by Brenda Novak
“Have you ever met Stephen Armstrong?” he asked.
“Who?”
“My uncle.”
“I told you I don’t know anything about your uncles. Where would I meet this Stephen? And what does he have to do with anything?”
“That’s what I want to know. And I’m wondering why Delaney didn’t tell me about the cancer.” He remembered her saying “Would you want to be a virgin at thirty?” That was the line that had finally hooked him. But she could’ve said “I have only a year to live” just as easily.
“Telling someone you’re dying is hardly an aphrodisiac,” Rebecca pointed out. “Besides, she didn’t want you to do it out of pity.”
She seemed to have an answer for everything. “So you’re not making this up,” he said.
“Why would I do that?”
Conner couldn’t imagine. He thought again of his uncles, but either he’d underestimated Rebecca’s lying ability or she really didn’t know them.
They sat in silence for a few minutes, Conner torn between sadness and raging doubt. Then Rebecca started the car.
“Well, I have to get back or my hair’s gonna be fried.”
“That doesn’t make you sound as though you’re very worried about your friend,” he said.
“I’ve had longer to adjust.”
“I’m going to the library. I want to see her.”
She shook her head adamantly. “No, the doctors wouldn’t like that. Any kind of upset could take years off her life.”
“I thought she only had a year.”
“I mean months. It could take months off her life.”
“But I wouldn’t upset her.”
“There’s no reason to risk it,” she said. “What do you want with her, anyway?”
“Maybe I want a second date. Maybe I’m not a love-’em-and-leave-’em kind of guy.”
She rolled her eyes. “You are totally a love-’em-and-leave-’em kind of guy.”
Was it that obvious? “Okay, maybe I haven’t been Mr. Commitment in the past. But I’d really like to get to know Delaney. She was…different.”
“Why would you want to get to know someone who’s dying in a few months? What’s the point?”
Conner arched a brow at her. “What’s the point? How unfeeling is that?”
“It’s practical,” she said. “Practical is my nature.”
“And it’s my nature to support my friends through crises such as cancer.”
“Right.” She sounded even less persuaded by his excuses than he was by hers. “Well, Laney’s got lots of friends.” She turned onto the highway. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m sorry you probably had to drive quite a distance to find her. And I can’t believe she gave away enough details that you could find her,” she added under her breath. “But Boise wasn’t supposed to be a forever kind of thing, you know?”
“It’s not like I signed a no-contact clause,” he muttered.
“Stalking is sort of an unstated taboo.”
“I’m not stalking her!”
“Then, go back to wherever you live and leave her alone. She wants to spend her last days with the people she already loves, and you need to respect that.”
With an exaggerated sigh, Conner turned up his palms in surrender. “Okay, I’ll keep my distance,” he said. “I’m no stalker. But in a town this size, we’re bound to run into each other eventually.”
She lowered the volume on the tape deck. “Why?”
“Because I live here now.”
“Oh God,” she said, and Conner had to grab the wheel before she ran them off the road.
* * *
“WHY DO YOU keep staring at me?” Delaney asked, looking up from the pregnancy book she was reading in her recliner.
Rebecca returned her attention to the television program she’d been watching from the couch. “I’m not staring at you.”
Delaney went back to reading, but soon felt her friend’s gaze on her again. “What is it?” she asked impatiently.
“Nothing,” Rebecca said. “I was just wondering when you were going for your first doctor’s appointment.”
“Not for another ten days or so.”
“Oh. Right.” She nodded, then asked, “How have you been feeling?”
“Good.” Physically, anyway. “Why?”
Rebecca grimaced. “No reason. Just checking.”
Prickles swept up Delaney’s spine. Rebecca wasn’t acting like herself. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Something happen at work today?”
“What makes you think something happened at work? Did one of the other stylists call? Katie or someone?”
“I haven’t heard from anyone. You just seem…I don’t know…edgy.”
“If I’m edgy it’s only because I haven’t had a cigarette since I got home.” Rebecca flipped off the television, scooped her pack of Camels and her lighter off the coffee table and headed for the back porch, where she always did her smoking in deference to Delaney and the owner of the house, who’d asked her not to smoke inside. Now that Delaney was pregnant, she was doubly cautious about not smoking in her presence.
But Delaney doubted that one trip outside with Rebecca would hurt the baby. She grabbed their parkas from the pegs that lined the small, old-fashioned mudroom and followed her onto the porch. “Did you and Buddy have a fight?” she pressed.
“No.” Rebecca slipped into the coat Delaney handed her and shook a cigarette out of her pack.
“So what’s wrong?”
Her lighter momentarily illuminated her face, which bore a rather pensive expression. “What do you know about Clive Armstrong’s grandson?” she asked, sitting on the top step of the porch and holding her cigarette away from Delaney.
“Nothing, really. Have you met him?” Delaney donned her coat, then stared out over the leafless trees, buried stumps and snow-covered fence the moonlight revealed in their small backyard. Spring was going to be late this year. The weather was still snowy and cold, although it was nearing the end of March.
Rebecca paused. “No,” she said at last.
Delaney shoved her hands in her pockets for warmth. “Then, why did you bring him up?”
Rebecca’s cigarette glowed eerily in the darkness. “You sent him that pie. I was just wondering if he ever responded.”
“No.”
“Good.” Rebecca turned her head and blew out a stream of smoke. “No one knows about the baby, right?”
“Just Aunt Millie and Uncle Ralph. I told them last week.”
Rebecca looked stricken. “You did?”
Delaney nodded.
“Why didn’t you mention it?”
“I don’t know. I guess I didn’t want to relive the experience.” She’d simply pushed that painful confrontation to the back of her mind and tried to concentrate on the more immediate problem of a job.
“So how’d it go?” Rebecca asked.
Delaney shrugged. “Pretty much as I’d expected.”
“That bad, huh?”
“They’re still not talking to me. Millie called once, but only to tell me not to let word of the baby get out. She’s afraid the city will fire me instead of putting me on half pay, and I won’t be able to find another job.”
“This is the twenty-first century, for crying out loud,” Rebecca said. “The city isn’t going to fire you. Having an illegitimate baby has nothing to do with how well you perform your job.”
“We live in a small town,” Delaney reminded her. “Getting fired over something like this is a very real possibility.”
“But you were a virgin, for Pete’s sake! They can’t fry you for making one mistake.”
Delaney felt she could certainly argue that point, but a tug of apprehension led her thoughts in a different direction. “How did you know?” she asked.
Rebecca scowled at her. “How’d I know what?”
“That I was a virgin.”
Her friend gazed off into space, her strange reaction, as much as the way she’d been behaving
all night, telling Delaney that something significant was wrong. “What’s going on with you?” she demanded. “How’d you know I was a virgin?”
More silence.
The telephone rang, and Rebecca got to her feet and tossed her cigarette onto the cement steps, then ground it out. “There’s Buddy,” she said. “Thank God.”
But Delaney grabbed her by the arm before she could disappear into the house. “Call him back,” she said. “Something’s going on, and I want to know what it is.”
Rebecca surprised Delaney by not arguing. “I have bad news,” she said simply, turning to face her.
“I’m getting used to bad news.”
“I mean, this is really bad news.”
How could anything be worse than what had happened already? “What is it?” Delaney asked.
“Remember Conner?”
Delaney gave her a “get real” look. “Of course I remember Conner. He’s only the father of my baby.”
“Well…”
An expression crossed Rebecca’s face that said this was definitely going to hurt, and Delaney sucked in a breath to brace herself.
“He’s here,” she said.
“He’s where?”
“In Dundee, at the Running Y Ranch.”
Delaney grabbed the railing to steady herself. “He’s what?”
“You heard me.”
“What’s he doing there?”
“He’s Clive Armstrong’s grandson.”
The blood rushed to Delaney’s head, and she bent over to combat the sudden dizziness so she wouldn’t pass out. “Conner’s the snot-nosed brat Roy mentioned?”
“One and the same.”
Closing her eyes, Delaney shook her head, trying to make some sense of the cataclysmic events of the past six weeks. One mistake and the rest of her life was falling down like dominoes…. “And you weren’t going to let me know?” she said.
“I didn’t want you running over there to tell him about the baby. You heard what Roy said that day he came for the pie. He said Conner won’t last. That he’s no good. He’ll probably head back to California before you even start to show.” She squeezed Delaney’s hand. “I think you should keep your mouth shut and just let him go.”
Delaney didn’t know what to think. She felt as though she’d just been leveled by a two-by-four. “Where did you see him?”
“At the beauty shop.”
“Did he see you?”
Rebecca raised her eyebrows. “He recognized me right away. But don’t worry. I don’t think he’ll bother you.”
“Why not?”
“I told him you need your privacy because you’re dying of cancer.”
“You what?”
“I needed to come up with something,” she said, a defensive note creeping into her voice. “He was angry about all the lies you already told him and was going straight to the library to confront you.”
“So you told him I’ve got cancer?”
“Yeah.”
“How long did you give me to live?”
“A year.”
“Great,” Delaney said. “Now the whole town can start planning my funeral. That should solve everything.”
CHAPTER NINE
WHAT IF DELANEY did have cancer? Conner wondered, scanning both sides of the road as he rumbled into town in the old pickup he drove everywhere. Then he’d feel terrible—worse than terrible—for not treating the situation with the proper gravity. But no matter how hard he tried to believe Rebecca, he just couldn’t convince himself that the woman he’d held in his arms was only months away from the end of her life. Delaney had seemed nervous, yes, but she’d also seemed healthy, passionate and unencumbered by anything so emotionally devastating.
Still, what better explanation did he have for all the lies? When he’d spoken to Stephen last night and mentioned meeting Delaney Lawson, the name hadn’t evoked any response. He’d even called Dwight and Jonathan and received similar reactions from both of them. He highly doubted the three Super Egos would miss the chance to taunt him about falling so neatly into their trap, even if it hadn’t achieved the results they were hoping for. Which led him to believe that his uncles weren’t involved. But if they weren’t involved, something else had to account for Delaney’s and Rebecca’s strange behavior. And the thought of what that “something else” might be made him uneasy.
She could’ve been doing exactly what she’d said—dispensing with her virginity. Or she could’ve heard from someone at the ranch that he was coming to town, that Roy was picking him up at the Bellemont, and purposely intercepted him. Since Delaney lived in Dundee, she knew his grandfather had money, and would probably assume he did, too.
He frowned, remembering their conversation in the bar, when he’d mentioned birth control. “You don’t have to worry about that,” she’d said. And they hadn’t. But what if…
That was crazy, he decided, slinging an arm over the steering wheel as he drove. If she’d purposely gotten herself pregnant in hopes of coming after him for money, why hadn’t she contacted him by now?
He let his breath go in a long sigh. Maybe he didn’t want to know what Delaney Lawson was all about. Maybe he’d be better off heading back to the ranch and minding his own business.
But he didn’t turn around. The library was on his right, and an old Volvo still sat in the lot.
He pulled into the alley that ran along the back of the building and parked where he could watch the front door. Then he cranked the heater and folded his arms to wait. If she didn’t come out in the next ten minutes, he’d go home and let the future take care of itself. But one minute ticked on to the next, and he was still there after half an hour.
Did he want to go in? Would he be sorry if he did?
Sitting in the cold certainly wasn’t doing him any good.
He got out and slammed the truck door, then walked through the patchy snow to the entrance. A placard in the window said the library closed at eight on Wednesdays, which was nearly two hours ago. But when he tried the door, he found it unlocked.
* * *
THE LIBRARY HAD ALWAYS BEEN Delaney’s safe haven, even when she was a child, and it still was. Between Aunt Millie muttering “What’s this world coming to?” and “Just when you thought you knew someone,” and Uncle Ralph closing himself in his bedroom until she left, she couldn’t visit her childhood home. With Rebecca insisting she shouldn’t tell Conner about the baby, that he’d probably leave town, anyway—haranguing her on the subject—she didn’t feel like going back to her own house, either. And then there was her fear of running into him before she could decide what to do. With all of that, she’d rather just stay at work. She wanted to hide out in the peace and quiet of the library for the rest of her pregnancy. Especially now that Mrs. Minike, her most devoted volunteer, had gone home.
Stretching out on the floor in one of the wider aisles, she turned to the books she’d piled next to her, hoping to distract herself from her worries, if for only a few minutes. She’d been so overwhelmed by the negative consequences of what she’d done, she’d scarcely had time to consider the positive—the fact that she was actually going to have a baby.
She gazed down at the cover of Your Pregnancy Week by Week, entranced by the photograph of a fetus in its mother’s womb. What a miracle! She traced the baby’s tiny fingers and toes, marveling at the absolute perfection.
Page One started from the beginning and showed a picture of a sperm penetrating an egg.
One Month: What’s happening
This week—or sometime soon—the momentous meeting takes place: the sperm breaks through the egg and fertilization occurs. A baby is in the making!
That had already happened to her. She thumbed ahead to see what was coming next and couldn’t help smiling at the words and illustrations. The fetus grew fingernails during week eleven, kicked for the first time in week nineteen and could laugh at three months—
“Hello? Anyone here? Delaney?”
Quickly shoving he
r books beneath a nearby cart, Delaney sprang to her feet, her heart beating wildly. She knew that voice. It had been over six weeks since she’d heard Conner speak, but she would’ve recognized his baritone anywhere.
“The library closed at eight,” she called, to buy herself a few precious seconds. What was she going to do? What was she going to say? She double-checked to make sure the books she’d been reading were well out of sight, then hovered there in indecision.
“Delaney? Can I talk to you? It’s Conner Armstrong.”
Biting her lip, she forced herself to start toward the front desk. She had no choice. She had to deal with this situation, and she had to do it now.
When she emerged from the stacks and saw him standing there, wearing a heavy coat, jeans and boots, she felt apprehension—and a sudden, undeniable excitement. That excitement seemed to bubble up from the part of her that didn’t know this sudden appearance was a catastrophe, the part of her that clung to the memories of their time together and knew it had been special.
He looked good. Better than ever. Somehow, just seeing him evoked every wicked sensation she’d experienced at his hands. But he wasn’t smiling. Suspicion marked his features, making him seem more like the Conner she’d spoken to at the bar than the one she’d known in his room.
“Rebecca told me you were in town,” she said.
“I thought she might, although I’m sure that came as no surprise to you.”
“I’m sorry?”
“The fact that I’m here in Dundee, that I live at the ranch. That couldn’t have been a surprise. You knew I was Clive Armstrong’s grandson, right? That’s why you intercepted me in Boise, why you never asked anything about me.”
She’d picked him up because, in that setting, he was the obvious choice, and she hadn’t asked anything about him because she hadn’t wanted to know. She’d been afraid that knowing him would make him too hard to forget, and she was right. She might not have heard his hopes and dreams, where he came from or where he was going. But she’d learned other details that were just as significant—how he liked to be touched; the tenderness and caring he hid behind a façade of indifference, the security he offered when he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close while he slept.
