The Baby Gamble

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  Suddenly free, Blake shot up and out of bed. Out of the room, and grabbing his keys and wallet as he ran, out of the house. The Lincoln purred to life and he roared down the driveway, heart pounding as he sucked air into desperate lungs.

  The all-night coffee shop was just around the next corner. Blake focused on his destination, on the turn signal and steering wheel and gas pedal. He wasn’t wearing any shoes.

  By the time he pulled into the parking lot, he had his breathing under control. Running a hand through his hair, over the T-shirt and sweats he slept in because of occasions such as these, he reached into the backseat for the tennis shoes he’d kept there for two years, since the first visit he’d had from his night stalker. He slipped them on. Tied them. And with shaking hands reached for the door handle.

  “Hey, Blake, it’s been awhile.” Hallie, the forty-something waitress, met him at his usual booth, a pot of decaf in hand.

  “Thanks, Hal,” he said, taking a sip, the coffee’s warmth seeping through him, bringing him back.

  Hand on her hip, she looked him over. “Rough one, huh?”

  He shrugged. “I’ve had worse.”

  “So what brought it on this time?”

  Glancing around, Blake focused on a young couple at the back of the room—the only other patrons in the joint. Not many people in this neighborhood needed sustenance at three o’clock on a Monday morning. In another hour, however, the place would be packed with factory workers on their way to their early shifts.

  “Just one of those things.” He gave the friendly woman the same answer he always provided. And the grateful smile, too.

  “You want your usual?” she asked, smiling back, her eyes filled with more than just a professional welcome.

  “Please.”

  And when, ten minutes later, she delivered his scrambled eggs and wheat toast, he thought about asking her to dinner sometime.

  But, as always, he didn’t.

  CHAPTER SIX

  ANNIE WAS JUST RIDING away from the River’s Run office on Monday when Becky pulled around the corner. With one foot on the ground to steady her bike, Annie waited while her friend rolled down the Tahoe’s window.

  “You got a minute?” Becky asked.She always had time for her friend, especially when Becky wore that concerned frown. While Becky dropped off her weekly column of health tips to Mike Bailey, Annie threw her pack into the passenger seat of the vehicle and unloaded Becky’s bike from the back. Within minutes the two of them were wheeling their way out of town.

  “Did you talk to Shane?” That was the first question Annie asked, relaxing for a moment as bits of hair tossed against her forehead in the wind. Becky’s son had still been asleep when Annie had talked to her on Sunday.

  “He says it was just a joke.” Becky didn’t sound at all convinced. “He claims that Devin was in the Jeep and that they’d just come from the video store when Katie stopped them and asked for a ride home. Says she had a fight with her boyfriend.”

  “You don’t believe him.” Annie slowed her pedaling to stay even with Becky.

  With a quick sideways glance, her friend said, “Did you see Devin in that Jeep?”

  “No.”

  “And the kiss didn’t look like any dare to me.”

  Annie hadn’t thought so, either. And she was more worried now than she’d been on Saturday evening. If Shane was lying to Becky, they had bigger problems than just an intimate exchange between the young man who was like a nephew to her, and the out-of-control older girl who lived across the street.

  “Did you call Danny?”

  Danny was Becky’s ex-husband.

  “No.”

  “Because Luke’s back in town?”

  One of Becky’s feet slid off its pedal. “Of course not.”

  Annie sped in front to let a car pass them on the quiet, two-lane country road, and then slowed down until she was beside her again. “Are you sure about that, Bec?” she asked.

  When Becky didn’t answer, Annie started to worry in earnest. Luke Chisum had broken Becky’s heart when they were in high school. It had taken Becky years—and cost her a failed marriage—before she’d been able to find the peace and calm she now showed.

  “Be careful, Bec,” Annie said, ducking to avoid the branch of a cypress tree.

  “Like you’re being careful?” Becky’s quiet comeback was almost lost on the breeze.

  They’d reached a hill and Annie concentrated on using hamstrings, as well as quads, keeping her calves loose as she switched to a lower gear and headed up the slope. In jeans and a sweater, she was dressed for the office—this was not a strenuous bike ride, but she didn’t much care.

  Riding cleared her mind. Calmed her heart. Which was why she almost never drove the car that was parked in her garage.

  And climbing like this, facing the physical challenge head-on, strengthened her. At the moment, she needed all the strength she could get.

  She crested the hill, triumphant, and hardly out of breath. Yes. She could do this. Could do anything she set her mind to.

  She wasn’t a quitter. Didn’t buckle or give up. She was…

  “How’s your temperature?”

  Annie’s calf cramped. Taking her foot off the pedal, she glided down the opposite side of the hill, giving herself up to the breeze, the freedom. She could fly if she wanted to. And end up someplace else. Another time. Another life?

  “Are you going to call Blake?”

  Trust Becky to get right to the point, even if Annie didn’t acknowledge there was one.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Then maybe you shouldn’t.”

  Glancing over at her friend, Annie tried to read Becky’s mind as easily as the other woman read hers. And failed.

  “Cole is accepting of this whole plan now and I need his support,” she said, curiously worried that Becky might think she shouldn’t do this. Which made no sense, because most of the time, Becky agreed about it. “You and he are the only people I have that I can call on a second’s notice. I can’t afford to lose either of you.”

  “And Blake meets the criteria, I know,” Becky observed. “You know his genetic history. Don’t have to worry about someone lying to make a buck.”

  “Maybe you think it shouldn’t matter,” Annie replied, half coasting, waving as a friend of her mother’s passed, going the opposite direction. “And maybe it shouldn’t, but it does.”

  Becky slowed enough to look at Annie squarely as she said, “I understand that. I think it matters, too, considering the situation.”

  “Dr. Snow said that the chances of manic depression, or bipolar disorder as they’re calling it now, being genetically passed on are about ten percent at the most.”

  Becky nodded. “Genetic studies are relatively new in the whole psychiatric–bipolar field, but from what I’ve read, there are some chromosomal indications. However, there also tends to be a need of some kind of environmental trigger.”

  “Blake and I had genetic counseling when we were married.”

  “You never told me that.”

  “I never told anyone.” She hadn’t wanted anyone to know that she might be as flawed as her father. She’d spent her entire life showing the world a girl, a woman, who fit society’s expectations of a perfectly normal, emotionally healthy human being.

  “I’m assuming everything came out fine, or you wouldn’t even consider him.”

  “We were a perfect match.” At the time, she’d thought the test results had been extra validation of the fact that she and Blake were such a good fit.

  As it turned out, those results were the only perfect match between them.

  “Of course, you could undergo the same kind of testing with any other candidate.”

  She could. And go through it several times if she had to.

  “I know I can trust Blake.”

  “Which lessens the risk of the potential sperm donor backing out of the agreement at some future date.”

  Right. And that was a big con
sideration.

  “And you know him,” Becky added. “You know about the things that don’t show up on genetic testing.”

  Still pedaling slowly, they turned onto another long country road, the second leg of the route that would take them back to town. “Think about it, Bec,” Annie said, letting go of the handle bars for a moment to sit upright. “The man lived through four years of captivity at the hands of crazy terrorists. He returns home to find the life he’d left completely gone. All of it. His business, his uncle, the kid he’d thought he had, his marriage…”

  She had to stop. Catch her breath. Wait for emotion to pass.

  “And in just over two years’ time, he’s built a whole new life for himself out of what assets were left in a bank account, using sheer resolve, determination and emotional strength.”

  “He’s not likely going to be a man who buckles under feelings of desperation, and takes his own life,” Becky said. “He’s not your father.”

  Exactly.

  “I can’t argue with you about any of this,” her friend said. “It all makes sense.”

  “So you think I should do it.”

  “I think that if you actually sleep with Blake Smith again, you’re going to break your own heart, Annie.”

  “So you think I shouldn’t do it.” They were climbing another hill. A smaller one. Annie’s quads knotted with pain.

  “Oh, Ann. This isn’t anything I can help with. It’s too personal, too you, for my opinion or anyone else’s to make a difference. I think that you have to follow your heart. Regardless of what it, or anyone else, tells you.”

  They’d crested the hill, and with Becky’s words ringing in her ears, Annie sailed down the opposite side, scared to death to hear what her heart had to say.

  POST-TRAUMATIC stress disorder.

  Rubbing tired eyes, Blake lay in bed Monday night, the worn and wrinkled pamphlet held out in front of him.An anxiety disorder that is triggered by a life-threatening event.

  Which narrowed it right down, didn’t it? In the privacy of his own mind, the disgruntled thought surfaced.

  Who hadn’t, at some time in the course of a life, had a life-threatening experience? Anyone who’d ever been in a car accident, or even a bad storm. Millions of women and children were abused every day, but only half of the victims ever developed symptoms of PTSD.

  So why him?

  Sufferers of PTSD exhibit three basic symptoms. All three must be present for a PTSD diagnosis. They are…

  And they were listed. Blake could recite them by heart. Reliving the trauma—oftentimes without warning. And he knew to his detriment that this wasn’t merely remembering it, but experiencing it just as if it were happening again. Then there was the need to create a safe environment and stay within it as much as possible. Isolating oneself from things that might trigger a memory of the event. And the onset of symptom one. And last was the natural reaction to the first two. Constantly being on guard. Jumping at the slightest sound.

  He could add a few more. Like episodes of sleep paralysis. Problems with drinking. Conduct disorder. Dependence on drugs. Hell, he could write a book about the damn condition.

  What he couldn’t seem to do was rid himself of it.

  ANNIE LOOKED AT HER CHART. The dates and entries in all columns. The rising curve. Tuesday, October 9.

  She had a choice to make.Now.

  She could do nothing. And that would be a choice. Because if she didn’t call Blake this month, he’d know she’d changed her mind. Wasn’t sure. She’d give him a month to change his mind.

  Cole would be asking her if she’d seen Blake. As if she had to answer to her little brother about whether or not she’d had sex with her ex-husband.

  This whole thing was a mess. Far too complicated.

  Which was why she should keep the appointment she had in Houston. And make others. Do interviews. Sign a contract. Visit a clinic. Complete the project.

  And get on with her life. Get on with the business of having a baby and making a family. A home.

  Making use of her capacity to love fully and completely.

  Being the mother she was meant to be.

  She was healthy. Strong. She’d survived a missing and presumed dead love of her life. A miscarriage. A tragic return. A failed marriage. She’d survived the suicide of her father, a man she’d adored. The breakdown of a mother she’d relied upon.

  The growing up of the little brother she’d cared for with all the intensity of a new mother with her firstborn. And she’d been thirteen at the time. She was a successful and sought-after newspaper reporter. A college graduate. A champion biker.

  There was no doubt that Annie Kincaid could take the heat. Go the distance. Move an entire community to think more positively.

  But could she make one simple phone call?

  She went to the office. Turned in her weekly agricultural column. Wrote up a piece on a Texas state senate political scandal—a vote-tallying discrepancy and the ensuing cover-up—that was going to have far-reaching effects across the state. And another on a family seeking immunity from immigration laws so that their grandmother could remain where she was and die with enough health care to keep her comfortable.

  Annie stopped by her mother’s house. Picked up some information June had for her on the holiday bazaar coming the next month. Hedged when her mom asked her how she was doing.

  And then there was nothing left but the remaining hours in a day that wouldn’t end soon enough, or might end far too soon.

  Blake had given her his cell phone number.

  He’d be at the office at least until five.

  At four she picked up her phone. She didn’t want to call him at home, or when he was out. This was basically a business project. She had to call him at work.

  Four-fifteen and she’d punched the number once, but hadn’t hit Send. Four-thirty and she hit Redial.

  By five-thirty, with her phone left on the kitchen counter, she sat at her computer, trying to write. To get a head start on Thursday’s column. She couldn’t think of a single positive thing to say.

  Giving up after almost an hour of nonproductive staring, she took her bike out for a spin around the block. Six times.

  And at seven, she was back in the kitchen.

  “Blake?” Of course it was him. Who else would answer his phone?

  “Yes, Annie. Is it time?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you had dinner?”

  “No, you?”

  “No.”

  “Would you like me to make something?”

  “No. I’m not particularly hungry.”

  “Me, either.”

  “Shall I just come over, then?”

  She gulped. Tried to think. Couldn’t form a coherent thought. “Okay.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  Which gave her just a little over an hour to pack up and leave.

  Or stay and know the exquisite pleasure of lying in Blake Smith’s arms once more in this lifetime.

  Annie decided to pack.

  SHE PULLED OUT a nightgown first. One of the silky ones she’d stuffed in the back of a drawer the day they’d come to tell her that Blake Smith was missing and presumed dead. She meant to reach for underwear—and socks, too. They were in the next drawer.

  And then move to the closet for jeans and a sweater. Some shoes.When that seemed to be too much, she went to the bathroom instead. She’d need toiletries, wherever she was going.

  And she’d gather them. Just as soon as she had a second to relax. Hot water always relaxed her.

  Annie plugged the tub. Poured in some of the bubble bath she wanted to remember to take with her. Tested the water with her toe and then slowly stepped out of the jeans she’d had on all day. Her shirt followed. And her bra. And then, when the tub was half-full, she slid her panties down past her thighs, feeling exposed and vulnerable.

  Vulnerable, alone in her own bathroom.

  Where she undressed and bathed every single day of her life.<
br />
  What was the matter with her? Had she lost her mind? How could she have thought that she could undress herself, give her body to a man’s intimacies, and feel nothing?

  How could this ever be a “project”? A business arrangement? She’d only ever made love to two men in her life. And both of them after she’d married them.

  She’d held the act in such high esteem. And now she thought she could cheapen it all in the name of achieving a hard sought, well-planned and much deserved goal?

  Was it immoral, what she’d put in motion? Had she lost sight of reality? Let her issues push her to the point of irrational behavior?

  Sinking into the hot soapy water, she took a deep breath. Calmed herself. She should be thinking about where she was going to go.

  But she couldn’t find enough interest in the topic to focus. To care. As long as she was gone before Blake got there. And stayed gone all night, in case he hung around. She could sleep in her car for all that mattered.

  Or maybe she should load up her pack and take the bike for an all-night ride. She could fit in a fleece blanket and sleep out under the stars.

  But she didn’t really want to ride in the dark.

  The moon was out already.

  Annie reached for the soap. Drew it slowly up one arm, across her chest and down the other arm. She lathered. And rinsed. And tended to the rest of her body in the same manner.

  Would he find her changed? Be disappointed? She’d aged six years since he’d last seen her naked.

  Not that he had to see her. She could just get under the covers before he came in. Turn off the lights.