The Cowboy's Pregnant Bride. Crystal Green

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      He came to a bricked cove with a bank of mailboxes, each with a last name posted on it. But there were no corresponding numbers for the condos.

      Okay, then. No worries. He would just continue on his way, and he might run into Annette coming out of her garage or a parking space.

      So he went right on ahead. But...

      What would he say to her exactly?

      How-de-do, I just happened to be in the neighborhood. And, really, I’m not a weird stalker. I’m only interested in doing some archeological work in your backyard.

      How lame would that sound?

      He almost turned around right then and there, except that’s when he caught sight of some movement in a lower-level window and saw...

      My God—a silhouette half-hidden through the sheer mist of yellow curtains.

      Jared’s heart slammed into his ribs, and he couldn’t take another step because he could feel it in his bones—it was Annette.

      Yeah, he should’ve averted his eyes, but the light was coming from behind her, showing her in a haloed, curvy profile without that waitressing apron that had covered her belly today. Now, without it, there was very clearly a bump in plain view.

      A baby.

      After she took a step toward the window, apparently to draw the shades, she came into full sight.

      She hesitated, then tenderly eased both of her hands over her tummy, sliding them beneath it to cup the child growing within it.

      Jared’s chest felt pierced, lanced by an ache.

      She obviously already loved that child. But where was the father?

      Where were you when your own daughter probably asked the same thing?

      Feeling shamed, both because he’d witnessed such a private moment and because of his failures, he fisted his hands and got out of there before she saw him.

      * * *

      Before work the next day, Annette took a moment to soak her feet, then massage them before she had to stand on them all day at the diner. She’d done the same thing last night before going to bed, and she knew it wouldn’t be long before she’d be craving a foot spa 24/7—and before she would have to significantly cut back on her hours at the diner or take a leave of absence altogether.

      Rest, healthy eating and some pampering—that’s what the doctor had ordered when she’d gone to him early in her pregnancy. She’d chosen a practitioner in the new part of town because it was more modern, relatively more crowded and less personal there.

      She meant to make good on all the doctor’s suggestions this morning, so she’d eaten scrambled eggs and a yogurt parfait with fresh fruit, granola and almond slivers for breakfast, then left her home an hour before her shift. That gave her enough time to run a couple of errands around the Old West streets of the Old Town portion of St. Valentine. The weather-beaten buildings contained things like a mercantile store and boutiques geared toward tourists. There were even burros roaming around—descendants of the beasts of burden owned by the silver miners who’d once lived here.

      Now, of course, the silver mines were gone, along with the kaolin mine that had replaced them, and that’s what had put St. Valentine in the economic dumps. But matters were improving, she thought as she rested on a bench in the town square after dropping by the general store for a few necessaries. And judging from the decent number of tourists she knew would be descending on Old Town and the diner in about a half hour, St. Valentine was rising once again.

      She lifted her chin, letting the crisp morning air tweak her cheeks. Truthfully, St. Valentine had Jared to thank for their resurrection. It’d been his appearance that had stirred up interest in Tony Amati and alerted Violet and Davis Jackson to his mysterious death, which had taken place on the same night old Sheriff Hadenfield’s home had been burglarized.

      From the church, the sound of the recently restored bells tolled through the cleared-up sky, marking the hour. Outside, some people were decorating the trellises in the yard with white-flowered streamers.

      A wedding.

      Images crept back to Annette: reflections of a bride in a mirror, her Grace Kelly gown so white that no one would ever guess the results of the pregnancy test she’d just taken. Pictures of a woman who couldn’t keep the news to herself and had rashly left her dressing room intending to tell her husband-to-be that they were going to be parents.

      Nightmares of what she’d found when she’d opened his door, only to find him en flagrante delicto with a bridesmaid. And then...

      Apologies from him after he’d sent away her friend. Yeah, a “friend,” for God’s sake.

      Then the worst of it. A flash of his hand rising in the air after the bride had the temerity not to accept all his excuses and then call off the wedding.

      “You look a little lost,” said a man’s voice.

      It shocked Annette, partly because she hadn’t expected anyone to be nearby, but mostly because she recognized who it was and because he left a twist of need spiraling through her.

      She looked up to find Jared standing there in his black coat with Tony Amati’s journal tucked under his arm.

      Her blood surged, sending her pulse scampering.

      “Isn’t that supposed to be my line?” she asked, putting a smile on her face for him.

      He smiled back in that lopsided way that took the edge off him. Then he gestured toward the bench.

      “May I?”

      She scooted over and pulled her long felt coat around her, as if that would protect every vulnerable angle he’d just seen.

      But it didn’t do any good—not when she could smell the hay scent of him, even over the fresh air, and surely not when she was all too aware of his broad shoulders under that coat.

      He tilted up the brim of his hat, and she couldn’t take her eyes off his strong profile.

      “I think I got a little lost yesterday myself,” he said.

      “In the diner?” she asked, remembering their conversation after he’d first looked in the journal. He’d definitely seemed lost enough for her to have commented on it.

      “Not in the diner.” He laughed. “I’m embarrassed to admit that I got it into my head that your garden would be some kind of burial place for more Tony Amati artifacts. So I drove out there, hoping to just knock on your door and see if you’d let me do a little Indiana Jonesing.”

      Her skin flushed, just as if he’d spread fire over it. “You paid me a visit?”

      “Before my better sense got to me, yes. I did.”

      A feeling of warmth and excitement expanded in her, and the awareness spilled over, alerting her to their proximity on the bench. Only a small space separated them. If she would only move her hand an inch, she would feel a vibration from his leg, a sense of being closer to СКАЧАТЬ