Crystal Green – Daddy in the Making (страница 3)

But not quite, because she’d promised herself that nobody was ever going to do this to her again. Not after what her ex-fiancé, Kevin, had done to her. And definitely not after she’d dropped her guard during a wonderful night of seduction with this cowboy, finally believing that she’d been wrong about love all these years.

She rubbed the curve of her belly, fighting the tears.

Conn Flannigan.

When she’d seen him in the lobby today, it’d shocked her right down to her toes, her body tingling in places that should’ve been smart enough to go numb after she thought she’d been left high and dry by him. But, with him standing there, with his thick, black hair that curled up at the ends, with his shining blue eyes, with every inch of lean, tall cowboy in a Western shirt, jeans and boots, she’d come alive in very dangerous ways.

And it was happening now, too, as that night filtered back to her.

She’d been sitting in the Queen of Hearts Saloon, resigned to hours of drudge work ahead of her at the hotel. She’d been in threadbare jeans, an untucked blouse, with her hair pulled back in a haphazard ponytail, yet when he’d walked in, she was the only one he’d looked at.

And that look … Even now, she shivered from the intensity of what it’d done to her—breathing fire under and over her skin, sizzling through her until it consumed every inch. She could’ve even sworn that time had stopped for both of them, could’ve sworn that every one of his cells was vibrating just as hard as hers were.

If she had the capacity to believe in love at first sight, she might have said that she fell in love with him then and there. Maybe, in those first few crazy moments she’d gotten the closest to love she would ever get again.

He’d 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?”

“Right as rain.” Rita glanced at her watch. “Tea prep already?”

“Like 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.

“You’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.

“Is it true?” she asked.

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

“Small 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.

“He just showed up, Vi. Out of nowhere.”

“Want 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

“I 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 and drank beer at the bar, surrounded by sepia-hued pictures of the town during its early days.

“It sounds to me like he really does have amnesia.” Vi’s brown eyes reflected sympathy. Even though she was on lunch break from the small-town-reporter’s desk, she had an iPad next to her, ready to catch any breaking news should it come their way. “It’d be a good reason for him to come back here, retracing his steps before his accident. And he’d have no idea how ticked off you’d be. Besides, who goes around telling stories like that unless they’re true?”

Rita hadn’t touched her chef’s salad yet, but Vi was munching away on her fries. She’d been there for the morning after when Rita had still been on cloud nine after her night with Conn. But Vi had also seen the aftermath and how it’d decimated a newfound confidence for Rita that had lasted less than twenty-four hours before she’d felt the shame of supposedly being lied to and left behind once again.

“So what’re you going to do?” Vi asked, dipping a fry in catsup.