Debbie Herbert - Appalachian Prey

“Not important?” he asked, incredulous. “Are you for real? I demand to know what’s going on.”

She jumped to her feet, her face flushed and her voice raised. “You have no right to demand anything from me. Never did. I just dropped by to tell you that I’m—I’m...oh, never mind. I won’t bother you with the news.”

The room was the quietest Harlan had ever witnessed. From deep in the recesses behind their administrative offices, an inmate could be heard cursing in a holding cell.

This wasn’t happening. His mind spun in circles. Surely Lilah wasn’t about to say she was pregnant, was she? They’d been careful. Except, well, there were a couple of times they’d been too impatient. He felt like he’d fallen down into a deep well and couldn’t catch his breath.

Lilah raised her chin and strolled away, her back ramrod stiff. From the corner of his eyes, he caught Sheriff Bentley shaking his head in an I-told-you-so way.

Instead of heading to the front door, she made an abrupt turn to the right and entered the women’s restroom. Jolene Smithers, a fellow officer, rose from behind her desk. “I’ll check on her,” she said, eyes wide with equal measures of pity and curiosity.

To hell with J.D.

He found his feet and followed Jolene, aware that every eye in the room was upon them. Someone snickered, and the back of his neck flushed with heat.

* * *

LILAH PULLED BACK her hair and leaned over the toilet, gagging. A few deep, shuddering breaths later, she straightened, bracing her hands against the stall’s cool metal siding.

That’d been close. For a moment back there, she’d been ready to upchuck all over Harlan’s carefully prepared report. One that was no longer needed.

“Get yourself together and get the hell out of Dodge,” she muttered.

“You all right in there?” a female voice drawled.

Lilah stiffened. “I’m fine,” she said in a mind-your-own-business tone.

“Don’t sound fine to me.”

Lilah waited. Whoever was on the other side of the door wasn’t leaving and wasn’t entering the neighboring stall. Just what she needed. Why couldn’t a girl get a clean break when she needed to beat a hasty exit? Sighing, she pushed open the door and strode to the washbasin, determined to ignore the nosy stranger. From the corner of her eye, she took her in—a tall rangy woman, wearing a brown uniform and a badge.

“Quite a scene out there,” the woman commented drily.

Lilah splashed her face and rinsed her mouth out.

“I think Harlan’s worried about you.”

“Told ya I was fine.” She jerked a paper towel from the dispenser and dried her face and hands before throwing it in the bin.

“You with child?” the woman asked.

Lilah snatched the keys from her pocketbook and marched to the door. Another minute and she would be out of this stifling place.

“Is it Harlan’s?”

The nerve. Lilah’s eyes snapped to meet the intruder’s. She wore no makeup and her auburn hair was pulled back in a careless ponytail. Still, it was easy to see she was a beauty in a tomboyish, no-frills kind of way with a peaches-and-cream complexion and large hazel eyes.

“None of your business...” Lilah glanced at the nameplate pinned below her badge. “Officer Smithers.”

“We’re all good buddies working here. Family, even. So is it his?”

Lilah pushed past the woman but Jolene Smithers stepped in front of her.

“Following in your sister’s footsteps? Guess I should give you some credit, though. At least you managed to finish high school before populating our county with more Tedders.”

The hell? It may have been years since she’d lived in Lavender Mountain, but Smithers’s lip curl of disgust when she said Tedders slashed through time. Once again, Lilah was young and facing the taunts of schoolchildren or braving the slights of classmates who never came to her birthday parties. No parent wanted their child hanging out with the likes of Lilah and her family.

“Get out of my way,” she said coldly.

“I’m betting it isn’t. Good thing we have paternity tests these days. Keeps riffraff like you from tying down a decent man who—no doubt—will insist on doing the right thing. Either marriage or child support for the next eighteen years.”

Jolene’s words splattered like acid on Lilah’s heart. That much was true. Harlan would insist on doing right by her. But what kind of life would that be—knowing she’d unwittingly trapped him into marriage? He couldn’t know the truth.

“And what about his career?” Jolene continued. “He’d be the laughing stock of this county, running for sheriff after a shotgun wedding to a Tedder.”

She’d had enough. Lilah went around Jolene and flung open the restroom’s door before delivering her parting shot as she stepped into the lobby. “It’s not his baby. Okay? You happy now?”

Whipping her head back around, she faced a tall uniformed column of stubborn human male.

Harlan.

His feet were planted less than six feet from the doorway and his face was set like carved granite.

How much had he heard? He couldn’t have missed her saying the baby wasn’t his. Lilah lowered her head and walked quickly to the door. She’d come by to tell him she was pregnant with his child, but maybe it was best this way.

So why was she near tears? If he had ever loved her, that love hadn’t been enough to erase the stigma of her name. Believing she was pregnant by another man, so quickly after their own affair had ended, would be proof to him that she was fickle and unworthy.

* * *

OUTSIDE, THE GEORGIA sun beat down like a whip on his face. “Lilah. Stop.” He placed a hand on her shoulder, and she froze. He stepped in front of her and gazed at her pale face. Now that he had her attention, he hadn’t a clue what to say.

“Sorry you heard the news that way,” she said flatly. “Didn’t want you to wonder if it was yours, though—just in case we ran into each other in the future or you heard something.”

“Are you sure?” he asked. This didn’t feel right.

“Positive.”

Anger churned his gut. There hadn’t been anyone else for him since he’d cut off ties with Lilah. How had she moved on so quickly? “Who?” he ground out past numb lips.

Her brows raised and she regarded him blankly.

“Who’s the father?”

“Oh. You don’t know him. He’s not from around here.”

She was lying. He was—almost—sure of it.

“Is the baby mine or not? I deserve the truth.”

She hesitated. “You deserve a life with a woman you love. You deserve to be sheriff.”

“Is that what this is about? Let me decide what I want.”

“Do you love me?” she asked abruptly.

His mind drew a blank. Love? He cared for her...mightily cared. But love? “I... I’m...”

Her lips trembled, and she pinched them together. “Whatever happened between us is long over. I have to figure things out on my own.”

“You shouldn’t have to face this alone. What about this...this other man?” His mind whirled at the possibility she was telling the truth. “Will he marry you? Or at least support you?”

She gave a harsh laugh. “The days of shotgun weddings ’round these parts are long over. Plenty of women have been single moms. I can do the same.”

A memory pierced him—her dad at the Foxy Lady bar/motel, hunting down Ed after getting word that Darla was with child. By all witness accounts, Chauncey had stormed into the dive, red-faced and waving a shotgun, searching for the hapless culprit who’d deflowered his eldest daughter. Seeing Ed shirk into the corner, Chauncey had approached and grabbed a fistful of Ed’s camouflage jacket. “Congratulations, you’re getting married,” he’d announced.