“For the baby. I didn’t want my child to have the same kind of childhood I’d had!”
A muscle ticked in his tight jaw. “Yeah. Fine. But you didn’t know what I did for a living until I told you. So what about the four freaking months between that weekend in Braden and when I came to you nine days—” the word was like a whip, cracking across her conscience “—ago?”
She winced, because she didn’t have anywhere near a good enough reason for her silence.
“I didn’t know where you were,” she reminded him. “You certainly weren’t in Weaver. And you certainly weren’t making any attempt to contact me. For all I knew, that weekend was the only thing you were interested in. And when you came to me at the Valentine’s Festival, the only reason you did, was because of Sloan!”
“You knew where my parents were. Where practically my entire family is! Did you think to ask them how to reach me?”
Her vision blurred with hot tears. “I told you I was sorry. What more do you want me to say?”
He let her go again, hissing out a breath between his teeth. “It might be too late to make it to the courthouse today. If it is, we’ll go in the morning.”
She swiped her cheeks. “The courthouse?”
“For a marriage license.” He strode toward the bedroom door, casting a burning glance at her as he went.
“A marriage license,” she echoed, stunned right out of her senses. “Wh-what for?”
“Because no child of mine is going to be born to a woman not my wife,” he said flatly. His gaze burned over her. “Get dressed. We’ve got things to do.”
Then he stepped out of the bedroom, closing the door with a silence that was far more effective than if he’d simply slammed it shut.
Chapter Fifteen
“I have an obstetrician already,” Tara told Axel—after she’d come out of her shell shock and put on some clothing—when he dragged her into Weaver. But instead of the courthouse, he’d brought her to the hospital.
His hand was like iron around her wrist, brooking no disagreement as their heels rang against the tile corridor. “I want Rebecca to examine you.”
“She saw me last night. You told me so, yourself.” “She didn’t examine you.” He stopped short in the hallway, not seeming to care in the least that there were two nurses nearby, or that Mason Hyde was within earshot, maintaining a not-so-discreet distance between them. “And why would she think she needed to? Why would any of us have thought that, considering the detail that you decided I didn’t need to know about?” She tugged at her wrist. “You’re making a scene.” “And God forbid we do that.” He didn’t let go of her, but started walking again, his strides so long that she had to jog to keep up with him. Finally, he came to a closed door and after a peremptory knock, pulled Tara right inside.
Rebecca was sitting at her wide desk. “What’s—”
“She’s pregnant,” Axel announced baldly.
If Axel’s physician-aunt was surprised, she hid it well as she closed the medical file she’d been reading. “How many weeks?”
“Four months of weeks,” Axel answered again.
Rebecca’s gaze slid to Tara.
“Almost eighteen weeks,” she clarified. “And I have an OB in Braden.”
“One that I don’t know,” he returned evenly. “One that I damn sure know you haven’t seen in the past week.”
“Axel, why don’t you have a seat?” Rebecca’s voice was calm. She moved the pile of charts to a drawer and extended her hand toward the doorway behind her. “Tara?”
The second they were closed in the adjoining examining room, Tara turned to the other woman. “I really don’t need an exam. I’m fine. The baby’s fine. Moving even.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” Rebecca said, still managing to slide off Tara’s coat and guide her to the exam table where she immediately slipped a blood pressure cuff around her arm. “But I think my nephew may need a moment or two to cool his heels. And you have had a shock, lately. We’re all so sorry about your house.”
Tara let out a shaky breath. It seemed unfathomable that the house had dropped so low on her list of worries. “Thank you. It’s still hard to believe.”
“I can understand that,” the other woman murmured. She slid the cuff off again. “So who is your OB?”
Tara told her and Rebecca nodded. “Good choice. Braden’s a little far from Weaver when it comes time for delivery, though.” Her head tilted a little, her eyes friendly yet professional. “Have you thought about that?”
“It’s months away, yet.”
“You’re almost halfway to term,” Rebecca reminded her gently. “The time might pass more quickly than you expect. But—” she said as she smiled faintly “—it’s your decision entirely.”
“Axel doesn’t think so.”
“The baby is his, I take it.”
Tara gnawed the inside of her lip. Tugged the hem of her borrowed T-shirt further down over the jeans she’d had to roll up so they wouldn’t drag on the ground. “Yes.”
“Well.” Rebecca patted her knee and sat down on the low, rolling stool. “What you and I say in here is between us, despite what Axel might think. But I may as well warn you—from experience—that when it comes to the Clay men, they take their parental responsibilities very seriously. He’s undoubtedly going to want to be part of every decision that you make.”
“So I’ve noticed.”
“Mmm. So, any dizziness? Nausea? Spotting?”
Tara shook her head. “I feel fine. Truly.” Then she made a face. “My prenatal vitamins went up in flames.”
“At least they’re replaceable,” Rebecca said. She wrote out a prescription and handed it to Tara. “They can fill it in the pharmacy here.”
Tara folded the small square of paper. “Thank you.”
“Anything you’re worried about? Any questions?”
A host of them, none of which concerned the health of her pregnancy. She shook her head.
“All right, then.” Rebecca reached for the door and sent her a conspiratorial wink. “Let’s go brave Axel.”
He was pacing when they rejoined him in Rebecca’s office. He’d taken off his coat, revealing the gun holster he’d put on before leaving his cabin. Despite the accidental ruling where the fire was concerned, he was making no bones that he planned to be even more vigilant where she—and his baby—were concerned. “Well?”
“Well,” Rebecca said as she went over to her nephew and pressed a kiss to his cheek, evidently unfazed by the sight of his weapon, “first of all, congratulations.”
His smile looked oddly bleak. “Thanks. She’s okay though?”
“Nothing that another five months won’t cure,” Rebecca replied with a smile. “Now go on. I have to get through my charts.”
Axel yanked on the shearling coat that made his wide shoulders massive, and grabbed Tara’s hand again, as if he expected her to race away from him.
“I’m not going to run,” she told him under her breath. “You can let go of the shackle.”
He did no such thing, though. Not when they stopped at the pharmacy, not when they went back out to his truck that he’d left parked in the red zone, and not when they drove to the courthouse, where he parked just as illegally before practically carrying her through the front door.
Somehow, he managed to get through the security check without surrendering his gun or Tara’s wrist, but outside the office with a big Marriage placard above the door, Tara finally succeeded at digging in her heels. “Axel, this is wrong.”
“People should be married before they bring a baby into the world,” he said inflexibly.
They should both be in love, too, she thought bleakly. “This is only going to complicate things. I’ve already said the marriage vows once, for all the wrong reasons. And it lasted all of a month.”
“You were both eighteen,” he said flatly. “Kids who didn’t know what they were doing, or what they wanted out of life.”
He shoved open t
he office door and tugged her inside where, at last, he let go of her wrist. “You told me yourself how you eloped straight out of school with some kid you barely knew.” He leaned on the desk dividing the chairs from a small back area. “Anyone here?”
“Be right with you,” a voice called back. “If you need a license, forms are on the clipboard on the desk.”
Axel flipped the clipboard around to face him and began filling out the form. “What’s your middle name?”
“I’m surprised you don’t already know.” She sounded churlish, but couldn’t help it.
He slanted her a look.
“Beth.”
He rapidly scratched the pen across the page. “Birthdate?” His lips twisted. “October 26,” he answered for himself.
She cursed the heat that rose in her face. Of course he would remember that particular detail.
She edged closer, looking around his wide shoulder. “There’s no point in filling that out,” she told him in a low whisper. “We should not get married.”
He scrawled his signature at the bottom of the form he’d completed in record time, then held the pen toward her. “Sign it.”
“You don’t love me.” And she was very much afraid she loved him. Had since he’d told her to make a wish and blow out a few birthday candles.
“Sign it.”
She snatched the pen. Signed her name and felt dizzy afterward. What was she doing?
“Okay now.” A wizened little man with about three strands of hair pulled across his bald pate, rubbed his hands together as he pulled out the seat behind the desk. “Oh, hey there, Axel. I was just about ready to close up for the day.” He eyed Tara with a frown. “Real sorry to hear about the fire, miss. Real sorry.”
“Thank you.”
The little man pulled the license application off the clipboard and began typing it up on an ancient typewriter. “You want to pay the fee in cash or credit card?”
Axel handed over several bills from his wallet when the clerk finished and the man grinned, plainly oblivious to the strain between them as he slid the document into an envelope and handed it to Axel. “Best wishes to you, now.”
“Thanks, George.” Axel grabbed the envelope and hustled Tara to the door.
Another parking ticket awaited them. He yanked it from beneath the wiper blade and shoved it into the glove box where it was plainly in ample company.
“How many tickets do you have?”
“Maybe you’ll be lucky and I’ll be hauled in on parking violations before you have to eke out an I do.” He wheeled out of the parking lot like the devil was at their heels and she grabbed the dashboard to keep from swaying.
“That’s one way of solving this,” she said, “get us killed in a car accident!”
He slowed enough to give her a look. “The only reason I chanced bringing you into town was to get this—” he lifted the envelope holding their marriage license “—taken care of, and to get you looked at by my aunt. Now, we’re going back to my place because, in case you’ve forgotten, though that fire might have been ruled as accidental, someone is after your brother, and maybe you, too!”
She clamped her lips shut and stared out the window. They whizzed past the front of her darkened shop and she debated asking him to drive her by her house, but quickly dismissed the idea. He’d have refused, and she wasn’t sure she was ready to see the carnage again yet, anyway.
Instead, she tried for reason. “Marrying because of this baby is all wrong, Axel. Surely you can understand that.”
“There are worse reasons.”
“But you don’t love me!”
“And you don’t love me.”
She looked away.
“You’ve got two choices, darlin’,” Axel said after they turned onto the highway. “And that’s deciding between a judge and a minister. Because by the time we get back to my place, the news that we’ve gotten a marriage license will have been fully broadcasted.”
“And the reason why you insisted on it?” Her voice was tight.
“That’s going to be pretty evident the second you stop wearing clothes that hide that baby bump you’ve got going.”
She crossed her arms defensively. “You don’t even know that the baby is yours,” she taunted.
He gave her a long, searing look. “You told me yourself you hadn’t been with anyone since you were married. You were practically still a virgin, Tara, and God knows you haven’t had anyone around since then. That baby is mine.”
She glared at him. “I think I detest you right now.”
“Backatcha.” His jaw was practically white. “But if I stopped this truck right now and touched you, you and I both know that we’d be all over each other.”
“Don’t be so sure.”
He reached in his pocket and drew out a hank of pale pink lace. “Look familiar?”
She snatched at the lace panties, but he jerked them out of her reach. “I don’t know what you’re keeping them for.”
“Fond memories.” His voice was anything but fond, though, as he shoved the torn lace back into his pocket.
She fumed for the rest of the drive out to his cabin where she counted six—six!—vehicles parked in front.
She pushed open the truck door and stomped ahead of him through the trampled snow.
But before she could reach the door, Axel scooped an arm around her and hauled her back against him. “Put a smile on your face,” he whispered above her ear.
She twisted, painfully aware of his arm just below her breasts. If anyone were looking out a window at them, it would look as if he were nuzzling her neck. “I won’t.”
“You will.” His voice was hard. “Because there’s not a soul in that cabin right now who deserves your animosity.”
He couldn’t have said anything more effective at draining her righteousness out of her.
The Clays—with the exception of Axel—had been nothing but kind to her. Her baby—his baby—was a Clay, too. Another part of that large, caring clan.
No matter what happened between her and Axel, there was no disputing that fact.
She stopped struggling against his arm. “You’re right,” she whispered.
His arm loosened and slowly fell away from her.
Ironically, she felt cold without it.
He pushed open the door and ushered her inside. And the moment they appeared, a horde of gleeful banshees descended upon them. From Axel’s parents to his cousins, his sister, even a few aunts and uncles.
Slapping Axel on the back. Showering kisses on Tara’s face. Popping open bottles of champagne and sparkling cider, claiming that they knew all along that Axel and Tara were headed for the altar. And the crowd just seemed to grow. As the afternoon slid into evening, more family arrived, bearing platters of food and buckets of beer bottles, folding chairs and folding tables.
The women chattered and the men shot pool and just as Axel had warned, the senior men gave as good as they got. But then Leandra and Sarah butted in and made a respectable showing themselves while Squire, sitting in a chair nearby, issued pointers to them. Something that the guys seemed to consider cheating.
It would have all been so perfectly perfect, if Tara hadn’t known the only reason behind it all.
First, Axel had only returned to her because of his job. Now, he was only marrying her because of the baby.
Emily, carting a sleepy Lucas on her shoulder, stopped next to Tara where she was watching. “Do you play pool? Poker?”
“No on both points, I’m afraid.”
Emily grinned. “Well, if you ever want to change that, just give a whisper in Squire’s ear. He loves nothing better than an underdog.” She swayed, patting the little boy’s back. “Have you thought about your wedding dress?”
Tara’s lips felt frozen. “Um…no.”
But the mere mention of the words wedding dress was like waving a magnet to all the women in the room. They clustered around Tara and Emily.
“Have you set a date?” someone
asked.
“What about flowers?” someone else asked.
“Music?”
“Attendants?”
The questions swirled around her until she wanted to press her hands to her ears. All she could do was helplessly spread her hands. “I don’t know.”
“A week from Saturday,” Axel said, cutting through the throng to slide his hand around Tara’s hip, which he squeezed in warning. “We know what we want and don’t intend to wait.”
Emily looked truly startled. “It takes a little time to plan a wedding, Axel. That’s only twelve days from now!”
His lips curved. “I know the women in this family. They could create a world in ten.”
Emily swatted him with her free hand. “Don’t be smart. What if the church isn’t available?”
“Then we’ll get married somewhere else. Hell, I don’t care if we do it on the football field.”
Tara managed not to wince. He sounded as if he were simply anxious to marry her. But she knew his motives; knew that he couldn’t possibly care about the ceremony.
“If twelve days is the case,” Emily said, “then we’ll have to be organized. Jaimie, get some paper.”
“Got it.” Jaimie ripped a brown paper bag that had carried a jug of milk and waved it over her head. “I need a pen.”
Maggie slid one out of her purse and handed it to her sister-in-law.
“Okay.” Emily went into commander mode. “Who has Reverend Stone’s home number?”
“I do.” Gloria pulled out a cell phone and started scrolling through numbers. “I’ve been helping him get his mother settled in an assisted care facility. Where is it—oh. Here.” She reeled off the number and Jaimie duly noted it on her brown paper.
“Axel, go call him now,” Emily suggested. “There’s no time to waste.”
Oddly enough, Tara wanted to grab him, keep him from moving away from her and leaving her to the mercy of this well-intentioned wedding mob.
But Emily, handing Lucas off to Jefferson, tucked her arm through Tara’s. “Now, do you have something in your shop that you’d like to wear? Or, if you want, we could make a quick trip to Gillette. Casper. Cheyenne. Try the stores there.”
A Weaver Wedding Page 16