“Of course you do, dear,” Bertie said. “What is your professional opinion? Obviously Reed is missing a wonderful opportunity with Camryn.”
“I don’t know that, Mom. I’ve never met her. And even if I had, my opinion of her isn’t what matters. I’ve seen bad marriages get better and good marriages fall apart. But I do know this. No one should pressure Reed about this. This is his life, his decision. Also, Camryn lives here a few hundred yards from Reed. That’s not going to change, is it? No one is going anywhere soon, right?”
Reed felt his face flush. Someone might be leaving. He had tried not to think about that for days now. But it was a possibility that still loomed large in his life. What if Camryn pulled stakes and went back to Charleston?
“So you’re saying, give it time?” Bertie suggested.
“Exactly. I want to see my brother happily married as much as you do, but no one can make that decision for him. And no one should try to influence him.”
Reed let out the breath he’d been holding. “Thanks, Pen.”
“But for now let me just say, I’m starving, and there are presents under the tree, and the boys have knocked twice on the camper door. So I think we should let them in and have a little Christmas.”
“Excellent idea,” Reed said. He opened the door. “Come in, boys. Grandma has made a great breakfast, and we’re going to tear this wrapping paper to shreds.”
He shook his head as his sons dashed by him. Thank goodness he sounded happy. He wanted the day to be perfect, and he would do his best to make it so. But now he knew that as far as he was concerned, his Christmas was just another day he would question his decision about Camryn, and another day he would wonder about what she was going to do.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
REED HADN’T EXAGGERATED when he’d told Camryn that a cold front was moving into South Carolina. A week after she returned from Charleston, the temperature started to drop, and it hadn’t stopped yet, another week later. “The Carolina Ice Age” was the term the news channels were using to describe the rare and unpleasant phenomenon. Thank heavens the sun came out for enough time every day for Cam to get to her chicken coops to feed, collect eggs and check the heaters she’d invested in.
The goats, sporting an extra layer of fur provided by Mother Nature, spent most of their time in the barn, sharing stalls with Reed’s two horses, who didn’t mind wearing the heavy woolen blankets Reed provided. Rooster became almost entirely an indoor dog, only running outside to take care of business and coming right back in. He spent his days curled in front of the fireplace, earning extra attention from Camryn who envied his patience and practicality.
Reed came over daily to feed and care for his horses. Construction on his barn had stopped abruptly when the cold temperatures made working outside not only uncomfortable but dangerous. Usually Reed stopped at the house after his chores, had a cup of coffee with Camryn and reminded her that the “third trimester was an exciting time for her.” She could now look forward to the birth of a healthy baby.
Camryn appreciated Reed’s encouragement though she still regretted that his interest in the birth wouldn’t be a shared event. Even knowing he wasn’t going to resume a relationship with her, she cherished her time with Reed. She still hadn’t made up her mind about the offer from Agri-Crops, but the longer she delayed making the decision, the more she expected she would stay right where she was. She and Reed would never have the relationship she’d dreamed about, but having him as a friend was a blessing.
Of course the possibility existed that he might meet someone, fall in love and marry. There must be a woman in close proximity that fulfilled his dreams for his future, one who either did not have children or didn’t plan to. If that happened, and if Agri-Crops still wanted her land, well, she could always pack up and leave at that point. Living next to Reed and his new bride would be too much for her to adapt to.
On one particularly freezing afternoon, Camryn drove her truck down the lane to meet the school bus. The weathermen had warned listeners to stay inside, and she didn’t want Esther to have to endure the weather even for the short walk up to the house.
“What are we going to do tonight, Mommy?” Esther asked when she climbed into the truck. “We’ve had the paint for the baby’s room for a long time. I think we should paint it now. We don’t want our baby to think we weren’t expecting him.”
“Him?” Camryn said. “Are you very sure about that, Essie?”
“No, but I think I can get along with a boy if we have one.”
“Good to know.” Camryn hadn’t asked the gender of the baby, but her instincts told her she was carrying another girl. “It’s probably a very wise idea to paint,” she said. “Plus, we can start assembling the crib together and putting away the baby clothes we’ve purchased.” Fighting her irrational superstition, Camryn had refused to make preparations for the baby until she knew the future looked bright. Now, as Reed said, “the third trimester was an exciting time,” and she could relax. She hadn’t had even the hint of a panic attack in several weeks.
So Camryn and Esther spent this very cold Friday night painting and organizing while Rooster stretched along the threshold of the baby’s room, his eyes alert to every movement. Every once in a while Camryn went over to the mutt and scratched his ears. “You are such a good protector,” she said. “We are lucky to have you.”
“Rooster is the best,” Esther said, giving the animal a hug. “Do you think the baby will like him?”
“Well, you like Rooster, right?” Camryn said.
“I love Rooster.”
“And you will be the big sister. The baby will probably do everything you do because he or she will think you are the cleverest, smartest sister in the world. So, yes, the baby will love Rooster.”
That night Camryn extinguished the fire in the fireplace, bundled Esther into a warm bed and spent some quiet time looking out her living room window. Holding a mug of hot tea, she watched snowflakes swirl to the ground. Ice hung from tree branches, turning her yard into a crystal wonderland, beautiful to look at, yet frightening somehow at the same time.
The cold snap was predicted to abate in the next couple of days. The wonderland would disappear and work could continue, the work of raising chickens and building barns. Camryn shivered when she heard a loud crack outside the window. A tree limb, heavy with ice, snapped from the trunk of an old live oak tree and crashed to the ground.
“Wow, that was close,” Camryn said. “I hope we don’t have a branch come through our roof.”
Thinking she would stay alert for a bit longer, Camryn sat on the sofa and picked up a book. After an hour she drifted off to sleep.
And then, in the middle of the cold dark night, everything in Camryn’s world came crashing down just like that tree branch had.
It might have been two o’clock or maybe three. But Camryn was too startled to even look at a clock. She jerked awake when Rooster began growling. At first the dog’s sound was a low, menacing grumble. Just a flash of his pointed teeth showed in the dim light from an end table lamp.
“What’s wrong, Rooster?” Camryn said. “Is someone outside?”
The dog leaped up from the rug in front of the dead embers in the fireplace. In two bounds of his long, gangly legs he ran into the kitchen, stopping at the locked back door. He stood there, his breath coming in short, ragged gasps, his ears raised, his tail pointed.
Camryn hugged her heavy robe close around her and walked to the back door. At least Rooster had stopped growling, but he was definitely trying to convey a message with a repeated whine that alarmed her. “Do you need to go out?” Camryn asked. “It’s so cold out there. Maybe you can hold it until morning.”
Rooster jumped at the door. His front legs pressed against the wood panel, his head was equal with the window at the top. His breath fogged the pane of glass. He continued to whine, ending his show of disco
mfort with another low, raspy growl.
“Okay, okay, I get it,” Camryn said, staring out the window and looking all around her yard. “I’ll unlock the door for you, but I’m not going out. Just run around quickly, do your thing and come right back in.”
She opened the door and Rooster raced outside with a speed and intensity she’d never seen from him before. He didn’t stop to sniff. He was a blur of tan-and-gray hair heading straight for the chicken coop. If he’d been on a launch pad, Camryn figured he’d be flying into the stars by now.
“No, Rooster! Come back.” She clapped her hands, usually a sure doggy sign that Rooster had better stop what he was doing and alter course immediately. He ignored the signal.
“Blast it all,” she said, lifting the heavy collar of her robe and burrowing her head deep inside the soft fleece. She stepped outside, peering into the darkness. The cold stung her cheeks and made her eyes water instantly. In the dark shadows she saw motion. Rooster, yes, but there was more. Several creatures she couldn’t identify raced madly through her chicken-feeding ground.
The next noises penetrated the cold as the confusion and blur of activity continued just yards away. Rooster barked madly and the chickens squawked. Horrible, brain-tingling sounds. And above it all, the terrifying grunts and pants of creatures whose sole purpose was to destroy.
Her heart began to pound. She tried to draw a breath through the icy air, but each attempt to fill her lungs was like a dozen tiny pinpricks in her chest. She tried to holler, but no sound came out. All she could do was run, not toward the house and her open kitchen door, but to the chicken coop and her beloved dog.
There was nothing to grab in the way of protection for her and Rooster. A light dusting of snow covered the ground, obliterating everything but the mayhem. So Camryn waved her arms, drew strength from somewhere deep inside and yelled at last. She screamed, not recognizing the sounds coming from her own throat.
She almost stumbled, and realized, in one agonizing moment that would stay with her forever, that she’d been about to lose her footing over the prone body of Rooster. The night sky provided little light, but she could see the carcasses of many chickens strewn about the yard in pools of blood. And facing her with only more dire intent in their small, hooded eyes were three animals that looked almost like pigs but were rougher, wilder and meaner than anything in a barnyard. What they were doing might have been a matter of survival to them, but they were pure evil to Camryn.
She waved her arms again, tried to cry out but the only sounds she made were those of grief and agony. And the creatures came toward her as if they’d only just realized that new, meatier prey had entered the scene. “Back. Go away!” she screamed. They continued advancing.
“Mommy, where are you?”
Her daughter’s voice shook Camryn into awareness. She glanced toward the kitchen door. There, framed in the light, was Esther. And she was coming outside.
“No, Esther, don’t come out here!” Camryn cried. She turned toward the house but had no idea if she would get there before Esther became a potential target. “Go inside, now!”
“But, Mommy...”
“Don’t argue. For God’s sake, Es, do as I tell you.”
Camryn’s warning mingled with her desperate cries. Were all her newfound dreams, and Esther’s, too, to end this way, at the mercy of scavenging animals?
And then a loud shotgun blast cracked through the awful stillness of that cold and dark night. The pigs turned away from Camryn and rooted among the bodies of her chickens. Another shotgun blast, and they bounded out of the damaged coop to a nearby field. Each animal had the body of a hen in its jaws.
Esther began crying. Camryn went to her knees and opened her arms for Esther to find shelter there. They both trembled with cold and shock. Please don’t let my daughter see what has happened here, Camryn prayed into the icy night.
Moments later she felt a comforting hand on her shoulder. Reed stood beside her, his breath quick, harsh gasps through the wind whipping around them. There was a shotgun in the crook of his arm.
* * *
“CAMRYN, THEY’RE GONE,” Reed said. “The shotgun scared them off.”
Only tiny, pitiful sounds came from her mouth, sounds that made him think her heart had been torn out of her chest. Her arms were so tight around Esther that he wondered how the child could breathe.
“Come with me,” he said. “Let me take you and Esther into the house. You’ll freeze out here.” He reached for her arms to help lift her, but she shrugged him off violently.
She said something, a two-syllable word he didn’t understand at first. So he bent down closer to her lips.
“Rooster... Rooster,” she said, while shielding Esther’s ears with her hands.
“Where is Rooster?” Reed asked.
Her eyes darted to the scene of the chaos. “I think he’s...” She couldn’t finish the sentence.
“I’ll check on him,” Reed said. “Let me get you both in the house first.”
She nodded, aware that Esther wasn’t dressed for this weather. He gripped her upper arms and helped her rise. She kept Esther close to her chest, bundled in the robe that was keeping both of them as warm as possible.
Esther buried her face against her mother’s breast. She asked questions with a frightened, trembling voice.
Reed started to walk them back to the house, and suddenly Camryn’s knees collapsed. She would have gone down, but he stopped her from falling. Without asking, he took Esther from Camryn’s arms and carried her quickly to the door.
When he returned, Camryn was clutching her stomach. “The pain. Oh, Reed, it hurts.”
He scooped Camryn into his arms and raced to the house. “You’ll be okay, Cam,” he kept saying though he had no idea if it was true.
“What were those animals?” she said.
“Wild boars,” he answered. “They’re not uncommon around here, but they rarely venture into populated areas. I suppose the cold made them come this far in search of food.”
She sobbed loudly as Reed carried her over the threshold. Esther was sobbing now, asking relentlessly if her mommy was okay. He got her to a chair and tried to get Camryn to sit, as well.
“No, I can’t. Lie down.” Her words faltered.
He took her to the living room and reclined her on the sofa. “The boars didn’t get to you, did they?”
“No, but they were coming. If you hadn’t...”
“Shh.” He smoothed her wild, windblown hair from her forehead. “But I did.” He saw her wince. “Tell me where it hurts.”
“It’s the baby,” she said. “I’ve hurt the baby.”
Next to the sofa, Esther wailed. “What’s happened to our baby?”
“We don’t know anything yet, sweetie,” Reed said. “Probably your baby will be fine.” He smiled at her and she calmed. “Go to your room and get some clothes on. You’re going over to my house.”
“Where is Mommy going?”
“To the hospital,” Reed said. “The doctors need to check her out and tell us everything is fine.”
“You’re a doctor,” Esther said.
“Not the kind we need, honey. Now please go and get dressed. I’ll call Miss Bertie to come stay with you.”
Esther stood defiantly. “I’m not leaving my mommy.”
Camryn sucked in a breath, held it a moment. “Do as Reed says, baby. Please.”
“Where is your phone?” Reed asked when Esther had gone to her room. “I forgot to grab mine when I left the house.”
She pointed to the coffee table. Reed dialed 911 and requested an ambulance. “They’ll be here in a few minutes, Cam. Just lie still, try to take long, slow breaths through your nose.”
“I think they’re labor pains,” she said. “It’s too soon, Reed. I can’t have the baby tonight.”
“We’ll let that b
aby and the doctors decide. I’ll stay right here until they arrive.”
“No! Outside. You have to see to Rooster. I think they killed him. He did all he could to protect us.”
Torn by two responsibilities, Reed decided he might best be able to help if he checked on the dog. The last thing he wanted to do was cause more stress for Camryn, and this was what she wanted. He unlocked the front door so the EMTs could get in the house. “I’ll be outside,” he said, taking her hand. “Try to relax. I know that seems impossible, but try, okay?”
“Let me know about Rooster.”
“Of course. As soon as I reach my mother, drop Esther with her and the boys, and do what I can for Rooster, I’ll come to the hospital. You just think about a healthy baby being born in a couple of months.”
She smiled through trembling lips. “Thank you.”
“That’s what I’m here for...whatever you need, even if it means scaring off a pack of wild pigs.” He went to the hallway and hollered to Esther. “I’ll be outside, sweetie. You stay here with Mommy.” Then he went out the back door, grabbed the shotgun from where he’d dropped it in the yard and hoped he could save a dog.
* * *
DAWN WAS LIGHTING the morning sky when Reed finally got in his vehicle to drive to the hospital. He wasn’t tired. His senses were too alert, his mind too focused on the tasks ahead this day. After making certain the ambulance arrived, he’d bundled up Rooster and carried him to his clinic across the field. No words could express the gratitude Reed had felt when he found a pulse in the dog’s neck.
And thank goodness for his mother. She was already at his house when the ambulance driver had dropped Esther off, a favor Reed had shouted to the young medic who’d no doubt defied protocol by taking the short detour. Reed had talked to his mom this morning, and she assured him that all was well, though Esther was worried and fretting.
Reed had worked on Rooster for three hours. The dog had severe lacerations in his neck and abdomen. If he’d lost much more blood there would have been no chance of saving him. Now sedated, Rooster showed all positive signs of coming back from the attack. Reed called the hospital and learned that Camryn was in satisfactory condition and she had not given birth yet. Then he called the feedstore to ask Becky if her son could come and stay at the clinic while he went to the hospital.
Baby Makes Four Page 18
