Brought Together by Baby

“Of course.” Brilliant, Cavanaugh. You won the football game, but here and now you’re officially a loser.

“Well, I’ll see you around, I guess.”

“I guess.” She gave him a polite smile, and with that she became again the aloof woman that had sat across from him at Charles and Beatrice Noble’s table.

“You still there, Rachel?” A man’s tinny voice called out from the cell phone she still held. And without another glance at him, Rachel continued her interrupted phone conversation.

“I was at LaReese’s place and thought I’d slip across the park to Bernie McNamara,” she was saying. She glanced up at Eli, and for a moment he felt it again. A subtle connection.

Then she turned and started walking away, still talking. Still working.

He must have imagined it.

As Eli watched her go, Ben came up beside him. “Very nice, Eli. But I thought your life plan didn’t include women for at least another year.”

“Two years,” Eli corrected, bending over to retrieve the football. “And even then the plan doesn’t include spoiled, haughty women.” Eli grinned at his brother and handed him the ball. “My life plan is firmly intact.”

“Pay down your loan, buy a house, the right car, and then look for someone to share your neat, orderly life.” Ben tapped Eli on the chest with a football, his expression turning serious. “Beware of plans, my brother. They have a way of flipping you midstream.”

Eli didn’t reply to that. He knew his brother was talking about the pain he and his daughter Olivia suffered when Ben lost his wife, Julia, to cancer.

Eli knew from personal experience that life didn’t always cooperate. At one time he had a girlfriend and other plans. But the girlfriend’s parents were leery of the question mark hanging over Eli’s life. Eli had been adopted at age six by the Cavanaughs and the only thing he knew about his natural parents were their names, Darlene and Zeke Fulton. The last memory he had of them was a car spinning out of control, a horrifying crash and then his own life turned topsy-turvy. When the girlfriend’s parents convinced her to break up with Eli, he was determined that the only way he would enter another relationship was if his own life was in order. So he made a plan and stuck to it.

But as he followed his brother back to the game, Eli threw a glance over his shoulder.

Rachel was looking back at him, as well.

Chapter Three

R achel surveyed the homey interior of the Starlight Diner, looking for her friends Pilar Estes, Meg Kierney and Anne Smith.

She had rushed through her interview with Bernie hoping to get here on time. It had been a while since she and her friends had been able to get together for brunch and they had lots of catching up to do.

“You looking for the girls?” Sandra Lange, the owner of the diner, met Rachel at the door, her blond hair worn in its usual teased up-do. She was tying on her apron. “I just got back from church myself, but I believe that Miranda put them in the far corner, by the window.”

“Thanks, Sandra.” Rachel paused before joining her friends, noting Sandra’s drawn features. “How have you been doing?”

“Oh, not too badly,” Sandra said, with a smile. “I have to go to the cancer clinic again and the doctor will tell me what I can expect. I’m just thankful for each day God gives me. And thankful that the wheels of God grind slowly, but they do grind and each movement brings me closer to the truth.”

She was talking in puzzles, but Rachel sensed that she wouldn’t get more out of Sandra right now. The difficulties Sandra had faced in her life had created strength of character that many people underestimated. “I’m glad that you have your faith, Sandra.”

“It’s not just faith, Rachel. It’s a relationship with a loving Father.”

Rachel didn’t want to refute Sandra’s comment. Rachel had her own issues with God, but didn’t want to get into that right now. So she simply smiled and excused herself to join her friends, who were already chatting and laughing around the table.

“Good morning, lovely ladies.” Rachel pulled a large envelope out of her briefcase and dropped it on the table.

“Meg Kierney, these are for you.”

With a squeal, Meg pounced on the envelope, her pale blue eyes shining with anticipation. “Wedding pictures?”

“Fresh from the developer. Picked them up on my way here.”

Anne and Pilar leaned over to look at the photos Meg had pulled out.

Old rivals Meg and Jared had met at the thirty-fifth anniversary for Tiny Blessings Adoption Agency. Meg had already gone through a bad divorce and Jared was a widower. When they discovered that their respective adopted boys, Luke and Chance, were twins separated at birth, the only practical solution was to get married for the sake of the boys. However, as they spent time together, they truly fell in love and later had another, private, more meaningful ceremony at the Chestnut Grove Community Church. It was this ceremony that Rachel had pictures of.

“Oh. Look at Luke and Chance. They’re so cute! I would love to have twins.” Anne traced the faces of the boys with a longing look. “Actually, I would love to have kids, period.”

“You will,” Pilar said, reaching over and hugging their friend. “You just need to realize that you truly are beautiful. And someday some lucky man will see that, too.”

When Rachel and her parents moved to Chestnut Grove, Pilar, Anne and Meg befriended Rachel, unfazed by her parents’ wealth and unimpressed by her background. Rachel was a quick, bright student and as a result had skipped two grades, making her younger than the children she went to school with. Younger and, in spite of her brains, unable to defend herself in the rough and tumble that comes with changing schools. Her youth, combined with her New England accent and her parents’ money had created a situation ripe for teasing from other girls who saw Rachel’s quiet shyness as snobbery. One day some of the girls in her class had her cornered in the playground and were teasing her. Anne, Pilar and Meg had found her. The older girls had intervened and taken Rachel under their wing. Eight years ago, Rachel had moved away, but since her return she had slipped back into their lives as easily as if she had never been gone. Through the ups and downs of life, they had become her confidantes, advisers and dearest friends.

“Sorry I’m late. I had to meet with a couple of clients close to Winchester Park. I thought church would be longer.” Rachel set her briefcase down on the floor beside her and brushed her hand over her hair. Still in place, surprisingly enough. When Eli Cavanaugh plowed into her, she was sure her hair had come loose.

“You look fine,” Pilar said. Then she frowned, touching the smudges on Rachel’s suit jacket. “Wait, what happened to you?”

“I interrupted a football game.”

“What?”

Rachel waved one well-manicured hand. That little confidence was a mistake. “Never mind.” She didn’t want to talk about it. In fact, she preferred not to think about Eli, his shirt open, and his hair curling damply over his forehead.

“And you’re blushing about that ‘never mind,’” Pilar teased.

Meg glanced from Pilar to Rachel and laughed. “She is. Look at that, girls. I didn’t think anything could faze our resident math whiz.” She elbowed Rachel lightly. “C’mon. Who is he?”

“It’s not a he.” And her cheeks got even redder as she unconsciously brushed the other sleeve.

Pilar turned her around. “Look, a matched set on this arm. Someone has been manhandling our friend, amigas. Should we rush out to defend her honor or should we make her sit here and eat her fries without ketchup until she confesses who did it and why?”

“Unless, of course, she went through ketchup withdrawal and then we’d have to rush her to the hospital,” Anne said.

“Too bad Dr. Cavanaugh is a pediatrician,” Pilar said with a soft sigh, twirling her dark hair around her finger.

“I bet Eli could melt this woman’s cold heart with those dreamy green eyes…”

“Look at her. She turned red as a beet when you said Eli’s name,” Meg cried out.

They were getting dangerously close to the truth. Rachel knew her friends weren’t going to quit until they solved her little mystery. “He was playing touch football and he ran into me while I was walking through the park, okay?” She looked around the group, from Anne’s gentle expression to Meg’s slightly cynical one to Pilar, who was grinning like she had discovered a deep, dark secret.

“I could run into that man any day,” Anne said. “He’s got an earthy appeal. He’s almost as good-looking as…” She glanced around the group and laughed self-consciously. “As Jared,” she said, flashing a smile Meg’s way.

“Well, that’s what happened,” Rachel said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Now, can we order? I’m starving.”

“Eli’s single, I heard,” Meg said, looking from Anne to Pilar, still hot on the trail. “And isn’t he Gracie’s doctor?”

“Which has nothing to do with me,” Rachel emphasized. So much for diversion. The conversation was getting out of hand.