Accidental Family Read Free Page A

yourself?”
    Alan nodded. “Just a short vacation. Actually, I’m looking for somebody who lives around here. A woman named Rowena Dahl. Do you know her?”
    “Sure. She cuts my hair. And she wrote the Christmas Festival play. I was a shepherd.”
    “She cuts your hair?” Alan asked, a little confused.
    “At her barbershop. It’s right on Main Street. You probably saw it when you drove here.”
    He gave a slow nod. “So she’s a barber?”
    “Yeah. A real good one, too. She even found a way to make Randi and Robin look halfway decent after they cut each other’s hair.”
    Alan didn’t know who Randi and Robin were, but at the moment he was too focused on Rowena to ask. The fact that she was a hairdresser set his mind somewhat at ease. His mother and aunt had worked together as hairdressers in Toronto. He found that women who gravitated to that kind of career usually were down-to-earth and warmhearted. Easy to manage. His father had certainly been able to reign over the Rand household with little trouble.
    Rowena Dahl was no doubt a simple, unsophisticated countrywoman who would be happy to cooperate with him once she knew all the facts. He was still curious about why she chose to go the route of artificial insemination to conceive a baby. Perhaps Cooper’s Corner lacked an abundance of single men. Or maybe Rowena simply wasn’t the kind of woman to attract their interest.
    The reason didn’t really matter. If she was pregnant with his child, then he’d find some way to deal with it that would satisfy them both. Alan was used to handling difficult negotiations with some of the smartest, most sophisticated people in the publishing industry. Rowena Dahl of Cooper’s Corner, Massachusetts, would be no problem.
    “So how do you know her?” Keegan asked, breaking Alan’s reverie.
    He blinked. “Who?”
    “Rowena.”
    “Oh.” He cleared his throat. “It’s...a long story.”
    Keegan opened his mouth to say something when Clint Cooper’s deep voice echoed up the stairway. “Keegan? You up there?”
    “Gotta go.” The boy turned and headed for the door, grabbing another cookie on his way out. “Do you need anything else, Mr. Rand?”
    Alan reached up to run a hand through his short, dark hair. “As a matter of fact, I think I could use a haircut.”

CHAPTER THREE
    A N HOUR LATER , Alan found himself standing outside the barbershop on Main Street, staring at the closed sign in the leaded glass window of the scarred oak door. The setting sun cast long shadows over the sidewalk as he debated whether to come back tomorrow. The barbershop stood nestled between Tubb’s Café and an antique store. The neat brick facade fit nicely among the picturesque storefronts lining both sides of the street. A large, decorative sign that read A Cut Above in bold blue letters hung just under the eaves.
    He’d come to Cooper’s Corner for the express purpose of discovering whether this Rowena Dahl woman was pregnant with his child. But as he stood here, part of him didn’t want to know the answer. He couldn’t deny the sudden temptation to turn around and walk away.
    But something made him stay.
    Alan tugged his overcoat more tightly around him as a gust of bitter wind blew through the street. How had he ever ended up in this mess? It was as if he’d been entered in some kind of bizarre baby lottery. The mother of his child could be anyone. An immature girl of twenty or an older, hardened woman who could hear the incessant ticking of her biological clock. She could be an ex-convict or some kind of religious fanatic. Someone with beliefs and values diametrically opposed to his.
    Could Rowena Dahl afford to bring a baby into this world on the salary of a barber? What about her background? Her family? Her love life? The answer to that last question seemed obvious, given her visit to the Orr Fertility Clinic. Or was there another reason?
    Ever since he’d discovered a stranger might be carrying his child, his imagination