Baby at His Convenience

“I wonder what she wants?” he asked, thankful his question had been drowned out by the babbling sound of water rushing over the rocks in the stream bed.

Since moving to the Smoky Mountains a couple of months ago, Jeremiah hadn’t gone out of his way to get to know any of the Dixie Ridge residents, except for the man trudging through the water ahead of him. And it was impossible not to get acquainted with Harv. The man never shut up. He’d completely ignored Jeremiah’s attempts to keep to himself, and before he knew how it happened, he and Harv had become friends—something Jeremiah rarely allowed to happen with anyone.

When they carefully picked their way over the rocks scattered along the stream bank, Jeremiah cursed himself for standing there in front of Katie as speechless as a pimple-faced kid in the presence of the prom queen. Never in all of his thirty-seven years had he ever had a problem talking to women. But for some reason, he couldn’t think of a thing to say, nor could he figure out why.

“What brings you up here to the crick, Katie?” Harv asked as he took his fishing rod apart and put the sections in a storage case. “Thinkin’ about catchin’ yourself a rainbow for supper.”

Smiling, she shook her head. “Not today, Harv.”

“Do you fish?” Jeremiah asked, finally getting his tongue to work.

“I’ve been known to catch a fish now and then,” she said, nodding.

Harv’s laughter indicated there was more to her fishing experience than she was letting on. “Katie’s won the Fourth of July Powder-Puff Fishin’ Derby for the past eight years. And she was runner-up for four or five years before that.” Chuckling, he finished storing his fishing rod and snapped the case shut. “I ’spect she’s a shoo-in for this year’s title, too.”

“Is that so?” Jeremiah didn’t doubt that a woman could be good at the sport of fly-fishing. He’d just never met one before.

She shrugged one shoulder. “My dad and brother started taking me fishing with them when I was four years old.”

They stood, staring at each other for several strained moments before Harv finally asked, “If you didn’t come up this way to go fishin’, what did you come up here for, Katie?”

Jeremiah watched a rosy blush color her porcelain cheeks. Good Lord, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen a woman blush.

“I…um, came to talk to Mr. Gunn about the money he left at the café,” she said, sounding uncertain.

“Didn’t I tell you she wasn’t none to happy about you leavin’ that twenty bucks?” Harv asked, starting down the path to the cabin.

“Yeah, Harv, you told me,” Jeremiah muttered, waiting for Katie to fall into step ahead of him.

Actually, Harv had reiterated that fact at least a dozen times over the course of the past two hours, and each time he told the story Katie was a little more angry than the time before. By the time Harv got finished embellishing the actual facts, it had sounded as if she was ready to tear him apart with her bare hands for leaving the money.

As they walked the short distance to the house, Jeremiah tried not to notice how her well-worn jeans hugged her long legs, or the sensual sway of her full hips. By the time they reached the cabin, sweat beaded his forehead and his own jeans felt as if they’d shrunk a couple of sizes in the stride.

What had gotten into him? He wasn’t some over-sexed teenager with nothing but hormones racing through his veins. He was a grown man and should have gained a little more control over the years than that. Had he been so long without a woman’s charms that just watching one walk in front of him turned him on?

“Well, I’m gonna leave you two kids to fight it out over that money,” Harv said, heading toward his truck. He tossed his fishing rod case into the back. “Sadie’ll take a strip off my hide a mile wide if I don’t get home in time for supper.”

“Tell her I said hello.” Katie waved as the older man opened the driver’s door and slid behind the wheel. “And I’ll see you tomorrow at the Blue Bird, Harv.”

Once Harv’s truck disappeared down the lane, Jeremiah tried to think of something to say. When nothing came to mind, he motioned toward the cabin’s front porch. “Would you like to sit down?”

She looked uncertain, then taking a deep breath, nodded and preceded him up the steps. Before she sat down on the wooden porch swing, she pulled two ten dollar bills from the front pocket of her jeans.

“Here’s your money,” she said, handing the money to him.

He shook his head as he seated himself on the bench facing the swing. “I left that to pay for the lunch I ordered and a tip for your trouble.”

She stuffed the money into his hand. “Canceling the order was no big deal. And that was too much for a tip anyway.”

An electric current zinged up his arm when her fingers touched the palm of his hand and he had to swallow hard to keep from groaning. “But—”

She shook her head as she lowered herself onto the swing. “I didn’t do anything to earn it.”

He admired her principles, but he wished like hell she’d kept the money and left him alone. For some reason that he couldn’t quite figure out, Katie Andrews made him about as edgy as a raw recruit doing a belly crawl through a swamp full of alligators.

“Mr. Gunn, there’s something—”

“Jeremiah,” he interrupted. Needing something to do to keep from staring at her, he pulled the little table he used to make fishing flies closer. “The name’s Jeremiah.”

“Oh, yes. Sorry. I forgot.” She sounded a little breathless and a quick glance her way told him she had more on her mind than returning his twenty bucks. “There’s something I’d like to discuss with you, Jeremiah.”

He picked up the fly he’d been working on that morning and began to wrap red nylon thread around the tiny feathers hiding the fishhook. He couldn’t imagine what she wanted to talk to him about, but he could tell that whatever it was made her nervous as hell.

“I’m listening.”

She stood up and began to pace the length of the porch. “This isn’t easy for me. I’ve never done anything like this before.”

He glanced up in time to see her nibbling on her lower lip as if she was trying to work up her courage. “Whatever it is, it can’t be that bad,” he said, trying not to think how cute she looked. “Why don’t you just say what you have to say and get it over with?”

She stared at him for several seconds before she gave a short nod. “All right, Mr. Gunn—I mean Jeremiah.” He watched her close her eyes and take a deep breath before opening them to meet his gaze head-on. “Would you be willing to consider helping me have a baby?”

Jeremiah had no idea what he’d expected her to say, but asking him to help her procreate wasn’t it. More shocked by her request than he’d ever been by anything in his life, he forgot all about watching what he was doing and suddenly felt a sharp jab as the fishhook sank deep into the fleshy pad of his thumb. “Son of a bit—”

“Oh dear heavens!” Katie rushed over to take his hand in hers. “I’m so sorry,” she said, examining the injury. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

As painful as it was to have a fishhook piercing his thumb, her soft hands holding his overrode the discomfort. All he could think about was the fact that she was standing close enough that if he raised his head their lips would touch. He suddenly felt hot all over and his heart rate increased considerably.

“It’ll be all right once I get the hook out,” he said, trying to pull away from her. He needed to put some distance between them before he did something stupid like grab her and kiss her until they both went limp from lack of oxygen.

“The barb is in too deep,” she said, releasing his hand. “Dr. Braden is going to have to deal with this.”

“I can take care of it.”

“No, you can’t,” she insisted. The concern in her expressive gaze caused a warm feeling to spread throughout his chest. “Have you had a tetanus shot recently?”

He nodded. If he’d been able to get his vocal cords to work, he would have told her that the marines made sure their men were always current on their immunizations. But at the moment, he couldn’t have strung a sentence together if his life depended on it.

“Come on,” she said, tugging on his arm. “I’ll drive you down to the clinic.”

“That’s not necessary,” he said, even as he rose to his feet. “I can drive myself.”

“Do you have a car or truck?”

He shook his head. “No. All I have is my Harley.”

She gave him a look that clearly stated she thought he was being a stubborn fool. “Don’t you think it would be a little difficult holding on to it without driving the fishhook even farther into your thumb?”

Frowning, Jeremiah looked at the tarp covering his Harley parked a few feet from the porch. He hadn’t thought about how he’d manage to use the handle grip gas feed.

“That’s what I thought. You can’t.” She pointed toward her red SUV. “I’ll take you to the clinic.”

“But I can take a pair of pliers and—”

“Make matters worse,” she interrupted. “Now get in my truck.” Without another word, she started down the steps toward her Explorer.

As Jeremiah followed Katie to the SUV, he had to admit she would have made a good marine. She hadn’t gotten squeamish the way some women might have done when she looked at the hook protruding from his thumb, nor had she passed out when she saw the blood seeping out around it. She’d kept her head, assessed what needed to be done, then prepared to execute her plan of action—much like any good soldier would do.

Sliding into the passenger side of the truck, he glanced over at her. But even as he admired her take-charge attitude, he wasn’t so sure she might not be a little touched in the head.

What in the name of hell had prompted her to ask him to help her make a baby?

As Katie held the door open for Jeremiah to enter the Dixie Ridge Clinic, she wished for at least the hundredth time that the ground would open up and swallow her. What on earth had she been thinking when she asked if he’d be willing to consider helping her have a child?

After she’d gone home, she’d decided to drive up Piney Knob to return his money and to ask him a few leading questions that might help her gauge his receptiveness to being the sperm donor for her baby. She’d had absolutely no intention of actually asking him to be the father.

But instead of handling the situation with diplomacy and tact, she’d thrown out her request like a hand grenade. And he’d recoiled as if the darned thing had been a real bomb and not a metaphorical one. If his reaction was any indication, he not only wouldn’t be willing to help her have a child, he’d probably never speak to her again.

“Hey there, Katie,” Martha Payne called from the reception counter. She eyed Jeremiah up and down. “Looks like you found someone—”

“With a fishhook in his thumb,” Katie interrupted her. “He needs Doc to remove it.”

Martha had been the nurse at the Dixie Ridge Clinic since forever and knew everything that went on within its walls. She no doubt thought Katie had found a hapless victim to make a donation toward Operation: Katie-Wants-a-Baby-Before-It’s-Too-Late.

“Good thing you got here when you did,” Martha said, patting a few strands of steel-gray hair back into place as she came around the end of the counter to take a look at Jeremiah’s thumb. “As soon as we close up for the day, Doc and Lexi are gonna load up their three kids and take off for a couple days vacation down at Stone Mountain in Georgia.” She shook her head as she examined the wound. “You buried that hook real good, son. How did it happen?”

Katie’s face grew hot when Jeremiah glanced over at her. “I was tying a fly and wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing,” he said, shrugging. “It happens.”

Martha nodded as she released his hand. “You two have a seat while I get everything set up for Doc to take care of gettin’ it out.”

As she watched Martha lumber down the hall to one of the examining rooms, Katie sank into one of the chairs lining the walls of the waiting area. She’d seen the gleam in Martha’s eyes and knew the woman was dying to know what was going on. Aside from the fact that she wasn’t used to seeing Katie with a man, Martha was wondering why Katie had been the one to bring Jeremiah into the clinic. Everyone in town knew that Harv was the only Dixie Ridge resident Jeremiah was acquainted with and would have been the likely candidate to drive him to the clinic.

When Jeremiah settled his tall frame into the chair beside her, she sighed. “This is all my fault and I’m so very sorry.”

For the first time since she’d met him, the corners of his mouth curved upward in a rare smile. It changed his whole demeanor.

Her heart skipped a beat and her breath lodged in her lungs. Jeremiah Gunn wasn’t just good-looking. When he smiled, he was drop-dead gorgeous.

“Forget about it.” He shook his head. “I’m sure I misunderstood what you meant when you said—”

“Well, hello again,” Dr. Braden said, smiling as he walked out of his private office. “I didn’t expect to see you here again so soon, Katie.”

“I’m not here because I need to see you,” she said hastily.

Before she could explain things further, Dr. Braden turned his attention to Jeremiah. “So, you’re here to see me?”

Jeremiah nodded. “I told Katie I was fine, but she insisted that you needed to check things over and be the one to take it out.”

Dr. Braden’s eyebrows rose as a stunned look spread across his face. “It really is best for both parties to have a clean bill of health before proceeding with something like this. But you’ll be the one to take care of the actual—”

“You mean I have to have a physical, then take this fishhook out myself?” Jeremiah asked, frowning as he held up his thumb.

Katie’s cheeks felt as if they were on fire when Dr. Braden glanced her way. There wasn’t a thing she could say that wouldn’t make matters worse. All she could do was pray that this nightmare came to an end soon.

Turning his attention back to Jeremiah, Dr. Braden nodded toward the hall. “I’m afraid I misunderstood the reason for your visit. If you’ll follow me, we’ll get that hook out and you can be on your way.”

As she watched the two men disappear into the examining room at the far end of the hall, Katie wished with all her heart that this day had never happened. When she’d gotten out of bed this morning, all she’d had on her mind was to get her yearly physical out of the way, work at the café until closing time, then go home and start a new quilt to sell to one of the gift shops in Gatlinburg.

She rubbed her temples with her fingertips. How had everything gotten so complicated? So humiliating?

Sighing heavily, she leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes. As soon as she drove Jeremiah back up the mountain to the cabin he was renting, she’d make some excuse about temporary insanity running in her family. Then she’d go home and hope with all her heart that she would never have to face him again.

After Dr. Braden had given him a shot in the knuckle to numb his thumb, Jeremiah sat on the examining table and watched the man carefully remove the fishhook from the fleshy part of his thumb. But instead of concentrating on what the doctor was doing, his mind was on the conversation that had taken place in the waiting room.

“You thought I was here for an entirely different reason than having a fishhook taken out of my thumb.” It wasn’t a question, and if he was any judge of character, Jeremiah knew Dr. Braden wouldn’t try to deny it.

The man met Jeremiah’s gaze head-on. “Yes.”

“I don’t guess you’re at liberty to tell me what that reason was?” Jeremiah watched Braden cut the barb off the end of the fishhook, then pull the rest of it out of his thumb.

“No, I can’t discuss it,” Dr. Braden said, applying a generous amount of ointment to the wound. “Let’s just say I was wrong in my assumption and leave it at that.”

Jeremiah smiled. “In other words, if I want to know, Katie’s the one who’ll have to tell me.”

The doctor grinned as he wrapped gauze around Jeremiah’s thumb. “That’s about the size of it.” He taped the bandage in place, then stepped back for Jeremiah to stand up. “I’m assuming since you just got out of the military a tetanus shot won’t be necessary?”

Jeremiah frowned. He wasn’t at all comfortable being the talk of the town. “Let me guess, Harv told you I was in the marines.”

Braden nodded. “Don’t be too ticked off at old Harv. Having everyone know all about you is one of the hazards of living in a town the size of Dixie Ridge.” He laughed. “When I moved here from Chicago five years ago, having everyone know who I was or what I was doing was one of the hardest things for me to get used to. But it didn’t take me long to figure out it’s their way of letting you know they care about you and want to make you feel like you’re part of the community.”

“I’m sure that was an adjustment.”

Jeremiah refrained from telling the good doctor there were two sides to every scenario. It had been his experience that small-town gossip was far more destructive and alienating than it had ever been accepting.

As he prepared to leave the treatment room, Dr. Braden pointed to Jeremiah’s thumb. “You don’t want that to become infected. Let it heal for a few days before you go fishing again.”

“Thanks. I’ll do that.”

Following the man out into the hall, Jeremiah stopped at the reception desk to pay for the doctor’s services, then walked into the waiting area where he’d left Katie. As soon as he entered the room, he couldn’t help but notice the apprehension in her aquamarine eyes.

“Is everything all right?” she asked, rising to her feet.

He nodded and held up his left hand. “The hook is out and I’m ready to go.”

“Good.” A sudden clap of thunder caused her to jump. “I need to drive you to the cabin and get back down the mountain before the storm hits.”

As they walked across the parking lot to her SUV, Jeremiah frowned at the sight of dark clouds beginning to appear over the top of the mountains west of Dixie Ridge. It had rained almost every day for the past two months. Sometimes it was just a light shower, but other times storms came up from the other side of the mountain and dumped several inches of water in a very short time. It looked as if today it would be the latter.

“Does it rain like this all the time, or is this a particularly wet year?” he asked, sliding into the passenger side of the Explorer.

“It’s been a pretty normal year,” she answered as she started the truck and steered it onto the road leading out of Dixie Ridge. “Here in town we average about fifty inches of rain a year. But up on top of Piney Knob the average is more like sixty inches.”

“That’s a lot of rain.”

She nodded. “A meteorologist could explain it better than I could, but it has something to do with the clouds coming over the mountains.”

“I guess that explains why the creek regularly floods the ford across the road just south of the cabin,” he said, thinking aloud.

She drove a little faster when fat raindrops began to plop on the hood and windshield of the SUV. “And that’s why I need to get back down the mountain as soon as possible. If I don’t, I’ll have to wait to cross the creek after the water recedes sometime tomorrow.”

He wasn’t entirely comfortable taking the hairpin turns leading up the side of Piney Knob at the rate of speed Katie was driving on the rain-slick roads, but Jeremiah decided it was safer to keep his mouth shut and not distract her. Only after they were on the other side of the creek did he breathe a little easier. The water was higher than its normal ten inches when she eased the truck across the ford, but it hadn’t risen to the point where it would flood out the engine when she crossed it on her way back down the mountain.

“Do me a favor,” he said when she pulled to a stop in front of the cabin. “Don’t drive like a bat out of hell when you go back down the mountain.”

Before she could take him to task over his criticism of her driving, he opened the passenger door, got out and sprinted through the increasingly heavy rain to the porch. By the time he climbed the steps and turned back to watch her leave, the taillights of the SUV were already disappearing around the curve of the driveway.

Jeremiah shook his head as he pulled his key from the pocket of his jeans to let himself inside. “Women! She’ll probably drive even faster just because I told her to take it easy.”

He removed his boots and left them on a mat by the door, then padded over to the fireplace on the opposite side of the great room in his sock feet. Even though it was June and fairly warm, the rain had caused the outside temperature to drop considerably and drenched as he was from his run through the rain, a fire would chase away the chill and feel good by the time the sun set.

As he placed a couple of logs on the grate and put kindling around them, he thought about Katie driving back down the mountain. He didn’t like the idea of her navigating the dangerous road in this kind of weather, and he could kick himself for not telling her to call when she got home to let him know she’d arrived safely.

His heart stalled. Now, where had that come from?

Katie was nice enough, but he didn’t really know her. And besides, she wasn’t his to worry about. Nor did he ever intend for her to be.

He’d spent most of his adult life avoiding her type like the plague. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t be concerned for her well-being, did it? He’d be just as bothered if it was Harv driving back down the mountain in a driving rain.

Satisfied that he’d discovered the explanation for his uncharacteristic anxiety, he rose to his feet and pulled his wet T-shirt over his head to drop it on the hearth. He’d wait a reasonable period of time, check the phone directory for her number, then call to make sure she’d made it down the mountain without incident. Once he’d done that, he could go about his business with a clear conscience.

Pleased with himself for coming up with a reasonable solution, he unbuckled his belt and popped the snap on his jeans. But just as he started to lower the zipper, something thumped against the old wooden door hard enough to take it off the hinges.

When it happened again, Jeremiah grabbed the shotgun from the gun rack over the fireplace and cautiously approached the door. The sound hadn’t been the rhythmic sound of someone knocking, but more an erratic pounding. It was highly possible one of the many black bears in the area had lumbered up onto the porch seeking shelter from the storm.

Pushing the curtain on the back of the door aside, he tried to see what had caused the sound, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Convinced that the wind had slammed the swing into the side of the cabin, he turned to put the shotgun back over the fireplace when something thumped against the bottom of the door yet again.

Ready to scare off whatever creature was causing the disturbance, he grabbed the knob, counted to three and threw the door open with a war cry that would have impressed the hell out of any of the superior officers he’d served under. But instead of finding a bear or raccoon on the other side, Jeremiah discovered a wet, mud-covered Katie slumped in a defeated heap at his feet.

Three

When Jeremiah shouted loud enough to wake the dead, Katie would have jumped back and screamed at the top of her lungs if she’d had the energy. As it was, all she could manage was a flinch and a pitiful whimper.

“My God, Katie, what happened?” He propped the gun he held against the door frame, then reached down to pull her to her feet. When her legs threatened to buckle, his strong arms closed around her and he pulled her to his wide, bare chest. “Are you all right, honey?”

She started to answer him, but her teeth were chattering so badly she finally just shook her head and burrowed deeper into the warmth of his big body. She was soaked from the top of her head to the soles of her feet and colder than she’d ever been in her life.