BLAME IT ON BABIES

by Kristine Rolofson

  "You don't have to stay," Lorna said. She sat on the edge of the bed and managed to untie her shoelaces before Jess realized that her pregnancy made the chore awkward. "I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself."

  "Yeah," he said. "But you don't have to. The nurse told me to take you home and make sure you got some rest so that's what I'm going to do."

  "How did you get in the examining room, anyway?" She eased herself off the bed and headed toward the bathroom.

  "I told the receptionist I was your fiancé," he said, as she shut the door and left him alone in the room. It was immaculately clean, with photos on the surface of the oak dresser and a gilded mirror hanging above it.

  She muttered something he couldn't understand, and then a few moments later came out of the bathroom dressed in a flowered cotton nightgown that showed absolutely nothing of her body but turned him on more than he'd ever been in his life. He didn't know why, except that this woman affected him that way. "Goodbye, Jess." Lorna went directly to the bed and pulled the quilt back to expose pale yellow sheets and climbed into the bed. She leaned back against the pillows and sighed with contentment.

  "I can fix you something to eat." She did look pale and he hadn't noticed those dark smudges under her eyes until now when the sunlight came through the windows and highlighted her face.

  "I'm not hungry." She scooted down under the covers and, almost as an afterthought, smiled at him. "Go away, Jess."

  "Okay," he agreed. "I'll leave my number so you can page me whenever you need me."

  "I won't need you," Lorna said, but her voice was soft and she didn't seem upset with him anymore. He didn't know what possessed him, but in three strides he was at the side of the bed. Jess bent down and touched his lips to hers. He meant it to be brief, just the barest of kisses to show her that he was in her life now. It was to have been a "sleep well" kind of kiss, but Lorna's lips were so very soft and she leaned toward him just a little, enough to guarantee she wasn't going to belt him when the kiss was over.

  So he took his time. He braced himself by holding on to the headboard with one hand, the other held Lorna's chin and kept her mouth against his. He slanted his mouth, deepened the kiss, swept his tongue across her parted lips and, reluctantly, fought the immediate passion that made him think of crawling into bed with her and making love for the rest of the afternoon. It was almost painful to move his fingers away from her face, to withdraw his kiss and move away from the bed.

  "I'll drive by periodically," he promised. "I won't stop unless I see your bedroom light on and know you're awake."

  She closed her eyes and turned away from him to snuggle into the nest of pillows, so Jess left the room and headed for the front door. There would be no trip out to the ranch to see how the old place was holding up. He would stay close, in case Lorna paged him.

  He didn't regret kissing her. He might even think about it a few times this afternoon as he went about his business. When he was around her he wanted her. Simple as that.

  But part of him knew there was nothing simple about it.

  * * *

  "It's his baby," Chelsea declared. "I'll bet anything that it is."

  "Uh, I don't know." Carter didn't look convinced. "Sheridan's always been a pretty straight arrow. I can't picture him getting someone pregnant."

  "I don't want to picture it either, believe me, but from the way he's acting I'm sure this is his baby. How do you think he knows Lorna? He said they were old friends, but I don't believe that for a minute."

  "Why not?"

  "Something isn't right about that story," she mused, eyeing the deputy as he typed – two-fingered – at the computer. She really should have pursued a career as a police detective instead of going to business school. She was so much smarter than Carter, though he was the handsomest thing in Beauville. In the brains department there was something missing, but she liked him anyway. Too bad he was obsessed with the Wynette twins who, in Chelsea's opinion, needed to get off the ranch and get their hair and nails done.

  "Well, he says he's getting married," Carter conceded. "I guess he wouldn't be marrying her if it wasn't his baby."

  "Lorna conceived July 12."

  "How'd you know that?"

  "I found a Web site. What was going on around here then? Was Jess in Huntsville?" Carter shrugged. Honestly, she didn't know how he ever passed the deputy sheriff exam.

  "Rings a bell," he said, frowning off into space while Chelsea dug out last year's Schedule. Her predecessor had been as meticulous a record-keeper as Chelsea herself.

  "Got it," she said, finding July. "July twelfth was Jake Johnson's wedding."

  "Guess Jess felt romantic."

  "I think all weddings are romantic," Chelsea mused, picturing herself wearing a flowing lacy gown and a veil made of sparkly silver net to match her hair. She would have silver fingernails and a platinum wedding band and a diamond that would outshine the sun.

  "Not me," the handsome deputy said. He glanced at the dock and pushed back his desk chair. "Guess it's time for me to make rounds."

  "We need to do something."

  "About what?" He strapped on his gun and grabbed his hat.

  "The wedding. What if we gave them a bridal shower?"

  "I don't think Jess would like that."

  "It would be a surprise. He wouldn't have to know anything about it until it happened." The poor man looked even more confused than usual, so Chelsea added, "That's what usually happens, you know. The showers are a surprise. That's the fun part, along with the presents."

  "Oh." He shrugged. "I guess you know more about that stuff than me."

  Duh. "Then you agree with me."

  "Yeah." Carter edged toward the door. Chelsea figured all this wedding talk was making him nervous.

  "I'll keep you posted," she called after him, then looked at the phone. She loved this part of her job.

  * * *

  Lorna surveyed her kitchen counter. Piles of food had been left there while she napped and, when she opened the refrigerator, she saw stacks of cheese, quarts of milk and assorted fruits and vegetables. She wanted love and romance and instead she got one kiss and a couple of hundred dollars' worth of groceries. Jess had an odd idea of how to please a woman.

  She opened a bag of chocolate chip cookies, the kind that advertised "extra chips," and bit into one. Maybe Jess hadn't been completely off track after all. It was almost seven o'clock; she'd slept for more than three hours. The baby's somersaults had wakened her, along with hunger and a cramp in her lower back. And, she admitted, a desire to see if Jess was anywhere around.

  She checked the messages on her machine: Emily wanted to hear more about her date last night, Charlie requested that she could work a dinner shift instead of her usual breakfast and lunch next Thursday night and Jess asked her to call him when she woke up. He also reminded her of his number, which she dialed.

  "Sheridan," came the official response after one ring.

  "Jess? It's Lorna."

  "How are you?"

  "I'm fine. Really."

  "Good. I'll be right over." The line disconnected, leaving Lorna holding the receiver in one hand and the bag of cookies in the other.

  She tossed the cookies on the table and hurried to get dressed. If she wasn't going to marry him, she shouldn't be prancing around in her nightgown, modest as it was. And she shouldn't let him into her bedroom again, although she'd wanted to pull him into bed with her and snuggle into his arms and maybe even more. According to the pregnancy book she'd bought, having sex was permissible into the ninth month unless your doctor said otherwise.

  Lorna didn't think Jess was interested in having sex with her. It most likely didn't fit into his idea of "duty," at least not now. How depressing. And yet, there were times when she felt about as glamorous as a kangaroo. And other times, when Jess looked at her a certain way, that she wanted to dissolve into a puddle of passion. Lorna looked at herself in the mirror after putting on elastic waist maternity jeans and a white
T-shirt the size of a Titanic life raft. She really needed to get a grip. Maybe she could blame this whole thing with Jess on hormones. It was always easy to blame hormones, because no one understood them enough to have a conflicting opinion.

  "It's hormones," she explained, when she opened the door and let the father of her child into her house.

  "Okay," he said, as if she'd just said "nice day." "What's hormones?"

  "The reason that sometimes I like to see you and have you around."

  "Hurray for hormones." He handed her a very cold paper bag, and when she peered inside she saw a container of Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey ice cream.

  "Don't get used to them," she warned. "They fluctuate at lightning speed. And thanks for dessert. How did you know?"

  "Chelsea. My secretary is a fountain of female information."

  Lorna headed for the kitchen and hoped she wasn't waddling. She didn't think she was expected to waddle until the eighth month, but then again—

  "I told her and Carter, my deputy, that we were getting married."

  Lorna shoved the ice cream in the freezer compartment and turned around. "Why did you do an awful thing like that?"

  He smiled and put his hands on her shoulders. They were large and warm and strangely comforting. "Because you're having my baby and my son is not going to grow up without a father."

  "And what if it's a girl?"

  "Girls need fathers, too."

  "Look," she said, wishing she didn't like him so much. She'd always been a little bit in love with him, too, which didn't make it easy to refuse a convenient alternative to single motherhood. "I've given this some thought. You'll have unlimited access to the baby. I want him or her to have a father in his or her life. I won't prevent that, Jess. I think it's important."

  "Are you talking about joint custody, moving the child from my house to yours all the time?"

  Speechless, she shook her head. Her child wasn't going to live with anyone else but her mother. "Of course not. What happens when you get married?"

  "Or when you do?" he countered. "See how complicated this gets if you think about the future?"

  Lorna's eyes filled up with tears and Jess didn't help by putting his arms around her and cradling her against his very wide chest. Her belly bumped his belt, but he didn't seem to mind.

  "Marry me, Lorna," he said, his voice rumbling against her ear. "We have to do the right thing for the child. We'll give him a home and security and health insurance – the county employees have a pretty decent health plan – and you won't have to wait tables until your feet hurt."

  "You're so practical," she sniffled. "And you don't love me."

  "It's not exactly in the picture right now, honey."

  "Because of your wife?"

  "Ex-wife," he growled, resting his chin on top of her head. "To be real honest with you. Lorna, I'm not sure I even know what being in love is all about."

  Lorna sighed against his chest "You brought me ice cream," she said. "I guess that's a pretty good start."

  "Does that mean you agree to the plan?"

  She so wished he wouldn't refer to their marriage as "the plan." "It means I'm thinking."

  "Take your time," the man said. "But I'd prefer to get this whole thing over with."

  * * *

  It seemed as though everyone in Beauville knew there was going to be a wedding between their new sheriff and the pregnant waitress. Oh, Jess Sheridan had been around town for ten years or so, since his days as a young deputy. He was well respected for his ability to be fair and even-tempered, even under difficult circumstances, so no one was really surprised that he would step up and marry the woman they assumed he'd made pregnant.

  And she seemed like a nice enough woman, always a smile in the morning and ready with the coffeepot when a customer needed a refill. Charlie, a heck of a good cook even if he did give as many opinions as he sold burgers, spoke highly of the little blond waitress. There were some folk who thought they remembered her as a child in Marysville, others wondered if they might have gone to high school with her – Beauville teens were bussed to the large high school in that neighboring town. Gert Knepper, the oldest woman in town, declared that Lorna's folks had been those square-dancing people who used to do a show at the county fair each fall. And Gert also remembered that Lorna's aunt – the woman who painted her house pink before she got too old to lift a paintbrush – had sure kept a nice garden.

  Her daughter Martha agreed and said that Emily Bennett, who went to school with Martha's famous New York City daughter, told her that she'd never had a nicer neighbor than Lorna Walters.

  Chelsea talked of organizing the wedding reception and waited for her boss to write the date of his wedding in his appointment book. Emily Bennett whispered of a baby shower, women only, thank you. Charlie swore he saw the sheriff talking to Joey at his jewelry store, but so far none of the customers at the Coffee Pot had seen a diamond ring on the third finger of Lorna's left hand when she put their checks on the counter.

  No one dared talk to Bobby Calhoun about weddings; he was still sensitive about the cancellation of his own, even if it had been six months since his heart broke over that girl in Paris, France. Bobby recently got into trouble again when some young idiot bet him he couldn't ride two horses at once down Main Street

  . Someone said that Jess had spent all last weekend trying to get the kid to sober up and get control of himself, so maybe he hadn't had time to buy a ring after all.

  So the residents of Beauville – most of them, anyway – were willing to overlook the fact that the sheriff and the waitress had gotten a little ahead of themselves and made the baby before they made the vows. When whispers of a wedding began, helped along by Chelsea Higgs, who should know, folks looked forward to helping the young folks celebrate. Sheridan had gotten a raw deal the first time around, his friends said. Maybe this time would be better. It sure couldn't be any worse.

  Jess Sheridan would have agreed with them. At the bookstore in Marysville, he bought two books about child care and one about pregnancy written especially for the fathers-to-be. He'd given Lorna a few days to think things over; it was now time to figure out the rest of their lives. Which was exactly what he told her answering machine Wednesday evening.

  By Thursday morning he'd run out of patience. The breakfast crowd at the Coffee Pot was at its height, meaning Jess had to stand next to Mike Monterro and wait for a stool. He didn't see Lorna anywhere, and the waitress who appeared from the back of the restaurant was someone he didn't recognize.

  "Where's Lorna?" He tried to get Charlie's attention by waving, but the cook gave him a nod and kept right on frying eggs.

  "Not here today," Mike said. "When's the wedding?"

  "We haven't decided yet." The man next to Mike reached for his wallet, so with luck a spot would open up soon. "Why? Are folks that interested?"

  "Oh, yeah, they sure are, Sheriff," the old man declared. "Not a lot going on around here these days, so I guess you're the prime topic of conversation. Folks are real curious as to how this all came about."

  He winced, wondering if anyone besides he and Lorna knew he'd spent the night with her last summer. It would be one more juicy piece of gossip for those who liked to exchange rumors. The stool empty, Jess slid into place. The waitress brought him a cup of coffee, but he didn't order breakfast. "Where's Lorna?"

  "We switched shifts," the girl explained. "She'll be on at four."

  "Can I give you some advice?" the man asked, setting down his coffee cup and turning slightly so that he faced Jess.

  "Sure." He braced himself, having heard diaper jokes for the past three days. From the way parents talked, babies didn't do anything but poop, pee and puke for the first six months of their lives.

  "You've got to stop draggin' your heels, son."

  "She's the one taking her time, Mike," Jess admitted. "If you have any advice on how to talk her into getting married real soon, well, I'd sure like to hear it."

  "Flowers," he said.


  "Tried that. Yellow roses, in fact."

  "Candy, then. My wife had a sweet tooth and I could always get her to forgive me if I handed over a box of chocolates."

  Jess thought of the ice cream and chocolate chip cookies. "Yeah, I've done that, too. She seemed happy about it, but she wouldn't agree to marry me right away."

  "Well," the old man drawled. "That's difficult. Gets more expensive."

  "I'm not going to get down on my knees and beg," he said. "But I'm damn well not going to take no for an answer."

  Mike sighed. "Heard a rumor you were over at Joe's looking at jewelry."

  He shook his head. "I replaced the battery in my watch."

  "Guess you'd better get back there then and go shopping. Women expect an engagement ring, Sheriff."

  Jess frowned. He took a sip of coffee and gave that some thought. Rings were expensive. Sue hadn't wanted any of the jewelry his grandmother had offered him, and he'd ended up financing a diamond ring that cost four months' salary. Looking back, he realized he should have protested. But he wanted to make her happy – or at least try. "Women expect a lot of things," Jess said. "Some of them are downright impossible to do."

  "You talking about your ex-wife or your future one?" Mike cackled, figuring he'd made a pretty good joke.

  "I guess I'd better go shopping." he told the old man. He left his unfinished coffee and headed across the street to the jewelry store. There was a knot in his stomach the size of the Hope Diamond before he even reached the first display case.

  * * *

  "What do you think?"

  Emily eyed the brand-new crib, the simplest one of the seventeen displayed in the furniture store. "I like it, Lorna."

  "Really?" She touched the white rails and pictured her baby asleep in her bed. "So do I. I think I'm going to get it. Do you think they deliver?"

  "Save your money and have your sheriff pick it up," her friend declared. "Where did Elizabeth go off to?"

  "She went to look at rocking chairs," Lorna said. "She said she can't decide whether to get a new one or an antique."