"I'll go walking tomorrow," she promised. "It's so hard these days. I'm heavier than I've ever been."
His dark eyes narrowed on her wan, pinched face. He felt guilty all over again, just looking at her. "Why is it that I never see you walk?" he asked. "You always arrange to do it when no one is here except you."
She colored and averted his eyes.
"I know you're heavy. But, Tess, laziness is no excuse," he said quietly. "This is for your own good. Tomorrow, you walk. I'll make sure of it."
"No," she replied wearily, tired of the deception. "No, I can't do that." She took a deep breath. "Dane, there's something I haven't told you, something you need to know.... Oh!" She gasped at the wrenching pain that caught her unaware and lifted her straight up on the bed. She cried out piteously.
"The baby!" he exclaimed harshly. "Tess, is it the baby?"
"Yes...!" She wept because the sudden contractions were so fierce. Even as she felt them, she felt a terrifying gush of wet warmth beneath her and her face went stark white. "You have...to get...an ambulance! Call Dr. Boswick...!"
"It may be false labor. You're a month early. I'll take you in the car," he began tersely, and threw back the covers.
He froze. Every drop of color ran out of his face, every sign of life. His black eyes glittered like diamond fragments. "Oh, my God!" he exploded.
"Call...an ambulance!" she cried.
He grabbed up the telephone by the bed, galvanized into action. Beryl came running while he was talking to the hospital and, seeing the situation for herself, went running to get towels.
Assured that an ambulance was already in their end of the county and could be there in five minutes, he dialed Dr. Boswick.
"I think there's something wrong. She's in pain and bleeding badly," Dane said, his voice cold but unsteady. "The ambulance is on the way."
"The placenta has detached," came the terse reply. "When I examined her today, I warned her that it could happen any time. The baby is near enough to term that it has a chance, but we could still lose both of them," he said, and Dane's heart stopped. "She hasn't been exercising today?"
Dane's fingers shook on the receiver. "No."
"Thank God for that. I'm sure she's told you how dangerous her condition is, so that you wouldn't allow her to exert unnecessarily. I'll be at the emergency room when they bring her in, and we'll gear up for a transfusion." He told Dane what to do, to help contain the bleeding. "Tell those paramedics that every second counts."
Dane hung up, tossing orders to Beryl. He looked down at Tess with anguished realization.
"Something went wrong a long time ago, didn't it? It's been there all along. It wasn't morning sickness that kept you home at all," he ground out, his voice tormented.
Her lips were white as she compressed them, trying not to scream from the pain. "You wanted...the baby...so much," she panted. "I only wanted...to spare you," she whispered weakly. "Not...your fault!"
"So you took the risk and the worry all alone, and I gave you hell.... Oh, God, Tess...!" His voice broke. He touched her face with unsteady fingers, as she arched and cried out again from the force of the pain.
"Where the hell is that ambulance?" he cursed.
A faint sound of sirens was barely audible as Tess caught her breath. "Hold on, little one," he said huskily, motioning for Beryl to stay with her. He went out of the room as the sirens approached, so shaken that he could hardly speak at all.
Tess was barely conscious on the long drive to the hospital. Dane sat beside her in a terrified posture while the ambulance attendants kept watch on her and did what they could to stem the profuse bleeding. Dr. Boswick was waiting when they wheeled her into Branntville General.
"She comes first," Dane told the doctor, white-faced. "No matter what, she comes first, do you understand?"
"We'll do everything we can," Boswick assured him. They rushed her to the operating room and, minutes later, took the baby.
She was drifting through layers of pain and drug-induced drowsiness when she heard a voice at her ear.
"It's a boy," Dane whispered. "Can you hear me, sweetheart? We have a little boy."
She barely made sense of the words. "John Richard," she whispered with difficulty.
It was the name they'd both chosen for a boy, on one of the rare evenings when he'd been home on time and they'd talked. He touched her mouth with his. "John Richard," he whispered. "How do you feel, darling?"
That couldn't be Dane calling her darling. She must be delirious. "Hurts," she said weakly.
"They'll give you something else. The nurse is bringing a shot for you. He's so beautiful, Tess," he said unsteadily. "So beautiful."
Her eyes opened, glazed with pain. She looked up at him. "Love...you," she managed. "Whatever happens...always remember."
His eyes were wet. She couldn't see them clearly, but she heard the rough sound he made.
"You're going to be all right," he said harshly. "They said so. Don't talk like that!"
Her eyelids were so heavy. She felt them close. "Take care of him," she said weakly. "You wanted him...so much."
"I want you!" He leaned close, his voice in her ear. "Listen to me, you silly child, I lied! I've been lying all along! I didn't think I could give you a child—that's why I didn't want to marry you! It was for your sake, not mine, that I let you go! Tess, it's you I want!
You! God in Heaven, I almost went out of my mind when Dr. Boswick told me about your condition after they took the baby. Open your eyes, Tess. Open your eyes!"
He sounded urgent, almost desperate. She forced her eyelids open again with an effort and tried to focus. His face was white. Stark white.
"Don't you die on me!" he said through his teeth. "Don't you dare! You're going to live and help me raise our baby. I'm not going to try and live without you again! I can't. Listen to me—I can't make it without you!"
"Only...the baby...you want," she managed.
"No."
Nothing he said was getting through the pain. "Yes. You said..."
He realized that she wasn't comprehending any of it. He had to make her listen, make her understand, while there was still time! "Look at me. Tess, look at me. Look at me!"
She swallowed, forcing her eyes toward his face.
"I love you." He said each word deliberately, forcefully. His eyes were blazing like black coals in his face. "I love you!"
That was nice. She tried to say so, but darkness fell on her like a wall. She closed her eyes, and the anguished sound of his voice slowly became indistinguishable. She slept.
Chapter Eleven
Dane sat beside her all night without sleeping. He couldn't bring himself to leave her, not even to see the son he'd thought he'd never have.
Her face was pale and she cried out with the pain, even with the sedatives they were giving her. He watched her suffer, and suffered with her. It devastated him to know what she'd gone through in such silence, sparing him from the worry that had haunted her all these long months. He'd accused her of betraying him, when she was in fact protecting him. She'd loved him and he'd failed her at every turn, when he loved her more than his own life.
But she didn't know that. He'd said so many cruel things to her. She might not be able to forgive him, but she had to stay alive. She had to!
Daylight was streaming in the windows and the hospital was bustling with activity when she finally came back to consciousness. She was weak and still in pain.
She opened her eyes. "Dane?" she whispered. "My baby...?"
He looked terrible, she thought dimly. His face was unshaven and starkly lined.
"Do you want the baby now?" he asked gently, bending over her. "They'll bring him whenever you like. Right now, if you want."
She swallowed. "I want to see him."
He pushed the buzzer and called the nurse, asking for John to be brought in. The cheerful voice promised instant compliance. Sure enough, barely two minutes later, a nurse came into the room with a small bundle in her arms
.
"Here he is, Mrs. Lassiter," the nurse said cheerfully. "I'm glad to see you awake. You had us worried for a little while. Look what I've got."
She laid the bundle down beside Tess and pulled the blanket away from the baby's face.
Tess looked at him and saw Dane. She caught her breath. "He looks like my husband," she whispered. "Oh, he looks like you, Dane!"
He leaned over her, touching the baby's head gently. "He has your eyes," he disagreed. "Big and soft."
"I'll bring his bottle—" the nurse began.
"No," Tess protested. She looked up. "Please. I want to feed him myself. Dr. Boswick said—"
"All right." The nurse smiled. "We'll bring the bottle, too. You're very weak. You lost a lot of blood, and you may not have enough milk yet to satisfy him."
The nurse went out and Tess fought pain to sit up against the pillows with the baby in her arms. "Help me, please," she whispered, tugging at the neck of the gown.
He found the ties and helped her ease the gown away. She brought the baby to her breast and gently nudged the nipple into his mouth. He began to suckle at once, his tiny hand clenched against her breast.
She caught her breath at the pins-and-needles sensation, and then she laughed. She looked up at Dane, but he wasn't laughing. His face was rigid and ruddy with color as he watched. His jaw clenched.
"My God," he said unsteadily. "I didn't realize it would look like that." He moved closer, his eyes helplessly riveted to the baby. He reached down and lightly touched the small head before he looked into Tess's eyes. "Does it hurt you?" he asked.
"No," she said. "It's uncomfortable just at first, that's all. My stomach feels awful," she grimaced. "The stitches pull and it hurts."
"They can give you something else when you're finished with John Richard."
"You aren't at work," she said, frowning.
"I couldn't leave you, honey," he replied quietly. "You scared me."
"Scared you?"
He hesitated for a long moment before he spoke. "You sounded as if you meant to go away," he said. His hand touched her mouth. "I was afraid you didn't want to live."
"I don't remember."
"It could have been the drugs, but I couldn't take a chance." He bent and kissed her gently. "You mean the world to me," he said huskily. "I can't lose you now."
She didn't trust her ears, or her mind. She only smiled, certain that it was the first flush of new fatherhood talking. Whatever he felt, he wanted John, and since there was no other woman in his life, presumably he'd decided that they might as well stay married. She'd take a chance on him, she decided. After all, he might learn to love her one day.
A week later, she and John were released from the hospital. Helen and Kit came to see the baby, raving over him while Tess smiled indulgently.
Dane was always somewhere nearby, although he went back to work with a vengeance. Tess was aware of his irritation that she wouldn't listen to him when he tried to talk to her. She couldn't help it. She didn't want him making confessions of love. He'd been upset about her condition once he found out about it, and the labor had been a nightmare. Now he was feeling elated with his new son and relieved that Tess was out of danger. He was happy. But Tess didn't want any false promises. She wanted him cold sober and completely over the experience of her pregnancy before they talked again.
Meanwhile, she had her son to take care of. It was six weeks before she could get around enough to feel like her old self. She doted on the baby, adored him, cosseted him, spent every free second with him. The baby was her life.
He was Dane's, too, but as Tess lavished attention on the child, she denied it to him. He began to feel alone, unwanted, and his temper became hot and unpredictable. He loved his son, but he couldn't seem to make Tess notice that he needed her, too. She'd withdrawn into a world of her own, where her child was the only other occupant.
She was feeding John early one Saturday afternoon when Dane came down the hall, his gloves clenched in one hand, his chaps making leathery sounds against his powerful legs as he walked. His battered gray Stetson was cocked low over one eye. He wasn't working today, so he'd been out with his men on the ranch. He looked out of sorts and viciously irritable.
Dane paused in the doorway, hesitating as he saw Tess in the rocking chair in their bedroom, nursing the baby.
"I have to talk to you," he said tersely.
"I'll be finished in a minute," she replied.
He sat down on the edge of the bed, his eyes calming as he watched their child nurse. Pride softened his expression, and he smiled. "I never get tired of watching that," he said quietly. "You look like something out of a dream with the boy at your breast."
She smiled shyly. "He's growing, have you noticed?"
"Tess, how long are you going to nurse him?"
The question startled her. She looked up, idly brushing away a loosened strand of blond hair. She seemed so young in her green gingham dress, so vulnerable.
"I hadn't thought about it," she said. "Does it matter?"
He hesitated. "He's tied to you as long as you feed him," he said. "You can't be away from him for more than a couple of hours at a time."
Her face paled. Her eyes went huge in her face. "You want me to leave?" she asked huskily. "Is that why you want me to stop nursing him, so that you can get a nurse for him...?"
His breathing checked. "God in heaven, no!"
She shivered, her expression torn between relief and fear.
He closed his eyes and reopened them. He got up and went to the window, slapping his gloves into his palm as he stared angrily out at the autumn landscape.
"I guess I've given you plenty of reason to think I wanted the baby and not you. But I'm not such a monster that I'd take your child away from you."
"I know that," she said, faintly shy of him. The baby finished pulling at her breast, his eyes drooping. She burped him and got up to put him in his baby bed against the wall, gently settling him on his side and covering him with a light blanket. She tiptoed out of the room, leaving Dane to follow.
"Don't run off again," he said tersely, glaring at her. "You've avoided me ever since you've been home."
"I want to sit on the porch," she said evasively.
"It's too cold."
"No, it isn't. I'll ask Beryl to watch out for John."
He gave in. "All right." He waited until she talked to Beryl, then he followed her out the back door and sat down beside her on the warm concrete stoop that overlooked the outbuildings.
She glanced at his batwing chaps. "You've been working."
"I bought some new horses," he said. "I've been watching the vet work on them."
He lit a cigarette and she stared out over the pasture.
"Tess, I've been trying to get you still long enough to apologize. I said some harsh, cruel things before the baby came. Things that haunt me now."
"You didn't know about what was wrong with me," she said simply. "I only wanted to spare you. You didn't think you could even have a child, and you were so excited about him." She smiled wanly. "I didn't want to spoil it for you."
His eyes closed and he groaned. “And what about you, you little idiot? Worried to death, and all you got from me was a cold shoulder and accusations about being lazy. Lazy!" He jerked off his hat and tossed it aside, running a restless hand through his hair. "I can't bear to remember the way I treated you. I've given you nothing but heartache, Tess."
She searched his profile quietly, her eyes soft and loving. "That isn't quite true. You gave me John."
He glanced down at her. "I never thought of precautions," he said slowly. "Because I didn't think I needed to. If I'd known the risk...!"
"But you didn't. Neither did I. But I would have taken the risk, even if I had known, Dane," she said with quiet conviction. "I'd do it all over again."
He searched her eyes slowly. "It wasn't just the baby I wanted," he said huskily. "It was you. I wanted you, needed you, so I...would have married you even if th
ere hadn't been a child, because my world collapsed when you walked out of it. Sending you away was the single worst mistake of my life." His expression was vulnerable then, so loving that it knocked the breath out of her. "That night... I never knew what love was until then. I was afraid of it, terrified that I was wrong and it wouldn't last. But it has. It will. God, Tess," he whispered, "I'll love you until I die."
She shifted a little away from him and averted her eyes to the horizon. She couldn't believe him. She didn't dare. "You don't have to pretend," she said gently. "It's all right. You love John, and maybe you're fond of me. That will be enough."
He crushed out the cigarette and stood up. He glared at her. "No, it will not. You want me to love you."
She flushed and averted her gaze to the distant horizon. “I know how hard relationships are for you...."
He caught her gently by the shoulders and she stood up. "My mother warped my outlook. Jane savaged my pride. By the time you came along, I was an emotional basket case. I was afraid of you," he said. "Didn't you know?"
"I think part of me did." She lifted her eyes to his. "I tried to make you see that I'd never hurt you. But you wouldn't trust me."
"I couldn't." His hands slid down to clasp hers. "I told you that I didn't know how to love, how to be gentle." He leaned closer. "I had to learn those things. I learned them with you, Tess."
"You're proud of John," she whispered, glancing down, "and you felt responsible for the trouble I had. You don't have to say these things...."
He caught her chin between his thumb and forefinger and lifted her face, made her look at him. "I love you," he said. "How many ways, how many times, do I have to repeat it before you start believing that I mean it?"
She winced. Her eyes narrowed worriedly. "It might be so many things besides love, Dane."
"It might. But it isn't. You know it, you little coward." He smiled as he bent his head and gently took her lips with his. "But maybe it's time I proved it."
He kissed her softly, teasing her mouth until she began to relax, her mouth answering his in the warm silence of the afternoon. He caught his breath and groaned when he felt her arms go around him, felt the soft trembling of her body as she gave in. His lips probed her open mouth, his tongue teasing and then thrusting, so that she moaned hoarsely and tried to get closer to him.
Books By Diana Palmer Page 110
