“Burgers, Mexican, or a plate dinner from Mama Jo’s?” he asked.
“The café,” she said. “The Monday special is meat loaf and mashed potatoes, and I love the hot rolls they make there.”
“Let’s take my truck, and then I’ll bring you back for yours when we’re done.” He laced his fingers with hers and led her out of the room. They stopped at the front desk, and Mary Beth handed them a card. “You will be back from your honeymoon by then, right?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Pax tucked the card into the pocket of his chambray work shirt.
“What time?” Alana asked when they were outside.
“Nine in the morning,” he answered. “But you’ve got enough on your mind, so it will be my job to remember this. When we get to the café, I’ll put it on the calendar on my phone.”
“Thank you.” She butted him with her hip. “What else have you got on that calendar?”
“Well, there’s our wedding, of course, the honeymoon information, and the…” He paused and wondered if he would be saying too much, but then he plowed right on, “The day that six weeks is up. That’s June seventeenth.”
“So it could be over by the time I come back to the doctor for my next visit.” She sighed.
“Possibly, but miracles do still happen,” he said as he helped her into his truck.
“I’d consider it a miracle if he made it to July Fourth,” she said.
Pax wasn’t about to tell her that he just hoped Matt was able to walk her down the aisle for her wedding. That seemed to have come to mean so much to her as well as to her father, but Matt was moving slower and shuffling more with each passing day. Would he still have the strength left to pick up his feet and walk Alana down the aisle on their wedding day?
He got behind the wheel and headed toward the three-block section of downtown and the little local café where they’d all had Sunday dinner the day before. “We could call your dad and have him meet us at the café and tell him there. I’d feel a lot better in a public place.”
“Why’s that?” she asked.
“He won’t have access to a shotgun,” Pax told her. “He and Mam have both teased us about starting a family, but I’m the cowboy that got your daddy’s baby girl pregnant. He might not be too happy about that.”
“I need some more time to wrap my mind around it,” Alana said. “You sure are taking this calmly.”
He parked in front of the café and went around to open the door for her. He offered a hand to help her out, and she took it. Then he put his hand on her back and guided her across the sidewalk and to the old-fashioned screen door. “I hope they never replace these old wood doors,” he said. “It gives the place more character than the ones that are made of aluminum and glass that open automatically.”
“Yep,” Alana agreed but her tone was curt.
“Did I say or do something wrong?” he asked.
She took his hand and pulled him toward an empty booth at the back of the café. She slid all the way to the far end of one side and patted the seat beside her. “Sit beside me, not across from me.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “Now, would you please answer my question?”
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” she said. “My brain is whirling around like one of those whirligigs we used to get when we were kids. We’d hang them out the back window of the truck, and they’d go so fast that they were a blur. Well, that’s the way my thought patterns are right now. I want to grab something and hang on to it, to prove I’m sane, but everything’s going at warp speed.”
“Grab on to this.” He leaned over and kissed her on the lips.
When he pulled back, her eyes looked different. Ever since he’d barged into the doctor’s office, she’d had the look of a lone crippled prairie chicken at a coyote convention.
“That grounded me right quick.” She picked up the menu from the table. “Thank you, Pax.”
“Let’s forget about the wedding, what we’re enduring with your dad, and concentrate on baby names for the next hour. You really want to name our daughter Something?”
“What?” She frowned.
“I’m not too fond of these newfangled names folks are using, like Stormy or Rain. But, honey, Something, is sure way out there as far as weird goes.” He