Blame It On Babies. Kristine Rolofson
break last longer than it should. There was no way she was going to get out of the booth and show Jess Sheridan her new figure, even if it meant sitting there until sundown. Oh, she knew she couldn’t avoid seeing him until March, when the baby was due, but she hoped to stall the inevitable for a while longer.
“You feelin’ okay?” Charlie asked, when she stood behind the counter once again and poured herself a glass of ice water.
“Fine.” She fixed a fresh pot of coffee, wiped down the counters and checked the napkin holders to make sure they were filled.
“The new sheriff was asking about you,” Charlie said, grinning at her. She thought for a moment her heart stopped.
“What’d you tell him?”
“I told him your name, that’s all. And if he wanted to know anything else he should ask you.” The cook shook his head. “For a pregnant woman, you sure get asked out a lot. How come you don’t go?”
Lorna attempted a laugh and smoothed her white blouse over her rounded abdomen. “I’ll give you one guess.”
“That baby’s gonna need a father,” the man warned. “And you’re gonna need a husband.”
“That would be nice, Charlie,” she agreed, trying to keep her voice light. “Do you have anyone in particular in mind?”
A voice piped up from the end of the counter. “How about the son-of-a-bitch who did this to you?”
“He’s not available, Mike,” she told the old man. Mike Monterro lived alone, spent hours at the café and wasn’t shy about pronouncing his opinions. He looked about ninety, with a weathered brown face and wiry gray hair that stuck up in patches on the top of his head. Lorna was still a little bit afraid of him.
“Hmmph,” the man grumbled, frowning at Lorna’s belly. “In my day women didn’t go around having kids if they weren’t married. The men married ’em and gave the kids a name.”
“Have you ever been married, Mike?” She hoped to change the subject as fast as she could, before he delivered another opinion on her pregnancy.
“Yes, ma’am, and a sweeter woman you’d never meet. She could bake pies that would make a man weep, my Felicia could.”
“What kind of pies?” She poured a fresh cup of coffee and placed it in front of him. Mike usually stayed for lunch, then went home to “get some work done.” Or so he said. Lorna figured he took a nap.
“Apple, peach, rhubarb, you name it.” He sighed. “Felly’s been gone twenty-seven years now and I still miss those pies.” He gave her a sharp look. “Do you bake pies, missy?”
“No. I never learned.”
“Well,” he said, nodding to himself. “That’s your problem. You learn to bake pies and mebbee you’ll get yourself a man.”
Lorna hid her sigh. Mike didn’t know it, but Lorna would have baked a thousand pies if it meant that Jess Sheridan would fall in love with her. “I wish it was that simple, Mike,” she said.
He shrugged and picked up his coffee cup. “It should be, missy, yessiree.”
WALTERS. LORNA WALTERS. He’d grown up with a Walters family. They’d lived down the street. There might have been a daughter named Lorna, but he didn’t remember. Jess tapped her name into the computer, but came up with nothing but her driver’s license and her Beauville address. She wasn’t wanted for anything, had no record of speeding tickets or in-fractions of any kind. At least he knew where she lived and could see if that was the house that matched his memory.
Or not. He could let it go, chalk it up to one of those “strangers in the night” happenings, one of those things that was better left in the past.
He didn’t know why he couldn’t. He told himself he needed to apologize. He told himself he needed to know what exactly happened that night—after all, he’d had a lump on the back of his head for a week. He told himself once again he was acting like a fool. But at seven-twelve Monday evening, Jess knocked at 1205 North Comstock and waited for Lorna to come to the door.
Her eyes widened when she recognized him, but she was behind the screen door and didn’t open it.
“Yes, can I help you?”
“I’m Jess Sheridan,” he said. “And we have met.” He paused, hoping he was going about this in the right way. “I wanted to apologize for that evening.”
“You don’t have anything to apologize for,” she said, and he noticed she held a white bed pillow in front of her. She wore a fluffy blue robe and her hair was damp.
“This isn’t a good time to drop by, I guess.” He waited, hoping she would invite him inside. It was damn hard to talk while standing on the other side of a door. He started to feel uneasy, like he was making a big mistake.
“Not really,” she agreed. “It’s a little embarrassing. How did you find the house?”
“I’m the sheriff,” he said. “I got your name from Charlie and the rest was easy.”
“I know who you are. I knew who you were last July, too.”
Once again he felt an unaccustomed heat tinge his face. “There isn’t much I remember about that night. I was hoping you could fill me in. How drunk was I?”
“You were a perfect gentleman,” Lorna said. “You helped me out of a jam and you got yourself conked on the head for it. So I brought you home to recover.”
“To recover,” he repeated, remembering the way she’d felt in his arms. He’d recovered just fine, and when he’d put himself inside of her he’d thought he’d found heaven. Now it was Lorna’s turn to blush.
“Could we just forget about that night?” she asked, those big blue eyes imploring him to end the conversation. “Please? I don’t expect you to believe me, but I don’t pick up drunks and bring them home after work. You were the first.”
“And I’m not usually a drunk,” Jess said. “I guess that was an unusual night for both of us.” He’d believe anything she told him, Jess realized. Including that the earth was flat, the sky green and the state of Texas bordered the Atlantic Ocean. But he still had the nagging sense that there was something more, something else she hadn’t told him. He hadn’t been a cop for all these years for nothing. He fingered the prickles on the back of his neck and remembered the lump. “Who hit me?”
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