Last-Minute Marriage Read online

  “YOU’RE UP MIGHTY LATE, boy.” Caleb spoke from the depths of his favorite chair.

  “So are you.”

  “Ate too much of Charlie’s darned chili.” His grandfather grunted, stifling a belch. “I’m too old for that kind of spicy stuff.”

  The television was tuned to the weather channel, but the sound was muted. Mitch sat down on the couch and put his elbows on his knees as he watched the blue-and-green satellite image of the earth that filled the screen.

  “Fire’s been out for some time. You been sitting out there in the cold?”

  Mitch shot his crafty grandfather a look. “You know I wasn’t alone.”

  “You must have had something important to talk to Tessa about to have spent so much time out there alone with her.” His grandfather had never been a man to mince words, but he was of an age and a generation where talking about sex wasn’t so easily done. Mitch was well aware his grandfather suspected more than talking had been going on between him and Tessa, but he wouldn’t come out and say so.

  “I asked her to stay in Riverbend.” He waited for Caleb’s reaction, wondering if his grandfather would pick up on what he’d left unsaid.

  “I thought you meant to give Mel Holloway’s boy that job.”

  “I do.” Mitch looked down at the floor, letting his hands dangle between his knees. Belle had padded into the room when he came in. She flopped down at his feet, looking a little lost. She’d probably want to sleep on his bed tonight since Sam was staying overnight with Tyler. He supposed he’d let her, although she was too big and heavy to be a comfortable bed partner.

  “If you don’t have permanent work for her, then why’d you ask her to stay?” Caleb said bluntly. “She’s got no family here. No ties to the place.” He worked the handle on his recliner, bringing it upright, then planted his feet firmly on the floor. Mitch could feel the shrewd old eyes drilling holes in the side of his head. “Moving her into the boathouse lock, stock and barrel is a mite more than Christian neighborliness.”

  Mitch didn’t answer.

  “You fallin’ in love with that young woman?” Caleb asked at last.

  “I am in love with her, Granddad.”

  Caleb snorted. “I was afraid of that.”

  Mitch’s head came up. He looked over at his grandfather’s craggy face, blue-tinged from the light of the TV screen. “I hoped no one would notice.”

  “I’m not just anybody. I’m your flesh and blood. I got eyes. I’m not so old that I can’t see the way you look at each other.”

  “She’s not in love with me.” Mitch said it straight out, as much for his own ears as Caleb’s.

  “She tell you that?”

  “She said she needed time to sort out her feelings.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Mitch thought about going to the kitchen and getting another beer, letting the alcohol soothe the frayed edges of his mind and body. He’d feel better now, but not at three in the morning when the alcohol wore off and he lay staring at the ceiling, unable to sleep. That had happened too many nights after Kara left for him to fall into that trap again.

  “I misjudged the girl, that’s all.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Mitch demanded.

  Caleb didn’t take offense at his exasperated words. “I mean, I owe her an apology. I figured her for a gold digger.”

  “Hell, Granddad. Have you been on her case behind my back?” Mitch got up from the couch and stalked to the window, where he could look out over the river and see the corner of the boathouse where Tessa’s bedroom light was still shining.

  “I have not. I’ve been my usual gracious self in her presence.”

  This time it was Mitch’s turn to snort. “Granddad, gracious is the last thing I’d call you.” He stood by the window for a few more seconds, then came back to sit down beside Caleb.

  “Be that as it may, I had her figured all wrong. Why shouldn’t I? A woman on her own, going to have a baby, lookin’ all lost and alone. First you offer her a job, then a place to live rent free. Then you begin squiring her here and there around town. She’d be blind and not too bright not to start getting ideas about hooking up with you. You’ve got a soft heart, Mitch, even if you don’t want me saying so. I figured she would have you all tied up in a blue ribbon by now. But she’s got more grit than I gave her credit for.”

  “She’s got grit, all right. She’s a damned stubborn woman. I love her, Granddad. I’m not one of those guys with some kind of rescue complex or whatever you want to call it. I spent too many years trying to convince myself I still loved Kara when I didn’t. I’m not about to make that kind of mistake again. This time it’s real. And it’s for keeps.” He dragged his splayed fingers through his hair. “At least on my side.”

  “You don’t know much about her, boy. She’s pregnant and she didn’t get that way by herself. Did she tell you anything about him? The man she left behind?”

  “A little. He’s a baseball player. He got a chance to play winter ball in Central America and left Tessa behind.”

  “What are you going to do if he all of a sudden shows up on the doorstep?”

  “I’d like to beat the hell out of him.” Mitch leaned his head against the back of the couch and swiveled his neck to look at the old man again. “I’d do my best to show her she and the baby were better off without him. Better off with me. How would you handle it?”

  Caleb threw up his hands. “Hell, I don’t know. Maybe I’d pop him on the nose, too, just for my pride’s sake, if nothing else.” Caleb grinned over at him and Mitch grinned back. He and his grandfather had always been close, even before Mitch’s parents had been killed.

  Caleb’s expression grew serious once more. “There’s Sam to think about.”

  “I am thinking about Sam. I know I’ve said I didn’t want to marry again if it meant bringing other kids into the family. Life is hard enough on Sam without taking on that kind of challenge.”

  “But that was then. And now you’ve changed your mind.”

  “I fell in love,” he said simply. “And that means taking the hard with the soft. It means you find the strength in yourself to make two separate halves into a whole.”

  “It won’t be easy. You have to convince Sam.”

  “I know, but I think he and Tessa are already friends and that’s a good first step.”

  Caleb stood up slowly, favoring his arthritic knees and new hip. “Looks to me like you have to convince her, too.”

  “WHAT DO YOU THINK? Pretty cool, huh?” Tyler sat cross-legged on his bed, up by the pillows, and Sam was at the foot. They were looking at their pumpkins, displayed on the desk.

  Tyler had made his look like Frankenstein, except he’d got in too big of a hurry and nearly cut off his head. Tessa had pushed a toothpick down the back of the monster’s neck and it was holding together pretty good, just a little crooked.

  “No shit,” Sam replied.

  His buddy’s eyes got big.

  “Was I too loud?” Sam twisted around to check to make sure the bedroom door was firmly shut.

  “No,” Ty signed.

  “Did I pronounce it right?”

  “Yeah.” Ty eyed the closed door a little apprehensively. “But that doesn’t mean you’d get a big hug for saying it. My mom’d wash both our mouths out with soap if she’d heard you.”

  “Guys say stuff like that.”

  “Not in my house, they don’t.

  Sam grinned a little sheepishly. “Not in my house, either.” The older kids he’d hung around with at Meacham House last summer had said bad words—at least when Reverend Lynn wasn’t listening. He wanted to be cool like them. But maybe this wasn’t the way to go about it. His dad didn’t cuss much, neither did his granddad or Coach Mazerik. Maybe it wasn’t so cool.

  And girls didn’t like swearing. That was a fact. Not that he was interested in girls—only Tessa. But she wasn’t a girl, really. She was a grown-up. Lik
e his dad. “Girls don’t like cussing.” Sam spoke his thoughts out loud.

  “What do you care about what girls don’t like?” Ty wanted to know.

  He hadn’t told Ty of his idea yet. Of getting his dad and Tessa together. At first he’d thought Granddad Caleb would help, but he and Tessa hadn’t hit it off too well, so Sam had given up on that idea.

  But he needed someone to talk to about it. Tyler had two sisters. And a mom. And a grandma who lived in Riverbend. He might know something Sam could do that he hadn’t thought of himself.

  “What would you think if my dad got married again?”

  Ty shrugged. “It’d be okay if it was someone you liked.”

  “I didn’t want him to at first. I thought my mom would come back. But she’s not going to.” Sam worked hard to keep his voice low, make it easy for his friend to understand his words. He didn’t sign. Ty knew a lot of words, but signing was hard. You put words together differently, and Ty got distracted if Sam tried to do both. This was important. He wanted to get it right. “I want a mom. I want a baby brother or sister like you’ve got.”

  “Sisters are a pain,” Ty stated with great emphasis. He had two, one older, who really was a pain, and a baby sister who was still cute and cuddly.

  Sam wondered when girls got to be pains. Hope and Hannah McMann had been at the pumpkin party. They were five and pretty cute. They’d teased him and Ty all night until they chased them giggling into the circle of adults sitting around the fire. That got him and Ty yelled at, but the twins weren’t pains. Not really, but he supposed someday they would be. A little brother would be best, but he would take what he could get. “I don’t care. I want one. Or the other.”

  “Who are you going to get to marry your dad? He doesn’t have a girlfriend.”

  Sam grinned. He remembered his dad and Tessa talking and laughing that night at the party. And how close they’d been standing that other night outside the boathouse. Close enough to kiss. “I think he does. It’s Tessa.”

  “The lady who’s living in the boathouse?”

  “Yeah.” Sam nodded emphatically.

  “But she’s going to have a baby—some other guy’s baby,” Ty said, his face getting kind of red.

  Sam didn’t want to think about how Tessa came to be having a baby. He had an idea how things worked that way, but he wasn’t interested in the specifics just then. He was interested in getting Tessa and his dad together.

  “She’s not going to live with him. She told me so.”

  “So, do you think she likes your dad?”

  “Yeah. And he likes her. I told you that. But…” Sam paused, not sure of his next words. They were hard to say. He’d never told anyone of that day he’d walked in on his mom and dad arguing. The day she’d said, No more babies like Sam.

  “But what? If they like each other, maybe they’ll get married on their own.”

  “What if she doesn’t want a kid like me?”

  “Huh?”

  “One who’s deaf.”

  “It’s not catching, is it?” Ty looked pleased with himself for the joke.

  “No. But, well, sometimes I’ve been a pain.” Sam remembered how he’d acted that day at the store, knocking off the stovepipes and throwing a tantrum over the weight bench, like he was a little kindergartner or something. “I’m afraid she’ll think I’d be like that all the time.”

  “Hey, man. You’ve got a lot on your mind. Trying to make first team. That’s a lot of pressure on you.”

  Ty was lousy at basketball. He was taller than Sam, but big and slow. He was good at football, though. Sam’s dad said he would be a great Riverman linebacker when he was in high school.

  It was a big deal. Only another couple of weeks till tryouts. But Sam pushed aside thoughts of tryouts and the fluttery feeling that gave him in his stomach.

  “I want to show her I like her. That I won’t be a jerk like that again. That I like babies. That I’d be a good big brother.” He strove to put the right inflection in his voice. Earnest. That had been a vocabulary word the week before. It meant he wanted people to know that he cared, that he was speaking the truth. That was how he felt. That was what he wanted Ty to know. And Tessa, too.

  “All that?” Ty looked puzzled. He reached up and scratched his head until his red hair stood on end. Then he stuck out his lower lip and scrunched up his eyes, looking as if he was thinking hard. “You should give her a present,” he said at last.

  Sam punched his friend’s shoulder playfully. “I thought of that, dork. What kind of present?”

  “Oh.” Ty was silent a moment, then he brightened. “Girls like flowers and candy.”

  “I don’t have much money.” Well, he had money. Old Mr. Steele had left him a lot of money, but he couldn’t spend it. Ty knew that.

  “Bummer. And anyway, how would that show you like little kids?” Ty paused. “You could draw her a picture. You’re real good at that.”

  “Yeah.” Inspiration struck Sam like a lightbulb turning on in his head. “Or I could make her a really excellent jack-o’-lantern. She thought the one I made at the store tonight was really great.”

  “But it’s scary.” Ty looked over at the ominous grim reaper and the cemetery outlined by the flickering candle behind it. “You shouldn’t scare a lady who’s going to have a baby. My mom told me that when she was going to have Kimberly and she caught us up on that tree branch getting ready to jump in the river.”

  “Yeah, I remember.” His dad hadn’t been too happy to hear what they’d been up to, either, even though Granddad told him his dad had jumped from the same tree branch when he was ten.

  “So jack-o’-lanterns are out.” Ty propped his elbows on his knees and put his chin in his hands. “Bummer.”

  “Scary jack-o’-lanterns are out. But I have an idea for a not-so-scary one.” Sam hopped off the bed, rummaged through Ty’s book bag and pulled out a notebook. He grabbed a pencil off the desk by his pumpkin and started sketching. The idea had come to him in another flash of inspiration. He really did like to draw, he thought as his design took shape. But he didn’t have time, not until after basketball season, anyway.

  Ty climbed off the bed and came to look over his shoulder. “Wow!” he said after a moment. “That’s great. Want to make one like that for me to give my mom?”

  Sam shook his head. “Nope. There’s only going to be one.” He looked at what he’d drawn. It was a teddy bear, sitting down, holding a pumpkin. And on the pumpkin he’d drawn tiny eyes, nose and mouth. A big, happy, smiling mouth. He’d have to find a really sharp knife to do the eyes and nose, but his dad would help him if he asked. He’d carve the moon and stars on the back like he’d done for his scary one, but this time they wouldn’t make it scary, just cute.

  And then he’d put it out in front of the boathouse for Tessa to find Halloween night when she came home from work. He would sign it at the bottom with his initials just like Lily had taught him. She’d see the cuddly little bear holding his smiling pumpkin and know it was from him.

  She’d know he really liked her.

  She’d know he liked little kids.

  And if he was lucky, it would make it easier for her to fall in love with his dad.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “HELLO, TESSA.”

  “Good afternoon, Rachel.” Tessa smiled as the old lady sailed into the store like someone half her age. She stepped out from behind the main counter, where she’d been tracking the whereabouts of a wayward shipment of electrical components on the computer, to greet her. “How may I help you?”

  “I’ve come to look at the new wallpaper book you just got. Caleb told me about it when he stopped by the bookstore. I can’t believe I’ve still not found the right paper for my bathroom.” The pink-flowered pattern had been deemed too large and busy when viewed from the edge of Rachel’s tub.

  “It’s right over here.” She led the way to the L-shaped alcove where the wallpaper sample books and the big old library table were situated. “
I’ll get it for you.”

  “Thank you. I do so want to find just the right paper. If I don’t choose soon, Miriam will be too busy with other jobs to hang it before Christmas.” Rachel sat down to wait. She was dressed in a powder-blue jogging suit today, with embroidered pink roses on the jacket.

  “You look very springlike for such a blustery fall day,” Tessa told her, setting the big sample book in front of her. The store was quiet, only a few customers wandering the aisles. Mitch was out in the yard dealing with a delivery of lumber, and Caleb was in the employee lounge taking a break, so Tessa could devote herself to Rachel’s quest for the perfect bathroom wallpaper.

  “It’s been so dreary these last few days. Ever since Mitch’s pumpkin carving. But at least it’s not supposed to rain. Or worse yet, snow.” Rachel smiled and opened the book. “It’s Halloween, and tonight all the trick-or-treaters will be out. I do so love the little ones in their costumes.” She looked at Tessa over the rims of her glasses. “I understand you will be staying on in Riverbend longer than you’d originally planned.”

  Tessa had been about to comment on how enjoyable she found small children in costumes, too. The change of subject caught her off guard. “I—”

  “I can’t tell you how happy I am to hear the news. We need young people like you moving into the community.”

  “Thank you. I’m happy to be here. But I don’t know how long I can stay…”

  “Of course, dear. You have your baby to think of, too. Mitch is a very good employer, but I don’t see you working in a hardware store all your life.”

  “You don’t?” Tessa was intrigued, despite the mention of Mitch. They hadn’t spent any time alone together since the night of the pumpkin-carving party. He’d honored her request for time and space almost too well. She missed having lunch with him. She missed his smile, though he hadn’t smiled much at all since that night. She was aware that it was her fault. And that she could bring that wonderful warm and sexy smile back by telling him what was in her heart. What she knew to be the truth.