“Are you feeling okay?”
“I’m fine.” At least he hadn’t asked her if she’d considered terminating the pregnancy. For some reason she took comfort in the thought that at least he knew her well enough to realize abortion wasn’t an option for her.
“How long have you been having trouble with your blood pressure?”
“Almost since the beginning. But yesterday...” She let the sentence trail off into silence. It had been a frightening few hours. “Yesterday it went off the charts.”
“And today?”
“It’s within normal limits.” Barely.
“I’m glad to hear that. I’ll check with Owens about the dosage of your medication.”
“That’s not necessary.” A spurt of anger energized her. “The only thing you contributed to this pregnancy is motile sperm. Your involvement ended there.”
Adam blinked at her plain speaking. “Because you chose to keep our child a secret from me,” he said quietly.
Less than twenty-four hours ago she’d believed she would never see him again. She wasn’t prepared to have him walk back into her life and demand his rights as a father. Leah stood up too quickly. The blood drained from her head. She took a step forward and held out her hand, searching for something to break her fall.
In a heartbeat his arms were around her. “Leah, what’s wrong?”
She looked up into his eyes and thought she saw fear and concern in their depths. Or did she only wish it was there? She closed her eyes. “Nothing. I...I’m just a little dizzy.”
“You’re white as a ghost.” He scooped her up in his arms, just as he had once before. She laid her head against his shoulder, felt the softness of old leather beneath her cheek, the beating of his heart, the strength and heat of him, and couldn’t stop remembering all that had happened between them in Vietnam.
“Where’s the bedroom?”
He stood with her cradled in his arms until she answered. “The door on the right.” Her house was small and square. A living room extended across the front, and the kitchen, bath and bedroom were also downstairs, which was bisected by an open stairway leading to a loft above. She’d had a skylight installed in the loft so her living room was always flooded with sunlight, but her bedroom was cramped and shadowed, only a small single window above the bed letting in light. Adam laid her down on the coverlet, then sat beside her, his hip against hers. She edged a little away from him so their bodies didn’t touch.
If her rejection of his nearness affected him, he didn’t let on. He picked up her wrist and felt her pulse. “It’s racing like a freight train. Do you have a blood-pressure cuff?”
“In the drawer.” She lay quietly while he took her blood pressure, fighting back tears. What if it was too high again? Caleb would put her in the hospital or confine her to bed. What was she going to do then? She had some money put away for emergencies, but she couldn’t afford to be bedridden for five months. Tears clogged her throat and, try as she might to hold them back, they welled up and spilled down her cheeks. “What is it?”
“It’s okay, Leah.” Adam took the tabs of the stethoscope out of his ears and unwound the cuff from her arm. “It’s 128 over 82. Not bad considering what you’ve been through in the past twenty-four hours. What about your blood sugar?”
She answered without looking at him. “It’s okay. I checked it this morning. Are you sure you read the gauge right?”
“Want to double-check?” There it was, that rare hint of laughter in his voice she found so irresistible.
Leah shook her head, not trusting herself to speak.
“Does the baby feel okay to you? Active? Moving around?” He shifted slightly as though to reach for her.
“Yes, the baby’s fine.” She laid her hand on her stomach. She didn’t want him to touch her there, to make a connection with their child. She wouldn’t be able to keep him at arm’s length if he did. It would be too easy to let herself start to rely on him.
“All right, I’ll take your word for it, but something caused you to nearly faint into my arms.”
“It must have been the aftereffects of the sedative Caleb gave me. I don’t respond well to drugs. I’m the cheapest drunk you’ve ever seen.”
He laughed softly then, low and rumbling. The baby kicked as though he, too, had heard the laughter and liked it. “I’ll remember.” He reached over and wiped the pad of his thumb across her cheek. His touch was as warm as his laughter. “Leah, tell me what’s wrong.”
“Everything,” she said, unable to censor the words. “Just everything.”
“You don’t mean everything. You mean my being here, don’t you?”
“Yes. No.” She covered her eyes with her arm. “I mean everything. Having something go wrong with my body that might put the baby in danger. Having to tell my parents about the pregnancy when they’ve got enough of their own problems. Trying to imagine what my brothers will say when they find out their baby sister’s knocked up and not getting married. But mostly it’s you. I didn’t want you to know. I never wanted you to know.”
“But I do know and there’s no going back now.”
“What do you want from me, Adam?”
“What do you want from me?” he asked in return.
“To be left alone.”
“That’s not an option.”
“No, I suppose it’s not. I’m sorry. I’m just too tired and fuzzy-headed to make important decisions tonight. Please, Adam, just go back to your motel and let me consider the changes in our situation.” She couldn’t hide the exhaustion that tinged her words and didn’t try.
“I’m not leaving you alone. If you don’t want me here, tell me who to call.”
“Margaret, Caleb’s wife. She’ll come.”
The mattress shifted as he stood up. “Get this straight, Leah. You consider all you want, but I’m not leaving Slate Hollow until I’m sure you and the baby are both healthy and going to stay that way. It’s my baby, too. You’re going to have to come to terms with it. I’m here to stay.”
CHAPTER NINE
FOR THE NEXT Two DAYS Leah was the perfect patient. She let Margaret bully and pamper her. She slept for hours at a stretch. She ate enormous meals and spent time sitting on a garden bench outside the back door between rain showers, thinking of nothing more taxing than where to set the birdbath this year. Adam had stayed out of her way, although she knew he was still in town, because now and then through her bedroom door she heard his voice, talking to Margaret, or Caleb when he stopped by.
Then this morning, awaking clearheaded and alert, she’d decided it was time to take back control of her life. She called her parents to find that her dad had gotten a new job he liked, and her mother, sounding more like her old self, had said she was learning how to paint in watercolors, something she’d always wanted to do. Leah had listened to updates on her brothers and their lives, and then, when her mother asked what was new with her, she took a deep breath and told Christine Gentry her news.
It had been easier than she’d thought. Her mother had been surprised and a little dismayed, but took the announcement in stride. Her dad, listening on the extension, had been silent for a long moment, then told her he loved her and agreed with her decision to keep the baby. He also wanted to know if she intended to many the baby’s father. She told him no.
She knew her mother would tell her brothers the news as soon as she could track them down. It wasn’t in Christine’s nature to keep secrets from her family, and Leah resigned herself to probing calls from all three of her siblings in the very near future. She told her parents she loved them both, would come to see them the first weekend she could get away and then hung up, amazed at how much better she felt to have that hurdle behind her.
Caleb had taken her name off the surgery schedule, so she wouldn’t be going back to twelve-hour stretches in the OR for several weeks. She felt rested and less anxious. Her headaches and racing pulse had disappeared. Unfortunately Caleb had forbidden her to drive her Jeep. Until he
was certain the medication he’d prescribed had her blood pressure completely under control, he didn’t want to chance her having a dizzy spell while she was behind the wheel. She had agreed, reluctantly. But it didn’t mean she intended to sit on her hands for the rest of the week.
She was worried about Aurelia and she wanted to check on her and Juliet. The Lexington lawyer representing the couple who wanted to adopt Juliet’s baby was not above pressuring the girl when no one was around to keep her in check. Caleb had offered to take Leah up the mountain himself that evening, but she wanted to go now.
She stepped out onto the front porch of her house, her arms wrapped around her to ward off the damp chill of the April day. The sky was gray and heavy with low-lying rain clouds. The tops of the hills beyond the river were hidden in mist. The red emperor tulips lining her front walk were the only bright note of color in a mostly gray world.
A black utility vehicle pulled to a halt in front of her house. A man got out. For a moment she thought it was Adam and wished she hadn’t convinced Margaret to go home after lunch. She wasn’t ready to face him alone again. She thought she might never be. But it wasn’t Adam coming up the crushed-stone walk. It was Brian.
“Hello,” she said.
He stopped at the foot of the steps. Leah studied his features for signs of his father. His hair was as dark as Adam’s, but up close she could see auburn highlights. His eyes were brown, not as dark as his father’s, but like the brown of his leather jacket, and there was a line of freckles across his nose. “Hi, I’m looking for my dad. Has he been here?”
“Not today,” Leah said.
“He told me he was going for a run, but that was before lunch. I thought...”
“He might have come here, instead?”
“This seemed like the most logical place to start looking.”
“I’m sorry. I haven’t seen him.”
“He’s been gone a long time.” There was a hint of worry in his voice.
“It’s possible that he left the road to follow one of the old logging trails.”
“Yeah, I thought of that.” He looked off toward the hills. “It’d be easy to get lost up there or step on a stone and twist your ankle.”
“If you like I could come with you to look for him.”
“Are you well enough to be out riding around with me? I don’t want you doing anything to hurt the baby. It’s my half brother or sister, you know.” His eyes flickered to her stomach before settling on her face.
“I’m fine.”
He frowned a little, the same way Adam did. “If you’re sure you’re okay, I’d be grateful for the help.”
“Good. Wait a moment while I get a sweater.”
When she emerged from the house five minutes later, Brian was waiting where she’d left him. He walked her to the shiny black vehicle and opened the passenger door. She thanked him and settled herself in the seat while he climbed behind the wheel. “Which way?” he asked. The powerful motor roared to life as Leah fastened her seat belt.
“Straight ahead until you get to the river and then take a left. There’s only one road in and out of town, if you haven’t noticed.”
“I’ve noticed,” Brian said. “I know this town by heart already, and I’ve only been here three days.”
Leah laughed at the forlorn note in his voice. “You’ve never lived in a small town, have you?”
Brian shook his head. He eyed the swirl of white water as they neared the river. “Does anyone do any kayaking around here?”
“Not that I know of. At least not around town. But there’s a canoe livery about five miles farther out in this direction, over near the state forest campgrounds. You could ask there.” It had started raining again. Brian turned on the wipers and Leah watched them slide back and forth across the windshield.
“I don’t know if we’ll be around town long enough to do that, but thanks for the tip.”
“If you’re here long enough to check it out, just tell the owner I sent you. His wife is one of my painmanagement patients.”
“Pain management? I thought you were an anesthesiologist.”
“I’m a nurse/anesthetist, but Dr. Owens and I also work together with a number of patients to control and alleviate the pain they experience from a variety of diseases and conditions.”
“You mean like cancer?”
“Yes, cancer, and diabetic wounds, kidney disease, arthritis, spinal injuries....”
“I didn’t know that about you.”
Leah turned her head and watched him in profile. That was the way he looked the most like Adam. He had the same high forehead, strong nose and angled jaw. “I don’t see any reason you should have.”
He took his eyes off the road for a moment and returned her scrutiny. “You’re right. My dad never spoke of you once after that day in his office last December. It never occurred to me that you and my dad were an item.” He almost smiled. “Actually I did wonder for a minute when I met you if there wasn’t something there. It was kinda in the air.”
Leah felt her skin grow hot. She didn’t want to talk about that day. “Your dad wouldn’t want to run along the highway—there are too many trucks along this route. He would have turned off her.” She pointed to the left, to the road leading up Pine Mountain.
“Why didn’t you tell him about the baby?”
“It was a mistake, my sleeping with your father,” she told him truthfully. “I’ve been confused about the best way to handle my pregnancy. It was just easier to keep the baby my secret. In retrospect I realize it’s a course of action I shouldn’t have taken.”
“He had a right to know about the baby. Father’s have rights, you know.”
“I didn’t say I’d done the right thing. Anyway it’s a moot point now. Your father and I will have to come to some kind of agreement about the baby’s future.” And what was that agreement going to be? What part would Adam play in the baby’s life? She didn’t want a long-distance relationship with someone her child saw only on birthdays and every other Christmas. No father at all was preferable to that. She’d convinced herself of that months ago.
Brian flexed his hands on the steering wheel. “I have a little sister already, you know. I’m pretty good at being a big brother. Family’s important to me.”
“We’ll try to work something out, Brian, but it’s going to take some time.”
They traveled in silence for a mile or two up the narrow, winding road. The pavement was slick, but Brian was a good driver. Leah tried to relax, although she couldn’t help wondering what she would do or say if Adam had come this way, and they caught up with him along the side of the road. Talking to Brian about keeping the baby a secret from his father had made her feel anxious and uncertain again. She had so many decisions to make. Decisions that, right or wrong, would affect all of them for the rest of their lives.
The last half mile to the top of Pine Mountain was steep and winding. They met no cars coming from the direction of Danner’s Mill, the town on the other side of the mountain, or a lone figure running along the side of the road. Brian pulled off the pavement at a turnout where, on a clear day, you could see for miles in every direction. But today the clouds obscured the view and the turnout was deserted. Brian rested both forearms on the steering wheel as he stared out into the mist. “I guess my dad didn’t come this way.”
“He must have gone in the other direction out of town. I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.” He put the Cherokee in gear and started back down the mountain. “He’s probably back at the motel by now, anyway.”
Leah couldn’t help feeling relieved they hadn’t found Adam. She wasn’t ready to confront him yet. “Would you do me a favor?” she asked Brian.
“If I can.”
“Would you mind dropping me off up here a ways? I’d like to check on one of my patients.”
“I guess I can do that.” Brian sounded doubtful.
“It’s very close by. You don’t have to wait for me. It may t
ake a while.”
“I’ll wait. I’m not getting in trouble with my dad and what’s-his-name, Dr. Owens, by dropping you off out here in the middle of nowhere.”
“It’s not quite the middle of nowhere,” Leah said, making a joke. “But you can see it from the top of the ridge. Turn here,” she directed, as they approached the tumoff to Aurelia’s place. The road was fairly smooth in front of Naomi Dunn’s, the neighbor who stayed with Aurelia at night, but once they’d passed her driveway it narrowed; the ruts got deeper and the puddles bigger. Brian shifted into four-wheel drive. Muddy water splashed onto the windshield as they passed Old Man Perkins’s cabin. He’d been in a nursing home in Lexington since Christmas. No one else lived on the road, and Aurelia couldn’t afford to have it graded and stoned. “I’ll pay to have your car washed,” Leah said as they bounced through a particularly deep puddle.
“No way. This is the kind of driving this baby’s made for.” Brian grinned over at her. “This must be awesome in the winter.”
“It’s terrifying in the winter.”
Just then they came to the plank bridge over the stream. It was flanked by redbud and hawthorn trees, their rosy pink and white blossoms subdued by the mist. “Wow! Are you sure this thing’s safe?” Brian asked, looking down at the tumbled boulders beneath the bridge. The water had risen with the two days of rain. It was only about a foot below the planking and running fast out of a small ravine to their left.
“Just take it slow and steady.” Leah had been over the bridge a hundred times, but she always held her breath. The bridge was very old and not all that stable anymore. She often wondered how they would get the county emergency-services unit up here if Aurelia needed to be taken to the hospital.
Brian drove the Cherokee cautiously onto the bridge, crossed it and then gunned the engine as they shot up the steep bank on the far side, topped the rise and came abreast of Aurelia’s one-hundred-year-old homestead. Brian turned into the overgrown yard and parked by Aurelia’s old pickup truck. “Quite a defensive position they’ve got here,” Brian remarked, looking up at the limestone ridge rising almost from the back door of the cabin, then noting the unobstructed view of the creek and the road beyond to be had from the front porch.
Winter Soldier (Mills & Boon Vintage Superromance) Page 9
