Harlequin Heartwarming May 2016 Box Set (79 page)

But I digress. Today's journal entry isn't about that stuff. It's about me and high school and the cutest boy in Riverton. Probably the world. He's a friend of Annie's, but not
that
kind of friend. Annie has a thing for this boy named Eric, and the boy I like is Eric's best friend. After school today, I sneaked into Annie's bedroom and found his picture in last year's yearbook. His name is Jack Evans.

If Jack and I get married, do you know what that means? My name will be Emily Evans.

Emily closed her eyes and let the memories of that afternoon roll through her mind like a movie. It had been a typical late summer day in the Midwest. Her bedroom window had been open, a cool breeze fluttering the curtains. But she'd felt all warm and tingly. She'd been awash with hormonally fueled emotions, and hadn't known why, not understanding that puberty and a first crush had lit a fire in her.

She had studied herself in the mirror that afternoon, all those years ago, wishing for long blond hair, a bigger bra size and the kind of easygoing personality that let a girl giggle at anything a guy said.

“Face it, Emily. You wanted to be an airhead,” she chided herself now, standing in front of a different mirror. Instead, reality had persisted. According to Fred, she still had the annoying tendency to tell a guy exactly what she thought, which was usually the polar opposite of how cool he considered himself to be.

She continued reading the sappy words she'd poured onto the pages all those years ago. She hadn't had a clue what love was, but she had certainly perfected infatuation. She paged ahead, smiled when she found the heart she'd drawn with red pen. Inside, “E. F. luvs J. E.” At that point, they'd yet to have a conversation, and if he had known she even existed, it was only as his friend Eric's girlfriend's dorky little sister.

She flipped through more pages and was relieved to see her journal included other details about school and home. Fred had tried to talk her into joining the chess club, but she had joined the school newspaper and yearbook club instead. She had written about CJ, already a budding equestrian, and the blue ribbon she'd won for show jumping at the fall fair. Annie had been on student council and busily organizing bake sales and car washes to raise money for the year's activities at school.

Emily turned a few more pages. Ah, yes. Her first-ever school dance. Fred had gone, too, but not with her. He had all but ignored her and hung out with the boys from the chess club instead. Emily hadn't had a clue what to wear or how to do her hair, so Annie had helped. Taped to the page was the photograph their father had taken of them before he'd driven them to the school that night. Annie looked totally preppy and all grown up in a slim black skirt and a robin's-egg-blue sweater that set off her natural blond hair and vibrant blue eyes. Emily had worn a coral-colored baby-doll dress, white slouch socks and...she squinted at the picture...white sneakers? Her hair had been crimped and pulled into a side ponytail.

“Oh, Emily. Seriously,
what
were you thinking?” She stared a moment longer, transfixed by her utter lack of fashion sense. She had to have been at least three or four years out of style. If that train wreck of an outfit had ever been
in
style.

Pressing on, she read the entry she scrawled into her journal after the dance. A few of the words were blurred by watermarks—tears, she remembered—but she had no trouble reading them.

Dear Heart,

The dance was a complete, total, unmitigated disaster, and I am a dismal failure of a human being.

Not one boy asked me to dance. Not one, not even Fred. He didn't ask anyone else, either, which is lucky for him, otherwise our friendship would be o-v-e-r. Done. Finished.

Jack was there, of course, and he still doesn't know I exist. His girlfriend, Belinda, was there, too, of course. I think I hate her more than anything on the planet. Seriously, I like the leeches in our pond here at the farm better than her. Jack danced with her all night and they totally broke the school rule about slow dancing and how much space there's supposed to be between the guy and the girl. I thought the rule was completely gross until I saw them together, but now I know why there has to be a rule. What I'd like to know is why no one was enforcing it.

As always, Annie was amazing. How come she got all the cool genes in the family and I'm stuck with the nerdy ones? It's totally not fair. She's so pretty and popular and her boyfriend, Eric, is completely and madly in love with her. She told me that he's even said the L-word. Can you imagine? And she said she said it back.

On the bright side—and according to my dad there is always a bright side—nothing that happens in my life after this horrible night could possibly come close to being this desperately humiliating.

She had been so naive. Just as well that her sweet and innocent—not to mention overly verbose—fourteen-year-old self had no idea what the future had in store for her.

Not only did no one ask me to dance, but I overheard Belinda say to Jack how lame all the niners were, especially the girl geeks who have zero fashion sense. And she was looking right at me when she said it!!!!!

The exclamation points had been blurred by tears, but Emily could still count all five of them. And she still remembered Jack's lack of response to the insult.

Seriously, I wanted to shrivel up and die right then and there. Jack laughed, but he didn't notice me since he was too busy noticing Belinda. And believe me, there was a lot to notice! Her dress didn't cover up much. If you ask me, if the school can have a rule about slow dancing, then there should be a rule about what people are allowed to wear while slow dancing. Let's get real. There's a dress code for school. There should be one for school dances, too.

Emily groaned and shook her head, thinking back to the English essay she had written on that very topic. “You were so lame,” she said to herself. Lame, lame, lame.

Fred had agreed, and then he had been annoyed she'd earned an A-plus on the paper. Apparently, their teacher had agreed with her. Fred's essay had been about the chess club, and how more students would discover how cool it was if they were only willing to give it a chance. Like that wasn't lame. He hadn't understood why their teacher had given him a B-minus. He had been equally annoyed when Emily had pointed out that while he might be a whiz at chess, his spelling and grammar needed work.

Emily smiled, thinking about fourteen-year-old Fred. He had also been a math genius, at least by her standards, and they had gradually fallen into a pattern of hanging out in the back room of his dad's barbershop after school. In exchange for her help with outlining and proofreading his English and history assignments, he had patiently explained algebraic formulas to her.

She continued reading the last paragraph of the school dance diary entry.

A few girls from my class and I hung out. We danced together a few times, but none of the boys noticed us. Even Fred ignored me, so why would a guy like Jack Evans pay attention to me? I might as well have been invisible. And as long as there are girls like Belinda Bellows around, then girls like me always will be. And so, dear Heart, that's it for me and school dances. I'm totally swearing off them. Good night.

Love, Emily

The entry was rife with teenage melodrama, but Emily found herself awash with the same emotions she'd experienced that night. If she'd had a mother, she would have curled up in her arms and cried her eyes out. Instead, she had crawled under the covers with her diary and her flashlight, and written her heart out.

There had been other dances, though, and she had gone to them, mostly because there was a chance Jack might notice her. But by the end of her sophomore year, she was still invisible. None of the boys at school, not even the ones in her class, paid any attention to her, and no one ever asked her to dance, let alone go on a date. By the time Annie was preparing for her senior prom, Emily had been in a complete funk, and she had been shocked by her sister's response when she finally confessed how she felt.

“You're always with Fred,” Annie said.

“So? We're friends.”

“Sure you are, but that's not how it looks to other boys. To them, the two of you look like a couple. If you want boys to notice you, you need to put yourself out there.”

Thinking back on it now made Emily cringe. She had made up every excuse in the book to avoid hanging around with Fred and to “put herself out there.” It hadn't worked, and after a week, she had decided to go back to being invisible because she missed her best friend.

Emily closed the diary and put it back in the cabinet. She ran a hand over her belly. “I never want you to feel this way, okay? Even if no one asks you to dance, I'll always be here to dry your tears and to tell you that things will get better.”

They had for Emily, and she definitely hadn't been invisible tonight. Jack's full attention had been on her. He had even turned off his cell phone. He'd been thoughtful, attentive, involved, and he'd kissed her in public, saying he didn't care who saw them. So why wasn't she convinced he was one hundred percent committed? Because tomorrow he was going back to Chicago, and he would once again be caught up in some murder case, and Emily would once again be out of sight. Last time, she had also been out of mind. Would that happen again? Only time would tell.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

T
HE
NEXT
MORNING
Emily blinked groggily and stretched her arms over her head. Something felt strange, and it took a moment to figure out what it was. The familiar squeak of Tadpole's old wheel had been replaced by the barely audible whisper of the new one. That should make Jack happy.

Thinking about him brought a rush of memories of last night's date, which were quickly swamped when she recalled the tender touch of his lips to hers. The kiss that almost wasn't.

She blinked, realizing she had dreamt about him last night, too. It had been one of those weirdly vivid dreams that seemed real and completely unreal all at the same time.

She was fourteen and sitting in homeroom with her crimped hair and wearing the ridiculous baby-doll dress. Everyone, even Fred, was pointing at her and laughing. Then Jack walked in, though it wasn't his homeroom. He completely ignored her and asked her homeroom teacher to dance, but old Mrs. Potter asked to see his hall pass and then gave him a detention when he couldn't produce one. Unfazed, Jack grabbed the teacher and spun her across the front of the classroom in a series of pirouettes. Emily's classmates leaped to their feet and broke into a chorus of “Girls Just Want To Have Fun.” Mrs. Potter was surprisingly graceful in spite of her serviceable lace-up oxfords and arthritic hip. And then, as only happens in dreams and schmaltzy TV shows, Mrs. Potter turned into Belinda Bellows wearing a tiara. Her Miss Riverboat Queen sash didn't quite conceal her cleavage. Emily was left to watch from the sidelines.

She groaned and rubbed her eyes. Her dream had turned into an episode of
Glee
, and she was a total loser.

“I need coffee,” she said out loud to herself, flinging back the covers and swinging her feet onto the floor. She ran her hands over her belly. “But I can't have coffee.” Someday, this little person had better appreciate her giving up her favorite thing in the whole world. Emily wandered into the kitchen, still wearing the T-shirt and pajama pants she'd pulled on last night, not bothering with a robe. The morning sunshine streaming through the windows was already warming her apartment.

In all fairness to Jack, he had not left her sitting on the sidelines yesterday. As first dates went, it had been pretty wonderful. She loved that quaint little restaurant, and the only person she knew there was a woman whose son was in CJ's therapeutic riding program, but the woman didn't know who Jack was and wasn't at all surprised that Emily was having dinner with him.

She put on a pot of decaf, and while it brewed, she sliced a bagel in half and popped it into the toaster.

Last night, Jack had been, well, amazing. He had asked about her family, about how Annie and Isaac were managing since Eric's funeral, about her work on the newspaper. He had even asked about Tadpole, although she sensed he wasn't a fan of rodents. He hadn't seemed to want to talk about the case he was currently working on, a case that had coincidentally brought him back to Riverton, yesterday of all days, to interview a witness. He had talked about police work in general, though. She could tell he was proud of his work. He should be, and she knew he loved living in a big city. To him, the obvious solution to their situation was to get married and for her to move to Chicago with him. After having feelings for him for all these years—and she could privately acknowledge she still had them—those feelings weren't enough to make her leave Riverton. He wasn't in love with her. She would be miserable in the city, and before long, he would miserable, too. That was the impasse, and she saw no way to bridge the gap between their two very different lives.

Then a knock at the door downstairs had her scurrying back to the bedroom and hastily pulling on her bathrobe.

* * *

E
MILY
ANSWERED
THE
door looking as though she had just rolled out of bed, a robe haphazardly cinched at the waist, hair adorably mussed, an empty coffee cup clutched in one hand.

“Good morning,” Jack said.

“Good morning. You're early.”

He glanced at his watch. “It's ten after nine. Did I wake you?”

“No, I've been up for a while. Just waiting for my coffee to finish brewing.”

“I see.”

“It's decaf,” she said, sounding a little defensive. “Pregnant women aren't supposed to have caffeine.”

“Ah, well, then, that explains a lot.”

“What exactly?”

“Why you're so grumpy. Why you still haven't invited me in.” He smiled as he said it, hoping to lighten her mood, and she returned the smile.

“Sorry,” she said, stepping aside.

He joined her in the narrow vestibule. “No apology necessary.”

“I'm not a morning person, and I really like to start my day with a good, strong cup of coffee,” she said. “And then follow that up with at least four more throughout the day.”

He locked the door behind him and followed her up the stairs, noting the pink-pigs-with-wings print on her yellow pajama pants and her bright green fuzzy frog slippers. Unpretentious, quirky, cute as all get-out.

“Coffee's ready,” she said when they reached her apartment. “Would you like some?”

“Sure.”

“It's decaf.”

“So you said.”

“Sorry, I'm not—”

“A morning person. I think we've established that.” He set a bakery box on the tiny table for two in the small dining area next to the kitchen. “But here's the more important question. Are you a doughnut person?”

She gave him a narrow-eyed smirk. “Doughnuts? Isn't that kind of a cliché?”

“There's a cliché about pregnant women and doughnuts?” he asked, feigning innocence.

“Very clever, Mr. Police Officer stopping at the doughnut shop.” She filled the mug she'd been clutching with eager anticipation, pulled another from a cupboard and filled it for him. Then she sat, lifted the lid of the box and sighed. “Mmm, jelly-filled. My favorite. How did you know?”

“Is there anyone who doesn't like them?” He waited till she chose one, then picked up another.

They sat and bumped doughnuts across the table, fell silent as they both bit and chewed and savored. He must have been grinning when she made eye contact again.

“What?” she asked.

He plucked a paper napkin from the holder on the table and swiped at her powdered sugar–dusted nose, a task that could have been accomplished with a kiss under different circumstances.

She laughed. “Not my best look.”

“Distractingly cute, actually.”

“I don't think anyone's ever called me cute. I've always been more of a plain Jane.” Her eyes widened, and she hurried on. “Sorry, that was a dumb thing to say. I'm not fishing for compliments.”

“No need to fish for them.” Could a woman who looked knock-your-socks-off gorgeous in a natty bathrobe and fuzzy slippers really be insecure about her looks? Apparently. He made a mental note to say something nice to her more often.

“Did you have a good visit with your parents?” she asked. She was blushing now.

“I did, mostly over breakfast this morning. My mother made pancakes, bacon and eggs, and some kind of fruit-and-yogurt parfait thing that was surprisingly good.”

Emily stared at him. “You had all that for breakfast, and now you're eating doughnuts?”

He grinned. He couldn't help himself. “Every good meal deserves dessert.”

“I'd be as big as a house in no time,” Emily said, laughing and then blushing again. “I will be anyway. I'm already getting too big for my jeans.”

Knowing it was never wise to talk to a woman about her weight under any circumstances, he redirected the conversation back to his family. “My mother's biggest worry these days is the suspicious disappearance of her garden trowel.” She had mentioned it again over breakfast that morning, and for the second time he had changed the subject.

“It's all very strange. I'm glad she told you.”

It was a misplaced garden trowel. What was strange about that? “You know about this?”

Emily nodded. “She sent me an email yesterday.”

Panic grabbed Jack by the throat. “I see.”

But he didn't. Did Emily have regular email contact with his mother? And if so, why?

“It was for my blog,” she explained. “I've written a series of posts on all the mysterious disappearances around town.”

“So you don't have regular email contact with my mother?”

“Not at all. Why would I?”

Good question. He relaxed a little, knowing that his mother and his...the mother of his child...weren't in regular contact. “My mother didn't mention you had a blog.” Or maybe he hadn't been paying attention. “She mentioned something about garden gnomes, though. What else has gone missing?”

“Stuff from people's yards, mostly. Garden ornaments, several gnomes, those sorts of things. And now your mom's trowel. The police think it's probably kids playing a prank, and Ken won't let me print the stories in the
Gazette
. He says they're not newsworthy enough, but the truth is, he doesn't want ‘his town,' as he calls it, to look like a haven for petty thieves. So I've been blogging about it instead.”

“Are you sure people haven't just misplaced them?”

She shrugged. “I've been marking the locations on the town map on my bulletin board, and there's definitely a pattern. All the thefts—” she must've seen his raised eyebrows because she amended that statement “—all the missing items are from the same part of town, and they always seem to disappear after dark.”

He decided to play along. “So, no gnome-nappings in broad daylight. Interesting.”

She frowned. “Now you're making fun of me.”

“Guilty as charged. What's the name of your blog? I'll check it out, maybe put in a good word for you with Chief Fenwick.”

“Very funny.” She devoured the rest of the doughnut and chose another—a double-chocolate glazed this time. “My blog is called
Small Town, Big Hearts
. It should come up if you do a search for it.”

“And my mother reads your blog?”

“I guess so. I'll be honest. I was completely shocked to get an email from her yesterday afternoon. Initially, I thought she was writing to me because you told her about...us. You have no idea how relieved I was to know she doesn't know yet.”

And you have no idea how relieved I am that you and my mother aren't email buddies
. “When are you going to tell your family?” he asked.

“My sisters already know. They just don't know about you.”

“And Fred?”

“He's the best secret-keeper there is.”

Jack wished he could believe that.

“I always go for Annie's Sunday dinner, so I'll tell them tonight. I'm not ready to tell my dad, though, and my sisters will keep this under their hats.”

“So, your sisters know about the baby and they didn't ask about the father?”

Emily turned six shades of red. “Oh, um, they did. I sort of...lied.”

“Sort of? What exactly does that mean?”

She hung her head. “I wasn't going to tell you this... It's so embarrassing... But I hadn't heard from you, so I thought you thought it had been a one-night stand. Since we weren't together, I thought you might not want anyone to know, so I lied. Sort of.”

“And that lie was...?”

He watched her close her eyes and take a deep breath, then let it out.

“I told them it was Fred's.” She opened her eyes and looked at him.

Momentarily speechless and not liking the direction his thoughts were headed in, he stared back.

“It was stupid and irresponsible and I'm sorry, but I'll fix it tonight.”

Right now, her sisters were the least of his worries. “Is there a chance that Fred could be—”

Her eyes turned into saucers. “No! Good grief, no way! Fred and I are friends, always have been
just
friends.” Her visceral response was a typical reaction for someone who was telling the truth and genuinely shocked by someone else's misconception. “You have to believe me. Fred and I were never... Oh, I can't even say it.”

“Does he know your sisters think it's his?”

She nodded. “Trust me, he was as freaked out as you are. That's why he texted me to come to the shop yesterday afternoon.”

And which further explained the man's nervous behavior when Jack had walked in for a haircut.

“Do you believe me?”

He did believe her. He briefly considered leaving her on the hook for a few minutes, but she seemed to be having difficulty catching her breath.

“I believe you. Just promise me you'll straighten this out today.”

“I will,” she said, still a little breathless. “If it's any consolation, they didn't believe me.”

No consolation whatsoever. Add to that the fact that three people already knew Emily was pregnant. One of those people knew Jack was the father, and by tonight, the other two would be in the know. Emily trusted them to keep her secret until she was ready to tell her father and then announce the big news to the world.

Jack didn't trust anyone that much. He had woken up early, surprisingly refreshed and clearheaded from a sound sleep in his old maple captain's bed—a bed he'd slept in for half his life. He hadn't changed his mind about convincing Emily to marry him and move to Chicago. It was the only logical thing to do. Emily might think she could postpone the inevitable with a handful of get-to-know-you dates, but not for long. Once their families knew the truth, the pressure would be on. But what if Emily still refused to move to Chicago?

He planned to meet with Gord Fenwick later that morning. There would be more pressure to seriously consider if not outright accept the job offer. Jack had never contemplated a move back to Riverton, but one of them would have to compromise. He hoped that person didn't have to be him, but it couldn't hurt to listen to whatever Gordon had to say.