Last-Minute Marriage

“See you. Come on, Dad. I want to watch Unsolved Mysteries.”

“Homework first.”

Sam wrinkled his forehead into a frown. “I’m sick of school already.”

Lily laughed. “It’s only October.”

“Tryouts for basketball are in four weeks,” Sam told her. This was Indiana. Basketball season was as real an indicator of the passing year as falling leaves.

“You’ll make the team this year, I know it,” Lily said. “Aaron’s told me how hard you’ve been working all summer.”

“Really?” Sam brightened at the praise.

“It all depends on your report card,” Mitch reminded him with a touch on his shoulder so Sam would look his way. “Now come on. Granddad is waiting for us, and he’ll want to see your drawing, too.”

Sam picked up his backpack where he’d left it beside the front door. “He’s very talented, Mitch—before you know it, I’ll have taught him all I can,” Lily said, stopping Mitch with a hand on his arm. “If he keeps progressing at this rate, we’ll have to contact someone at the university to work with him.”

“Whoa. You’ve only been giving him lessons since school started. You’re making it sound like I’ve got a budding Rembrandt on my hands.”

“Well, I may be overstating things just a bit,” Lily admitted. “But he’s good.”

“If he works at it,” Mitch added.

“That, too. But he is only ten. Discipline comes with maturity.”

“And he’d rather be Michael Jordan than Michelangelo.”

Lily sighed. “Yes.” She knew how sports crazy Sam was. And that his small size and his hearing impairment were holding him back from competing with the same skill and success as his friends. “You’ll work it out.”

“Yeah. We’ll manage.” Mitch shoved his hands in the pockets of his jacket. “We always do. At least with old Abraham’s bequest to Sam, finding money for special lessons won’t be a problem.” He still had no idea why the town patriarch had left his son nearly $27,000, and he probably never would, although his grandfather Caleb insisted it had something to do with him fishing Abraham out of the river after he’d fallen through the ice when they were boys. “Tell Aaron I said hello.”

“I will. Goodbye, Mitch.”

“Goodbye, Lily.”

“Bye, Sam,” she called. But he was already halfway down the brick sidewalk and couldn’t have heard her, anyway. “Tell him I said goodbye.”

“Will do.”

They didn’t talk in the car on the way home. It was too dark for Sam to read lips, or sign and be seen, for that matter. They drove past the park, and Mitch caught the quick reflection of taillights in the parking lot as they made the turn. He wondered who was there after dark on a rainy night like this.

No matter. Ethan or one of his men would take a swing through the park later, and if the car was still there, they’d check it out.

He pulled the truck into the driveway, and Sam hopped out, holding his drawing carefully in both hands. He sniffed the wet air. “Smells like fog,” he said, turning so that he could see Mitch’s response in the fitful glow of the porch light.

Mitch laughed. “How do you know it smells like fog?”

“It just does. Granddad says he can smell rain and fog and snow on the wind.”

“Granddad’s good at predicting the weather. But he also listens to the weather report on the radio every hour on the hour.”

“And he watches the weather channel a lot. Will it be bad enough they’ll cancel school tomorrow?” his son wanted to know.

Mitch helped open the storm door for Sam to enter the back porch. The front of the house faced River Road, but almost no one except the mailman used the front door. Everyone else in Riverbend came down the driveway and around to the back.

“I’m not sure they’ll cancel. But there’ll probably be a delay and you can sleep in an hour in the morning.”

“And stay up an hour later tonight?” Sam asked hopefully.

“Wrong,” Mitch said. “Now, get in there and show Granddad your drawing and then get to your homework while I fix supper.”

“But, Dad—”

“No buts. Or no Unsolved Mysteries.”

Sam grumbled something unintelligible and went inside with his head hanging. But by the time he’d greeted Belle, their yellow Labrador, and encountered his grandfather seated in the breakfast nook reading the paper, he was in a better mood. He held out his drawing for Caleb to see, explaining the finer points of the battle between Mothra and Godzilla.

Mitch watched the two most important people in his world for a moment as blond head and white were bowed over the drawing. But another part of his brain refused to focus on the scene. Instead, it kept pestering him to check out the car in the parking lot near the rose bed in the park. Unless he missed his guess, it was a red compact. And as far as he knew, there had only been one red car parked there today.

But Tessa Masterson was supposed to be safely ensconced in her room at the River View, not sitting in a dark parking lot on a wet October night.

“I’m going out for a quick run,” he told his grandfather, who waggled his finger so that Sam could turn his head and watch Mitch repeat the words. “When I get back, we’ll order pizza. How does that sound?”

“It’s raining,” Sam observed.

“I know. I won’t be gone long.”

“Your dad’s losing his marbles, going out for a run on a night like this,” Caleb informed his great-grandson, drawing circles on his temple with his index finger.

Sam nodded, repeating the gesture and rolling his eyes for emphasis.

The old man laughed, but he looked at Mitch with inquisitive eyes that had once been as brown as Mitch’s own.

Maybe he was crazy, Mitch thought. Crazy enough to have to see for himself if the car in the parking lot had California plates and a pregnant, sad-eyed woman inside.

CHAPTER THREE

TESSA SNUGGLED MORE DEEPLY into her big chenille sweater. It was the warmest thing she owned right now. She’d gotten rid of all her New York clothes when she followed Brian to California. Who needed parkas and wool gloves and snow boots in L.A.? But some nights it did get cool at the ballpark, so when she’d seen the sweater in a trendy boutique, she’d bought it without a second thought.

That had been seven months ago. Just about the time she got pregnant. The purchase was the second-to-last impulsive act she’d committed. The last had been to let Brian make love to her without protection one romantic weekend in Mexico, where he’d played a series of exhibition games. She’d been foolish enough to believe she knew her body’s cycles well enough to get away with unprotected lovemaking. She’d been wrong. And she would never, ever be so impulsive or so foolish again.

She pulled the folds of the sweater more tightly around her. She didn’t want to wake up from her half doze just yet and be confronted with reality: a bad choice in love, a nearly empty pocketbook and almost a thousand miles still to drive. She wanted to go on floating half-in and half-out of her dreams, the anxiety that dogged her every waking moment temporarily held at bay.

Knuckles tapped against the passenger window, and Tessa sat upright with a jerk. She turned her head toward the sound and at the same time reached for the door-lock button to make sure whoever was outside her car stayed there.

“Tessa?” She recognized the whiskey and honey voice, and the square-jawed profile outlined by the pinkish glow of a nearby street lamp.

It was Mitch Sterling.