Warmth spread from where she’d touched Devin, battling the cold sensation in his chest from the nerd label. “If you’d given me a point of reference, I could have caught on to the duck thing.”
“A nerd who thinks he has street smarts.” She chuckled, returning to her mending.
He wanted to ask her why her parents had dropped her off with Myrna. He wanted to ask if she thought mending horse blankets was trouble. Instead, he just stared at the delicate arch to her neck and the bit of purple hair sticking out from her knit cap. “Why purple?”
She froze, and then lowered the blanket. “What do you mean?”
“You could have gone black.” Like her mood. “Or pink.” Which he realized didn’t suit her at all. “Or blue. But you chose purple.”
“I...” It was the first time he’d noticed her hesitate. “Purple hair color was on sale.”
“A rational decision, then.” That he could understand.
Shortcake put his head over his stall and blew out a breath, as if he agreed.
“What’s the story with Shortcake?” Devin asked. “I mean, why would you keep a misbehaving horse at a riding stable? You can’t make money on him.”
She jerked sideways to face him, her expression angry. “That’s harsh.”
“What do you mean? If I was running the stables, I’d only offer rides with old nags, the ones that are well-behaved and cause no trouble. They’d earn their keep.”
Her stare turned scornful. “You mean horses who all look and dress the same?”
“Huh?” Girls confused him.
“You mean horses who only do as they’re told.”
“Is this a metaphor?” Why couldn’t she talk about fashion and nail-polish colors like the other teenage girls he knew?
Frankie ignored him, gathering her indignation. “You mean horses who don’t dye their hair purple and hot-wire their dad’s car just to prove they can. Horses who don’t work two part-time jobs to save for college and then study all night for midterms, hoping they can catch up on sleep over the weekend.” She was spouting off as if she could continue all night.
Reflexively, Devin held a hand over her mouth, the same way she’d done to him earlier. “Okay, I get it. I said something wrong. I’m sorry.”
No girl had ever shot daggers at him with her eyes. Frankie did.
Amazingly, it made Devin want to smile. But he didn’t. Some instinct for self-preservation warned him not to. He did draw his hand back, though, before his flesh started to tremble against hers and she realized how far out of her league he was. “Is Shortcake your horse?”
“Yes. I’ve had him since I was four. And he’s a boss. Smarter than most riders.”
“Like my dad,” Devin murmured, letting a grin begin to creep out.
“Yes. Holy cow. Your dad thinks he can just toss around the cash and get whatever he wants.” She stared at Shortcake. “That horse is brimming with personality, and nobody wants to let him show it.”
Devin was onto Frankie now. The metaphor for her was Shortcake. “I see his personality.”
She scoffed. “No way.”
Devin nodded. “He’s kind of independent. Maybe he thinks because he’s not brown or black that he doesn’t fit in with the other horses. Maybe that’s why he’s got a chip on his shoulder and has something to prove. But all he has to do is chill out and be himself.” A nerd.
“You are so full of it.” Frankie bit off the end of the thread and put her needle in a small box. And then she faced Devin again squarely. “Now kiss me.”
“What?” Devin fell off the hay bale.
CHAPTER EIGHT
CRACK-BOOM-BOOM!
Bernadette sat up, dizzy and disoriented.
It was dark. Rain pounded the roof. The bed seemed to shudder. And she...
Her stomach heaved.
Fist to her mouth, she stumbled toward the bathroom, details coming at her as fast as morning sickness—motor home, thunderstorm, the regret from eating poorly the day before. That Brie... Those tacos...
A few minutes later, she stumbled back out of the bathroom and got dressed, tugging on her already-wet sneakers.
It was pouring down rain. Didn’t matter. Bernadette wasn’t going to complete her morning sickness ritual in the tiny master bathroom. Nausea struck hard once more. She pressed her hand over her mouth, craving the privacy of the campground restroom.
Doctors don’t vomit in front of anyone.
She hoped the storm had covered the sound of her earlier woes. A sip of water, a peppermint, and she was ready to go. She hadn’t hydrated properly yesterday or eaten as a pregnant woman should. She was paying for it now.
She exited the bedroom on what she hoped were silent feet.
Crack-Boom-Boom!
The storm felt like it was right above the motor home.
“What do you need?” Holden whispered from the pullout sofa. He rolled over toward her.
Bernadette pretended not to hear him and proceeded down the steps toward the door, mumbling, “Doctors don’t vomit in front of anyone.”
Crack-Boom-Boom! BOOM! CRACK! CRASH!
The motor home shuddered.
Her fingers wrapped around the cool doorknob just as strong hands landed on her shoulders.
“Don’t go out there,” Holden said.
“Doctors don’t—”
Too late. She opened the door, trying to lean forward and heave outside, fighting Holden’s steadying hands and the wind that whipped the door from her grasp.
In seconds, her hair was plastered to her glasses, and she had no idea where she’d upchucked. Inside. Outside. On herself. But she’d seen one thing during a flash of lightning. One really scary thing.
Holden closed the door. “Come on. Let’s get you cleaned up.” He wrapped an arm around her and guided her back to his bed.
Her body ached. She was parched. And her stomach...
Doctors don’t...
“Hyperemesis gravidarum,” she croaked the term for severe morning sickness, trying to distract herself from acknowledging how her body felt, trying not to suspect her intense nausea was caused by more than one embryo growing inside her. It had to be the after-effect of rich cheese and greasy tacos. She’d know in twenty-four hours if her symptoms didn’t disappear.
“What did you say?” Holden asked.
“Hyperemesis gravidarum,” she said, louder this time.
“Harry Potter,” Devin murmured from the bunk above the front seats. “Only one percent of ducks know that spell.”
Bernadette would have laughed if it wouldn’t have triggered her gag reflex. Devin thought her Latin phrase was a wizarding spell.
“Rinse and spit.” Holden pressed a glass with a little water in her hand. And then he disappeared, moving around the motor home. A towel came around her next, along with a gentle rubdown by Holden. He removed her glasses and took the used water glass from her next. “Talk to me in Latin all you want. It’s hot.”
“Magna arbor.” Bernadette put her head between her legs.
“We’re talking gardening now, right?” Holden put his hands on her knees. “I have your glasses when you’re ready. Do you feel like a twisted vine or something?”
“Big tree. Tall tree.” Bernadette lifted her head slowly. “I can’t remember the precise translation.”
The storm seemed to be moving east quickly. There were no more blinding flashes of lightning. No more booms overhead. No more crashes.
Holden carefully slid her glasses in place. “Are you ready for a sip of water?”
She nodded, staring at him in the pale light coming in through the windows from the campground bathrooms. It had been years since anyone had taken care of her when she was sick, and she was momentarily sucked into a battle against tears. “Don’t be nice. I like you too much when you’re nice.”
She dry-heaved, wrapping the towel over her face in case she had more to give, although thankfully it felt like she was wrung empty.
“Honey.” Holden knelt in front of her once more, rubbing her back with one hand. “I keep telling you that you don’t have to do this alone.”
Bernadette didn’t want to see his face. Not the softness in his eyes. Not the tenderness in his smile. Because to see him would be to want to bring him into her arms, to cling to his strength when hers was at a low point.
“Big tree.” Her fingers somehow found their way to his forearm. “Outside. It fell.” And had only narrowly missed the motor home. She’d grown up in Idaho, but it had been years since she’d been in the mountains during a powerful thunderstorm.
Holden sighed. And then he stood, moved down the stairs by the sound of it and opened the door.
A burst of cold wind and a smattering of raindrops reached Bernadette. She drew the towel from her eyes.
Holden leaned out the door, glancing toward the rear of the motor home. And then he shut the door. “I don’t think anyone’s going anywhere today. Let’s get you back in bed. Take a day to rest, honey. I’ll take care of you.”
He held her elbows, helping her up. He walked backward toward the bedroom, hands still on her arms. He guided her into bed and pulled off her shoes before covering her with blankets. He brought her a small bucket and helped her sip water.
In short, he did everything a partner or spouse was supposed to do for the pregnant woman he loved.
* * *
THE ELEPHANTS WERE IRREGULAR.
They marched when Holden sat in camp and stared at the fallen pine tree that had blocked them in.
They rested when Bernadette sat nearby, chewing her peppermints.
They gathered when lunchtime passed and the service Myrna had called to cut up and remove the downed tree trunk hadn’t shown.
They slept when Devin made them popcorn and while watching Frankie lead a group of riders across the river.
“What was your first marriage like?” Bernadette asked after Frankie disappeared and Devin stomped back inside the motor home.
Holden was tempted to joke and deflect, to try to ease the pressure growing in his chest.
But then Bernadette took his hand. And that connection couldn’t be ignored.
“We were college students,” Holden began slowly. “And then there was an oops. So, we decided to make a go of it for Devin’s sake.” He rubbed his free hand over his chest. “Truthfully, I wasn’t ready for marriage or fatherhood.”
“Why not?” Her skin was soft and warm next to his.
“I was twenty. I barely understood myself much less knew how to open up to someone else and understand them.”
“Poor baby.” Bernadette scoffed.
“Are you...” Holden turned in his camp chair. “Are you mocking me?”
She didn’t wilt under his stare. “You’re still the same proud man who can’t share himself with someone.”
“Doctors don’t vomit in front of anyone.” Holden parroted her words from this morning. “Now who’s proud?”
She tugged her hand tentatively, trying to disengage.
“Oh, no you don’t, honey. Being open with each other isn’t always pretty.”
She frowned. “Doctors aren’t supposed to show any weakness.”
“And neither are sons of millionaires.”
After a moment, she relaxed, giving him a curt nod. “Fair enough. What about fatherhood?”
“It wasn’t on my radar when I was twenty and trying to earn a college degree. After I graduated, all I wanted to do was make money to provide for Devin. And once I made some, I wanted to make more. I wanted to be the hotshot dad he could be proud of, but in doing so I left out the dad part, I guess.”
“That’s when he became an obligation,” she guessed. “Not when you divorced and promised to pay child support.”
“Yes.” He twined his fingers with hers, needing a connection to ease the self-defeat. “Instead of taking a vacation where we could relax and get to know each other, each trip was packed with moments intended to make memories.”
“How are you feeling about that and this new baby?”
He needed a deep breath to loosen up the tightness beneath his rib cage. “There’s a different kind of pressure. The need to be a part of this baby’s life, which would be impossible from the East Coast unless you consider moving to New York.”
“No.” Her tone left no room for negotiation.
Devin came out of the motor home.
Bernadette tried to draw her hand back again. Holden held on.
He wanted to talk in more depth about his role with the baby but not in front of Devin. Despite doing his duty financially, hearing his father admit his mistakes and a desire to correct them might create bad feelings in Devin.
“Have you read all your textbooks, Dr. Monroe?” Bernadette asked Devin in the afternoon. “I notice you flip through rather quickly.”
Devin preened under the title of Doctor. “I’m speed-reading, trying to absorb the gist of the material before I take the class and study the details. But, yes, I’ve read most of the ones I brought.” He sighed. “I hope there’s a bookstore between here and Yellowstone.”
“I hope we get to Yellowstone tonight.” Holden tried not to sound impatient because Bernadette hadn’t said a word about leaving.
Could it be that she was swayed by his nursing skills? He’d bought a packet of instant noodles from Myrna’s store and made broth from it for Bea. He’d encouraged her to frequently sip a sports drink with electrolytes. He’d fed her small amounts of fruit and dry toast. He planned to roast vegetables for her dinner. She hadn’t been sick since morning.
Devin sat down on the other side of Bernadette. “You delivered Laurel’s twins last weekend?” Laurel was Holden’s cousin.
Bernadette nodded.
“What made you decide on that specialty?” It had only been a matter of time before Devin started picking Bernadette’s brain about medicine and medical careers. At least this proved he was getting more comfortable with her.
“At first, I thought I’d treat cancer patients,” Bernadette said slowly. “Then I veered toward being a general practitioner. Honestly, it took me a while to settle into OB/GYN.”
“Cancer fascinates me.” Devin leaned forward.
“Dev has been saying he’s going to find a cure for cancer for the past three years,” Holden said, adding dutifully, “If he believes it, I believe it.” No one could say Holden wasn’t a supportive dad.
“Why didn’t you pursue your first area of study?” Dev stared raptly at Bernadette.
Bernadette’s grip tightened on Holden’s. “As you’ll learn, many in the medical profession are motivated to choose a discipline by the loss of a loved one. For me, it was cancer stealing my father from me. Prostate cancer. It took him when I was still pre-med. But during my resident rotation, I discovered something about myself.”
“What’s that?” Devin whispered, as if as caught up in Bernadette’s story as Holden was.
“I become attached to my patients,” she said in a voice that shook. “It’s an honor to help them fight disease, but when it was cancer that I was losing to, it was like losing my dad all over again.”
Holden covered their joined hands with his other one.
“Cancer sucks.” Devin said what they were probably all feeling.
“Devin,” Bernadette said in a stronger voice, “if you want to find a cure, you’ll be dealing with lab animals and in later trials, you’ll be giving some cancer patients placebos while others receive your experimental treatment. In any case, you’ll experience loss. Lab animals. Patients. Do you understand?”
To Holden’s knowledge, no one had ever talked to Devin in such terms before.
Devin swal
lowed. “I know. I mean, I know, but I didn’t really think about it like that.”
“It’s fine to enter school with a goal of eradicating disease or planning to treat a certain segment of sick people. But you need to make a final decision on a career path years later based on what makes you happy every day and what keeps you looking forward to seeing patients every day.”
Devin nodded, staring toward the river.
They all fell silent.
“Or you can go into plastic surgery,” Bernadette deadpanned. “I hear the money’s good.”
That joke and a squirrel that leaped onto the picnic table broke the somber mood.
Bernadette grinned, unwrapping a mint. “I should hike up to Recline Point in case there’s been an offer for my practice.”
Holden nearly fell out of his chair. “You should rest.”
“I was plenty active yesterday and—”
“Look what happened.” He handed her the glass of water that was on the picnic table. “You got tired out and dehydrated. Rest.”
“I can rest, but I need to eat something other than burgers or tacos.”
Devin laughed. “You and Dad make quite the couple. This is how you’ll be in old age. Sitting around waiting for something to happen.”
“Likely waiting for the busy Dr. Monroe to visit us,” Holden said teasingly.
“I should be knitting,” Bernadette said half-heartedly.
Holden stood. “I’ll get it for you.”
“Don’t.” Her delicate fingers circled his wrist, giving him a light squeeze. “I should knit, but I don’t want to.” She removed her hand all too soon.
Holden gave her a smile, trying to keep the moment light. “Ah. Guilt-crafting. I’ve heard of it but never seen it in real life.”
Devin wasn’t on the same page. “If you don’t like to knit, why do it?”
“Sometimes you do things for your kids because you’re supposed to.” She shrugged.
“Like taking your kid to a birthday party at one of those indoor playgrounds where you can’t hear yourself think.”
Caught by the Cowboy Dad Page 10
