The Pregnant Bride (5 page)

Because he already has a wife.

“Don’t get your knickers in an uproar,” Irene said calmly. “Whatever you decide, I’m with you all the way, you know that. You can work as much or as little as you like before the birth. And after, when you feel up to it, you can come back to the center and bring the munchkin with you. If single parenthood’s the route you choose to go, you’ve got the ideal setup. No need to worry about baby-sitters or leaving him with strangers.”

She made it all sound so possible. And maybe it would have remained that way if, that following Sunday night, Edmund Delaney hadn’t shown up on Jenna’s doorstep.

“I’ve had a devil of a time tracking you down,” he said, when she opened the door. “You’re not listed in the phone book, you never did tell me your last name, and if it hadn’t been that the desk clerk at The Inn was susceptible to a bribe, I never would have found you. You look like hell, by the way.”

Appalled, she stared at him, willing him to be a figment of her nauseated imagination. In the beginning, she’d fantasized more than was good for her about what might have happened if he hadn’t been married and they’d spent a few more days together. But common sense had finally prevailed and she’d long since accepted that, in his own way, Edmund was no better than Mark and she was well rid of both of them.

He was looking at her quizzically, his slate-blue eyes with their absurdly long lashes sparkling with laughter. “Aren’t you going to invite me in, sweet pea?”

“No,” she said. “Go away. And I’m not your sweet pea.”

But before she could slam it in his face, he had his foot in the door, and then the rest of him. “Hey,” he said, “I know you’re probably ticked with me, but I can explain.”

Ignoring the lurching of her stomach, she straightened to her full height and glared at him, sincerely believing she was in charge of herself and her emotions. “Nothing you have to say excuses your behavior. You are…you are…!”

“Pond scum?” A grin tugged at his mouth and he had the audacity to reach out and cup her chin.

His hand was warm and strong and steady; the kind that made a woman feel safe and protected and all those things she badly needed to see her through the coming months and years. And knowing she couldn’t have them—at least not from him—had her suddenly choking back the tears which, along with all the other less than welcome symptoms of pregnancy, plagued her without warning.

“I would have come before,” he said gravely, seeing her distress. “But I’ve been away and only just got back. How are you, Jenna, my dear?”

Pregnant, that’s how! And just to prove it, the soup she’d had for dinner rose up in her throat with alarming urgency. Blindly, she spun away from him and headed for the bathroom at the end of the hall.

S
HE
had no idea he’d followed her, that he saw her hunched over the toilet bowl and heard her retching, until she felt him scooping the hair away from her face and pressing a cold cloth to her forehead.

“Ugh…!” she gagged, swatting ineffectually at him. “Leave me…alone…!”

He stroked her back as another spasm took hold. “Not a chance,” he said. “You ought to know by now that I can’t ignore a lady in distress.”

“I will not have you see me like this!”

“From where I stand, sweet pea, you’re in no position to be issuing orders. You’ve got your work cut out tossing your cookies.”

The man was about as sensitive as a water buffalo. “Show a little tact, for pity’s sake! I don’t need an…audience.”

“Instead of fighting me every step of the way,” he said virtuously, “you might try thanking me for showing up when I did, since it’s obvious to anyone with two neurons to rub together that you could use a little help.”

She crawled to a sitting position on the lip of the bathtub as the bout of sickness abated. “Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m fresh out of gratitude where you’re concerned.”

He rinsed the cloth in more cold water and attempted to wipe her flushed face. “No call to get testy, Jenna. You aren’t the first woman I’ve seen throw up and I suspect you won’t be the last.”

She slapped his hand away. “Stop fussing over me! I’m feeling better.”

He inspected her minutely, starting with her bare feet sticking out at the bottom of her ratty old pink bathrobe, and ending with her hair which hadn’t seen the working end of a brush in hours. “You look like the wrath of God!”

“So you keep telling me.”

“Worse even than you did the night we met.”

“Thank you,” she said peevishly.

“Is it something you ate that’s making you ill?”

“Yes,” she lied, because to admit the truth to him, of all people, was out of the question.

“You want me to put you to bed?”

“God, no!” She sprang up from the edge of the tub and tried to push past him. “You’ve already done enough damage!”

She didn’t need his raised eyebrows and quizzical expression to know she’d almost blown her cover.

“How so, Jenna?” he asked carefully, manacling her wrist in an iron grip. “What heinous crime have I committed, beyond making a habit of being there to pick up the pieces when things go wrong in your life?”

She attempted to stare him down, which was a mistake. For a start, he didn’t stare down easily. And second, he was too disturbingly good-looking. Admiring his face, with its strong, clean lines, led to her remembering other, equally chiseled parts of him, and that provoked exactly the kind of turbulence her stomach was in no shape to tolerate. “I’m surprised you have the nerve to ask me that!”

“If you’re referring to the night we spent together, let me remind you that I made a superhuman effort to decline the invitation you so charmingly extended.”

“Oh!” she gasped, a furious blush riding up her neck at the unquestionable truth of his allegation. “Only an utter boor would throw that back in my face!”

His hold on her wrist lessened, became a lazy, evocative caress. “Before you fly into orbit, let me also say that I found it a memorably magnificent experience which I have never for a moment regretted.”

“Did you really?” she snapped, refusing to be blindsided by his belated attempt at flattery. “Is that why you left so early the next morning without so much as a note telling me why?”

“Funny you should mention that since it’s one of the reasons I felt obliged to track you down now. Believe me, Jenna, I’m well aware I have some explaining to do.” He trailed his fingers over her palm, folded her hand around his, and propelled her toward the door. “But if it’s all the same to you, I’d as soon find some place more conducive to conversation before I unburden myself. Unless, of course, you think you might be sick again any time soon?”

Annoyed to find herself warming to his touch, she wrenched her hand away. “I already told you, I’m feeling much better.”

“Enough to offer me coffee?”

She hadn’t been able to tolerate coffee for days. The mere mention of it was enough to leave her salivating like a rabid dog. “I’m out of coffee.”

“Beer, then?”

“I don’t drink beer.”

He compressed his rather beautiful mouth, though whether it was to contain a grimace or a grin she couldn’t decide. “Okay, Jenna, you choose. And if acting the perfect hostess strains your energy too severely, I’ll be happy to take over in the kitchen and do the honors myself.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” she said, resigned to the fact that she wasn’t going to be rid of him until he was good and ready to leave of his own accord. “I can offer you ginger ale or tea. Take your pick.”

“How gracious! I’ll settle for tea, thanks.”

She indicated the living room to the left of the front hall. “Have a seat in there then, while I make it.”

She was just as glad he hadn’t asked for ginger ale. At least waiting for the kettle to boil for tea allowed her time to scurry to her bedroom, abandon the pink bathrobe for a silk jersey caftan, unearth a pair of high-heeled satin slippers, and rake a brush through her hair. Most definitely
not
to impress Mr. Married-Man Edmund Delaney, she assured her pasty-faced image in the mirror, but to make herself feel human again. She hadn’t needed his candid assessment to know she looked as if she’d just been dug up!

He hadn’t been idly twiddling his thumbs during the time she was gone, either. When she carried the tea tray into the living room, she saw that he’d turned on a table lamp and was leafing through a photograph album he’d found in her bookcase. “Do make yourself at home,” she said sourly.

“I already have,” he returned, not the least bit perturbed at being caught snooping. “Is this the chinless wonder you almost married?”

She cast a quick glance at the picture in question. “It is. And while you might not think so, most people find Mark very handsome.”

Edmund snorted irreverently. “I guess—if you’re into roosters! Quite a beak he’s sporting, wouldn’t you say?”

“Is that why you showed up tonight?” she asked, depositing the tray on the coffee table with more force than was good for either. “To belittle someone who once played a very important role in my life, and so make me out to be an even bigger idiot than I already am?”

He slapped the album closed and replaced it on the shelf. “No, sweet pea, that’s not my style, though I don’t mind admitting to a certain curiosity about him. I already told you one reason I’m here is to apologize for pulling a disappearing act on the Island, the way I did. The other is to see how you’re coping in the aftermath of being left at the church door.”

“Perfectly well, thank you. And it seems to me that you should save your apologies for the person who most deserves them.”

“Huh?”

She poured the tea and handed him a cup. “I’m referring to your wife, Edmund, though I suppose you can be excused for forgetting you have one, given your penchant for infidelity.”

If his surprise wasn’t real, he gave an excellent imitation of the genuine article. “What the devil are you talking about, Jenna?” he exclaimed, practically slopping his tea into his lap. “I’m not married!”

“Really?” she said, regarding him levelly over the rim of her cup. “Then how would you describe yourself, given that some woman claiming to be your wife called The Inn and left a message which was urgent enough to make you cut short your holiday and leave me feeling like a one-night floozy?”

“That was my
ex-wife,
Adrienne.”

The only cause for Jenna’s heart to give a joyful little leap at his disclosure was relief at learning she hadn’t been party to adultery. She would admit to no other possible explanation!

“And the reason I left so suddenly,” Edmund went on grimly, “is that my four-year-old daughter had been seriously injured in a farming accident.”

“Oh…!” Dismay and embarrassment eclipsed her brief elation like storm clouds chasing away the sun. “Oh, Edmund, I’m so sorry! Is she…?”

“She’s going to be fine, but it’s been a tough haul. That’s what’s kept me away so long. I wanted to stay close until she was over the worst.”

“Well, of course! Any parent would.” Not wishing her next question to sound indelicate, she phrased her words carefully. “Will there be any permanent…consequences?”

“The doctors say not, though whether they’re right remains to be seen. But it’s the emotional trauma she’s suffered that concerns me. And her future safety.”

Every self-protective instinct Jenna possessed urged her not to get any more involved with this man than she already had. Her life was complicated enough. But when she’d hit rock bottom, he was the one she’d run to and he hadn’t turned her away.

He’d made her laugh when she’d thought she’d never laugh again. He dried her tears. And he’d loved her, if only for one night.

No laughter curved his mouth now, though. No wicked amusement lurked in his eyes. His face, his posture, the way he ran his finger inside the collar of his sport shirt as if it were strangling him, the heavy sigh he couldn’t quite disguise, spoke of a man—a
parent
—beset by worry. And that changed everything.

It brought home in a very real way her own impending role in a child’s life. She’d never expected to fall pregnant, least of all by a man she barely knew. But now that it had happened, she couldn’t bring herself to regret it.

Despite the gossip and speculation she knew lay ahead, not to mention the unsought advice, she wanted this baby more than anything she’d ever wanted in her life. She loved it with all the fierce, protective passion of a tigress guarding her cub. How she would survive if something happened to her child, if tragedy were to strike him or her, she couldn’t begin to imagine. It would kill her!

As if what had befallen Edmund’s daughter might somehow communicate itself to her own little one, Jenna found herself unconsciously shielding her womb with her hand. “Why do you think she isn’t safe, Edmund?”

“She’s playing where she shouldn’t be, wandering around unsupervised. And her mother’s too busy trying to be the perfect country man’s wife to remember that her first responsibility is to the child left over from a marriage gone sour.”

“Are you saying you blame your ex-wife for the accident?”

“I blame her and her husband! He should have been more careful! A four-year-old needs to be watched constantly, not left to run free wherever she pleases, especially not when there’s heavy machinery around. She damn near lost both her legs because no one was looking out for her!”

The tea Jenna had consumed lurched unpleasantly in her stomach and threatened to rise up in her throat. Horrified, she clapped a hand to her mouth.

“Hey, sweet pea, don’t get all choked up,” Edmund said, his tone gentling. “It didn’t happen. Molly’s making a good recovery, and I’m going to see to it she isn’t put at risk like that again. Just because I’m not married to her mother doesn’t change the fact that I’ll always be her father, and I’m not about to settle for a secondary role in my child’s life. I intend to assert my parental rights to the full.”

So possessively passionate a declaration made Jenna’s blood run a little cold. How would he react if he found out he’d fathered more than one child? Would he insist on his full parental rights regarding that child, too? Perhaps even try to relegate
her
to a less prominent role in her baby’s life, to compensate for what he’d already lost?

The mere idea made her feel ill all over again. On the surface, he came across as a man eminently reasonable and just, yet she sensed that, if stirred to anger, he would make a formidable opponent.

But what she
knew
was that having him as an ally had helped her through the darkest hours of her life. He’d been her champion when she had no one else to turn to. Because of him, she’d emerged from her own misfortunes all the stronger. Given that, and the knowledge that his learning the truth would not, after all, destroy a marriage, was she being fair to keep her pregnancy a secret from him?

Nervously, she smoothed her right hand over the fingers of her left. The answers were no longer as clear-cut as she’d once thought, and she wished he’d leave so that she could be alone and sort out her thoughts.

“You do that a lot you know,” Edmund said.

She looked up, puzzled. “Do what?”

“Trace your thumb over the place where you used to wear Armstrong’s ring.”

“Really?”

“Really. Still crying yourself to sleep every night over him?”

“Absolutely not! He’s out of my life.”

“You almost sound as if you mean that.”

“I do,” she said emphatically.

She’d been making the same claim for weeks and couldn’t have said when it had shifted from proud denial to relieved truth. There hadn’t been a thunderclap to mark the day or moment. It was more that distance had not lent Mark enchantment. Instead, it had stripped him of his carefully cultivated mystique and revealed such inherent weaknesses that she had been able to let him go without regret.

Now, other events—her baby, motherhood—filled the space in her heart which once he’d occupied. “He wasn’t as crucial to my happiness as I believed,” she said. “In fact, I’m enjoying being my own person again.”

“That’s good,” Edmund said. “I’m glad.”

“I wish more people shared your opinion! I’m forever being set up to meet someone new. My friends refuse to believe I’m happy being unattached, and as for my family…!” She shook her head disbelievingly. “They think the breakup is the tragedy of the decade and I should try to get back together with him, if you can imagine.”

“And you’d never consider the possibility?”

“Never. It’s out of the question.”
For a reason you can’t begin to imagine!

“Then I don’t need to worry about you anymore.” He smothered a yawn and got to his feet. “I should push off. You’re looking a bit peaked again, Jenna, and I’ve had a long day.”

An hour before, she’d have said he never should have come to begin with. Now, surprisingly, she found herself reluctant to see him go. “It was nice of you to stop by.”