Their Precious Christmas Miracle. Линда Гуднайт

recall him claiming to miss her before he’d heard she was pregnant. Tears pricked her eyes. Was this how she’d thoughtlessly made him feel all those months they’d been trying, as if his primary value to her was as someone who could give her a baby?

      He ran his thumb across the top of her cheek, the stroke sending shivers of sensation through her. “Don’t cry.”

      “Don’t send me flowers.” She straightened. “You might as well have taken out a billboard on Main Street telling everyone I’m pregnant.”

      “You’re overreacting. It was just a basic floral arrangement. It’s not like I sent one that came in a ceramic bassinet.”

      “No, but May and Mindy Nelson have both figured it out.”

      “Oh.” He grimaced. “I like both of them, but if they know, the news will have spread all the way to Atlanta by morning. We should go ahead and tell my fam—”

      “No! No, I’m not ready for that.” She remembered the pitying glances and unsolicited platitudes from before. If, God forbid, anything should go wrong with this pregnancy, the fewer people who knew, the better.

      “We shouldn’t tell anyone. Not yet. Can we just get through this wedding first? Then we’ll figure out the appropriate way to handle it.”

      He blinked. “That’s uncannily like what I said to you when …”

      When she’d told him she thought she should leave. He’d looked startled, then relieved, then almost coolly calculating as he’d explained why they shouldn’t tell anyone yet. She hadn’t thought that far ahead, merely trying to survive the moment.

      She squared her shoulders, redirecting the conversation. “I know they have reputations as friendly gossips, but I don’t think May or Mindy will say anything yet. At least, not anything they can back up with fact. May promised to drop the subject. I’m sure something will happen in the next day or so that’s more interesting than seeing me in the pregnancy-test aisle. Without anything further to fan the flames, Mindy will probably let it go.”

      “You mean without incidents like me sending you ill-advised flowers?” His smile was rueful.

      She softened. “They were beautiful.”

      “So are you.”

      “You can’t say things like that!”

      “We’re alone. There’s no May or Mindy or—”

      “Rachel, are you still back here?” A blond head poked inside the doorway.

      David growled. “Arianne!”

      His sister hesitated. “I saw Rachel come in, but was helping a customer. I just thought I’d see if she was still around and wanted to grab an early lunch with me.”

      “We’re kind of in the middle of something,” David said.

      “Not really,” Rachel countered, seeing the perfect opportunity to escape. “I mean, we were, but we’ve finished our conversation. Ari, I’d love something to eat—I’m starving.”

      “Great. I’ll get my purse.”

      Rachel made the mistake of glancing back toward David, who mouthed, Coward. But then his reproving expression was replaced with a mischievous gleam that made her palms clammy and her mouth go dry.

      “Hey, Ari, how about I join you?” he called. “Lunch with two of my favorite gals. I’ll treat. You don’t mind, do you?”

      His sister grinned. “Like I’m gonna turn down free food? My mama didn’t raise any fools.”

      David turned to Rachel and winked. “No, she sure didn’t.”

      “YOU’RE BACK,” May drawled, glancing up from the inventory-order forms on the counter. She smiled. “That must have been one of the longest thank-yous on record.”

      “Sorry. I stopped for lunch on the return trip. I can stay late to make up the time.”

      May waved a hand. “Not necessary. You see how swamped we are in here.” Last month, they’d been busy with clients who wanted personalized Christmas cards and other holiday items, but most people who were going to purchase those had done so already.

      “All right. I’ll just go check the store e-mail.” As Rachel sat at the computer, she could hardly concentrate enough to type in the password. Her thoughts kept drifting back to David.

      He’d been utterly charming at lunch, darn him. He’d made Arianne laugh, and Rachel had reluctantly done the same. She could hardly sit through the meal glaring without letting her sister-in-law know there was a problem.

      Their recent troubles had overshadowed the memories of their whirlwind courtship, how much she’d enjoyed merely being around him, how she’d smiled all the time. Lately she’d felt isolated, first by the medical side effects but most excruciatingly by losing her baby, and had been too caught up in her own suffering to notice how rare David’s smiles were growing. He put on a better public face than she did, but his family hadn’t been fooled. Arianne had actually commented today while they waited for the check that it had been a while since she’d seen her big brother in such a good mood.

      Guilt tugged at Rachel, knowing how confused Ari would be by the forthcoming news of their separation. Of course, before she could worry about how David’s family took the news, she had to make sure David himself acknowledged their separation. The flowers and his presence at lunch today made it clear that he wanted her to give it another try for their child’s sake. Too much responsibility for an unborn baby. When the problems between them sharpened enough to cause discord further down the road, would one of them resent their kid for being the reason they were still together? She liked to believe that neither she nor David would ever be that petty, but she was routinely shocked by the way parents going through divorces could inadvertently hurt their children.

      “Hey, I think I’m gonna go grab some lunch myself,” May said. When Rachel looked up and nodded in acknowledgment, the older woman winked. “But I promise not to bring back any fish.”

      A few minutes later, the door opened and Belle Fulton, the executive secretary on the chamber of commerce board, bustled inside with a smile. Belle favored seriously bright shades of lipstick, so her grins were generally visible from a distance. “Happy holidays!”

      Rachel grinned back. “Happy holidays to you. What can we do for you today?”

      “Brochures. We’re trying to attract holiday shoppers to town, increase revenue for our members.”

      “But—” Rachel bit her lip, realizing that her unsolicited comment was not entirely diplomatic.

      Belle, however, cocked her head to the side, waiting. “Yes?”

      “Nothing. I just … Are you intending to use these brochures this year? It seems like they could have done even more to attract tourist dollars if we’d printed them sooner. Not that it’s any of my business,” she added hastily.

      Belle sighed. “No, you’re right. It just takes us a while to come to any decisions and then act on them. Volunteers make up half the chamber’s board, so this is on top of their normal jobs, plus we have a few very opinionated people. Then there was deciding how much it was worth to spend when we’re trying to make money. The first photographer—I shouldn’t even be telling you this—did such a lousy job that we had Gina Oster go back and do them over. Sweet of her, but she’s hardly a pro herself. We don’t have the budget for one.”

      Later, as Rachel put together the files to print the brochures, she couldn’t help studying the pictures with a critical eye. The slogan wasn’t half-bad—Nothing Says Christmas Like Mistletoe—but the pictures were far too commercial. Potential tourists and holiday shoppers didn’t need to see images of the First Bank on Main Street, even if the bank had donated money for the project. No, what the brochure needed were homey photos of Kerrigan Farms and their rows of evergreen trees for sale.