The Pregnant Bride Wore White Read online

  “Jake! You’ve come home. Jake!”

  Keri couldn’t see him—too many people blocked her view—but her instincts took over. Five months ago she could’ve hidden her news until she’d told him. Now he could see for himself, without any softening of the blow first.

  But wasn’t he even going to acknowledge her? Keri set her hands protectively on her belly, shielding her baby from the hurt she felt herself. She hadn’t realized how much it mattered that he accept her and their—

  “What’s going on here?” Jake asked his mother.

  “We’re having a baby shower. Aren’t you going to say hello to her?” she asked in little more than a whisper.

  Keri managed a smile, knowing everyone expected her to run to him.

  The problem was, she could barely manage to breathe, much less run.

  “Well, go on, son,” Aggie said, grinning. “Kiss the woman you love.”

  Dear Reader,

  At some point in almost every book I’ve written, a secondary character starts waving his or her hands and shouting, “Talk about me! I’ve got a story to tell!” I’ve learned to say yes rather than arguing, because otherwise they make too much noise while I’m trying to tell someone else’s story.

  THE McCOYS OF CHANCE CITY grew out of this phenomenon. The three McCoy brothers were introduced in the WIVES FOR HIRE miniseries about the Falcon brothers, also of Chance City, a fictional town set in the gold-rush-era Mother Lode region of northern California.

  I always love my hero and heroine, but I’ve also fallen for Chance City, too. It’s an ideal place in small-town USA, and yet it has flaws, too, which in many ways make it more perfect. I have a feeling I’m going to be spending a long time getting to know its residents. I hope it’s fun for you, too.

  Susan

  THE PREGNANT BRIDE WORE WHITE

  SUSAN CROSBY

  Books by Susan Crosby

  Silhouette Special Edition

  *The Bachelor’s Stand-In Wife #1912

  **The Rancher’s Surprise Marriage #1922

  *The Single Dad’s Virgin Wife #1930

  *The Millionaire’s Christmas Wife #1936

  ††The Pregnant Bride Wore White #1995

  Silhouette Desire

  †Christmas Bonus, Strings Attached #1554

  †Private Indiscretions #1570

  †Hot Contact #1590

  †Rules of Attraction #1647

  †Heart of the Raven #1653

  †Secrets of Paternity #1659

  The Forbidden Twin #1717

  Forced to the Altar #1733

  Bound by the Baby #1797

  SUSAN CROSBY

  believes in the value of setting goals, but also in the magic of making wishes, which often do come true—as long as she works hard enough. Along life’s journey she’s done a lot of the usual things—married, had children, attended college a little later than the average coed and earned a B.A. in English, then she dove off the deep end into a full-time writing career, a wish come true.

  Susan enjoys writing about people who take a chance on love, sometimes against all odds. She loves warm, strong heroes; good-hearted, self-reliant heroines; and will always believe in happily ever after.

  More can be learned about her at www.susancrosby.com.

  To Barbara Ferris, for your unfailing dedication

  to romance novels and authors.

  Your enthusiasm is part of what keeps me going.

  You truly do make the world a much better place.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Prologue

  A bell jangled as Keri Overton pushed open the diner door. Heat hit her first, a welcome break from the biting December cold, then came the distinctive aromas of grilling hamburgers, onions and strong coffee. None of it appealed to a stomach already filled to capacity with butterflies.

  She stepped inside and gave the lunchtime crowd a quick inspection, seeking one person, coming up blank. Disappointment but also relief swamped her. After all, what would she say? Her head started echoing with the words she’d practiced. “Hi, Jake, remember me?” Scratch that. There was no way he would forget her. “Hello, Jake. There’s something you should know before the rest of the world finds out…” Right. That would go over well.

  Keri sighed. She hadn’t really expected to find him so easily, but he’d told her about this town, his town, and this diner, so she’d hoped—and feared—he would be sitting in a booth, having the burger and fries he’d raved about.

  The other patrons gave her curious looks without interrupting their conversations. Chance City was a small tourist town, accustomed to visitors, even the day after Christmas.

  Keri took the last stool at the counter, the only one available. From there she had a good view of everyone, not just those seated at the counter, but the ones in the red-leatherette-and-chrome banquettes. She plucked a menu from behind a mini-jukebox, wondering if the townspeople would close ranks if she asked questions about one of their own.

  A woman in jeans and black shirt approached, her salt-and-pepper braid disappearing down her back. “Welcome to the Lode. My name’s Honey. What can I get you?”

  “Do you have ginger ale?”

  “We do. Anything else?”

  “That’ll do for now, thanks.”

  “All our desserts are homemade daily,” Honey said, gesturing toward a glass case displaying pies and cakes like colorful pop art. “Our soup, too. Got chicken noodle today, and clam chowder. Warm you up from the inside out.”

  Keri smiled at the woman’s enthusiasm. “Thank you. I’ll keep it in mind.” After a minute, Keri stuck the menu in its holder and scanned the room again, more slowly this time. She’d come with a purpose, after all. He had family here. Would any of them look enough like him that she could identify a relative she might speak to? Could she even remember his face well enough?

  She tried to envision him. Blue eyes, dark brown hair, tall, fit, sexy. Yes, sexy, even under the circumstances in which they’d met. And lips that had created a firestorm inside her, deep, intense, and thrilling. She’d harbored fantasies about him ever since.

  Honey set a glass of ginger ale on the counter as the overhead bell sounded. An elderly woman came in, escorted by two thirtysomething men—one tall, with black hair, the other a little shorter, his brown hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. Many of the customers greeted them. They smiled and said hello in return, but they didn’t seem relaxed, especially the man with the black hair, who carried what was no doubt the woman’s bright purple cane.

  Wait. A man with a ponytail? Keri studied the three people further. They had to be Jake’s relatives. The man with the long hair would be his youngest brother, Joe. Which meant the black-haired man was Donovan. They had five sisters, too—a huge family.

  Keri set her interest on the older woman. Their grandmother, probably, the woman they called Nana Mae? Keri had heard stories about Jake’s whole family for three days. She already felt as if she knew them.

  “Oh, look,” the woman—Nana Mae—said, her steps small and shuffling. “There’s Laura and Dixie. Let’s go squeeze in the booth with them.”

  Dixie? That name didn’t j
ust ring in Keri’s head, it clanged. Jake had talked about her, too. And her broken engagement to Joe last fall.

  Keri looked at the two women in the booth nearest to her as the others slid in, Donovan pulling up a chair to sit at the end. The women were both blonde but different from each other, one being curly haired and earthy, the other sleek and elegant.

  “Any 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 on-again, 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 escalating, punctuated with laughter. Then Aggie opened the front door as the first few guests were leaving.

  “Oh, my word!” She stood utterly still, before suddenly sha
king herself, a huge smile spreading over her face. “Jake! You’ve come home. Jake!”

  Keri couldn’t see him—too many people blocked her view—but her instincts took over. She stood, looking for a place to hide, panicked, the urge to avoid him stronger than the urge to see him. Five months ago she could’ve hidden her news until she’d told him. Now he could see for himself, without any softening of the blow first.

  And in front of his family and friends.

  The sea of people parted, putting her at one end of what felt like a dark tunnel, with Jake at the other end, his arms around his joyous mother, Donovan at his side. Donovan’s gaze fired straight at Keri. She ignored it to take in Jake’s appearance, her heart sinking. He’d lost weight. His hair hadn’t been cut in who knew how long. He looked as if he hadn’t slept for…well, months.

  Tears pushed at her eyes and burned her throat. What happened to you?

  He scanned the crowd. Everyone seemed to be holding their breath, waiting for him to spot Keri, but his gaze didn’t linger on her, giving her just a brief, blank stare before continuing on.

  He wasn’t even going to acknowledge her? Or worse, he didn’t recognize her? Keri set her hands protectively on her belly, shielding her baby from the hurt she felt herself. She hadn’t realized how much it mattered that he accept her and their—

  His gaze zoomed back to her and zeroed in, frozen.

  “What’s going on here?” he asked his mother, who still had an arm around him.

  “We’re having a baby shower. Aren’t you going to say hello to her?” she asked in little more than a whisper.

  Keri managed a smile, knowing everyone expected her to run to him.

  The problem was, she could barely manage to breathe, much less run.