Mistletoe Baby

“I don’t know for sure. Even if I am, I’m not ready to tell people. You know the first trimester is…” She swallowed, unable to dwell any more on that horrific possibility. Instead, she switched tactics. “David and I don’t want anything upstaging Lilah and Tanner’s wedding.”

“Oh. I think they’d be too happy for you to mind, but you guys are being really considerate.” May mimed locking her lips and throwing the invisible key over her shoulder. “You can count on my discretion, sweetie. Mindy will just have to speculate alone. I won’t confirm a thing.”

Rachel would prefer no one was speculating anything about her at all, but that was asking too much in a town this size. “I appreciate your keeping the secret.”

“Don’t mention it.” May grinned. “It’ll be fun knowing something no one else does. Well, besides you and David, of course. You want me to make myself scarce so you can call him?”

“Actually.” Rachel’s fingers tightened involuntarily, and one sharp edge of the card scraped her skin. “Do you think you could spare me for a little while?”

“Absolutely! You take any time you need.”

“Great.” Rachel reached for the coat she’d hung on the brass rack by the counter. “I think maybe I should go thank him in person.”

AS SHE’D EXPECTED, Rachel found David seated at the desk in the private office behind Waide Supply. He glanced up with a smile that bordered on cocky, sending her temper through the roof.

She didn’t yell, not with Arianne and Zachariah just on the other side of the wall, but her tone was pointed. “Have you lost your mind?”

“No. Why, have you found one?”

And now he was making jokes, not taking her seriously at all. “You sent me flowers. At work!”

“Well, it seemed like the best place since it’s where you are during the day.”

“David!” She leaned forward, bracing her hands on the desk. “This isn’t funny.”

His boyish smile would have melted a weaker woman. “Not even a little? Come on, most women get mad when their husbands don’t send flowers.”

“You’re not my husband anymore,” she said in desperation.

His humor-filled features hardened so quickly that it made him look like a different person. “The hell I’m not.”

“You know what I meant. We’re not married in the typical sense.”

“We could be,” he coaxed. “Don’t you miss me, Rach? I miss you.”

His tone was as dangerously addictive as really good chocolate. “Don’t.”

“Why not?” He rose from his chair, bracing his own hands on the desk and angling toward her. They were practically nose to nose.

Because she couldn’t recall him claiming to miss her before he’d heard she was pregnant. Tears pricked her eyes. Was this how she’d thoughtlessly made him feel all those months they’d been trying, as if his primary value to her was as someone who could give her a baby?

He ran his thumb across the top of her cheek, the stroke sending shivers of sensation through her. “Don’t cry.”

“Don’t send me flowers.” She straightened. “You might as well have taken out a billboard on Main Street telling everyone I’m pregnant.”

“You’re overreacting. It was just a basic floral arrangement. It’s not like I sent one that came in a ceramic bassinet.”

“No, but May and Mindy Nelson have both figured it out.”

“Oh.” He grimaced. “I like both of them, but if they know, the news will have spread all the way to Atlanta by morning. We should go ahead and tell my fam-”

“No! No, I’m not ready for that.” She remembered the pitying glances and unsolicited platitudes from before. If, God forbid, anything should go wrong with this pregnancy, the fewer people who knew, the better.

“We shouldn’t tell anyone. Not yet. Can we just get through this wedding first? Then we’ll figure out the appropriate way to handle it.”

He blinked. “That’s uncannily like what I said to you when…”

When she’d told him she thought she should leave. He’d looked startled, then relieved, then almost coolly calculating as he’d explained why they shouldn’t tell anyone yet. She hadn’t thought that far ahead, merely trying to survive the moment.

She squared her shoulders, redirecting the conversation. “I know they have reputations as friendly gossips, but I don’t think May or Mindy will say anything yet. At least, not anything they can back up with fact. May promised to drop the subject. I’m sure something will happen in the next day or so that’s more interesting than seeing me in the pregnancy-test aisle. Without anything further to fan the flames, Mindy will probably let it go.”

“You mean without incidents like me sending you ill-advised flowers?” His smile was rueful.

She softened. “They were beautiful.”

“So are you.”

“You can’t say things like that!”

“We’re alone. There’s no May or Mindy or-”

“Rachel, are you still back here?” A blond head poked inside the doorway.

David growled. “Arianne!”

His sister hesitated. “I saw Rachel come in, but was helping a customer. I just thought I’d see if she was still around and wanted to grab an early lunch with me.”

“We’re kind of in the middle of something,” David said.

“Not really,” Rachel countered, seeing the perfect opportunity to escape. “I mean, we were, but we’ve finished our conversation. Ari, I’d love something to eat-I’m starving.”

“Great. I’ll get my purse.”

Rachel made the mistake of glancing back toward David, who mouthed, Coward. But then his reproving expression was replaced with a mischievous gleam that made her palms clammy and her mouth go dry.

“Hey, Ari, how about I join you?” he called. “Lunch with two of my favorite gals. I’ll treat. You don’t mind, do you?”

His sister grinned. “Like I’m gonna turn down free food? My mama didn’t raise any fools.”

David turned to Rachel and winked. “No, she sure didn’t.”

“YOU’RE BACK,” May drawled, glancing up from the inventory-order forms on the counter. She smiled. “That must have been one of the longest thank-yous on record.”

“Sorry. I stopped for lunch on the return trip. I can stay late to make up the time.”

May waved a hand. “Not necessary. You see how swamped we are in here.” Last month, they’d been busy with clients who wanted personalized Christmas cards and other holiday items, but most people who were going to purchase those had done so already.

“All right. I’ll just go check the store e-mail.” As Rachel sat at the computer, she could hardly concentrate enough to type in the password. Her thoughts kept drifting back to David.

He’d been utterly charming at lunch, darn him. He’d made Arianne laugh, and Rachel had reluctantly done the same. She could hardly sit through the meal glaring without letting her sister-in-law know there was a problem.

Their recent troubles had overshadowed the memories of their whirlwind courtship, how much she’d enjoyed merely being around him, how she’d smiled all the time. Lately she’d felt isolated, first by the medical side effects but most excruciatingly by losing her baby, and had been too caught up in her own suffering to notice how rare David’s smiles were growing. He put on a better public face than she did, but his family hadn’t been fooled. Arianne had actually commented today while they waited for the check that it had been a while since she’d seen her big brother in such a good mood.

Guilt tugged at Rachel, knowing how confused Ari would be by the forthcoming news of their separation. Of course, before she could worry about how David’s family took the news, she had to make sure David himself acknowledged their separation. The flowers and his presence at lunch today made it clear that he wanted her to give it another try for their child’s sake. Too much responsibility for an unborn baby. When the problems between them sharpened enough to cause discord further down the road, would one of them resent their kid for being the