Rebel in a Small Town Read online

  James took another step back, putting more breathing room between them. “We used protection,” he said, his voice wooden. “Every time.”

  “Condoms break. The pill isn’t one hundred percent effective. Even used together, things can happen.” Mara started to reach for him but quickly drew her hand back. He wouldn’t welcome her touch, not now. Maybe not ever again, and she was going to have to deal with that. She hadn’t wanted to tell him in the middle of the street, but she’d felt cornered. She’d used their son to put a wall between them, and she hated herself for that.

  Her hands itched to touch him, to comfort him. She crossed her arms over her chest, and tried to put all the remorse she felt into her voice. “I didn’t realize I was pregnant until I was almost five months along.”

  “And, what, between that five-month mark and now you couldn’t pick up a phone?”

  His expression closed. No anger, no annoyance. Not even panic at finding out he was a father. There was nothing, and the nothing made Mara’s chest ache.

  “I couldn’t tell you on the phone,” she began.

  James snorted derisively. “No, you didn’t want to tell me on the phone,” he said and spun on his heel.

  “James, wait,” she called after him, but he kept walking. She couldn’t move. At the corner, he turned. When he was gone from her sight, it was as if an engine turned on inside, making her legs move to follow. She hurried after him, but he had disappeared by the time Mara reached the corner. “Damn it,” she whispered, and smacked her hand against the brick of the building. She winced and shook her hand. “Damn it.”

  * * *

  JAMES PACED THE living room of the small house he’d bought overlooking the lake. It sat on the far western edge of Water Street, and the view of the calm lake never failed to center him. To remind him of the things he wanted. A good career. A family. Making his parents proud. Being a good friend.

  Tonight the calmness of the water mocked him. He had a son. A son he had never met because, when Mara walked away, he let her.

  There were things he could have done to find her, but instead of going after her, instead of forcing her to talk to him, he’d let her walk away.

  And tonight he’d walked away from her because he didn’t know what to do with any of this. Her coming back to town. How she made him feel, even after two years. The child he didn’t know.

  Dear God, he had a son, and he didn’t even know what the child looked like. He didn’t have Mara’s phone number to call her to apologize.

  To ask her if he could meet the kid. Did he want to meet him?

  James didn’t have to think, he already knew the answer to the question. He wanted to meet his child.

  The sky had turned a brilliant orange, the last rays of sunlight glinting off the surface of the lake like a million tiny diamonds. Like the diamond he’d bought two years ago. The one currently hidden in the oak credenza that had belonged to his great-grandfather when he was sheriff of Wall County.

  James had fooled himself, thinking that the on-again, off-again relationship with Mara went off simply because of the distance. That weekend in Nashville, when they had wandered Music Row for hours, when their bodies had come together like puzzle pieces, had been different from their other encounters. Mara was softer that trip. She’d talked a little more about missing her family. He made the mistake of believing her homesickness was about him as well as her grandmother and siblings. A sunset not unlike this one had made him think of the family he wanted, and for the first time he added a face to the shadowy figure of the woman he’d always envisioned by his side.

  It was always Mara.

  And then she was gone, and a hotel bellhop arrived to pack her things. James had searched the airport and train station, but hadn’t found her. He’d called at least a hundred times before getting that first ‘this number is no longer in service’ message. That was when he tried email. Over and over and over until he realized she wasn’t going to answer.

  James pulled open the small desk drawer next to the envelope slot. The little black jeweler’s box had dust on it, but he didn’t bother to wipe it off. Instead, he shut the drawer a little too hard, and a small corner of wood popped off the drawer face. He picked up the shard and tossed it into the trash can.

  This was not what he wanted, not what he needed. Not now. Two years ago...he had been crazy in love enough to try to make it work, at least. But now there was too much at stake. James grabbed a beer from the fridge, then crossed to the back porch to drink and watch the sun go down. The beer was icy, the last rays of sun hot, yet they didn’t soothe him. He was still twisted up over Mara’s revelation.

  He might still be attracted to Mara, but he’d gotten over loving her long ago. He was now the acting sheriff, and she’d nearly been arrested yesterday. It wouldn’t matter that she’d done nothing wrong. Perception was what mattered, and thanks to CarlaAnn the perception was that Mara Tyler was caught shoplifting her first day back in town.

  Then, there was the complication from their graduation night escapade.

  Over all of that was the baby. He wasn’t in love with Mara, and he wasn’t foolish enough to think only people in love could raise a child together, but did he even register in her thought process over the past year? He had gone along with Mara’s insistence of keeping things light and friendly. He hadn’t chased after her when she walked away. There was no way he could walk away from a child, though, and there was no way he could trust that Mara wouldn’t disappear on him again.

  Everything about seeing her, about this situation was a mess.

  The fact that Mara hid the baby from him for more than a year, and the fact that their years-long series of booty calls led to a baby? Those things would lead to gossip, and gossip about the present would quickly reignite gossip about the past, which could lead to his part in the school bus prank.

  Thousands of dollars in damage had been inflicted on the bus fleet because, instead of just leaving the lights on as Mara had planned, James took it upon himself to deflate the front tires on several of the buses. The weight of the vehicles on the wheel wells had warped them beyond repair. The cost of the repairs pushed what would have been an annoyance for the school district into the realm of felony. James had anonymously paid restitution for the bus damage, and the statute of limitations was long past, so he couldn’t actually be charged with the felony. Still, who would vote for a sheriff who’d committed a felony—even an uncharged felony?

  Who would want even a deputy with that kind of history, and without a job, what kind of father could he be?

  He finished the beer and let the bottle hang from his fingertips while the porch swing gently swayed in the evening air.

  There was the possibility the baby might not be his. James didn’t like to think of Mara with other men, but the fact was, the two of them hadn’t been in an exclusive relationship. They hadn’t been in a relationship at all. They’d hooked up throughout the Midwest whenever they were in the same areas. But then he returned to Slippery Rock and she went on with her hotel-hopping life. She could have had a man in every town.

  James rolled his eyes. Now he was acting like some cheated-on wife in a bad movie. Mara was a lot of things, but she wasn’t the type to have a man in every city in the Midwest. If Mara said the baby was his, then it was, and he would have to deal with that. Would have to deal with the schmucks her parents had been and the damage they’d done to her. Would have to deal with her envy of his traditional childhood. Would have to deal with his parents, who had very specific ideas about what the life of James Calhoun should look like. He doubted those ideas included a woman like Mara.

  The sun sank past the pine and spruce and oak trees lining the lakeshore, throwing the water into darkness.

  What either of his parents thought about him having a child with Mara Tyler, though, didn’t matter. What mattered was that
he had the child. Mara was the mother. James was the father. It might not be the family he’d envisioned when he bought this house, but it was the family he had.

  He would figure out a way to make this work.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  MARA STOOD LOOKING around her suite at the B and B on Friday morning, trying to find anything that could delay her trip to the orchard. There was nothing. The beds were made, the breakfast dishes on the tray in the hallway. Zeke was clean and dry and happy. Cheryl had left a half hour before. There was nothing more Mara could do on the Mallard’s account until Mike returned from vacation on Monday. She straightened the shampoo and body wash containers on the small vanity.

  She had been in town for only a few days but had yet to make the trip to the orchard. Had spoken to Gran and Collin briefly on the phone once, but hadn’t told them about Zeke. Hadn’t told them about James.

  All that would change in less than twenty minutes. She could only hope they wouldn’t walk away from her as James had done last night.

  There was a big chance they would, and that would be on her. Because she hadn’t told them how very much she had missed them over the past year and a half. She had just cut them out. She’d invented reasons to cancel trips to the orchard, skipping phone calls and video chats. She had avoided them just as she had avoided James.

  Damn it, if she could do the past two years over, she would have done them differently. Scratch that—not just the past two. The past ten, because from the moment she left Slippery Rock for college, she had been avoiding any kind of emotional entanglement, especially those that might mean pain. She kept their interaction superficial on those quick holiday visits. If her time with them wasn’t light and fun, her family would realize just how much she wanted to be part of their unit, and that would make it harder to stay away. Back then, she couldn’t be part of them, though, not without putting James’s future at risk because of that stupid prank. With her out of town, the investigation into what had happened that night had gone cold. But the town had their assumptions and even those quick trips home at first had started the talk up again. Then, once she was pregnant, she couldn’t because that would entail revealing the baby’s father. Telling them about James would put her—and him—right in the middle of town gossip. Could land one or the other of them in jail, and what good would that do? Was there a statute of limitations on vandalism?

  Mara crossed the room to fluff the pillows on the bed and watched Zeke for a moment. He was sitting up, banging his baby fists against the tiny piano keys on his favorite mirrored activity set. His hair was the same color as James’s, but his eyes were more hazel. He was a good boy, a smart boy, and he deserved a father who would love him.

  James was meant to be a lawman, destined to be sheriff. At some point he would find a pretty woman who would make the perfect sheriff’s wife, who would work with local charities alongside the ministers’ wives. He deserved that kind of life and, while she might crave the June Cleaver fantasy of life, Mara knew fairy tales rarely came true for people like her. If James couldn’t love Zeke, then she would love Zeke enough for both of them. But James had to be the one to walk away, and not just because he’d been caught off guard by the news. She would have to talk to him again, and soon. Right now, though, she needed to talk to her family.

  She would have to face not only her lies of omission to James but also her family’s judgment. And she could only hope the gossip about graduation night would stay buried. If it didn’t, it wouldn’t matter that she was now a security expert or that James was a fine sheriff’s deputy. The only thing that would matter to Slippery Rock was that they had put the school in jeopardy.

  Once she repaired her relationship with her family, she would fix this thing with James. Would make him understand that she’d needed to get herself into an emotionally healthy place before she could face him. God, that sounded like a lame, made-up excuse. She really hadn’t thought this whole thing through. There were thousands of times she could have told James he was a father. Phone call, text message, Skype, social media. She had all his contact information.

  And if those weren’t immature solutions to an all-too-adult problem, Mara wasn’t sure what was. Her therapist would have a field day with her trying to tell James he was a father by cell phone, social media or Skype. She might as well fully revert to her teenage self and break up with a guy by text message.

  She considered contacting him to set up one of their clandestine meetings, and then telling him once she had him alone. That had seemed just as awful as telling him over the phone. So she didn’t call at all. The longer she’d put off contacting him, the harder that call became until she’d convinced herself she would simply go home to break the news. There had been plenty of reasons not to come to Slippery Rock—her work, her therapy, Zeke cutting teeth, having a bad cold. Damn it, it was Cheryl quitting that had finally started Mara seriously considering coming back. Not because she needed babysitters, but because of Cheryl’s commitment to her family. Mara wanted that connection, that commitment for herself. Then the tornado hit, and she’d known she couldn’t keep making excuses. She had to tell James. Had to face her family. She couldn’t continue to be the kind of runaway her own parents were.

  James had already walked away, and, God, why suddenly did James not wanting to be part of Zeke’s life hurt so bad? Until she’d seen him do it last night, the possibility of him stepping out of Zeke’s life had seemed so much simpler than sharing parenting duties.

  There was every chance her family would walk away, too.

  “Okay, Mara, you have the plan. Now get out of this B and B and set things in motion,” she said, standing. She turned off Zeke’s activity stand, and he shook his fists at her in annoyance. “We have an appointment,” she said, and he grinned as if he knew what that meant. Probably it was just gas. He still smiled when he had gas.

  Mara blew out a breath, picked up Zeke and slung the colorful tote she used as a diaper bag over her shoulder. She could keep looking for a reason to stay holed up in the B and B or she could be a grown-up and face the music with her family.

  She was saving the rest of her conversation with James for another time, though. After last night, she was unprepared to tell him he had no responsibilities where Zeke was concerned. Where she was concerned. She gently tweaked Zeke’s nose.

  “Okay, little guy, here we go. Don’t worry. They’re going to love you,” she said, hating the slight emphasis on that last word. Gran hadn’t turned her, Collin and Amanda away when they were little, but Mara was an adult now. An adult who shouldn’t have kept this part of her life secret for so long.

  Zeke put his pudgy hands on her cheeks and mumbled something that sounded peculiarly like, “Don’t worry, mama.” It was impossible. Zeke had two words in his vocabulary at this point, and neither was don’t, worry or ma. He said dog periodically and had said ball a handful of times.

  Still, his mumbling steadied her, and she rested her forehead on his for a moment, breathing in the scent of powder and lotion and little boy. After a moment, her stomach muscles relaxed, and breathing no longer felt as if she were dragging air through passages lined with sharpened sticks.

  Downstairs, she locked Zeke into his car seat, then buckled herself into the driver’s seat. He waved his hands as he watched the world go by out the rear window. The narrow streets of downtown Slippery Rock rolled by, opening up to the wider state highway that led to the orchard. Despite being a weekday, there wasn’t much traffic on the road. She passed a couple of farm trucks and a few minivans, but the cattle and alpacas—she would have to ask Collin when alpacas had come to Slippery Rock—outnumbered the humans she passed. Everyone lifted their fingers in the familiar steering wheel wave she remembered from her teenage years.

  No one staffed the small roadside stand her grandfather built the year Collin turned twelve and she turned eleven, and she pulled into the drive leading t
o the orchard.

  A few stumps were still visible in the apple orchard, but saplings outnumbered the stumps. She spotted the red roof of the big barn in the distance, and as her SUV cleared the drive, the old house came into view. Red-roofed like the barn, the two-story farmhouse hadn’t changed. A porch swing rocked in the light breeze. The steps leading up to the door were lined with Gran’s snapdragons. The tall oak still stood in the middle of the drive with a rope swing hanging from a branch.

  She’d learned to swing on the old tractor seat. Had pushed Amanda when she was little. Had hidden in the branches with Collin when their parents had shown up unexpectedly one spring. She and Collin had been petrified their parents would make them go to whatever cramped and dirty apartment they lived in, but a few hours later their parents drove away. Granddad came to sit in the swing, pretending to talk to himself as he reassured the two of them that they didn’t have to go anywhere.

  She wanted to go inside. Wanted to push open the door and announce herself like she belonged there. Well, Gran had always said this was her home.

  Mara gathered Zeke and the baby bag and walked up the steps and into the house. The same hardwood floors greeted her, the same overstuffed furniture. The TV was still in the corner near the fireplace, the sofa under the big picture window. To her left, the dining room led to the kitchen and the family room.

  “Anybody home?” she called out, because usually there was some kind of noise inside the house, but today there was nothing.

  “Back here, sweetheart.” She heard her grandmother’s voice from the kitchen and started in that direction. “Just putting a pie for the weekend farmers’ market in the oven. They’re finishing up the new roof this afternoon and—” Gran stopped talking when Mara crossed the threshold. “You have a baby.”

  Gran’s blue eyes, so similar to Mara’s own, widened. Zeke waved his fist in the air, then buried his face in Mara’s shoulder. He was a happy, well-adjusted baby, but new people always made him a bit shy.