Mountain Man's Secret Baby

by Lauren Wood

  I had so many questions but I stopped myself when I realized that it was a lot for a woman to take. She had a child that was in the hospital and from what it looked like; I would say he was in critical condition. It couldn’t be easy.

  “He is doing better, stable anyways, but he hasn’t woken up. The doctors think that he could be in this coma for a while. There is swelling in the brain, so it is going to take time for it to go down. We are going to wait and see if there is going to be brain damage or not.”

  Her words hit me like a load of bricks and I didn’t know what to say to it. It was hard for me to imagine Ethan not being Ethan and I looked back at the man that was lying down in the bed in front of me.

  It was then that I realized that I was sitting on the edge of the bed and the woman that was glaring daggers at me was his fiancée. I should have asked about it, but there was nothing that I could really say or do. If he was indeed supposed to be getting married. What was I supposed to say about it? There was nothing to say and I tried my best to pull it together.

  I moved off of the bed and stood there, looking at him for a minute.

  “I don’t know how you know my son, but I don’t think it would be appropriate for you to be here, as well as Sandy. She traveled quite a ways to be here and it should be her at his side.”

  She was being polite, but her meaning was still the same. She didn’t want me there. I had traveled quite far myself, but there was nothing that I was going to be able to do. If she didn’t want me here, I wasn’t going to be able to stay. I didn’t want to upset her either, so it was better this way.

  “You’re right. I just wanted to make sure he was okay. I’ve never been so scared in all of my life…”

  I was getting emotional and I was trying hard not to. This was the woman he had promised to marry, that I didn’t know about. I should be angry, but more than anything I just felt this massive relief that everything was going to be okay. He was in good hands and at least he had family here to cheer him on. I could have gone the rest of my life without meeting Sandy.

  I left the room in a daze. I had spent the last couple of hours in a state of rush and panic and now it was over. I wasn’t going to get to see him anymore. Ethan was there with family and people that loved him though. All of the rushing was for nothing if I didn’t think that landing eyes on him was worth it. It was worth the flight and the stress and everything else.

  It took me a while to realize that he was going to be getting married. While we had never talked about if we were single or not, I guess I just assumed that it was a given. I wasn’t seeing anyone and I hadn’t thought that he was. Obviously I was wrong though. I didn’t know what to think of it all and I was rather speechless about it. Everything that I thought was real and true wasn’t. It was just that simple. I was the fool that had believed it all. I should be furious with him, but for some reason I wasn’t.

  All I knew was that this part of my life was over. I knew that Ethan was going to be leaving. While I hadn’t thought it was going to be like this, I had known that it was coming. I was going to pray that he got better, but I knew that the likelihood of me seeing him again was very small. He was going to be just a good memory that I have.

  Chapter 22

  Ethan

  When I opened my eyes, my head hurt something fierce and I could see a blinding light that was overwhelming to my eyes. It was as if I was staring directly at the sun or I had been in a dark cave and hadn’t seen light in years. Whatever it was. It hurt like hell, paired with my throbbing head, I wanted to go back to sleep. There it didn’t hurt and I was able to think. Right now I wasn’t able to think at all. I was trying my best not to lose it, when losing it felt like the thing to do.

  I tried to open them again after I had learned to somehow deal with the throbbing in my head. It was constant and I was afraid to touch it, but first I had to figure out where I was.

  It was pretty clear, pretty quickly that I was in a hospital. It wasn’t one that I recognized to be the one in Nome. I’d had my finger stitched up the second week I was there and I knew right away that I was not in Nome. But if I wasn’t in Nome, where was I?

  Questions started to bombard me and I wanted to know how everyone was doing. Charlie was the last person that I’d seen and he wasn’t around. No one was. What was going on?

  “Nurse. Nurse!”

  My voice got louder as I called for the nurse to come. I had to know what was going on. I felt strange and when I tried to move, I found out that it was almost impossible to do so. I was sending the message, but it was moving slowly and everything hurt a little bit.

  “Well look at you up finally. It’s about time sugar.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that one bit. I knew that I had been out for a time, but it sounded like I had been out for a while.

  “Where am I?”

  “You’re in Juneau West dear. I’ve been praying for you. I said that you were too young to go out this way. I’m glad to see that you are up and you seem with it. We didn’t know if your brain was going to be scrambled or not.”

  The shorter woman with blonde hair seemed nice enough, but what she said wasn’t computing. I still couldn’t think of why I was here, then I remembered it all and I remembered the secondary collapse that came down on me. I was trying to help someone else, but now I didn’t know if he made it out of there or not.

  I asked her some questions about everything and Nurse Jane told me what she knew. She promised to go find out the rest of it for me and to get the doctor. I found out that I had been out for almost four months. It was a long time, longer than I could have ever imagined. It also helped me to realize how close to death I must have been.

  No one was around and I was a little disappointed that Denise wasn’t around. I asked the nurse about her and she said that there hadn’t been anyone there by that name as far as she knew. It wasn’t at all what I wanted to hear.

  “There have been several people that come regularly though. I will give them a call. Said it was your parents and your finance.”

  I didn’t have one of those, but I used to. Sandy and me broke up before I came to Nome. Surely they didn’t mean her, huh? Me and Sandy were through and had been for a while, though I wouldn’t put it passed my mom to want to rekindle things between us. She always did like Sandy; sometimes I thought that she liked her more than me. She was the daughter that she’d never had.

  When the nurse came back, she was with the doctor and I got the details that the nurse was hesitant to tell me or didn’t know herself. The doctor did a couple of test and declared that there didn’t seem to be any brain damage. That sounded like good news to me, but I asked him why I was finding it hard to get up and move around.

  “You haven’t used some of your muscles in months Ethan. It’s going to take time and you’re going to need a lot of physical therapy. It’s going to be a hard road, but I have a feeling if you can pull through this than you can pull through anything. You’re going to make a full recovery and that’s what you have to focus on. You’re a lucky man.”

  When he left I looked around and I have to say that I didn’t feel all that lucky. I felt like I had been hit with a shovel repeatedly and then buried alive. It wasn’t a feeling that I’d felt before and I’d been hurt plenty of times before, but it never felt this bad. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do, but it was going to be a while until I was going to be able to get out of bed and leave, which is what I wanted to do at the moment. I hated hospitals and I hated being stuck in bed even more.

  I tried to call Denise because she was who I wanted to talk to, but her phone number was coming back as disconnected. I didn’t like that I couldn’t get a hold of her. I needed to talk to her and I wanted to make sure that she was okay. I’d been gone far too long.

  I didn’t have much time to think about it though because my parents were coming in and Sandy was with them.

  “What the hell is she doing here mom? You know we broke up, right?”

&nb
sp; Chapter 23

  Denise

  “What’s up with you today Denise. Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine, I just was thinking.”

  “Well that’s half your problem. You get to looking out that window and then you get to thinking. I don’t know why you are looking towards that harbor again. You know he's not going to be there. They pulled out after the explosion. Now no one is going to fix it. It’s just going to stay like that.”

  I sighed and it was partially because she knew where I was looking. I didn’t want her to know that I was thinking of Ethan or that I was staring at the harbor that changed life around here in so many ways. Everything had changed after that and I was afraid that it was never going to be the same.

  I pushed away from the window and looked back at my boss. It was hard for me to say that nothing was wrong. She knew me too well and the bump at my mid-section was distracting as I put my hands on my stomach. A lot had changed since that fateful day and I was stuck here to deal with it all. I didn’t know what happened to Ethan, but I heard that he was eventually released a month back from the hospital. I supposed they got sick of me calling and now I had nowhere to call. I don’t know where he went and since he had a fiancée, it was better for me just to forget about it all.

  “Seriously Denise, you can’t keep doing this to yourself.”

  “What about the baby? He should know who his father is and I think that Ethan has a right to know.”

  “He got you pregnant while he was working out of town about to get married to another girl. That’s pretty cut and dry to me sweetie.”

  I knew what she said was right, but that didn’t mean that I needed a reminder.

  “I know, I just… I never thought that I would be a single parent or the other woman for that matter. God, it felt horrible standing there when I found out in front of her. She was pretty. I will give that to him.”

  “So are you. I’m sorry he got hurt, but is a real jerk for not telling you. I know that much for sure.”

  I agreed wholeheartedly, but I was passed the anger stage about it all. Now I was just at grief and I was trying to hold it together because I was going to have our baby in a few more months. Then I wouldn’t have time to miss him and be lonely because I was going to be too busy. I still didn’t know how it was going to work in a small house, but I figured if I could live with Ethan for a time, a baby was going to be no problem.

  I smiled at Molly and told her I was fine. “Really Molly.”

  She didn’t look so sure, but she let it go and I was thankful for it. The day was over and we were cleaning up. Everything settled down after the explosion, so we didn’t worry about problems at the restaurant. They’d gotten their way and the harbor project was not happening any longer. All investors pulled out after five people died and so many more were wounded.

  Now it was just a reminder of the hate that had surged through the town and what they’d done because of it. The sad part was that it wasn’t outsiders that had been killed. There were three of the men that didn’t make it were from Nome, so the whole town was in mourning for a while.

  I didn’t like to look at the site because it reminded me of everything that happened and Ethan. Then my head went to betrayal and before long I was all upset and there was nothing that I could do to change it. It certainly didn’t make anything better so I was doing my best to make sure that I kept my hand out of it.

  “It’s going to get better Denise. Soon you will have that little baby to keep you busy and company. You’ll never be alone again.”

  That sounded good, but I didn’t want to do it alone. I wanted to be with Ethan. Somewhere along the way I had fallen in love with him and it wasn’t getting any better. All I could do was hope that it was a feeling that would someday fade so that I could get on with life.

  “I know. It’s just been a long day. I don’t think about him that much anymore.”

  “Liar.”

  “Probably a little bit, but I can’t help it.”

  “I know. You don’t have to be strong. It’s okay if you want to be upset. I’m here to talk to about it if you need to.”

  “I know. I don’t know what to say half of the time. It’s all just a big mess and I want to find him and tell him that I’m going to have his son, but I don’t even know if he would care. If I was just some little fling while he was away at work, he isn’t going to want to know.”

  I felt the lump in my throat and I had to swallow hard to get it to go down. Saying it out loud made my predicament even clearer and I can’t say that it was very pleasant at all. I didn’t like thinking that way. But it was the truth and I needed to get used to it, no matter how hard it was going to be.

  “Wow, I can’t believe you can say it like that. It was more than a little fling and you know it.”

  “Yeah, but that’s what it was. He is getting married to someone else and I’ve never been so humiliated in all of my life.”

  “Well good thing about Nome is you will probably never see him again.”

  She said it to make me feel better, but in truth, it made me feel so much worse. I was never going to see Ethan again and that was more than I could bear to think about.

  Chapter 24

  Ethan

  “Ethan, you’re not ready. You haven’t been here long enough. The doctor wanted you to stay at least 3 months. It has barely been one.”

  “Well I’m walking and I can get around by myself. They’ve done their job and I’m ready to get out of here. That’s all that matters. What more could I want from them?”

  Mom wasn’t happy about my decision to leave, though it wasn’t her choice. She’d done a lot for me since the accident, I would be the first to admit it, but at the same time she had gotten into the habit of controlling what I do and I don’t like that at all. She’d shooed away Denise, I found out a week after I woke up and somehow thought that she was going to slide Sandy in front of my face and I was going to forget the reason we broke up.

  I hadn’t forgotten that she’d slept with her boss at work and gotten pregnant. That was something that I couldn’t really get over. She got rid of the baby and expected me to take her back. It wasn’t going to happen. I don’t care if she was by my side in the hospital. It was guilt that kept her there, not love, just some sort of duty to try and get back into the good graces of my family. She’d always worried about it more than I had.

  “I just want to make sure that you’ve got your head on straight and aren’t going to do anything stupid.”

  “I’m going back to Nome. I think you know that though.”

  She didn’t want to even look at me. She wanted me to be with Sandy, badly, but it was the last thing that I wanted. She was not right for me. How could I be with someone if I couldn’t even trust them?

  “Yes I know that you’re going to try and find that woman. There is no telling where she would be now.”

  I didn’t tell her that I knew exactly where she lived and I knew she was still there. I was under no false assumption that she was going to welcome me with open arms. The fact that Sandy had been there and mom had introduced her like she does to everyone as my fiancée, there was a good chance that I was going to have to explain some things to her first. It wasn’t true of course, but to hear that was most likely a very big shock and I was sure that she wasn’t going to be very happy about it.

  “I’m grateful for everything that you and dad have done, but I’m ready to get back to my life now. I have a woman that I love and I’ve been away from her far too long. It’s never going to work with me and Sandy, so please stop with that. It’s not fair to you or to her, as well as tiresome for me. I never told you about her, the truth, but she was pregnant with someone else’s baby about a month before I left for Nome. She got rid of it, but I can’t forget and I wish you could see that.”

  She was shocked and I knew that Sandy hadn’t told my mom the truth. She’d probably said that it was some small tiff and that everything was going to be okay. It wasn’t. I
didn’t want it to be okay. Sandy was hot and had a way with her body that was hard to match, but she wasn’t for me. It wasn’t enough.

  “You never said.”

  “Why would I? I knew how much you liked her and I didn’t want there to be any ill will, but I will not be going back to her, ever. I wouldn’t have ever told you if it could have just been dropped, but waking up to her was the very last thing that I wanted.”

  “Oh Ethan, I thought since you loved her so much, that you’d want her there.”

  “I did love her, once, a long time ago. I love Denise now and I have to go to her. It’s been so long. I don’t know what I’m going to say.”

  “Well just tell her that and if she doesn’t forgive you, then she isn’t worth your time Ethan.”

  It was the right thing to say, but since she had started it, what else could she say? We’re always told that the next good thing is coming, but what if it isn’t? Denise was that good thing that I’d been waiting for and I wasn’t going to be able to just write it off so easily. There’s no way.

  “I hope it doesn’t come to that because there is no one else for me.”

  “You are still thinking about her after all this time?”

  “Yes, strange, isn’t it?”

  She smiled and told me that it wasn’t. “It’s all going to work out the way it is supposed to. Are you coming back home?”

  That was a question that I didn’t have an answer for. I know that I didn’t want to. I wanted to stay with Denise, in Nome for a while and then wherever else she wanted to go. We’d talked about traveling together and it was an idea that had stuck with me and gave me the strength every day to get myself fixed. The therapy had been hard, but it had been Denise in my mind that got me through it all.

  I said some goodbyes to family that was there, as well as some of the staff that had taken great care of me. I don’t know what I would do without them all, but my time here was done. I was on the mend and it was now time to get the girl, if she wasn’t already gotten.