Kristina Knight - Rebel In A Small 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.