by Brenda Novak
Hurdle? Delaney rubbed her palms on her jeans. “I wanted to talk about what happened at the Honky Tonk before you left for California.”
“You don’t have to worry about that,” he said.
“Why not?”
He shrugged. “Because it won’t happen again.”
“It won’t?”
“No.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because you won’t be going there in the future.”
The hairs on the back of Delaney’s neck stood on end, and she took a step closer, coming to the edge of his desk. “Excuse me?”
“The place is a singles hangout,” he said, as though that explained everything.
“Not really, but sort of, I guess. Anyway, I am single.”
“You’re also pregnant.”
“Which is why I’m willing to compromise. Maybe while I’m carrying the baby, we can agree to—”
“A compromise won’t be necessary,” he said.
“Why not?”
“Because I have a better solution.”
Delaney was almost afraid to hear what it might be. “And that is…”
“I think we should get married.”
Her knees buckled, and she quickly put both hands on the edge of the desk to support herself. “Did you just say what I thought you said?”
“You heard me.” He turned back to his computer. “Think about it and you’ll see that it’s the only answer.”
Bald. Matter-of-fact. Emotionless. Delaney cringed. “I don’t think it’s the only answer.”
His eyes met hers. “This is what’s best for the baby. It gives the baby a name, saves your reputation—”
“No.”
That made an impact. “What?” he said, apparently forgetting the computer.
“I said no. I’m not going to marry you.”
He scowled fiercely. “You haven’t heard all the reasons. I’m sure once—”
“I know all the reasons.”
“Then, why are you saying no?”
“After such a romantic proposal, I can’t imagine.” She started out of the room, but he stood and rounded the desk so quickly that he caught her by the wrist before she could reach the door.
“What’s the matter, Laney? You landed us in this mess and now you’re not happy that there’s no wine and roses?”
Delaney could feel the strength in his hand and wanted to twist away. At the same time, she wanted to strike out at him. But most of all, she wanted to kick herself for causing this disaster in the first place. He was right: it was her fault. How could she have been so foolish? “I should never have told you,” she said.
“You should never have done it!”
“Okay! I agree, but I can’t change that now. I regret what I’ve done, but I can’t fix it, Conner. I did everything I could do when I told you the truth.”
Nostrils flaring, he stared down at her, his lips set in an angry line. Suddenly, inexplicably, she had a momentary vision of his mouth descending on hers. They hadn’t been quite this close since that first night, not even when they were dancing. His breath fanned her face, his heart beat above her own, and for some reason she didn’t understand, desire swirled through her. All her feelings seemed to spin together so fast that she could no longer separate one from another.
Conner must have experienced something similar, because she sensed a subtle change in him right before he pulled her into his arms and made the kiss she’d just imagined real.
As hard and hungry as his kiss was, it answered everything Delaney needed in that moment. They were caught in a web of blame and frustration, anger and regret, from which there was no escape, yet something very elemental kept them clinging to each other now. Her hands delved into his hair, urging him even closer as she opened her mouth to meet his tongue and simply let herself feel what he’d made her feel in Boise. Only better. This was somehow more poignant, more meaningful. She knew him. She knew she wanted him. But she also knew he’d never be able to forgive her.
“Marry me,” he murmured against her lips, still taking and tasting, giving, touching.
But passion wasn’t enough. Eventually his resentment would take over, and she couldn’t live with that. For her baby’s sake, she wouldn’t follow one mistake with another.
“No,” she said, and, finally breaking away, she ran from the room.
WHEN DELANEY REACHED her bedroom, she stood at the window for several minutes, trying to calm down. Somewhere in the house she heard a door open and close and Roy telling Conner they had to hurry or they’d miss Josh Hill. Then the front door banged, and the truck started and drove off. As silence fell, Delaney dialed the beauty shop.
Katie answered the phone. “Hello?”
“Is Rebecca there?” Delaney asked.
“Rebecca! Laney’s on the phone!” Katie’s scream blasted across the line, then there was a long pause during which Delaney could hear the dryers, the cash register and a few voices before Rebecca picked up.
“Laney?”
“Yeah, it’s me.” Until that moment Delaney had been able to hold her tears at bay. But it only took the sound of her friend’s voice to make them spring to her eyes.
Rebecca immediately recognized her distress. “What’s wrong, Laney?”
“I should never have let Conner blackmail me into working here.”
“Why not? I thought it was going okay.”
“It’s not okay.”
“Why?”
Delaney sniffed. “I think…I think I’m falling in love with him.”
Silence. Then Rebecca whispered, “Oh boy, Laney. Tell me he feels the same way.”
“Do you think I’d be crying if he did?” she said. “He hates me.”
“Well, I wouldn’t tell Conner how you feel, not if he hates you.”
Delaney groaned. “Gee, that’s a valuable piece of advice.”
“You’re the type to spill your guts. I thought it was worth mentioning. What are you going to do?”
“Quit this job so I don’t have to be around him anymore.”
“Okay. What are you waiting for?”
“He’s gone. He and Roy went to meet Josh Hill.”
The tone of Rebecca’s voice changed completely, grew a little possessive. “What’s he doing with Josh?”
“Business of some sort.”
“Oh.” A pause. “So are you going to tell him you’re out of there as soon as he gets back?”
“Yeah.”
“Great. Maybe you’ll be home in time to go to the Honky Tonk.”
“Your sympathy overwhelms me, Beck.”
“Just kidding. Who’s going to take over Dottie’s position for you, then?”
Delaney buried her head beneath the pillow. “Don’t ask me questions like that.”
“Why? Look, Mrs. Peters is waiting for a perm, so I have to get to the bottom line here.”
“What is the bottom line?”
“The bottom line is, you can’t quit because Dottie’s not there, and you would never leave Conner and the other cowboys without a replacement. So, what are you really going to do?”
“I don’t know. Crying feels pretty good.”
“Then, have a—”
“He asked me to marry him,” Delaney told her.
Surprised silence. “And you said—”
“No! I said no, of course.”
“Why? You just told me you love him.”
Delaney sat up. “Beck, can everyone in the salon hear you?”
“Only the bigger gossips. Why?”
“Wouldn’t want them to miss anything, that’s all. Tell them I can’t marry a man who doesn’t love me.”
“If he doesn’t at least like you, why’d he ask you to marry him?” Rebecca asked.
“Because it’s best for the baby. That’s what he said.”
“But he’s never brought up the M word before. Why the change of heart?”
“I don’t know.”
“He’s got a poin
t, though, about it being good for the baby.”
“You’re not helping,” Delaney said.
“I’m sorry. I’ll have to give you a condensed version of my counseling—”
“I know, Mrs. Peters is waiting. Go take care of her.”
“I’ll call you back,” Rebecca promised.
“Don’t bother. Just meet me and Aunt Millie and Uncle Ralph at the diner tonight. I said I’d take them out for their anniversary.”
“And they want me there?”
“No, I want you there. The way I’m feeling, I need a buffer, and you’re good at drawing attention.”
“I think that’s a compliment.”
“See you at six.”
“WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL US?” Aunt Millie demanded, as soon as the waitress led her and Uncle Ralph to the table where Delaney and Rebecca were already waiting.
“Tell you what?” Delaney asked, as foreboding settled in the pit of her stomach. After what had happened with Conner in his office this morning, she didn’t need another confrontation. She hadn’t been able to forget the intensity of his kiss or the head-over-heels, free-falling sensation that said her heart was no longer her own.
Uncle Ralph shoved the table toward Delaney and Rebecca so Aunt Millie could fit inside the red vinyl booth. “About Clive Armstrong’s grandson being the father of your baby.”
Morning sickness hadn’t bothered Delaney for over two weeks, but she felt ill now. “How did you hear?” she asked in resignation.
“Bertha Young told Ralph at the grocery store. Can you imagine his embarrassment, having to hear that way?” Aunt Millie said.
Uncle Ralph nodded to confirm that the way he’d learned the truth had been treacherous indeed and Delaney shot Rebecca a furious look. “Thanks,” she muttered. “You just had to set everybody straight.”
“They were bound to find out sometime,” Rebecca said.
“I don’t understand why it was a secret to begin with,” Aunt Millie put in, clearly unhappy. “Especially from us. Conner Armstrong needs to own up to his responsibilities. It’s not right for a man to get a woman pregnant and just walk away. And we thought he was so nice.”
Delaney sighed. Now she had to tell them how she’d gotten pregnant. She couldn’t have them going around blaming Conner for something that was entirely her fault. Soon the whole town would be giving him dirty looks and muttering disparaging remarks behind his back. She opened her mouth to explain, but Rebecca silenced her with an elbow and started right in herself.
“These days, things are a little different than they used to be,” she said, treating them all to a sample of what she thought Delaney should say. But Delaney already knew it wasn’t going to help. Aunt Millie and Uncle Ralph saw things one way, and after seventy-five years, that was the only way they were going to see them.
“Women think for themselves now,” Rebecca went on, “make their own decisions—independent of their parents or a man, I might add—and women have babies on their own all the time. Especially women Delaney’s age.”
“That might be what you think, missy,” Aunt Millie snapped before Rebecca could really warm to her subject. “But we all know how loose your morals are.”
“The point is, you don’t have the right to meddle in Delaney’s life anymore.”
“Meddle! Did you hear that?” Millie cried to the table at large. “We’re family! We have every right to meddle, if that’s what you want to call it. We’re talking about our daughter and our grandbaby here. If we don’t take care of them, who will? Certainly not you. You’re probably the reason Delaney’s in this mess to begin with. I’ve always told her you’re a bad influence.” She shook her finger at Delaney. “Now you know why, Laney. Just listen to the way she speaks to me!”
Rebecca’s eyes narrowed, which wasn’t a good sign, so Delaney tried to calm everyone before Rebecca turned into a heat-seeking missile and Aunt Millie started brandishing her cane. “What Rebecca’s trying to say is—”
“We weren’t born yesterday,” Uncle Ralph broke in. “We know what Rebecca’s trying to say. She thinks we’re too old-fashioned. But right is still right and wrong is still wrong. Conner has a responsibility to this baby, and I’m going to make sure he lives up to it.”
“No! You can’t get involved,” Delaney cried. “You need to let me handle the situation. I mean it. I don’t want anything from Conner. He isn’t to blame for this—”
Rebecca nudged her again and pointed toward the entrance, and Delaney’s words fell away. There was Conner Armstrong striding across the lobby, heading straight for their table.
“Oh, no. You’ve already called him, haven’t you.”
Aunt Millie nodded smugly. “You don’t have anything to worry about. He said he’d meet with us. And I didn’t even have to call his grandfather.”
Rebecca made a sound of disbelief, and Delaney dropped her head in her hands. “Only in Dundee,” she moaned. “Only in Dundee.”
“WHAT? NO SHOTGUN?” Conner said.
Pulling up a chair, he sat in the aisle, angling the lower half of his body so he could cross his legs as well as his arms while he waited to hear what the old couple had to say. Whatever it was, he still didn’t understand why they couldn’t have said it over the phone. Delaney looked as though she wanted to disappear, but that hardly made Conner feel better. He’d asked her to marry him. She’d turned him down. Then Millie had called, spouting off about his “responsibility to the baby.”
If only he’d said no to Delaney at the Bellemont…
“I appreciate the fact that you’re here,” Millie said, nodding stiffly like an old schoolteacher about to rap his knuckles with a ruler. “We thought it would be prudent to discuss what should be done about this situation.”
“I told them it’s none of their business, but they won’t listen to me,” Rebecca piped up.
Delaney was moaning something about living in a small town and how maybe she should’ve grown up a ward of the state, but Millie was clearly too provoked by Rebecca’s challenging tone to pay Delaney much attention.
“This baby is my grandchild, which definitely makes what happens here my business.”
The waitress delivered some chips and salsa, and Rebecca began eating, but no one else seemed interested. Delaney stopped muttering, but she looked too ill to eat, and too tired to deal with a conversation as potentially upsetting as this one. Conner felt a sudden impulse to tell them all that she needed to go home and rest, that they could handle this later. But then he reminded himself that she was the reason they were all here in the first place—and that maybe he could use Millie and Ralph’s help.
“So, what do you have to say?” he asked, directing his question to Millie. It was Delaney who answered. “Nothing. She has nothing to say. Aunt Millie and Uncle Ralph are just…To understand what they’re doing, you’d have to know them. They mean well. Just keep telling yourself they mean well. It’ll help.”
“We’re trying to make sure you do the right thing,” Aunt Millie said.
“And what is that?” Rebecca muttered between chips. “You think he should marry her even though he doesn’t like her?”
“A child needs a mother and a father,” Ralph said. “What’s wrong with the younger generation, anyway?” he asked Millie.
“I’m not that young. I’m thirty years old,” Delaney said.
No one responded.
“Marriage might sound like a great solution, but it’ll never work,” Rebecca argued.
“Is anyone listening to me?” Delaney cried.
“Then, they should’ve thought of that before they—” Ralph glanced at Millie “—before.”
Delaney sat up taller. “This is my life and my baby.”
Rebecca leaned forward, crunching chips as she talked. “Don’t you think putting a child through a painful divorce would be more harmful than never giving that child a father to begin with, Ralph?”
“My baby will have its father,” Conner stated in no uncertain
terms.
“See?” Rebecca drew the salsa closer to her. “Problem solved. He’s going to be a father to the baby.”
Millie levered her upper body halfway across the table, coming almost nose to nose with Rebecca. “Why don’t you just stay out of this?”
“Why don’t you let Delaney—”
Delaney stood up, the decisiveness of her movements finally catching everyone’s attention. “Time out,” she said. “That’s it. Conner and I are leaving.”
Millie and Ralph blinked up at her. Even Rebecca looked mildly surprised. “What is it, dear?” Millie asked.
“This is between Conner and me. We’ll decide what’s going to happen with our baby and what isn’t. Then we’ll let you know.”
Our baby. The words alone felt like someone had just dumped a bucket of ice water over his head. And here he was trying to make matters worse by adding a wife!
Millie wore an injured expression, but Delaney gathered her purse and slipped out of the booth.
“I’m going with you,” Rebecca said, sounding equally indignant.
Delaney shook her head. “No, like I said, this is between Conner and me. We’ll talk, then I’ll call you all later.”
Rebecca assumed the same injured expression Millie wore, but Delaney ignored it and turned to him. “Are you coming with me or not?”
He watched her staring down at him, her dark hair pulled back, her face scrubbed clean of makeup, and wondered, for the first time, if marriage, even a convenient marriage like this, would really be so bad. He wanted more for his child than what he’d experienced in his own life. He wanted legitimacy, a conventional home, a strong marriage, a complete family. It was all just a little premature.
And he wasn’t sure he could get there working backward….
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
DELANEY SAT in the old white pickup, refusing to look at Conner as he drove, even when he pulled off the main highway onto a side street that ended in a cul-de-sac of unfinished lots.
“This okay?” he asked, stopping in front of a mustard-yellow subdivision map that announced the sale of five quarter-acre lots.
She nodded. He shifted into park and let the truck idle, and she turned to face him, wondering what in the world they were going to say to each other after this morning.