and utensils unwrapped, she dug in. The special was even more delicious than she remembered. Soft, still-warm flour tortillas wrapped around spicy shredded chicken and cheese and onions. A creamy white sauce flavored with red and green chilies topped the fat enchiladas. The accompanying beans were done Okie style, whole pinto instead of mashed and refried, and Ruby always seemed to throw half a garden’s worth of chopped carrots, corn and green onions in each serving of Spanish rice.
Suze downed almost half her enchilada before glancing across the picnic table to see Gabe watching her with a glint of amusement in his hazel eyes. “You always did like the Wednesday special.”
“It’s my fave.”
He gestured toward her stomach with his fork. “Hope the baby likes all that spicy stuff, too.”
“He’s been pretty tolerant so far. I’ve been tired and draggy at times, but
no morning sickness.”
“He?”
“Or she. I alternate genders at will.”
“That’s what my sisters did, too, until they learned the sex. Sometime around the third or fourth month, I think.”
“That’s the normal time frame.” Suze poked at her beans, then forced herself to meet his eyes. “The doc talked to me about a noninvasive prenatal blood test at ten weeks. They check for Down syndrome and a few other chromosomal conditions. They can also look for bits of Y chromosome in my blood to see if I’m carrying a boy or a girl.”
“Let’s talk about that.”
He was so calm. So steady. So Gabe. Just being able to share all this with him almost got Suze hormonal again.
“You said your family practice doc found no evidence of toxic infiltration in your blood or lungs.”
“Right.”
“And you’ve been to a GYN for a prenatal check?”
“Right. And all tests came back normal.”
“But you’re still worried.”
“Hell, yes, I’m worried. No, make that scared. This whole baby business has pretty well rocked me off my rails. I haven’t quite figured out all the necessary accommodations and changes to my lifestyle yet.”
“Our lifestyles, Suze. We have to figure out the necessary changes to our lifestyles. I want to be part of it, start to finish.”
“Well, you were certainly there at the start.”
She stabbed at the last of her enchilada but a need to lay the truth bare stilled her hand. She laid the fork down, slowly, carefully, and met her husband’s eyes.
“It’s your baby, Gabe. In case you were wondering,”
“I wasn’t.”
“We can do a blood test.”
“No.”
“That way you won’t ever doubt it.”
“No.”
“Just think about...”
“Dammit, Suze. I don’t need a blood test. You said I’m the father. That’s enough for me. It’s always been enough.”
The air went out of her with a soft whoosh. Her shoulders slumped, her chest caved. And the stupid, stupid tears burned her eyes again.
“Sorry,” she muttered. “No morning sickness so far, but my emotions are jumping up, down and every way but sideways.”
“Hey, I’ve got eleven nieces and nephews, remember? My brothers-in-law can tell stories about out-of-whack hormones that would make any sane man run for the hills.”
“So, why aren’t you running?”
“My kid. My wife. My life.”
“Ex-wife.” She sniffed. “Ex.”
“Yeah, well...”
He swung a leg over his bench, came around to her side of the table. When he sat down again and opened his arms, Suze fell into them as naturally as if she’d never left them.
“Here’s the thing,” he said, his chin rubbing back and forth against her temple. “I took Doofus for a long run after you left this morning. All the way out to the Endicotts’ place and back again.”
That had to be eight or nine miles. Suze would’ve commented on his endurance if she wasn’t still swimming in hormonal soup.
“I did some heavy thinking after the mutt and I hosed down.”
“And?”
“And every thought circled back to the only thing that that’s ever mattered to me.”
He curled a knuckle, tipped up her chin. The sun had slanted well down below the tree line now. Shadows played across his face, made even more hazy by the stupid tears that still blurred her eyes.
“I think we should undo the ex.”
“What?”
“Marry me, Suzanne. Again.”
Stunned, she jerked upright. “You’re kidding!”
“Never been more serious in my life.”
The magic of the moment dissolved in a hard, sharp hurt. As quick as that, they were back to where they’d been three years ago. The only game changer was the baby. Gabe had itched to put down roots. She’d thrived on the excitement and fulfillment of her job.
And never the twain shall meet.
“So we get married again,” she said, her voice thick with unshed tears. “We add another room onto your house for a nursery. Raise our little prince or princess and their brothers and sisters here in Cedar Creek. You’ll coach their T-ball games and teach them history. And I’ll... I’ll... Hmm. I guess I could work for Dave Forrester. He needs someone to help clean up his environmental messes.”
“That’s one scenario,” Gabe said gruffly, refusing to let her pull out of his arms. “Here’s another. We get married again. I go back to Phoenix with you. We have this baby together and any others that come along. Then, someday, if it’s right for both of us, we may—or may not—come back to Cedar Creek.”
For the second time in as many minutes, he’d yanked the rug right out from under her. Stunned, Suze leaned back in the circle of his arms. “How can you move to Phoenix? Your teaching job is here. And in case you’ve forgotten, you’re the mayor of Cedar Creek.”
“Remember Joanna Hicks?”
“Who’s Joanna...? Wait! Isn’t she the bodybuilder? The one who competed for Mrs. Oklahoma some years back?”
“That’s her.”
Suze could still remember the publicity stills Ms. Hicks’s proud husband had plastered all over town. Joanna Hicks must’ve been in her fifties at that time, and according to Suze’s mother, she and every other woman in Cedar Creek would’ve killed for those rippling deltoids and flat abs. To the entire town’s delight, Ms. Hicks walked away with the crown.
“Joanne’s the senior member of the town council,” Gabe related. “She can step in as mayor without missing a beat.”
“But... But you’re so good at it. Everyone says so. They also say your next step should be to run for state or national office.”
He brushed that off with a careless shrug. “Maybe I will. Someday. Right now all that matters is you and our baby.”
“What about your job? You love teaching.”
“Last I heard, they had high school teachers in Arizona. And they pay them a damn sight more than they pay here in Oklahoma.”
“Right. As if you do it for the money!” Her mind whirled. “What about certification? And afterward? When the baby’s born? If I get transferred to another state?”
“You’ll be on restricted duty, so for at least a year you won’t be deploying or pulling remote duty. Plenty of time for us to figure out what happens afterwards.”
She struggled to gather her chaotic thoughts. “Gabe, you don’t really mean this. You can’t.”
“Yeah, I do.”
He brushed his mouth over hers. Once. Again.
“I won’t lie to you. I love Cedar Creek. Almost as much as I love living within shouting distance of our families. But they haven’t been able to patch the jagged hole in my heart these past three years. You’re the only one who can do that, Susie Q. You and our baby.”
Chapter Seven
When they’d finished their dinners and bagged the trash, Suze was still in a daze. She’d driven all the way from Phoenix hoping to work out an amicable custody sharing agreement. Her ex’s astounding offer to jettison his home, his family and both his careers had turned her world upside down.
He’d meant it, though. Every word. If his dead-serious expression hadn’t convinced her, that achingly tender kiss would have. As light as the touch had been, her lips still tingled and her heart fluttered thinking about the promise behind it.
She struggled to gather her chaotic thoughts as they drove out of the park. The plan was to break the news about the baby to their respective families. But Suze needed more time. More thought.
“Let’s go to your place,” she suggested. “We can talk to our folks tomorrow. We should keep tonight just for us.”
“I was wondering how long we’d have to make nice before I could waltz you away from our respective families and into bed.”
Whoa! There was nothing light or tender about that declaration. Or the quick,
fast grin he shot her way. Her hormones took off again, and this time they catapulted her straight out of confusion and into lust.
By the time they pulled into Gabe’s front drive, heat was racing through her veins. Even with her pulse tripping a mile a minute, she had to battle a sudden wave of guilt as she took in the gorgeously renovated homestead.
“Oh, Gabe. You’ve put so much work into this place. How can you give it up?”
“We’ll rent it out. Or sell it. It’s just a house, Suze. A place.”
They heard Doofus’s sonic booms before they climbed out of Ole Blue. Gabe slammed the truck door, frowning. “We’ll have to figure out what to do with him, though. I doubt the neighbors at your condo would appreciate his vocal tendencies. Maybe one of my sisters can take him.”
He meant that, too, Suze realized with another jab of guilt. He was really serious about packing up and leaving his life here behind. The reality of it humbled her.
“We’re not going to palm Doofus off on your sisters. He’s weird, but a fun kind of weird. My condo lease is up in six months. We can find another place to live. Somewhere with several layers of soundproofing inside and plenty of space for him to run outside.”
That potential problem resolved, she accepted the hound’s ecstatic welcome. “We’re going to be besties,” she informed him. “And when the baby comes, you’ll have to pull extra shifts on guard duty.”
The prospect didn’t appear to worry Doofus. Suze and Gabe waited at the screen door while he made a rapid circuit of the front yard, watered four of his favorite bushes and bounded back. His claws clicked a happy staccato as he pranced down the entry hall ahead of them. Suze’s heart thumped to the same beat, then kicked into double-time when Gabe caught her elbow and tugged her around.
No soft brush of his lips this time. No gentle acknowledgement of their recommitment to each other. His mouth locked onto hers. Hard and hungry and demanding an instant response. She gave it eagerly, fiercely, and barely noticed when the dog charged back down the hall to get in on the action. Gabe pushed him away, or tried to. Finally gave up and admitted temporary defeat.
“The bedroom’s upstairs. I’ll feed this guy, which should lower his energy to a more manageable level, then come on up.”
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