An Accidental Hero by Loree Lough Page A

being the reason Rose was out that night.
    She spun on her heels and threw her arms around him. “I love you, Dad. So much that sometimes—”
    He kissed the top of her head. “And I love you, too, sweetie, more than words could ever say.” Tilting his head back, he gave her another once-over. “Now get on in there,” he said, tousling her hair, “and sit down before you fall down.”
    Nodding, Cammi did as she was told, choosing the end of the deep blue leather couch nearest his favorite chair. Feet resting on the glass-topped coffee table, and huddled under a fringed afghan, she closed her eyes. She didn’t know how much time had passed before Lamont walked into the room, carrying a steaming mug of coffee for himself and a glass of ice water for her.
    He put the mug on his end table, handed her the tumbler. “You sure you’re up to this?” he asked. The black leather of his recliner squeaked in protest as he settled his bulk onto its ample seat. “We can put off…whatever…until later.”
    Nodding, she sipped the water. The old mantel clock above the fireplace ticked off the seconds as Lamont rested a booted ankle on his knee. Fingers drumming on the chair’s worn armrest, he heaved a sigh.
    Cammi sat up straighter, put the glass on a soap-stone coaster beside the sofa. “There’s really no way to ease into this.”
    Fingers steepled under his chin, Lamont nodded. “Just start at the beginning, sweetie.”
    She could see by the tired expression on his face that he’d prepared himself for the worst. True to form, she wouldn’t disappoint him. And wasn’t that a bitterirony, she thought; in every way imaginable, she’d let him down, time and time again, but this time…
    Clearing her throat, she did as he suggested and started at the beginning, explaining how she’d met Rusty on a movie set. “I’d been hired to play an extra,” she said, “and he was a stuntman.” She told Lamont how it had been love at first sight—or so she’d thought; how much they seemed to have in common; how much fun they’d had together. “He wasn’t a Christian,” she continued, “and I knew you wouldn’t like that. So I decided to work hard, to pray hard, and when he accepted Jesus as his Lord and Savior, then I’d tell you about him and…everything.”
    Cammi slid past the buying of the marriage license, the ceremony, the honeymoon. It wasn’t like Lamont to sit there so quietly. Since Cammi didn’t know what to make of it, she plunged on.
    “Didn’t take long to figure out he’d hardened his heart to the Word.” She began fiddling with the afghan’s fringe, nervously wrapping it first around one finger, then another. “Then, there were rumors….” She had to stop for a moment, because remembering how humiliating, it had been to hear about Rusty’s secret life threatened her precarious hold on self-control. “Turned out they weren’t rumors, after all.”
    She took another sip of water, hoping Lamont wouldn’t recognize it as a stall tactic, nothing more. “He’d been gone four straight nights when…when a policeman woke me at three in the morning. He drove me to the morgue, where they showed me…”
    Cammi ran both hands through her hair. “He’d crashed his convertible into a tree, impaling himself on the steering column…and injuring his…date.”
    Lamont’s eyebrows lifted as his hands gripped the chair’s armrest. “His date? ”
    Cammi nodded. “Weird, huh? Some people think it’s perfectly acceptable to have a wife and a girlfriend.”
    Lamont sat on the edge of his chair, elbows resting on his knees. He clasped his hands together and said, “Something tells me there’s more….”
    “Yes,” she whispered, “there’s more.” Just say it, she thought. “Later that same day, my doctor called to say—” Cammi met her father’s eyes “—to say I was pregnant.”
    He hung his head. “I sorta thought that’s what you’d say.”
    He stared at the floor and didn’t