Down by the River Read Online Free Page A

were flipping like mad. Though I admit I’m a hopeless romantic. I like it far better this way, which as you know was totally unplanned.”
    “Okay, I’m going to go ahead and pretend I didn’t notice that you didn’t answer the M question. But don’t think I’m going to be the last one to ask.”
    “Believe me, I don’t kid myself about anything anymore.”
    “How is it you never mentioned him?” John asked.
    “Hmm. That’s a little complicated.”
    “I’m sure it is, but you might want to come up with an answer for that one. It might take peoples’ minds off the other question. Go ahead. Practice on me.” He looked over at her, a curl from his usually perfectly coiffed blond hair dangling onto his forehead.
    “Well, we didn’t spend as much time together as my condition would suggest.”
    He whistled. “Good job, June. You couldn’t get any more vague than that.”
    “Okay, look. I met him last…I don’t know…early in the year. It might’ve been around the same timeyou moved to town. He came into the clinic after hours with a friend who had a minor injury. They were in the area for something or other. Camping or hunting, whatever. I patched up his friend and just a few days later he showed up at my house on a Sunday afternoon to thank me. We sat on the porch, drank iced tea and fell in love.”
    “Aw,” he said, stringing it out musically. “That’s sweet.”
    She did her best to ignore him, discovering she did indeed need a rehearsal. “When he was in the area, which wasn’t all that often, his stay was really brief. And you know, we don’t have any hotels or inns in town. Once he had a room over in Westport at that place by the steakhouse….” Lying but not lying, she found, could be a little fun. Like playing chess, you have to remember where all the pieces are.
    “Now comes the tough one, missy,” he said. “How’d he take the news? That you’re pregnant?”
    She didn’t have to make anything up. “That’s easy. He appears to be thrilled.”
    “That’s wonderful, June,” he said, and for once he didn’t tease. He’d been the one to examine her just last week and surprise her with the news that the pregnancy was advanced. Doctors weren’t infallible. “You really didn’t have any idea, did you?”
    “It was the farthest thing from my mind.”
    “I can’t imagine,” he said. “Susan and I knew Sydney was on the way when she was about three weeks gestation.”
    “You’re an OB first and family practitioner second. You’re supposed to be obsessive about that. Plus, for whatever reason, I kind of figured I wasn’t going to ever have a baby. At least not as easily as this.”
    John laughed loudly. “I bet you were pretty lazy about birth control.”
    Stunned by his accuracy, she asked, “Now, why would you say that?”
    “That’s what women who haven’t gotten caught always think.”
     
    June almost had a heart attack when they drove into town. There were so many cars parked on Valley Drive and in the church and clinic parking lots, it resembled a town meeting. The last time she’d seen congestion like this, word had just hit town that a deathly handsome new doctor had come to the clinic to practice with June. Women came from miles around to catch a glimpse of John Stone.
    “What the heck is going on?” she asked.
    “Oh, as if you don’t know,” John said.
    And then it became obvious. Everyone was inside the café it was virtually bursting at the seams. Her truck was parked across the street at the clinic where Jim must have left it, right next to her father’s truck.
    There being no readily available parking spaces, John stopped the ambulance in the street, blocking a couple of pickups. “I’ll take it over to the clinic to clean and restock in a little while. I’m not going tomiss a second of this,” he said, opening his door and jumping out.
    “John,” she protested. “The owners of these trucks might want to get out.”
    “Not until after