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  His eyebrows peaked. “Buy?”

  “So please just go make your offer to some other woman.” Some other woman who can think straight when you look at her with those green eyes.

  “Buy?” he repeated.

  Emma propped a steadying hand on the car, her attention veering from Chandler to Kyle and back again. Chandler, for the moment, seemed satisfied with his pacifier.

  “Yes. Buy.” Did she have a For Sale sign tattooed on her forehead that was visible only to men or something? “I’m no actress, Mr. Montgomery, and my mama always told me that anyone with eyesight could see in my face when I was telling a lie. Frankly I can’t imagine what you could pay that would make attempting such a pretense worth my while. I’d be lying not only for your business deal but also to my friends here. So please, take your…offer to someone else.”

  She jingled her car keys. Decided she wasn’t finished. “Better yet, Mr. Montgomery, make your business deal with this other man without lying at all. Don’t you think a man who has such staunch values as you’ve described would prefer a man of integrity to a man who’d resort to a ruse to get his way? Just tell him how the whole misunderstanding began with his stepdaughter.”

  Kyle shook his head. “My integrity is intact, thanks,” he said shortly. “And you are making too much of a simple thing, Emma. If the pretense bothers you so greatly, I guess I’m willing to make it a legal reality. An annulment after the merger is complete and our lives will continue on as if nothing had ever happened.”

  “Oh, sugar, that’s even more ridiculous. I’m a complete stranger to you, but you’re willing to marry me to pull off some business deal. Yet you’re not willing to tell some man you don’t really have a wife, after all? Have you listened to yourself? Do you know how insane that sounds?” Frankly, she thought, a woman would have to be dead to continue on as if nothing had ever happened after meeting Kyle Montgomery. And she was as insane as he was to be debating the merits of such a ridiculous scheme with him.

  “I know exactly what I’m proposing, Emma. I haven’t gotten to where I am in life by making foolish choices. Choosing you to be my wife, pretend or otherwise, may be a calculated risk, but it’s not remotely insane.”

  Emma just shook her head and slowly walked around the car to the driver’s side, using the car as a support to lean on as she moved. She pulled open the door, then looked at him over the roof. “It’s a lovely summer afternoon, Mr. Montgomery. Take a walk in the park over there between the buildings. The flowers are beautiful this time of year. Or go across the street to the diner and tell Millie that you’d like a piece of her indescribably delicious blueberry pie. Tell her I sent you and that it’s on me, even. But please, please, give up this ridiculous plan of yours. I can’t be a part of it.”

  “You refuse to be, you mean.”

  “Is there any difference?” She squinted into the sunlight. “My integrity isn’t for sale.”

  “If I thought it was, Emma, I wouldn’t have decided you were exactly the person I needed to help me.” He stepped closer to the car, pinning her with his intense gaze. “When I said I’d make it worth your while, I merely meant that I wouldn’t expect you to give up the next six weeks or so of your life without some recompense. I was thinking more on the order of covering your medical costs for the baby. Establishing a trust for Chandler’s future. Providing medical insurance for you and your son for the next several years, at least until you can obtain your music-education degree and become established in your career.”

  Her lips parted. “How did you know—”

  “I know a great deal.”

  She closed her mouth. All a person had to do was go into the diner a few times and he could learn all the gossip he wanted about the waitresses and regular customers. Most everybody who went into the diner knew what her field of study was and how long she’d been inching toward her degree. She didn’t need to start conjuring up silly notions of investigations and dossiers. Just because that was what Jeremy’s family had—

  She closed off the thought. She wanted to go home and get off her feet for a while, feed her son, hold him close and pretend that her body didn’t ache as if it had been twisted inside out.

  “Goodbye, Mr. Montgomery. It’s been…interesting meeting you.” She slid into the car, catching her breath at the sharp “discomfort” of the sudden movement.

  As she backed out of her parking spot and drove away, she could see Kyle in her rearview mirror. His hands were pushed in his pockets, his stance relaxed. The afternoon breeze ruffled his chestnut hair.

  She pulled up at a stop sign, waiting for the traffic to clear, and looked over at her son. “That man is more trouble than anyone I’ve ever met.”

  Chandler blinked his round eyes and sucked enthusiastically at his pacifier. Emma was certain he was agreeing with her.

  Emma’s apartment was a simple studio over the detached garage behind a big old house owned by Penny Holloman. As soon as she pulled up beside the garage and climbed out of the car, she heard Penny call from the back porch. She watched as the older woman skipped down the porch steps and started across the expansive yard.

  Emma smiled with real pleasure and waved at her landlady. She reached in and unstrapped Chandler from the carrier, deciding just to leave it where it was, and carefully lifted his warm little body out just as Penny reached her side.

  “Oh, sweetie, he’s just a peach.” Penny brushed her hands down her colorful shirt before reaching out. “Let me take him. You must be exhausted. I swear, when I had Elliot, they kept me in the hospital for a week. Was I ever glad, let me tell you. The last thing I wanted to do was get back home and start cooking three meals a day when I was a nervous wreck about doing something wrong with a new baby.”

  Emma’s arms felt empty when Penny took Chandler into her own. But the other woman was oohing and ahhing over him, obviously delighted to hold him. Emma collected the plastic bag and her case and drew in a breath as she faced the wooden steps leading up the side of the garage to her apartment.

  “I just got home myself, and I’m so sorry I wasn’t able to meet you at the hospital,” Penny chattered on, taking Emma’s overnighter from her. “You shouldn’t be carrying that,” she chastised, heading up the stairs. “If I could have canceled my meeting, I would have. I feel terrible that you drove yourself home like this.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Emma followed her landlady more slowly. Once she got Chandler fed and settled, she was definitely going to take a few of those extra-strength pain relievers her doctor had advised. “Megan agreed to, but I said no. We were fine.” She made it to the landing and pushed open the door, stopping short. “Oh, my!”

  Penny laughed and rested her cheek on Chandler’s head. “Isn’t it fabulous? Why didn’t you tell me you’d met a man? Because I know for certain that good-for-nothing Jeremy St. James would never have been so extravagant.”

  Emma cautiously stepped into her apartment. Glorious displays of summer flowers decorated every single surface. An enormous bouquet of yellow and white balloons hovered above her small round dining table. “I haven’t met a man,” she murmured faintly. Cheerful daisies graced the small table just inside the door and she touched one of the blooms. “Well, nobody except…No. He wouldn’t have. He couldn’t—”

  “Who? Kyle Montgomery perhaps? He is a handsome one. And quite determined, too.”

  Emma felt light-headed. She dumped the plastic bag on the floor and cautiously lowered herself to the couch. “Kyle…was here?”

  “Earlier today.” Penny nodded. She flipped open a changing pad on top of the table and gently settled Chandler on top of it. In seconds she’d changed his diaper and carried him back to Emma. “There you go, sweetie. You feed him and I’ll get some lunch started for you.”

  Emma had a lot of questions, but her son’s hunger was the primary need. She opened her blouse and situated her son in her arms. He latched on greedily and she chuckled and winced both at once. “Good thing you know what you’re d
oing there, pumpkin, ’cause if it was up to me, I’d still be fumbling around.”

  Penny must have heard her, because she laughed lightly. “When Elliot was born, bottle feeding was the preferred choice. Herman was horrified when I insisted on nursing our baby.” She came back into the room, carrying a tray with a sandwich, a cup of soup and a tall glass of lemonade, which she set on the metal footlocker Emma used as a coffee table. She nudged it within reach of Emma, then pushed the footrest she’d given Emma for Christmas the year before next to the couch.

  Emma lifted her feet onto it and let out a long relieved breath. But Penny wasn’t finished. Not until she’d taken Emma’s two bed pillows from the top shelf in the closet where they were kept during the day and propped them behind Emma’s neck and under her knees.

  “There. That’s better, isn’t it?” Penny patted her hand and continued moving around the small apartment, unpacking the few items from Emma’s overnighter and adding the baby items from the plastic bag to the secondhand chest of drawers Emma had found. “Too bad your mother can’t be here to help you,” Penny said.

  Emma shook her head. That was the last thing she needed. “Mama’s helping my sisters back home with the grandkids she already has.” She shifted against the pillows and sighed sleepily. “She doesn’t understand why I’m a single mother, anyway, so her helping would have been accompanied by a lot of lectures I don’t want to hear. Once a week is plenty for me.”

  “The only one needing a good lecture is that pimple on the face of society who left you to fend for yourself.”

  Emma managed to smile at the caustic description of Jeremy St. James.

  “Fortunately I’m able to wholeheartedly say that I approve of your new choice,” Penny went on.

  “If you’re referring to Kyle Montgomery, he is not my new choice. He’s just…”

  Penny waited expectantly, her eyes sparkling with expectation. “Just handsome enough to make even my old bones sit up and take notice?”

  “You’re not old.”

  Penny chuckled. “Old enough to know a perfect match when I see one. A grown man doesn’t track down a landlady at a church committee meeting to gain access to his young lady’s apartment where he proceeds to fill it with every flower known to humankind if he’s not totally smitten.”

  Totally determined, totally insane and totally off-limits. “I don’t even know the man,” Emma insisted. “I met him just this morning.”

  A fact that seemed to delight Penny even more. “Well, you certainly made an impression on him,” she said. “I’ll leave you to rest now, but I’ll come back this evening with some supper for you.”

  “You don’t have to do that, Penny. I can manage.”

  Penny stopped at the door and shook her head. “I know you can manage, sweetie. But sometimes you don’t have to do it all on your own, so let me help in the ways that I can.” She plucked a small white envelope out of the daisy arrangement and handed it to Emma. “Your admirer left this for you.” She winked and went out the door, shutting only the outer screen. Emma heard her footsteps on the stairway, then all was quiet again, except for the thumping of her pulse in her ears.

  She nibbled the inside of her lip, turning the small envelope over in her fingers. He had nothing to say that she wanted to hear. Or, in this case, read.

  “Oh, Emma, honestly. It’s just a card.” She tore open the envelope and pulled out the flat card.

  Chandler is blessed to have such a lovely mother.

  Emma’s eyes blurred. She looked down at her son to find him looking up at her. “We’re both blessed, aren’t we, pumpkin? I just figured that a man like Kyle Montgomery wouldn’t be able to see that.”

  She lifted Chandler to her shoulder and readjusted her clothes. Kissing his cheek, she brought her legs up onto the couch and lay back, cradling him securely.

  Then she closed her eyes and they both slept.

  Chapter Three

  By the next morning Emma decided she owed her mother an apology. Hattie Valentine had had six daughters, managing to feed and clothe them all, for the most part single-handedly.

  Emma, however, seemed to be completely out of her element with just one baby. Chandler wanted to eat every other hour, which meant she got very little sleep. Sometime in the middle of the night she gave up on the notion of having the baby sleep in his bassinet and just kept him in bed with her. She stacked diapers and wipes on the floor beside them and slept when he slept. Fed him when hungry, changed him when wet.

  This was not at all the way it was supposed to go, according to her Now You Are a Mother! book which spouted tripe about four-hour schedules and other such nonsense.

  By midmorning, her small home looked like a tornado had torn through it, leaving flowers and minute baby T-shirts and receiving blankets behind.

  Penny came by, took in the chaos without a blink of surprise and shooed Emma into the bathroom where, she assured her, she’d feel better after a nice long shower.

  “As soon as I’m under the water, he’ll be hungry,” Emma had protested tiredly. “I’ll shower…oh, I don’t know, when he’s two years old.”

  Penny had laughed and scooped Chandler off Emma’s lap. “I think I hear a verse of the baby blues somewhere in there.” She’d waved toward the bathroom. “Go on now. You need a few minutes for yourself.”

  Emma wasn’t so sure, but she’d gone. She looked at herself in the mirror, grimaced and turned on the shower. A half hour later she emerged to find her apartment tidied up, Chandler sleeping and Penny nowhere in sight.

  “Sure,” she whispered lovingly over Chandler in the bassinet. “Now you sleep.”

  A creak on the stairs outside told her someone was coming up. Probably Penny. Emma adjusted the strap of her red sundress and smoothed back her wet hair. “You were right,” she said as she went to the wood-framed screen door and pushed it open. “I do feel better.”

  “My sisters always say that flowers make a woman feel better,” Kyle Montgomery said smoothly as he reached the top step and smiled at her. He looked dismayingly appealing in pleated khakis, a whiter-than-white collarless shirt and navy jacket. Laugh lines fanned out from his eyes. “Your landlady said you were up and about. You look very nice in red. Fresh as a wild poppy.”

  Emma flushed. Her hair hung straight and wet to her shoulders, her feet were bare, and the poppy-red dress stretched too tightly across her chest. She crossed her arms and moistened her lips. “Thank you for the flowers and card. It was very nice.”

  A smile flirted with his lips as he looked at her. “May I come in?”

  Emma swallowed. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’ll probably end up being rude to you, and being surrounded by beautiful flowers from you when that happens seems like it’d be in poor taste.”

  “Rude? Ah, Emma, I think you’ve just been honest. I’m glad you like the flowers, though. I have one sister who insists roses are the only flower worth receiving, but you didn’t seem like the rose type to me.”

  “I’m allergic to them,” Emma said shortly. The last man to give her roses had thoroughly betrayed her. She wasn’t sure she’d ever disassociate roses from that awful time.

  Kyle’s eyebrow peaked. “How fortunate I chose otherwise, then.” He reached past her through the doorway to the daisies sitting just inside and snapped off a bloom. He lifted his hand, frowning slightly when Emma gave a startled jump.

  She clenched her teeth, flushing again when he tucked the short stem of the daisy behind her ear. She swallowed and stepped away from the door, silently allowing him entry.

  He walked to the center of the living area, seeming to dominate the space. “How’s Chandler?”

  Emma shut the screen quietly. “Fine. Sleeping at the moment.”

  He nodded, glanced at the blank wall opposite the couch. “Why did you get rid of the piano?”

  Emma frowned. “How do you know I had a piano?”

  He walked ov
er to the spot where her upright had stood for three years. He brushed a leather boot over the permanent indentations the heavy instrument had made in her taupe-colored carpet. “I noticed the marks on the rug earlier. Why, Emma?”

  She shrugged. “I’m sure you’ve already come to your own conclusion.”

  “You needed the money.”

  “I had other payments that were more important,” she corrected.

  “How long have you played?”

  “The piano?” Not long enough. “Since I was thirteen.” She’d been caught sneaking into the church back in Dooley, Tennessee. But instead of hauling her back to her mother with a few strong words, Reverend Harold Chandler had decided Emma could use the piano twice a week in the afternoons after school. They couldn’t afford lessons, but Emma had used the music books at the church, and by the time she’d graduated from high school, she’d taught herself enough to earn a modest music scholarship.

  She owed a lot to Reverend Chandler.

  “I envy you,” he said.

  She lifted her eyebrows. “Whatever for?”

  He shrugged. “I took piano lessons when I was sixteen. Never did get the hang of it. I could play the notes, I guess. Just not…the music.”

  Oh, she really didn’t want to hear anything like that from this man. It bespoke a sensitivity in him she didn’t want to acknowledge. It was easier, safer, casting him as the rich man intent on doing a business deal no matter what.

  After all, it wasn’t as if her one foray into the man-woman arena had been a terrific success. Her judgment had been faulty, her sensibility nonexistent.

  Emma nibbled the inside of her lip and sat down on the couch. “Isn’t it a workday, Kyle? Shouldn’t you be out running your business rather than discussing the finer aspects of being a musician?”