“I’m finding it different than anything I’ve ever known.” A nice way of agreeing with her?

  “You’d hate the slow pace.”

  “It’s peaceful.”

  “And backward.”

  He pushed against the ground, his knee brushing her thigh, a touch Caroline felt all the way through her.

  “Do you ever think about that night we made love?”

  The question threw her completely off guard. “All the time.” It was the truth, even if she’d never intended to share it with him. She wondered if he thought about it. Ever.

  And wondered why he was there. How long he was planning to stay. If she’d see him again before Sara was born. Or after.

  With one arm along the back of the swing, and the other resting easily by his side, John could have been the most relaxed man on earth. Caroline was so tense her muscles were hurting with the effort it took her to stay still. She braced herself, a hand on either side of her legs on the swing, and waited.

  “I think we should get married.”

  She knew he’d said the words. She’d heard them. She just couldn’t comprehend them. Or understand why he’d said them.

  “It’s an obvious and logical solution.”

  Not to her it wasn’t. She wasn’t ever going to marry again. And if she did, it would be to a man who was down on his knees with love for her, not one who was calmly swinging without so much as a hand on her shoulder.

  What kind of marriage would that be?

  “Say something.”

  “When Randy and I first got married, he was the strong one, the savior, the one with all the answers,” she said slowly. “Then Jesse started to read when he was four. By the time he was ten, he was jumping grades in school. And I got my GED. Jesse would go to Randy for help with problems and Randy wouldn’t know the answers. Jesse would come to me and I’d be able to help him. Jesse went to Randy for help less and less. And more and more Randy started to feel inferior. And the more insecure he felt, the more he used his physical strength, in voice, through intimidation, to show us he was still the head of the family. Eventually he gave up even that. By the time Jesse was sixteen, Randy kept to himself. And he drank. A lot.” She stopped, remembering the number of times she’d sat on that very swing, crying, as she heard her sweet husband stumbling around lost and drunk in the house. She could have gone to him, but her presence only seemed to hurt him.

  “Why are you telling me this now?” John asked, his voice low.

  “Because people from different classes, different backgrounds—different kinds of intelligence—can’t merge.” The words were hard to say. Because she knew them to be true. “Eventually their differences only tear them apart.”

  “Everyone’s different,” John said. “If we only married people just like us, think how boring life would be.”

  He had a point. But…

  “It depends on the people and what they do with those differences,” he continued. “That’s something I’ve learned during these months with you.”

  She’d taught him something? “I had the impression that I irritated the heck out of you.”

  “I think I was more irritated by the fact that I thought about you far too often when I’d expressly decided not to.”

  Her heart started to beat faster. He’d thought of her. Like she’d thought of him? Anywhere close to that?

  “At first I assumed your quiet ways were a sign of weakness, but now I see in them a strength that’s beyond what most people are ever lucky enough to possess. You loved a man who was loyal to you and who loved you every day of his life. Even when you couldn’t reach him anymore, you had the courage and strength to love him.”

  She’d had no choice. Randy was her husband, she his wife. She’d married him for better or worse. And she’d loved him. Where was the courage and strength in that?

  “In a backwater town that puts more emphasis on how to grow crops and raise cattle than it does on book learning, you raised a son who won a full scholarship to Harvard. You followed your convictions to get an education when there wasn’t one readily available. You have the citizens of two towns in love with you.”

  “Two small towns,” she mumbled.

  “And when you found out you had a twin sister, you—a shy country girl—found the courage to meet a big-city architect, just for the chance to make contact with someone who knew her sister.”

  She turned her head, glancing at him. Though her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, she couldn’t make out his shadowed expression. “You were angry that I’d used you.”

  “I was desperate for an excuse to put some distance between us.”

  Facing forward again, Caroline gripped the edge of the swing so tightly she was sure she was getting splinters.

  “Your heart is closed,” she said. “You can’t commit yourself because you’re afraid to risk loss.” These were all things they’d been over before. How could he possibly suggest marriage? It wasn’t possible for the people they were.

  “There’s not much peace in going home to an empty house for the next forty or fifty years.” He paused. “That’s what my friend Will said.”

  Glancing over again, she whispered, “There’s no guarantee you won’t be.”

  “And that,” he murmured, “is what I said. But Will was right.”

  She couldn’t do this. Couldn’t hope, or allow the song inside her to break free. She had a family to think about. A life ahead of her. A son. A new baby to raise. She had to keep her heart intact.

  And if she listened to this man, believed him, she’d be giving her heart to him to break. He was so shut off, so scared of losing again, he wouldn’t be capable of doing anything else.

  “I think there are guarantees.”

  His words shocked her. “What?” She already knew there weren’t. Tragedies happened. Illness happened. It was all part of life. That knowledge didn’t stop her from living. In a way, it added significance to life and to love because she appreciated every single day, but there were no guarantees that the next day would be just as good, just as full.

  “Look at this house,” John said. “It’s small and old and certainly not valuable by the world’s standards, but there’s more life here than in any place I’ve ever lived. Even when you were here alone.”

  Maybe.

  “But more than that, look at it now. Busting at the seams with people who love and support you. You lost Randy. Jesse moved away. I let you down. And your house is still full of people who’re determined to be there for you.”

  Tears burned her eyes, tightened her throat.

  John lowered his arm from the back of the swing, slid his fingers beneath her hand, prying her grip from the edge. “Loved ones die,” he said, his voice no less intense for its softness, “but the guarantee is that love doesn’t. It lives on in our hearts for those who are gone, and it lives on in our lives through those who are left.”

  Her chest was so full Caroline couldn’t say a word. She could hardly think past the sentiment he was expressing, the truth of which rang more true to her than anything she’d ever heard.

  “Look at all the traumas we’ve been witness to in the past couple of months,” he continued, his conviction clearly so much more solid than any doubts he’d ever uttered. “Ellen’s trial. James’s death. Calvin’s disappearance. Your coming home. But no one was alone. Everyone was surrounded by a love that gave them the strength to take one more breath, one more step, and get to the next, better day.”

  She squeezed his hand. He was a good man. A great man. One who had the courage to face his fears. And maybe even find a way beyond them.

  “We don’t love each other.” She couldn’t marry him. As much as she wanted to, she couldn’t do that. If her life with Randy had taught her nothing else, it had taught her that love was the most important ingredient in any relationship. When all else had failed with them, the love had kept her going.

  “Don’t we?”

  Well, she loved him, of course. Ridiculously. Madly. But…

  “Do we?” She was still staring straight ahead.

  With one finger, John turned her face toward him. “I love you, Caroline Prater, enough to turn me inside out.”

  “Me, too,” she whispered, tears dripping slowly down her cheeks.

  John’s hand curved around the back of her head as his face came closer. “I need to hear you say the words,” he whispered against her lips.

  “I love you, John Strickland, enough to turn my whole self inside ou—”

  His lips covered hers and the world really did evaporate around her. Sweet peace settled in Caroline’s heart, spreading in a circle that grew larger and larger, filling up every part of her.

  Opening her mouth to him, she taunted and teased, expressed her hunger openly, honestly, begging him for all the things she’d been denied all these months. And just as she was about to beg for more, she felt a jab where her waist used to be.

  “What was that?” John asked, pulling away from her.

  She grabbed his hand, laid it on her expanded belly. And waited.

  “Oh, my God…” The awe in his voice brought tears to her eyes again. Ecstatic tears. Tears that, for as long as she lived, would never fully dry.

  She’d found John. She’d found love. She’d found her guarantee.

  EPILOGUE

  SHELTER VALLEY MAYOR Becca Parsons stood in her living room on the third Friday night in June, feeling a bit nostalgic, somewhat subdued and honestly happy.

  Her sister-in-law Randi and Randi’s husband, Zack, were deep in conversation with Sam and Cassie Montford about something. Probably pets. Randi had taken over the university’s pet-therapy club and had expansion ideas.

  “The cake and presents are all set up in the sunroom,” Martha Marks whispered behind her. Martha seemed so much lighter these days, now that the trial was behind them— Ellen’s rapist convicted and in prison.

  Becca nodded her thanks, watching as Caroline Prater and John Strickland, hand in hand, slowly traversed the large room, stopping to speak with everyone they passed. Currently they were with the Nielsons and Greg and Beth Richards. Looking fabulous in navy evening dress, they were there for a combination wedding and baby shower before their wedding the next day.

  Or so Caroline thought.

  “He’s going to be happy.” Martha’s next words were spoken beside her.

  “I think so, too,” Becca said, and then looked at her closest friend. “I was really disappointed when it didn’t work out for the two of you.”

  “I know.” Martha smiled, looking radiant in her black cocktail dress as she watched the soon-to-be-married couple. “Me, too. But now…”

  Martha had found her magic in David—the untraditional preacher they’d all grown to adore.

  The wedding couple were speaking with the bride’s parents, two of the most sincere people Becca had ever met. She’d heard they’d had quite a time in Phoenix the day before picking out the new dress and suit they were wearing.

  “Funny how life works, isn’t it?” Martha said now. “You think you know what you want, you try to make it happen, and you resent fate when things don’t work out the way you planned. Then, after you give up trying to be in control, fate gives you something better than you’d ever dreamed was out there.”

  “Good to know there’s a force that’s stronger than us watching out for everyone, huh?” Becca half teased her friend who, until a year ago, had considered herself a woman without faith of any kind.

  Martha nudged her and Becca had to go to the door again, this time to welcome Phyllis and Matt Sheffield and Tory and Ben Sanders, all looking splendid in party attire. Tory and Phyllis both wore floor-length navy gowns, though Tory’s was tighter than Phyllis’s.

  “I thought you’d be the first ones here,” Becca said, leaning forward to give Phyllis a hug. Phyllis had recently cashed in the stocks from her divorce settlement and bought a small cottage in Kentucky, not too far from Caroline’s farm.

  “I wanted to give her time to make her own way among her new friends,” Phyllis said. “But don’t worry, Tory and I will be in place in a couple of minutes.”

  Dressed in black slacks and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, Will joined Becca at the door. “I think we’re set.” His hand slid into hers.

  Becca stole a second to smile up at him. “Five years ago I never would’ve believed…”

  “Shh,” Will said, placing a finger gently against her lips. “We’re blessed, Becca. We needed the hard times to fully appreciate the good times. To really value what we have. Just think what a waste it would’ve been to go through life and not feel this gratitude every single day….”

  She smiled, almost unaware of the noise and conversations and well wishes all around them as she turned to her husband. “I love you, Will Parsons,” she whispered, and couldn’t quite hold back the tears that sprang to her eyes.

  “And I love you, Becca.”

  “Okay, if you two are ready, I think everything’s—oh, sorry,” David Marks came from the room behind them. “Didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  Becca moved into the throng in the living room, searching for her comrades in arms, the sound of Will’s laughter ringing behind her.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, may we have your attention, please?” she called a couple of minutes later in her most mayoral voice. “If you’d all move into the next room, we have a surprise for you.”

  She sought out Phyllis and Tory, who nodded, and then watched as Caroline and John walked together into the middle of the crowd. John turned, caught Becca’s eye with a grateful look, then smiled and turned back just as the music started.

  And Caroline stopped.

  “It’s the ‘Wedding March,’” she said as the entire room fell silent, waiting for her to catch up with the rest of them.

  “We didn’t want you to settle for a short ceremony in a judge’s chamber,” John told his wife-to-be. “Look.”

  They were standing at the door to the formal dining room, which had been turned into a beautiful wedding chapel complete with six pews, steps, an altar and more flowers than Becca had had at her own wedding.

  “Ma? May I do the honors?” Caroline’s son Jesse appeared at her side, dressed in a dark brown suit, offering his elbow.

  Caroline gazed at the circle of people around her, then slid her arm through her son’s and walked regally up the aisle to become one of them.

  Becca had a feeling that the backwoods farm girl had finally caught a glimpse of herself as the princess she’d always been.

  “They’ve got it made,” Will said softly beside her. “Summers in Kentucky, the rest of the year here…”

  “We all have it made,” Becca whispered back as David Marks stood at the pulpit in front of them. “Shelter Valley has known its share of heartache, but it always comes down to this, doesn’t it?”

  “Comes down to what?” Will asked, leading her to their seats in the last pew.

  “The union of hearts,” Becca told him.

  Holding her husband’s hand, she silently repeated the wedding vows they’d taken more than twenty-five years before, reflecting on what had been, and on what was still to come.

  And when the ceremony was finished and Caroline walked radiantly down the aisle, Becca was the first to step forward and welcome the newest member of the Shelter Valley Heroines.

  They were women who knew what mattered most in life. Women who weren’t afraid to fight for what they wanted, or give up what they didn’t want. Women who were loyal, who’d known their share of fear and who didn’t quit.

  No matter what life handed them, they’d survive.

  Because love was stronger than life.

  And the heroines of Shelter Valley knew that.

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-6263-2

  SOMEBODY’S BABY

  Copyright © 2005 by Tara Taylor Quinn.

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

  ® and TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.

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  *Shelter Valley Stories

 

 

  Tara Taylor Quinn, Somebody's Baby

 

 

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