Buch lesen: «A Bride by Summer»

Contents

Cover

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

Reed Sullivan wasn’t an easy man to read.

Not that the two women waiting in line behind him at the drugstore in Orchard Hill weren’t trying. In the security camera on the wall he saw one nudge the other before motioning to the small carton he’d pushed across the counter. The pharmacy tech held any outward display of curiosity to a discreet lift of her eyebrows as she dropped his purchase into a white paper bag.

Apparently men didn’t buy paternity test kits here every day.

He didn’t begrudge any of them their curiosity. Most of the time he appreciated that particular trait inherent in most women almost as much as he enjoyed the way they could change the atmosphere in a room just by entering it. He had a deep respect for women, enjoyed spending time with them, was intrigued by them and appreciated them on so many levels. He did not leave birth control to chance. And yet here he was, making a purchase he’d never imagined he would need to make.

He paid with cash, pocketed his change and left the store, by all outward appearances as cool, calm and confident as he’d been when he’d entered. Out in the parking lot, a bead of sweat trickled down his neck and under the collar of his shirt.

Reed understood profit margins and the challenges of zoning issues. Those things always made sense in the end. This was different. Nothing about this situation made sense. Gnawing worry had jolted him awake at 4:00 a.m. It didn’t require great insight to understand the cause. It all centered around the innocent baby he and his brothers had discovered on their doorstep ten days ago.

The very idea that someone would abandon a baby in such a way in this day and age was ludicrous. And yet there the baby had been, unbelievably tiny and undeniably alone. Reed, Marsh and Noah were all confirmed bachelors and hadn’t known the first thing about caring for a baby, but they’d picked the crying infant up and discovered a note.

Our precious son, Joseph Daniel Sullivan. I call him Joey. He’s my life. I beg you take good care of him until I can return for him.

Our precious son? Whose precious son?

The handwritten note hadn’t been addressed. Or signed.

Reed wasn’t prone to self-doubt, but now he wondered if they should have performed a paternity test immediately. He should have insisted. What had he been thinking?

He hadn’t been thinking. None of them had.

They’d spent the first week fumbling with formula and feedings, diaper changes and sleep deprivation while doing everything in their power to determine what the infant in their charge needed and wanted.

Joey had a lusty cry he wasn’t afraid to use, and yet before his first night with them was over, he’d looked with burgeoning trust at the three men suddenly thrust into this new and foreign role. He didn’t seem to mind their ineptitude.

Until that night, Reed and his brothers hadn’t considered the possibility that one of them might have become a father without their knowledge. To make matters worse, they had no way of knowing which of the women from their respective pasts might have been desperate enough to leave Joey in such a manner. The million-dollar question remained.

Which of them was Joey’s father?

Reed placed the small paper bag containing the paternity test kit on the passenger seat and started his car. As he pulled out of his parking space, the impulse to squeal his tires was strong. He quelled it because he was the middle brother, the one who thought before he reacted, who kept his wits about him and his head out of the clouds, the one with nerves of steel and the willpower to match.

Minutes later he was on Old Orchard Highway, a few miles from home. The sunroof was open, the morning breeze already fragrant and warm. The radio was off, the hum of his car’s engine little balm for the uncertainties plaguing him today.

That first night, he, Marsh and Noah had put their heads together and had come up with a schedule for Joey’s care, as well as a plan to try to locate his mother. It hadn’t taken Noah long to find the woman from his past. A daredevil test pilot, he’d realized soon after coming face-to-face with Lacey Bell again that covert moves weren’t her style. Joey wasn’t Lacey’s baby, and therefore Noah had been certain he wasn’t his, either. That hadn’t kept him from pulling out all the stops to rekindle the love affair of his life. Noah and Lacey had eloped two nights ago.

Paternity came down to Marsh or Reed.

They’d hired a private investigator to follow clues and leads regarding the whereabouts of the women who seemed to have disappeared into thin air. Under ordinary circumstances, he and Marsh didn’t talk about their sex lives. If not for Joey’s arrival, Reed wouldn’t have known that Marsh had spent an idyllic week with a woman named Julia Monroe while on vacation last year or that she’d seemed to disappear into thin air as soon as the week was over.

Like his brothers, Reed liked to keep his private life private. There was only one woman, and one night, he couldn’t account for. She was a waitress he’d met on a layover in Dallas during a business trip last year. She’d told him her name was Cookie—now he wished he’d asked a few questions. Could she have left Joey on his doorstep a year later?

He and Marsh had hired a P.I. with an impressive success rate. But so far every lead Sam Lafferty had followed had turned into a dead end. At least, once Reed and Marsh determined which of them was the baby’s father, Sam could focus on finding one woman instead of two.

The test kit slid to the edge of the seat as Reed approached a banked curve in the highway. Behind him a red car that had been a speck in his rearview mirror a few seconds ago was closing in on him fast. The sports car came so close to his bumper he braced for a rear-end collision. All at once, the car swerved across the double yellow line and began to pass.

Up ahead an eighteen-wheeler was barreling around a curve straight toward them. An air horn blasted and tires screeched. The driver of the Corvette cranked the wheel to the right, thrusting his car back into Reed’s lane. With no other place to go, Reed took the shoulder of the highway. He braked, but it was too late. His tires broke loose. And he started to spin.

Around and around he went, on the highway and off, from one shoulder to the other. Gravel churned and dust rose. He somehow missed an oncoming vehicle but clipped a highway sign with one of his mirrors. When he finally came to a complete stop, his engine was racing and so was his heart rate. He gripped the steering wheel, his foot pressed hard on the brake.

The dust was settling when he noticed that another car had stopped a short distance ahead of him on the opposite side of the road. The door opened. The next thing he knew, a slender, sandal-ensconced foot touched the ground.

* * *

Ruby O’Toole hit the pavement running.

She raced across the highway toward a silver Mustang sitting at an odd angle along the side of the road. The driver was looking at her through the windshield, his eyes narrowed and his jaw set. She stood back as he got out, and watched as he opened his fists and unclenched his fingers, straightened his arms and rotated his broad shoulders, as if checking to see if everything was still operational.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

He didn’t answer, making her wonder if he was in shock.

“I’m calling 911. I’ve seen a lot of accidents and you could have whiplash.”

“I don’t need an ambulance.” His voice was steady and deep, but the way he put a hand on the back of his neck made her wonder if he was more shaken than he was admitting.

“It’s best to err on the side of caution,” she insisted. “Adrenaline and shock can mask an injury like whiplash or a spinal column misalignment.”

With a grimace, he said, “My back is fine. And I don’t have whiplash.” In his early thirties, he had short, sandy-blond hair and wore a gray dress shirt, the sleeves rolled partway up his forearms.

“You just never know,” she argued. “The stiffness wouldn’t necessarily set in until later.”

He circled his car, his face impassive as he ran his hand over the Mustang’s hood.

“Trust me. I’m fine.”

“If you say so, but if I were you, I’d be stomping my feet and shaking my fist and swearing at that jerk who ran you off the road. You could have been killed! The creep had no right to drive like some bat out of hell. Jerks like him think they own the road and everything in their path.” Catching him looking at her, she said, “Some women cry at emergencies. I get mad. I have a temper. And don’t tell me it goes with my hair.”

“I won’t.”

She thought he might smile. When he didn’t, she heard herself say, “It’s what my boyfriend used to say. My ex-boyfriend. Peter. Cheater Peter.” She had to clamp her mouth shut to keep from continuing. What was wrong with her?

“That explains the ex,” he said in a deep, smooth voice that gave little away. As he examined his loosened mirror, he asked, “Are you an EMT?”

She’d been in the process of smoothing her hands down her shorts and straightening her tank top, and had to stop for a moment to wonder at his question. “Oh,” she said. “You mean because I said I’ve seen a lot of accidents. No, my most recent career jag was driving a tow truck for my dad’s wrecker service near Traverse City.”

She didn’t bother telling him that prior to working for her dad she’d spent three years with a trendsetting marketing firm in L.A. This stranger didn’t need to hear how much trouble she’d had deciding what she wanted to do with her life. Reverting to small talk, she asked, “Do you live in Orchard Hill?”

“A mile from here.” The breeze ruffled his blond hair and toyed with the collar of his shirt.

“I just moved here two days ago,” she said. “In all likelihood, my mother is rearranging the furniture in my new apartment as I speak, while my father adds to his ever-growing list of all the reasons buying a tavern in this college town is a mistake. So, did your life pass before your eyes?”

* * *

Reed did a double take and looked at the talkative woman who’d stopped to make certain he wasn’t hurt. She wore shorts that fit her to perfection and a white tank top that made her arms and shoulders appear golden. A silver charm shaped like a feather hung from a delicate chain around her neck. Her hair, long and red and curly, fluttered freely in the wind. When he found himself looking into her green eyes, he wished he’d have started there.

His gaze locked with hers, and the air went oddly still. In the ensuing silence, he wondered where the birds and the summer breeze and the traffic had gone.

Her throat convulsed slightly, as if she was having trouble breathing, too. “You’re not much of a talker, are you?” she finally asked.

“Normally,” he said, “I’m the one asking the questions.”

She took a backward step and said, “Are you a lawyer?”

“Why, do I look like a lawyer?”

She shrugged one shoulder. “It’s just that lawyers tend to ask a lot of questions.”

“I’m not a lawyer.”

“A journalist, then?”

“No.”

“A Virgo?” she asked with a small smile.

He had to think about that one because astrology was hardly something he put stock in. “My birthday’s November sixth.”

“Ah, a Scorpio. You water signs are deep. And moody. Obviously.” She shook herself slightly and said, “If you’re sure you aren’t hurt, I’ll be going.”

The smile she gave him went straight to places that made a man stop thinking and start imagining. It was intimate and dangerous, not to mention off-limits, given his present situation.

She glanced back at him as she opened her car door, and said, “Two-X-Z-zero-three.”

“Pardon me?”

“The Corvette’s license plate number.” She started her car, and through the open window said, “It’s two-X-Z-zero-three. I happened to notice it when the jerk flew by me at the city limit sign.”

“You happened to notice it.”

“I have a photographic memory for those kinds of details.” With that, she drove away.

Reed got back behind the wheel of his car, too. When the coast was clear, he made a U-turn and continued toward home. He drove more slowly than usual, the entire episode replaying in his mind, from the uncanny near miss, to the chance encounter with the modern-day Florence Nightingale along the side of the highway. He wondered if he’d ever met anyone with a photographic memory.

The woman had asked if his life had passed before his eyes as he’d spun out of control. He hadn’t seen the images of either of his brothers or his sister, or of their parents, killed so tragically years ago, or the first girl he’d kissed, or even the most recent woman. He hadn’t seen his oldest friend or his newest business associate. The image in his mind as he’d spun to what might have been his death had been Joey’s.

Sobered further by the realization, he pulled into his driveway and parked in his usual spot beside Marsh’s SUV. He cut the engine then felt around on the floor until he located the test kit.

For a moment, he sat there looking at the sprawling white house where he’d grown up. Beyond the 120-year-old Victorian sat the original stone cider house his great-great-grandfather had built with his own hands. Ten years ago Reed and his brothers and younger sister had converted the sprawling old barn into a bakery, where they sold donuts and baked goods, and fresh apple cider by the cup or by the gallon. There was a gift shop, too, and sheds, where their signs and equipment were stored. Behind them was the meadow where thousands of customers parked each fall. From here Reed could see the edge of the orchards, the heart and soul of the entire operation.

He hadn’t planned to move back to Orchard Hill after college, but life had a way of altering plans. Reed wasn’t a man who wasted a lot of time or energy wondering what he’d missed. Bringing the family business into the current century was one of his proudest achievements. His brother Marsh knew every tree on the property, every graft and every branch that needed to be pruned. Reed knew all about business plans, spreadsheets, tax laws, health inspections and zoning. He’d been the one to have visions of expansion.

Already he could picture Joey following in his footsteps one day. What was shocking was that he wanted Joey to follow in his footsteps. Until they’d discovered that little kid on their doorstep ten days ago, Reed hadn’t realized how much he wanted to pass on the legacy of Sullivans Orchard and his business acumen to another generation.

He would be proud if Joey was his son.

With that thought front and center in his mind, he went up the sidewalk and through the unlocked screen door.

Chapter Two

Even on days when Reed swore everything was changing, there were a few things that always remained the same. Today it was the scent of strong coffee on the morning air.

He followed the unmistakable aroma into the kitchen and found his older brother at the counter across the room, pouring steaming brew into a large mug. Reed’s gaze settled on Joey, nestled securely on Marsh’s left arm, his eyes wide and his wispy hair sticking up in every direction.

Baby bottles filled the sink, and spilled formula pooled on the counter nearby. A load of clean baby clothes was piled in the middle of the table. It was hard to believe that two weeks ago the only items on the counter had been take-out menus, a cell phone or two and car keys.

“Did you get it?” Marsh asked without turning around.

“In the first pharmacy I tried.” Reed kept his voice gentle because Joey had locked his eyes on him over Marsh’s shoulder.

A toothless smile engaged Joey’s entire face and brought out every fierce protective instinct Reed possessed. Everyone they’d consulted agreed that Joey appeared to be approximately three months old. The sum of the baby’s age and the length of a normal pregnancy corresponded with the timing of the business trip Reed had taken to Texas last year.

“I heard from Noah,” he said, sharing news from their younger brother with Marsh. Noah never had been one for long letters or phone calls, and his text was no different. Two words, hot damn, spoke volumes. “I’d say he and Lacey are pretty happy.”

Joey smiled again, evidently happy, too. Already that little kid always assumed everybody was talking to him.

Reed tossed the discreet paper bag onto the table and continued toward his brother. “I’ll take him. It looks as though you could use two hands for that coffee.”

Joey didn’t seem to mind the transition from one set of strong arms to the other. He was trusting in that way. Reed wondered if that trait came from his mother.

Paternity-wise, they weren’t going to be able to make so much as an educated guess without the test, for Marsh and Reed were too closely related and nearly identical in height, bone structure and build. They were polar opposites in most other ways, however. Dark where Reed was fair, brown-eyed to Reed’s blue-gray, whisker stubble where Reed was clean-shaven, Marsh was two and a half years older. Today he wore his usual faded jeans, scuffed work boots and a holey T-shirt Reed hadn’t seen in years.

It reminded Reed that practically every item of clothing they owned was dirty. They needed help around here with laundry and dishes and especially with Joey’s care, which was why they were interviewing someone later this morning. Luckily, Joey seemed oblivious to the havoc his arrival had brought. Tipping the scales at eleven and a half pounds, he was a handsome, sturdy baby with hair as dark as Marsh’s and eyes that were gray-blue like Reed’s.

“Hi, buddy,” Reed said with more emotion than he’d known he was capable of feeling for a child so small. He carried the baby to the table and took a seat. “Is this formula still good?” he asked his brother.

Marsh looked at his watch, nodded, and Reed offered the baby the last ounce in the bottle. As Joey drank, he looked up at him and wrapped his entire hand around Reed’s little finger. Reed was growing accustomed to the way his heart swelled, crowding his chest.

He’d read a tome’s worth of information and suggestions about how to care for infants these past ten days. Maybe the way Joey grasped the finger of whoever was feeding him was reflexive. Reed was of the opinion that it had more to do with being a Sullivan, which among other things meant he wanted what he wanted when he wanted it.

Marsh was leaning against the counter across the room, ankles crossed as he somberly sipped his coffee. “How many times do you think we waited out the night sitting around that table?”

“During Noah’s rebellious years—which was most of them—and last year with Madeline? Too many to count,” Reed said.

It reminded them both that they weren’t novices when it came to handling tough situations. After their parents were killed in an icy pileup on the interstate thirteen years ago, twenty-three-year-old Marsh had suddenly become the head of the family. Reed had nearly doubled his class load at Purdue, and as soon as he graduated a year later, he’d come home to help. Noah had been a hell-raising seventeen-year-old then. Their sister, Madeline, had been fourteen and was struggling to adjust to a world that had changed overnight. It was hard to believe Noah and Madeline were both married now.

“This feels different, doesn’t it?” Reed said, looking into Joey’s sleepy little face.

“Different in every way,” Marsh agreed.

Marsh tore the paternity test kit package open, read the directions and then handed them to Reed, who carefully moved Joey to the crook of his left arm, then read them, too. They filled out the forms with their pertinent information and followed the instructions to the letter before sealing everything in the accompanying airtight sleeves.

“What do you think Dad would say if he were here?” Reed asked as he closed the mailing carton.

“After the shock wore off, he probably wouldn’t say much,” Marsh answered quietly. “Mom would be the one we’d have to worry about.”

Reed and Marsh shared a smile that took them back to when they were teenagers. Reed said, “She’d expect us to do the right thing. They both would.”

“We are doing the right thing, or at least as close to the right thing as we can under the circumstances,” Marsh said. “Have you decided what you’re going to do if Joey is yours?”

Reed eyed the baby now sleeping in his arms. If Joey was his son, it meant Joey’s mother was the curvy blonde waitress named Cookie who’d accidentally spilled chili in his lap during a layover in Dallas last year. She’d blushed and apologized and somehow, when her shift was over, they’d wound up back at her place.

“If it turns out Joey’s mine, and Sam locates Cookie and she has a legitimate reason for leaving him, I’d like to get to know her better.” He wished he’d asked more questions that night. She’d mentioned an ex-husband, somewhere, and a local play she’d been auditioning for. He didn’t recall ever hearing her last name. Now he wished he had asked. After all, if she was the mother of his son, she deserved better. She deserved the chance to explain. “What about you? What will you do if the test proves Joey is yours?”

Marsh took his time considering his reply. “The week I spent with Julia on the Outer Banks last year was pretty damn idyllic. I thought I knew her as well as a man could know a woman. I thought we had something. If Joey is our son, she would have had to have a very good reason for all of this. The Julia I knew wouldn’t have left Joey unless she had no other choice. I have a hundred questions, but it does no good to imagine what might have happened to her or what might be happening to her now. I only know that if Julia is Joey’s mother and I am his father, she will return for him, and when that happens I’d like to try to work things out, as a family.”

It wasn’t surprising that they wanted the same thing, for Reed and Marsh were both family men at heart. They grew silent, each lost in his own thoughts. The only sound in the room was Joey’s hum as he slept in Reed’s arms and the tick of the clock on the old stove.

“Why don’t you put Joey in his crib for his morning nap,” Marsh suggested. “The agency is sending another woman out for an interview later. You should have plenty of time to overnight the paternity kit and be back before then. Unless you want me to mail it.”

“You had the late shift with Joey,” Reed said. “I’ll take the kit to the post office.”

After laying Joey in his crib in the home office they’d converted into a nursery last week, he returned to the kitchen, where Marsh was still somberly sipping coffee. Keys in one hand and the sealed test kit in the other, Reed headed for the door.

“Hey, Reed?” Marsh stood across the room, his jeans riding low, his stance wide, his brown eyes hooded. “May the best man win.”

Again, that grin took Reed back to when they were kids and everything was a competition. He shook his head, but he couldn’t help grinning a little, too.

Getting in his car with its loosened side mirror, he wondered if Marsh was picturing Julia right now. Reed could only wonder what might have prompted Joey’s mother—whoever she was—to leave him with only a vague note and a loose promise to return for him.

He was at the end of the driveway when it occurred to him that he couldn’t seem to bring Cookie into sharp focus in his memory. Her bleached-blond hair kept switching to red.

* * *

“How was your drive?” Ruby’s closest friend, Amanda Moore, asked the minute Ruby got back. “Tell me you got completely lost.”

Ruby shook her head. “Sorry to disappoint you, but no.”

“Not even slightly turned around?” Because Amanda had been lost when she’d met her fiancé, Todd, she was convinced that the key to finding happiness was that sensation she’d experienced when she’d made a wrong turn but somehow wound up in the right place.

But as Ruby had told her a hundred times, she didn’t get lost. Ever. Her innate sense of direction was intricately linked to her keen memory for all things visual. Both had gotten her out of countless scrapes over the years.

“The reunion is in just over two weeks.” Amanda was tapping away on her notebook at the end of the bar in Ruby’s new tavern. “That doesn’t leave us very much time to find you a date.”

“You’re my best friend, and I would give you a kidney or the shirt off my back,” Ruby declared from behind the bar. “But I told you. I’m not taking a date. From now on I’m flying solo. I mean it, Amanda.” Her laptop was open, too. Next to it was the box she’d started filling with cameras from the former owner’s collection. “I don’t even want to attend the class reunion.”

“You have to, Ruby.”

“Peter’s going to be there.”

“I know,” Amanda said gently. “That’s why I think you should bring a date. As former class officers, we’re not only the planning committee, but we’re the welcoming committee, too. Don’t even think about trying to get out of it. You promised, and you never break your promises.”

With a sigh, Ruby returned to compiling the menu of drinks that would be indigenous to her saloon. So far her list included alcoholic beverages with names such as Howl at the Moon and Fountain of Youth and Dynamite. Since she thought best when she was moving, she wandered to the pool tables in the back of the room.

Amanda tucked her chin-length brown hair behind one ear and followed. “Number one,” she said, fine-tuning a line on the small screen. “This goes without saying because it’s always number one with you. Nonetheless, number one.” She cleared her throat for emphasis. “He must be tall. T-a-l-l. Tall, with a capital T. Number two. It would be nice if he spoke in complete sentences.”

Ruby rolled her eyes. While she was looking up at the ceiling, a loud scrape sounded from above. Evidently her mother was still rearranging her furniture, even though Ruby had told her that the layout was fine the way it was.

Nobody listened to her, she thought as she shook out the plush sleeping bag she’d found near the pool tables and refolded it. It was a strange place to leave a sleeping bag, but at the closing yesterday, the previous owner, Lacey Bell Sullivan, had asked Ruby to keep the bedroll here for safekeeping for a few days while Lacey’s brand-new husband whisked her away on their honeymoon. Lacey had vaguely mentioned that someone might come by to pick it up. Ruby believed there was something Lacey wasn’t telling her, but Amanda was right. To Ruby, a promise was a promise.