Keeping Her Baby's Secret

She noticed the dark circles under his eyes. For all his handsome features, he did look tired. “Maybe you shouldn’t drink when you drive,” she pointed out sharply.

“I didn’t.” He shook his head. “The drinking came later.”

“Oh.”

He shrugged. “Just a bottle I found in the trunk after the crash. I brought it along to tide me over while I waited on your pier for the sun to come up.” He looked forlorn. “I was planning to invite myself for breakfast.”

How did he manage to look so darn lovable in this ridiculous state?

“It’s still a little early for breakfast.” She sighed, then reached out and took his hand. “Come on.”

“Okay,” he said, and started off with her. “Where are we going?”

“Where else would the prodigal son go? I’m going to take you home.”

The drive up to the Van Kirk mansion was steep and winding. Diana had made it often over the last few years in her little business van. Alice Van Kirk, Cam’s mother, had been one of the first people to hire her fledgling floral styling company to provide fresh arrangements for the house once a week back when she’d originally started it.

The sky had begun to lighten, but true dawn lurked at least a half hour away. Still, there was enough light to let her see the turrets and spirals of the Van Kirk mansion ahead, reaching up over the tops of the eucalyptus trees, shrouded in the wisps of morning fog. As a child, she’d thought of the house as an enchanted castle where royalty lived high above the mundane lives of the valley people, and it looked very much like that now.

“Are they expecting you today?” she asked.

When she didn’t get an answer, she glanced at Cam in the passenger’s seat. He was drifting off to sleep.

“Hey!” She poked at him with her elbow. “I don’t think you should let yourself sleep until you see a doctor. You might have a concussion or something.”

“Hmm?” he responded, looking at her through mere slits where alert eyes should be.

“Cam, don’t fall asleep,” she ordered.

“Okay,” he said, and his eyes immediately closed all the way.

“Oh!” she said, exasperated and poking him with her elbow again. “Here we are. Which door do you want?” She grimaced. “I don’t suppose you have a key, though, do you?”

He didn’t answer and his body looked as relaxed as a rag doll. With a sigh, she pulled into the back entrance, using the route she was used to. The servants’ entrance she supposed they probably called it. The tradesmen’s gate? Whatever, it was just off the kitchen and gave handy access to the parts of the house where she brought flower arrangements once a week. She rarely ran into any of the Van Kirks when she came. She usually dealt with Rosa Munez, the housekeeper. Rosa was a conscientious employee, but she doubted the woman would be up this early.

“How am I going to get you in there?” she asked, shaking her head as she gazed at the dark house. Turning, she reached out and pushed his dark hair back off his forehead. His face was so handsome, his features so classically perfect. For just a moment, she ached, longing to find a place in his arms. But she couldn’t do that. She had to be tough.

“Cam,” she said firmly, shaking his shoulder. “Come on, wake up.”

“Okay,” he murmured, but his eyes didn’t open.

This made things a bit awkward.

Slipping out of the car, she went to the door and looked at the brass handle, loath to try it. She knew it would be locked, and she assumed there was a security system on the house. Everyone was obviously still asleep. What the heck was she going to do?

Stepping back, she looked up at the windows, wondering if she could climb up and get in that way, then picturing the embarrassment as she hung from a drainpipe, nightgown billowing in the breeze, while alarm bells went off all through the house. Not a good bet.

Turning, she went back to the car and slid into the driver’s seat.

“Cam, I don’t know what we’re going to do,” she said.

He was sound asleep and didn’t even bother to twitch. She sighed with resignation. She was going to have to wake up the whole house, wasn’t she? Now she regretted having come without changing into day clothes. But she hadn’t been sure she could keep Cam in one place if she left him to go change, and she’d thought she would just drop him at his doorway and make a run for home. She should have known nothing was ever that easy.

“Okay. If I’ve got to do it, I might as well get it over with,” she said, leaving the car again and going back to the door. Her finger was hovering half an inch from the doorbell and she was bracing for the sound explosion she was about to unleash on the unsuspecting occupants, when the door suddenly opened and she found herself face-to-face with Cam’s sister, Janey.

“Diana? What in the world are you doing here?” she demanded.

“Janey!” Diana was immediately aware of how odd she must look standing on the Van Kirk doorstep in her filmy nightgown and fluffy white robe. The shabby slippers didn’t help, either.

Janey, on the other hand, looked trendy and stylish in high end jogging togs. A tall, pretty woman about a year younger than Diana, she was evidently up for an early morning run and determined to look chic about it. Diana couldn’t help but have a quick catty thought wondering which of the local squirrels and chipmunks she might be trying to impress. But she pushed that aside and felt nothing but relief to have a member of the family appear at the door.

She and Cam’s sister had known each other forever but had never been friends. Janey had been aware of the close ties between Diana and her brother, and she’d made it very clear in very public ways that she didn’t approve. But that was years ago. When they saw each other now, they weren’t exactly warm, but they were perfectly civil.

“Janey,” Diana said, sighing with relief. “I’ve got Cam in the car. He was in an accident.”

“What?”

“Not too bad,” she reassured her quickly. “He seems to be basically okay, but I think a doctor ought to look him over. And…well…” She winced. “He’s been drinking so…”

“You’re kidding.” Janey followed her to the car and then they were both fussing over her brother.

“Cam, you blockhead, wake up,” Janey ordered, shaking his shoulder. “We haven’t seen you in years and this is the way you arrive?”

He opened one eye. “Janey? I thought I recognized your dulcet tones.”

She shook her head. “Come on. I’ll help you up to your room. I’m sure Mother will want to call Dr. Timmer.”

“I don’t need Dr. Timmer,” he grumbled, though he did begin to leverage himself out of the car. “If Diana can take care of herself, I can take care of myself.” He tried to pound his own chest and missed. “We’re a pair of independents, Diana and I.”

Janey gave him her arm and a quizzical look. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said crisply. “Come on. We’ll let your friend get back to her…whatever.”

“Diana is my best friend,” he murmured, sounding almost melancholy. “My favorite person in this valley. Always has been.”

Janey chose that moment to notice Diana’s baby bulge. Stopping short, she gasped. “Cam! Oh, no!”

Despite his condition, he immediately recognized the way her mind was trending and he groaned. “Listen, Janey, I just got into town at about 2:00 a.m. Not even I could get a lady with child that fast.”

“Humph,” she harrumphed, throwing Diana a look that took in everything about her pregnancy and the fact that she was running around the countryside in her nightgown, delivering a rather inebriated Cam to his old homestead. It was obvious all this looked pretty darn fishy to her.

Diana almost laughed aloud. If Janey only knew the irony involved here. “Can you handle him without me?” she asked the other woman. “I’d like to get home and try to get some sleep. I do have an appointment back here with your mother at eleven.”

“Go, go,” Janey said, waving a hand dismissively and turning away.

But Cam didn’t turn with her. He stayed where he was, looking back at Diana. “I was just getting used to having you around again, Di,” he said. “A little later, when I’ve had some sleep…”

“You’ll be busy getting caught up on all the family news,” Janey said quickly. “And learning to give up living like a drifter.”

“Like a drifter?” Cam looked up as though that reminded him of something and Diana laughed.