Free A Baby And A Wedding by Lorhainne Eckhart Page B

As she strode into the kitchen, she gave herself a talking to, because in the next few days the house would be full of Brad’s family for their wedding on Saturday. This nervous bride needed to get her ducks in a row and kick-start her hard fought-for self-confidence once again, or she was going to be a bumbling mess by the time Saturday arrived.
    The phone rang and Emily’s insides shook. She grabbed the phone before it made another sound and woke Katy, who was upstairs napping. “Hello?”
    “Emily, this is Dean.”
    Emily froze with the empty coffeepot in her hand. Her imagination immediately leaped to worrying thoughts since Dean, the principal of the new school that Trevor had joined, had never called her at home during the day before.
    “Is everything alright?” Emily asked with a shaky voice. Her heart seemed to thud so loud for a second that all she could hear was the roar of the blood pumping through her veins.
    “Oh, Emily, I didn’t mean to worry you,” he replied. “I was wondering if maybe we could meet sometime today? There’s a matter I’d like to discuss with you, and I’d rather not over the phone.”
    Emily immediately felt contrite, knowing how she overacted to everything at the drop of a hat lately. She needed a warm bath and a book, or maybe just a walk in the fresh air, and then perhaps she’d feel more like herself, instead of a pregnant woman about to be married in two days’ time.
    “Yes, of course. I could come right now if that would work.” She glanced at the clock. “I could be there in half an hour?”
    “That’s fine, Emily. I’ll see you then.”
    Emily dropped the cordless phone, which she had talked Brad into buying, onto the counter. He’d said that a cell phone was enough of a cordless phone for him, so Emily had begged. In the end she had showed him that the idea wasn’t so bad, except lately she kept losing the cordless phone, which she blamed on pregnancy hormones and how forgetful she’d become.
    Without a second glance, and lunch and coffee forgotten for Jed, Emily grabbed her purse and the keys to Brad’s truck. Dashing out the door and turning the corner, she bumped into Jed.
    “Whoa there, little lady,” he said in the same deep voice as Brad. His rough, calloused hands gripped her shoulders, and then he stepped back, dropping his arms to his side.
    Brad’s teasing glance immediately changed as he stepped around his brother, with a questioning glance at Emily and her flustered appearance.“Em, what’s going on?”
    She shifted her gaze between the two brothers, who were both watching her as if they expected her to go off the deep end at any moment.
    “Dean Banks phoned from Trevor’s school. He asked me to come in now and see him.”
    Brad snatched the keys out of her hand. “Why?”
    “I don’t know. He said it was something he couldn’t discuss over the phone.”
    “Whoa, hang on a second, is there a problem?” Brad asked.
    The man could get annoyed faster than a nest of angry hornets, and Emily realized that she was giving him the wrong impression. Jed was watching her in a way she couldn’t read at all.
    “No, he said it was nothing to worry about,” she replied. “He just didn’t want to talk over the phone.”
    Emily really wanted to get going because it annoyed her when she didn’t know what she was walking into. Her mind would conjure up half a dozen problems before she even arrived at the school.
    “Well, for one, you’re not going, and he shouldn’t have called you and asked you to come down.” Brad walked to the front door, where he’d tossed his tan cowboy hat, and pressed it on his head.
    Emily felt her stomach pitch in a freefall of hurt. “Why, because I’m not Trevor’s mother?”
    Brad froze, before turning around slowly to face her.
    Jed glanced over his shoulder at his brother, and said, “If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll go check out the horses.” He stopped just in front of Brad, and shook his head before