Picnic in Someday Valley (Honey Creek #2)(25)

He moved his hand over the thin T-shirt she wore lately. It was several sizes too big and the neck hung off one shoulder, but it was all she liked to sleep in. “There’s more of you lately to watch over. You mind if I investigate for myself? The way your body is changing fascinates me.”

“No, I don’t mind you touching me. We’re into this parenting thing together.” She laughed. “How about next time you carry and birth the baby?”

He brushed her chin with two fingers, turning her toward him. “Kiss me, wife.”

She giggled and said as her lips lightly touched his. “Of course, husband.”

When she pulled away, he said again, “No, really kiss me.”

Her blue eyes held a question as she hesitated. He threaded his fingers into her hair and tugged her toward him again. This time she gave him what he wanted, one long deep kiss.

When he finally broke the kiss, he asked, “Do you like this?”

“Sure. But you’re not going to like what I’ve got to tell you.”

Pecos felt his heart stop beating. Every day of their short marriage he’d feared she’d leave him, or worse, that she’d say she made a mistake marrying him. Maybe he’d gone too far with the deep kiss, but he’d done it before. He’d touched her a hundred times, when she was awake and now and then when she was asleep. He liked helping when she needed lotion on her back or cream on her tummy so she wouldn’t get stretch marks.

What if she suddenly hated his hands moving over her?

Kerrie pulled the sheet over her. “Mom called yesterday and said she and Dad want to have a talk with me this morning. I have no idea what is on their minds, but I feel sure it will be something about them running my life.”

“Do they want me in on this talk?”

“No. Not this time, but they said I should talk it over with you. I wish my dad would call you something besides ‘that guy you’re with.’ ”

Pecos flopped onto his back and stared at the crack in the ceiling. The Lanes would never see him as part of their family. To Mr. Lane, Pecos was just the boy who knocked up his only child. Pecos had thought about telling Mr. Lane the truth, but he’d promised Kerrie he never would. The guy she’d had sex with hadn’t wanted to ever see her again, and Pecos stepped up when she needed him. No one would ever know the secret they shared. It bonded them even more than the marriage.

He shrugged and winked at her. “I don’t care what your dad calls me, you’re my wife”—he brushed her tummy—“and this is my baby, no matter what your parents want to talk about today.”

Kerrie’s words came soft, almost apologetic. “How about you walk me over to the house, then go have coffee at the bakery. I’ll text you when I’m finished. Then we could come home and help Mr. Winston cook. He’s invited some of the crowd from the flea market, as always.”

“Fleas or vendors?”

He laughed at his own joke as she thumped him on the forehead.

Pecos slowed his breathing. She’d called this place home, not the big house down the street where her parents lived.

“I could pick up a pie for the fleas while you talk to your parents. I can hang out there until you text, if it’s still raining. If it’s not, I like to walk around the square. Honey Creek is feeling more and more like my town.”

She tossed the covers. “I’ll race you getting dressed.”

He didn’t pick up the challenge. He always lost anyway, because he’d end up stopping to watch her. Lately she needed help getting on her clothes and tying her shoes.

Half an hour later, as they walked toward her parents’ home in the rain, neither said a word. He made it to the porch steps, then turned back.

“Later,” she said as she disappeared.

Pecos picked up his speed as he headed to the town square and the one bakery in town. Since Pecos had helped save the people in the city hall fire and married Kerrie Lane, everyone now knew who he was, and seemed to care about him more than his own parents ever had. To tell the truth, he liked being around Kerrie’s folks more than his own parents, even though the Lanes still held a grudge against him.

Pecos stepped inside the bakery and took a deep breath of the warm cinnamon air. He bought a cup of coffee and a couple of kolaches. He had to wait for a few minutes, holding his bag and coffee, before he snatched a tiny table in the corner.

Finally, he sat on the three-legged chair and began to watch people. Now that he was part of law enforcement, he knew secrets about some of them. Unpaid parking tickets, records of shoplifters and peeping toms. He’d read so many reports, he was starting to see people and wonder what their file had in it.

Marcie Latimer walked in, fighting with a broken umbrella.

He thought she looked uncomfortable, out of her element. Pecos knew who she was from her singing, but he’d never talked to her before Boone Buchanan’s trial. He’d noticed her sitting alone during the trial. No one talked to her; after all, she was the bad guy’s girlfriend. Boone never looked in her direction. But Pecos had watched her cry when the mayor, Piper Mackenzie, testified that she feared she was going to die in the fire that Boone had set.

Today the town treated Marcie like she was bad news blowing around in an old weekly newspaper. Most acted like she was invisible.

Pecos knew how it felt to be invisible. He’d spent most of his days at school standing in the center of a crowd with no one to talk to. So, he started nodding hello and waving goodbye the last few weeks of the trial. Once he sat across from Marcie in a crowded hamburger joint and they talked about the weather. She was shy, but she thanked him when he said he loved her music.