License to Thrill. Tori Carrington

missed, but Craig’s burst of laughter made her sigh.

      Why can’t you be more like Marc?

      She jerked involuntarily at the unwelcome thought, sending her fork sailing through the air. She watched in horror as it spiraled above the table, prongs over stem, prongs over stem…. Finally it landed neatly in the middle of her mother’s plate, spearing her roasted potatoes.

      “Melanie!”

      Her cheeks felt on fire. Of all the places for the sucker to land. She tightly clasped her hands in her lap where they were unlikely to do more damage.

      “Pardon me.”

      “Are you all right?” Craig asked.

      Melanie made a show of watching her mother pluck the foreign piece of silver from her food.

      Look at him, she ordered herself. She did.

      It wasn’t that Craig Gaffney wasn’t attractive. He was appealing in an all-American way that included surfer good looks, wide grin and a sharp mind for drugs. Pharmaceuticals, she amended. She thanked the waiter when he brought her another set of linen-wrapped silverware. Her mother cleared her throat. Melanie carefully freed the silver from the white linen and picked up the clean fork, though she didn’t think she could swallow another bite of food.

      Craig had a great sense of humor. Did it really matter that he sometimes didn’t grasp a punch line? Or that his capacity for humor had somewhat dwindled since they announced their engagement?

      She picked up her wineglass and took a hefty sip only to realize she shouldn’t be drinking. She forced herself to swallow, then coughed. Craig’s father narrowed his eyes, watching her far too closely.

      “Wrong pipe,” she said quietly.

      Her fiancé was also very comfortable to be around, she continued, reviewing her Pro-Marriage to Craig column. A quality that had instantly cemented their friendship nearly twenty-five years ago when they were in kindergarten. He didn’t judge her the way most people did then…and now. She glanced in her mother’s direction. Wilhemenia was frowning…again. No, Craig had always accepted her for who she was. Which made accepting his proposal all too easy when she’d spilled her troubles to him.

      Craig leaned toward her, giving her a hefty whiff of his cologne. I can change that. He lowered his voice. “You don’t feel like you, well, you know, have to—”

      “Throw up?” she said a little too loudly.

      He didn’t laugh. Instantly, she realized why. No one else at the table knew she was pregnant.

      She searched for a way to cover her mistake. “I think I’m suffering from a case of pre-wedding nerves. Otherwise, I’m fine. Really.” Which was true enough. She hadn’t suffered through a moment of morning sickness, and she was two weeks into her second trimester.

      Pregnancy. Baby. Marriage.

      Suddenly, Melanie did feel sick.

      Sick with fear.

      What did she know about being a mother?

      “I never thought Melanie would be the first of my girls to marry,” Wilhemenia was saying to Doris. The comment caused Craig’s father’s gaze to sharpen. “Joanie was always the better bet.”

      More wife material, Melanie silently added, wondering exactly where her sister was and why she wasn’t here defending her. And why was her mother discussing her as though she weren’t even at the table?

      Craig’s mother tittered. “But you have to agree, she’ll make a handsome bride.”

      Archie drained half his glass of beer. “Tell me again why you two are in such a rapid-fire hurry to have Pastor Pitts marry you?”

      Melanie started. Craig squeezed her hand and said, “I think a twenty-five-year courtship is long enough, don’t you, Pumpkin?”

      Pumpkin? Okay, so soon she’d look as though she’d swallowed a pumpkin, but still… “You did ask me to marry you on the playground, didn’t you, Pookems?”

      He blinked at her.

      Melanie was aghast at her behavior. She resisted propping her elbows on the table and covering her face as she considered exactly what was going to hit her and Craig once everyone found out she was pregnant. And learned just how far along she was. It wouldn’t take a Ph.D. to figure out the math. Craig had been not only out of town at the time of conception—he’d been out of the country. In New Guinea. Doing whatever pharmacists did in third-world countries. That wasn’t fair, because she knew exactly what he had been doing. While she…

      Melanie finally gave in and rested her forehead against her hand, ignoring her mother’s stare.

      God, she was going to be sick.

      She pushed away from the table. Everyone grabbed their glasses and silverware to keep them from becoming deadly projectiles. Tears burned her eyes. Could she possibly make this dinner any worse?

      “Excuse me. I’m going to…” What? Lock myself in a bathroom stall until the world makes sense? “Powder my nose.”

      Her mother neatly placed her napkin next to her plate. “I’ll come with you.”

      “No!”

      The occupants of the head table stared at her in stunned silence, as did the half of the population of Bedford that had been invited to the dinner. Melanie tried to control her voice. “I mean, thank you, Mother, but I can see to this myself.” Her mother appeared ready to argue. “I’m fine. Really.”

      Melanie shakily stood her ground. Surprisingly, it worked. Her mother sat down. “Very well, dear.”

      Melanie looked for the tiny bag she’d brought with her, then saw it lying on the floor. She stopped herself from crawling under the table for it, smiled at everyone, then stepped as casually as she could toward the hallway.

      She felt awful. Her stomach was upset, she felt bloated and her swollen feet ached. But it was more than that. She felt out of her element. Usually in command of every situation, she now felt inexplicably vulnerable. As soon as she was in the hall, she collapsed against the wall, blinking back hot tears. What was the matter with her? Hormones? Or did some part of her realize she was making the biggest mistake of her life?

      Out of eyeshot of everyone in the dining room, she slowly slid her hands down her stomach, resting them over the exact spot where even now her child was growing within her.

      Marc’s child.

      She briefly closed her eyes, wondering again if not telling Marc about her condition was such a good idea.

      She wiped the dampness from her cheeks. Too late now, wasn’t it?

      Besides, Marc had made it clear he wasn’t interested in anything permanent. She reached down and slid her aching feet from the torturous contraptions Joanie called shoes and tried to work the heel off one. She couldn’t very well wear them if they were broken, could she? It wouldn’t budge. She started in the direction of the rest rooms before someone caught her trying to snap the heel off from the other one.

      Inside the pink-and-gold rest room, she locked herself into a stall and sank down on the seat. She needed a few moments to herself. Bolstering minutes to take a deep breath and pull herself together. She had to. Not for her sake. For her baby’s. And, a guilty part reminded her, for Craig. He deserved better than a cranky bride who abandoned him to his mother-in-law.

      Melanie swallowed hard, appreciating if not particularly overjoyed with the humor of the situation. After using up the better part of her life trying not to upset the delicate balance of her relationship with her mother, she’d spent the past eight years going through an odd, ambitious sort of rebellion. Not a planned one, by any means. But during her first year at college, all the emotion—all the hunger for adventure she had secretly craved—had just kind of gushed out, overwhelming her with its intensity. She’d been as unable to deny the change in herself as