A Bride, A Barn, And A Baby

“Are you going to be okay to drive home later?” he asked as he filled her glass.

She shrugged. “We have a lot of movies to watch. And if I’m not, I can just spend the night here.” She patted the sofa.

“Or I can call you a cab,” he added quickly, as much to chase away the thought of her spending the night. “People might talk if they see your car parked here overnight.”

She laughed. “Let them talk. I didn’t realize you were so worried about your reputation.”

She held his gaze as she reached over to set her glass on the table and missed the surface by a fraction of an inch. Bourbon sloshed over the edge and the ting of crystal hitting the wooden edge of the coffee table sounded just before the glass fell. She caught it a split second before it hit the carpet. Good reflexes. She must not be that drunk.

In an instant she was sitting up straight, both feet on the ground, simultaneously blotting the spilled liquor with the white paper napkins that came with the takeout and examining the glass for signs of damage.

“Oh, my God. Zane, I’m so sorry. I can’t believe I did that. I’m such a klutz.”

“Don’t worry about it.” His hand touched hers as he commandeered the napkins—not so much because he was worried that there might be a stain, but because he didn’t want her to feel bad. “It won’t hurt the carpet. The bourbon will probably be an improvement.”

He laughed.

“No.” She shook her head, tears glistening in her eyes. “This is your mom’s good crystal. I would’ve never forgiven myself if I’d broken it.”

He stopped blotting. “It’s just a glass. It’s nothing special.”

“Of course it’s special. It’s beautiful. And it was hers.”

He shook his head. “I gave her the set for Christmas a few years ago, but she never even used them. I just took them out of their original box when I was in the kitchen.”

Lucy blinked. “But they’re so pretty. I can’t believe she didn’t love them.”

“She did. Or at least she said she did. But she never used them because she said she was afraid something would happen to them.”

“Yeah, someone like me would break them.”

Zane waved her off. “Said she was saving them for a special occasion. Or, I don’t know, something ridiculous like that. She was never particularly comfortable with nice things. God knew her louse of an ex-husband didn’t even help with child support, much less spoil her with personal gifts.”

Yeah, that was the poor excuse of a man Zane and his brother, Ian, were loath to call father. He preferred to not even think about the jackass who maintained that Dorothy had gotten pregnant with Zane on purpose. That she’d trapped him. He was so busy carrying around the chip on his shoulder, he seemed to think he was exempt from supporting his family. Never mind he’d gotten her pregnant again after they’d been married for a couple of years. It was always her fault.

After he’d divorced Dorothy, he’d married again and had kids. Zane didn’t know his half brothers. There were three of them and they weren’t too much younger than him and Ian. He could do the math. He knew what that meant—that while his father was away, he was probably with his other family.

The real kicker was that Nathaniel Phillips had had the audacity to show up at Dorothy’s funeral. After the service, Zane had confronted him, asking him what kind of business he thought he had showing his face. Ian and Ethan Campbell had flanked him like two wingmen. Ethan had herded Zane away, while Ian had asked Nathaniel to leave. And he did. He’d slithered away just as silently as he’d appeared.

Zane sipped his bourbon, needing to wash away the bitter taste in his mouth.

“My mom scrimped and saved and worked her ass off. Thanks to her, we never went hungry. We were always clean and clothed and we always had a roof over our heads. Our clothes were always from the thrift shop and the meals she cooked were nourishing, but never anything fancy. Although, if the Redbird Diner had pie left over at the end of her shift, she’d bring it home to us. I didn’t even realize how poor we were until I was a lot older.”

When Dorothy discovered she was pregnant and she and Nathaniel had gotten married, they’d moved in with her parents at the family’s ranch on Old Wickham Road. A couple of years later, she’d inherited the land after her folks passed. When Nathaniel divorced her, they’d sold the ranch. Nathaniel got half.

His mom had lost her family home—his and Ian’s legacy—and after paying attorneys’ fees and relocating her sons, she had to struggle to make ends meet.

Nathaniel never paid a lick of child support. Dorothy had always claimed it would cost more to take him back to court than she’d get. But Zane suspected the real reason was that she didn’t want to deal with the hurt of having to acknowledge that her husband had chosen his new family over them.

Out of sight, out of mind. Or at least she could pretend it was that way.

Zane’s earliest and happiest memories were of working the Old Wickham Road Ranch alongside his granddad. Someday, he’d love to buy back the ranch. It wasn’t for sale right now, and even if it was, he didn’t have the money, since he’d used almost every penny he had to help his mom pay for her medical expenses.

Someday... But he knew that someday might never come. Dorothy’s death was proof of that.

“She was a good woman, Zane. She was like a second mother to me after my mom died. Did you know she taught me how to sew? She was so good at it. Remember how excited she was when the traveling production of Guys and Dolls bought that dress she’d designed?”

Zane nodded.

“They offered her that wardrobe position with the show,” he said. “She should’ve taken it and gotten out of here. Ian and I were out of the house. She could’ve traveled all over the country. I don’t understand why she didn’t do it.”

Zane shrugged. “I wanted her to do it. I think everyone in this town wanted her to. But she said she was too old to become a nomad and gallivant.”

He slanted Lucy a glance. “Gallivant. Her word.”

He and Lucy laughed, but then they fell silent.

His mom had been a good, strong woman. Salt of the earth. You could rely on her like you could count on the sun to rise in the morning. But for all of her strengths, she didn’t take chances. She’d worked her way up from waitress to manager of the Redbird Diner in downtown Celebration and she did clothing alterations and freelance sewing jobs in her spare time for anyone who was willing to hire her. That didn’t leave a lot of extra time for fun.

When Zane turned fourteen, he’d gotten a job at Henderson Farms and helped his mom with expenses. He’d hoped that the extra income might make things easier. But somewhere along the way the person Dorothy Phillips could’ve become faded away, her potential lost to the demands of life, her fondest hopes and wants and wishes set aside in a box for a special occasion that never happened.

Lucy was quiet and Zane knew he should stop talking, but it was like he’d broken the lock on the compartment where he’d stuffed all his emotions, and everything was pouring out.

“You think you have all the time in the world to do all the things you want to do, but you don’t.” He took another swig of bourbon. “I have to get out of this town, Luce. I don’t know what I’ve been waiting for. I’m thirty years old and I still don’t know who I am or what I want. I mean, I know what I want, but I’m not going to find it here, not in Celebration.”

Ironically, most people thought he was doing well. In fact, one woman who dated him was surprised to discover he wasn’t rich. He’d owned a small horse ranch but had ended up selling the property after his mom got sick. The crappy insurance policy she had didn’t cover all of her medical bills and there was no way in hell Zane was going to stand down and let her worry when he was sitting on assets he could sell and use to help her out.

Again, it wasn’t that he was so magnanimous. Bridgemont Farms, the property that abutted his, had been pushing him to sell his land. Zane had been restless and they’d made it worth his while. They offered him enough money to allow him to help his mom and put a little bit in the bank; and he got to stay in his house because Bridgemont had hired him on as their general manager. Housing was a perk of the job. It was a means to an end, but there was no chance for advancement and Bridgemont’s owners weren’t interested in breeding champions.

Even though it was his choice to sell, it chafed to be limited by someone else’s vision when he’d once had such big plans. Once, he’d dreamed of using the proceeds of the sale of his farm to buy back the Old Wickham Road Ranch.

Fate had different plans.

Even so, he still had an ace up his sleeve.

“Leaving isn’t always the answer.” Lucy pulled him from his thoughts. “Remember how I couldn’t wait to get out of here?” Her eyes sparkled with optimism, or maybe it was concern. Zane couldn’t tell. “I went away to school, and then I went to California, but nothing fit. Isn’t it funny how once I came home, I found exactly what I’d been looking for and who I wanted to be.”

“But you have roots here,” he said. “You have your brother and your business. Of course you belong here. I have nothing keeping me here.”

“I’m just saying you don’t always have to go away to find your heart’s desire. Sometimes it’s right in your backyard, Toto.”

She laughed at her own joke. He knew she was trying to cajole him out of his funk, but he couldn’t even muster a chuckle.

He was happy for Lucy, that everything was working out for her. Of all people, he’d never begrudge her success and belonging. But she was six years younger than him. He needed to get his act together.

“I just have to get out of here—”

Zane’s voice cracked and he swallowed the wave of emotion that was trying to escape on the coattails of his words. He hadn’t gotten emotional since his mom had died. Until now, he hadn’t realized that for the past two weeks he’d been pushing through life—through everything that had to be done—on some kind of foggy autopilot. Tonight it felt like the autopilot had died and he’d fallen from his fog into this hard new reality.

And he would’ve been okay, but Lucy was looking at him with those huge brown eyes. The gold flecks in her eyes that sparkled a moment ago had darkened a few shades. Her expression suggested she didn’t know what to do with him. Hell, he didn’t know what to do with himself. How was she supposed to know what to do with him?

That was why he was better off being alone until he’d sorted out all this emotional crap.

But Lucy’s full lips quivered as if she was trying to figure out what to say to him. For a split second, all he wanted to do was lean in and kiss her so they didn’t have to talk anymore. He wanted to lose himself in the taste of her, bury his face in her silky brown hair and keep going until he forgot about everything else that was going on in his life.

He cursed under his breath and balled up the soggy napkins he’d been using to blot the spilled drink a few moments ago. He tossed it aside before pushing to his feet and walking over to the window, where he could give himself some space to get his head on straight and stuff this damn sentimentality back into the box where it belonged.

“Are you okay?” she asked from behind him. His awareness of her had his body responding.

He didn’t turn around. “Yeah, I—”

He needed to forget he’d ever wanted to do the things he was thinking about to Lucy. What the hell was wrong with him? “I need some space, Lucy. I think it might be best if you left.”

Because putting physical space between them—moving away from her—wasn’t helping him shake it off. No matter how far away he moved, he couldn’t unsee those lips or the way she was looking at him with those eyes... Worst of all, he couldn’t unfeel the way his body was reacting to her.

As he stood at the window, he listened to the DVD playing in the background, but it was just noise because he hadn’t been paying attention to it before now. He tried to think of anything else besides Lucy: his job, the part he needed to buy for his truck, baseball.

Strike one had been the thought of his mom never getting to celebrate that elusive special occasion that would’ve allowed her to use those f-ing fancy glasses. Strike two was the realization that the first ping of the damn crystal was marking her passing. Strike three was even though the first two strikes hadn’t made him lose it, the way Lucy was looking at him was going to finish the job. Or make him do something he knew they’d both regret later.

He was a mess.

And it wasn’t her fault. That was why she needed to just leave him alone.

“Zane?”

A violent clap of thunder had the sullen clouds bursting open and spilling rain in angry splats.

“Lucy, you shouldn’t be here.”

“Why?”

Why? He couldn’t answer her, because if he did, he knew she would see right through him.

Thunder sounded again, this time it was like a fist pounding something hard.

“Surely you’re not going to send me out in this weather,” she said. “Not after all that bourbon.”

He turned to face her. She was standing so close to him now, much too close, and he could feel the heat of her—of them—radiating in waves. “You’re right. I’ll go.”

“No.” She put a flat hand on his shoulder as if to stop him, and their gazes locked. “It’s okay, Zane.”

He wanted to ask her how she could think this was okay. Nothing about this was okay. He turned back to the window. The rain was falling harder now, punishing everything it touched.

“I’m sorry Dorothy didn’t get to use the glasses,” she said.

Her words hung in the air between them. He didn’t have words of his own.

“Life is too short to wait for special occasions, or until the time is right—” She paused as a shard of lightning ripped through the sky. It was punctuated by another explosive clap of thunder.

“Life is too short to put off doing the things you want to do,” she continued. “Don’t you think so, Zane?”

Yes.

No!

Ah, hell.

She gently caressed his shoulders. He knew he should stop her, but instead he sank into it, his body needing her touch. She slid her hands down his arms, past the sleeves of his T-shirt. Goose flesh prickled in the wake of her touch, at the feel of skin on skin—her hands on his bare skin.

As she slid her hands around his waist and pressed her body to his, he closed his eyes and leaned his head back, letting her warmth soothe him, allowing it to melt his better judgment.

He wasn’t drunk, though he might have been lightly lubricated. He knew what he was doing by letting her touch him like this. But did she?

“Lucy—”

“Shhhh.” She leaned in and the heat of her sweet breath on his neck made him forget what he was going to say.

“Zane, we can’t wait for someday. All those things we’ve always wanted to do...” Those lips were kissing his neck now and every inch of his body was responding. “We need to do them. Right now.”

Somehow, she’d smoothly maneuvered so that she was standing in front of him, her back to the window, her arms around his waist. Maybe it was wishful thinking, but her eyes looked as clear and alert as they had when she’d first arrived. She’d had only one shot of bourbon and had spilled most of the second one he’d poured for her.

“Zane, I won’t break if you touch me.”

When he hesitated, she whispered, “I want you to touch me.”

He put his arms around her and she slid her hands down to his butt, pulling him in so that his body aligned with hers. There was no way she wasn’t feeling how much he wanted her.

His lips were a fraction of an inch from hers. He rested his forehead on hers.

“Lucy, I don’t want you to regret this. I don’t want you to think I got you drunk and took advantage of you.”

“You didn’t. I know exactly what I’m doing, exactly what we’re about to do. I’ve wanted this for so long. I think you want me, too, Zane. Don’t you?”

If you only knew.

His mouth found hers and he showed her exactly how much he wanted her.

Chapter Two

Six weeks later

Peeing on a stick was not supposed to be this complicated, but Lucy had found nothing easy about the task—especially when it kept giving her the result she did not want to see.

Her hand shook as she tossed aside the seventh stick that showed a positive result.

No! No! No! This was not happening. This couldn’t be right. She could not be pregnant. But a little voice inside her told her that the odds of seven wrong results were slim to none. Her hands shook even more as she pressed the pump on the top of the liquid soap and turned on the warm water to wash up.

She stared at herself in the mirror as she rubbed her hands together under the warm running water.

She was pregnant.

What was she going to do?

She and Zane had spent one night together. One night. Six weeks ago. While she was well aware that it took only one time to get pregnant, they had used a condom.

How could this happen?

What was she going to say to him?

Lucy turned off the tap and dried her hands on the fluffy pink towel hanging on the rack behind her. The color looked astonishingly bright in contrast to the bathroom’s white tile walls. Then again, all of her senses seemed to be amplified right now. She’d finally bitten the bullet and taken a pregnancy test after living in denial, chalking up what she now knew was morning sickness to food poisoning and the flu—a very, very long bout of the flu. Never mind she was usually as regular as the Fourth of July falling on July 4 every year.

She was certain the only reason she was late was because she’d been under a lot of stress lately. The Campbell Wedding Barn had been booked solid since Southern Living had featured the venue as one of “The Most Beautiful Wedding Barns in the South.” She couldn’t have purchased better advertising. So she had to admit her work stress was good stress. Too bad she couldn’t say the same about her relationship with Zane.

While the air between them since that night wasn’t exactly bad—in fact, they were sickeningly polite to each other—they had agreed that it would never happen again. Zane had been racked with guilt. “It’s not you, Luce, it’s me,” he’d said. “It was wonderful, but I care about you too much for it to happen again. I don’t want sex to ruin our friendship.”

Umm...okay.

Not quite the morning-after talk she’d been dreaming of writing in her diary all these years. It was confusing and hurtful. At first, Lucy wasn’t sure if it was his polite way of giving her the brush-off, but then he’d told her he was seriously pursuing job opportunities outside of Celebration. Rumor had it that a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity at a ranch in Ocala, Florida, was about to become available soon—literally, people stayed in those positions for life. So they were rare. He’d already sent in his résumé. There and to several other ranches that weren’t in Florida. Because of that, he’d decided it was in their best interests if they just remained friends.

After she had gotten past the first few stinging moments of him dropping the it’s-not-you-it’s-me bombshell, he had reverted to acting like his old self again. Lucy had too much pride to let him know that their one night together had been simultaneously the best and worst thing that had ever happened to her. Although, for one insane moment, she had seriously considered countering with a friends-with-benefits offer—because even though her sexual experience wasn’t vast—OMG—she knew a good thing when she, umm...experienced it. And that night with Zane had been that good. Out-of-this-world good. Ruin-you-for-others good. Total justification for a friends-with-bennies relationship, because now that she’d had a taste of Zane, she was starving for more.

But then hard, cold reality set in. Lucy knew herself well enough to realize she’d never be content with something so casual when she was in love with him.

Yep. She loved him.

But he didn’t love her.

It was hard to wrap her mind around his saying that he cared about her too much for it to happen again. He promised he had enjoyed it. He’d even gone so far as to say it was his best ever and that was why they needed to keep things platonic.

Umm... It sounded like an oxymoron if she’d ever heard one. It was so good; I never want to sleep with you again.

That did not make one bit of sense.

Of course, she’d been upset and that was when he’d told her that he was one-hundred-percent certain that he was leaving Celebration and he would never ask her to give up her business to follow him and there was something about long-distance relationships not making sense. So they needed to be friends.

Now it had gone from friends-with-benefits to friends-with-a-baby.

How in the world was she going to tell him she was pregnant?

She’d been in love with Zane Phillips for as long as she could remember. And, yes, she might have had a daydream or two about having his babies, but she never would’ve gotten pregnant on purpose.

She covered her face with her hands and hoped that he wouldn’t think she’d tried to trap him. When her hands fell, she stared at her pale face in the mirror.

He was going to think it was history repeating itself. And not in a good way.

It was no secret that there was no love lost between Zane and his father. Everyone in the community knew that Nathaniel Phillips was a bad husband and an even worse father—that was, when he’d bothered to come home. Before he’d served Dorothy with divorce papers, he’d been gone more than he’d been at home, leaving Dorothy to basically single-parent their two boys. When Nathaniel Phillips got remarried, it came to light that he had children with another woman who lived in Dallas. The one he claimed was the love of his life. Once Zane had confided in her that his dad resented Dorothy and him because Nathaniel thought Dorothy got pregnant on purpose, to trap him. He never loved her, and that was why he divorced her and married the woman he did love.

As far as Lucy knew, he was still married to her.

Lucy swallowed the lump that was forming in her throat. She would give Zane credit for being more evolved than that. She knew without even a second’s hesitation that he wouldn’t blame her or accuse her of trying to manipulate him. Of course, she had to prepare herself for the fact that this news was going to blindside him. She also had to accept the very real fact that he loved her about as much as Nathaniel Phillips had loved Dorothy. Although she wouldn’t insult him by comparing him to his father.

“Zane does not love me,” she said to her reflection, thinking if she said it out loud her heart would hear it and wake up to reality.

She said it again and listened hard.

The words echoed off the bathroom tile as she said them again. Reinforcement. She needed to make sure the words sank in, that she fully understood the reality of the situation. He might care for her as a friend, and they might be darn good together in bed, but he did not love her.

But of course, he was an equal partner in this, too.

Even if she had started it, because she had been the one who had gotten the love train rolling, because she knew Zane well enough to be certain that if she hadn’t spelled it out, if she hadn’t made it clear that not only was it okay for him to cross that line but she’d wanted him to make love to her, he never would have touched her.

Once the train was out of the station, so to speak, they had both been equally willing participants. She put her hand on her flat belly.

This baby was nobody’s fault. The pregnancy was unplanned and not ideal, and Lucy was still reeling from the shock of it, but none of that changed the fact that next March, she was going to have Zane Phillips’s baby.

In the meantime, she needed to figure out how to tell him.

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