“Good. Busy with the kids. Ellen’s going to her first dance next weekend, and Martha’s sewing her a nice dress.”
Will nodded. He was used to all the references his friends made to their kids, the peek at a life he’d wanted but wasn’t destined, apparently, to have. This morning he felt more of a pang than usual. Might his child have been a little girl? A girl who’d be attending her first dance fifteen years from now?
“I hear Becca’s having some problems with Mayor Smith.” Todd resumed the conversation after they’d each given their orders for huevos rancheros and toast to the college student who’d come to wait on them.
“You know Becca,” Will replied, taking a strange comfort in being able to say that—at least about some parts of her life. “She’s already found a couple of other possible sources for funding.”
“Damn good thing,” Todd said. “A bunch of us plan to take up a collection ourselves, if something else doesn’t come through.” Todd sipped his coffee, pursing his lips in the funny way he’d been doing since the two of them had been college roommates right there at Montford. Back in those days they’d both been forced to turn to coffee for the caffeine boost it gave them. “The Save the Youth program can’t get up and running soon enough to suit me, I’ll tell ya. Having a teenager—or being a teenager—isn’t the piece of cake it was when we were young.”
Will smiled, remembering the pranks they’d all pulled as teenagers. He had a feeling it hadn’t been a piece of cake thirty years ago, either. But it was true that the temptations kids faced today were much more dangerous than the back seat of a car or a lake made for skinny-dipping. Hell, Shelter Valley had been dry back then. They hadn’t even had the occasional beer to experiment with.
Breakfast came and went, and Will still hadn’t broached the subject of his meeting with Todd. He’d handled many delicate situations during his tenure as president of Montford University, but couldn’t remember encountering one quite this awkward.
Nor one he felt so unprepared to handle. If it turned out that Todd was guilty of a serious ethical breach—involving a student—Will didn’t want to know. Not today.
“So, you got any promising students this term?” He decided to take the outside-in approach. A noted professor of psychology, Todd Moore was well-known for a couple of startling articles he’d written on the genius within. Todd believed that there were many more highly intelligent people in the world than anyone knew. He claimed that socially learned behaviors taught kids at a very early age to camouflage their abilities in order to fit in. The studies he’d done over the years, the statistics he’d compiled, were pretty conclusive.
But right now, Todd had just declined a refill on his coffee. Will didn’t have much time left.
“Sure,” Todd said in answer to Will’s question.
“With our market-driven enrollment, how could I not have promising students?”
Will conceded that with a nod. He was proud of Montford’s enrollment, was partly responsible for the high level of academic achievement to which they could hold their applicants. Because of the strict standards his administrators and faculty maintained, a Montford education was highly sought after.
It was also one of the main reasons that Will was so certain the rumors about Todd, which he’d come to put to rest, were just that. Rumors. Todd’s career, his reputation, were just too important to him. Not only that, he valued his family and community too much to risk it all on some…some liaison with a student.
“So what’s up with Stacy Truitt?” he asked—nonchalantly, he hoped.
“You’ve met her?” Todd looked up, surprised.
Will shook his head. “Just heard of her.”
“As well you might. She’s one of the most promising students I’ve ever had the pleasure to teach.” It wasn’t so much Todd’s words that made Will uncomfortable, but something about his tone—the way his old friend seemed to come to life when he spoke of this girl.
But then, to an educator, finding a student who was going to change the world was a life-giving experience.
Todd continued to tell Will about Stacy’s accomplishments, her goals. “No matter what I give her, she comes back for more,” he said, referring to an independent study course he was administering for Stacy.
Was that all it was, then? Todd and Stacy had been seen off-campus together a couple of times. Perhaps it had something to do with the independent study. Perhaps it really was that simple, Will thought with relief.
“What’s her project?” he asked.
“Medical-personnel rating of peers who care for AIDS patients in comparison with those who care for patients with other infectious diseases.”
Heavy-duty stuff. Running a quick mental overview of what such a project would entail—surveys, lots of math, some interviews—Will was having a hard time figuring out what would require Todd and Stacy to meet off-campus.
“It’s amazing,” Todd went on, his eyes alight with interest, but whether that interest was in the project or the student, Will wasn’t sure. “The preliminary findings sustain the idea that nurses think nurses who tend to AIDS patients receive less respect from their peers.”
“You’ve been pretty involved in the project?”
“No.” Todd shook his head like a proud papa.
“She’s done the whole thing on her own. From conception to conclusion.”
Will cringed at Todd’s choice of word. Conception. That was all he needed. And on top of that, his longtime friend had just shot his “Todd and Stacy together for the independent study” theory all to hell.
Looking at Todd, the new lines on his face, the graying at his temples, the other changes time had made, Will felt damn sad. And sorry. There was no way in hell he wanted to ask his friend if he was having an affair. Todd deserved his trust.
Besides, if Todd was doing something so crazy, so foolish, Will just plain didn’t want to know. Not right now, anyway. Todd had been his friend long before he’d been his colleague.
And Will needed a break. At least for a day or two. Long enough to get through the fact that his wife could be, at that very moment, on her way to Tucson to kill their baby.
Then he thought of Martha, home sewing a dress for Ellen, Todd’s daughter, who was only five years younger than Stacy Truitt. Anger started slowly, but came quickly to a boil. How dared Todd do this to his family? To his children? He had it all. A job he loved. A beautiful wife. And a strong healthy family. He had the children Will would never have. Children Will would’ve given anything to have.
And he was willing to throw it all away? On a coed? Surely there was some other explanation. Will had known Todd since they were kids. Shared life’s ups and downs with him. And Todd would never do what he was accused of doing. He would never have an affair with a student. He wouldn’t be unfaithful to Martha, period. Todd was a decent honorable man. He loved his wife. Hell, Will had stood up for them when they’d gotten married.
“Does Stacy live on campus?” Will asked, aware that she had an apartment downtown.
“No.” Todd shook his head. “She didn’t want the distraction of dorm life.”
“She lives with a relative, someone she knows in town?”
“She’s got an apartment, lives alone,” Todd said, though he seemed to be choosing his words a little more carefully. His glance was furtive, and Will liked that least of all. “But you already knew that, didn’t you?” Todd asked softly, looking at Will from beneath lowered lids.
Will nodded.
CHAPTER FIVE
TODD’S SILENCE was virtually an admission of guilt, and Will couldn’t stand it. He felt physically ill.
He wasn’t sufficiently equipped at the moment to deal with the personal ramifications of this particular disaster. He settled for the professional, instead. Montford had very clear standards. And ironclad policies that enforced them.
“How far has it gone?” he asked.
Todd didn’t answer, just gazed at the pattern he was tracing with one f
inger on the tabletop.
“Yeah.” Will pushed his empty coffee cup away.
“Maybe it’d be best if you told me nothing.”
He knew he should ask outright. Because if Todd was indeed guilty, as he seemed to be, Will would have to take action against him.
But he didn’t have to ask today. He could do the research first. He’d have to do it, anyway, to build a case before any action was taken. He could pretend for a little while longer that his entire life wasn’t careening out of control.
Ignorance was sounding more and more like bliss. He sure as hell wouldn’t be suffering so much if Becca had kept her news to herself.
“Does Martha know?”
Todd glanced up. “Know what?”
Todd hadn’t told her, either. Now, why didn’t that surprise him?
As angry as Will felt, as betrayed, he couldn’t just hang his friend out to dry—for the same reason he’d gone home to Becca every night during the past week.
“There’ve been formal complaints,” he said quietly, giving his friend a commiserating nod when Todd’s head shot up. “There will have to be an investigation.”
“On what grounds?”
Will could almost see his thoughts spinning.
“You’ve been seen coming and going from her apartment. I’ve been told there are pictures.”
Todd swore, the way they’d done as boys first testing their manhood. It sounded a lot worse at forty-two than it had at fourteen.
“I haven’t seen any photos,” Will told him. “They may not exist.” Until half an hour ago, he’d been certain they hadn’t. Damn.
“Where do we go from here?” Todd asked.
Good question. Will knew what he was required to do—but Todd was his friend and deserved whatever help Will could give him.
“Let me do some discreet checking, find out about this alleged proof.” Will stood. “Why don’t we meet again, in my office, next Tuesday morning?”
Todd nodded. He didn’t rise.
He was still sitting exactly as Will had left him, arms on the table in front of him, head bent, when Will drove by the diner five minutes later.
Stepping on the gas, Will wished, for the first time in his life, that he could just keep going, drive down Main Street to the freeway and out of this town. Shelter Valley didn’t have any shelter to offer him anymore. Everything was changing. The people he’d always trusted and loved weren’t the people he’d thought they were at all.
He didn’t know who was to blame. If anyone was to blame. He just knew that all in all, it had been one hell of a bad week.
THE HUM of the Thunderbird speeding along the highway sounded like an impending death sentence, pronounced over and over, drawing her closer and closer to the chamber that would irrevocably end everything. Each breath a conscious struggle, Becca finally had to pull off the freeway, stopping the car on the shoulder of the road.
How could she do this?
Cradling her flat stomach with both hands, she stared down at it, confused to see it looking exactly the same as it had the year before. And the year before that. But it wasn’t the same. A new life was growing in there now.
A direct product of the love she shared with Will.
How could she not do everything in her power to help that life?
Becca started to shiver. She stared out the windshield, at the unending expanse of brown landscape, dotted with pale green saguaro and desert brush and suddenly something became very clear. If she terminated this pregnancy, her own life would be exactly like that barren landscape. Alive, but solitary, dry. Existence without joy. Survival without meaning.
Without Will?
She was afraid of dying. Afraid this pregnancy could kill her. But what would her life be worth if she preserved it by killing the baby she carried? The baby she’d always wanted.
Once she saw it in such basic terms—that she had to choose between her own life and her baby’s—there was no longer a choice.
There were other risks, other things to consider, but when compared to the ultimate question of life and death, they, too, paled in significance.
Her head seemed too heavy for her neck to support; it dropped to the steering wheel. Her entire body trembling, Becca hugged her arms around her middle and burst into tears.
She was going to have a baby.
WILL DIDN’T COME HOME for dinner Friday night. The steaks Becca had bought and grilled were like leather by the time she finally heard his car pull into the garage well after midnight. The candles she’d lit were wax puddles in their holders. The chilled wine had long since lost its chill.
Shoulders hunched, he walked slowly, quietly, into the darkened kitchen, setting his briefcase on the counter in its usual spot. He didn’t notice her sitting there.
“Hi.” It wasn’t what she’d wanted to say or had planned to say, but at the moment it was all she could manage.
He jumped, turned around. “I was trying not to wake you.”
“I know.”
“I didn’t think you’d still be up.”
Hoped she wouldn’t be up, Becca translated.
“I made dinner,” she said, as if that explained why she was still sitting, in her flowing white gown, at a dinner she’d put on the table hours before.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his glance brushing the laden table. “I should’ve called.”
Where were you? she yearned to holler at him. But somehow she’d lost that right. She wasn’t sure how or when. She hadn’t been unfaithful to him. But she knew right then that if she acted like a wife, he was going to walk out on her.
“Did you have dinner?” she asked, instead.
He shook his head. “I had a late lunch.”
Oh? With whom? She knew better than to ask the question that would have been natural a week ago. What she didn’t know was how to find her husband inside the stranger he’d become. She desperately needed to talk to her best friend. To lean on him. To gather strength from his strength.
She needed to be held.
“Would you like me to fix you something?” she asked.
Neither of them had moved since the moment she’d first spoken. They remained in the dark, barely able to see each other. And maybe that was best. Becca was afraid to see in Will’s eyes the death of all she held dear.
“That’s not necessary,” he said, his voice weary.
She expected him to walk away from her, hole up in his study until he was sure she’d gone to bed, as he’d been doing all week. But he didn’t move. He simply stood there, almost as though he didn’t know what to do. Becca’s heart went out to him. She longed to reassure him, to comfort him, to hold him and love him as she alone had ever done.
But she could no more approach this man than she could a stranger on the street.
“You went to Tucson?” The words, when he finally spoke again, were clipped.
Filled with a resurgence of the panic that had beset her on and off all afternoon, Becca swallowed. “Yes,” she whispered.
His head fell, and then he raised it.
“You’re okay?”
Depends on how you define okay.
Her body was fine. For now, anyway.
Looking up at him in the darkness, Becca wished he’d look back at her. Wished he’d take her hand, pull her into his arms. Love away the horror of the past week so recovery could begin.
She had to tell him.
She hadn’t planned to do it like this. She’d had hopes of starting over. Of playing this out the way she’d always dreamed she would when she told Will the news they’d been waiting for all of their adult lives. She’d planned steak and candlelight, a negligee, soft smiles—love.
“I didn’t do it, Will,” she blurted to the stranger in her kitchen.
“You rescheduled?” He sounded almost angry. Fool that she was, Becca was thankful for that. She was desperately relieved to see any emotion in him at all.
“I called and cancelled. I decided to have the baby.”
Unable to stand his silence, afraid of what might be going on in his mind, terrified that he’d continue to reject her even now, Becca filled the silence with babbling. “I never wanted to go at all, but I felt I had no choice, so I made myself make the appointment, made myself drive down there. I saw the little Roberts boy at day care yesterday and I told myself I was doing the right thing, sparing a child a cruel life like that and…and sparing us the possible heartbreak of having a handicapped child.”
Becca paused, but Will didn’t speak. Didn’t move a muscle.
“On my way down there today, I started thinking about him again. And you know, the only thing I could remember was how happy he is. And how much his parents love him, how much joy he’s added to their lives, how much they’ve grown from having him. And I thought about how he makes me smile and how fond all of the day-care workers are of him, and suddenly saw a great purpose in his life.”
She fell silent. She could hear every breath Will took in the darkened kitchen, reminding her of the hundreds of nights she’d lain awake over the years, mourning the child she couldn’t have, listening to Will breathe. The nights she’d spent crying over the way her body was failing him.
“It was when I thought about that life, the fact that it was a life, that I had to turn around. Because I’d rather lose my own life than take the life of a child.”
And maybe she was overreacting on the health issues. Dr. Hall had scared the hell out of her. But Dr. Anderson hadn’t seemed all that alarmed. And Becca had been trusting Dr. Anderson for almost twenty years.
She tried to chuckle, sort of choked, instead. “I’m scared, Will.”
“I know.”
It wasn’t much, but it was enough to give Becca hope.
“I’m afraid for my health, scared to death something’s going to go wrong.”
“You’ll have the best care,” he said softly. “With today’s technology, the doctors know things about our bodies before we do. I wouldn’t ever let your life be put at risk, Becca. We’ll have all the tests, make sure you’re carefully monitored—everything.”
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