A Baby of Her Own (Dundee, Idaho #1)(58)
Author: Brenda Novak

WHERE WAS DELANEY?

Conner sat at the kitchen table, eating the chicken and polenta salad she’d made them for dinner, pretending to be completely absorbed by the simple act of lifting his fork to his mouth. But he kept listening for movement elsewhere in the house, kept expecting Delaney to return to the kitchen and start cleaning up while they ate, like she usually did. When she didn’t come, he wondered if she’d gotten sick again. She seemed to be doing so much better, but—

“What’s on your mind?” Roy asked.

Conner shook his head.

“Come on, what is it?”

“It’s nothing,” Conner said to stop Roy from jumping to the conclusion that the Hills had backed out of the deal or something. Though they still had a lot to do before the resort became a reality, everything was on track.

What was bothering Conner had nothing to do with business. This was personal. He’d asked Delaney to marry him, and she’d agreed, but they’d barely spoken in the past week. He couldn’t help looking for some indication that she wasn’t actually dreading the prospect of becoming Mrs. Conner Armstrong.

He continued eating, trying to wait long enough that no one would connect his question with Roy’s expression of concern. Then he asked, “Anyone know where Delaney went? Is she sick?”

“No, she’s gone.” It was Isaiah, her not-so-secret admirer.

“Where?” Conner asked.

“Millie and Rebecca are giving her a bridal shower.”

“They are?”

Isaiah glanced up from his plate. “Yeah. Didn’t you know?”

Conner didn’t answer. He hadn’t known. And it irritated him that Isaiah did. “She’s engaged,” he said, suddenly losing his appetite.

“That’s why I thought you’d know.”

There was something challenging in Isaiah’s words, and his stare accused Conner of not treating Delaney right, which bothered him, too. Maybe because he felt a little guilty. He hadn’t done anything unkind to Delaney; that was how he’d justified his behavior. But he certainly hadn’t gone out of his way to speak to her, either.

“Mind your own business,” he growled, and headed back to his office. But even as he worked, he kept one ear trained for the sound of a car pulling into the drive. When he didn’t hear anything for over an hour, he returned to the kitchen to find Isaiah wiping off the kitchen table.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Cleaning up so Delaney won’t have to come home to dishes,” he said. “I guess that never occurred to you.”

It hadn’t. Conner had been too preoccupied with listening for her car and wondering if a bridal shower resembled a bachelor party—or whether Delaney’s shower might include a finale at the Honky Tonk. But Isaiah didn’t know anything. Conner opened his mouth to tell him so, to tell him that Delaney had wronged Conner, not the other way around. But then he realized Isaiah was probably smarter than he’d thought, which didn’t make him feel any better, so he trudged back to his office and slouched behind his desk. If he’d been nicer to Delaney, she might’ve told him that her friends were giving her a bridal shower….

An hour later, the crunch of gravel on the drive told him she was home. Dropping the pencil he’d been twirling in agitation, he hurried to the front door, but she barely looked up when she came in. Buried beneath the boxes and gift bags she carried in her arms, she brushed right by him and started down the hall.

“How was it?” he asked, rushing to catch up with her.

“Great,” she muttered. “Everyone’s excited but us.”

Her words felt amazingly like a left hook. “Nice one,” he said, rubbing his jaw.

“What?”

“Never mind. Want some help?” he asked, trying again.

“No, thanks.”

“What’d you ladies do?”

She cast him a glance over her shoulder. “Nothing much.”

“It doesn’t look like nothing much.” They’d reached her bedroom, and he flipped on the light. “What’d you get?”

“Stuff.”

He needed to ask her a question she had to answer with more than one or two words, he thought as she dropped everything on her dresser.

“I’ll get to the dishes in a minute,” she said, obviously misunderstanding his reason for bothering her.

Conner felt a twinge of guilt. “Uh, they’re done.”

“They are?”

“Yeah.”

“Who…Oh, Isaiah! Did he do them for me?”

She’d known immediately that it wasn’t him. Conner frowned. “Yeah. Isn’t he sweet?”

She ignored his sarcasm.

“If you see him on your way out, would you tell him I brought him a piece of cake? It’s still in the car.”

Her words sounded a lot like a dismissal, but Conner wasn’t ready to leave. “Is there a piece of cake in the car for me?” he asked.

She blinked up at him. “You want cake?”

“Yeah, I like cake. Everybody likes cake.”

“Sorry,” she said. “I figured you’d be busy—working in your office.”

He’d spent a lot of time there lately. But he had big plans. She knew that.

The telephone rang. She waited for a minute, as though she wanted to shoo him out before she answered it, but there wasn’t time to do it politely, and one thing he’d learned about Delaney was that she was almost always polite. Turning at the last second, she grabbed the receiver.

“Hi, Beck,” she said, facing away from him.

That left him free to poke through the presents. If they were bridal shower gifts, they were ultimately for him, too, right?

Massage cream…bath soaps…edible underwear—edible underwear? Who gave her that? Probably Rebecca…

“I did?” she was saying. “Okay, I’ll pick it up this weekend. Yeah, it was fun and I got a lot of great stuff, but what I really wanted was one of those bunnies Hal over at the feed store has leftover from Easter…. So? I could get Isaiah to build me a cage out by the chicken coop…”

Conner frowned. Isaiah again.

“Maybe I should buy one myself.” She gave a quick shrug. “Nah, there’s too much going on right now. Maybe next year…What?…I think so, too. Wasn’t that awkward with Aunt Millie there? Who thought of the…the you-know.”

She turned and saw him going through her gifts and her eyes widened meaningfully as she waved him away.