LITMIR.BIZ

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word?” the curly-haired blonde asked.

      Joe shook his head. A long, uncomfortable silence followed.

      “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Nana Mae said impatiently. “You can talk about it in front of me. I won’t have another stroke. Jake’s missing. He’s always come home for Christmas, except this year. And he hasn’t even called. It’s not like him. Something is wrong. We can say that out loud. We need to say it out loud.”

      Missing? Keri grabbed the counter as her world tilted. Dread scattered the butterflies in her stomach, leaving a ball of ice behind. Her heart pounding deafeningly loud, she focused harder on their conversation, needing to hear what they were saying.

      Everyone except Donovan was talking, stumbling over each other’s sentences.

      “Stop,” he finally said, not loud, but forceful enough for the discussion to come to an abrupt halt. “Jake’s not missing. He’s on an assignment where he can’t call us until he’s done.”

      Keri swallowed hard. Now what?

      “You knew?” the elderly woman asked, her face gone pale. “Why didn’t you say something before?”

      “I just got word myself. I would’ve told you after lunch. In private.”

      Keri slid off the stool and made her way to the table. “Please excuse me, but are you Jake McCoy’s brothers, Joe and Donovan?” she asked through the lump in her throat. “And you’re his grandmother, Nana Mae?”

      “Yes, dear. Who are you?”

      “My name is Keri Overton. I…know Jake. I came all the way from Venezuela to see him.” She looked at Donovan, deciding he was the one she needed to convince she was telling the truth. “You really don’t know how to get in touch with him?”

      “No.”

      Desperately, she said, “Aren’t you a big-time journalist or something? Someone with contacts and connections?” Her heart picked up speed again at his icy expression. As if he hated her or something…

      Which meant Jake had told his brother about her. About their circumstances. About her being responsible for what had happened to Jake in Venezuela.

      “Donny, get the girl a chair,” Nana Mae said.

      He didn’t, but he did stand and offer his.

      The room started to swirl a little. She should probably sit and put her head between her knees.

      Strong hands grabbed her as she reeled, helping to lower her to the chair. Keri lifted her head to thank him, but he was out of focus.

      Nana Mae’s voice reached her, however. “You’re pregnant.”

      Keri nodded, which made the room tilt.

      “And you’re looking for Jake. So I’ll take a stab in the dark and say you’re carrying Jake’s baby.”

      She needed him, and he wasn’t there. Her vision narrowed to one bright point. Sound barely penetrated her deadening world. “Yes,” she said finally, right before everything went black.

      Chapter One

       Five months later

      Keri sat in a straight-back chair, eating cake and sipping a tangy fruit punch. The living room of the beautiful old Victorian house was decorated with pink-and-blue crepe paper and balloons. Adding to the vivid atmosphere were lots of brightly dressed women, the same women who had welcomed her with open arms to Jake McCoy’s town, even though they only had Keri’s word that Jake was the father of her baby, due any day. Fainting was apparently a reasonable measure of truth telling.

      Her child wouldn’t lack for anything, Keri thought, looking at the colorful array of baby clothes and gear, the largesse of the baby shower now winding down. Some items were new and store bought, others were handmade, repaired or recycled with loving care. Her eyes welled at everyone’s generosity.

      “Don’t you go crying on us again,” Dixie Callahan warned from the chair next to her. “I’ve already had to redo my mascara twice.”

      “Switch to waterproof,” Keri teased the woman, who had quickly become her best friend, the curly-haired blonde from the Take a Lode Off Diner that life-changing day last December. Along with Donovan, Dixie had kept Keri from sliding off the chair when she fainted and had felt proprietary ever since. “It’s hormones, Dix. I have no control over them. Anyway, I’m not sad. I’m happy.”

      As happy as a nine-months-pregnant, thirty-year-old woman could be, she supposed, when the father of her baby hadn’t been heard from for five months. Had he been injured during his assignment, whatever that was? Would someone inform them of that—or if he died? Would he ever know he’d fathered a child?

      Not that he’d ever sought the role of father. Far from it. Since Keri had landed in town, she’d learned that all three McCoy brothers were commitment-phobic, although the youngest brother, Joe, had been engaged briefly to Dixie last fall after fifteen years of an onagain, off-again relationship that had started when they were high school freshmen.

      Keri had moved too often and had lived outside of the U.S. most of her life, so she’d never known that kind of long-lasting relationship. “Having roots” was just a concept to her, not a reality.

      “How’re you doing, angel?” Aggie McCoy, Jake’s mother, asked, bending close, worry in her eyes. Aggie was the world’s best hugger, her cushy body like Mother Earth personified, her bottle-black hair and vibrant blue eyes suited to her personality. Keri adored her.

      “I’m not in labor, Aggie,” she answered with a grin. She’d had two false alarms in the past week, so it was no surprise that everyone was anxious. “How’s Nana Mae? Is she tired after all this noise and activity?”

      “She’s loving every second of your party. Holding court, as you can see. Mama’s in her glory. You’ve been so good for her.”

      “I’m the lucky one.” By the end of Keri’s first day in town, she’d been hired as a live-in attendant for Maebelle McCoy, Aggie’s eighty-nine-year-old mother-in-law. Nana Mae needed help but would never admit it. Keri needed a place to stay but wouldn’t accept charity. Two birds, one stone, Joe and Aggie had pointed out. So, Keri earned her keep by helping out Nana Mae, a job that required more domestic duties than the nursing care that Keri was trained to give.

      Aggie took Keri’s hand. “I wish with all my heart that Jake would walk through that front door right this second.”

      “Me, too,” Keri said, her heart doing a little dance at the thought. She’d been fretting about his return for what seemed like years instead of months. She just wanted to get the conversation over with, so she would know how he felt and what they would do about it. Even her dreams weren’t immune to her tension, having become much more intense lately, more detailed.

      “I know, angel. And I know how much you love him.” Choked up, Aggie squeezed her hand.

      Keri looked at her lap. She couldn’t tell Aggie the truth. Jake needed to be the one to decide what he wanted his family to know, not Keri. Still, she felt guilty for keeping things from them. And also worried about him coming home and finding her pregnant. Her emotions were jumbled, changing daily, sometimes hourly.

      “Joe’s got some empty boxes,” Aggie said after a moment. “He’ll take everything to Mama’s for you. A bunch of us will come along and help you put everything in place. You shouldn’t be moving heavy things now.”

      “Thank you, Aggie. I don’t know what I’d do without you and your generous friends and family. You were so kind to host this shower for me.”

      “It’s my grandbaby.” She may have eight children and sixteen grandchildren, but this yet-to-be-born child was her Jake’s child.

      People started saying their goodbyes, the noise

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