on the Internet were touting as a wonderful educational aide—Raising a Creative Child in Modern Times—when the doorbell rang.
Tess sighed with heartfelt exasperation at the intrusion, then settled the book, spine up, on the sofa cushion beside her. Honestly. After the three days she’d just survived, the last thing she wanted or needed now was a visitor.
Having done her best this week to fend off—with not particularly effective success—all the speculation and congratulations about the birth of her upcoming, though nonexistent, baby, she was ready to scream at the next person who brought it up.
Marigold being the kind of place that it was, there probably wasn’t a soul around who hadn’t heard about—and been convinced of—her “condition” by now. Her visitor this evening, she was certain, was yet another Marigoldian who had come to either speculate or congratulate.
Or, worse, to offer help.
Carol McCoy, up the block, who had four teenagers, had met Tess at the front door when she’d arrived home from school that first day of the rumors, and the other woman had been pulling a wagon loaded with three big boxes of hand-me-downs. They were her children’s cast-offs that Carol had been storing in the basement, knowing that someday they’d come in handy for some expectant mother.
Tess had tried to talk Carol out of her donation, had assured her that there must be someone out there who was more deserving—someone who was oh, say… pregnant, for instance, unlike Tess—but Carol would have none of it. She’d assured Tess that she wouldn’t tell a soul about her condition, that she’d take the secret to her grave—which, of course, wouldn’t be necessary, because it wouldn’t be long before everyone in Marigold knew, would it?—and had hustled back down the street to meet her own brood.
Tess had actually followed her neighbor halfway down the block, assuring Carol all the way that there would be no baby, because there was no condition, because she wasn’t pregnant, but Carol had only nodded indulgently, murmured “Of course, of course” a few times, and told Tess to keep the clothes, anyway, just in case. So now the boxes were stacked haphazardly in Tess’s living room, and she had no idea what to do with them.
Nor did she know what to do with the boxes of maternity clothes stacked beside them that Rhonda Pearson and Denise Lowenstein had donated to the cause. Nor did she know what to do with the big bag of infant toys Cory Madison had brought over. Nor the crib that Dave and Sandy Kleinert had given her—the one that was still sitting in pieces, propped against the wall, where the couple had left it until Dave knew which room would be the nursery, after which, he’d promised Tess, he would come back over and reassemble it. And just that afternoon, Mr. Johanssen, whose backyard abutted Tess’s, had brought over a beautiful handcrafted cradle.
No matter how often—or how hard— Tess had objected to the gifts, her neighbors had only smiled and told her to keep them, just in case.
Whoever was at the front door now would be no different, Tess was sure. Because in spite of her adamant denial of the rumors of her pregnancy, nobody—but nobody—had believed her. The Marigold grapevine was an omnipotent power, infinitely more persuasive than little ol’ Tess Monahan could ever hope to be. If rumor had it that she was pregnant, then according to Marigold canon, she was.
Instinctively she dropped a hand to her belly as she went to answer the front door, as if she herself almost believed she was nurturing a new life there. Boy, smalltown gossip sure could be convincing, she thought as she tugged open the door.
And, boy, it sure could be humiliating, too, she thought further when she saw who stood on the other side.
Because she could think of no reason on earth why Will Darrow would come calling at her house, unless it was because he had finally heard talk about her imaginary pregnancy. And realizing that Will must be thinking it was true—why else would he have come over?—Tess felt the heat of a blush creep from her breasts up to her face. Then again, she always blushed when she saw Will—or even thought about him, for that matter—so why should this episode be any different?
Maybe, she thought, it was different now because deep down she’d always hoped that someday she would get pregnant and that when she did, Will Darrow would be the father of her child. That would of course be—at least in her fantasy—because he was her husband, too. And that would of course be—likewise at least in her fantasy—because he had fallen head over heels in love with her.
Hey, it was her fantasy. She could make it as outrageous as she wanted to. And having Will Darrow fall in love with her? Well, things didn’t get much more outrageous than that. He still ruffled her hair whenever her saw her. Ruffled. Her. Hair. Oh, yeah. That was always a precursor to romantic love. To Will, obviously, she would always be ten years old.
Involuntarily—and hopefully surreptitiously— Tess scanned her visitor from head to toe. She couldn’t help herself—she didn’t get that many chances to scan him up close this way. Even though he had been her oldest brother’s best friend since childhood, these days, she saw very little of Will. One might have thought—might have hoped—that seeing so little of him would cause her childhood crush on the guy to finally go away. Instead, that old saw about absence making the heart grow fonder had come way too true. Because Tess’s heart—among other body parts—was very fond of Will Darrow.
Always had been.
Always would be.
Then another thought struck Tess. If Will had heard about her “condition,” then Finn had probably heard by now, too. And if Finn had heard…
Oh, boy.
She didn’t even want to think about the rampage that must be going on down at Slater Dugan’s Irish Pub. No wonder Will was at her front door. He was probably looking for bail money.
At thirty-six years old, Finn Monahan was a fine, upstanding citizen and a bastion of the community, a complete 180-degree version of the quintessential bad boy he’d been in his youth. Until someone threatened or bad-mouthed a member of his family. Or, even more unforgivable, said a cross word about Violet Demarest, who didn’t even live in Marigold anymore, not since she’d married and moved away, but whom Finn had elevated to a pedestal—nay, an altar—a lo-o-o-o-ong time ago.
But whenever one of those two things happened, then Finn Monahan could be counted on to revert right back to the surly adolescent of two decades ago, the one who was always ripe for a fight. There was no question that talk of his little sister getting knocked up would put Finn in a rare—and very bad—humor.
“Is he in jail again?” Tess blurted out before she could stop herself.
It made for a less-than-welcoming greeting, she knew, but that was the first thought that went through her head when she saw Will. Oh, all right, the second thought that went through her head when she saw him. The first thought had been what it always was—that he looked really, really yummy.
His blue eyes were complemented by a blue chambray work shirt that was nearly the same color, and by blue jeans that were lovingly faded and torn at one knee. His overly long, black hair had been ruffled by the late-evening breeze, and the swiftly setting sun lit silver and orange fires ablaze amid the highlights. A day’s growth of dark beard shadowed the lower half of his face and throat. Anyone else might find him menacing or intimidating. Tess just found him adorable.
But the last time she’d seen Will alone at her front door this way, it was because he’d come to tell her that Finn had been arrested for throwing a chair through the front window at Slater Dugan’s Irish Pub. That actually would have been one of Finn’s lesser offenses, if it hadn’t been for the fact that Dennis Matheny had been sitting in the chair when it went through the window. But Dennis had asked for it—he’d called Violet Demarest the Whore of Babylon, right to Finn’s face. Hey, Dennis was lucky Finn hadn’t fulfilled his childhood fantasy of becoming an astronaut by sending him straight into orbit.
At hearing Tess’s question, Will, who had been looking very uncomfortable when she’d opened the door, now looked very confused. Well, he still looked very uncomfortable—which was pretty much how he always looked whenever