Harlequin Love Inspired Suspense March 2021--Box Set 2 of 2 by Dana Mentink (novels to improve english txt) 📗

He was ogling the strip of paper photos printed from the ultrasound machine that she’d left next to her computer. He was quite oblivious to anything else. Irene squeezed Laney’s hand. “Talk to you later.”

Laney sat up on the exam table and pulled the gown around her. “Beckett?” Astonished, she realized that two perfect tears were sliding down his tanned cheeks.

He tore his gaze from the paper and looked at her. “That’s our baby,” he croaked.

“Yes,” she said.

“And in five months, you’re going to deliver him or her.”

“Yes, that is how it works in all the books I’ve read.”

He didn’t crack a smile. Slowly, millimeter by millimeter, his gaze moved from the screen to her face. She realized with a fright that he had actually begun to sway on his feet. Grabbing the hospital gown around herself with one hand, she leaped from the table and shoved him into a chair with the other.

He collapsed into it and she pushed his head down between his knees. “Breathe deep. Come on. Three breaths in and out.”

He complied. She was considering calling the nurse back in when he sat up again, looking dazed, but fully conscious.

“Laney,” he said.

“What?”

“This is real, isn’t it?”

Laney blinked back a wash of tears. “As real as it gets, Beckett.”

* * *

Beckett insisted on stopping at the store to buy some ingredients to make a special dinner.

“Herm has the night off from cooking,” he said. He was going to suggest he cook her favorite trout dish with the capers and almonds, but the last time he’d fixed it for her had been the weekend before the murder. It was time to start making some new memories, or at least, treating her to something nice while they waited to see if Rita would make good on her promise. “What would you like?”

When she finished declining for the second time, she blew out a breath and said, “Pancakes.”

He blinked. “Pancakes? Not steak or fancy pasta?”

“Pancakes,” she repeated. “With gallons of maple syrup. And butter. Real butter, not margarine.”

He could not restrain his delight. She wanted pancakes. This woman, amazing and strong, had an actual child growing inside her. God had gifted them with the impossible. The sheer incredulity of it made his head spin again. “All right.” Since they had all the fixings for pancakes at the hotel, he drove straight there. She was yawning by the time they returned.

“I need a nap, I think,” Laney said.

“Great idea. I want to check on some things anyway.”

“If it were me, you’d tell me to stay out of trouble.”

He laughed. “And if it were you, you wouldn’t listen to me at all.”

Now she laughed and the sun caught the dimple in her cheek and gilded her hair to molten platinum. “See you later.”

She was almost over the threshold when she stopped and turned. “Here,” she said.

He took the strip of ultrasound pictures. “You want me to have them?”

“Yes. There will be more, but you should have these.”

He stared as she closed the door. What did the offering mean? That he wasn’t going to be included in the rest of the pregnancy? Had she already decided she would not allow him back into her life? Or was it a tender gesture, since he’d made such a grand fool out of himself when he’d clapped eyes on the baby’s image in the first place?

He wasn’t sure, but he went to his tent and tucked the paper carefully in his Bible. No matter what happened, he would have the pictures close, a present from the woman who had been his greatest gift.

With a lighter step than he’d felt in forever, he began to tinker around the courtyard. He yearned to start on the repairs to the burned room, but he did not want to be out of sight of Laney’s door. He contented himself leveling some stepping-stones that had become askew. He thought about the screw Aunt Kitty had discovered. Had Rita found something Pauline left behind, a second copy of whatever incriminating info she’d been using to blackmail someone?

Who? It had to have been a local, someone who knew their way around Death Valley, someone who had known Pauline would reach out to Beckett? Or perhaps the note to arrange the meeting with Pauline that fateful night had been written by the killer in the first place.

Before he realized it, the afternoon had passed and he’d reset the entire walkway, correcting all the crooked stones and adding new gravel to the low spots. He couldn’t have Laney or the child tripping.

Laney, his Laney. The thought was audacious, breathtaking. Could he possibly believe he might put his family back together with God’s help? Was he worthy of such a treasure? Laney emerged with Admiral at her heels as the sun mellowed toward evening.

She eyed his work. “You’ve been productive. Are you rebuilding from the ground up?”

Maybe, just maybe, he was. He shrugged. “Keeping busy, but I’m ready for pancakes. How about you?”

They entered the kitchen. He found the flour container empty. “Be right back.” The finicky basement door was slightly ajar. He jogged down steps. The fourth one was still wobbly. A few of the newspapers piled there were knocked over, so he straightened them before fetching the flour.

In the kitchen he whistled as he whisked up the ingredients. A sizzle of butter, perfect scoops of batter into the pan and, in a few moments, he’d cooked up a platter of golden pancakes. She’d retrieved the required jug of syrup.

She reached for his hand to say grace. She thanked the Lord for the food, while he expressed silent gratitude for her presence.

Laney had always been a fairly light eater, but she polished off her first pancake and he forked her a second one.

“Don’t tell Doc Irene?”

“My lips are sealed.”

The sweetness dancing along his senses had nothing to do with the maple syrup. They talked, chatted with relative ease. The kitchen was the same old