The Texan's Surprise Baby (6 page)

Plugged in as he was to the community, he already knew about the disaster at the Lake Oaks Marina, so he and Hannah chatted about that for a few minutes while he checked her out. “Tell your grandpa this is his last refill on his blood pressure medicine. He needs to go see his doctor this month.”

Hannah nodded. “I think he has an appointment, but I’ll make sure.”

“Before you go...” With a flourish, he presented her with an orange lollipop. “I seem to remember this being your favorite flavor.”

She laughed and accepted the treat. “Thank you, Mr. D. I’m sure I’ll see you again soon.”

He winked at her. “I plan to be around to give a lollipop to that little one of yours. You take care, you hear?”

“I’ll do that, thanks.”

Carrying the bag of meds and her lollipop, she left the little pharmacy with a smile. That smile faded when she approached her car and saw the back left tire was flat. Her good mood vanished completely when she saw the front left tire, also flat. With a sinking heart, she walked to the other side of her car. Both tires on the right were pancaked. Visible punctures in all four tires provided an explanation, and the long ugly scratch in the paint from the front right fender to the back of the car called further attention to the vandalism.

Someone had intentionally done this.

Chapter Three

S
tunned, Hannah turned in a slow circle, looking for a possible culprit, but it was time for the pharmacy to close for the day and hers was the only car left in the little lot. She saw no one else within view who might have done this. The shaded corner in which she’d parked wasn’t particularly visible from the street. It wouldn’t have been difficult for someone to walk past, swiftly slash her tires and scratch her paint and rush away without attracting attention. What she could not understand was why anyone would have wanted to do so. A random act of maliciousness? Wannabe tough-guy juvenile delinquents showing off for friends? Or—she swallowed hard—had her car been specifically targeted?

“Hannah,” Luther called out from the door of the pharmacy, “are you all right?”

“Flat tires,” she responded, trying to keep her tone light. “Go ahead and close up your shop. I’ll call someone from the resort to come get me.”

Frowning, he approached her, studying her tires with a shocked expression. “This is deliberate?”

“It seems to be.”

“But who would do this?”

She wished she knew. With a shrug, she gave the only explanation that made any sort of sense to her. “Just some bored kid whose idea of fun is destroying other people’s property, I guess.”

Looking angry that this had happened at his store, Luther turned in a slow circle, much as Hannah had, looking for possible culprits. “Have you called the police yet?”

“I hadn’t even thought of calling the police,” she admitted.

“Want me to call them for you?”

“No, I’ll take care of it. I’m sure they’ll have questions for me.”

He nodded. “I’m going inside to help the ladies close up, but I’m not leaving until someone has come for you. Why don’t you come inside and get out of this heat? I’ll get you something cold to drink while you wait.”

“Thank you. I’ll make some calls first and then come in.”

“Let me know if you need anything.”

“Thank you, Mr. D.” Taking another look at the ugly scratch on the side of her car, Hannah swallowed hard before turning her attention to her phone.

* * *

Andrew took one look at Hannah’s car in the pharmacy’s small parking lot and ground out a curse. If his instincts were correct, this was more than just a random act of vandalism. And his instincts were almost always reliable.

Even though it was past the closing hour posted on the pharmacy door, he could see Hannah standing inside, looking out at him. She opened the door as he approached. “Hello, Andrew.”

He studied her intently. Her expression was carefully shielded, but he saw the distress reflected in her deep green eyes. “Are you okay?”

“Yes, of course. I was inside when it happened. I never even saw anyone.”

“Did you call the police?”

“I filed a report. Not that it will do any good, because there were no witnesses. And I’ve called for a tow truck. It should be here any minute.”

He nodded. “We’ll follow the tow truck and I’ll wait with you at the body shop until your car is fixed. If they can’t get to it today, I’ll take you back to the resort and we can pick it up tomorrow.”

Hannah nodded, then turned to speak to someone Andrew couldn’t see inside the pharmacy. “A friend is here to give me a ride, Mr. D. Thanks for waiting with me.”

“You take care,” Andrew heard a man’s voice reply. Hannah joined Andrew outside, and a friendly looking man locked the door behind her, nodding a greeting to Andrew through the glass before turning off the Open sign.

Hannah glanced up at Andrew. “I wasn’t expecting you to be the one to come get me.”

He shrugged. “Everyone else was busy with that influx of new guests, so I volunteered.” He’d known he wouldn’t have been her first choice, but no one else had seemed to find it unusual that he’d volunteered his services. He turned with Hannah toward her car. “You didn’t see anyone who could have done this? No one walking or running away, even someone who seemed an unlikely culprit?”

“Several cars drove by, but I didn’t see anyone at all on the sidewalk,” she answered. “Trust me, I tried. Whoever it was either ran off before I came outside or hid while I was looking for them.”

“You said you called the police. Did they mention whether there’s been a rash of car vandalisms in this area recently?”

She shook her head. “Luther Duquesne—the pharmacist who waited with me—said this is the first he’s heard of. He and the other pharmacy employees park in the back lot, but none of their vehicles were touched. Mine was the only one in this front lot, because it was almost closing time.”

“Do you know anyone who would have specifically targeted your car?”

He noted the slightest hesitation before she shook her head. “I’m sure it was just a random act of meanness.”

“Probably,” he agreed. “But what name popped into your head just now when I asked?”

She lifted an eyebrow. “I beg your pardon?”

“You thought of someone. Who?”

Hannah sighed in resignation. “Okay, for just a second I wondered if it could have been—”

“Hannah,” he urged impatiently when she hesitated again.

“My ex-father-in-law,” she muttered, “Chuck Cavender. I ran into him and his wife earlier this week, and he still blames me for everything that happened to Wade.”

“Wade is the only one to blame for everything that happened to him,” Andrew said bluntly, angry at the thought of anyone placing responsibility on Hannah for her jerk of an ex-husband’s behavior.

He knew for a fact that Hannah had done everything she could to hold her ill-fated marriage together. She’d been a hell of a lot better wife than Cavender had deserved, not that the bastard would ever admit it. For the most part, Andrew preferred not to think of Hannah with Wade—or anyone else, for that matter, he admitted privately and uncomfortably. “Do you have any reason to think Cavender might have done this? Did you see a vehicle that might have been his, either here or at one of your other stops this afternoon?”

She shook her head. “I really can’t see him following me around or skulking in parking lots waiting for a chance to vandalize my car. He’s more open with his disdain than that. It wouldn’t surprise me if I ran into him and he made ugly accusations where other people could hear him, but doing something like this, in secret, without having the satisfaction of seeing my reaction? Doesn’t seem likely.”

A tow truck arrived while Andrew contemplated her rationale. The car was delivered to a shop, where Hannah was informed that it would be late the next day before she could pick it up again. Fortunately the scratch wasn’t too deep and could be buffed out with rubbing compound rather than requiring repainting.

“I’ll bring you back tomorrow,” Andrew assured her when they were back in his car. “I’m sure everyone else is going to be snowed under with it being the start of a weekend and so many guests to juggle.”

Fastening her seat belt with a snap, she said, “I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow afternoon. I’ll have to pick up the car after that.”

“Then I’ll take you to the doctor first.” He was pleased to have the excuse to do so. “Didn’t you say you’re going to find out the baby’s sex tomorrow?”

“Yes,” she admitted, perhaps a bit reluctantly. “But—”

“I’d like to be there. Maybe we should tell your family about us tonight, before the doctor’s appointment.”

He could almost feel the waves of panic coming from her side of the car. “Um, not tonight,” she said. “Everything’s been so crazy at the resort today and everyone will be busy and tired.”

He flipped the turn signal and turned the wheel, guiding the car into the empty parking lot of a bank branch that was closed for business for the day. Parked at the back of the lot, the car was partially hidden from the main road by the drive-through lanes. He left the motor running so the interior stayed cool as he unbuckled his seat belt and turned to face her. She wasn’t looking at him, but down at the hands she held in a white-knuckled clench in her lap. She seemed braced for a lecture and something about her closed, defensive posture made his chest tighten.

Reaching out to lay his right hand over both of hers, he spoke quietly. “You should tell them when you’re ready. They’re your family. You’ll know when the time is right.”

He didn’t find it particularly gratifying to see a hint of suspicion in the look she gave him, as if she were attempting to figure out if he was trying to manipulate her in some way. Once again he felt a wave of disgust at her duplicitous ex-husband for leaving her so wary and distrustful.

“Whatever you decide to do, I’ll support you,” he assured her. “Just let me know what you need from me.”

He saw her throat work with a hard swallow, but he didn’t give her a chance to speak before he continued, “It must have seemed to you that I swept back into your life and immediately started pushing you. That was not my intention. I have to admit I was rattled and I wasn’t quite sure how to handle everything. Maybe I should have called before I just showed up, but most of the things we need to discuss seemed better handled face-to-face.”

He thought he saw a softening in her eyes when she looked up at him then. “I’m sorry you had to find out the way you did,” she said quietly. “I should have called you sooner.”

He nodded. “Okay, we’ve got the apologies out of the way. We’re both just playing this by ear.”

“True.”

“So?”

She drew a deep breath. “So, we take it from here. If you’d like to accompany me to the doctor tomorrow before we pick up my car, you’re welcome to come, even though I’m sure Mimi will be much too pleased about it. For now, we’ll tell everyone it’s your way of helping out while everyone else is so busy this crazy weekend. Later, when things have settled down and after I have a doctor’s report, we’ll figure out a way to tell them you’re my baby’s father and then we’ll deal with their reactions. When do you have to go back to Dallas?”

“I should be back in the office Monday,” he admitted reluctantly, thinking of all the work that had piled up in his absence. He’d been trying to handle some of it from his hotel room the past couple days, but there were a few things he had to attend to in person. “I can come back next weekend, if that would be a better time for you. You, um, do want me to be there when you break the news, right?”

“Well, because I’m sure your brother is going to be around, you might as well be, too.”

Her wry rationale wasn’t exactly heartwarming, but he nodded. “Just let me know when you’re ready,” he repeated.

“Thank you,” she said in little more than a whisper.

He realized he was still holding her hands, leaning quite close to her over the car’s console between them. Her gaze was still locked with his, and he was momentarily trapped in liquid emerald. Despite all that had happened between them, all the uncertainty ahead, she still took his breath away. She was so beautiful, with her long-lashed eyes and full, sensuous mouth, her heart-shaped face framed in thick, dark, glossy hair. But it was more than her beauty that had always drawn him to her. He admired her courage, her dignity, the proud spirit her experiences had bruised but not extinguished.

She shifted in her seat, and he wondered if he was making her self-conscious.

“Are you uncomfortable?” he asked.

She smiled faintly. “The baby just kicked me in the side.”

That, of course, drew his attention straight to her tummy. She was still so small that he hadn’t really thought much about the baby’s development. At almost six months along, it must be pretty well formed by this point, he realized. He wanted to feel the movement himself, but he knew better than to place a hand on her without permission. His female cousins who’d had children had often complained about people—even strangers—thinking they had a right to feel a pregnant woman’s stomach.

Hannah seemed to read his thoughts. She took his hand and laid it on her swollen tummy, just above the seat belt she still wore. Only moments later, he felt a little thump beneath his palm. His eyes widened. “Was that it?”

“Yes. He’s active this afternoon.”

“He?”

She shrugged, her emotions well-masked, though her voice sounded a bit huskier than usual. “Just a figure of speech. This time tomorrow, I could be saying she.”

He focused on his hand, his attention on the movement beneath it. He pictured a little girl who looked just like Hannah—or a boy with his own mother’s big dark eyes. Both images made his chest tighten. He raised his gaze to look at Hannah only to find her studying his face with eyes that looked suspiciously moist. The next thing he knew, his mouth was on hers.

* * *

The console of Andrew’s sports car dug into Hannah’s left side. The baby kicked against her right rib cage. The still-fastened seat belt bit into her shoulder, and her left leg had twisted into an uncomfortable position. And yet she was in no rush at all to move out of Andrew’s arms.

His mouth moved slowly on hers, his lips firm and gentle at the same time. The faintest hint of early evening shadow roughened his cheek when she laid her fingertips against it. His hand slid to the back of her head to hold her in place as he took his time exploring every inch of her willing mouth.

She had known the first time Andrew kissed her that there was a volatile chemistry between them, something she had suspected from the first time their eyes met. She’d tried to tell herself at the beginning that she was deluding herself, that she was confusing gratitude and attraction, that her stinging ego was pushing her to look for validation in a man’s approval. But the more time she had spent with Andrew, the more she’d become aware of what a good man he was, and how much she genuinely admired and truly liked him. None of which had convinced her that they belonged together. Just the opposite, in fact. She had survived the end of her marriage with her heart battered but intact. Some instinct told her a bad outcome with Andrew would devastate her—not that he’d given her any reason to believe he was interested in pursuing a long-term relationship with her.

Slowly he drew back his head, leaving her lips damp, tingling, aching for more. Her throat clenched, her pulse raced, and her already-hormonal emotions threatening to overwhelm her. Her heart still ached from the look she had seen in his eyes when he’d felt their baby move. Between that and the kiss, she couldn’t trust herself at all just then to think rationally.