Christine Rimmer - A Maverick To (Re)Marry

“And then, the night of the fourth day,” she said in a raggedy whisper, “my period came.”

Had she lost the baby? Or had she never been pregnant in the first place? Who knew?

“That hurt,” he said. “I mean, the baby had turned everything upside down. But suddenly, there was no baby and somehow, that was even worse.”

She agreed with a slow nod.

The next day—the fifth and final day—to cheer her up, he’d taken her to visit the Armstrongs while he went to work at the ranch.

Nobody knew that she’d married him—except the two of them and her parents. She’d made him promise not to tell his family until she was ready. When his mom and dad asked questions about where he got off to every night, he just said he was fine and for them not to worry. His parents had let it go at that. After all, he was nineteen, old enough to stay out all night if he wanted to. And besides, their ill-fated elopement didn’t last long. Before Rita and Charles Dalton got around to insisting that Derek tell them what was going on, it was over.

That day, the fifth day, when he dropped her off at the Armstrongs’, she had longed to confide in her friends—maybe not Eva, who was only thirteen at the time. But Delphine and Calla, definitely. They were like sisters to her.

She just couldn’t do it, though, couldn’t tell them what she was going through. They knew she was really upset about something and they hugged her and fussed over her. They told her that, whatever it was, it would be all right, that they would always be there for her, no matter what.

She asked Derek, “Did I tell you that Delphine quizzed me about you that day? She wanted to know if something had gone wrong between the two of us.” Everyone knew she’d been dating Derek, and the Armstrongs had seen him drop her off that morning.

“No, you never told me that. You hardly said a word on the drive back to the motel in Kalispell.”

“I was all turned around inside, so sad about losing the baby, wondering how it was all going to work out.”

“I remember.” His voice was flat. Bleak. And then he asked, “What did you say to her that day—to Delphine?”

“I just shook my head and promised that I was fine and so were you.”

“But she guessed you were lying.”

“Yeah. I’ll bet they all three did.”

“Even Eva? She was so young.”

“But she’s always been sensitive to what other people are going through.”

“That day,” he said, staring up at the dark sky, “was the end of it...”

The end of us , she thought. “After that day, I never saw you again until last Monday, right here at the farm.”

“Thirteen years,” he said, his voice so heavy. With regret? With sadness or maybe bitterness? She couldn’t have said and she didn’t quite have the nerve to ask him what exactly he was feeling right now.

Instead, she got on with it. “I have no idea how my dad knew to find us at that motel. I never told him where I was. I assumed he’d somehow followed us from the Armstrongs’ house. I asked Eva’s mom later, before I left for Boulder, if she had called my dad and told him I was there that day. She swore she hadn’t.” Derek said nothing. He stared at the sky. Somewhere nearby, a lone owl hooted. A shiver ran through her. She peered down at him more closely. “What?”

He shifted his gaze to meet hers. “I didn’t say anything.”

“I thought maybe you were about to.”

“Uh-uh.”

She drew in a slow breath. “Well, however he did it, my father figured it out.”

* * *

Derek stared up into her night-shadowed eyes. Her skin was so smooth, silvered in moonlight.

He knew how her father had found them. But he wasn’t going to tell her. What good would that do? Jack Wainwright wasn’t a bad man. He’d just wanted the best for his only child and he’d followed them from the Armstrongs’, followed them to Kalispell and that cheap motel.

At the sight of her dad emerging from his fancy pickup, looking grim and exhausted, Amy had started to cry.

Derek had hated himself then, for jumping the gun and begging her to marry him, for putting her in this position, for messing everything up.

He didn’t know what to do next. Amy had gotten pregnant—or maybe not. She’d lost the baby—or maybe not. Because how can you lose something that never was?

He’d known she was miserable that day, known she regretted running away with him. She’d had such big plans for herself and there she was, a not-pregnant married woman who wasn’t going to go to college, after all.

As he’d watched the tears tracking down her cheeks that July afternoon, Derek felt his heart shatter into a million pieces. He and Jack Wainwright agreed on one thing, at least: that run-down motel wasn’t good enough for Amy.

And what did Derek think he was going to do next? Move his bride into the bunkhouse with him at the Circle D? Or into the main house where his parents lived? Damn, but the truth he faced then was the hardest one of all.

He’d yet to get a real start in life and would need to depend on his family to help support her. And she? Amy deserved the best. With the baby gone, well, why shouldn’t she have the future she’d always planned on? His pride had felt frayed raw at all he couldn’t give her.

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