An Unlikely Mommy

“’Scuse me.” A deep voice interrupted the women’s conversation, and Ronnie looked up—and up—into the gentle brown eyes of Teddy Blinn. The nearly six-and-a-half-foot-tall man was known to most simply as Bear. “I hope I’m not interrupting you ladies?”

“Not at all.” Ronnie craned her neck back as far as it would comfortably go and smiled hopefully. She’d danced with him once or twice before. While it was difficult to match his long-legged stride, he was at least big enough not to be intimidated by her brothers. “How are things with you?”

“Good, good. The truck’s running great,” he informed her. She’d ordered some engine parts for him last month. “You both look real pretty tonight.”

With men like Bear, the compliment wasn’t a come-on so much as part of the perfunctory courtesy his mama had instilled—like opening doors for others or saying “ma’am.”

He edged a step closer to Lola Ann, their differences in height nearly comical. “I wondered if you’d do me the honor of a dance?”

“Love to.” Lola Ann passed her drink to Ronnie. “Would you mind holding this?”

Some celebration, Ronnie thought with a wry smile. She’d been reduced to cup-holder in the absence of an unoccupied table.

Truthfully, she knew she wasn’t scintillating company tonight, and she was glad to see Lola Ann having fun. Bear moved with surprising agility for a man his size, and the two of them seeming to be enjoying a brisk polka around the sawdust-sprinkled floor. When the song ended, Bear escorted Ronnie’s friend back with the solicitousness of a boy who’d promised to have his date back by curfew.

Lola Ann fanned her face with her hand. “Whew. That was fun. Thanks, Bear.”

“Always a pleasure.” He touched the front of his gray cowboy hat. “Ronnie, maybe you and I can cut a rug later?”

“Sounds good.” But as Bear walked away, she couldn’t help a quick double check over her left shoulder.

Yep, there was her brother Devin, smiling noncommittally at something a blonde was saying, but keeping one eye on Ronnie. As a kid, she’d adopted tomboy mannerisms and hobbies, wanting to fit in with her three brothers so that she didn’t get left behind while they camped or attended sporting events. Little had she known that all she had to do to get her brothers’ attention was hold sixty seconds of conversation with anyone of—gasp!—the opposite sex. She crossed her eyes at Devin, watched him stifle a laugh, then turned away.

Unfortunately, Lola Ann had followed Ronnie’s line of sight. The librarian scowled as fiercely as if she’d just caught someone defacing a reference book. “What has she got that I don’t have? Besides mile-long legs, flowing gold hair and a size-two waist.”

“You’re every bit as pretty as she is,” Ronnie insisted.

“Yet he’s never asked me out. You’d think, with all the different women he dates, he’d have worked his way around to me eventually.”

My fault. Lola Ann had probably been placed out of romantic bounds by virtue of being best friends with Devin’s “kid sister.” Not that Ronnie was a kid anymore, but Dev, who still called her Red and had given her pajamas featuring cartoon characters for her last birthday, obviously didn’t think of her as an adult. Still, considering his track record, was it such a bad thing that he hadn’t asked out Lola Ann? Ronnie would hate to see her friend hurt.

“Lola, you know I love him—he’s my brother, so I’m obligated. But even I have to admit that he’s…”

“Unable to emotionally connect? A commitment-phobe? A serial dater?” Lola Ann sighed. “You’re right, of course. The problem is, I’ve spent too much time with your family and got to know him as a real human being.”

In a way that most of his dates probably hadn’t, Ronnie acknowledged silently. Dev came off as such a carefree charmer that most people never noticed how truly guarded he was.

“You think I should forget it and move on,” Lola Ann surmised.

“Hey, I’m the last person to judge when it comes to illogical crushes,” Ronnie insisted. Lola Ann knew her secret. With most guys in town, Ronnie could shoot the breeze about anything from spark plugs to the finer bluffing strategies of Texas Hold ’Em to the Titans’ most recent football season. But there was one man who left her tongue-tied and uncomfortably aware that no one had taught her the feminine arts.

Jason McDeere. The high school English teacher who’d moved to Joyous last spring with his toddler daughter was unlike any of the other men Ronnie knew. While it was true they hadn’t said more than a few words to each other, she couldn’t help but feel a bond with him, given the losses he’d experienced.

“Hi, girls!” The throaty alto voice was instantly recognizable, and Ronnie was grinning even before she turned her head.

“Treble! Always good to see you, Mrs. Caldwell.” Ronnie emphasized the title with a wink.

“Absolutely,” Lola Ann chimed in, “but I’m shocked to see you out and about. I figured newlyweds had better ways of spending their Friday nights than hanging with the likes of us.”

Treble, a gorgeous brunette who towered over them, compliments of her spike heels, laughed good-naturedly. “Are you kidding? I go out of my way to find you two. At least neither of you resent me for taking Keith off the market.” She punctuated this with a fond glance at her husband, who was ordering them drinks at the bar.

Though Treble had grown up in Joyous, she’d moved away years ago. When she’d returned to Tennessee over the summer, she’d won the heart of Dr. Keith Caldwell, one of the most sought-after men in town. To celebrate Valentine’s Day, they’d eloped last month. Treble’s family grumbled about her nontraditional ways, but Ronnie knew they were thrilled for her newfound happiness, especially Treble’s sister, Charity. “Resent you?” Lola Ann echoed. “Heck, no. We want to live vicariously through you! Ronnie here hasn’t had a date in—”

“Hey!” Ronnie interrupted her friend’s impish tone. “Pot, kettle, very black.”

LolaAnn grinned. “I meant to say, neither of us have had a date in ages. We’re living out a different story from the whirlwind courtship, followed by impulsive elopement.”

“So what’s your story like?” Treble asked.

“The ‘love from afar’ kind,” Lola Ann said, glancing furtively at Devin and the blonde.

Treble made a sympathetic face. “Have you tried telling him your feelings?”

“Of course not!” Lola Ann looked horrified. “That would defeat the ‘afar’ concept. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to the ladies’ room to freshen my lipstick before Treble talks me into something ludicrously bold that I’d regret tomorrow.”

“What?” Treble widened her eyes in feigned innocence. “It’s like you don’t know me at all.”

Ronnie snorted.

“So, what about you?” Treble asked, zeroing in on a fresh victim. “Have you considered telling Jason McDeere about your mad, secret love?”

Hell, no. “You exaggerate. I don’t think you can call it love I barely know the man.” Their very first conversation had been after Ronnie rammed into Jason with her shopping cart at the local grocery. She’d apologized, feeling clumsy and starstruck by his good looks. Those eyes… Someone with Treble’s fearless poise had probably never had to maim a man to get his attention.

“Why not go talk to him now?” Treble prodded. “Get to know him.”

“Now? You mean he’s here?” Heat bloomed in Ronnie’s face; she’d never been able to outgrow the blushing her brothers had teased her mercilessly about.

“In the flesh.” Treble gestured toward the bar area and a row of tall narrow tables. “I passed him when I came over to say hello.”

Ronnie had to look twice to make sure, but, yes, there was Jason McDeere, standing at one of the tables. What was he doing here? She’d been doing her best to keep the blues at bay, but if Jason were here on a date…There were two drinks on the table in front of Jason, but to her somewhat embarrassed relief, he seemed to be here with Coach Hanover, a forty-something man she knew mostly through his restoration of a classic ’55 Ford F-100.

“This is your chance!” Treble nudged her. “In case I haven’t said so before, you have excellent taste. He’s gorgeous.”

Ronnie nodded. “None of the teachers looked like that when I was a sophomore.” Jason was somewhere between her height and that of her looming brothers. The lean, corded muscle was well defined in his arms, and the slim gold glasses he sometimes wore made his chiseled face even more masculine in contrast. He didn’t have them on tonight, she noticed.

“So?” Treble prompted.

Ronnie’s throat was so dry she could barely get her tongue unstuck from the roof of her mouth. “I wouldn’t know what to say.” With his quiet, reflective manner and literary profession, he was intriguingly different from her brothers and the other men she’d known all her life. My brothers! “Besides, Danny and Devin are both here. If they see me talking to Jason, they’ll be on him like white on rice, wanting to know his net worth and his intentions.”

Treble tilted her head, sending a cascade of dark spirals over one slim shoulder. “I know how protective they can be of you, but Danny seems nicely occupied with his wife and I don’t even see Devin anymore. It’s a thick crowd—seems like a good chance for a friendly hello without sibling interference. You want to know what I think?”

Ronnie grinned, despite the butterflies churning in her stomach like oversize mutant insects from an old grade-B horror movie. “Probably not.”

“I think that, given your home situation when you were younger—” the gentle empathy in Treble’s voice made it clear she was talking not just about the obnoxious brothers but about Ronnie’s mom being sick “—you missed out on some of the formative opportunities to flirt and date that most girls, myself included, took for granted. And now you feel so daunted at the prospect that you cling to Dev and Danny as an excuse not to learn.”

“That’s—” Ronnie broke off, closed her mouth, opened it again, then finally admitted defeat with a quick shake of her head. “That’s annoyingly insightful.”

“Well, back in Atlanta, I did have my own radio advice show, remember?” These days, Treble co-anchored a regional cable morning show. It would never make her famous, but she seemed happy with her life.