“Yes, it is. I don’t want to know about every little thing that may go wrong. Why should I look for trouble? Neil will tell me what to do.”
“You should have taken a course.”
“The nearest one was in Concord, and I didn’t want to drive there twice a week. Besides,” she argued, “did women take courses in colonial Virginia? No! Were they reading childbirth manuals in their covered wagons while they crossed the fruited plains? No! Still, their babies got born. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.”
She truly believed it. Her body had done well on its own so far. She had faith in it.
As for the bliss part, she believed in that, too, which was why she took to Judd’s suggestion that they go away for Christmas. They didn’t go far, just to a small bed and breakfast in southern Vermont, but it was a treat.
Their room had a large canopy bed, a large clawed tub, and a large brick fireplace. They left it for little more than meals, the occasional walk through the town, and midnight mass.
“This is truly decadent,” Chelsea whispered at one point. It was late afternoon, and they were in the bath. Enough steam rose from the water to curl Chelsea’s hair and dot Judd’s nose with sweat, though whether the latter was caused by what they were doing was an arguable point. She was astraddle his hips with her arms looped loosely around his neck and her eyes holding his. The slightest urging of his hands brought her forward for his kiss.
“Decadent but nice,” he said against her mouth.
She wove her fingers into the damp hair at his nape.
“Think people in the Notch are wondering?”
“Yup.”
“Does it bother you?”
“Nope. Hell,” he said, “what can a man do with a woman who’s built like a whale?” He rubbed his forearm over her belly, stirring a ripple in the water.
She laughed and sank a hand below the water line.
She loved stroking him against her stomach. His response told her he did, too. “Good thing we don’t have to worry about a condom. You’d never get one to fit.”
He snickered and had her raised and lowered on him in no time flat. Then they sat there without making a single wave, kissing slowly and lazily.
Judd was incredible that way, she’d found. Just as he could be miserly with words, so he could be miserly with movement. “Good things come to those who wait,” he reminded her with a smug grin, but he was right. The slow, lazy approach made the tiny things he did more intense. He could stay endlessly huge inside her, occasionally whispering a hand across her back, occasionally brushing a nipple, occasionally fingering the sensitive nub just above where they were joined. Likewise, he had a subtle way with his tongue that could possess the entire inside of her mouth with neither frenzy nor plunder. After all that, he could bring her to climax with the smallest flex of his hips—and she’d long since abandoned the notion that her hormones were screwed up. Yes, some women experienced greater sexuality during pregnancy, but Chelsea sensed that she would have to be dead not to respond to Judd.
SHE LOVED HIM. SHE SUPPOSED SHE HAD FOR FAR LONGER than she knew, though the first time she’d realized it had been on the night Leo died. She hadn’t said the words to Judd. Instinct told her not to. But they built up and built up, demanding release until she felt she would choke if she didn’t air them soon.
So, on New Year’s Day, bright and early, she sat up in bed with her legs folded under the baby, pulled the rust-colored sheets and the rust-green-and-purple comforter around her bare shoulders, and stared at Judd. He was still sleeping. They had spent the early part of the evening at the annual New Year’s Eve dinner-dance at the church, but she’d been home and asleep, curled against him, well before midnight. He must have read for a while, because his book was open, page down on the nightstand.
He was on his back, his face toward her side of the bed. His dark hair was mussed, his lashes a charcoal smudge above his cheekbones, his lean mouth gentle in repose. Although his summer’s tan had long since dulled, his coloring still spoke of health.
She touched his shoulder, the one that had been gouged. The scar was fading. She traced it, traced the wedge of hair on his chest, lightly touched his chin.
His eyes came slowly open. A lazy smile stole over his lips, a beautiful smile in a man for whom smiles were so rare.
“Happy New Year,” she sang softly, and leaned down for a kiss. She was still there, no more than two inches from his mouth, when she said, still softly, “I love you.”
He closed his eyes. “Mmmm.”
“Did you hear what I said?”
“Couldn’t miss it. You’re screaming.”
“I’m not screaming. I’m very calmly saying ‘I love you.’”
He took a deep breath, half yawn, half sigh.
“What does that mean?” she asked.
“It means that I can think of easier ways to start the new year.”
“Not me,” she said, determined not to let him rain on her parade. “I’ve been wanting to say that for weeks. It felt so good, I think I’ll say it again. I love you.”
His mouth lost its curve. Looking at her, his eyes were dark with the feeling that neither his face nor his voice conveyed. “I love you, too, Chelsea, but that’s about all I know. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with it or where it’s supposed to go.”
“You’re supposed to enjoy it,” she said with a grin, because coming from his mouth the words gave her a thrill. “That’s all.”
He didn’t look convinced. “They’re heavy words.”
“Not for me. They express a here-and-now sentiment. If you think I’m asking for some kind of commitment, you’re wrong. I’ve got a lot to do between now and June.”
“That’s one of the problems. Where will you be after that?”
“I don’t know.”
“I don’t, either.”
She grinned. “So we’re even.”
“Chelsea,” he complained, “how can you laugh? Fine and dandy to say you’re not looking for commitment, still, love isn’t something to be taken lightly. If it’s really love, really love, it has a way of lingering.”
She understood. “You’re thinking of Leo falling for Emma, and then Emma going away.”
“He never got over it.”
“She left because she couldn’t stand the Notch. In those days, you either lived here or you didn’t. Nowadays people commute.”
He folded an arm under his head. “You won’t be saying that once the baby is born. Portability won’t be so easy then, and when the baby gets older, there’s school. You’ll have to settle somewhere. But what if I take a job in Denver? Or San Francisco? Or Honolulu? I came back here because Leo was sick. Now he’s gone. I owe it to the company to stay through June, but afterward, I just don’t know.”
She had seen his computer setup at home, had seen him totally absorbed in it, had seen the contracts, even the checks that came in the mail, and knew that he had a whole other career just waiting for him, should he choose it.
He had that right. He wasn’t bound to her in any way. Her immediate future was the baby, and he might just hate that. If so, that was his right, too. He didn’t owe her a thing.
Sitting beside him now, stroking the firm skin from his elbow to the dark tufts of hair under his arm and feeling a tingle inside, she sensed that if one of them was going to end up brokenhearted like Leo, it wouldn’t be Judd.
———
JUDD SHARPENED HIS EYES ON THE ROAD, TIGHTENED HIS hands on the wheel, and kept as steady a foot on the gas as he could given the woesome weather. January was two weeks old, and snow was falling with a fury that New Hampshire hadn’t seen since Thanksgiving, only this was worse. There was wind now, and the temperature was below the freezing mark, which made the storm a bona fide blizzard.
“Watch it,” Hunter warned, but Judd was already guiding the Blazer around the taillights of a skidding car.
“What’s the rush?”
“No rush,” Judd said.
&n
bsp; “Got a date?”
“Sure.”
“If we’d had any sense, we’da stayed in Boston.”
They had been there to order three new flatbed trucks from a firm they’d never dealt with before. The storm had been predicted for the next day. Something in the atmosphere had speeded things up. One look at the first flakes, and Judd had had an uneasy feeling. The feeling had intensified with each mile, but he refused to pull into a road stop to wait out the storm.
“We’ll get there,” he said, and for a time they drove on, listening to the sting of the snow against the windshield, the swish of the wipers, the howl of the wind, and James Taylor.
He depressed the gas pedal a fraction.
“She’s all right,” Hunter said.
Judd wasn’t so sure.
“She’s not due for another two weeks, Judd.”
“What do doctors know?” Judd asked. “It’s the kid who decides when to come.”
“She didn’t tell you to stay.”
“She wouldn’t. She wanted us to see those flatbeds in person. When it comes to work, she doesn’t take chances.”
Hunter slouched against the door. After several minutes he said, “Can’t complain about that. She’s makin’ it easier for us to win the company. Does she know it?”
“I honestly don’t think she cares,” Judd muttered.
“She doesn’t want the company?”
“Not passionately.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
Judd pulled the Blazer out from behind a truck. He retreated in time to avoid an oncoming car, but as soon as the car passed, he pulled out again.
“Cool move,” Hunter remarked sarcastically.
“Wanna get out and walk?”
“No way. These are good leather boots.”
“Then can it,” Judd said. He didn’t need Hunter’s lip. He didn’t need comments about Chelsea and the company. What he needed was to get the hell to Boulderbrook and get there fast.
Hunter stared out the window. James Taylor sang about walkin’ on a country road. Judd thought about what lay ahead—another three hours of driving on a whole string of country roads.
He honked at a car that was creeping, then swung out, downshifted, passed the car.
“What’s with you?” Hunter asked.
“I want to get back.”
“She’s all right.”
“She’s alone. I should’ve left her in town. It’d be just my luck to have some crackpot go out there and cut her electric wires.” Since Newport, things had been quiet on that score, but Judd wasn’t assuming it was done. Someone was being crafty, that was all.
“Your luck?” Hunter echoed mockingly. “Since when is her fate yours?”
“Since she bought half the company from Oliver,” Judd informed him. “Jeez, you’re so cynical it makes me gag. Is it so hard to admit that the woman is doing us all some good? Or that her motives may not be totally selfish? Or that she might, just might, be a decent human being? I know you, Hunter. I’ve seen you with her. In your own way, you’re protective. You won’t hurt her, but you resent the hell out of her. What I don’t know is why. She’s not takin’ a damn thing away from you. When are you gonna realize that?”
Hunter’s eyes bored into him. “Man, are you gone.”
“It’s the truth.”
“Gone over her,” he said. “Really hooked.”
“What I am is none of your business. Do me a favor, shut your mouth for a while? Else you can walk, and those boots be damned.”
Hunter either valued the boots, Judd’s friendship, or his own life enough, because he didn’t say another word.
Judd kept his eyes glued to the road, kept his fingers wrapped tightly around the wheel, kept his foot on the gas. He told himself that he wasn’t hooked, that he wanted to get home fast just to get out of the snow, but when James Taylor started in with, “Something in the way she moves,” he jabbed the eject button and removed the tape.
THE PAINS WERE COMING FIVE MINUTES APART, CHELSEA guessed, and tried to keep calm. She had no lights, no phone. The storm had robbed her of those two hours before. Shortly thereafter, her water had broken. Shortly after that, the contractions had begun.
First labors took forever. Everyone said that. She didn’t understand why the pains were so close.
Initially she had kept busy lighting candles, changing sheets, putting personal items in the overnight bag she had ready in the front hall closet. She had neatened up the nursery, though it didn’t need neatening. It was a bright yellow-and-white room that was bright even by candlelight, and it cheered her as much as anything could, given that she was alone and in labor in the middle of a driving snowstorm.
Not alone. Buck was with her, following her around from one room to the next. As trusty a friend as he was, though, Buck couldn’t deliver a baby.
When she ran out of things to do, she had settled in the living room before the fire. Now she lifted herself from the chair and walked around. When her stomach knotted, she braced herself against the sofa back until the contraction ended, then went on to the window. She couldn’t see much beyond the flakes hitting the panes in the faint glow of the fire. Without a porch light, the night beyond was black as pitch.
She wanted to see headlights, wanted to see Judd. Knowing that he was delayed by the storm didn’t make her feel better. She was going to need help soon, and she couldn’t get it for herself. The thought of giving birth to her baby alone didn’t hold much appeal.
Judd had been right. She should have read the childbirth manual. Thinking that anything was better than nothing, she took a candle and fetched the book from the bedroom. She opened it, didn’t know where to begin, flipped pages until the next contraction hit, when she pushed the book aside and rode out the pain.
Too fast, she thought, too fast. First labors took forever. Things would slow down.
But they didn’t. Barely four minutes passed before the next contraction began. When it ebbed, she walked around again. Thinking wishfully, she tried the phone. She added logs to the fire. She opened the childbirth manual randomly, found herself reading about breach births, slammed the book shut, and pushed it out of sight. She tried to be calm, to stay ahead of the pain, but it was getting harder. The baby was in a rush to get out. She hadn’t planned on that.
Kevin had hit it on the nose, she realized with a touch of hysteria. Knowing you, you’ll do it in the middle of a blizzard. You never did things the easy way, Chelsea Kane. She wished he were there. She wished Judd were there. She wished anyone were there.
The wind hurled pellets of snow against the farmhouse in an unending barrage. Shaking now from a mélange of cold, excitement, and fear, she wrapped herself in a quilt and deep-breathed her way through the next contraction. It seemed like forever before it was done, which wasn’t a good sign at all.
She couldn’t reach Judd, couldn’t reach Neil, couldn’t even reach the midwife she had sworn she wouldn’t use, though if she had that option now, she would take it. She felt something wet between her legs and refused to see what it was. Another contraction began, built, peaked, and ebbed, leaving her more frightened than ever. She pushed the hair off her damp forehead. She rubbed her back where it ached.
She had lost control of her body. It was doing things that she couldn’t stop. It had completely taken over, and although she had so cavalierly told Judd, No sweat, what would happen, would happen, she was sweating up a storm now.
———
“NO ANSWER,” JUDD SAID, SLIDING INTO THE CAR. HE DIDN’T even brush the snow off his coat before he put the car into gear and took off. “Shouldn’t have stopped to call,” he muttered. “Waste of time.”
“Why didn’t she answer?”
“How the hell should I know.” They were still twenty miles from Norwich Notch, which, thanks to the storm, meant another hour, assuming they didn’t skid off the road.
“Only a fool would be out in this,” Hunter said.
Judd knew Chel
sea was no fool. Bullheaded, yes, but no fool. “Something’s wrong with the phones. Her machine wasn’t on. If she’d gone anywhere, she would have left a message.”
Ten minutes down the road he pulled in at a diner, shouldered his way through the wind and snow, and called Nolan. “Something’s wrong at Boulderbrook,” he said. “I can feel it.”
“I’ll take a look,” Nolan said, “but it may take me a while.”
“That’s okay. Just go.”
He ran back to the Blazer to find Hunter brushing snow from the hood of the car and the headlights, which made a small improvement where visibility was concerned. It also made a broader statement. Hunter usually welcomed danger, but he was nervous now. Judd wondered if he was worried about Chelsea.
On and on they went, slowing to a crawl at times when the road disappeared. They encountered few other cars, which was lucky. Judd was driving down the middle of the road, going as fast as the Blazer and the snow under its tires would allow.
He was only marginally relieved when he hit the center of Norwich Notch, and he drove right on through without a thought to dropping off Hunter.
Nolan’s cruiser was just emerging from the Boulderbrook road when they reached it. Judd came alongside and rolled down his window.
“Can’t get in,” Nolan called through the wind-driven snow. “Tree down across the road. Took most of her wires with it. I tried to haul it aside, but I don’t have the power. We need a truck.”
“Can you get one?” Judd called back.
“Phone lines are screwed up all over, or I’d use my unit. The nearest truck is at Willem Dunleavy’s place. I’ll be back”
Judd rolled up his window and gave the car gas. He didn’t have to go far to encounter the fallen tree. “I’m going in on foot,” he told Hunter. Tugging up his collar, he took a flashlight from the glove compartment and set off.
The good news was that the snow was drifting as it fell, leaving six inches on the road rather than ten. The bad news was that the wind that caused the drifting was fierce. Judd jogged when he could, walked when he had to, leaned into the wind with no progress at all at the times of the strongest gusts.
He hadn’t gone more than a hundred yards when Hunter materialized beside him. “Drive yourself home,” he yelled through the storm.
The Passions of Chelsea Kane Page 42
