LITMIR.BIZ

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am. You’re having my baby. The way I see it, that means you and me are getting married.”

      “No, Tate. We’re not.”

      “Oh, yeah, we are.”

      Calm, she thought. Stay calm. Be reasonable. “I want you to just think this over a little. Think about how poorly suited we are to each other, how marriage could never work for us. Tate, I’m an independent woman from the wrong side of town and you’re a domineering rich man raised to think you own the world.”

      He looked at her from under the heavy ridge of his brow, his lip curled in a sneer. “So now you’re insulting me…”

      Molly sighed deeply and shook her head. She leaned back in her chair. “No. I promise you. I’m not trying to insult you. I’m just trying to make you see.”

      “What’s there to see? You’re pregnant and it’s my kid and we need to get married immediately.”

      “Tate. We’re a match made by the devil himself. You used to know that.”

      “Everything’s different now. There’s a baby on the way.”

      “No. No, really, nothing is different. Nothing has changed. You’re still you and I’m still me and for us to get married would be a disaster. The baby would only suffer for it if we did.”

      Tate stood. He didn’t look encouraging. He looked…about to start shouting. “I know what’s right, and damn it, right is what I intend to do.”

      Molly stared up at him in despair. So much for my month or two, scandal-free, she thought. “Oh, Tate…”

      “Molly,” he said way too loudly, “you are going to marry me.”

      “No, I am not,” she replied, her voice soft and low and steady as a rock. She stood. They confronted each other across her desk. “And I want you to leave now.”

      “You’re not keeping this a secret,” he said. “Don’t think that you will. This isn’t going to be like it was when we started in together, something only you and me will know about. And you can’t end this the way you did when you dumped me, moaning about how you’re tired of sneaking around and lying to the people who trust you. You are having my baby and by God, I’ll shout it to the rooftops.”

      It was a challenge. What could she do but accept it? She felt a deep sadness then—for him. For herself. For the innocent baby who would have them for parents. Were there ever two people in the world so poorly suited to the state of matrimony? She didn’t think so. And why couldn’t he see that? Why did he have to be the kind of man who got something in his head and wouldn’t let go of it?

      “No way I can hide it in the end, Tate,” she told him flatly. “So you go ahead. You shout it as loud as you want to. It won’t change a thing. I’m not marrying you.”

      “Oh, but you will.”

      “Oh, no, I won’t.”

      Calmly, he went over and opened the door. Out in the shop, it was quiet—very, very quiet. Molly could just picture them all out there—Donetta and Emmie and the rest of them—straining their ears in hopes of hearing just a few words of what was going on in Molly’s office.

      Tate made sure they got an earful. “Molly,” he said, aiming the words out the door and speaking loudly enough to be heard all the way out past the shop’s front door and onto Center Street, “you are having my baby and by God, if it’s the last thing I do, I will see to it that you marry me.”

      He turned and looked at Molly, square chin up, hard jaw set. She said nothing. Really, Tate had pretty much said it all.

      Out in the salon, it was so quiet, if she hadn’t known better, Molly would have guessed that everyone had left.

      Tate said, his voice soft now, but thick with suppressed anger, “Satisfied?”

      “Get out of my shop,” she replied, her tone every bit as soft and full of fury as his. “And do me a big favor. Never come back.”

      With a final curt nod, Tate turned and went out—and not through the back door either, which was two feet from her office door and would have been the quickest way.

      Oh, no. Not Tate Bravo. He marched right through the shop and out the front door. She heard the bell tinkle when he pulled the door open. “Afternoon, ladies,” he said.

      The bell jingled cheerily again as the door shut behind him.

       Chapter Five

       B y the next morning, the news was all over town.

      Tate Bravo had gotten Molly O’Dare pregnant. He wanted to marry her. And she was having none of it.

      The men shook their heads. The women took sides. All through the breakfast shift at Jim-Denny’s Diner on Center Street, where Dixie had been waiting tables for fifteen years, there was lively debate.

      “What is her problem?” Lena Lou, who’d dropped in for her usual decaf and English muffin, wanted to know. “Tate Bravo is studly and rich as they come.” Lena paused to admire the way her engagement diamond glittered in the glare from the overhead florescent lights. Then she got back on topic. “When’s Molly O’Dare gonna do better? She should snap that man up while she’s got the chance.”

      “Oh, never,” argued Emmie Lusk, fluffing her new perm. “Never in this life. Our Molly has guts and gumption. She’s not marrying anyone just ’cause she’s pregnant. So what if he’s handsome and rolling in dough? There’s more to life than money, a good-looking husband and legitimate children, after all.”

      “Well, now, Emmie,” Donetta said, “don’t go discounting a fat bank account. It is a proven fact that the older a woman gets, the more she needs a rich husband—or at the very least, a viable retirement plan.”

      “If she marries him, what about her position as mayor of our town?” demanded Rosie Potts, whose mother was a shut-in and likely to benefit greatly from some of Molly’s programs. “You know he’ll corrupt her. Just see if he doesn’t. I’m inclined to wonder if he hasn’t already. Y’all have to admit, it’s a shock. In bed with the enemy, that’s where she’s been.”

      “More coffee?” asked Dixie, pot poised over Donetta’s cup. Donetta nodded and Dixie poured.

      “Dixie,” said Rosie. “She’s your daughter. What do you think?”

      Dixie smiled her secret smile at Ray, who sat sipping coffee in his favorite spot at the end of the counter. Ray gave her a wink. “Molly said she wouldn’t marry him, didn’t she?”

      “Well, yeah, so?” Lena rattled her own cup.

      Dixie filled it. “If Molly says she’s not marrying him, then it doesn’t matter a bit what Tate Bravo does or anybody says. She won’t be marrying him. It’s as simple as that.”

      “But that is plain stupid,” Lena declared, rising and laying her money on the counter. “Why have a baby without a husband if you don’t have to?” Lena bit her pretty lip. Everyone knew she had to be thinking about her twin sister, Lori Lee. But then she covered her own discomfort with, “No offense, Dixie.”

      Dixie’s beatific smile only widened. “None taken. And it just may be that I, personally, agree with you. But like I said, what I think or you think isn’t what matters. It’s Molly’s decision and so far anyway, she has said no.”

      Molly had just climbed into bed and turned out the light when the tap came at the window that faced the front walk. Her first thought was Tate, and she scowled into the darkness. If he kept this up, she would be looking into getting a restraining order on him. Just because he thought he had to marry her wasn’t any excuse for the man to turn stalker.

      But then there was another tap—as soft and cautious as the first.

      Hmm. Soft and cautious. Not Tate’s

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