The Pregnant Bride Wore White

“Jake! You’ve come home. Jake!”

Keri couldn’t see him – too many people blocked her view – but her instincts took over. Five months ago she could’ve hidden her news until she’d told him. Now he could see for himself, without any softening of the blow first.

But wasn’t he even going to acknowledge her? Keri set her hands protectively on her belly, shielding her baby from the hurt she felt herself. She hadn’t realised how much it mattered that he accept her and their –

“What’s going on here?” Jake asked his mother.

“We’re having a baby shower. Aren’t you going to say hello to her?” she asked in little more than a whisper.

Keri managed a smile, knowing everyone expected her to run to him.

The problem was, she could barely manage to breathe, much less run.

“Well, go on, son,” Aggie said, grinning. “Kiss the woman you love.”

SUSAN CROSBY believes in the value of setting goals, but also in the magic of making wishes, which often do come true – as long as she works hard enough. Along life’s journey she’s done a lot of the usual things – married, had children, attended college a little later than the average co-ed and earned a BA in English, then she dived off the deep end into a full-time writing career, a wish come true.

Susan enjoys writing about people who take a chance on love, sometimes against all odds. She loves warm, strong heroes, good-hearted, self-reliant heroines and will always believe in happily ever after.

More can be learned about her at www.susancrosby.com.

Available in August 2010 from Mills & Boon® Special MomentsTM

Daddy on Demand by Helen R Myers & Déjà You by Lynda Sandoval

A Father for Danny by Janice Carter & Baby Be Mine by Eve Gaddy

The Mummy Makeover by Kristi Gold & Mummy for Hire by Cathy Gillen Thacker

The Pregnant Bride Wore White by Susan Crosby

Sophie’s Secret by Tara Taylor Quinn

Her So-Called Fiancé by Abby Gaines

Diagnosis: Daddy by Gina Wilkins

To Barbara Ferris, for your unfailing dedication to romance novels and authors.

Your enthusiasm is part of what keeps me going.

You truly do make the world a much better place.

Prologue

A bell jangled as Keri Overton pushed open the diner door. Heat hit her first, a welcome break from the biting December cold, then came the distinctive aromas of grilling hamburgers, onions and strong coffee. None of it appealed to a stomach already filled to capacity with butterflies.

She stepped inside and gave the lunchtime crowd a quick inspection, seeking one person, coming up blank. Disappointment but also relief swamped her. After all, what would she say? Her head started echoing with the words she’d practiced. “Hi, Jake, remember me?” Scratch that. There was no way he would forget her. “Hello, Jake. There’s something you should know before the rest of the world finds out…” Right. That would go over well.

Keri sighed. She hadn’t really expected to find him so easily, but he’d told her about this town, his town, and this diner, so she’d hoped—and feared—he would be sitting in a booth, having the burger and fries he’d raved about.

The other patrons gave her curious looks without interrupting their conversations. Chance City was a small tourist town, accustomed to visitors, even the day after Christmas.

Keri took the last stool at the counter, the only one available. From there she had a good view of everyone, not just those seated at the counter, but the ones in the red-leatherette-and-chrome banquettes. She plucked a menu from behind a mini-jukebox, wondering if the townspeople would close ranks if she asked questions about one of their own.

A woman in jeans and black shirt approached, her salt-and-pepper braid disappearing down her back. “Welcome to the Lode. My name’s Honey. What can I get you?”

“Do you have ginger ale?”

“We do. Anything else?”

“That’ll do for now, thanks.”

“All our desserts are homemade daily,” Honey said, gesturing toward a glass case displaying pies and cakes like colorful pop art. “Our soup, too. Got chicken noodle today, and clam chowder. Warm you up from the inside out.”

Keri smiled at the woman’s enthusiasm. “Thank you. I’ll keep it in mind.” After a minute, Keri stuck the menu in its holder and scanned the room again, more slowly this time. She’d come with a purpose, after all. He had family here. Would any of them look enough like him that she could identify a relative she might speak to? Could she even remember his face well enough?

She tried to envision him. Blue eyes, dark brown hair, tall, fit, sexy. Yes, sexy, even under the circumstances in which they’d met. And lips that had created a firestorm inside her, deep, intense, and thrilling. She’d harbored fantasies about him ever since.

Honey set a glass of ginger ale on the counter as the overhead bell sounded. An elderly woman came in, escorted by two thirtysomething men—one tall, with black hair, the other a little shorter, his brown hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. Many of the customers greeted them. They smiled and said hello in return, but they didn’t seem relaxed, especially the man with the black hair, who carried what was no doubt the woman’s bright purple cane.

Wait. A man with a ponytail? Keri studied the three people further. They had to be Jake’s relatives. The man with the long hair would be his youngest brother, Joe. Which meant the black-haired man was Donovan. They had five sisters, too—a huge family.

Keri set her interest on the older woman. Their grandmother, probably, the woman they called Nana Mae? Keri had heard stories about Jake’s whole family for three days. She already felt as if she knew them.

“Oh, look,” the woman—Nana Mae—said, her steps small and shuffling. “There’s Laura and Dixie. Let’s go squeeze in the booth with them.”

Dixie? That name didn’t just ring in Keri’s head, it clanged. Jake had talked about her, too. And her broken engagement to Joe last fall.

Keri looked at the two women in the booth nearest to her as the others slid in, Donovan pulling up a chair to sit at the end. The women were both blonde but different from each other, one being curly haired and earthy, the other sleek and elegant.

“Any word?” the curly-haired blonde asked.

Joe shook his head. A long, uncomfortable silence followed.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Nana Mae said impatiently. “You can talk about it in front of me. I won’t have another stroke. Jake’s missing. He’s always come home for Christmas, except this year. And he hasn’t even called. It’s not like him. Something is wrong. We can say that out loud. We need to say it out loud.”

Missing? Keri grabbed the counter as her world tilted. Dread scattered the butterflies in her stomach, leaving a ball of ice behind. Her heart pounding deafeningly loud, she focused harder on their conversation, needing to hear what they were saying.

Everyone except Donovan was talking, stumbling over each other’s sentences.

“Stop,” he finally said, not loud, but forceful enough for the discussion to come to an abrupt halt. “Jake’s not missing. He’s on an assignment where he can’t call us until he’s done.”

Keri swallowed hard. Now what?

“You knew?” the elderly woman asked, her face gone pale. “Why didn’t you say something before?”

“I just got word myself. I would’ve told you after lunch. In private.”

Keri slid off the stool and made her way to the table. “Please excuse me, but are you Jake McCoy’s brothers, Joe and Donovan?” she asked through the lump in her throat. “And you’re his grandmother, Nana Mae?”

“Yes, dear. Who are you?”

“My name is Keri Overton. I…know Jake. I came all the way from Venezuela to see him.” She looked at Donovan, deciding he was the one she needed to convince she was telling the truth. “You really don’t know how to get in touch with him?”

“No.”

Desperately, she said, “Aren’t you a big-time journalist or something? Someone with contacts and connections?” Her heart picked up speed again at his icy expression. As if he hated her or something…

Which meant Jake had told his brother about her. About their circumstances. About her being responsible for what had happened to Jake in Venezuela.

“Donny, get the girl a chair,” Nana Mae said.

He didn’t, but he did stand and offer his.

The room started to swirl a little. She should probably sit and put her head between her knees.

Strong hands grabbed her as she reeled, helping to lower her to the chair. Keri lifted her head to thank him, but he was out of focus.

Nana Mae’s voice reached her, however. “You’re pregnant.”

Keri nodded, which made the room tilt.

“And you’re looking for Jake. So I’ll take a stab in the dark and say you’re carrying Jake’s baby.”

She needed him, and he wasn’t there. Her vision narrowed to one bright point. Sound barely penetrated her deadening world. “Yes,” she said finally, right before everything went black.

Chapter One

Five months later

Keri sat in a straight-back chair, eating cake and sipping a tangy fruit punch. The living room of the beautiful old Victorian house was decorated with pink-and-blue crepe paper and balloons. Adding to the vivid atmosphere were lots of brightly dressed women, the same women who had welcomed her with open arms to Jake McCoy’s town, even though they only had Keri’s word that Jake was the father of her baby, due any day. Fainting was apparently a reasonable measure of truth telling.

Her child wouldn’t lack for anything, Keri thought, looking at the colorful array of baby clothes and gear, the largesse of the baby shower now winding down. Some items were new and store bought, others were handmade, repaired or recycled with loving care. Her eyes welled at everyone’s generosity.

“Don’t you go crying on us again,” Dixie Callahan warned from the chair next to her. “I’ve already had to redo my mascara twice.”

“Switch to waterproof,” Keri teased the woman, who had quickly become her best friend, the curly-haired blonde from the Take a Lode Off Diner that life-changing day last December. Along with Donovan, Dixie had kept Keri from sliding off the chair when she fainted and had felt proprietary ever since. “It’s hormones, Dix. I have no control over them. Anyway, I’m not sad. I’m happy.”

As happy as a nine-months-pregnant, thirty-year-old woman could be, she supposed, when the father of her baby hadn’t been heard from for five months. Had he been injured during his assignment, whatever that was? Would someone inform them of that—or if he died? Would he ever know he’d fathered a child?

Not that he’d ever sought the role of father. Far from it. Since Keri had landed in town, she’d learned that all three McCoy brothers were commitment-phobic, although the youngest brother, Joe, had been engaged briefly to Dixie last fall after fifteen years of an onagain, off-again relationship that had started when they were high school freshmen.

Keri had moved too often and had lived outside of the U.S. most of her life, so she’d never known that kind of long-lasting relationship. “Having roots” was just a concept to her, not a reality.

“How’re you doing, angel?” Aggie McCoy, Jake’s mother, asked, bending close, worry in her eyes. Aggie was the world’s best hugger, her cushy body like Mother Earth personified, her bottle-black hair and vibrant blue eyes suited to her personality. Keri adored her.

“I’m not in labor, Aggie,” she answered with a grin. She’d had two false alarms in the past week, so it was no surprise that everyone was anxious. “How’s Nana Mae? Is she tired after all this noise and activity?”

“She’s loving every second of your party. Holding court, as you can see. Mama’s in her glory. You’ve been so good for her.”

“I’m the lucky one.” By the end of Keri’s first day in town, she’d been hired as a live-in attendant for Maebelle McCoy, Aggie’s eighty-nine-year-old mother-in-law. Nana Mae needed help but would never admit it. Keri needed a place to stay but wouldn’t accept charity. Two birds, one stone, Joe and Aggie had pointed out. So, Keri earned her keep by helping out Nana Mae, a job that required more domestic duties than the nursing care that Keri was trained to give.

Aggie took Keri’s hand. “I wish with all my heart that Jake would walk through that front door right this second.”

“Me, too,” Keri said, her heart doing a little dance at the thought. She’d been fretting about his return for what seemed like years instead of months. She just wanted to get the conversation over with, so she would know how he felt and what they would do about it. Even her dreams weren’t immune to her tension, having become much more intense lately, more detailed.

“I know, angel. And I know how much you love him.” Choked up, Aggie squeezed her hand.

Keri looked at her lap. She couldn’t tell Aggie the truth. Jake needed to be the one to decide what he wanted his family to know, not Keri. Still, she felt guilty for keeping things from them. And also worried about him coming home and finding her pregnant. Her emotions were jumbled, changing daily, sometimes hourly.

“Joe’s got some empty boxes,” Aggie said after a moment. “He’ll take everything to Mama’s for you. A bunch of us will come along and help you put everything in place. You shouldn’t be moving heavy things now.”

“Thank you, Aggie. I don’t know what I’d do without you and your generous friends and family. You were so kind to host this shower for me.”

“It’s my grandbaby.” She may have eight children and sixteen grandchildren, but this yet-to-be-born child was her Jake’s child.

People started saying their goodbyes, the noise escalating, punctuated with laughter. Then Aggie opened the front door as the first few guests were leaving.

“Oh, my word!” She stood utterly still, before suddenly shaking herself, a huge smile spreading over her face. “Jake! You’ve come home. Jake!”

Keri couldn’t see him—too many people blocked her view—but her instincts took over. She stood, looking for a place to hide, panicked, the urge to avoid him stronger than the urge to see him. Five months ago she could’ve hidden her news until she’d told him. Now he could see for himself, without any softening of the blow first.

And in front of his family and friends.

The sea of people parted, putting her at one end of what felt like a dark tunnel, with Jake at the other end, his arms around his joyous mother, Donovan at his side. Donovan’s gaze fired straight at Keri. She ignored it to take in Jake’s appearance, her heart sinking. He’d lost weight. His hair hadn’t been cut in who knew how long. He looked as if he hadn’t slept for…well, months.

Tears pushed at her eyes and burned her throat. What happened to you?

He scanned the crowd. Everyone seemed to be holding their breath, waiting for him to spot Keri, but his gaze didn’t linger on her, giving her just a brief, blank stare before continuing on.

He wasn’t even going to acknowledge her? Or worse, he didn’t recognize her? Keri set her hands protectively on her belly, shielding her baby from the hurt she felt herself. She hadn’t realized how much it mattered that he accept her and their—

His gaze zoomed back to her and zeroed in, frozen.

“What’s going on here?” he asked his mother, who still had an arm around him.

“We’re having a baby shower. Aren’t you going to say hello to her?” she asked in little more than a whisper.

Keri managed a smile, knowing everyone expected her to run to him.

The problem was, she could barely manage to breathe, much less run.

“Well, go on, son,” Aggie said, grinning. “Kiss the woman you love.”

Jake’s blue eyes lasered Keri’s then lowered to her abdomen and back up again.

“Welcome home,” she said, her voice shaky, her whole body quivering.

“Yeah, go kiss her, Papa,” Dixie shouted. “She’s been waiting a long time for you.”

Keri could see it was all too much for him. Whatever he’d been doing had only been made worse by coming home to find he was about to become a father. He was thirty-seven, but he looked years older.

He started to speak, then spotted Nana Mae, who had made her way over to him. His eyes went soft. Tenderly, he gathered his grandmother close.

“I missed you,” she said, patting his back. “There’ll be plenty of time to catch up with the rest of us. You go ahead and greet your girl.”

He headed toward Keri. A smile came over his face. He picked up speed.

She trembled with relief. Everything was going to be okay. He was in shock, but he wasn’t rejecting her. Okay, good. Okay. Good. Breathe…

Then he was there, within touching distance. He curved his hands around her arms. “Look at you,” he said, as if he’d been waiting for her. Then he took her into his arms. She hugged him back—

“I’m going along with this only because of my grandmother,” he whispered in Keri’s ear then released her, keeping her hand in his as Aggie started shooing people out.

Stunned, Keri said nothing, couldn’t have mustered a word.

“Mom,” he said. “You don’t need to do that. We’ll just step into the kitchen for a minute.”

He led Keri away, a journey that seemed to take an hour, during which she plastered a smile on her face. When the door was shut and they were alone, he released her.

“We’re in love?” he asked.

“I—”

“And this—” he gestured toward her belly “—is mine?”

“Yes.”

“I’m supposed to just believe that?”

“You can do the math. If that doesn’t work for you, we can do DNA tests after it’s born. I don’t need proof, but I figure you do.”

“It? You don’t know the gender?”

“I decided not to find out. Where have you been, Jake? Why couldn’t you call home?”

His mouth hardened. His eyes lost their sheen. “In Venezuela. Nothing like a little kidnapping to stir things up, eh? And revenge. Only sometimes it’s not so sweet.”

Chapter Two

Jake turned away from Keri’s horror-filled eyes. He shoved his fingers through his hair and stared at the floor. All he wanted was some peace and quiet. To sleep in his own bed. To take a shower whenever he felt like it, for as long as he wanted. To eat something he could identify.

Instead he’d been blindsided with a pregnant Keri Overton, the woman who’d consumed his thoughts night and day for far too long. The woman he’d been locked up with—because she thought she knew better than he about how criminals operate.

And then there was his brother. Yeah, Donovan was a dead man. During the almost three-hour drive from the San Francisco airport to Chance City, he hadn’t once mentioned Keri, who was not only pregnant but on the brink of giving birth. To his child. The result of a one-time, “are we going to get out of here alive?” moment after they’d been kidnapped together, along with her boss/patient. One damned time. And apparently she had everyone in Chance City snowed, convincing them they’d been in love.

“Did you even recognize me?” she asked from behind him.

He blew out a breath. “Not at first.” He should have, considering everything, but he’d been caught off guard, especially by her pregnancy. Would never have thought of her in terms of being pregnant. She’d had months to call and tell him that bit of news, all that time from Labor Day until Christmas before he’d gone deep undercover. She hadn’t called, so he’d decided he was safe from that worry.

“Would you have recognized me?” he countered, facing her.

“I don’t know. You’ve lost weight, and your hair is long. You look older. Maybe it’s the beard.”

He laughed coldly. Yeah, he’d aged about a hundred years. “Well, you’ve gained a lot of weight, and your hair is much longer, too.” She’d had short, straight hair before. Now it was almost shoulder length and wavy. But still a rich, shiny brown, a much deeper shade than her eyes—

The kitchen door swung open, and Donovan came in.

“Thanks for the heads-up,” Jake muttered.

Donovan ignored his sarcasm. “Everyone’s gone except family. Everything okay here?” he asked, looking from Jake to Keri.

“You should’ve called ahead,” Keri said. “That kind of shock can send a woman into labor, you know. And what about your mom and grandma? I thought you were in Alaska, anyway.”

“I was, until Jake called. We coordinated our flights to arrive in San Francisco at the same time.”

“Give us a minute more,” Jake said to his brother, not wanting dissension, too tired to participate. He shoved his hands in his pockets, found the small gold medallion he carried with him, rubbed it enough to heat it up.

“Sure,” Donovan said. “I just wanted you to know who was still here.”

As soon as the door shut, Jake focused on Keri. “Why does everyone think I’m in love with you?”

Her cheeks pinkened. “I didn’t think it was necessary to disillusion them. Besides, I was protecting your image.”

“And yours.”

“Yes. And our child’s. Your town…adopted me. But also I needed them, so I let them think what they wanted.”

He recalled the excited, hopeful look on his mother’s face as she’d waited for him to kiss Keri, the woman he loved. He closed his eyes, exhausted.

“You need to sleep,” Keri said, touching his arm.

He pulled back. “Where are you living?”

“With your grandmother. I’ve been helping take care of her.”

What now? He couldn’t live apart from her. People would ask too many questions, Nana Mae in particular. He’d spent his life living up to his grandmother’s expectations, as had all his siblings. He wasn’t about to start disappointing her now.

But at the moment, he couldn’t formulate a solid plan. “You need to come home with me, to my cabin. We have to figure out what we’re going to do.”

“All right,” she said, her voice low and raspy.

“We’ll make our goodbyes. They won’t be happy to have me leave again, but I don’t see any other solution.” There were details to be worked out, but those could wait.

Yesterday, before his flight home from Caracas, he’d almost gone looking for her but decided against it. If she’d wanted to see him, talk to him, she would’ve made the effort. She’d told him she wasn’t an accumulator—no house, no car, no major possessions. He gathered that meant people, too. So he’d come home, wrung out, needing to hole up for a while. Now he couldn’t, at least not alone.

Taking her arm, he moved toward the door, presenting a united front. He was completely aware of her. She was seven inches shorter than him, physically strong, reed slender when she wasn’t pregnant, competent as a nurse and caregiver and, beyond question, the most duty-bound person he’d known, which had been the problem in the end.

Touching her now sparked his most enduring memory, however, the one that never left his thoughts—how she was a wildcat in his arms…

His mother’s face lit up when they returned. He let go of Keri to give his mother another hug, then his grandmother, then his sisters. He vaguely recalled seeing some of his nieces at the party, but they were gone now.