Daddy in the Making. Crystal Green

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СКАЧАТЬ ambled right over, offering to buy Rita dinner, sweet-talking her until her knees went to jelly. She’d never clicked so quickly with anyone, flirted so easily, not even with Kevin, who’d taken the slow route with her during days of high school dances and after-graduation dates. But Conn?

      That night—that damned magic night—it’d felt as if Conn had been the man she should’ve held out for all along.

      He’d walked her back to the hotel, and much to her surprise, she’d found herself forgetting every lesson she’d learned. Her body overtaking her mind, she’d invited him in, first to the lobby. Then, when she’d resigned herself to ditching her all-night work shift, she’d clandestinely invited him to an empty room a floor below her own quarters in the hotel.

      She’d been lost in him so deeply that she’d thought …

      Well, she’d thought that things could be different this time. Thought that she’d somehow wonderfully crossed a line she’d drawn years ago after Kevin had left her and their daughter.

      It’d been that good with Conn, and that was why she hated him—because he’d seemed to be the answer for her. Because he’d made her body and soul agonize for so many nights afterward.

      Now, Rita rested her hand on the baby growing inside of her. Ridiculous. She’d been ridiculous to think that one night might change everything, especially for a person who’d spent a long while shuttering herself away, slat by slat, until she looked at the world only through the cracks.

      But …

      For one night, it really had been that good.

      He hadn’t checked in to the hotel, so she’d never gotten his contact information. Besides, he’d told her he was going to be back, so she hadn’t asked for a phone number, an address. He’d taken her necklace in a playful moment, saying he would return it to her that night when he returned for more, almost as if it were a vow.

      She’d believed in him.

      Believed and been abandoned.

      But, she thought, he’d had amnesia.

      She started to laugh—a crazy, cracked-at-the-edges laugh that trailed into the threat of more tears as she leaned her head down on her arms, which still rested on the kitchen counter.

      Amnesia. How stupid did he think she was?

      As she stifled another sob, doubt crept into her. What if …

      No. Amnesia was so far out of the question that she shouldn’t believe it.

      Still, the doubts stayed with her, even as she heard footsteps outside the kitchen door. She put on her “boss face,” straightening up, swiping at her cheeks and finding a few stray tears, then walked toward the entrance to the tea room, just as Margery Wilmore busted through the hallway door.

      She had a plump chest and was motherly and gray-haired. “How’s my Rita doing?”

      â€œRight as rain.” Rita glanced at her watch. “Tea prep already?”

      â€œLike clockwork.” The older woman sent Rita a concerned look. “You okay, honey?”

      Rita nodded. Margery was a carryover from the days when Rita’s mom used to run the hotel, back before she and Dad had passed on. When Rita had taken over at the age of twenty-three, Margery had “kindly” tried to offer all kinds of advice, even though Rita had been working at the hotel since she was old enough to carry out orders, raised to take over operations one day. Now, ten years later, Margery still hovered, casting a suspicious eye at Rita’s tummy when she’d started showing recently.

      But didn’t everyone hover in their own ways? After Kevin, Rita had sort of become St. Valentine’s pet project. The town screwup who’d been saving up to go to college for years after graduation—and wouldn’t you know it? She’d actually earned a business scholarship but had given it up when she’d gotten preggers.

      A pregnancy had been out of character for her, the straight-? student. And, even more off-putting to a lot of folks around here, after Kevin had left her and she had proudly set out to be a single parent, she had refused interference or unwanted advice from everyone who “knew better” in a town where traditional family values ruled.

      Now, she was going for another round of out-of-wedlock parenthood.

      â€œYou’re running yourself ragged,” Margery said, resting a hand on Rita’s cheek to test her temperature.

      Rita deftly shied away. “I’m just fine.”

      The older woman clucked her tongue. “You and your stubbornness. Someday it’s all going to catch up to you, especially raising Kristy alone.”

      That’s right—Margery knew best. How could Rita have forgotten?

      Her cell phone rang, and gratefully, she went into the empty hallway and answered, not caring who was on the other end. When she heard the voice of her best friend, Violet, she almost cheered.

      Too bad Vi’s actual words didn’t have the same effect on her.

      â€œIs it true?” she asked.

      Rita wouldn’t play dumb. “You already heard?”

      â€œSmall town. Grapevine. Newspaper reporter. Go figure.”

      Gossip traveled at the speed of light in St. Valentine, but it wasn’t as if Rita had never been its subject before.

      â€œHe just showed up, Vi. Out of nowhere.”

      â€œWant to talk about it over some lunch?”

      They agreed to meet in ten minutes at the Queen of Hearts Saloon, which belonged to Vi’s family. Rita went to the lobby, taking care to scan it before she entered.

      No sign of the cowboy.

      Relieved—was that the word she was looking for?—she crossed the lobby, telling her desk clerk that she was going on lunch break, then feeling the girl’s eyes on her. And why not, when Janelle had probably seen Conn Flannigan in here with the necklace and heard some of their conversation while she’d been straightening the brochures?

      Head held high, Rita tried her best not to feel like the town screwup once again as she left the hotel, wondering if Conn Flannigan was outside.

      Wondering if she was going to be able to avoid telling him just who the father of her unborn baby was.

       Chapter Two

      â€œI wish he’d just stayed away,” Rita told Vi as she sat across from her at the Queen of Hearts in an out-of-the-way corner booth where the low-volume country songs on the jukebox were even more muted. The wagon wheel light fixtures hovered overhead, and a bunch of regulars ate burgers СКАЧАТЬ