To Catch A Wife. Lee McKenzie
annoying.
She eyed a package of coffee longingly before shifting her attention to an assortment of teas. Mint, which Annie had once recommended for an upset stomach and was mildly palatable with a spoonful of sugar. Echinacea, for the time she’d come down with a cold last winter. However, all it did was make her tongue tingle. Red rooibos, which was supposed to be good for everything and tasted worse than all the rest put together. Mint it was, she thought, dropping a bag into her favorite coffee mug and returning to the living room to wait for the water to boil.
“I had a crush on Jack when I was fourteen, not since I was fourteen. Either way, that’s no reason to rush into anything.”
Fred made a big production of clearing his throat.
“Don’t you dare say it.” She could read him like a book. “I did not rush into this thing with Jack. It just happened, and now I’m being rushed into motherhood, and I’m not ready for it, so I’m not rushing into marriage.”
Tadpole cracked the remaining shell, crammed in the second nut, one cheek pouch bulging, and sniffed around the cage for more. The little critter’s face, now comically distorted, made her smile.
“Your two-wrongs-don’t-make-a-right analogy is all well and good,” Fred said. “But what about your family, Jack’s family? Everyone will have something to say about this.”
Everyone in town would have plenty to say about plain-Jane Emily Finnegan having Jack Evans’s baby. Maybe she should move to Chicago. “Trying to avoid gossip is not a good reason to rush into marriage.”
“Fair enough. I hope you’ve talked to your sisters. I still can’t believe you told them I was the father.”
“Not yet. I need to do that in person.”
“You can’t call them?”
“No way. They’ll want to know who the real father is, and I’m not explaining that over the phone.” With her free hand, she pulled her laptop out of her bag and set it on her desk beneath the window overlooking Main Street.
“You can’t run out there this afternoon?”
“No time. I have to get ready for my—” Hmm. She hadn’t meant to let that slip.
“Ready for your...?”
Fred would find out sooner or later. Probably sooner, since it seemed the barbershop was the hub of Riverton’s rumor mill. “Jack and I are going out for dinner.”
Fred let out a long whistle. “A date. Interesting.”
“It’s not a date. We have things to talk about, stuff to figure out.” Fred did not need to know about the getting-to-know-each-other portion of the evening.
“And you plan to do that at the Riverton Bar & Grill? Gee, that won’t attract any attention at all.”
“That’s not where we’re going.” And if Jack suggested that’s what they do, she would veto it.
The whistle of the kettle drew her back to the kitchen. “I have to go,” she said, filling her mug and inhaling the fragrant minty steam rising from it. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Right after you’ve straightened out this mess with your sisters.”
“I’ll call you. Goodbye, Fred.” She disconnected before he thought of another reason to prolong the conversation. She should work on an article for the paper and update her blog. Most important, she needed to figure out what to wear tonight. She hadn’t wanted to admit to Fred that it was a date, but it was. Jack had said so.
THE RIVERTON POLICE STATION was attached to the back of the new town hall building, just east of the historic downtown district. Technically, the low, sprawling complex wasn’t that new, having been built in the eighties, but it was significantly newer than the original town hall, which had been constructed more than a hundred years before that. That particular building, a more imposing two-story redbrick structure, still stood at the corner of First and Main and housed the town’s library and the county museum.
Jack swung his Jeep into the lot and parked next to a patrol cruiser. In spite of being much later than he had planned to be here, he sat for a moment and stared at the Visitor Parking sign on the cinder block wall in front of him.
A quick shave and a haircut. That’s all he’d stopped for. He’d ended up with neither. Instead...instead...unbelievable. Un-be-lievable. He fast-forwarded through the events of the past hour and a half, hitting pause at a few critical moments.
In no way, shape or form had he been prepared for Emily’s appearance at the barbershop. Judging by her reaction to finding him there, the feeling had been mutual. Flustered and evasive at first, she had finally confessed to what had her on edge. She was having a baby, and the baby was his.
Over the years, he’d known several guys who had found themselves in this situation, but he had always been responsible, taking precautions to make sure it never happened to him and the woman he was involved with. He could recall several instances in which those guys felt they were being trapped into a lifetime commitment they weren’t ready to make. One had even suspected he was being manipulated into taking responsibility for somebody else’s child.
Jack locked gazes with himself in the rearview mirror. Why wasn’t he feeling any of those things? Why was he accepting this at face value, acknowledging the child was his? Because in his heart, he knew Emily was telling the truth, and he knew she hadn’t planned this any more than he had. Their share of the blame was an even fifty-fifty split, and so was their responsibility.
She thought he didn’t know her. But he knew about her, and he knew her family. Emily Finnegan was as transparent as Wisconsin sunshine on a cloudless spring day. She had flatly rejected his hasty suggestion they get married—and honestly, what had he been thinking? If he hadn’t made the unexpected trip home, if he hadn’t given in to impulse and dropped into the barbershop, if Emily’s friend Fred hadn’t already known the secret and engineered their meeting, he wasn’t completely convinced she ever would have told him.
He plucked Emily’s card from his jacket pocket. He had intended to call her as soon as he’d wrapped up this interview, or possibly drop by her apartment and surprise her. He had been fairly certain she would have been furious he hadn’t called or surprised he thought she cared. Either way, after flatly refusing his offer of marriage, she had agreed to have dinner with him tonight. He should be in denial, panicking, freaking out. Instead, he stared at her business card and cursed himself for being the jerk who had slept with a woman and never bothered to call. Now she didn’t trust him, probably didn’t believe a word he said. And he couldn’t blame her. Convincing her otherwise meant he had his work cut out for him. Good thing he was never one to back away from a challenge. This time was no exception. He slid Emily’s card into his pocket and headed into the station.
“Hey, Doug,” he said to the young officer manning the front desk. “Sorry to be so late. Something came up, and I had to deal with it.” Talk about an understatement.
“No problem. How was the drive from Chicago?”
“As long as ever. How’s my witness holding up?”
“Ticked off we’re keeping her here ‘against her will,’ but we weren’t letting her go till you got here.”
“Appreciate that. Thanks.”
The door of Chief Fenwick’s office swung open. “Detective Evans, as I live and breathe. Good to see you. Who’d’ve figured you’d be here on official business instead of just paying us a social visit.”
Jack crossed the room and accepted the man’s firm handshake. He always made a point of dropping by the station when he was in town, and over the years he and Gordon Fenwick had forged a close working relationship. In his early days with the Chicago