The Doctor's Secret Son. Deb Kastner

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СКАЧАТЬ following it with a long pull on her soda. The medicine wouldn’t stave off the headache completely, but at least it might whittle her migraine down to only one night of suffering. Otherwise she’d be in bed for a week.

       “Still having your headaches, huh?” Samantha asked.

       “Sometimes,” Delia confirmed with a groan. “Unfortunately.”

       “Stress?” Mary guessed. “I remember the day of senior finals. You looked like you were going to outright faint most of the day.”

       “I felt like I was going to collapse,” she assured them. “I can’t even believe I passed any of those exams.”

       “And yet you made it through med school,” Alexis commented, tilting her head so that her long blond hair brushed over her shoulder. “How is that?”

       Delia sat speechless for a moment, stunned by the revelation. Now that she thought about it, how was that, that she’d managed long, sleepless nights during her residency, not to mention her years as a single mom with no support?

       Because, she realized, her migraines hadn’t been as bad in Maryland, stress or no stress. It was coming back to Serendipity that was the real strain on her nerves, and no wonder. Until all of her secrets were out in the open, she was carrying a tremendous burden inside her heart.

       “That Zach,” Jo said as she swished forward and stopped at their table. “What a good, kind Christian man he’s turned out to be. I don’t know what I’d do without him, offering to put up the Christmas lights for me again this year—and then stopping ’round today to fix them up when the wind blew half of them off the eaves. Now that’s Christian charity for you. Otherwise Chance would have had to do it, and he’s already overworked just cooking for me.”

       Theoretically, Jo was speaking to everyone at the table, but Delia was well aware that the woman’s comments were aimed directly at her.

       Everyone looked toward her, yet no one spoke a word.

       “That’s nice of him,” she stated, not knowing what else to say.

       “It sure is,” Jo agreed with a chuckle. “It seems to me that man does more around the community and the church than anyone else in this town. No matter what or when the need arises, he’s always the first to volunteer.”

       It hadn’t escaped Delia’s notice that it was the second time in as many minutes that Jo had mentioned Zach’s faith.

       Bad boy Zach Bowden a man of God?

       It was hard to fathom. How ironic would it be if Zach found his faith when Delia had lost hers?

       Whether she liked it or not, Zach was going to be a big part of her life. She couldn’t ignore that fact forever. And she had visited Cup o’ Jo to find out more about him.

       She supposed it was simply that she was feeling a little overwhelmed. She’d learned far more about Zach in this short time than she’d anticipated.

       “All right, all right, enough about Zach already. Gone. Poof. Zip it. No more Zach. I don’t want to see him, talk to him or think about him.” She chuckled, but it sounded fake even to her own ears.

       Suddenly, a chill ran up her spine.

       No—that wasn’t quite accurate. It wasn’t a chill, exactly—more of a burning premonition.

       She groaned and pressed her forehead with the palms of her hands.

       “He’s standing right behind me, isn’t he?”

       If she hadn’t already known it instinctively, she would have been warned by the way her friends’ eyes suddenly widened and the way the chatter around the table instantly ceased. Even Jo was quiet.

       There was nothing to do but to face him. Her stomach roiled as she turned in her chair and glanced his direction. As she suspected, Zach was standing directly behind her and was staring right at her.

       And they had an audience. Nearly everyone in the café was watching them.

       In Serendipity, they were as infamous a couple as Bonnie and Clyde. She wanted to roll her eyes. Hadn’t anything else scandalous happened in the ten years she’d been gone? It seemed to her that everyone’s memories were far too keen where she and Zach were concerned.

       Thankfully, it wasn’t long before the hum of activity in the café resumed. Jo excused herself to go back to waiting tables, and Delia’s three girlfriends spoke in hushed tones to one another. Delia couldn’t hear what they were saying, but she could imagine.

       If she could have, she would’ve ignored Zach’s presence, just as he had done to her when she’d first entered the café; but she found it difficult to break her gaze away from him. He was stunningly handsome in his trademark white shirt, black leather jacket and blue jeans. He held a black cowboy hat in one hand and was curling the rim with his fist.

       A muscle twitched in the corner of his jaw. He tilted his head, his gaze still burning into hers.

       Alexis, Mary and Samantha stood and hovered around Delia, nudging her upward until she had no choice but to come to her feet. As if that wasn’t enough, she was then not so subtly pushed toward Zach. Her heart raced as she experienced the most disconcerting sensation of being back in high school, with her giggling girlfriends making a scene in front of the boy she liked.

       But this was different. She was a grown woman now—and she didn’t like Zach Bowden. He’d practically ruined her life before, and because he was Riley’s father, he’d be a trial for her until the day she died.

       Zach dropped his gaze from hers, stepped sideways and planted his hat on his head.

       “Ladies,” he murmured with a clipped nod. A moment later he was striding out the door and down the road.

       Delia was equally distressed and relieved. She didn’t exactly appreciate his brushing her off with such callousness—but she wasn’t quite ready to talk to him, either. Even though it was constantly on her mind, she still had no idea how to say what needed to be said, nor when would be the best time to do it.

       Maybe there was no best way to say it—and she was going to have to find the time, even if it was wrong.

       How in the world would she find the right words?

       Zach, you have a son.

      Chapter Four

      Zach strode down the street with such a fierce determination to get away from Delia that he was becoming winded and short of breath. Or maybe it was seeing her again that had done that to him. Either way, his head was spinning and his pulse was racing.

       He’d done everything he could to put Delia’s return to Serendipity from his mind. In the last two days, he had cleaned the leaves out of the gutters of his ranch house, patched up the barn to keep his stock warmer against the cold Texas winter, and cut so much firewood that there was no more room to stack it against the side of the house. But even though he’d been tired and sweat soaked from all the hard labor, he hadn’t been able to forget that Delia Rae Ivers was back in town, not even for a second.

       And then he had to go СКАЧАТЬ