Daddy in the Making

chapter Two

“I wish he’d just stayed away,” Rita told Vi as she sat across from her at the Queen of Hearts in an out-of-the-way corner booth where the low-volume country songs on the jukebox were even more muted. The wagon wheel light fixtures hovered overhead, and a bunch of regulars ate burgers and drank beer at the bar, surrounded by sepia-hued pictures of the town during its early days.

“It sounds to me like he really does have amnesia.” Vi’s brown eyes reflected sympathy. Even though she was on lunch break from the small-town-reporter’s desk, she had an iPad next to her, ready to catch any breaking news should it come their way. “It’d be a good reason for him to come back here, retracing his steps before his accident. And he’d have no idea how ticked off you’d be. Besides, who goes around telling stories like that unless they’re true?”

Rita hadn’t touched her chef’s salad yet, but Vi was munching away on her fries. She’d been there for the morning after when Rita had still been on cloud nine after her night with Conn. But Vi had also seen the aftermath and how it’d decimated a newfound confidence for Rita that had lasted less than twenty-four hours before she’d felt the shame of supposedly being lied to and left behind once again.

“So what’re you going to do?” Vi asked, dipping a fry in catsup.

“What can I do?” Rita jabbed at a piece of ham with her fork. “I shouldn’t have done anything in the first place—except for running straight out of here when he bellied up to my table that night. I should’ve known—”

“Hey, you couldn’t have known.” As Vi leaned forward to rest a hand over Rita’s free one, her shoulder-length, dark red hair swung forward. “You were ready to move on after years of hating yourself for what happened with Kevin.”

“You weren’t happy when I told you about Conn after our...night.”

“I was being protective. But now there’s a baby involved, and that changes everything.”

Rita cradled her slightly curved tummy with her free hand. “That night, I should’ve just thought more about what it felt like when Kevin left. That would’ve stopped me from giving in to Conn.”

But she hadn’t been able to think about anything or anyone...except for the cowboy at her table, his eyes sparkling with fun, drawing her into their depths with “why not?” allure.

But, as she’d waited for him the day and night afterward, she’d found out “why not.” The minutes had ticked by to one hour...two...then to midnight. And still no Conn. The next morning had come, then passed, then the next and the next.

By that time, she knew she’d been had, and she’d closed up her heart tighter than ever, knowing that she was the only one she could depend on.

And then she’d missed her period, although Rita couldn’t and wouldn’t regret getting pregnant.

Maybe that was what life had in store for her. Always a great mother to the children she loved more than anything, but never a wife.

“You know what the most embarrassing part is?” Rita finally asked.

Violet swallowed her bite of burger. “What?”

A wounded laugh escaped. “There was something that kept needling at me, telling me that there was a really good reason he didn’t come back.”

“And there ended up being a good reason. Doesn’t it make you feel better to know that he didn’t reject you? That it had everything to do with circumstances beyond his control?”

Vi was wearing one of those looks filled with optimism. And why shouldn’t she? This weekend, she was going to marry millionaire Davis Jackson, her star-crossed lover from high school. They had been run through the gauntlet after Vi had come back to town after having lost her job on a city newspaper and returned to St. Valentine to lick her wounds. Davis had always loved her—the girl from the wrong side of the tracks—but Vi hadn’t been sure he was pursuing her again because of that or to get payback for how she had broken his heart. Now, though, everything was wedding marches and roses for her.

No, Rita didn’t feel nearly as positive as Vi.

“I’m just considering myself lucky to have escaped this one,” she said. “Conn is my cautionary tale.”

“For what could happen if you should ever let your guard down again and someone crushes you for real. I get it, Rita.”

“I mean, he didn’t return to St. Valentine to request my forgiveness or to sweep me off my feet again, right? And if he saw my stomach, he probably flipped.”

“You don’t know if he saw it?”

“I didn’t look at him to make sure while I was hightailing it out of the lobby.”

“You couldn’t bring yourself to see his reaction. I get that, too.” Vi sighed. “But if you left him in the dust like that, how can you be so sure just what he wants to do?”

What he wanted to do... A glimmer of the same excitement she’d felt that night—and even today when she’d first seen him—shimmered deep in Rita’s chest, where it felt as if something were struggling to come alive.

Why wouldn’t it just go away?

Vi leaned back in her seat, probably knowing Rita wouldn’t answer the rhetorical question. “Word has it that there was something in the air when you two laid eyes on each other this afternoon, you know.”

What did everyone else know? “And since when are you such a fan of gossip?”

Vi made a “touché” gesture. She’d suffered plenty of gossip herself, when her off-limits millionaire had flown in the face of everyone in town to court her.

A waitress came by, asking if they would like anything else. Rita requested a to-go container and the server left without dropping off a check. She knew Vi had it covered, since her parents owned the place, which had seen a spike in customers since Vi’s journalistic work had been featured in a “Tony Amati Mystery” story that had gotten some airtime on a national news magazine program last month. It was true that Vi and Davis, who owned the small-town newspaper, hadn’t been able to dig up much information about Tony lately, but that hadn’t stopped them from staying the course.

“To-go?” Vi asked. “You’re deserting me?”

“I’ll have to eat the rest after I pick up Kristy from preschool. She likes the little chunks of ham, anyway.”

Vi wasn’t letting this go. “So...that’s going to be it, then? You’re going back to the hotel, back to the bubble of your reception desk?”

“Safest place on earth.”

“Rita...”

She slumped in her seat. “Listen, I know that you’ve fallen in love and you just want everyone else to be as happy as you are. But I can’t do it again. I can’t have my pride and...” She rested a hand over her heart. “I can’t have it bruised again.” Then she put her hand on her tummy, rubbing it. “So, yes, I’m going back to the hotel to do some maintenance work after I pick up Kristy. And I’m going to hope that Conn Flannigan has already driven back home without knowing anything more than he needs to.”

Then she eased toward the edge of her booth seat, intending to get out. “The bottom line is that he doesn’t really remember what went on between us that night. That’s probably a blessing in disguise. I’m sure we both acted in a way we’d regret now, after the heat of the moment.”

“If that’s how you want it.”

Great—the guilt trip. But Rita was firm in her resolutions. That night four months ago, she’d rushed into something she’d never thought she would be going into again. But now, with some time and distance behind her, she really did think that she’d dodged a bullet. The hotel had been busier than ever, and Kristy needed a mother who was focused on her, not on hormonal desires and scatterbrained affairs.

“Rita?” Vi smiled sadly. “I’d give anything to see you and the kids happy.”

“All of us are just fine. We’ll be very happy.”

Rita just wanted to raise her daughter and this new child to be more than what she’d been known as in St. Valentine ever since Kevin had become a bitter, different man, then left her for the other woman she’d found out he’d been seeing while she was pregnant.

Yes, Rita was the hard-luck case. But she’d done a damned good job of raising Kristy in spite of that until—

No, she didn’t want to mull over Conn Flannigan again. Didn’t want her heart to ache with an agonizing heat just at the thought of him.

The waitress brought the to-go container, and Vi stayed seated as Rita grabbed her purse, sliding the strap over her shoulder.

“Someday,” Vi said, “you’re not going to be able to ignore how you feel, Rita. You found it real easy to fall in love when we were kids. I wish it could be just as easy for you nowadays.”

Rita’s pulse thudded in bruised rhythm, but just as she was about to buck up, the room suddenly went still, as if something had entered and caught everyone’s attention.

When Rita glanced toward the entrance, her throat was tight. Was it...?

Then she saw who had come in, and she relaxed, even though her heart jittered in her chest.

It wasn’t Conn, thank goodness. But it was a man in beaten jeans and a long-sleeved black Western shirt who had taken a seat at a table that was removed from everyone else. He left his black cowboy hat on, the better to shade a dark-eyed, stoic face that everyone in town hadn’t stopped talking about since he’d arrived months ago, only to settle just on the outskirts of town after getting a job on a nearby ranch and renting a cabin.

The Tony Amati look-alike—Jared Colton. And he was just as aloof as he’d been when he’d first arrived. He was a ringer for all the photos of Tony Amati hanging on the hotel and Queen of Hearts walls, and even though everyone had their own theories about how he was connected to the town founder, he was still a mystery that Vi and Davis had been trying to solve through their journalistic investigation and the published articles that had been picked up by some national outlets.

Rita didn’t mind him at all, seeing as he’d helped stir up interest in St. Valentine, which had been languishing after the kaolin mine had stopped producing “china clay” for things such as plastic, paints and paper. Jared and Tony had certainly pumped up tourism and given her more to do, so that she could forget about her cowboy.

“The cipher cometh,” Vi whispered across the table. She grabbed her iPad with one hand, polishing off the last fry on her plate with the other. “I’ve got work to do.”

“He’s already told you a million times—no interviews.”

“Maybe this is the time he’ll break.” Vi flashed her a determined smile and was off.

Jared saw her coming, but his expression never altered, even as Vi took a seat across from him.

When Rita left the saloon, she was careful to look both ways on the boardwalk before fully coming outside. Not seeing Conn Flannigan anywhere, she started to walk toward Kristy’s preschool, telling herself that Conn had gone home again.

But why didn’t it feel so great to realize that?

* * *

Conn and Emmet had stopped at a little Tomorrowland-like joint called the Orbit Diner for lunch, and now they were walking back to Emmet’s pickup truck, which they’d parked just off Amati Street, nearer to the hotel.

“I wish you’d reconsider,” Emmet said.

“There’s too much to walk away from here.” During lunch, Conn hadn’t said anything about the tiny pooch of Rita’s belly. For all he knew, it could’ve been due to a weight gain, but he planned to get to the bottom of the story today.

His pulse gathered speed every time he thought of her coming out from behind the hotel desk...the little bump on her...the way she’d left him frozen in his tracks.

What if she was pregnant?

Something—a memory?—stirred in the back of his mind, but it didn’t come through. Not yet. All he could hold on to now was his confusion at not knowing what the hell he felt.

A baby, he thought.

Was he even the type of guy who would make a good father?

A tiny sense of panic ran through him, icing any emotion, as he and Emmet passed one of the burros that roamed St. Valentine. The critters were ancestors of the first burros that’d been used in the mines, and they were a tourist draw now, a town characteristic just as quirky as the Indian jewelry shop, the Old West trimmings or the mercantile that still made taffy and sold clothing, kitchen goods and souvenirs.

Emmet hung his thumbs in his belt loops while they walked. “Conn, I’m really not comfortable taking the truck and stranding you here.”

“Why? There’s a rental car office in the new part of town up the hill. There’re clothes stores, a pharmacy and even a real live doctor, just in case you think I’ll need one.” He’d brought his meds, too, but he doubted he was going to stay long enough for them to run out.

“Maybe we should both check into rooms.”

“Maybe you should just get back to the ranch. They can’t afford to have both of us gone.”

Just as he finished, the words died in the air, because straight up ahead, on the boardwalk, there she was.

Rita, in her old-fashioned hotel uniform—the blouse and knee-length skirt. Her legs were long, especially in the light black stockings that clung to the curves of her calves. She was shapely all over, not slender, but...

His hands skimming her hips...waist...the sides of her breasts...

Desire flushed through him like a flood of lava.

Every time he saw her he remembered yet another sensual moment. What else would come to him, though? Enough solid details to get him on his way to the rest of his life?

Emmet sighed, then said, “Call me when you’re done and we’ll get that rental car.”

“Will do.”

Rita was heading the other way, her back to him now. As he walked at a steady pace to catch up, his gaze couldn’t help but caress her rear end, which was cupped by that modest, yet somehow sexy, black skirt.

It was as if she sensed him before he said a word. Or maybe she just heard his boot steps on the boardwalk.

As she stopped and looked at him, those gray eyes were wide again. Something exploded in his chest as their gazes locked, and his pulse jumped, skipping over the next beat and landing hard on the other side.

Was he wrong, or did it seem as if she was just as rocked?

She started walking again, as if she was either resigned that he would continue to hound her or she was intent on just getting away.

“Aren’t you gone yet?” she asked, training her eyes straight ahead.

He laughed at her gumption. Somehow, laughter felt natural with her, as if they’d done a lot of it that night, even if there wasn’t much in store now. “I think there’s more in St. Valentine for me besides sightseeing.”

They were passing her hotel. Outside, where rusted iron benches waited like timeless sentries, a flock of geriatric men and one silver-haired woman wearing an Indian blanket around her shoulders were smoking cigars and watching the world go by. That included Rita and Conn, too, and their gazes followed them, even after Rita nodded a greeting.

Conn thought that she looked a little proud, her chin lifted slightly, as if she was daring someone to say something about her weight gain or...

The baby.

Again, his heart raced. He had to ask. It was just a matter of when.

She spoke when they were far enough away from the crowd. “I remember you were just as persistent then as you are now.”

“My brothers and mom call it ‘willfulness.’ They say I decide on something and I stick to it.”

“Yet you don’t remember that about yourself.”

“No, but it seems to be something I didn’t lose in that accident.”

She didn’t respond, so he decided he would do more talking. “One of the first things they said to me when I was recovering is that I’m a true cowboy, a man who’s at home on the range more than anyplace else. They say I’d rather be there than off the ranch in pursuit of a real life.”

“I know what you mean.”

He got the feeling that Rita had heard this about herself, too, except in her life, it was all about the hotel, not a ranch.

Strange that he would think this, though. Had she told him something similar that night?

Was it starting to come back to him now?

He reached inside his head but couldn’t recall it. All he could grasp were faraway things like sitting alone on his cabin porch, listening to the night sounds on his swing, enjoying what he had as a bachelor, content with nothing more.

Rita gave him a sidelong glance as they kept walking.

It was now or never.

He took off his hat, holding it in his hands. “I couldn’t help but notice...”

He motioned toward her stomach, trying to avoid the indelicacy of the words.

Immediately, she placed her palm there, as if protecting herself. Was she going to tell him to go to hell for saying she’d put on some pounds? Or...

Then she began walking again. “Don’t worry about it. The baby isn’t yours.”

Was that relief sliding through him, from chest to toe?

“I only wanted to make sure,” he said. “I might not know much about myself, but I do know that if it came down to it, I wouldn’t have left you in a lurch.”

“A baby’s not a lurch.”

Damn, she was making him work hard. “I didn’t mean it that way. I’m sorry, Rita.”

She stopped walking again, her hands on her hips as she shook her head. “You’ve been sorry a hundred times already.”

“Listen, all I want to know is—”

“I know what you want to know and I get the feeling that you won’t be going anywhere until you drag it out of me.”

Did she actually believe him now when he said that he had amnesia?

“So you just want me to paint you a picture of a memory, is that all?” she said, seemingly giving in. “You want me to fill in what happened before your accident?”

“I’d be grateful for it.” He held his hat with both hands. “I’ve had snippets of memory, where nothing has made much sense. So I thought I’d come back here, based on a few flashes, to get my past straightened out.”

She smoothed down her skirt, as civil as could be. “There’s really not much to tell. It started when you strolled into the saloon down the street while I was grabbing dinner.”

A slight glow lit in her eyes before she quickly banished it. Was she thinking of how it’d been, with him walking into the room, latching gazes with her?

A bang-up attraction just like the one he was feeling now?

Was she feeling it, too, but doing her damnedest to tamp it down?

“I was taking a break from doing some repair work in the hotel,” she said. “So it was going to be a long night. I own the place, along with my brother and sister, but I’m the one who runs it. And the only time I have to do catch-up work is when the desk isn’t very busy. But it’s been that way ever since the Tony Amati story came to the forefront.”

“I heard all about that.”

She crossed her arms over her chest, as if resisting any small talk. “Anyway, you came right over to my table. Charming. Persistent. Long story short, we ended up in bed in one of the empty hotel rooms. And when you left the next morning, you said you’d...”

He’d already guessed what he’d said, and he wondered how many women he’d done it to and if he’d really meant it at the time.

“I told you I’d be back,” he said.

“Yes. You said you’d come back after you’d taken care of your business for the day.” She fingered her collar, as if missing the jewelry she used to wear. “You took my necklace from my pile of clothing and said you wanted to bring it with you. You were in a playful, good mood. ‘It’s just some insurance,’ you said. ‘A guarantee I’ll come strolling through the lobby again tonight.’”

Insurance? A guarantee? Okay, from what he remembered about himself, this didn’t sound like him at all.

Had he been toying with her? His brothers—his best friends—had told him that he was a pretty harmless scamp, but it didn’t sound like it right now.

Why hadn’t he just made it clear to her that their one-night stand was merely that?

A sense of bewilderment rotated within him, as if trying to find a place to stop, to lock in and provide some clarity, but it never did.

“At any rate,” she said, still cool, “that’s the gist of it.”

He wanted to ask her just when she’d stopped expecting him to come back, but he wasn’t sure why he was even wondering.

She started walking again, and he knew she’d said all she was going to say. He knew that he’d done a real number on her, too, whether she showed it or not.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, following her, taking the necklace out of his back pocket and holding it out. “I wish I could—”

“You don’t have to wish anything.” She ignored the necklace. “Actually, it’s good to know the reason you didn’t come back—not to say I’m glad you were in an accident, but...” She blew out a breath. “At least you’re okay.”

He acknowledged that, nodding, then out of pure impulse, took her hand, intending to put the necklace in it. She gasped just as a zing of energy flew up his fingers, his arm—

Holding her... Curves against his palms, sleek, smooth, so beautiful...

He came out of it as she pulled her hand away from his and walked off again.

“You can keep it. It’s only a bauble.”

But, as he stood there, he got the feeling that this necklace—and everything that went along with it—no doubt meant a lot more than that to her.

He wanted to apologize again, but by now, apologies were just air. Meaningless.

He caught up with her in a couple of long strides. “If there’s anything else you can tell me—”

The words spilled out of her, as if the sooner she said them, the sooner he would leave. “You said that two out of three of your brothers are happily married. They tease you about being a bachelor until you’d like to punch their lights out. Your mom’s a widow, and you think that, more than anyone, she wishes you’d get out more to find someone who’d make your days ‘shine all the brighter,’ as she’d say. That’s what happened to her and your father—true, fast love.”

What? “I told you all that?”

“Well, we didn’t sleep much, whether it was talking or...” She trailed off, as if she regretted how far she’d gone in this conversation.

But he was swamped by yet another image. Holding her against him as she closed her eyes, pressing kisses to her eyelids, one by one, then the tip of her nose. Watching her in the glow of a soft lamp as she drifted off to sleep. Feeling something unfamiliar twisting inside of him, as if being born...

But wasn’t he the ultimate cowboy bachelor?

The same twisting sensation ripped through him now, as if daring him to define what it was.

Up ahead, he could hear children’s laughter, the clang of a playground, past all the dust-brushed Old West buildings. Rita kept leading him toward it.

“Rita,” he said, “when I came back here, it was because of you.”

This time, when she slowed down, she almost seemed to stumble before she straightened her posture. “What?”

“I had this fragment of a memory...” He gentled his tone. “About you. It drove me to find you, even if I can’t remember exactly why. I keep thinking that if I spend some time with you, it’s going to shake things loose in my head.”

His directness had apparently stunned her, because she kept walking slowly, not looking at him.

But then, she did sneak a glance, her expression even more torn now.

He’d played his last card with her.

They stopped at a chain-link fence that separated them from swing sets, a teeter-totter and a field where children were playing tag and doing somersaults and cartwheels in front of a woman wearing a floppy camp hat. Next to the field stood a small pastel-colored building with a mural on it. In the mural, children of all sizes and colors laughed, held hands and peered up at a rainbow.

One little girl with dark curls just like Rita’s spied her, and she jumped up, then waved.

Rita waved back as the girl picked up a bag from the edge of the grass and came running toward a swinging gate in the fence.

“Mommy!” she yelled, curls bouncing, skirt flying.

A new flash of memory hit Conn hard.

“Kristy. That’s my daughter’s name...”

He just stood there as the girl came through the gate and hopped into her mother’s arms. Rita buried her face in her daughter’s hair, squeezing her until she pulled away, planting a kiss on the child’s forehead.

Then the girl sucked in a breath. “I forgot!”

She ran back to the field, where her teacher was holding a majorette’s baton.

Meanwhile, it looked as if Rita was daring Conn to say something about her having a daughter. Looked as if she was wondering if this would be enough to let him know that she’d never truly expected him to stay for more than one night in the first place.

How had he reacted when she had told him she had a daughter that night? Had he wanted to run?

But then why would he have taken her necklace and promised to come back? Had he been that much of a jerk that he would’ve led her on just for another night of great sex?

She watched him wade through all these emotions that he couldn’t identify, then finally said, “You remember me telling you about my girl?”

“Yeah. I do now.”

“Okay.” She looked straight ahead at her daughter. “Then I can’t give you any more than that, Conn.”

The little girl ran out the gate and Rita took her hand, guiding her away before they could even be introduced.

* * *

Conn had checked into the Co-Zee Inn in the more modern east side of town, thinking that he didn’t want to crowd Rita too much by checking in to her hotel. He was lying in bed, hoping that his brain would catch up to what he’d experienced today.

As soon as he shut his eyes to the faint neon from the “vacancy” sign bleeding through the green curtains that didn’t quite shut all the way, it was as if his mind finally cooperated.

A few memories crept in. In bed, Rita leaning her head in her hand as she propped herself up with an elbow, her curls spilling down. She was looking down at him as he lay there, using his finger to lazily trace the soft, pale inside of her arm. Their skin was drying from the sweat that had beaded on it during their lovemaking.

“I usually don’t sleep around like this,” she said. “I’ve got responsibilities that I take seriously.”

“Like your hotel,” he said.

She swallowed hard, her gaze widening, as if what she was about to say next would change everything.

“It’s more than that, Conn.”

He’d risen up on an elbow, too, coming face-to-face with her.

“Tell me,” he said.

“Kristy. That’s my daughter’s name.”

Conn looked into her eyes, expecting that the urge to flee would grab him at any second. Instead, he heard himself saying, “A little girl with your hair and eyes.”

Rita seemed as if she thought the night was about to end right there, but...

He leaned toward her, kissed her on the temple, reaching out to slide a hand over her hip...

His eyes opened, his heart beating so fast that he had to sit up to find balance.

Dammit, he’d been smitten by Rita in that moment, hadn’t he? But, based on what his brothers had told him, Conn probably would’ve sent the necklace back to her with an endearment-filled note, finding some charming way to ease their parting while never promising to return after that. He would’ve used his “Jedi mind tricks,” as his oldest brother, Bradon, called it, to make her think that one night of happiness was wonderful enough without expecting more from him.

As he swung his legs over the side of the bed, planting his feet firmly on the shag carpet, he leveled his breathing.

Had he hurt Rita enough to send her into another man’s arms? And had that man gotten her pregnant and left, too?

Or had the old Conn, the furthest thing from ideal father material, made a baby with her and accidentally left anyway?

As he lay back down, the neon light from the window beat like a red heartbeat on the ceiling.

But it also looked like a warning light, advising him to leave well enough alone.