The 7 Lb., 2 Oz. Valentine

by Marie Ferrarella

  Gradually, the room returned, and with her voice. “You can’t be serious.”

  It wasn’t exactly the answer he had expected. “On the contrary, from everything I’ve been learning about myself, I am a very serious person.” He frowned a little at the image he was forming of himself. He was a little too conservative, a little too predictable. “Maybe too serious,” he added. “But whether that’s true or not, I am serious now. Will you marry me?”

  Erin didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She did neither. Instead, she stopped dancing with him and walked away.

  Definitely not the reaction he would have expected, Brady thought.

  Completely clueless, he hurried after her. He didn’t have far to go. She’d stopped by the banquet table to get a cup of punch.

  Brady touched her arm. “What’s wrong? I thought you’d be happy.” Was there something else he didn’t know about? “Don’t you want to marry me?”

  Erin held the cup in both hands, staring into it as she gathered her thoughts, looking for the right words. Another woman might have played it coy, or close to the chest. Erin could only be herself.

  “Yes, but not for the reason you’re doing it. You don’t love me. At least,” she amended, “not right now.”

  At this point, he wasn’t sure what love was, but he did know he was attracted to her. And maybe something more. Despite that, there was something more important at play here. There was a baby on the way. Soon.

  He slipped his arm around her shoulders. “I’m working on it.”

  That was exactly her point. Erin shrugged off his arm. “Love isn’t something you ‘work on,’ Brady, it just happens.”

  Brady looked at her with a patient smile. “I think we’re going to have one of what you call our ‘differences of opinion’ on this. I happen to think that love takes a great deal of work.”

  “Once it’s there,” Erin agreed. Didn’t he understand? She didn’t want him marrying her out of a sense of obligation, and that was exactly why he was doing it. “Not before.”

  He approached this situation the way he had been dealing with problems at the lab. Methodically and with logic. “Erin, if this baby is mine—”

  “If?” she repeated incredulously. Did he think that she would lie to him about something so important? Just what sort of a woman did he think she was? This was heading down the completely wrong path. “This baby is yours, Brady Lockwood,” Erin said flatly. “There’s no question of that.” She hadn’t even looked at anyone else since Brady had first come into her life.

  Erin realized that her voice had gone up an octave. She sighed, lowering it. “But I guess you wouldn’t know that.”

  In a way, he did. There was something about her that told him she wouldn’t lie, wouldn’t have betrayed him with another man. She had looked too overjoyed to see him that day in the restaurant. And there was love in her eyes, as well as pain.

  “Sorry, wrong word. Just a transition to get me from one place in the sentence to the other,” Brady assured her. “Since this baby is mine,” he rephrased, “I want to take full responsibility for it.”

  He was making it so difficult to stick to her principles. “That doesn’t include marriage to its mother.”

  His hand on her arm prevented her from walking away. “To me, it does.” He said it with such conviction, she looked up at him in surprise. “That much I know about myself.”

  Erin pressed her lips together, wavering. No, it wouldn’t be right. She couldn’t do it, not this way. “Maybe I don’t want to marry you,” she countered.

  He wasn’t angry and he wasn’t hurt, but he wasn’t going to take no for an answer, either.

  “Then you’re being selfish and depriving the baby of its birthright,” Brady told her quietly. “A baby deserves to have a mother and a father in-house. On call, twenty-four hours a day—”

  He made it sound as if parents were synonymous with physicians. Or an all-night pizzeria. Erin held up her hand before he could continue spewing out analogies. “All right, all right. You’ve made your point.”

  “Then you’ll marry me?” He searched her eyes for the answer.

  This was all wrong, she thought. If she agreed, she would be taking advantage of her condition. What sort of way was that to build a marriage? She didn’t want it to begin this way.

  But you do want it, a voice whispered within her. With all your heart.

  And maybe, bound to Brady before God and the state, she would find a way to really make him love her. After all, she had succeeded at it once, why not again?

  A hesitant smile lifted the corners of her mouth as she nodded. “All right. Yes, I’ll marry you.”

  Taking the cup out of her hands, he took both of them in his. “When?”

  She almost laughed out loud. Tunnel vision. That sounded very much like Brady.

  “Well, not now,” she told him. Glancing in the minister’s direction, Brady appeared unconvinced. Erin could almost read his thoughts and began to tick off the reasons why not. “We need blood tests, rings, a place to get married.”

  While she knew she couldn’t very well have a traditional white wedding, she didn’t want to exchange vows in front of a judge at city hall, either. Even the simplest of weddings required some planning. About the only thing she knew she didn’t have to worry about was a bouquet.

  “All right, a week then,” he revised. It would be cutting it close, he thought, glancing at her abdomen. “That should give us enough time to make arrangements.” When he raised his eyes to hers, Brady could see a glimmer of sadness in them. “What?”

  “Nothing.” Erin lifted a shoulder and then let it drop again carelessly. She didn’t quite carry off the pose of nonchalance. Brady was obviously still waiting for an answer. “A woman who’s been proposed to usually gets kissed within five minutes of the proposal.” She was being silly, she thought. After all, this was Brady, whether he remembered or not. Brady didn’t do things like kiss in public.

  “Oh.” Despite the people all around them, Brady took Erin into his arms. “All right.”

  His mouth curved in a smile as he touched his lips to hers. But one touch beckoned to another, until he had deepened it and completely disoriented both of them.

  Erin’s head swam. She struggled to maintain control. This was definitely not like Brady. He would have never kissed her with people around, much less with enough feeling to threaten to incinerate the clothing from her body.

  When he released her, Erin could hear her blood rushing in her ears, drowning out everything else. She took a deep breath, trying to steady her erratic pulse. Her eyes were filled with surprise. And pleasure.

  Feigning nonchalance, Brady glanced at his watch. “Made it. And with three and a half minutes to spare, too.”

  Erin could only laugh as she shook her head. Maybe this would work out all right, after all.

  The telephone was ringing as she turned her key in the lock. Erin didn’t have the faintest idea who could be calling her at this hour. Terry had closed the shop over an hour ago.

  “I’ll get it,” Brady volunteered.

  He hurried over to the telephone in the living room. When he lifted the receiver to his ear, he heard Erin’s voice. Her answering machine had just clicked on.

  “Hold on,” he instructed whoever was on the other end of the line. “Don’t hang up. Erin just has to get her spiel over with.”

  Spiel? Erin looked at Brady as she placed her purse on the coffee table. Since when did he talk like that? Brady had always been so precise in his language. He’d always avoided slang of any kind, saying it wasn’t dignified. Spiel was a word she used.

  Yes, he was definitely different. She smiled to herself as she momentarily leaned against the arm of the sofa, waiting to see who was calling.

  Brady waited until he heard the beep before he said anything else. “Hello? Are you still there?”

  “Brady? Hi, it’s Gus. I’ve got some good news for you.” Hearing his friend’s voice, Brady glanced at
Erin. He had good news of his own to share with the other man, he thought. “We found your car.”

  Surprised, Brady covered the mouthpiece as he turned toward Erin. She was kicking off her shoes. Why did he find that so sensual? “It’s Gus. He says they found my car.”

  She hurried over, her bare feet sinking into the carpet. That was a surprise. She’d been certain they would never see his automobile again. “What condition is it in?”

  He shrugged in response. He hadn’t thought to ask. It occurred to him that he didn’t even know what his car looked like.

  “What condition is it in?” Brady repeated into the receiver.

  There was a pause as Gus considered the question. “Well, except for a dent on the passenger side, I’d say that it seems to be in pretty good shape.” Erin looked as if she was waiting for an answer, so Brady repeated what Gus had told him. “The only damage is a dent on the passenger side.”

  With relief, Erin waved away his words. “That was there before. You misjudged a parking space.” Brady looked at her dubiously. She blew out a breath, recanting. “All right, I misjudged a parking space.”

  “That sounds more like it.” By his own observation, he was too careful a driver. If a space appeared too small, he didn’t test his abilities by angling into it. He just chose another one farther away.

  How could he know her that well without knowing her? Erin wondered. It made her believe more than ever that it was only a matter of time before his memory returned. It was there, hiding in the recesses, just waiting to emerge.

  The small, exasperated look that came into her eyes at being found out made Brady smile. “So, where do I go to pick it up?” he asked Gus.

  “It’s down at the police impound. Why don’t I come by and get you?” Gus suggested. “That might be easier all around.” He hadn’t seen Brady since Brady had stopped working at Demi’s restaurant. Gus was curious to find out how he was getting along. The ride over would give them a chance to catch up.

  “Great.” Erin raised an eyebrow in response to Brady’s enthusiasm, but for the moment, he let her wait for an explanation. “When?”

  “How does tomorrow sound?” Gus suggested. “Say, about three?”

  That wouldn’t work. “Can’t, I’m working at the lab again.” He was almost on a full schedule now. Things were coming back to him in dribbles. He had no memory of acquiring the information that rose whenever he needed it. It was just there. He supposed he should be happy with that, but there was still this restlessness within him to know. To know everything that had come before that day in the alley. “I get off at five-thirty.”

  “That’s right. Demi and I have missed you at the restaurant, you know. How’s the job going?”

  Brady knew what Gus was asking. He wasn’t making small talk about work. Brady sighed, but the level of frustration he had felt earlier just wasn’t there anymore. “Still no revelations, but I seem to know what I’m doing at the lab.”

  It was rather uncanny, to have this huge deficit in his memory bank and yet still have his entire education at his fingertips. That, at least, seemed to be on automatic pilot.

  “How’s Erin?”

  Brady smiled. “Fine.” His eyes shifted to her. The smile broadened. “Say, Gus, would you like to be best man?”

  “Best man at what?”

  Brady crossed his arms before him, resting the receiver against his ear and shoulder. “My wedding.” He waited for a flutter of nerves to hit him as he said it. It didn’t come. Nothing seemed to be able to nudge away the contentment. He relaxed, pleased.

  “You’re kidding!” There was genuine surprise on the other end. “You’re getting married?”

  Gus couldn’t have sounded more astounded than if he had told him that his memory had returned, Brady thought. “It seems like the right thing to do.”

  Erin slipped off the sofa and went to pick up her shoes. The right thing to do. Brady’s words echoed in her head as she retreated into the family room. That was Brady, all right. She could always count on him to do the right thing.

  Dropping her shoes in the coat closet, Erin sighed. The right thing. If that lacked the thrill and the romance she was hoping for, well, it wasn’t as if it was a surprise. She knew Brady. He wasn’t into romance and the trappings that went with it. She had been secretly hoping that he might be, somewhere down deep. She’d thought that it would surface now, without the hindrance of a set pattern of behavior. The kiss at the wedding had been misleading. He hadn’t changed that much.

  Romance often faded, she reminded herself. Her sister had been swept off her feet with long, romantic walks, candlelit dinners and idyllic weekends. The marriage had lasted barely eighteen months, falling apart after the proverbial first blush had faded from the rose.

  That wouldn’t happen with Brady. He was too cleareyed, too dependable. If she didn’t have romance, she did have a man who was pure gold.

  She just wished it would shine a little more once in a while.

  Brady stood beside Gus as Erin walked slowly around the Volvo. The car was dirt-encrusted, with mud all but blotting out the navy blue paint job. But she recognized the license plate as well as the make and model.

  “It’s your car,” she assured Brady, turning around to face the two men. “Did you find anything in it?” she asked Gus.

  “If you mean his wallet or his suitcase, no.” Gus shook his head in further reply. “Just a few empty beer cans and a lot of cigarette butts. Whoever stole the car was a chain smoker.”

  Hey, buddy, got a light?

  Brady felt Erin’s hand on his arm. “Brady, what’s the matter? You’re pale.”

  He blinked, coming to. “Nothing. I thought I remembered something, but…” He shook his head. “Never mind.”

  She looked at him, uncertainly. All the color had momentarily drained from his face, but it was returning now by degrees. Her hand still on Brady’s arm, she looked at Gus. “Where did you find it?”

  “It was abandoned in one of the parking lots at LAX.” Since its reconstruction several years ago, the airport had become so huge, it was difficult to hone in on one lone car that hadn’t been picked up. “One of the guards finally noticed that it hadn’t been moved for a while. He called his boss, who notified the LAPD. They ran it through the computer and came up with a match.”

  That went along with her theory that whoever had mugged Brady had taken his plane ticket and used it. She tried to contain her frustration. The bastard had sent her on a futile search to St. Louis and cost her and Brady months of separation. If she had filed the missing person’s report here, Gus would have seen it and brought her and Brady together sooner.

  Brady inspected the car, rounding it slowly. He couldn’t remember selecting it or driving it. He opened the driver’s side and slid in behind the steering wheel.

  Nothing.

  He glanced toward Erin. She was watching him, hopeful. He felt worse for her than for himself these days.

  “Now you won’t have to drive me to and from the lab.”

  I don’t mind doing that, Brady, she thought. She liked seeing him off to work, liked picking him up from there. Liked having him back in her life.

  Brady got out again, still looking at the vehicle. It was a sturdy neat-looking little car, the kind that he would have guessed he would purchase. Nothing fancy, just reliable.

  Gus gave him a clipboard to sign. “Just a formality,” he explained, indicating the signature line. “So what’s this about a wedding?” He handed the clipboard to another policeman.

  Brady and Erin had made a few arrangements since coming to the decision yesterday. Erin had told Brady on the way home this afternoon that it had taken her all morning to convince her minister that she knew what she was doing. With reluctance, the man had agreed to officiate. Erin considered it a coup. At least she wouldn’t have to face city hall and its impersonal atmosphere.

  “It’s this Sunday. The minister is marrying us in his vestibule. So how about it? Do you want to s
tand up for me? I can’t think of anyone I’d rather ask. Besides—” Brady’s mouth quirked as he looked at Gus “—you’re the oldest friend I have.”

  They had become friends, Gus thought. There had been a bond forged between them since that day he had found Brady wandering in the alley.

  Visibly touched, Gus offered Brady his hand, sealing the bargain. “Hey, the pleasure’s all mine. Just make sure the maid of honor is pretty.”

  Maid of honor, oh wow. Erin’s mind scrambled madly. She hadn’t thought of that. Terry, she would pick Terry. She was as close to Terry as she was to anyone.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” she promised Gus. They had to be going. If she had a wedding to arrange, she was going to need every scrap of time she could muster. Erin looked at the car. “Is there gas in it?”

  “Enough to get you to the gas station on the corner,” Gus answered.

  “Then that’ll have to be my first destination.” Brady got in behind the wheel again.

  “We didn’t find the keys in the car,” Gus informed him.

  “No problem.” Brady dug into his pocket and produced a set. “Erin had spares.”

  Gus looked at Erin with appreciation. “Someday,” he said to her, “I’d like to find a woman just like you.”

  “It might be cheaper just to carry a spare set of keys.” Erin grinned at him. She had no idea how a man as good-looking as Gus had managed to remain free all this time. Strictly by choice, she imagined.

  Erin looked at Brady, unable to still the nervous flutter she felt. She laid her hand on the steering wheel before he could turn on the ignition.

  “Why don’t you wait until I pull my car around?” she suggested. “So you can follow me home.”

  He read the look in her eyes. “Afraid I’ll get lost?”

  There was no point in lying. “Yes.” She said it so seriously, she surprised both of them.

  “Okay,” Brady agreed easily. “I’ll wait.”

  This wasn’t the way she’d envisioned it, Erin thought as Brady brought the car to a stop in the church’s parking lot. This wasn’t the way she’d envisioned her wedding day. She looked at him. But he was definitely the person she had envisioned marrying.