Last-Minute Marriage. Marisa Carroll

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      The house Mitch Sterling indicated had seen it all. She wouldn’t be a bit surprised to find it had always been in his family. Riverbend seemed that kind of place, a town where families passed down houses and businesses and recipes from generation to generation. “It’s a great house,” she said. “How long has it been in your family?” The words had jumped off her tongue before she could discipline her thoughts.

      “About ten years,” Mitch said, not looking at her but at the house. “I bought it when my son was born.”

      “Oh.” She tried hard to keep the disappointment out of her voice. Such a little thing, the house not being in his family for a hundred years.

      “I bought it from the family my granddad sold it to in ’74. My grandmother wanted something all on one floor, so he built her a ranch-style out by the golf course. But his grandfather built this house in 1902.”

      “Your great-great-grandfather built the house?” She didn’t even know her great-great-grandfather’s name. And she envied him the luxury of knowing who had owned this house, when, and for how long. It meant he had ties here, roots that went deep.

      “Yup. I thought it should stay in the family.”

      “When I was growing up, I never lived more than three years in one place.” What in heaven’s name had possessed her to tell such a thing to a total stranger? She must be more tired than she thought. She stood up, levering herself off the swing with one hand on the thick chain that held it to the wooden frame.

      Mitch Sterling leaned forward to steady the swing, but he didn’t try to touch her. She was oddly disappointed that he didn’t put his hand on her arm. She had the feeling his touch would have been as warm and strong as his voice and his smiling brown eyes.

      She smoothed her hand over her stomach. The baby was sleeping, hadn’t made a move in an hour. Perhaps she’d been lulled by the sound of the river and the rustle of the wind through the trees along the bank. Tessa hadn’t let the doctor back in California tell her the sex of her baby. But she knew in her heart it was a girl. A daughter. Hers and hers alone. She raised her eyes to find Mitch watching her with the same quiet intensity she’d noticed the first time she’d seen him on the road outside town.

      The silence was stretching out too long. “I have to be on my way. I want to make it to Ohio by tonight,” she blurted.

      “You’ve got a long way to go.”

      “I’ve come even farther.” All the way from Albany and back again, with a detour through Southern California. But Albany was home, because that was where she and Callie had settled after their mother died. It was where she’d worked days at the Home-Mart and gone to school at night to get her history degree. Until she’d met Brian Delaney, a high-school friend of her brother-in-law’s, and fallen head over heels in love with him, giving up everything she had to follow him to California.

      She blinked. Lord, she’d been close to saying all that aloud to this stranger. It must be something in the clean clear air, too much oxygen maybe, and not enough smog. She took a step away from the swing, trod on a stone and stumbled a little.

      This time he didn’t hesitate. He reached out and steadied her with a hand under her elbow. She was right. His touch was as warm and strong as the rest of him. “Are you sure you should be driving any more today? You look pretty done in to me.”

      He didn’t mince words, obviously. Nothing like Brian, who tap-danced his way around everything—until it came time to tell her he was leaving her and the baby to follow his dream and play winter baseball in Central America.

      “I’m fine, really,” she assured Mitch.

      He didn’t look convinced. “It’s going to be dark in an hour. It’ll take you another hour after that to make it to the interstate. Why don’t you stay the night here? The hotel on Main Street was restored just a couple of years ago. The rates are reasonable. And it’s clean. It’s even supposed to be haunted. And the restaurant’s not half-bad, either,” he added, deadpan.

      “I don’t believe you.”

      He made an exaggerated X on his chest. “Cross my heart, the food’s good.”

      A chuckle escaped her. “I mean, I don’t believe the hotel’s haunted. I always thought ghosts were unhappy spirits doomed to wander the earth until they were set free. What could have happened in a town like this to cause a ghost?”

      His face clouded slightly. She felt the same chill she had when the sun dipped behind a cloud a few minutes before he showed up. “Riverbend’s not paradise,” he said. “Most small towns aren’t.” Tessa waited, wondering what he would say next. He was silent a moment, glancing out over the river. Then his frown cleared and the sunshine came back into his face. “But this place is probably as close as you’ll come to it. And as a member of the town council and the Chamber of Commerce, it’s my duty to roll out the welcome mat. Get in your car and I’ll show you the way to the hotel.”

      “That’s not necessary.” She had no intention of spending the night in Riverbend or anywhere else. She couldn’t afford it even if the hotel rates were more than reasonable. They’d have to be giving the rooms away free.

      She had no health insurance and less than two hundred dollars to her name. One hundred and seventy-nine dollars, to be exact. And her credit card. It was paid off, thank goodness, but she’d have to live on the credit line, and it was by no means a large one. It scared her to death to think about how nearly penniless she was.

      But she wasn’t about to tell Mitch Sterling any of that, no matter how warm his eyes and his touch. How could he know how truly desperate she was? And how determined she was not to be beholden to a man to whom she and their baby were just an afterthought? Mitch Sterling was a member of the Chamber of Commerce and the town council. He lived in the sort of storybook house she had yearned for all her life, in a town that was the embodiment of the American dream. In a place like Riverbend, a man didn’t make a woman he professed to love pregnant and then leave her to follow his own dreams.

      She had her pride left, even if she’d lost most everything else. And her pride wouldn’t let her tell this confident, self-assured man that she had no intention of sleeping anywhere but in her car. So she let him walk beside her the short distance to the parking lot. She followed him out, onto Main Street, and then, after he waited for her to park her car, into the high-ceilinged, spotlessly clean lobby of the River View Hotel. She smiled when he introduced her to the clerk, a gray-haired woman standing behind an antique partners desk that served as a reception counter. He told the clerk that Tessa was a stranded traveler and to give her the best room in the house.

      Then he had shaken her hand and said goodbye. “I’m late picking up my son from his art lesson. It’s been nice meeting you.”

      “Thank you,” she said, equally formal in front of the inquisitive eyes of the desk clerk. “I’ll always remember your kindness.”

      “Goodbye, Tessa Masterson. Good luck in your journey.” He turned and left the building.

      Where had Mitch Sterling learned her name? From his friend the cop, she supposed.

      “Now,” said the clerk, “I imagine you’ll be wanting a nonsmoking room.”

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