Anna gave Megan a spoon to replace the fork she'd stolen, and the girl immediately shoved it in her mouth and went blessedly silent. "Sure."
"Oh… ah, hi, Ethan," Jane said, her face turning crimson as she scrambled around him and headed toward the front of the café with Travis in tow.
"A table just freed up in the corner," Ethan said, plucking Megan out of Anna's arms before she could protest, then turning and striding away with the suddenly laughing little girl who was now trying to shove the spoon in his mouth.
Dammit, why couldn't she stay one step ahead of the man? Just when she thought she'd ditched him, he'd found a way to get right back in her face. Anna grabbed the large diaper bag Jane had left under the counter and ran after him.
"This will be better for the kids," he said as Anna sat down and began moving silverware and coffee mugs out of Megan's reach. "I can't believe Jane dared to venture out in public with these bandits," he continued, capturing Megan's swinging fist.
"She's been watching them since Pete's accident, so her sister can stay in Bangor with him. She's probably going stir-crazy at home and thought it would be fun to take them out to lunch. Have you heard any news about how Pete's doing?" Anna asked, rummaging around in the bag until she found a green crayon, which she handed to Megan. The little girl dropped the spoon, grabbed the crayon, and immediately began scribbling on the paper place mat.
"He's in slightly better shape than his logging truck, which was totaled. He'll need physical therapy, but he should be back hauling logs in two or three months."
"He works for you, doesn't he?"
Ethan guided Megan's hand to draw a stick person. "He contracts to haul for us," he confirmed, looking up. "They're having a benefit dance for Pete next Saturday, to raise money to help pay his bills until he can get back to work. You going?"
"Of course. I always go to benefits."
Ethan suddenly stilled, got the strangest look on his face, and lifted Megan off his lap. "Aw, hell," he muttered.
Anna covered her mouth to stifle her laughter as Ethan stood up and looked down at the wet patches on his thighs. "She peed on me," he growled, scanning the café for Jane. "Stop laughing," he said under his breath, tucking the child under his arm like a football, grabbing up the diaper bag, and striding toward the restrooms.
He returned two minutes later with Travis in his arms. Anna stood up and slipped back into her jacket. "I've decided I'm not really that hungry. I'll see you back at the truck in about an hour and a half," she said, not waiting around for his response but heading to find Jane.
She ran into her just coming out of the restroom. "Where are you going?" Jane asked a bit desperately. "Where's Travis?"
"With Ethan."
"Oh, please don't leave me alone with Ethan," Jane pleaded. "Go get Travis, then walk me out to my car. Please?"
"You're not afraid of Ethan, are you?" Anna asked in surprise. "Weren't you dating his brother Paul before I met you?"
Jane shifted Megan on her hip and nodded. "That's why it would be awkward to sit with Ethan. Please go get Travis. I'll fix you lunch at home, and we… maybe we could talk?" She stepped closer. "Please, Anna? I really need to talk to someone, and my family has enough to deal with right now."
There was such desperation in Jane's eyes, Anna couldn't refuse. Jane had been the first friend she'd made in Oak Grove, when the woman had offered to share her table in this very café four months ago. Since then they'd visited often, even traveling the ninety miles to Bangor to shop at the mall and take in a movie.
"Of course I'll have lunch with you," Anna quickly returned, spinning on her heel to go fetch Travis. "Change of plans," she told Ethan, picking up the boy. "I'm helping Jane take the kids home and having lunch with her."
"What about the gun shop and Bear's checkup?"
"They'll have to wait until tomorrow," she said, handing him the keys to Keith's truck. "Buy Bear a burger and take him back to the mill for me, will you? I'll catch a ride from Jane's sister's house."
"How?"
"It's on the main road. I'll hop in with a logger hauling to the mill later this afternoon."
"You are not hitchhiking."
Anna rolled her eyes. "I know all the drivers."
"What about work? You can't just take off whenever you feel like it. We have a mill to run."
"It's running itself now. I'll be back no later than three," she said, turning away before he could say anything else, carrying Travis through the crowded room. "My, aren't you a big boy," she told him, repositioning the toddler on her hip.
"Megan pee-peed on him," Travis said.
"Yes, she did," Anna said. "I owe her big-time for that."
* * *
Anna swallowed her suddenly dry bite of sandwich. "But I thought you broke up with Paul Knight months ago?"
"I did," Jane said, looking down at her plate. "He's seeing Cynthia Pringle now."
"And you're how far along?" Anna asked gently.
"Just over four months. I've been driving to Bangor to see a doctor so no one would find out."
"So Paul doesn't know?"
Jane shook her head.
"Nobody knows?" Anna asked. "Not your parents or sister?"
She shook her head again.
"Jane. You have to tell someone."
"I'm telling you."
Anna leaned back in her chair. "Paul. You have to tell Paul Knight that you're having his baby," she said. "You can't keep something like this bottled up inside you. And besides, everyone will know soon," she said, waving toward Jane's belly. "And I'm pretty sure Paul can count well enough to realize he's the father." Anna sat forward, sliding her plate out of the way to rest her arms on the table. "He deserves to hear this from you, not from some town busybody, and the sooner the better. You both need to decide what you're going to do."
"But I don't know how to tell him," Jane whispered.
Anna took hold of her friend's cold fingers. "Ignoring the facts won't make them go away, Jane, and you can't continue to deal with this all by yourself. Not telling him is not fair to Paul, to you, or to your baby." She patted Jane's hands, then leaned back in her chair again. "Believe me, I know what I'm talking about. My mother never told my father about me, and I spent my entire childhood wondering who he was. Who I was."
Jane looked up in surprise. "You never knew your father?"
Anna smiled softly. "I was eleven when I finally met him. But he made up for lost time, and is a doting, overprotective dad to this day."
"How did your mother keep you a secret from him?"
"They didn't live in the same town. My dad and mom met at a logging show, had a fling, and walked out of each other's lives at the end of the week." She rested her arms on the table again. "But you and Paul will be seeing each other all the time. The Knights are good people, aren't they? Paul will do what's right."
"But what is right?"
Anna shrugged. "I don't know. You've made a baby together, and you and Paul are the ones to decide what's best for the three of you. Do you love him?" she asked softly.
Jane blinked at her. "Yes. But I'm scared."
"Of Paul?"
"Yes— no, of his whole family." Jane shifted nervously. "The Knights don't have a very good track record when it comes to women— especially women who get pregnant. Alex Knight's first marriage ended in disaster, and it was common knowledge that Charlotte had gotten pregnant so he'd have to marry her. And Ethan…" Jane visibly shivered. "There was a terrible scandal several years back involving Ethan and a woman named Pamela Sant. Rumor has it they had a huge fight, there was a chase down a remote tote road, and Pamela died when her car missed a turn and plunged into Oak Creek. Pam's parents demanded Ethan be brought up on manslaughter charges, claiming that she'd gone off the road because he'd been chasing her. But because he wasn't actually in Pam's car, there wasn't any alcohol involved and no witnesses, he was acquitted." Jane leaned closer. "Pamela was pregnant," she whispered. "And Ethan hasn't been the same since.
"No, actually, I don't," Anna said just as softly, trying to follow her friend's reasoning. "What do Alex and Ethan have to do with you and Paul?"
Jane balled her hands into fists on the table. "We were always careful, but we must have slipped up when we went down to Bangor for a couple of days last fall. And now I'm just another woman one of the Knight men knocked up. Paul's going to think I got pregnant on purpose, and everyone else is going to think I'm trying to marry into the richest family around here."
Anna could only stare at her, speechless.
"That's what everyone said about Pamela Sant, that she was just like Alex's first wife, and that was why Ethan was so angry," Jane said. "And that's exactly what Paul will think when I tell him."
"You did not get pregnant by yourself."
Jane buried her face in her hands with a sob. "I'm going to end up just like Madeline Fox," she wailed. "Everyone's going to know I'm an easy lay, my kid will be picked on at school, men will come sniffing around, and I'll end up in one loveless marriage after another, just like Madeline did."
"What are you talking about?"
Jane looked up, blinking back her tears. "The legendary Madeline Fox," she said with a dramatic wave of her hand. "Samuel Fox's daughter. You know, the guy who used to own the mill you bought? His daughter was the town hussy, and every mother— including mine— still uses her as an example of what happens to loose women." Jane started sobbing into her hands again. "My mother is going to kill me."
Good God, her mom's reputation was still the talk of Oak Grove, even though Madeline had left nearly eighteen years ago? Anna stood, skirted the table, and crouched down to wrap her arms around Jane. "You are not going to turn out like Madeline Fox," she said, pulling Jane's hands away from her face. "You're telling Paul you're pregnant, and the two of you will decide what to do— without worrying about family histories and town legends. Understand?" she said, brushing the hair back from Jane's face. "Your baby is what's important, not the reputation of a woman who lived here when you were only a baby yourself."
"B-but what about Cynthia?"
"Paul's new girlfriend? To hell with her," Anna said with a crooked smile. "She's not having his baby, you are. Why did you two break up, anyway?"
Jane looked down. "Things started going bad right after we snuck off to Bangor last fall. By the end of our trip, I…"She looked at Anna. "I started talking about our future together. Then a week after we got back, I saw Paul having lunch with Cynthia at the Drooling Moose, and I went ballistic." She closed her eyes and shook her head. "I made a public scene and said some really stupid things. If I were Paul, I'd have run for the hills, too."
"And have you had any contact with him since?"
"Just a few awkward moments when we ran into each other in town."
"And now you have one more awkward moment to look forward to," Anna said as she stood. "When you call him up and invite him out to dinner."
"I can't do that!"
"Someplace private," she continued, "away from Oak Grove. Greenville, maybe. No, that's still too close." She smiled at Jane's shocked expression. "How about here at your sister's house? You can invite him over for a home-cooked dinner. Your mom can watch Megan and Travis for the evening, can't she?"
"He won't come. You have no idea of the scene I made in the Drooling Moose. People are still talking about it."
"He'll come if you pose your invitation properly."
"But what do I say?"
Anna paced away, then turned back to face her. "How long did you and Paul go out with each other?"
"A little over a year."
"He must have given you gifts in that year."
Jane nodded. "He gave me a sweater for my birthday, and a teddy bear on Valentine's Day last year."
"It's got to be something special. Something sentimental. Did he ever give you jewelry?"
Jane snorted. "Never." She suddenly brightened. "He gave me a figurine that had been his mom's."
"That's perfect," Anna said, pulling her friend to her feet. "Especially since their house burned flat. You can tell Paul you want to give him back the figurine because it was his mother's. He would definitely come for that."
Jane bit her lower lip. "You don't think this sounds like an ambush?"
"You didn't feel a bit ambushed yourself, when you realized you were pregnant? Jane, there's no easy way to tell a man he's about to become a father, especially if you're not married to him. You're just going to have to come out and say it."
"How did you get so smart about this stuff?"
"I watched three of my brothers jump through hoops to get their wives." She patted Jane's shoulder, slipped into her jacket, and headed for the door. "You get on that phone today and invite Paul to dinner tomorrow night, because I want to see the two of you together at Pete's benefit dance next Saturday, got that?"
"Today?"
"You're not getting any less pregnant, Jane. Today."
"Megan stinks," Travis announced as he walked down the stairs into the kitchen, rubbing his sleepy eyes.
Jane groaned and walked over to pick up the boy, set him in his booster seat at the table, and gave him her tuna fish sandwich. "I'm not ready for motherhood," she said, heading to the stairs.
"I've been told it's easier when they're your own," Anna assured her as she opened the back door. "Promise me you'll call Paul today."
Jane stopped with one foot on the stairs. "I promise."
Anna nodded. "Then I'll see you one week from tomorrow, at Pete's benefit dance. Together."
"From your lips to God's ears." Jane rushed upstairs when Megan let out a bellow.
* * *
Anna stepped onto the porch, zipped up her jacket, and headed toward the main road as she thought about what Jane had said concerning Ethan. Barely civilized? Hah, when he wasn't being a pain in the neck, he was downright aggravating.
Though not letting her slide down the ravine in her truck had been a very civilized thing to do. But enjoying undressing her while she'd been unconscious, making her sleep on the couch for three nights just because he didn't have running water, and kissing her senseless and then walking away without a word— might those be considered the actions of a man who was angry at women? And maybe at her in particular, because he didn't like that his foreman was female?
Then why insist on having dinner with her every night, following her to town today, and finding fault with any man she showed an interest in? Dammit, Ethan was such a guy. She remembered Pamela Sant from grade school as a simpering, fragile mama's girl with pale skin, big brown eyes, and nearly white hair who was always coming up with excuses why she couldn't take outdoor recess. Ethan had dated her? And gotten the little pris pregnant?
Anna walked along the paved road toward Loon Cove Lumber. Pamela was dead, Ethan had fought manslaughter charges, and since then he'd been hard and unapproachable. Had he loved Pamela that much that he still hadn't gotten over her death?
And was it even any of her business? If he was angry at the world, that was his problem— as long as that anger wasn't directed at her.
She should probably stop pushing his buttons then.
Anna caught the sound of a large rig laboring up the long grade behind her and turned and stuck out her thumb. She heard the heavily loaded twenty-two wheeler downshift, and spun back around and started running, knowing the driver couldn't stop in the middle of the hill to pick her up. He passed her with a blast of his air horn, then came to a stop just over the knoll, dust billowing from his tires and drifting on the gentle March breeze.
"Hi, Gaylen," Anna said as she opened the passenger door and jumped up on the step. "Can I hitch a ride to Loon Cove?"
"I hear you totaled your truck," he said, waving her in. His eyes sparkled expectantly. "How much money you got for a new one?"
"About a thousand dollars less than you're hoping to sell me yours for, you old coot. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Gaylen Dempsey, for trying to take advantage of a poor, helpless woman like me."
Gaylen looked appropriately offended, but the two flags of red appearing on his ruddy cheeks told Anna she'd guessed right. "You're about as helpless as a fisher with its tail caught in a trap, missy," he muttered, running through the gears as he pulled back onto the road. "My pickup ain't much to look at, but it runs smooth as a purring tiger." He glanced at her, then back at the road. "Three thousand dollars, and you tell Davis to quit shorting my loads when he scales them."
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