His Pregnant Courthouse Bride Page 5

  She still felt tired from all the traveling, packing and stress, but lying down only sent her mind roaming anxious pathways. No good. Finally she rose, put on some ballet slippers and returned downstairs. She found Wyatt in the kitchen, doing something with beef in a frying pan that smelled absolutely delicious.

  “Hi,” she said.

  He glanced over his shoulder and smiled. “No nap?”

  “Couldn’t quiet my mind. Is that for chili?”

  “Yup. There must be a million recipes for it. I’ve tried a lot of them.”

  She managed a small laugh. “Fond of it, are you?”

  “My fondness for chili is so famous that I’ve been asked to judge the chili cook-off the last few years.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Seriously. Grab a seat. If you want a cold drink there’s a choice in the fridge. If you want hot, I can make some more cocoa.”

  She chose a soft drink and passed close to the stove to see what looked like cubes of high-quality meat browning, already aromatic with seasonings. “I always use hamburger.”

  “Hamburger and beans. You can do a lot with those.”

  “So how did your chili become famous?”

  He laughed as she sat at the table. “My chili isn’t famous. My love of it is. When I have friends over, it’s chili. When I throw a bigger bash, it’s a bigger pot of chili. When I’m invited to a backyard barbecue, I bring some chili. Not always the same recipe, but it’s a great way to feed a crowd easily. And I do enjoy it.”

  “So no fancy canapés?”

  “No. Just hearty, stomach-filling food.” He chuckled quietly and pulled the frying pan off the burner. “How hot and spicy do you prefer? I don’t want to burn a hole in your tongue or stomach.”

  “Medium.”

  “Good enough.” He went back to adding ingredients to the pan—tomato sauce, some floury substance he said was masa and more seasonings. Then he put the chili on to simmer and joined her at the table.

  “So, too anxious to nap?”

  “That’ll wear off,” she said. “I guess I need to just settle things inside me. Get used to it. And you couldn’t possibly want to hear me talk endlessly about myself, Wyatt.” She shook her head a little. “I’ve got one topic and one topic only lately. As for everything before...well, most of that wasn’t very interesting, either.”

  She watched him smile and remembered how much she had always liked his smile. Something about it seemed to radiate warmth and charm. “I think you’re very interesting,” he answered. “But...what else would you like to talk about?”

  An answering smile was born on her own face. Despite everything, he could make her smile. After the last month, she appreciated what a wonder that was. All her smiles had been forced, required, and none of them had been real. Until she saw Wyatt again.

  “Well,” she began, “how did you become a judge?”

  He gave a bark of laughter. “Not even an interesting story. For some reason known only to them, some members of the Wyoming bar gave my name to the judicial commission and I was selected. Now I’m up for a retention vote in November.”

  Amber felt her heart lurch. “Wyatt...that’s only a few weeks away. Me staying with you, could it cause you problems?”

  He shrugged one shoulder. “Fact is, Amber, I don’t care. I like being a judge just fine. I also liked practicing law with my dad. If folks around here don’t want me on the bench, well, it’s not as if I’d be out of work. Hell, I can’t even campaign, so they either like what I’ve been doing or not.”

  She shook her head a little. “Most of them probably have no idea what you’ve been doing on the bench. But gossip about you having a woman staying with you, that could get around, couldn’t it?”

  “Maybe it already has. Gossip around here has wings.”

  Her stomach sank for a whole new reason. “You never should have invited me here. I’ll never forgive myself if you aren’t retained.”

  “You probably would be the least of it. As I was telling my dad the other day, this is the twenty-first century.”

  Amber’s head snapped up, and her heart pounded uncomfortably. “So he thought it was a bad idea, too?”

  “It was more a case of the pot calling the kettle black. He has a thirty-year history of sharing his home with a variety of women, but he still gets clients. Nothing to worry about.”

  “I hope not.” But now she felt a little sick. “Maybe I could move to a hotel.”

  “I wouldn’t put my worst enemy in that fleabag. No, you’re staying here, and I don’t want you to worry about it. If people choose to boot me because I have a friend visiting...well, let ’em.”

  Of all the things she had considered when she decided to accept his invitation to stay here, she had never once thought that she might be putting him in an untenable position as a judge. So very selfish of her not to have given that a thought.

  In fact, now that she faced it, she realized she had pretty much become a selfish person all the way around. When was the last time she’d seriously given consideration to anyone’s needs but her own? So totally focused on her career...had she ever really thought about anyone else?

  Mad that Tom had betrayed her, yes, but as she was busy considering what that meant to her, had she given a single thought to Tom’s wife? Of course not. When Wyatt had told her she was welcome to stay with him while she figured things out, had she ever once asked if it might cause him any problems?

  Of course not. Filled with self-disgust, she pushed back from the table and ran up the stairs to her room.

  For the first time it struck her that not only had her parents constantly pushed her, but they had raised her to believe she was the only one who mattered. Everything was about Amber.

  No wonder she’d hardly given a thought to the baby inside her. Pure selfishness.

  * * *

  Wyatt guessed he shouldn’t have mentioned the upcoming retention vote. He certainly hadn’t expected her response to it, or that the first thing she would consider was that her mere presence in his home might cost him the election.

  Amber was turning into more of a puzzle than he’d anticipated. But then, he’d only really known her well when she was nineteen. A whole lot of years lay between then and now, and life changed people.

  She surely couldn’t believe that she and she alone could make people vote not to retain him. He didn’t think there were that many uptight, judgmental people in this county. Everyone had their peccadilloes, and as he’d discovered as a judge, some of them had major ones. Who was staying with whom seemed the least of it.

  No, if he wasn’t retained it would be for other reasons, but the likelihood of that happening was slim to none. Generally speaking, it would take a truly major scandal to get him thrown off the bench, the kind of scandal that would make headlines outside this county.

  Anything could happen, of course. Regardless of what Earl thought about Amber staying here, Earl himself could be a major liability in the upcoming election. Thirty years of affairs, and who could guess how many clients he might have angered over the decades. That would have far more of an impact than Amber’s presence.

  Although he was sure Earl would view it very differently.

  He sighed, wishing he hadn’t mentioned the election, although she’d probably have heard about it one way or another. He was planning to introduce her to people in the hopes she wouldn’t have to spend too much time alone when he was working. One of them would have mentioned it, even if he hadn’t.

  But there was absolutely no reason for her to take blame for the outcome.

  She had changed, he thought. The years had changed her. Well, they’d probably changed him, too, but it remained there was little of the girl he’d known left, and yet perhaps too much of that nineteen-year-old.

  Or maybe she wa
s overreacting because of her pregnancy. How would he know? It was easy to assume that such a massive physical change would have emotional effects, but that skated too close to the edge of sexism for him to be comfortable with the thought.

  Just leave it, he told himself. She’d been through so much she was a bit rocky. Give her a few days of stability, and she might begin to feel better.

  He really felt for her. No question that she’d been through a lot, more than most people would handle well. He needed to give her space to deal with the emotional toll. She’d been sailing along fairly well and then this.

  It would be a test of her spirit, all right.

  But then, he thought about what she’d said about her parents pushing her. Had she ever had time to figure out what she wanted from life? Apparently now she was going to get it, wanted or not.

  Because Amber was right: except for her baby, she was utterly free for the first time in her life. No parental pressure and a whopping big mess to push away any internal drive she’d been feeling to reach the heights.

  A crash for sure. But if that drive had all been the result of the way she’d been raised, she was sure going to be at sea now.

  Everything she had been taught to consider important had just blown up on her. Transitioning would involve a lot more than just finding a new job. It was going to involve a whole new way of thinking about herself and her future.

  He was glad he wasn’t facing that. He’d sprung out on his own for a couple of years after college, tested his wings, decided what he wanted was to be here. He’d been his own decision maker.

  Aside from leaving a job and keeping a baby, had Amber ever decided anything for herself?

  This mess appeared to be growing bigger by the moment.

  * * *

  Amber cried for the first time since everything had blown up on her. She seldom cried, mostly because her parents had taught her that tears were useless and that instead of indulging in them, she ought to be fixing the problem.

  But she cried now, and she didn’t give a darn whether it was a waste of energy, or that it was useless. She needed to cry more than she ever had in her life. Everything was a mess, and she seemed to be creating a new mess just by coming here and...

  Her self-image had blown up. Like getting slapped in the head by a two-by-four, her entire view had just shifted so much that she felt like a stranger in her own skin.

  Selfish. She had never thought of herself that way before, but as she tested the word, the truth of it settled harshly in her heart. Oh, she donated her time and money to charity, she never passed a homeless person without giving them something and she thought about the ills of the world and bemoaned them. But when it came to Amber, only Amber mattered.

  At an early age her parents had set her feet on a path and hadn’t let her divert from it. They had told her she would do great things for the world and she had believed them. But their idea of doing great things had meant climbing to the top rung of financial and career success.

  Was that really so great? She’d watched Wyatt in his courtroom that morning and had been touched. He’d been unsparing when people deserved it, but what had reached her most was how often he tried to help one of the miscreants get things sorted out. It hadn’t just been the man who couldn’t read. There had been others, like the woman who had no auto insurance because she couldn’t afford it. He’d talked to her about her situation in depth and had suspended sentence, giving her two weeks and a reference to a charity that would help her get the insurance. If she came to the clerk of the court with an insurance card, the charge would be dropped.

  How many judges would bother with that? Of course, when she was in court she was trying very different cases. Cases that involved money, mostly civil litigation between parties in contract disputes. Those people were able to hire the best law firms and really didn’t need the kind of mercy Wyatt got to show in his courtroom.

  So maybe there were plenty of judges like him. How would she know? But the difference was striking, and she suspected that had had something to do with this abrupt internal shift.

  Wyatt was a good judge. Why had she never once thought of him and the problems she might cause him? That question hung in her mind while her tears dried.

  She hadn’t thought of him. She hadn’t thought much about her baby. She certainly hadn’t spared a thought for the wife of the man who had betrayed her.

  No, it was all about Amber’s humiliation, Amber’s pain, Amber’s feeling that she had been stupid. Amber’s messed-up life.

  And the desire to get away from her humiliation had led her here. To an old friend she could perhaps now add to her list of mistakes. She’d never forgive herself if he lost this election. Retention elections were rarely lost unless something happened to make an awful lot of people think you weren’t fit to be a judge.

  In a big city her presence here wouldn’t even be discussed. But this was a small town, and she had some experience of small towns. Her parents had left one when she was young because her father had been accused of having an affair with an important man’s wife. He claimed he hadn’t, and she didn’t know what the truth was, but life in the little town had become untenable for them.

  Sure, this was the twenty-first century. But how much had attitudes really changed about some behaviors?

  Then there was the baby. Her baby. Wyatt had expressed more concern about it than she had yet. She hadn’t gone to the doctor for prenatal care, she’d gone to have her pregnancy confirmed. So far, she hadn’t followed the most important order of all: get to an obstetrician.

  So what did that say about her? Was she wishing the child away? Unable to cope with what it would mean to her future? Hoping something went awry if she just ignored it long enough?

  A fresh wave of tears hit her, and she buried her face in a damp pillow so the sounds couldn’t escape the room.

  It would be very easy to hate herself.

  She just hoped Wyatt didn’t come to hate her, too.

  * * *

  Wyatt finished making the chili and wondered if he should heat the tortillas now or wait for her. Or if he should go up and see if she was all right.

  He wasn’t sure what he had expected from Amber’s visit, but matters were taking some unexpected turns. He hadn’t been prepared for what appeared to have the makings of an epic self-reevaluation on her part.

  Yet why should that be surprising, in light of all that had happened to her? Maybe she’d been running on automatic until she got here. That wouldn’t be surprising, either, especially given what she’d said about her parents.

  So they had pushed her all the way. Early college, then law school at too young an age. Had Amber ever had a real chance to find herself? He knew how those large law firms worked. They pretty much owned you. If life had been all work and no play, how could she ever find Amber?

  And if that’s what she was doing right now, maybe he ought to prepare himself for some major fireworks, because it wasn’t going to be easy. Whoever she thought she was had just been blown up. As always, he wished he could help, but he had absolutely no idea what kind of help he might be able to offer. Just that he still had a place in his heart for her after all these years, so he gave a damn about her. That wasn’t likely to fix much.

  Sighing, he gave the chili one more stir, deciding that the spices must have blended well enough by now and the pepper had grown as hot as it would. Then he heard light steps approaching, solving one of his problems: he wouldn’t have to go disturb her in her room.

  She smiled as he turned, but he could see her eyes were swollen. She’d been crying. Oh, hell. “You okay?” he asked immediately.

  “Fine. A little self-knowledge can be overwhelming. I’ve never had this much time to just think about myself and my life. Difficult but informative.”

  “I hope you’re not thinking bad things,
” he said carefully.

  “I’m thinking there’s a lot I don’t like about myself. Man, that chili smells wonderful!”

  He accepted the change of subject and got the dishes out, deciding that eating in the kitchen would be cozier than that mausoleum of a dining room. Some of his forebears had had grandiose notions of themselves.

  Amber immediately started helping, placing the bowls, spoons and napkins so that they would sit across from each other.

  “To drink?” she asked.

  He usually enjoyed a beer with this meal, but out of deference to her pregnant state, he opted for water. She found glasses and filled them with water.

  “Do you want tortillas with this?” he asked. “I can heat them in a jiffy. Or we can just have crackers.”

  “Crackers, please,” she answered.

  He pulled out the box of soda crackers and placed it on the table. “Be careful of my mother’s silver serving box. It’s been in the family for generations.”

  To his relief, she laughed. “You mentioned your father but not your mother.”

  “Ah.” He ladled chili into each bowl, then put the pan back on the stove. “My mother died when I was almost eight. She slipped and fell on the ice and cracked the back of her head pretty badly.”

  “I am so sorry!”

  “Me, too. But that was thirty years ago, and while I still miss her at times, I’m used to it.” They sat facing each other. “Are you going to call home, Amber? Your father will wonder where you’ve gone if you haven’t told him.”

  “He’s used to me not calling for long periods because of work. I’ll get around to it. Not that I want to hear what he has to say.”