Lass Small - A Stranger In Texas

She blushed scarlet just about all over, but he saw her face redden. He was startled. “Are you all right?”

She assured him, “Yes.”

His hand caught hers. “I’m glad. You were such a help to me. You were so calm. I don’t think I could ever make it up to you. If you should ever need any kind of help, I’d be grateful if you’ll let me be the one, or at least be in the crowd that would help you.”

She looked down at her feet while she could still see them. Pregnant women said such. But she again blushed scarlet. Damn!

In some earnestness, Zach pressed, “Are you okay? Why did you blush that way?”

“It’s nothing.” Nothing!

He took her arm and stopped her steps. “Jessica, you wouldn’t hide from me, would you? You and Paul could claim my very life in support. You both have calls on me. If there is anything—”

“There isn’t.”

He watched her soberly. And she looked everywhere else.

Zach asked gently, “Will you go with me to the hospital?”

She looked down but she said, “Yes.”

“I have a strong feeling you’d rather not go with me, but I accept that you will go along and I’ll hold you to the agreement.”

She nodded.

He shortened his steps as he looked at his watch. And he pretended to be offhand as he closely quizzed her. “Everything at the hotel okay?”

“Yes.”

“Your family all okay?”

He wasn’t one damned bit subtle. He knew something was riding her. Well, something had ridden her. Him. How was she to get through this? Would she have to get rid of him again? Get on with it all alone?

He was down to asking, “The town’s steady?”

And somewhat irritated, she replied to him, “No earthquakes, either.”

So he was silent. As they walked, he turned his head and looked around as men do, but he was thinking and his eyes squinted just a bit.

Finally, he asked, “Are you involved with some man?”

“Not seriously.”

Zach stopped and demanded, “But you admit you are involved?”

And she was honest. “In a manner of speaking, I…was.”

He said nothing.

She looked up at Zach and there he was, good-looking, serious, interested, concerned. Hell.

Softening his male voice, he told her, “If you have any problem, at all, tell me how to help you. I owe you.”

She replied briefly, “No.”

Jessica took Zachary to her parents’ house for lunch. She hadn’t even called them ahead of time. The two just went there. She introduced him as Zach Thomas. And she named her parents as Mark and Cynthia Channing.

Jess’s red hair, green eyes and translucent skin were her mother’s. Cynthia was a beauty. And it was easy for Zach to say, “I know what a beauty Jessica will be in her time.”

How many times had Cynthia heard such talk about her precious daughter? It was a given. How can one take credit for something over which one has no input? Cynthia barely smiled. But her green eyes weighed what sort of man Zachary Thomas might be.

That made Zach smile.

Cynthia said to him, “I remember you. Paul Butler was so concerned for you.”

“I would never have made it, if Paul and Jessica hadn’t been there.”

Her parents nodded once to acknowledge his words.

Mark Channing ran Sea View’s weekly newspaper and was always home for lunch. Well, on some Thursdays when the paper was being put to bed, Cynthia took her husband’s lunch and sometimes his supper to him.

Jessica’s parents welcomed Zach and made him comfortable with their casual TEXAS manners. And with skillful subtleness her mother added enough of everything in sandwiches and salad to include the surprise guest quite easily. She was used to doing that.

It was natural…seeming. Both parents were ordinarily very curious. However, the only really comfortable person there was Zach. Both parents’ eyes caught every minute as Zach’s glances lighted on their daughter.

Jessica’s cheeks were scarlet. She licked her lips a lot. She held herself calmly in check.

And the parents looked at Zach. They narrowed their eyes and listened to him. He was talking about teaching. Then he touched on witnessing the harvest results the next day.

Vulnerably, he said, “I’m not sure I can handle seeing kids who have transplants from Mike. Jess has been kind enough to agree to go with me. She and Paul Butler have been so supportive. I don’t know what I would have done without them.”

Zach’s face was so calmly earnest.

The parents watched silently.

Jessica toyed with her food and her cheeks continued scarlet.

The conversation gaps didn’t bother Zach. Jessie’s dad said enough and her mother’s observations were neutral as usual. She never had appeared to be strident, but Jess knew her to be ironhanded adamant.

Jess wondered when her mother would quit silently considering her and begin to question her. Right then, her mother was considering—Zach. She was a courteous, well-brought-up woman who was now reserved.

Jessica sighed without seeming to. She had learned to do that in her early years. It was of special need for their aging preacher’s rambling sermons.

When would Jessica Channing get a sermon from their next relatively new, but now aging preacher? Who would tell him that Jessica Channing was pregnant?

Not her parents. She could get to nine and a half months and her parents wouldn’t publicly “notice” any difference in her unless she mentioned it to them.

At the table, next to Jess, was the father of her child. And although Zach was sensitive enough to realize that there was something bothering her, it hadn’t occurred to him that he was a part of it.

Should she tell him?

Ah, how could she? He was now so free! Actually, he’d probably been this markedly individual all of his life. He was on his own. He had been that way even with a family to support. And the deaths of Hannah and Mike had shocked him raw. But now he was getting back to being himself.

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