To Catch A Wife

“You should be happy, Em. You deserve to have someone special in your life, too.”

Tears rolled down her cheeks. “He isn’t in my life. He went back to Chicago the next day, and I haven’t heard from him since.”

“You’re joking.” Fred handed her a paper napkin to stem the waterworks. “You mean he...? And he didn’t...? I think he and I need to have a talk.”

“No, you don’t. I’ll talk to him myself, I just have to find his phone number.”

“You can’t pick up the phone and call him.”

“Why not?”

“Why not? Em, this is huge. We’re talking life-changing huge. You owe it to him to break the news in person.”

“I was thinking I don’t actually owe him anything. He didn’t call me, so apparently he doesn’t think he owes me anything, either.”

“He owes you eighteen years of child support, but that doesn’t let you off the hook. This kind of news must be delivered in person.”

“He hardly ever comes to Riverton.”

“Then you’ll have to go to Chicago.”

“I don’t know where he lives.”

It sounded lame as she said it. Apparently, Fred thought so, too.

“Ever heard of a little thing called the internet? Or you could ask his mother.”

She had already tried the internet and hadn’t come up with anything, not that she’d tried terribly hard. And there was no way she was going to ask Norma Evans—her baby’s grandmother!—for her son’s phone number. She would demand to know why Emily wanted it. What would she tell her? Hi, Mrs. Evans. Remember me, little Emily Finnegan? Your son and I hooked up a while ago, and now... Oops... I’m having his baby.

“I am not asking his mother.”

“Fine, don’t. I’ll ask her. I’ll even go to Chicago with you.” Fred made a fist and hit the palm of his other hand to indicate how he intended to handle the situation if called upon.

Emily couldn’t help rolling her eyes. “You know you can do some serious time for assaulting a police officer, right?”

Fred grinned. “How you handle this is up to you, but if he doesn’t do the right thing, then I’ll have something to say.”

“I appreciate the offer, but I don’t need anyone to fight my battles. And this is something I need to do alone, as soon as I figure out what I’m going to say to him.” Then she’d need to think about the future, one for which she was completely unprepared. “But no matter what he says or does, I’m scared,” she whispered, finally finding the courage to confess what she truly felt. “I have no idea how to be a mother.”

“Sure you do.” Fred reached across the table and took her hands in his. He was the only person who knew her secret wish, that after all these years her mother would finally come home and be a mother. “You have Annie. She’s a great role model.”

True. Problem was, Annie made it look easy. What if she, Emily, was a total disaster like their mother had been?

“Don’t go there, Em. You’ve always been great at everything you’ve ever chosen to do. In school, at the university, your work for the newspaper, your Small Town, Big Hearts blog.”

She knew he was trying to buoy her, but this was different. Raising a child wasn’t like writing a newspaper story or a blog. She had chosen to do those things, but she hadn’t chosen to become a mother. Motherhood had chosen her.

They were interrupted by the rattle of the barbershop door.

“My next customer. Lunchtime’s over already.” Fred sounded reluctant to wrap up their little tête-à-tête, as though she might not be able to move forward on her own. “You going to be okay?”

“Of course. I’ll be fine. I have to get back to work, too.” She needed to finish her article about this week’s town council meeting, put the finishing touches on centenarian Sig Sorrenson’s obituary and check her blog for comments. She waved Fred out of the back room. “Off you go. I’ll tidy up in here.”

Emily slipped out of the shop several minutes later, avoiding eye contact with Fred as he swirled a black plastic cape around the shoulders of his first customer of the afternoon. When she stepped onto the sidewalk, she narrowly missed a head-on collision with Mable Potter, her former high school English teacher and Riverton’s favorite octogenarian. The woman was struggling with her oversize purse, a large bag of groceries and the leash of her energetic mutt, Banjo.

“Hi, Mrs. Potter. Here, let me give you a hand.”

“Oh, could you, dear? I didn’t realize how many things I had in my shopping cart until it was rung through the checkout. I was getting low on milk, and I needed a dozen eggs and another bag of flour because my daughter, Libby, is coming all the way from Minneapolis tomorrow, and she loves my red velvet cake. I always bake one for her when she visits.”

“Your daughter’s a lucky lady.” Everyone in Riverton had sampled Mable Potter’s delicious dessert at one time or another, and everyone loved it. Emily shouldered her own bag and settled Mable’s grocery bag on one hip, surprised by its heft. “Come on, I’ll carry this home for you.”

“Thank you, dear. You’re good girls, you and your sisters. I ran into your father at the post office the other day, and he was telling me about what you’ve been up to. He’s awful proud of the three of you.”

Emily walked with Mrs. Potter, dawdled, really, for a block and a half down Main Street, then three blocks along Second Avenue. The route took them past Jack’s parents’ place, one of several stately two-and-a-half-story redbrick homes, complete with carriage houses that were a throwback to Riverton’s horse-and-buggy days. She kept her head down and her eyes averted, praying Jack’s mother didn’t appear. There’d be no avoiding a conversation. To her relief, they were able to slip by and make their way to Cottonwood Street, where Mrs. Potter lived.

As the dog sniffed every light standard, fence post and hydrant along the way, Emily only half listened to Mrs. Potter’s chatter about the weather, her daughter’s impending visit and Sig’s funeral. Luckily, the woman didn’t expect a response, which was just as well because Emily was now preoccupied with thoughts about her father. She adored him, and the prospect of telling him about her current situation was almost as terrifying as telling the baby’s father. In the absence of a mother, she had always looked to her dad for encouragement, support and validation. Jack was not going to be happy with this news, but his anger would pale in comparison to her father’s disappointment.

CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_6d633106-2971-575f-a1d6-a0a39224fa5b)

JACK FELT A sense of ease the moment he saw the Welcome to Riverton sign. Its billboard proportions, depicting an old Mississippi paddle wheeler plying the waterway while a pair of majestic bald eagles soared overhead, might be disproportionate to the size of the population, but never its allegiance. Even people who’d left for the bright lights and busy streets of cities like Chicago were proud to call Riverton, Wisconsin, home.

Jack swung his Jeep onto Main Street. The two-story, redbrick buildings flanking the wide thoroughfare were as familiar today as they had been when he’d worked Saturdays as a stock boy at Henderson’s Hardware, bought sodas at Baxter’s Pharmacy and had his hair cut at Morris’s Barbershop.

He’d eaten his share of burgers and fries at the Riverton Café, which still existed, but was now under new ownership and called the Riverton Bar & Grill. He’d made that discovery the last time he’d been home because he and Emily Finnegan had gone to the restaurant for dinner. And there, in the back row of the Big River Theatre, he’d made it to first base for the first time with...? Huh. He’d been sixteen or thereabouts. She’d been hot, blonde, that year’s Riverboat Queen, if memory served. Why couldn’t he remember her name?

Did it matter? Not even a little bit. What mattered was this unexpected homecoming gave him a chance to see Emily again. He slowed as he drove past the Riverton Gazette office, glanced up at the windows of her second-floor apartment and told himself he was being an idiot to feel disappointed he didn’t see her.

He shook his head. “What? You expected her to be standing by the window, waiting for you?”

Now that he was here, he deeply regretted not calling her. In some ways, it seemed like a lifetime ago. In reality, it had been—what?—six weeks. Or was it longer? Maybe eight? Too long to expect her to simply pick up where they’d left off. She probably thought he was a first-class jerk.

Would she understand when he explained how he’d been catapulted into the most bizarre triple-homicide investigation of his career, sometimes working more than twenty-four hours before realizing he hadn’t slept? And when he did nod off, usually for just a few hours, his dreams were crowded with images of three innocent people, their cold, bruised flesh cut so deep, he wished they’d already been dead by the time the wounds had been inflicted.

Slapping cuffs on the killer should have provided some satisfaction. It hadn’t. Instead, he had hoped the guy would resist arrest, give him a reason to pump a couple rounds into his chest. Jack hated himself for wanting that, but not as much as he’d hated the narcissistic sicko who had held his head high and smiled widely, preening for the TV cameras on the day of his arraignment. That’s when Jack knew. He was bitter, burned out and he needed a change. He wanted a normal life. He wasn’t sure what that was, but he wanted a woman like Emily Finnegan to be part of it.

She was bound to be irate with him for not calling and he couldn’t fault her for that, but he would make it up to her. As soon as he finished interviewing Rose Daniels this afternoon, he would take Emily out for dinner. Pasta with marinara sauce, coffee and a lemon meringue tart for dessert. He never forgot details like that, and he remembered other things, too. The way she’d smiled when he’d reached across the table and covered her hand with his. The way she’d sighed after their first kiss, the way that kiss had led to another, and another, and...

He remembered, all right, and he would put those memories to good use tonight. He grinned at his reflection in the rearview mirror, ran a hand over the stubble on his jaw. He should probably get cleaned up before he interviewed this witness. From what he’d read in Rose’s file, he had a better shot at getting her to open up if he used his good cop routine. His current five o’clock shadow and too-long scruff were more in keeping with the bad-cop version of Jack Evans. Besides, the longer this witness languished in a cell, the more likely she’d be to spill the details once he had her sitting in the interview room.

He had a hunch that Emily preferred the good cop, too.

He swung right on Second Avenue, circled the block and angled into a parking spot in front of Morris’s. Again, he glanced up at Emily’s apartment across the street, relieved this time she wasn’t by the window. Better to wait and catch her unawares. He would use the element of surprise to get her attention, apologize and then tell her about the case that had consumed him for the past however many weeks.

Jack strode between the red, white and blue striped poles that flanked the barbershop door, wondering if Chicago had any old-fashioned barbershops like this one. It must have, but he couldn’t remember having seen one. He certainly hadn’t looked for one. Morris’s was...normal. Familiar.

Fred Morris sat in one of a pair of ancient barbershop chairs, facing the mirror, reading a newspaper. Jack pushed the door open, the sound of the bell causing Fred to glance up. There was no mistaking the flicker of deer-in-the-headlights surprise in the man’s eyes, but it was gone by the time he swiveled around and stood up.

“Jack. Ah, good to see you. What...ah...what brings you to Riverton?”