To Catch a Wife
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Lee McKenzie
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17.1K
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24
Chapter One
EMILY FINNEGAN SETTLED onto the middle stool at the big kitchen island, sliding comfortably into her place as the middle sister. No matter what was wrong with the world—floods, famines, personal freak-outs—here in the heart of the Finnegan family farmhouse, everything felt right.
Her younger sister, CJ—Cassie Jo as their father affectionately called her—sat on the stool to Emily’s right. CJ was dressed for the stables in dark jeans and a faded denim work shirt, her long blond hair pulled back in a high ponytail.
Across the gleaming white Formica countertop, Annie, eldest of the three sisters, stood with carafe in hand. “Coffee?” She angled the pot over Emily’s mug. If the kitchen was the heart of the home, then Annie was the life force that kept it beating.
“Sure. Oh, wait. No.” Emily hastily withdrew her cup. “Only if it’s decaf.”
CJ clapped a hand to Emily’s forehead.
Emily ducked away from it. “What are you doing?”
“Checking to see if you’re running a fever. Since when do you drink decaf?”
A good question for which Emily didn’t have a good answer. Yet. “I haven’t been sleeping well, so I thought I’d cut back on caffeine, see if that makes a difference.” Only partly true, but at least it wasn’t a lie.
“It’s ten-thirty in the morning,” CJ said.
Emily shrugged.
“Not a problem,” Annie said. “I’ll make a fresh pot of decaf. It’ll be ready in a few minutes.” She looked amazing in a slouchy yellow pullover and crisp white slacks. Given everything she would have accomplished since getting up before sunrise—gathering eggs from the chicken coop, making breakfast, vacuuming, laundry—Emily had no idea how Annie kept herself looking fresh as a summer daisy.
While her older sister turned to the coffeemaker, Emily tried to ignore her younger sister’s scrutiny. Ever since CJ had been little, she’d had a talent for sniffing secrets and wheedling information out of the secret keeper.
“You’re being weird,” CJ said.
“I’m always weird.”
“Weirder than usual.”
“Don’t bug your sister.” Annie, ever the mom, filled CJ’s mug, then her own.
The coffee smelled like a little piece of heaven to Emily. How would she make it through nine whole months without coffee? Although, if the secret thing that had been keeping her up at night turned out to be true, it was now closer to seven months.
Annie set the carafe on the counter next to a basket of muffins. “These are blueberry,” she said. “They should still be warm. I baked the oatmeal-raisin cookies yesterday. I had to send something for the school bake sale, so I made extra.”
“Mmm. Yummy,” CJ said, biting into a cookie. “What are you raising money for this time?”
“A field trip to the geology museum in Madison. Isaac is over-the-moon excited because they’re going to see ‘real’ dinosaurs.”
“He knows they’re just a bunch of bones, right?”
“He does. He also knows the scientific name of almost every dinosaur that ever existed, how big it was, whether it ate meat or plants. Thanks to the set of books you gave him for Christmas, Em, dinosaurs are a very big deal for my little boy.”
“Pun intended?” CJ quipped.
Annie grinned. “Of course.” She poured Emily a mug of decaf coffee. “You seem awfully quiet this morning.”
“I’m always quiet.”
“Okay, quieter than usual.”
Emily shrugged. She didn’t like to keep things from her sisters—hated it, actually—but there was no point in saying anything about this particular thing until she knew for sure. If it turned out to be a false alarm, then they’d be none the wiser.
Time to change the subject. “Where is my favorite dinosaur-obsessed nephew this morning?”
“Dad drove him into town to shop for a birthday present for his friend Matthew. The party’s this afternoon. They’ll be home for lunch, and then Dad will run him back to town for the party. I’d take him myself, but I have a guest checking into the B & B this afternoon, and I need to be here when she arrives.”
“Where’s she coming from?” CJ asked.
“Chicago.”
“Will she want a trail ride? Maybe a riding lesson or two?”
“I don’t know. She booked online and didn’t request it, but I’ll be sure to ask when she checks in.”
While her sisters discussed the anticipated guest and what her needs might be, Emily’s thoughts drifted, as they often did when the three of them were together in the kitchen, in search of one of her few and fleeting memories of their mother. Few because Emily had barely been four years old the last time they’d seen Scarlett Finnegan, and fleeting because that’s what twenty-five-year-old memories tended to be.
What came to mind was an image of her four-year-old self sitting on the lap of a gaunt-looking woman with dark, soulful eyes and long chestnut hair the same color as Emily’s. Her sisters were blue-eyed blondes like their father, but she had taken after their mother. As always, the memory was tinged bittersweet. Was it real? Or was she simply conjuring the moment that had been captured in the framed photograph on her dresser? She would never be sure. The picture had been taken in this kitchen on Emily’s fourth birthday, only a few weeks before her mother had gone away.
The kitchen island hadn’t existed in those days. She and her mother had been sitting at the long butcher-block table that had filled the middle of this room for three generations. After Annie married her husband, Eric, and he had moved in, she’d converted the family farmhouse into a bed-and-breakfast. Now recently widowed, and in spite of the family’s insistence she take a break, Annie had decided to carry on with the business. She needed to earn a living, and she also didn’t want to disappoint her clientele. They were devoted, and had increased her business by posting amazing online reviews and telling family and friends about her B & B.
“Emily?” Annie’s question hauled her thoughts back to the present.
“Hm? Sorry. Daydreaming.”
“I said you look nice today,” Annie said. “Is that a new top you’re wearing?”
“Oh, yes, it is.”
“The color really suits you.”
“Thanks. I thought I’d try something other than my usual black and beige.” Truthfully, she’d chosen the deep marigold patterned top more for its style than its color. The soft gathers falling from the U-shaped yoke added some flare to the hemline and enough fullness to disguise the fact she was no longer as skinny as her jeans.
Annie studied her seriously but, in typical Annie fashion, kept her thoughts to herself.
Something CJ seldom did. “I told you something’s weird. You’re quieter than usual, avoiding caffeine, jazzing up your wardrobe. What’s up with you?”
Emily glared at her little sister. “Nothing. Everything’s fine.” That’s what she desperately hoped for anyway.
“So, Em. What have you been working on these days?” Annie asked, switching subjects as though she had somehow gleaned what was up with Emily and was intentionally trying to distract CJ.
“Oh, this and that.” She sipped her coffee. “The mayor has called a special session of the town council on Monday afternoon—says he has some big announcement—so I’ll be covering that.”
“A big announcement? In Riverton?” CJ’s tone was tinged with derision. “Don’t tell me the mayor’s finally decided to fix that rusty old stop sign at Main and Second, the one old man Thompson ran into when his truck skidded on a patch of ice last winter.”
“I certainly hope not. They’ll have to raise our taxes if they do that.” Annie chuckled at her own joke. “I’m betting someone has an overdue library book.”
“No, I’ve got it,” CJ said. “Another garden gnome has gone missing.”
Emily laughed at their lame attempts at humor, knowing her sisters loved their hometown every bit as much as she did. “Come on, you two. Riverton’s not that sleepy. Besides, my sources tell me the mayor’s going to announce that Chief Fenwick is retiring from the Riverton Police Department at the end of the month, and he’s looking for a replacement.”
CJ wasn’t buying it. “Yes, Riverton is that sleepy. And excuse me, but...you have sources?”
“I do.”
“Let me guess. Becky Wilson?”
Becky, who ran the only beauty salon in town, was an avid participant in and a regular contributor to Riverton’s rumor mill.
“No, it wasn’t Becky,” Emily said. “She never gossips about anything interesting. Fred told me when we had lunch yesterday. Mayor Bartlett was in for a haircut that morning and happened to let something slip.”
Annie smoothed a hand over her short blond bob. “Maybe I should get Fred to cut my hair. Everyone jokes about the beauty parlor being a hub for gossip, but I never hear anything worthwhile at the Clip ’n’ Curl. Did the mayor say who he’s planning to appoint?”
“No.” Emily sighed. “Just that he’s casting a wide net.” She liked to think she’d make an ace investigative journalist but in fact spent far more time writing obituaries and reporting on town council meetings. “I haven’t had a chance to talk to him and wheedle it out of him. I’ve been a little preoccupied.”
“With...?” Annie’s scrutiny once again had her on edge.
“Oh, you know. Work, writing my blog, stuff like that.” Emily slid off her stool and loaded her mug and plate into the dishwasher. CJ stood, too, and crossed the big kitchen to open the French doors and let Chester outside. The old retriever ambled across the plank porch and onto the sprawling back lawn.
Emily gave her older sister a hug. “Thanks. This has been great.”
“We do this every Saturday.”
“I know, but I really needed some sister time this morning. And a muffin.” She had eaten two.
“Want to tell me what has you so out of sorts?”
“Nothing,” she said, lowering her voice even though her nosy younger sister was out of earshot. “And I’m not ‘out of sorts.’ I’m fine.”
Annie held her by the shoulders and gave her a long look. “I know you, Em. And I know you’ll tell me in good time. Promise me you’ll call if you need to talk?”
She appreciated her big sister’s restraint. “I promise. You’re the best, you know that? Will you give Dad and Isaac my love? Tell them I’ll be around for dinner tomorrow night?”
“Of course.”
Emily heard her phone ringing from inside her bag, which she had left on the bench by the doors to the veranda.
“I’ll grab it for you.” CJ reached for Emily’s tan leather satchel.
“Sure, thanks.” Oh. No. Oh, no! “I mean, never mind. Just leave it. It’s not important.”
But CJ had the bag open and was staring at the contents. “What on earth?” she gasped, and pulled out a box. “A pregnancy test. What’s this for? I mean, I know what it’s for, but who is it for?”
And then both sisters skewered her with their attention.
“Emily?” they chorused.
Her face burned. “I might not be. I mean, it’s just a precaution. You know, to be sure. One way or the other.” Busted, Emily babbled like a kid caught with her hand in the cookie jar, a D-minus science test buried at the bottom of her school bag and one foot out the window at midnight on her way to meet friends. Guilty, on multiple counts.
“There’s a ‘one way or the other’ chance you’re having a baby? I didn’t even know you were seeing anyone.” The disappointment in Annie’s voice was reflected in her eyes. “Why haven’t you said something before now?”
“Because if I’m not...” She placed her hands on her belly. “If I’m not, then no one needed to know there was a chance I might be.” She ignored Annie’s reference to seeing someone because it was mortifying to admit she wasn’t. She shot an accusatory look at CJ instead. “And no one would know if it hadn’t been for a snooping little sister.”
“Hey! I was not snooping. I was looking for your phone. I thought I was helping. How’d I know I was going to find—” she brandished the box “—this. But if you are, that means...holy moly, Em. If you’re going to be a mother, then who’s the father?”
“He...” Nowhere near ready to admit the truth, Emily did something she was sure to regret. She lied. “It’s Fred.”
Her sisters gaped at her for a full five seconds, and then they both burst out laughing.
