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.
“Well, go on, son,” Aggie said, grinning. “Kiss the woman you love.”
Jake’s blue eyes lasered Keri’s then lowered to her abdomen and back up again.
“Welcome home,” she said, her voice shaky, her whole body quivering.
“Yeah, go kiss her, Papa,” Dixie shouted. “She’s been waiting a long time for you.”
Keri could see it was all too much for him. Whatever he’d been doing had only been made worse by coming home to find he was about to become a father. He was thirty-seven, but he looked years older.
He started to speak, then spotted Nana Mae, who had made her way over to him. His eyes went soft. Tenderly, he gathered his grandmother close.
“I missed you,” she said, patting his back. “There’ll be plenty of time to catch up with the rest of us. You go ahead and greet your girl.”
He headed toward Keri. A smile came over his face. He picked up speed.
She trembled with relief. Everything was going to be okay. He was in shock, but he wasn’t rejecting her. Okay, good. Okay. Good. Breathe…
Then he was there, within touching distance. He curved his hands around her arms. “Look at you,” he said, as if he’d been waiting for her. Then he took her into his arms. She hugged him back—
“I’m going along with this only because of my grandmother,” he whispered in Keri’s ear then released her, keeping her hand in his as Aggie started shooing people out.
Stunned, Keri said nothing, couldn’t have mustered a word.
“Mom,” he said. “You don’t need to do that. We’ll just step into the kitchen for a minute.”
He led Keri away, a journey that seemed to take an hour, during which she plastered a smile on her face. When the door was shut and they were alone, he released her.
“We’re in love?” he asked.
“I—”
“And this—” he gestured toward her belly “—is mine?”
“Yes.”
“I’m supposed to just believe that?”
“You can do the math. If that doesn’t work for you, we can do DNA tests after it’s born. I don’t need proof, but I figure you do.”
“It? You don’t know the gender?”
“I decided not to find out. Where have you been, Jake? Why couldn’t you call home?”
His mouth hardened. His eyes lost their sheen. “In Venezuela. Nothing like a little kidnapping to stir things up, eh? And revenge. Only sometimes it’s not so sweet.”
Chapter Two
Jake turned away from Keri’s horror-filled eyes. He shoved his fingers through his hair and stared at the floor. All he wanted was some peace and quiet. To sleep in his own bed. To take a shower whenever he felt like it, for as long as he wanted. To eat something he could identify.
Instead he’d been blindsided with a pregnant Keri Overton, the woman who’d consumed his thoughts night and day for far too long. The woman he’d been locked up with—because she thought she knew better than he about how criminals operate.
And then there was his brother. Yeah, Donovan was a dead man. During the almost three-hour drive from the San Francisco airport to Chance City, he hadn’t once mentioned Keri, who was not only pregnant but on the brink of giving birth. To his child. The result of a one-time, “are we going to get out of here alive?” moment after they’d been kidnapped together, along with her boss/patient. One damned time. And apparently she had everyone in Chance City snowed, convincing them they’d been in love.
“Did you even recognize me?” she asked from behind him.
He blew out a breath. “Not at first.” He should have, considering everything, but he’d been caught off guard, especially by her pregnancy. Would never have thought of her in terms of being pregnant. She’d had months to call and tell him that bit of news, all that time from Labor Day until Christmas before he’d gone deep undercover. She hadn’t called, so he’d decided he was safe from that worry.
“Would you have recognized me?” he countered, facing her.
“I don’t know. You’ve lost weight, and your hair is long. You look older. Maybe it’s the beard.”
He laughed coldly. Yeah, he’d aged about a hundred years. “Well, you’ve gained a lot of weight, and your hair is much longer, too.” She’d had short, straight hair before. Now it was almost shoulder length and wavy. But still a rich, shiny brown, a much deeper shade than her eyes—
The kitchen door swung open, and Donovan came in.
“Thanks for the heads-up,” Jake muttered.
Donovan ignored his sarcasm. “Everyone’s gone except family. Everything okay here?” he asked, looking from Jake to Keri.
“You should’ve called ahead,” Keri said. “That kind of shock can send a woman into labor, you know. And what about your mom and grandma? I thought you were in Alaska, anyway.”
“I was, until Jake called. We coordinated our flights to arrive in San Francisco at the same time.”
“Give us a minute more,” Jake said to his brother, not wanting dissension, too tired to participate. He shoved his hands in his pockets, found the small gold medallion he carried with him, rubbed it enough to heat it up.
“Sure,” Donovan said. “I just wanted you to know who was still here.”
As soon as the door shut, Jake focused on Keri. “Why does everyone think I’m in love with you?”
Her cheeks pinkened. “I didn’t think it was necessary to disillusion them. Besides, I was protecting your image.”
“And yours.”
“Yes. And our child’s. Your town…adopted me. But also I needed them, so I let them think what they wanted.”
He recalled the excited, hopeful look on his mother’s face as she’d waited for him to kiss Keri, the woman he loved. He closed his eyes, exhausted.
“You need to sleep,” Keri said, touching his arm.
He pulled back. “Where are you living?”
“With your grandmother. I’ve been helping take care of her.”
What now? He couldn’t live apart from her. People would ask too many questions, Nana Mae in particular. He’d spent his life living up to his grandmother’s expectations, as had all his siblings. He wasn’t about to start disappointing her now.
But at the moment, he couldn’t formulate a solid plan. “You need to come home with me,