Baby Makes a Match

“I left Buffalo Creek as soon as I graduated high school,” she said. She had literally walked out of the graduation ceremony, gotten into Jay Carter’s car and driven straight to the airport, where they’d hopped on a plane to Vegas. Two days later, he’d carried her over the threshold of the house in Humble and left her there while he raced off on business.

“That’s probably part of it,” the cowboy mused. “What year was that?”

She told him, and he nodded. “I graduated from college that same year. That would make you about twenty-four. Right?”

“Exactly twenty-four.”

“I’m twenty-nine. Guess we just moved in different circles back then. My sister Kaylie’s about your age, though.”

Bethany shook her head, trying to remember any Chandlers she might have known. “I don’t recall her.” That wasn’t surprising. She hadn’t had many friends. Her stepfather hadn’t liked anyone coming around the house to witness his abusive behavior.

“I guess Buffalo Creek’s not as small as it feels sometimes,” Chandler murmured.

“What is it, about thirty thousand people now?”

“Something like that,” he said, nodding. He made a careful left turn and eased over a pair of railroad tracks.

Those old tracks, leftover from the days when Buffalo Creek had been a major transportation center for the cotton growers in the area, crisscrossed the town. The cotton was long gone now, but the trains still rattled through town several times a day. Oddly enough, Bethany had missed them when she’d first moved to Humble. The trains were all she had missed, though. Garrett had already been sent to prison, and their mother had been a different person by then. After their mother’s death, Bethany would never have considered coming back if Garrett had not returned here. She still didn’t understand why he had, really. Maybe the parole board had dictated where he had to go.

As the city rolled past, one graceful street after another, excitement built in Bethany. Her hands skimmed over her belly. Her pregnancy was going to be a shock to Garrett. She probably should have told him, but they’d been out of touch when she’d first realized that she was pregnant. He’d just gotten out of prison, and she’d had no idea where he was headed or how to reach him. Then her world had begun to dissolve, and she’d judged it wiser, all things considered, not to tell her brother about it.

She’d never dreamed how it would all turn out. How could she?

Obviously, Chandler mused, he needed a refresher course in the basics of introductions. Somehow, he hadn’t managed to get his last name out there at the diner, and Bethany had apparently assumed that his given name was his surname. Or had she? He tried to remember if she had glanced at his driver’s license as it had lain there on the counter, but he just didn’t know.

Thinking of that bare ring finger on her left hand, Chandler took his eyes off the road long enough to glance at her pretty face, and a shiver of something crawled right up his spine to the top of his head.

What, he had to ask himself, were the odds that he’d just accidentally run into a pregnant stranger on the side of the road who was headed not only for his hometown of Buffalo Creek, Texas, but right to his family home? The aunties, no doubt, had something to do with this.

His aunts, maiden triplets in their seventies, might be a tad on the eccentric side, but they were good women. Even more than his retired minister father, they epitomized Christianity for Chandler. They lived to serve a greater cause, dedicating their time, talent, money and even their home, the antebellum mansion known as Chatam House, to the needs of others. They weren’t perfect, of course.

Hypatia, the undisputed head of the household, could be a bit prim. She wore her dignity, along with her pearls, like a protective cloak. Magnolia, or Mags, on the other hand, couldn’t have been any more down-to-earth if she was covered in it, which she often was, being a master gardener much more concerned with the appearance of her roses than herself. It wasn’t unusual, in fact, to find Aunt Mags in a dress and rubber boots decorated with mud. Odelia, bless her, was sweetness personified, sweetness with a heavy dose of silliness. He, along with his cousins, secretly but fondly referred to her as Auntie Od and chuckled about the weird clothing and oversize jewelry that she wore. She especially had a thing for earrings and lace hankies, so much so that the rest of the family routinely speculated about how many of each she might actually possess.

Chandler smiled. No, not perfect but very dear, and as generous and loving as it was possible for three human beings to be. Why, last winter they’d opened their home to his cousin Reeves and Reeves’s little girl, Gillian, and just recently, they’d taken in an injured professional hockey player, who just happened to be Chandler’s new brother-in-law. Yes, whatever had brought pretty, pregnant Bethany Willows here to Chatam House, the aunties almost surely had a hand in it. He supposed he’d find out what that was soon, as they had just passed the brick column at the eastern edge of the fifteen-acre estate.

He slowed the rig, braking carefully so as not to stress the quartet of horses riding in the trailer. Those animals, each one trained to a specific task, were essential to his livelihood and constituted a significant financial investment, besides being as dear to him as any pet. As the rig slowed, Bethany sat up very straight, her hands clasping her belly, her gaze trained out the window at the shoulder-high yew hedge that flanked the wrought-iron fence.

They came to the gate, which stood open, as usual, its elaborate scrolls and bars culminating in a large, brass-plated C, and there, on a slight rise, stood the grand old house. Two stories of whitewashed, hand-hewn stone blocks, it featured half a dozen Doric columns across the veranda and a substantial porte cochere on the west end. The black trim around the windows and doors echoed the color of the black slate roof, just as the redbrick walkways and steps, flanked by a colorful profusion of flowers, reflected that of the tall chimneys. Dead center of the veranda stood a bright yellow door framed by narrow, leaded-glass windows on the sides and an elaborate fan-shaped one on top.

Chandler eased the rig between the brick gate columns and aimed it up the deeply graveled drive that swept over the easy, green-blanketed hill and circled back onto itself, branching off at the top to pass beneath the porte cochere and on past the carriage house, erected at right angles behind the mansion. The staff, Chester and Hilda Worth and Hilda’s sister Carol Petty, lived in rooms above the carriage house bays, as did Magnolia’s mysterious new gardener, Garrett somebody.

Garrett, a tall, dark-haired man in jeans and a snugly fitted T-shirt, strode across the lawn at that very moment, apparently heading toward the enormous old magnolia tree on the west lawn. Bethany swiftly released her safety belt with one hand and slapped the button to roll down the window with the other.

“Garrett! Garrett!”

Her hands fumbled for the door handle and the lock. Alarmed, Chandler braked to a stop. She grabbed her handbag and literally baled out, sobbing and laughing.

“Garrett!”

The muscular, dark-haired man lifted a hand to shade his eyes from the sun as he looked in her direction, then he took off running toward her. Just before he got there, she turned to hold out a hand, yelling to Chandler, “Wait! Just wait!”

Garrett Whatever-His-Last-Name-Was threw his arms around Bethany, lifting her off her feet. The pair embraced tightly for several moments, so wrapped up in each other that they didn’t have eyes for anyone or anything else, their dark heads bent close. Chandler put the truck in Park, set the brake and got out. Still the two clung together.

Not quite able to look away from what he knew to be a very emotionally charged moment, Chandler pulled Bethany’s luggage from the backseat of the truck and set it on the brick walkway before ambling toward the house. He’d reached the steps up to the porch before Garrett the gardener set Bethany back on her feet, his hands going to her distended belly. Chandler saw Bethany duck her head and had the distinct impression that Garrett hadn’t known about the child. He did not look displeased, however, just the opposite. In fact, he and Bethany seemed to care deeply for each other.

Shaking his head wryly, Chandler stepped up into the shadows of the deep veranda. Looked like the aunties’ new gardener had a family in the making. Chandler was more than a little envious. One day he would like to have a beautiful wife like her and a couple kids. But first, he had to get his financial house in order.

If he and Kreger continued to finish in the money for the rest of the year, Chandler could finally pay off his share of the ranch and think about building his own house on the place. That would leave Pat in full possession of his childhood home and allow both of them to start new phases in their lives. Right now, though, that gardener out there was in a better position to support a wife and child than Chandler was.

Not bothering to knock or ring the bell, he did what most of the family would do; he opened the door and walked in, knowing well that the house was rarely locked until the last person retired for the night. He’d been in that marble-floored foyer a thousand times, but still he measured with his eyes the sweep of the magnificent staircase that curved up to the second floor and lifted his gaze past the sparkling chandelier to the ceiling, where some unknown artist had painted blue sky, gauzy clouds and wafting white feathers. He’d never understand how that person had managed to give the impression of sunshine and magnificence. It left the viewer with the feeling that God looked down from Heaven upon the Chatam household. Chandler had always found that a particularly comforting thought, almost as comforting as the aunties themselves, whom he was suddenly anxious to see.

“Hello!” he called. “Where is everyone?”

A frothy white head appeared around the edge of the library door on his right. It was topped by a big, floppy bow of pale pink and anchored by big, butterfly-shaped earrings colored in variegated shades of pink, purple, yellow and blue. A bright pink smile broke across a rounded, drooping face with the Chatam cleft chin. Amber eyes twinkling, Odelia stepped into the foyer in a swirl of multicolored gossamer layers.

“Chandler, dear! There you are!”

The ubiquitous lace hanky appeared, beckoning him to follow. Smiling broadly, he strolled into what was one of his very favorite rooms in the big old house, but he didn’t get far, his way blocked by a head-high stack of cardboard boxes.

Hypatia came from behind the stack to kiss his cheek, her silver hair twisted into a smooth figure eight at the nape of her slender neck, pearls in place. She wore a crisp, collarless, linen suit of khaki tan with elbow-length sleeves and a pleated skirt.

“We’ve been expecting you,” she said in indulgent tones.

“Expecting me?” He remembered suddenly that Bethany had called ahead. No, that couldn’t be right. Bethany hadn’t known who he was, so she wouldn’t have told Garrett to expect him, Chandler Chatam, to be with her, and even if she had, it wasn’t as if he and the gardener had ever officially met. He’d only glimpsed the man from a distance and heard him mentioned. Chandler shifted his weight, one booted foot placed forward, his hands at his belt. “What do you mean, you were expecting me?”

“Well, when that nice Mr. Kreger dropped off your things for you,” Odelia trilled, “he said you’d be along.” She waved her hanky at the stack of boxes.

Shock rolled over Chandler in waves. “Kreger, P-Pat Kreger, brought this stuff over here?”

“Just a little while ago,” Hypatia confirmed.

Chandler thumped himself in the chest, asking stupidly, “For me?”

“Of course, dear,” Hypatia said. “We hung your clothing in the cloakroom until you decide which suite you want.”

Chandler turned around and walked out into the foyer again. He stalked past the staircase and partway down what was referred to as the “east” hall to the first door on the left. Chandler opened the door and stepped inside the cluttered space. There, along one wall, hung a dozen pairs of neatly pressed jeans and almost twice that many shirts, all his.

Shock morphed into a confused, unwieldy amalgamation of emotions, the only one he could identify being anger. Whirling, he stepped back into the hall. And nearly bowled over Mags. She shoved her thick, iron-gray braid off her shoulder and folded her arms, making the short sleeves of her dark plaid, shirtwaist dress cut into her surprisingly pronounced biceps. She looked up at him, a frown on her wrinkled, work-hewn face, her cleft chin thrust forward mulishly.

“What’s going on, Chandler?” she demanded.

“I don’t…I…”

Her expression softened, and she clamped a spotted, surprisingly strong hand onto his forearm. “You can tell us, dear,” she said. “Obviously, since you had Kreger bring your things here, you know we’ll help in any way we can, though hopefully it won’t mean choosing sides between you and your father.”

His father. Chandler pushed away any consideration of that situation and focused on the part that had to do with his supposed partner.

“I’m sorry, Aunt Mags, but I have to find Kreger.” He looked past her toward the foyer, determination hardening his jaw. “Right now.”

He sidestepped around her and strode to the front door, which he went through without a word of farewell. Whatever Kreger was up to, Chandler told himself, the explanation had better be a good one. He saw nothing of Bethany and the gardener, but at the moment his thoughts were centered on his own problems. Bethany Willows and Garrett could take care of themselves.

The rumble of the engine preceded the sound of tires on gravel by less than two seconds. Bethany rose from her seat on the brick steps at the side of the house beneath the carport, or porte cochere, as Garrett called it, and hurried toward the front drive. She arrived just in time to see Chandler’s rig completing the loop as it headed for the street. She glanced to the side and saw that her luggage waited for her on the front walk. The truck turned right onto the street and accelerated. Unaccountably deflated, Bethany sighed.

“Guess he got tired of waiting.” She turned back and retraced her steps, dragging her toes in the gravel.

“Is that a problem?” Garrett asked. “You said he’s not your husband.”

“I said I don’t have a husband,” Bethany corrected softly.

“Actually,” Garrett pointed out, his gaze skimming over her distended belly, “I think you said that you’ve never had a husband.”

Bethany stepped up next to him, turned and sat on the rough edge of the brick. “That’s right.” She repositioned her handbag on the step, keeping her gaze averted.

“So when you wrote me to say you’d eloped to Las Vegas…” Garrett prodded.

“Wasn’t true,” she admitted tersely, propping her elbows on her knees and resting her chin in the cradle of her upturned palms. She’d only thought it true at the time, but Garrett didn’t need to know that. No one did.

“And this Jay Carter?”

“Never existed.” True again, as far as it went.

“Then why,” Garrett demanded, spreading his hands, “did you let me believe all this time that he did?”

Bethany bowed her head, debating with herself. If she told Garrett the truth, he’d want to go after Jay, just the way he’d gone after their stepfather for hurting their mom; yet, she couldn’t quite bring herself to outright lie to him. Closing her eyes, she whispered another part of the truth, “I didn’t want you to worry about me.”

When she turned her head, she found his piercing blue gaze trained on her from beneath his dark brows. He shoved both hands through his dark, spiky hair. Like her, he had a bit of a pointed chin, but his strong, square jaw was perpetually shadowed with the soot of a heavy beard that he’d struggled to keep cleanly shaved since the age of fourteen. At six-one, he wasn’t as tall as the cowboy, she mused, but Garrett was a bit more bulky. He’d muscled up in prison, but he’d always been stronger than average and of a protective nature.

“If I hadn’t been in prison, you wouldn’t have had to lie to me,” he muttered.

Bethany groaned, feeling lower than dirt. “You’ve got to be kidding! My situation is not your fault. How could you even think it?”

Garrett came up off the steps. Whirling to face her, he thumped himself in the chest. “I was the one in prison! I should have been here for you—and Mom.”

Bethany stood and went to him, placing her hands on the hard bulges of his biceps. “You went to prison because you tried to help Mom.”

Their father had died in a ditch collapse when Garrett was seven years old and Bethany four. Ten years later their mom, Shirley, had remarried. Doyle turned out to be a controlling, abusive brute who regularly beat their mother. Three years into the marriage, he had beat Shirley so severely that she’d been hospitalized for nearly a week. The day that Doyle had gotten out of jail on bail, Garrett had gone after him, giving the brute a taste of his own medicine. The result had been Garrett’s own arrest. Unable to make his bail for himself, Garrett had languished in jail for several months. During that time, Doyle convinced Shirley to forgive him and drop all charges. In frustration, Garrett had pleaded guilty to a reduced charge and gone to prison, telling Bethany that they were all better off that way, for Doyle would surely beat Shirley again and it would be safer if Garrett couldn’t get his hands on the man. He was too right. Not two years later, Doyle had beat their mother to death.

“That doesn’t change the fact that I wasn’t here for you,” Garrett insisted.

“You couldn’t help Mom or me,” Bethany insisted, “and I’m glad you were out of it.” She had escaped herself as soon as she could. Pushing away thoughts of the past, she looked to her brother. “I’m so glad to be with you again.”

He hugged her. “Ditto.” After a moment, he went on nonchalantly, “So, is the cowboy the baby’s father?”

Stunned, Bethany pulled back. Denial leaped to the tip of her tongue, but for some reason she clamped her lips against it. Maybe because she wished the cowboy was the father. At least he was kind to her and true to his word. Better him than a scheming liar and cheat. Besides, it was best to say nothing at all about the baby’s father.

“Tell and I’ll take that kid you want so much. Don’t think I can’t.”

Shivering, she said, “It doesn’t matter who the father is. This is my baby, mine alone.”

“Why’d you break up with him?”

She looked down at her toes. “He doesn’t want to be a father.”

Garrett shifted his weight, his feet scuffing in the gravel. “That why you came here, Bethy?” he asked, using her childhood nickname.

She turned back to him, her eyes filling with tears. “I came because I wanted to see you, and because I didn’t have anywhere else to go. I don’t have enough money to get my own place or any way to pay the rent just now. I hoped you’d be able to help us out until the baby comes.”

Nodding, he asked, “When is that?”

“Middle of October.”

“So about three and a half months.”

“Yes.”

“I think we can work out something.” He slipped an arm about her shoulders and walked her across the redbrick stoop and through a bright yellow door into a long, dark hallway.

“The misses will probably be in the front parlor waiting for dinner,” he told her. They walked on to the end of the hall past a TV room on one side and a kitchen on the other, according to the aromas emanating from that room. “Food’s great here,” Garrett told her with a smile. “This is the west hall,” Garrett informed her as they turned right. “There’s a real ballroom off the east hall, along with a music room, library and study. Dining room’s on this side.” He waved a hand.

They came to the end of a broad, sweeping staircase in what was obviously the front foyer of the house. They stopped, and Garrett turned his gaze upward, pointing toward the ceiling. Bethany gasped at the mural overhead and took in the sparkling crystal chandelier. Garrett ushered her through the wide door of a large room crammed with antiques and flowers.

An older woman rose from an armchair placed at a right angle to them. Short and sturdy, she wore a dark shirtwaist dress with penny loafers. Her gray hair hung across one shoulder in a thick braid, the tip brushing a pair of reading glasses in her breast pocket. Her oval face, while wrinkled and sagging a bit, showed a lean strength. She regarded Bethany with bright amber eyes, tilting her cleft chin to one side.

“Hello,” she said, curiosity ringing in her voice.

“Bethany,” Garrett said, “I’d like to introduce you to Miss Magnolia Faye Chatam. Miss Magnolia, this is my sister.”

“Oh, my dear!” Magnolia exclaimed. “What a surprise!” She hurried forward, reaching out for Bethany’s hand and clasping it firmly. “You are as pretty as your brother is handsome.”

Bethany smiled. “Thank you. He says you’ve been very kind to him.”

Magnolia waved that away. “He’s been a great help to me.”

“Ma’am, I already owe y’all more than I can ever repay,” Garrett said solemnly, “but I hope you don’t mind if I ask a favor of you. My sister needs a place to stay. I’d like her to stay with me for a while, if you and the other misses don’t mind.”

Magnolia seemed slightly taken aback. “In that tiny attic room?”

“We can manage,” Garrett insisted. He clasped a hand onto Bethany’s shoulder. “She doesn’t have anywhere else to go, ma’am.”

Two new heads popped up then, and two more pairs of amber eyes turned Bethany’s way. Another woman rose from another wing chair. She turned fully to face them, her manner almost regal. Despite her leaner, paler face, she looked very like Magnolia, her silver hair coiled in a heavy, figure-eight chignon at the nape of her neck. Her collarless tan suit called attention to the strand of pearls at her throat, and she held in one hand a pair of gold-rimmed half-glasses.

The third sister wore a flutter of rainbow organza. Plumper than the other two, she wore her stark white hair in short, fluffy curls with a big, floppy, soft pink bow tied atop her head and a pair of large, brightly colored organza butterflies affixed to her earlobes. It was all Bethany could do not to laugh with delight.

Tearing her gaze away from the butterfly lady, Bethany looked to Magnolia.

“My sisters,” she said. “Miss Odelia Mae Chatam and Miss Hypatia Kay Chatam.” Bethany nodded at each in turn.

“Sisters,” Magnolia said, “I have the privilege of introducing Garrett’s sister, Bethany…” Her voice trailed off.

The moment of truth had arrived, the moment when they would know what a fool she had been. Would they look down on her? Would they judge? She gulped and lifted her chin.

“Bethany Sue. Bethany Sue Willows.”

Not a Mrs. Nor a miss. Just Bethany Sue Willows. And more pain and shame than she knew how to bear.

Chapter Three

The sisters traded looks.

“Ms. Willows,” Hypatia said, inclining her head. “Welcome to Chatam House.”

Bethany nearly collapsed with relief. “Thank you, but won’t you please call me Bethany?”

Hypatia Chatam smiled serenely. “Thank you. Given names are always easier with three Miss Chatams about.” She beckoned them closer with a wave of one hand, saying, “Join us, please.”

Magnolia crossed over and took a seat next to Odelia on an elaborately carved settee upholstered in a lush floral damask. Hypatia returned to the gold-striped wingback and nodded Bethany toward its twin. Garrett stood beside her, his arm stretched across the chair back.

“When is the baby due?” Odelia warbled eagerly, butterflies dancing.

“Eighteenth of October,” Bethany answered cautiously.

“So,” Magnolia said to her sisters, “the master suite, do you think?”