Firefly Glen: Winter Baby (Harlequin Signature Select) (10 page)

Sarah studied her sundae, cutting into it with slow, surgical precision so that she didn't have to watch.

Just her luck.
She had spent the past two days trying not to think about him. Trying to forget the flare of heat she'd felt when he kissed her. She had snuffed it instantly, of course, but for a split second there in the jail cell his sex appeal had sliced into her like a warm, sharp knife sinking into soft butter.

She might as well quit kidding herself that, as a pregnant woman facing major life decisions, she was beyond the tawdry urgings of mere physical desire. Apparently some deeply female part of her didn't realize that she was pregnant. Or didn't care.

So all right, denial was no longer an option. But self-control was.

And she'd start by refusing to look at him. She filled her mouth with sweet, oozing whipped cream and focused on her uncle, willing herself not to possess any peripheral vision.

“That's all right, Theo.” A woman's voice broke into their conversation. “We can sit here, with Ward and Sarah. There's plenty of room.”

Sarah turned at the sound. Madeline Alexander stood at the edge of their booth, wearing a shirtwaist dress covered in huge red roses and red earrings the size of Easter eggs.

But that was just typical Madeline. The real surprise was that she had three little girls in tow, lined up behind her like ducklings. The girls looked to be
about eight years old, and they wore bright blue uniforms and beanies that read, Firefly Girls: Troop 637.

“They didn't have a table big enough for all of us,” Madeline explained while she moved things around to accommodate the new situation. Sarah slid over, as it became clear that Madeline intended to sit with Ward, leaving the Firefly Girls to share Sarah's side of the booth. The girls looked embarrassed but obedient as they piled in, elbow to elbow, the last one half-hanging off the edge of the seat.

“Sarah, I'd like you to meet my girls. Well, not
my
girls really, but I'm their troop leader. This is half of our troop. The other girls are over there, see them? Hi, girls!” She raised her voice. “Girls! Girls, over here! Say hello to Sarah!”

If Sarah had hoped that Parker might depart without noticing her, those hopes were dead now. Half the customers in the café turned at Madeline's sunny outburst and the answering clamor of responses from the girls, who sat at a table nearby.

“Hi, Sarah!”

“Hello, Sarah!”

Amid the hullabaloo, Parker caught her eye. “Hello, Sarah,” he mouthed silently, adding a wink for good measure.

Darned if she didn't blush.
Good grief.

“Sarah, you're the very person I need,” Madeline gushed as soon as the girls subsided, as if she couldn't bear a silence. “I need your help desperately. Tell her she simply must agree to help us, Ward. I know you
don't approve of the festival, but you must tell her how important the costumes are to the girls.”

Ward shrugged. “I haven't got any idea what you're talking about.”

“Well, you know one of our assistant troop leaders has gone out of town. Her parents are sick or something. So now we don't have enough help. And with the festival coming up—and the costumes…oh, it's such a disaster!” She sighed, waving her hands in the air to illustrate the chaos she faced. “And I know you are a good seamstress—after all, you do teach Home Ec, don't you? Oh, please. Do help us, Sarah!”

Amazed that Madeline was discussing the festival so openly in front of Ward, Sarah looked at her uncle. He didn't look angry. He looked bored. And he refused to meet her eyes, the coward. But everyone else at the table was staring expectantly at her—Madeline with damp, desperate melodrama, and the three little girls with owlish curiosity.

“All right,” Sarah said weakly. “I'll be glad to do what I can.”

“Oh, thank you, Sarah.” Madeline, the social maestro, called out merrily to the rest of the troop. “Girls! Girls! Sarah is going to be our new troop leader! Say ‘thank you, Sarah!'”

A new chorus went through the café. By now the adult customers were grinning and joining in. A couple of people were clapping. Parker was openly laughing, though his date seemed less amused.

Sarah put her face in her hands helplessly. Why had she thought this was a sleepy little snow-shrouded
town where she could hibernate until she decided how to handle her dilemma? She hadn't had a minute's real solitude since her plane touched down in Albany.

The little girl who had scooted into the booth right next to Sarah suddenly poked Sarah's arm rather insistently.

Sarah looked over with a smile. The girl was a pudgy, freckled redhead whose beanie was perched so high on her springy curls that it looked as if it might tumble at any moment. Sarah had noticed—as teachers always do—that she didn't seem to be very chummy with the other girls.

“Thanks, Sarah,” the little girl said, as if by rote. Then she got down to business. “Are you going to eat that cherry?”

Sarah plucked the cherry out of her sundae and handed it over.

Madeline tsked and frowned in their direction. “Eileen O'Malley, if you keep eating everything in sight, you're never going to fit into your snowflake costume for the festival.”

A couple of the other girls tittered, and Sarah felt her hackles rising on Eileen's behalf. But the spunky little girl seemed unfazed. She simply returned Madeline's glare and popped the cherry into her mouth defiantly. Madeline sighed and turned back to Ward.

The little girl munched quietly for a few seconds, then looked up at Sarah.

“Don't you think it's totally dumb,” Eileen said, “for the
Firefly
Girls to dress up as
snowflakes?
It doesn't make one bit of sense, does it?”

“I don't know.” Sarah made a show of considering it. Eileen looked deadly serious, as if this issue was her litmus test, and Sarah realized that she wanted to pass, if only to offset Madeline's cruel remark about the little girl's weight. “Snowflakes and fireflies. It does seem odd. But maybe firefly costumes were just too hard to make.”

“Or maybe Mrs. Alexander is just a mean old poop.” Eileen had spoken under her breath so that she couldn't be heard across the table. When Sarah didn't chastise her, she grinned suddenly, abandoning her grievance. “But that's okay. Are you going to lick that spoon?”

As Sarah handed her spoon over, she had a funny thought.

Her baby was going to be a girl. She knew it—somehow she just knew it. A little girl, maybe a lot like this one, full of spunk and laughter and loads of common sense.

And with that thought came a revelation. The baby wasn't an abstraction, a predicament. She wasn't a dilemma waiting to be solved. She was a person waiting to enter the world, where she would live and love and eat ice cream, laugh and cry and probably fail geometry.

And Sarah could hardly wait to meet her.

 

“I
T'S LIKE RIDING A BICYCLE
, damn it.” Ward glared at Sarah, who was wobbling toward him on the ice. “You don't ever forget.”

“Yeah? Well, tell that to my ankles,” Sarah re
sponded shortly, struggling as hard as she could to stay erect.

Why had she let her uncle talk her into this? She couldn't ice-skate. She was a Floridian, for heaven's sake. Maybe her brain dimly remembered using the indoor skating rink during her summer vacation here fifteen years ago, but her body had total amnesia on the subject.

Too bad Heather had assured her that a few spills wouldn't hurt the baby. Exercise is good, the doctor had said. The spills are worth it, as long as they're not from a ten-story building.

“Come on, come on. You can do it.”

Ward was skating backward, holding both her hands, urging her on. The show-off. He looked so annoyingly dapper and fit in his parka and muffler and ski cap. Whereas she looked like an idiot. Her rear end was white with ice shavings, from all the times she'd landed on it, and her nose had started to run from the cold.

“No—I—can't.”
She tried to free her hands, but that was a mistake. The movement upset her precarious balance, and she began to weave and sway. She felt like a cartoon character with rubber legs that kept stretching in different directions.

And then, of course, she went down.

Ward laughed and skated a fancy figure eight around her. When she tossed a handful of snow at him he sped off, one hand tucked behind his back like a racer. He looked like a man half his age.

She, on the other hand, didn't dare try to rise to
her feet. She was only a couple of feet from the bank, so she crawled on all fours toward safety.

Suddenly, there was a face just inches from hers. A golden, furry face with a huge tongue hanging out.

“What—?” The tongue darted out to touch her nose, and then she knew. It was one of the puppies she'd seen in the jail cell last week. He started dancing around her, grinning with pleasure. Apparently he thought she was a kindred spirit, down on all fours like an animal herself.

She couldn't help grinning back. He was almost unbelievably cute. But he was so little he must be freezing. She picked him up and scanned the perimeter of the lake, knowing that Parker had to be nearby.

He was. He was sitting on the bench just a few yards to her left, watching the pair of them. His dark blue jacket and black corduroy pants blended into the bench so well she hadn't noticed him.

She cuddled the puppy close to keep him warm. He accepted her embrace without resistance, nibbling happily at the string of her mitten. Then she climbed awkwardly to her feet and walked stilt-legged through the snow.

She plopped down next to Parker with absolutely no grace. But she was too relieved to be on solid ground to care. “I'm trying to decide how embarrassed to be. How long have you been here?”

He grinned. “Long enough to know you won't be taking home the gold next year.”

She had to laugh. She nodded toward her uncle, who was waving at them from the far side of the lake.
“Hans Brinker out there is pretty disappointed in me.”

Parker tilted his head. “Somehow I doubt that,” he said. He tugged at one of the puppy's ears playfully. “So. What are you going to name him?”

“Me?” She looked down at the puppy, who had lost interest in her mittens and had started chewing on his own paw, as if he'd never seen it before. “You want
me
to name him?”

“I think you should,” Parker said. “He's yours.”

“Mine?”
Sarah looked down at the puppy in horrified amazement. “He can't be
mine!
I can't own a dog. I don't even live here. I mean, I will be going back to Florida in a few weeks.”

“Oh?” Parker looked politely curious. “I've never been to Florida. They don't have dogs there?”

“You know what I mean. I live in an apartment. I'm never there. I can't have a dog.” She looked down at the puppy, who had decided to gaze up at her adoringly. “Why don't you keep him?”

“Can't,” Parker said apologetically. “I already bought one of his brothers.” He watched as the puppy began licking Sarah's neck. “Besides, anyone can see that puppy belongs to you.”

“Hey, Sheriff!” Ward had skated closer now, and he came to a sharp stop right in front of them. He was grinning wickedly. “I thought of a new slogan for my billboard! Right under that great picture of me, it'll say, Hide Out In Firefly Glen.” He chuckled. “Get it? Hide out? Like a criminal.” When Parker didn't smile, Ward scowled and tilted his head back
arrogantly. “It's subliminal. I guess you have to be subtle to get it.”

And then, with a cackle and a flourish, he skated nimbly away, his silver blades flashing in the sun.

Parker shook his head. “I guess the how-to book isn't working.” He raised one eyebrow. “Or haven't you reached the chapter on incorrigible, stubborn old geezers yet?”

Worried, Sarah gazed after her uncle, stroking the puppy's soft fur for comfort. “He listens to me, but then he just goes ahead and does whatever he wants. He really seems to hate this Bourke Waitely fellow. Who is he?”

“Bourke owns the only hotel in town. He probably stands to make more money from the festival than anyone. He and Ward are enemies from way back. I've heard rumors, but that's all. Best I can piece together, Bourke used to be in love with Roberta, and, even though Bourke eventually married, he never quite gave up thinking he could steal her from Ward.”

“Fat chance of that,” Sarah said. “I never saw two people more in love than Ward and Roberta were.”

“I know.” Parker reached out and touched the puppy's nose softly. The little guy had fallen asleep under Sarah's rhythmic stroking. “They probably had the only truly happy marriage I ever heard of. They always gave me hope for the human race.”

They didn't say anything further for several long minutes. Instead, they shared the simple pleasure of watching Ward's elegant skating, the way tiny, sud
den rainbows would flash from the snow, the way his skates kicked out pinwheels of spun glass. And in the silence, they could clearly hear the tiny tinkling melodies made by the wind as it blew icy pine needles against each other.

Though she was so cold her nose was numb, and she ached all over from her many tumbles, Sarah found herself strangely contented. She liked the warm comfort of the puppy's weight against her chest and the easy companionship of the man next to her. In her experience, very few men were as good at silences as Parker Tremaine.

But she couldn't let this one stretch too long. She couldn't let herself grow accustomed to it.

“I really can't keep him, you know.” She shifted the warm bundle without waking him. “I appreciate the thought, but—”

“How about Frosty?” Parker eyed the puppy appraisingly. He gave no indication that he had even heard her. “That's what we always call the king of the ice festival. And Frosty here seems to love the snow.”