Grace shook her head. “Come on, Cliff—I don’t believe that. Ask Charlotte to recommend someone. She knows just about everyone in town and once you’ve met a few other women, you can decide if you still feel the same way.”
His frown was back in place. “You’re not the jealous type, I take it?”
A year earlier her response would have been automatic. There wasn’t a jealous bone in her body, she would’ve said. She couldn’t say that any longer. Until a few months ago, she hadn’t viewed herself as possessive. Then she’d learned that Dan had been seen with another woman. Afterward she’d been filled with such rage that she’d torn the bedroom apart and dumped his entire half of the closet outside. Dan’s clothes had been strewn across the front porch and the yard.
“I don’t know about that,” she told him. “I think most people are capable of jealousy. Anyway, I want you to promise me you’ll at least consider meeting other women. It’ll be good for you, Cliff.” Good for her, too, perhaps.
He walked over to the middle of the large gazebo, stood there a moment, then purposefully strolled back. “Okay. I considered it.”
Grace laughed, shaking her head. “You’re not taking me seriously.”
“Oh, but I am.” Cliff sat down on the bench beside her. “I don’t want to see any other woman, Grace. I’ll wait for you. Like I told you before, I’m a patient man. Don’t worry, I’m not going to pressure you, but I might give you a gentle reminder every now and then.”
Grace didn’t know why he remained persistent. She hadn’t given him any encouragement. And so far, she’d been the only one to benefit from this relationship—she and her garage door.
“I’d like to show you my place someday,” Cliff said. “You and Charlotte can both come. In fact, I’d enjoy it if you would. It’d be completely non-threatening,” he said with a grin. “You can even bring Buttercup if you want.”
Grace thought about it. She’d formed an image of his home, and she was curious to find out if the reality matched her expectations. She nodded. “I’d enjoy a tour,” she said.
“When you’re ready to learn how to ride, Brownie’s the one who’ll teach you everything you need to know. She’s gentle as the day is long, and she’s the perfect horse for a beginner.”
“She’s agreeable to that, is she?”
“Sure is.” Cliff’s eyes danced. “So, should I schedule an outing this month?”
December was usually crowded with engagements, but in her current frame of mind, Grace wasn’t in the mood to socialize. The prospect of visiting Cliff’s ranch strongly appealed to her.
“I’m free on Saturday afternoon, if Charlotte is.”
Cliff looked pleased. “I’ll find out and get back to you.”
“You meant that, about Buttercup coming along?” Her dog was an important part of her life and Grace liked the idea of the golden retriever accompanying her.
“Of course.”
Cliff reached for her gloved hand, taking it between his own. His eyes met hers, and he smiled. “I keep telling you I’m patient, Grace, and it’s true. I’m willing to wait for what I want.” Then he turned over her hand and kissed the inside of her wrist.
Grace closed her eyes to savor the moment. She wanted this, too. As much as he did—maybe more—but first she had to get Dan out of her head. And out of her heart. Because, despite everything, he still claimed a piece of it.
Maryellen didn’t need the pregnancy test kit to tell her what she already knew. Sitting on the edge of her bathtub, she stared at the little blue stick and felt the numbness spread into her arms and legs. It’d been nearly a month now, and she’d done her best to ignore what was becoming increasingly obvious.
Striking her forehead with the heel of her hand, she closed her eyes. “Stupid, stupid, stupid.”
Panic grew inside her until she was sure she was going to faint. Regaining control of her emotions required a monumental effort.
When she could manage it, she stood and studied her reflection in the bathroom mirror. How pale she was. That explained a comment she’d received earlier in the day. A longtime customer had stopped by the gallery, taken a hard look at Maryellen and asked if she’d had the flu.
A bad case of the flu would’ve been welcome, compared to confronting the truth of her situation.
What should she do? The question rolled around in her mind like a marble inside a tin can. Difficult as it was, she tried for a while to pretend that nothing was wrong. But after heating a frozen entrée in the microwave, she sat at the kitchen table and sorted through her emotions.
One thing was clear. She wasn’t telling Jon Bowman. He was completely out of the picture as far as she was concerned. There was no reason to tell him. No reason to see him. Jon’s work was now being represented elsewhere. He need never know about the pregnancy until after the baby was born, and then he’d no doubt assume some other man was the father. That was exactly what Maryellen wanted.
The thought that perhaps he had a right to know wasn’t something she could accept at the moment. The thought that perhaps he, too, had a responsibility toward this baby—no. She rejected the idea without further consideration.
Another concern arose: the necessity of keeping this news a secret from her friends and family for as long as possible. A year earlier when Kelly was pregnant, her sister had barely showed. Even in her seventh month, Kelly had worn her everyday clothes. Maryellen hoped she might be able to hide her condition until then, as well. She’d wear loose dresses and make a point of staying away from formfitting business attire. Hiding her pregnancy would be a challenge but she’d do it while she could.
She needed to make room in her life for the baby. This unplanned pregnancy was a shock but she’d quickly adjusted to it. In a sense, she was getting an opportunity she’d never anticipated. This child, her child, was taking shape within her womb, and for a moment she was almost giddy with joy. Then reality hit.
In less than eight months she’d be a mother. Life was giving her a second chance, and this time she wasn’t going to repeat the mistakes of the past. This time she wouldn’t allow a man to dictate her life—and that of her child.
Overwhelmed by emotion and full of half-formed plans, Maryellen found that sitting at home held little appeal. The Christmas shopping season was in full swing, and if ever there was a night she needed gaiety and fun, it was now.
She headed for the shopping complex on Cedar Cove Drive, next to the six-plex theater. The strip mall held several small businesses, a Wal-Mart, a huge craft store and a hardware outlet. The parking lot was nearly full. Maryellen walked toward the cinemas and glanced over the selections offered, but didn’t see any that piqued her interest.
Rummaging around the craft store seemed a far more interesting prospect. It wasn’t until she was walking across the parking lot that she saw Jon, coming in her direction. Instinctively, Maryellen froze. Jon saw her and he, too, stopped in his tracks. Each seemed to be waiting for the other to make the first move.
Maryellen recovered before he did and even managed a smile as she continued toward him. “Merry Christmas, Jon.”
“Hello, Maryellen.” His look was guarded, closed. “Christmas shopping?”
“Browsing.” Her shopping had been finished months earlier.
He merely nodded.
“I understand you’ve taken your photographs into Seattle.” The rumor mill had been quick to inform her that his work was now being displayed in a large Seattle gallery. It was a coup for him and she was pleased to hear it, although the Harbor Street Gallery would miss the money his work generated.
He nodded again.
“Congratulations, Jon.” She genuinely meant that.
“Thank you.”
No need to stand in the middle of a parking lot. “Well, it was nice seeing you.” That was stretching the truth, but it would be impolite to say anything else. She started to walk past him when he stopped her.
“Maryellen.”
“Yes?” She knew s
he sounded impatient.
“About that night.”
She closed her eyes, not wanting to hear it. “Haven’t we already discussed it to death?”
“I didn’t plan what happened.”
“So you said.” She didn’t dare look at him.
“What I’m trying to say is that I didn’t protect you, if you know what I mean.” He shrugged when she failed to respond. “Do you really need me to spell it out?”
“No.” An explanation was the last thing she needed. Not when she knew better than he did exactly what the consequence of that night could be—what, in fact, it was.
“Will you be all right? I mean, is there a possibility that…you know.” His concern was evident in his anxious frown.
She forced a smile. “Don’t worry about it.”
“I am worried.” His eyes clouded. “I need to know—to be sure.”
For one terrifying moment, Maryellen was afraid he’d guessed. “I’m fine, Jon. I appreciate your concern but the situation’s under control.”
His relief was evident as the tension eased from his shoulders. “You’re sure?”
“Positive.”
He held her eyes a second or two longer, then abruptly turned away.
Now Maryellen could finally relax. She expelled her breath and hurried into the Tulips and Things Craft Store.
On Friday, five days before Christmas, Maryellen took her lunch break down at the Pot Belly Deli, which served wonderful soups and inventive sandwiches. The restaurant was a local favorite, and she went there as often as she could. Enjoying a cup of the seafood chowder, Maryellen sat in the corner by herself, reading an art magazine, when her mother stepped inside.
“I thought I saw you in here,” Grace said. “Do you mind if I join you?”
“I’d love it.” Although they lived and worked in the same town, a week would slip past without the chance to talk or visit.
Her mother ordered a bowl of the tomato bisque soup and a cup of coffee, then sat in the chair across from her. “I had a visitor not long ago.”
It didn’t take Maryellen long to guess. “Cliff Harding?”
Blushing, Grace nodded. “He invited me and Buttercup to see his horse ranch. I went out there on Saturday.” She stirred her soup and didn’t look up. “Charlotte was going to come originally, but she wasn’t feeling well, so it was just Cliff, me, Buttercup and the horses. He has magnificent horses.” After a slight pause she continued, adding comments about the home, a two-story log house, and the acreage—pastures, woods and even a stream.
Maryellen couldn’t remember seeing her mother more animated about anything in quite a while. “That sounds wonderful.” It was a step in the right direction that her mother had agreed to this outing with Cliff.
Grace tasted the soup, crumbled a package of oyster crackers and dumped them in. When she glanced up, she stared at Maryellen for a moment, her eyes narrowed. “My goodness, you’re terribly pale,” she said. “Are you feeling sick?”
“I’m pale?” She tried to pretend this was news.
“You look anemic.”
“I’m fine, Mom.”
Her mother studied her, frowning slightly. “I want you to promise me you’ll make a doctor’s appointment.”
“I don’t need to see a doctor,” she said, wanting to laugh off her concern. “The next thing I know, you’ll be lecturing me about eating prunes the way Mrs. Jefferson always does.”
Grace swallowed another mouthful of soup. “If you don’t make the appointment, then I will. I don’t remember ever seeing you this pale. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were pregnant.”
The words shocked Maryellen so badly that she choked on her soup. She coughed and wheezed, tears springing to her eyes, and her mother leapt up and pounded her hard on the back.
“Are you all right?”
Maryellen reached for her water glass and sipped. “I’m fine…I think.”
A minute or more passed, and Maryellen could feel her mother’s scrutiny. When Grace finally spoke, her voice was low. “Your father was always closest to Kelly,” she said. “You were the one I identified with most. We’re quite a bit alike. You realize that, don’t you? My hair was once the exact shade of yours. My eyes are the same dark brown.”
Maryellen didn’t know where this conversation was leading, but she had her suspicions. “You’re my mother,” she said lightly. “Of course I look like you.”
Her mother’s voice fell to a whisper. “I was a senior in high school when I discovered I was pregnant with you.”
Maryellen swallowed hard. The details of her birth hadn’t ever been openly discussed, although she’d figured out in her early teens that her mother had gotten pregnant in high school.
“I told Dan, and we had no idea what we were going to do. It was important that we wait until after graduation before we told our parents, but my mother knew. I never had to tell her about you, and do you know why?”
Maryellen’s eyes filled with tears and she picked up her napkin, crumpling it in her hands. “Because you were so pale?”
Her mother nodded. “I was anemic, too. Young and healthy though I was, the pregnancy drained me and I looked deathly pale. It wasn’t a severe case, just enough for me to need a prescription for iron tablets.” She didn’t say anything else, didn’t press Maryellen or throw questions at her. Instead she waited.
“Then you know,” Maryellen said after a moment, fighting hard not to weep openly in public.
“The father?”
“Out of the picture,” she said, not wanting to mention Jon’s name.
“Oh, Maryellen…”
“I’ll be fine,” she said, putting on a brave front, “really I will. Mom, I’m almost thirty-six years old. I can take care of myself.”
“But…”
“It took some adjusting, but now that I’ve accepted this, I’m happy.” The joy was decidedly absent at the moment with tears making wet tracks down her cheeks.
“We always had this connection, Maryellen,” her mother said. “I knew. Somehow I knew.”
“We didn’t always, Mom.”
Grace looked up at her. “What do you mean?”
“If we had this special connection fifteen years ago, you would’ve known then, too.”
Her mother stared at her with wide, disbelieving eyes.
There, it was out—a piece of the truth that she’d assumed would remain forever buried. Her sin, her pain, the guilt she’d carried with her for all these years.
“You were pregnant before?”
The lump in her throat was so big, she could only answer with a nod.
“Leave it to you to wait until the last minute to put up a tree,” Olivia teased Jack as he took the first package of decorative balls from a shopping bag. Actually, Olivia thought it was rather a sweet gesture on Jack’s part. Eric had briefly moved out but was back, much to Jack’s relief. He’d bought the Christmas tree in an effort to lift his son’s spirits over the holidays and Olivia had agreed to help him decorate it. This had entailed buying lights and decorations, since Jack hadn’t bothered much with Christmas since his divorce.
Eric had grown progressively more depressed at the approach of Christmas. Jack had done what he could to pull his son out of his melancholy but to no avail. Two days before Christmas, he invited Olivia over to decorate a Christmas tree while Eric was out. They hoped the surprise would jolt him into a more cheerful frame of mind.
“I kind of like this pitiful tree,” Jack said, stepping back to examine it. The branches all seemed to be bunched on one side, while the other side was almost bare.
“It’s a Charlie Brown tree for sure.” In Olivia’s opinion, this was the sorriest-looking evergreen in the lot, but she agreed it held a certain appeal. She’d brought some leftover ornaments, along with a CD of Christmas music, and they were in business.
Andy Williams’s voice crooned as a small fire blazed in the fireplace. “So?” Jack asked, rearranging the string of twink
ling white lights. “Are you doing anything special after this?”
“I was thinking I’d let you take me to dinner.”
“The Taco Shack?”
Olivia sighed. Nine times out of ten, that was the restaurant Jack chose. “Do they still owe you for advertising?”
“I can eat there for another twenty years.”
“I was afraid of that.”
Jack hung a plastic gingerbread man on a drooping tree limb. “You like Mexican food, don’t you?”
“Sure—but I enjoy the company more.”
Chuckling, Jack grabbed her around the waist, preparing to kiss her. Olivia certainly wasn’t objecting, but then the door opened and Jack stopped abruptly. He loosened his grip and Olivia nearly fell to the floor, catching herself just in time.
“Eric,” Jack said, sounding startled. “I didn’t expect you for a couple of hours.”
His son walked into the room, looking about as gloomy as a man can get. He didn’t appear to notice that Olivia and Jack had been in the middle of a kiss.
“You picked up the mail?”
Eric nodded.
“What happened?” Olivia asked. The boy seemed to be in shock.
Eric slouched forward and dropped the mail on the coffee table. “I heard from Shelly.”
“She wrote you?” Jack seemed encouraged by this development.
“No…” Eric covered his face with his hands. “She sent me a picture.”
“A picture?” Jack frowned. “Of what?”
“The baby,” Eric supplied. Then he straightened and looked them both full in the face. “Correction, babies. Shelly’s having twins.”
“Twins!” Jack fell back onto the sofa.
Eric reached for the top envelope and withdrew a folded paper. “See for yourself.”
Jack clambered to his feet. He took the paper and examined it, with Olivia glancing over his shoulder. Sure enough, the fuzzy photograph revealed two distinct fetuses. They were positioned in such a way that it was easy to detect the sex. “Both boys from the look of it,” Jack announced.
“Shelly didn’t include a note with the ultrasound results?”
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