A Baby for the Bachelor. Victoria Pade

      Chapter Three

      Saturday was hectic. There were last-minute wedding preparations for Sunday evening’s ceremony, rearrangement of the furniture to accommodate the reception, decorating to be done, deliveries of food and flowers and tables and chairs and other necessities. There was the rehearsal and the dinner, and the introduction of Neily’s sister, five brothers and their spouses and dates to Wyatt’s family.

      Because of the commotion at the house, Noah Perry’s work on the remodel was suspended for the weekend. And while he wasn’t a member of the wedding party and so wasn’t included in the rehearsal or the dinner afterward, he was still on Marti’s mind almost constantly through Saturday and Saturday night. All without coming to any better conclusion than she had on Friday—she needed to do some fact-finding before she decided how to proceed.

      Then Sunday evening came, and guests finally began to arrive for the seven o’clock ceremony.

      Once Marti had carefully styled her hair in a French twist, applied her makeup and dressed in her curvehugging, short black dress, she stood at the window of her upstairs bedroom watching for Noah. And trying to make her stomach stop doing somersaults at the mere thought that she was going to see him again.

      He arrived early because he was providing the transportation for his grandfather, who was the former town reverend and was performing the ceremony in the absence of the current, vacationing, minister. As Noah helped the elderly man get up to the house, Marti couldn’t keep from taking stock of her baby’s father.

      Noah had been dressed casually at the Expo and he’d been in work clothes on Friday, but now he was wearing a navy blue suit over a cerulean blue shirt and a darker blue tie. The suit fit him so well he could have been an endorsement for the good tailoring to be found in Northbridge—his broad shoulders filled the jacket to perfection before it tapered to just hint at his narrow waist, and the pants whispered down long, long legs to break exactly where they should.

      His hair still had that devil-may-care look to it, offsetting the clothes any Wall Street executive would have been proud to wear, and combined it made for a picture Marti just couldn’t take her eyes off of.

      But tonight is just about getting some background in formation, she reminded herself of the only thing she’d come up with after two nights of not very restful sleep and a full day of consideration in between. She was going to take things in small steps, hoping that way she could handle it better and arrive at a rational, intelligent, best-for-everyone plan of action.

      When it came time for the ceremony it was Ry who persuaded the agoraphobic Theresa to go down the back stairs and into the kitchen with Mary Pat where she could watch Wyatt and Neily say their vows without seeing or being seen by any of the guests.

      Because Wyatt had wanted both Ry and Marti to be his grooms-people, as he called them, Neily had chosen her sister Mara and oldest brother Cam to give balance to the attendants. Standing with her brothers, her back to the onlookers, Marti wondered if Noah Perry was watching her the way she’d watched him on his way into the house. And just assuming that he might be did not help those stomach somersaults one bit.

      His grandfather performed a stern but gracious ceremony that only lasted twenty minutes, and when it was over, Mary Pat slipped Theresa back upstairs to her bedroom and the reception began.

      That was when Marti lost all awareness of anything or anyone other than Noah Perry, whose gaze was definitely trained on her as she congratulated Wyatt and Neily.

      Noah didn’t approach her, though. He just kept an eye on her as the music began to play and guests started to mingle. And even when she caught him watching her, he didn’t cover it up by glancing away. He just went on looking at her, studying her, until she pretended that something else had caught her attention.

      Go on, go over and talk to him, she told herself.

      But instead she went upstairs to make sure her grandmother wasn’t too agitated in the aftermath of her foray to the kitchen.

      The food was being served buffet-style and by the time Marti returned almost everyone was eating. Only a few stragglers were going through the line and Noah was at the end of it.

      Maybe now’s the time, she thought. After all, she could step up behind him, fill a plate and say hello—belatedly, but exactly as she had with everyone else tonight. Then maybe she could nonchalantly sit with him to eat and use small talk to get into her fact-finding mission to learn about him before she made her decision as to whether or not to admit the baby was his.

      So why didn’t she budge?

      Because she was a great big fat chicken!

      Maybe he didn’t really want to know if the baby was his, she thought. After all, he hadn’t made a beeline to her to ask—he could have come to the house just to see her yesterday if he was dying to know, and even tonight he could have cornered her immediately after the ceremony.

      Or maybe he was obtuse and it hadn’t even occurred to him that the baby might be his. Maybe he’d accepted the artificial insemination story at face value. Maybe she could just go on the way she’d planned even though their paths had crossed again…

      Or maybe not. Because when he reached the end of the serving table he turned to look out over the room, spotted her and headed toward her.

      Marti was inclined to run again. To make a dash for the stairs and take refuge in her grandmother’s room as if she hadn’t noticed Noah’s beautiful brown eyes locked onto her with single-minded intent.

      But she didn’t run. She forced her feet to stay planted right where they were. She breathed deeply. She told herself to act as if nothing was going on. She even managed a small smile—although she cut that short when she felt her lips quiver nervously.

      “I took enough for two,” he said when he reached her, motioning upward with his plate. “I thought maybe we could share.”

      Then he leaned in and said for her ears only, “If we can share that night in Denver, we can share a plate, can’t we?”

      Openly referring to that night sent a wave of panic through her. “I’m not very hungry—”

      “Sit with me anyway,” he countered, not allowing her any out.

       Oh, he’s suspicious, all right…

      But this was something she needed to do and he’d just initiated the process for her. She knew she had to push through, so she conceded, nodding over her shoulder at the entryway behind them. “Want to sit on the steps?” she asked hesitantly.

      “Sure.”

      It was quieter in the entry, away from everyone else gathered in the living room. Marti went to the large staircase that rose to the upper level and sat on the second step, hugging the wall so Noah could sit, too, but not too closely.

      He took the hint, positioning himself at an angle with his back to the newel post. Then he set the plate on the step between them and handed her one of the two forks and two napkins he’d brought.

      “I took some of everything since I wasn’t sure what you might like,” he said then, stabbing a small parsleybuttered potato for himself.

      As he ate, he looked at her again the way he had been all through the evening, as if he were cataloging what he remembered and what he didn’t.

      Marti pretended to be more interested in the cherry tomato she was trying to skewer than in him.

      “How are you today?” he asked.

      “Fine,” she was quick to assure him. “That was just a little dizzy spell yesterday. I’d been sitting in the car for so long and it was low to the ground and I got up fast—” That was all more information than he needed and she cut herself off before it went any further and said, “Today I’m fine,” and popped the tomato into her mouth.

      Noah continued to look at her for a moment after she’d stopped babbling. Then,