LITMIR.BIZ

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glossy, maple-brown hair and green-gold eyes. Bran wasn’t oblivious to her sexual appeal, but hadn’t been slammed with it at first sight the way his brother was. Good thing, as it turned out.

      Now Lina, she’d hit him hard. If he’d had her number, he’d have called her within twenty-four hours. Truth was, he hadn’t so much as touched another woman since the night with Lina. He had convinced himself it was because of Paige and the last-minute cancellation of their wedding, but he knew better now. He hadn’t been able to get Lina out of his head.

      Nobody said a word. Their expectant expressions spoke for them.

      He groaned and tugged at his hair, which was more characteristic of Zach than him. Getting started wasn’t easy. “The night before my wedding—what should have been my wedding—I got drunk.”

      Zach nodded, even though he, like Bran, wasn’t much of a drinker.

      “I should have gone home, but I didn’t. I went to a tavern, and I met a woman. We spent the night together, but I didn’t know anything but her first name. When I got out of the shower in the morning, she had taken off.”

      “With your wallet?” his brother, the cop, asked.

      “No. She hadn’t touched anything. I made some attempt to find her, but with only a first name, I struck out.” He hesitated, suddenly wishing he hadn’t invited Tess to sit in on this confession. “I didn’t use a condom.”

      “Oh, dear,” she said.

      He grimaced. “The one solid witness to today’s bank robbery? It’s her. Lina. Lina Jurick. And she’s six months pregnant.”

      Zach swore.

      “She didn’t know how to find you, either?”

      That was Tess, optimistic about human nature.

      “She knew,” he said grimly. “Turns out, I’d had the damn wedding invitation with me. While I was in the shower, she saw it. That’s why she took off.”

      “O-oh,” Tess breathed.

      “She swears she was going to tell me before the baby was born. It’s a girl,” he added. “What it comes down to is, I’m going to be a father.”

      “Shouldn’t you insist on some testing?” his brother asked. “To be sure you are the father?”

      Bran shook his head, sure at least about this much. “Lina isn’t like that. She teaches at the middle school. She’s a thoroughly nice woman.”

      “Pretty?”

      “Beautiful.” He rubbed a hand over his jaw. “My head is spinning.”

      “How much did she see today?” Zach asked.

      Bran told them about the robbery and about his own initial fear that the killer might know Lina. “Doesn’t sound likely, though,” he concluded. “She says he has one of those faces. Not ugly, not handsome. Not memorable. His head was shaved, and she isn’t sure if he was partially bald or what. She thinks he might have had an earring but didn’t see any tattoos. The feds will be sitting down with her in the morning, and the sketch artist as soon as we can line it up.”

      “But tomorrow is Christmas Eve.”

      “Yeah, that complicates things.”

      “So, back to Lina,” his brother said. “What’s your plan?”

      Wheels had been grinding in his head since he’d set eyes on her at the pharmacy. “Spend time with her,” he heard himself say. “Unless I don’t like her, I’ll marry her.” He shrugged. “Why not? I intended to marry. I want a family. With her, I already have one.”

      Amusement glinted in Zach’s eyes, but Tess gaped at him.

      “Just like that?” She sounded outraged. “No special fondness required? If that’s not a recipe for disaster!”

      “Why would it be?” he countered. “I liked her when we talked. And we did talk quite a bit that night. We’re attracted. We’re having a baby together. Not so many years ago, that alone would have guaranteed a wedding.”

      “But it doesn’t anymore. Bran, what if you fall in love with someone else? What if she does?”

      He’d kill the son of a bitch, that was what. Bran blinked at the violence of his reaction to the idea. No, he decided, there was nothing surprising about it. She was carrying his baby. She was his, even if she didn’t know it yet. He didn’t share, and when he made a commitment, by God he kept it, and he expected the same of her.

      “I’m closing in on forty,” he said. “It’s not happening.”

      “So you were drunk that night,” Zach said thoughtfully, rather than asking how old Lina was. “What about her?”

      Suddenly wary, Bran asked, “And that matters how?”

      “She was at a tavern on her own, maybe getting plastered. Either that wasn’t so unusual for her, which makes me think you should ask some more questions before she puts your name on that birth certificate, or it was unusual for her, in which case you have to ask yourself what was going on that had her there.”

      He stared at his brother, who was right. He should have asked himself exactly that. Why hadn’t he? Because she seemed so nice? What kind of idiot was he?

      After a minute, he nodded. “Okay.”

      “Does she have family in town?” Tess asked.

      “No. Doesn’t sound like she’s going anywhere, either.”

      Her forehead crinkled. “She won’t be by herself for Christmas, will she?”

      “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I didn’t get a straight answer.” He hesitated. “The loan officer Lina saw killed? Maya Lee was her best friend.”

      A gasp escaped Tess, who pressed a hand to her mouth. Even Zach looked disturbed.

      “She was there because they were supposed to have lunch together. In no time, it’s going to occur to her that, if she’d suggested an earlier time, her friend would be alive. Or she’ll come up with some other reason to start blaming herself. I told her she’s going to have nightmares,” Bran said. “I didn’t like leaving her, but I didn’t have a lot of choices.”

      “Do you think she’d join us tomorrow night?” Tess asked immediately, with the generosity he’d come to expect of her.

      “Your dad will be here.” Not, thank God, his mother, who had plans with her current husband—number five—and stepkids. Bran would have preferred never to see her again, but he had been polite at Zach’s wedding. He wasn’t looking forward to the next time he had to be polite to her.

      “So?”

      “I don’t know, Tess. I’ll...think about it. She may not want to.”

      “She’s going to be the mother of your daughter, no matter what. That makes her family, in a way.”

      “I told her that, but I don’t think she’s quite over finding out why I was there getting plastered that night. She was offended to think I was supposed to get married the next morning. I think she figures she was some sort of stand-in.”

      His brother’s eyebrows rose. “Wasn’t she?”

      Bran scowled. “No.”

      His brother smiled. “You being mad and depressed didn’t have anything to do with you taking a woman you didn’t know to bed.”

      “I wasn’t depressed.” He didn’t deny the mad part. “I had no intention of picking up a woman. All I wanted was a few drinks. She and I hit it off. That didn’t have anything to do with the damn wedding.”

      Zach’s smile widened. “Then bring her tomorrow. Let us meet her.”

      He

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