Pregnant & Practically Married (The Bridal Circle #3) Read online

  “We’re here, Dad.”

  Jed slowly pulled himself back to the real world, his eyes sweeping the lines of cars filling the rentalcompany parking lot. He didn’t see anybody that looked like a reporter. In fact, he saw few other people. They could get their car and quickly be on their way to Chesterton.

  “What kind of car are we getting?” Lissa asked.

  “A blue sedan.”

  Lissa made a face. “Dad, that’s a geezer car.”

  “It’ll get us where we want to go,” he said.

  “So would a Jeep.”

  Jed led the way off the bus. Lissa followed him. “And if it snowed, the Jeep would be a whole lot safer.”

  “It doesn’t snow in Indiana in September.”

  “It could.” She hurried to catch up with him. “It might not, but it could. I mean, we are going to northern Indiana, aren’t we?”

  “It won’t,” Jed said. “I guarantee it.”

  “You can’t do that.”

  Lissa was right. He couldn’t guarantee a damn thing. If he could, he would have guaranteed that drunk drivers stayed off the highways and that mothers lived a long time so that daughters were never alone. He would have guaranteed that the worst sorrow Lissa would have had to face growing up was not having pizza for dinner every night of the week.

  “Daddy?”

  He took hold of himself and clamped down on the darkness. Shut it off, locked it up, turned his back on it. He was not feeling it, none of it.

  “You’re right, darlin’,” he said briskly. “We don’t want some tame old blue sedan. I’ll change this to something exciting. Maybe a Road Ranger.”

  “No.” She pulled at his hand. “Come on, let’s get our car and get going. If we hurry, maybe we can get to Chesterton before it rains.”

  His stomach tightened as he looked into her face. The child psychologists he’d consulted after Wendy’s death had told him that losing a parent was traumatic enough for a child, that he shouldn’t change anything else in Lissa’s life. That she should continue in the same school and as the Crunchy Flakes little darling. So he’d quit the rodeo circuit and got a job with an animal trainer in Hollywood, working regular hours so he could be there for her.

  He didn’t miss the rodeo life; it had only been a source of income. And since his dream of buying a little ranch and raising horses had died along with Wendy, he didn’t need that much income anymore. No, all he needed was for Lissa to heal, and that seemed to be a slow process.

  But when he’d suggested a vacation she’d really lit up, spilling out this whole dream. She didn’t want to go to Walt Disney World or Hawaii. Nope, just Chesterton, Indiana’s Wizard of Oz Festival.

  She wanted to eat dinner with the Munchkins, watch the parade of Oz characters and follow Dorothy and Toto around the town in the traveling production of The Wizard of Oz. She wanted to enter the costume contest and walk through town on the Yellow Brick Road.

  Wendy had spent two years in northern Indiana when her dad was the army recruiter in Valpariso, and some of her happiest childhood memories had been of the Oz festival in nearby Chesterton. Lissa remembered every single story Wendy had told of the place and had plans to relive them all. So, was vacationing in Chesterton going to help Lissa heal or hurt her more if it didn’t match up to her expectations?

  Jed stopped next to their car and looked up at the gathering storm clouds. They seemed prophetic, an omen of trouble ahead.

  “It’s not too late to change our minds,” he said. “We could head north to the Wisconsin Dells and go boating.”

  “No, thank you.” She pulled open the back door of the sedan and tossed her bag in. “Besides, I want to talk to Glinda.”

  Jed threw the larger bags into the trunk, then got in the driver’s side as Lissa got in the car. “Who’s Glinda? We don’t know anybody in Chesterton.”

  Lissa rolled her eyes as she leaned her head against the seat back. “Glinda, the Good Witch of the South, Dad.”

  “Huh?”

  She just shook her head. “She’s the one who helps the Scarecrow get back to Emerald City,” Lissa explained. “And the Tinman back to the Winkies and the Lion back to his forest. Then she tells Dorothy how to get home. You never read The Wizard of Oz, did you?”

  “Uh, no.” He pulled the car out of the parking space, a little worry creeping into his soul. “So why do you want to talk to Glinda?”

  But Lissa just turned to stare out the window as if the exit ramp from the car-rental garage was the most fascinating thing in the world. “This is going to be the best vacation ever,” she said. “I just know it.”

  Karin Spencer stared out the restaurant window, watching the black clouds grow more menacing by the moment. The sun had long since disappeared, leaving the tollway oasis looking even more bleak and depressing.

  “Oh, cool. Looks like we’re in for a storm.”

  Karin turned to find a waitress at her side. The woman was smiling and cheerful. It was enough to make Karin cringe inwardly. Lately, the sun didn’t even begin to chase her shadows away. A whole galaxy probably couldn’t lift her spirits, so a little storm shouldn’t bother her.

  “So what’ll you have?” the waitress asked. “We’ve got a special on fried chicken. All you can eat. Or we’ve got some freshly made Dutch apple.”

  Oh, yuck. The very idea of food had Karin’s stomach churning. She swallowed hard. “Decaffeinated tea,” she said. “And whole wheat toast.”

  The woman stared at her for a long moment as if Karin was some sort of alien, then scooped up the menu. “Okay. Coming right up.”

  As the woman hurried away, Karin closed her eyes and sank back in her chair. Was it the smell of the fried chicken or the idea of apple pie? Or maybe the words all you can eat?

  Most likely it was because she’d skipped breakfast. Whatever it was, she should never have stopped here. She should just have kept on driving, getting off the toll road at the Chesterton exit. If she’d done that, she wouldn’t be sick now.

  She opened her eyes. Actually, she never should have gotten on the toll road. In fact, she should never have left her Lake Shore Drive apartment. But if she really hadn’t wanted to be sick, she should never have gone to bed with a scumbag like Dr. Rico Swanson. Or since it had been her own stupidity that let her be swayed by his smile, at least she should have made sure she wouldn’t get pregnant. Fat lot of good her medical degree had done her.

  But it was too late now. Too late to realize Rico had just been a pathetic attempt to prove she could love. Too late to turn down the honor of dressing up in that Glinda costume and being grand marshal of the Oz festival next weekend. Too late to tell Penny and Brad she couldn’t come to the wedding. Too late to tell her mother that something had come up. And, given the definite five-month-size bump in her belly, too late to tell people everything was just fine and dandy. At least in this baggy dress, maybe she could get through the week without everybody knowing.

  “Look, Daddy. It’s Glinda!” a child’s voice said.

  Karin froze, her whole body quaking in horror at the idea of it starting already, but then sanity returned and she twisted slightly. The girl was looking at a poster for the Oz festival. It had been silly to think it was anything else. That frilly pink dress Glinda was wearing in the picture was in her friend Heather’s closet along with the magic wand and rhinestone crown. And Karin was about as far from a wise and powerful witch as she could be, so no one would look at her and think Glinda. The Tinman maybe, but not Glinda.

  “Glinda sure is pretty,” the man was saying. “What was it you wanted to ask her?”

  The little girl’s laughter danced in the air. “That’s a secret, Daddy. Just between me and her.”

  Karin found herself staring at the girl, at her straight blond ponytail and the dress that seemed too frilly for the energy vibrating in the air around the girl. No, it was more than energy. It was hope and confidence and certainty. About what? That Glinda would be able to answer her mysterious question?


  Another weight fell onto Karin’s shoulders, this one just too much. She jumped to her feet, digging in her purse for some money.

  “Hey, honey. Where you going?” The waitress was there with her toast and tea.

  “I have to go,” Karin said and tossed a few dollar bills onto the table. “That should cover it.”

  “Go where?” the waitress asked.

  “You can’t go anywhere,” the little girl’s father said.

  Karin looked at him then. Really looked at him. Tall. Athletic. Good-looking with tan features. A cowboy, right down to the hat and boots.

  He was every mother’s dream for their daughter. Or at least, Karin’s mother’s dream for her. What had her mother done—picked out her cowboy and sent him to the toll road to look for her?

  “There’s a bad storm coming,” the little girl said, pulling off her sunglasses and smiling at Karin with her big brown eyes. “Daddy said it’s not safe outside.”

  Karin looked at the cowboy again, almost drowning in the brown eyes that were a mirror of his daughter’s. But was it safe inside them?

  She shook off the insane question and turned back to smile at the girl. If the cowboy was Daddy, it meant Mommy was around. So this guy was just a guy. And the little girl was luckier than Karin had ever been.

  “I’ll be fine,” she told them. “I don’t mind a little rain.”

  “That’s more than a little rain,” the waitress said, picking the money up off the table before leaving.

  “There were all sorts of severe weather warnings on the radio,” the cowboy pointed out. “It’s not safe to drive out there.”

  Who made him emperor? Karin glanced out the window and, before she could look away, saw he was right. It was pouring, the rain coming down almost sideways from the force of the wind. Still, she didn’t need—or want—some man telling her what to do.

  “I’m used to these storms,” she told him. “I grew up here.”

  “You did?” The girl looked as though she’d forgotten the storm and climbed onto one of the chairs at Karin’s table, hanging an overnight bag over the back. “My mom used to live around here too when she was in fifth grade. Did you know her? Her name was Wendy McCarron.”

  “It was Wendy Shapiro then,” the cowboy corrected gently. “And this is a big area, Lissa. I doubt that this lady would have known her.”

  For some unexplainable reason, Karin felt as if she was letting them down. But the name meant nothing. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I did.”

  “That’s okay.” The girl shrugged. “She died last year but she had a good time when she lived here. That’s why we’re going to the Oz festival.”

  “She died? Oh, I’m so sorry.” Karin felt doubly awful. Why hadn’t she said she’d known the little girl’s mother, liked her, thought of her often? A compassionate person would have known to lie. Just more proof that the kids had been right all through school—she didn’t have a heart.

  “No problem,” the cowboy said. “We’re doing okay. What do you say we find ourselves a table and have some lunch, Lissa?”

  His voice had an edginess that said no trespassing. That walls were in place to protect him and his Lissa and no one was getting by them. Not that Karin was inclined to try. His type of heart troubles weren’t the type she could fix with a scalpel.

  “Well, I do hope you have a wonderful time at the festival.” Karin picked up her raincoat. “And take this table. I’m going.”

  “You can’t,” the girl cried. “This is just like Dorothy’s storm. A tornado could lift up the restaurant and dump it back down on you.”

  “Lissa, that’s not going to happen,” the man said gently. He stooped down and took his daughter’s hands in his, even as he flashed a sharp glance Karin’s way. “No one’s going out in the storm just now.”

  A jumble of reactions tugged at her. Annoyance that he was ordering her around. Concern that the girl was worrying over her. And something else that caused a stinging in her eyes and an emptiness in her stomach.

  Maybe it was just more indigestion. Maybe it was just worry about the upcoming week in Chesterton. Or maybe it was the knowledge that her child wouldn’t have a father to comfort her when she got scared.

  Karin sucked in a deep steadying breath. And so what if her baby wouldn’t? Karin had grown up without a father and she had done fine. She was a leading cardiac surgeon in Chicago, able to command huge fees for her services. Anything her baby needed, she could buy.

  She clutched her raincoat to her thickened waistline as if it would keep her child from seeing what it would never have.

  “Actually, I meant I was going to the ladies’ room,” Karin told Lissa. “The storm will probably be gone by the time I get out.”

  The storm outside, maybe. The storm that was her life—never.

  “Do you think that lady will leave while it’s raining?” Lissa asked.

  Jed lowered his menu. “I’m sure she’ll be careful.” Though even as he said the words, he realized he was splitting hairs. Being careful didn’t necessarily mean that dark-haired beauty would stay in the building. He tried to remind himself that the woman was an adult and free to make her own decisions, but all he kept seeing was that wary look in her eyes. He tried to push it away, and push away the memory of seeing that same look in animals afraid to trust.

  It wasn’t his problem. She wasn’t his problem. And it was just coincidence that he’d chosen the chair facing the door to the ladies’ room. He was not getting involved.

  “So what are you going to have for lunch?” he asked Lissa.

  “She was pretty,” Lissa said.

  Jed frowned. “Yes, she was,” he said.

  Wendy had been a blonde, like Lissa. Sunshine and laughter and cascading yellow roses on the bush by the back door. That woman was a midnight thunderstorm. Violets blooming in secret on the forest floor. And eyes as forbidding as an icy mountain lake.

  Damn. Where had all that come from?

  He shook his head and stared at the menu again. “I’m going to try the fried chicken.”

  “I think she was scared, too.”

  “Maybe storms make her nervous.” He put down the menu and glanced around for the waitress. The place was packed. It looked as if everybody had pulled in to wait out the storm.

  “She looked like that dog you rescued last winter,” Lissa said. “You remember, that big white one that wouldn’t let anybody come near him.”

  He brought his gaze back to Lissa with a sigh. “Lots of people don’t trust easily. Did you decide what you’re going to have?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe—”

  The dark-haired woman came out of the ladies’ room, skirting a crowd lingering by the pay phones. She looked pale and held herself tightly as if trying to shield herself from some unseen danger, but her head was high, too. For some reason, he was seeing Joan of Arc. Or an early Christian marching into the Colosseum in Rome. As he watched, she marched across the lobby and headed straight for the wide expanse of plate-glass windows and doors where the calm had disappeared and the wind was picking up with a roar. She was leaving.

  Damn.

  Jed leaped to his feet.

  “Daddy?” Lissa said, then her breath caught as she turned around. “Oh, Daddy, stop her!”

  He was halfway across the restaurant, but the woman had a good lead on him. He broke into a run. The people who had been leaving had changed their minds and were standing around. In the way.

  “Hey!” someone protested when he bumped them.

  “Watch it,” someone else cried.

  He just kept on going. This was insane, he knew. Totally crazy. This woman was nothing to him, nothing to Lissa. Just a chance encounter. She had the right to do what she pleased, even if that meant taking a risk like driving in a storm.

  But Lissa had taken a liking to her, and seeing the woman in danger wasn’t the way for Lissa’s vacation to start.

  Hell, it wasn’t the way for his to start, either. He’d a
nalyze his actions later, now there was only time—

  “Ma’am!” he cried.

  She pushed open the first of the double doors.

  “Darlin’, wait.”

  She was a half step from the outside door, but he was right behind her and grabbed her arm.

  She swung around, her face angry. “What are—”

  As she turned toward him, the roar outside exploded into a deafening rage. He heard a crash near him, then another and then the row of newspaper vending machines blew over, skidding across the sidewalk in a horrendous screech. A trash can flew into the door but somehow the glass held.

  The woman screamed and turned back into him. It was rodeo time—react fast and think later. In one quick movement, he scooped her up into his arms and pulled into the building just as the sign atop the doorway came crashing down, breaking the plate-glass doors and windows. Glass and debris flew everywhere.

  He kept moving away from the doors even as he felt the woman go limp in his arms. Finally beyond the glass and the wind, he looked down at the pale beauty. Her eyes were closed, her breathing shallow.

  “Somebody call 911,” he shouted. “Now!”

  Chapter Two

  “Is she dead?” Lissa asked, her voice a worried whisper.

  Jed carried the woman away from the doorway and all the glass and debris. “No, darlin’. She’s gonna be just fine. Want to spread that raincoat on the floor for the lady to lie on?”

  Lissa quickly spread the coat out in front of a soda vending machine and Jed laid the woman down gently. Holding her up against him, he’d been able to feel her heart beating, but now he had to look closely to see the gentle rhythmic movement of her chest. He could feel a crowd gathering around them and looked up, hoping for a doctor, but no one seemed ready to take over.

  “Is she okay?” the waitress asked.

  “Damn, but she’s lucky,” an old man said.