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“You don’t have to worry, it won’t cause you to lose a baby, only prevent you from—” The slap she landed across his face stunned them both silent. She was all but vibrating with rage.
“I know what it will and won’t do. And the last thing I’m going to do is stand here while you try to tell me what to do with my own body.” Tears of fury boiled in her eyes and made her vision blurry. If he didn’t leave soon, she didn’t know what she was going to do. Andie marched to the bedside phone and brought it to her ear. “I’m not kidding, Luke. Get the hell out of my room or I’m calling for help.” He stood there in indecision for a second more, so Andie started dialing. She didn’t stop until she heard him leave.
“Front desk?”
“Sorry, never mind.” Slamming down the phone, Andie stomped to her shower and cried as she washed away the reminders of what was now a ruined night. She knew what the morning-after pill did. She knew it wouldn’t cause a miscarriage if a woman was already pregnant or hurt the baby. What it did was prevent ovulation and block pregnancy from happening.
It also had side effects. Side effects that differ from person to person. Her asshole ex had pressured and pushed her to use it once, and the side effects for her had been the worst cramps and heaviest period of her life. Knowing that prick, he’d also researched the side effects and had pushed her into taking it in hopes that things had gone exactly as they had. Thank God, she’d finally broken free from him. No way was she ever going to let another man tell her what to do with her own body.
Even as that small voice whispered that it couldn’t hurt to be sure, she shut that voice off and stomped into the shower. She’d wash and do what she could to clean every inch of him off and out of her, but she really did believe she was in the clear. The timing was way off.
Chapter 2
The sky wept openly over the forlorn graveyard of Harmony, Minnesota's grand old church. Behind the multi-steepled, red brick house of worship, mourners clustered around not one but two freshly dug graves.
One of the caskets being lowered held a life barely begun. Twenty-two-year-old Cassidy Rigby had been out on the town the night she'd been attacked and left broken in a ditch, thrown away like a discarded wrapper from a passing car window. All the promise and hope that new life held was gone, snuffed out like a candle, leaving the lives of the people who loved her a darker place.
The other casket contained a life well lived and ready for the grave that awaited it. Wallace Cooper had survived and thrived to the ripe old age of eighty-six and probably had another ten years in him if he hadn't been so bullheaded. He'd spotted a wasp's nest in the eaves of his barn, and even though he called on his good friend and neighbor that morning who had promised to take care of it before sunset, the crazy fool had gotten out his ladder and tried to get rid of them himself. The fall had taken him instantly and painlessly, or at least that was what the county examiner's report said, and those who loved him clung to that belief, held it close to their hearts like a security blanket and took what comfort they could from the knowledge that he went quickly.
Both of the people being laid to rest had each drawn a crowd. The young girl's was full of her tear-streaked college friends and grief-stricken family. Their clothes, though respectful for the most part, were still stylish and trendy with the young men lookingG.Q.ready in black skinny jeans and crew neck sweaters or sharp business suits with bold-colored ties that popped with a splash of brilliance amongst the somber sea of black. While the young women were dressed in muted hues, like the colors of a rainbow seen through a hazy drizzle of rain.
Wally's people were more reserved. Not a speck of color to be seen in this crowd aside from the dull white of the men's dress shirts and the modest edging on the collars and hems of the women's dresses. Where Cassidy's friends and family wailed with open abandon and in a few cases outright hysterics, Wally's were quietly heartbroken and bore their grief in silence with muffled sobs and quivering chins as their beloved friend was laid to rest.
And though the two had never met and were as opposite from each other as the North and South Poles, they had more in common than just their burial dates.
Lucas Baxter stood in stoic silence and watched as his closest friend was lowered into the ground. Rain fell unnoticed, the cold and wet that soaked his clothes barely registered past the crushing grief and guilt. Crazy old mule had no business on that ladder. He told Wally he'd be there before dark to take care of it. But, true to form, the geezer hadn't waited and had gone and gotten himself killed. Luke sucked in a shuddering breath and tried to shake the image of his friend's crumpled body from his head. It seemed to be imprinted on his psyche and was there, in glorious Technicolor, with every blink of his eyes. Wally’s death carried with it the weight of guilt and regret and a sorrow he feared he'd never shake.
"Dad," Logan, his nineteen-year-old son, nudged him with a shoulder. "Who's that?"
Luke looked to where his son indicated and saw a plump blonde with a black floppy hat. Thing looked like it belonged on a runway in some big city, not in this humble little churchyard. "I don't know. She probably came for the other funeral." But as she drew closer, there was something in the curve of her figure and the way she moved that tugged at his memory.
"Yeah," Logan agreed with a sad sniffle, "she looks lost."
"C'mon, son." After a last wretched look toward the grave, Luke clamped a hand on his boy's neck and led him away. "Chores are waiting, even on days like this."
He didn't get two steps before he heard the yelp that had him turning back just in time to watch the show. The soggy ground was too much for the mile-high stilettos she was wearing, and the unfortunate griever was sinking. One shoe completely sunk well past the heel, with mud oozing over the bare top of her foot, while the other leg as well as her arms pinwheeled in an effort to maintain balance. Luke bit back the curse—he was at a church, after all—and lunged, even though he knew he was too far away to stop the inevitable. With a pitiful squeak, she tumbled onto her ample backside with a soggy plop while her fancy hat caught a strong breeze and rolled away.
That honeyed hair, that enchanting face, hit him like a lightning bolt and froze him in his tracks.
"Andie? You all right?" Luke crouched down next to her. Uncovered, her artfully styled streaky hair quickly plastered to her head, transforming it to a dark burnished gold, and when she turned to look up at him as she replied, he had a heck of a time keeping a straight face. She looked pitiful as a drowned kitten with her pale cheeks and smudged eye makeup. Plump lips quivered, and there was a wobble in her softly pointed chin as she tried unsuccessfully to hold it together.
"Luke? How? Why are you here?” The dismay and misery on her face were as clear to read as desire had been, and Luke knew right then that God must surely hate him. It had been two days since he’d seen her, and he could still taste her on his tongue.
That night with Andie had been the best sex of his life. Immediately followed by a truckload of self-directed horror. How in the hell had he forgotten a condom? He only had to look at his son to know what happens when you forgo safe sex. He loved his son more than he loved anything on this planet, but he’d been a teen dad and it had been hell.
There were movies about how rough teen pregnancy was on girls, but no one seemed to care what it did to the guys. Maybe that was because guys could walk away if they were conscienceless assholes, which he wasn’t. So, he’d panicked. Even now, the memory of his actions with Andie caused an unwelcome knot of misery in his gut that he didn’t have the energy or heart to deal with at his best friend’s funeral.
“Wally is the family you were going to take time to come see?” he asked rather than answer her questions. When she nodded miserably, he had to fight to keep from pulling her into his arms to comfort her, knowing his right to touch her had been permanently revoked. “That sucks, honey. I’m sorry. He was a good man. A good friend. C’mon.” Then he extended a hand to help her up, with his eyebrows raised in question for permission.
“This is the worst day ever." Her voice was barely discernible over the rain and commotion. And Luke took her lack of negative response as all the permission he was going to get.
"Yup," he agreed wholeheartedly.
"I fell." She said it like she was having trouble believing it.
"Yup." She looked close to hysterics, so Luke looped one arm around her waist and got her moving before she could give in to the urge. "You sure did. Let's get you up out of the mud now." As soon as she was on her feet, she tilted backward as those ridiculous shoes sank again. With another bitten-off curse, Luke dragged her upright before she could fall a second time then just hauled her into his arms like she was a delicate damsel and started toward the row of parked cars.
"Oh. You don't have to do this." Her words were watery and slightly guttural with her tears. "I'm too heavy. You're going to hurt your back. Besides, I'm all muddy, and I'm ruining your suit."
