His Texas Christmas Bride. Nancy Thompson Robards

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СКАЧАТЬ was just upset. Victor was banged up pretty badly. Anyhow, when the doctor came to give us the prognosis, I asked him to clarify something, and Rosanna tore into me. She told me I didn’t get to ask questions. She told me to leave.

      “I wanted to give her some space, so I walked away. I went over to the nurses’ station to get a cup of coffee. I just wanted to give her a chance to calm down. When I was pouring the coffee, this guy—this drop-dead-gorgeous guy—was standing there, and he told me he didn’t mean to butt in, but he couldn’t help but overhear the exchange with my sister. Everybody had heard her, I’m sure. He told me he was a doctor, and he explained what Victor’s doctor had said.”

      “That was Nick?” Kate asked.

      Becca nodded.

      “And then what? Did he ask for your phone number?”

      Becca ran a hand over her eyes. Ugh. This was so embarrassing. Kate knew her well enough to know she didn’t sleep around. In fact, the last time she’d had sex was with her boyfriend two years ago.

      “Not exactly. I went back over and rejoined my family, but Rosanna was just hysterical. My dad suggested that it might be a good idea to give her some space. He told me to go get something to eat, which really meant I should disappear for a while. He said he’d call if there were any changes in Victor’s condition.

      “So, I walked over to Bentleys across the street from the hospital. I was just going to sit there for a while, get a decent cup of coffee—the stuff at the nurses’ station tasted like dirty water, and it was only lukewarm. I was going to bring some coffee back for my folks and Rosanna. A peace offering. I just wanted to give her a little time.

      “And who do you suppose walked into Bentleys?”

      “Nick?”

      “How did you guess?” Becca laughed, but the sound was dry and brittle. It wasn’t funny. It was embarrassing. Kind of pathetic, really.

      “That night Nick and I seemed to be on a trajectory toward each other. I came in and sat down at a booth and ordered my coffee. And for some reason everything that had been bottled up began spilling out. I started crying, and I couldn’t stop. I mean, I wasn’t making a scene or anything, but the tears just wouldn’t stop. The next thing I knew, I saw Nick through the window. He was parking a motorcycle, and a minute later, he was standing by my table, offering me a napkin for my tears.”

      “And the rest is history?”

      “After he’d told me what the doctor had said, he’d checked on Victor and learned that, though he was banged up pretty badly, he was stable. He was going to be fine. And then the rest is history.”

      Even though they were both adults, and she knew Kate wouldn’t think badly of her, Becca couldn’t look at her friend. Instead, she stared straight ahead.

      “I’ve never had a one-night stand before,” Becca said. “I do, and look what happens.”

      They were in front of Becca’s condo now. Kate killed the engine and reached out and put a hand on Becca’s arm. “Honey, I’m not judging you. You’re a grown woman, and you’re free to do whatever you want with your body. As long as you’re safe—”

      “We used protection.” She hadn’t meant to sound so defensive. She took a deep breath and tempered her tone. “Obviously, something went wrong.”

      Kate nodded. “What are you going to do now?”

      Becca shrank into the shadows as she watched two of her neighbors, Mrs. Milton and Mrs. Cavett, who had the condos on either side of her, extract themselves from Mrs. Milton’s ancient Cadillac Deville. Mrs. M’s late husband had purchased the car brand-new, and she was still so proud of it she’d tell anyone who’d care to listen. If Becca had heard the story once, she’d heard it twenty-five times.

      For that matter, both of her neighbors loved to gossip. People affectionately called them the Busybody Twins. Between the two of them, they prided themselves on knowing everything about everyone who lived in the sixty units at Lake Celebration Landing Condos. What they didn’t know, they made up.

      Once they learned of Becca’s pregnancy, word would be all over the tiny condo complex.

      Becca shouldn’t care. She shouldn’t let other people’s opinions of her matter. But it did matter. She’d always been the good girl, the one people could count on, the community-minded good example.

      Now she’d be known as the one who got knocked up.

       Well, it is what it is.

      She just needed to make sure her baby didn’t grow up feeling like a mistake.

      “I’m going to have a baby,” she said. “Tomorrow, Nick is coming over, and we’re going to figure it out.”

      * * *

      Nick steered his motorcycle into a parking space at the Lake Celebration Landing Condominiums, a neatly landscaped, compact grouping of townhomes on the east side of Celebration.

      His gaze picked out unit four. Becca’s place. Glossy ceramic planters with yellow and rust-colored flowers flanked the red front door, which sported a wreath of wheat stalks and small pumpkins—or were those gourds? It was hard to tell. Whatever they were, they screamed fall and hinted that Becca took a lot of pride in her home.

      The amber porch light glowed in the dusk. She was waiting for him. Or she was home, at least. Of course she was; she was expecting him, even if last night as he’d signed her discharge papers she hadn’t seemed overly eager to see him. He swung his leg over the bike’s seat and stood, hesitating a moment.

      Was a person ever really ready for a conversation like this? Yesterday morning when he’d opened his eyes, he’d had no idea how his life was about to change.

      But they had a lot to talk about. He’d made a list. Because he knew if he didn’t write down the important things he might get distracted. Becca Flannigan made him stupid like that.

      Nick hated acting stupid. Stupid equaled out of control, and out of control usually ended in disaster.

      He reached in the storage console on his bike and pulled out a paper grocery bag. It contained chicken noodle soup and a small box of saltines. Becca was probably sick of bland food by now. But at least it was something. He wasn’t showing up empty-handed, he thought as he knocked on the door above the wreath.

      He heard a dog bark and then a soft murmuring he imagined was her way of gently quieting the animal.

      Funny, he knew so little about this woman. As he stood on her front porch, it almost felt like a blind date. However, when she answered his knock, and he saw her there, looking much more like herself, or at least more like the woman who had swept him away when they’d met, he felt that attraction, that visceral pull that had hit him hard that first night.

      She wore blue jeans and a simple blue blouse that brought out the color of her eyes. She’d pulled her golden-brown hair away from her face with a black headband. She didn’t wear much makeup. The color had returned to her cheeks, and her skin looked so smooth he had to fight the urge to reach out and touch her.

      “Hi,” he said.

      “Hi, СКАЧАТЬ