Baby Makes Three

Baby Makes Three Part 1

I'm pregnant. Too blunt and quite obvious considering the size of Cecily Cavanaugh's stomach. Hi, Daddy. Oh sure, if she wanted to give the guy a heart attack, despite the appropriateness of the statement and the fact Cecily only knew his first name. Kind of. Well, she'd narrowed it down to two-Chase or Jace, or was it...

Her mind blanked as she passed the "Welcome to Rangers End" sign—the scene of the crime. The town, not the sign. Although, with the tequila induced memory loss, she couldn't rule out anything. After all, instead of doing the job she'd been sent to Tiny Town USA to do, she'd bought a dilapidated...old...middle of nowhere farm house, then promptly found the first able-bodied, semi-upright, mostly her age bar patron and spent the weekend celebrating her purchase with him in her hotel room, as if the house merited celebrating. She'd enjoyed three gloriously naked days that resulted in her job loss, as well as swollen ankles, a protruding abdomen, and any number of mood swings.

She passed the row of striped awnings, a construction crane in what must have been the town square, and two lines of little old ladies facing off on each side of a crate large enough to hold the entire collection of Cavanaugh classic cars her father collected back home. The scene and the palpable tension between the two sides of women reminded Cecily of the rumble at the end of the "Outsiders" only with less leather and more orthopedic shoes.

Aside from the one, um, three-night stand, the termination of her employment by her own mother, and the six pregnancy tests in her purse, this spectacle of rabid women was the most interesting thing Cecily could recall in her past.

She slowed the car and pulled into a spot opposite the scene. One of the old ladies blew a whistle she'd fished from the front of her track suit, and a hush rippled down each faction of women until the only sound came from the eek of nails being crow-barred from the crate.

"We should blast the damned thing open."

"We most certainly will not. That is a French provincial gazebo with Spanish lace curtains and hand-carved Amish embellishments."

Sounded like a design mess to Cecily, but since she had no one to tell anyway, she kept it to herself. No point in adding any volatility to the moment. Instead, she climbed out of her car for a better look.

"Big fat waste of money, if you ask me, Mrs. Mayor."

"Well, just because you're oldest bag of bones is this town, Lucia Gilden, doesn't mean anyone cares what you think."

The woman with the hair that looked downright bulletproof and the other woman who looked wiry for someone her age edged closer until almost nose to nose. Then he stepped out, crowbar in hand, from the far side of the wooden box. "Whoa, whoa, whoa."

Whoa was right. Cecily had spent so much time figuring out how to find him and break her big news, she'd forgotten how handsome he was. Honey-blond with eyes the color of melted caramel. And his smile...

"Ladies, we're almost to the moment you've all been waiting for." He looked from the mayor to the one she'd called Lucia. "Come on now." All it took was one bat of his eyelashes, one tilt of his chin and the women backed off.

Cecily's breath caught. Had she not already been well acquainted with the panty-dissolving power of his charm, seeing these women, so angry seconds ago but now smiling, would have told her all she needed to know.

As she moved behind one of the lines of ladies, a twig snapped under her sensible sneaker—so different from the leg shaping heels she'd worn pre-pregnancy swelling—and his gaze found her. She didn't expect him to remember her, wasn't prepared for the full force of his grin, had no defense for the wattage of sexiness. "You."