The Baby Gamble

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  Bec already had too much on her plate. Too much she ate herself up with guilt about.

  “N-no, Annnnnie,” he stuttered. “I ssswear.”

  He stumbled again, falling into her with a whoosh of breath against her face, and the first bit of alarm raced through her. She’d been around drunk people enough times to know that their breath reeked. And that they didn’t usually stutter.

  Maybe Shane wasn’t drunk.

  “What did you take?” she asked, brusque with worry and a need to get help in case his life was in danger.

  “N-notth-thing,” he said, his eyes wide and frightened as he leaned against her. And Annie believed him. His pupils were dilated. That couldn’t be good.

  “C-c-c-ould you c-call my mom?” His stutters were getting worse.

  Annie had to get him inside. And call for help. Cell phone at her ear, she did both at once.

  “BLAKE, GOOD TO SEE YOU.” Dr. Elizabeth Magnum shook his hand, joining him at the conversation pit in her downtown San Antonio office Monday evening. “It’s been awhile.”

  The doctor was in her late fifties, with short salt-and-pepper hair and broad shoulders, and Blake found her comforting to be around. As did hundreds of other people, if her extensive client base was anything to go by. She wore no jewelry. Not even a wedding ring. He had no idea if she was married, had family or lived alone as he did.“Thanks for working me in.” Pursing his lips, Blake sat in his usual chair, across from the doctor’s corner of the couch. “I thought I was better.”

  “You are better. Amazingly so.”

  He loosened his tie. “My night stalker has returned.”

  “Are you taking your Desyrel?”

  “For the last two nights. Fifty milligrams.” The sleep aid’s minimum dosage.

  “And before that?”

  Hands on the arms of the chair, Blake focused on relaxing his muscle groups, one at a time. “Not for about six months.”

  “With no problems sleeping?”

  “They were minimal.” He’d been experiencing bouts of insomnia since he was a kid—probably since his parents’ car accident, but he didn’t know that for sure. Those he could deal with.

  “How are you doing with the alcohol consumption?”

  “No problems at all.”

  “And depression?”

  “I’m good there.” Never had had much of a problem in that area, if you disregarded those first couple of months he’d been back in Texas—and that had been completely understandable. He’d lost a child, a wife and an uncle in one fell swoop.

  Dr. Magnum looked down at the folder in her lap, as though checking Blake’s records—except that the blue file was still closed. “You know the three categories of symptoms,” she said. “Tell me where you’re at.”

  “Flashbacks had lessened, but I’ve had a few lately. One episode of completely reliving the event—felt as if I was there, was shocked to come out of it and find that I wasn’t.” Category one. “A guy in my poker game recently returned from Iraq. We met for drinks last week and he talked some. I’m not going to Wednesday night’s game. Have twice picked up the phone to bow out of the game permanently. Haven’t been able to read even so much as a headline about Iraq all week.”

  Category two.

  “And aside from my nocturnal pal, an engine backfired on the way to work this morning and I almost ran my car into a ditch.”

  Category three.

  And the seal on Blake’s fate. With symptoms in all three categories, he still fit the official diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder.

  A fate almost worse than death, as far as he was concerned, as it trapped a man in an emotional whirlwind that prevented him from living a normal life. Interfered with relationships. With family ties. With a man’s very ability to love.

  “Any outbursts of anger? Problems concentrating?”

  “No.” Not since those first couple of months.

  “What about relationships? Other than the soldier, how are you getting along with the people in your life?”

  What people? Blake had all but isolated himself—another symptom of what those terrorist fiends had stolen from him.

  “Had drinks with Cole last week. And went to visit an old man in the hospital, but I knew he was unconscious.”

  “So why’d you go?”

  Because it was easy. There were no expectations when someone was comatose.

  And because he wanted help, Blake looked deeper. And deeper. As Dr. Magnum had taught him. Quieting his mind until he could work through the layers of thoughts and emotions and figure out what his psyche was telling him.

  “I’d saved his life,” he said slowly. “Maybe he’d know I was there. Maybe he’d feel me somehow and reach toward me.”

  “Come out of the coma, you mean.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Maybe?”

  Uncomfortable with her pushing, Blake nevertheless appreciated that she was only doing what it took to give him what he sought—emotional health.

  “Yes,” he said after another long moment. “Yes, I suppose I thought maybe my presence could bring him out of his coma.”

  “Because you’d bonded with him.”

  “I’d given him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.”

  “That was a physical act, Blake. Bringing him out of his coma simply by being there suggests something else. I think we’re talking about the emotions.”

  The impact of her words hit him hard. “I formed an emotional bond,” he said, staring at her.

  “Yeah.”

  It wasn’t much in the large scheme of things, bonding with an unconscious man, but it gave him pause for thought. A big pause. And that was more than he’d had since he could remember.

  Blake took with a grain of salt the rest of Dr. Magnum’s reassurances that he was doing fine, that his nocturnal relapse was to be expected, a product of seeing Annie again. In the doc’s world, and by her clinical definitions, he was fine. In the world that Annie inhabited, he never would be.

  SHANE HAD EATEN A BROWNIE laced with methamphetamine. Though she’d worried that she was doing the right thing, Annie had called Becky, rather than the paramedics, and her friend had been able to get Shane in for an injection of a drug that reversed the effect, without the police being notified that he’d been high.

  He’d have been let go as soon as they found out that the youngster hadn’t been aware the potent drug was in the brownie he’d had, but still, he could have been arrested. In spite of the fact that the grandfather with whom he and his mother shared a home was the retired sheriff of River Bluff County.“He’s asleep,” Becky said, joining Annie in the kitchen of the home she’d grown up in and moved back to after her divorce when Shane was two. Her father had helped the women get Shane out to the farmhouse.

  Still dressed in the smock and white shoes she’d worn to work, Becky looked rumpled and exhausted. Her footsteps were heavy on the hardwood floor as she came to the table.

  Her father, Hub Parker, had retreated to his large workshop out back as soon as they’d returned home from the clinic with a confused Shane in tow. Annie knew, as she was sure Becky did, that Hub wasn’t angry with his grandson, or even with the kids who’d laced the brownies, but with whoever had sold them the stuff to begin with.

  He’d spent his lifetime trying to keep things like drugs and pornography out of River Bluff’s schools. Out of River Bluff, period.

  Annie poured her friend a glass of the herbal tea she’d brewed, and pushed a plate of ham sandwiches toward her. “I just got off the phone with Katie’s parents. Apparently the brownies were brought to the park after football practice. No one knows who brought them. Katie claims she didn’t eat any.”

  “That’s convenient.” The sarcasm in her friend’s voice was so unlike her, Annie was worried.

  She’d followed closely behind Becky all the way out to the three-bedroom white-frame farmhouse, afraid for her friend. For the thoughts she knew Becky was having; the guilt she was bearing on shoulders
that were already carrying far too much.

  “We got lucky, Bec. I never thought I’d hear myself say this, but thank God he went home with Katie, so he was right across the street from me, because otherwise he’d have been wandering around God knows where, and who knows who would have found him.”

  Plopping down in the chair next to Annie, Becky grasped her hand and gave it a squeeze. “Thank God you were there, Annie. Thank you. I don’t know what I’d have done if…” Tears pooled in her eyes as she broke off.

  “Hey.” Flipping her hand over, Annie held on to her friend. “It’s okay. You’re forgetting what a small town River Bluff is. Everyone knows everyone else here. He’d have been fine.”

  “He could have ended up in jail, first, though.”

  “Not likely with Hub Parker as a grandfather,” Annie said. “Those deputies would have made sure they had an airtight case before doing anything as drastic as that. And anyway, the most important thing is that he’s going to be as good as new in the morning.”

  “Is he?” Becky’s gaze flooded with worry as she glanced over. Holding her teacup with both hands, she had yet to take a sip. “He believes Katie had nothing to do with those brownies. Or the drugs.”

  “You don’t,” Annie guessed, partially because she didn’t, either.

  “You know her reputation. She’s eighteen years old, Annie.” Becky’s eyes were shadowed. “What the hell does she want with my son?”

  “Have you looked at Shane lately?”

  “He’s fifteen! Still a boy. I’ll bet she’s selling drugs and saw him as her next client.”

  “He’s becoming a man, Bec,” Annie said softly, compassion—and something else inexplicable, discomfiting—filling her heart. She could feel Becky’s helplessness. And could see herself in the same position fifteen years hence. “You’ve taught him well. If that’s the case, he’ll make the right choice,” she added.

  “Unless she tempts his hormones until he’s not thinking at all.”

  “He’s your son, Bec.” Annie helped herself to a sandwich, and handed one to Becky. “He’s got a lot of you in him. You’ve set the stage, given him the tools to make the right choices.”

  “But what if he doesn’t?”

  “Then we’ll be here to catch him when he falls. To pick up the pieces. And help him put his life back together again.”

  It sounded so easy. So…doable.

  When, in fact, as Annie well knew, there were some things that just couldn’t be fixed.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “SHANE NEEDS A FATHER.” Becky had eaten only a couple of the finger sandwiches. But she’d finished her tea. Her expression glum, she poured herself another cup.

  “He has one,” Annie pointed out. When a long look was the only response forthcoming, she asked, “Does Danny know what happened today?”“No.”

  “You going to tell him?”

  “I suppose. Not that it will help much. We’ve been divorced for thirteen years. I know he worries about Shane but he has another family. Another life.”

  “I just thought that maybe if he knew what was going on, he could offer a little male influence in Shane’s life.”

  “It’s a little late to hope the two of them are going to bond. Besides, he’s got male influence right here at home. My dad’s a helluva lot better with Shane than he ever was with me.”

  Annie was sure Becky was right. Hub could relate to the boy. A much easier proposition than consoling a little girl who’d lost her mother.

  “Maybe he just needs someone a little younger, a little more distant. A little less a retired sheriff. I can ask Cole to talk to him.”

  “No!” Tea splashed over the side of Becky’s cup. “Please, don’t say anything to your brother. Promise me, Annie.”

  “Okay!” She hated the fear in her friend’s voice, in her wide-eyed gaze. “It really is okay, you know.”

  “No it’s not. Cole is friends with Luke, and you know how it is with those guys. They get together and tell each other everything. They’re worse than girls. Always have been.” She paused, looked wildly around the kitchen, as if Luke Chisum had a direct line in from his family’s ranch neighboring the Parker homestead. Becky’s family’s homestead.

  “Luke can’t hear that I’m having problems with my son. He just can’t, Annie. He—”

  “Bec.” Annie put a hand on her friend’s forearm. “It’s okay. I won’t say anything. You have my word on that.”

  Nodding, Becky took a sip of tea. And then another. “Sorry,” she said with a weak grin. “I overreacted, I know. It’s just, seeing Shane like that, I…”

  “I know, honey. I get it.”

  They sat silently for a couple of minutes, each contemplating, and yet still connected.

  “Have you talked to Blake yet?” Becky broke the silence between them. “About his role in this baby you want to have?”

  Annie wished it wasn’t so easy to follow Becky’s train of thought. Wished she hadn’t traveled the very same road. From Shane and Becky’s issues, to hers.

  “No,” she said, feeling a sudden helplessness of her own.

  “Don’t you think you should?”

  “I tried.” She hated to admit that, to have out in the open how impossible a relationship between her and Blake really was. “He refused to talk about it.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  Why did he ever? It was the one thing she’d never understood. The one thing that had broken her heart—and driven her to choose safe, comfortable, verbal Roger over Blake upon his miraculous return from the dead.

  “He’s the one who asked for the terms,” Becky continued, frowning.

  “I know.” He’d asked her to marry him and be his partner forever, too. And then failed to join the partnership. “He just said to call him after I do the test.”

  She wanted to handle this professionally. To be unattached and grateful that she was finally going to have the baby, the family she wanted. She wanted to understand. And not to need him.

  She wanted not to care.

  With the weight of hopelessness dragging at her, Annie teared up again.

  “Ann? Honey, how are you ever going to handle having him around for the rest of your life, visiting your son or daughter, having a say in what he or she does? How are you going to handle it when that child goes to him and he can’t talk to you about it? Or even to the child?”

  Blake would make a great dad. The thought sprang immediately to mind at Becky’s provocation.

  And then Annie considered what her friend was saying.

  If Blake couldn’t be there for her, he certainly wouldn’t be able to be there for her child, either. A child who, as she’d been at thirteen, didn’t understand that parents were people, only that when you needed them and they weren’t there, you knew it had to be because of you. Because of something wrong or bad about you.

  And no matter what anyone said, there was real truth to the thought. Annie might not have been the source of her father’s problems, or even what drove him to take his own life. But neither had she been enough reason to keep him alive. Having her for a daughter, loving him, needing him, hadn’t been reason enough for him to live.

  Sick to her stomach, Annie considered what she’d done.

  If she was pregnant, she’d just saddled her child with a father who couldn’t tell him he loved him. It would be better for the child to have no father at all.

  BLAKE PROMISED Dr. Magnum—which meant he’d promised himself—that he would not cancel his participation in Wednesday night’s poker game. It might be one of those promises he wanted to keep, meant to keep, but couldn’t.

  Such as when he’d promised Annie he’d be home from his business trip in less than two weeks. That he’d be there for her and the baby. That there was nothing for her to be frightened of or worried about.The way he felt when he left work, his poker promise was going to follow the way of those other unkept promises. What good would it do to present himself at the Wild Card Saloon onl
y to have to turn around and leave again? How could that do anything but draw attention to the fact that he was not and never would be a normal human being, capable of functioning completely in society?

  Tendrils of anxiety already curled through his stomach. And he was hot in the middle of San Antonio’s first cold front of the season.

  But he was going to River Bluff. He was going to try. Blake always tried.

  And to get himself there, he’d decided to visit the Cross Fox Ranch and deliver his weanling news to Brady in person, rather than over the phone. A good feeling, not a bad one. The more he replaced bad with good, the less power the bad had to hurt him.

  Rule number one of talk therapy for stress victims.

  Right after the education part, where Blake learned how to identify all the things that were wrong with him—and was then told how bad it could get.

  Many sufferers of PTSD were never capable of participating in a one-on-one relationship again—even in relationships that had been firmly established before the incident that precipitated the disorder.

  He found Brady in the stable, shoveling muck. His friend of a little more than a year greeted him with such a sincere welcome that Blake felt a bit uncomfortable.

  “I think I found you a horse.” He came right to the point.

  “How’d you do that? I’ve got fingers in channels all over the state and I’ve heard nothing.”

  “I’m not sure how,” Blake answered honestly, stepping around stained straw to peak into a closed stall next to Brady. A tall chestnut mare stood there, looking bored and sad. “I have a new assistant who apparently is Wonder Man. At least to hear him tell it.”

  Which wasn’t entirely fair. While Colin seemed to have an inordinate amount of confidence, he’d also, so far anyway, followed up every promise with action.

  Blake was just finishing telling Brady about the private Henley sale when, to his surprise, Marshall Carrick stepped out of a stall at the end of the stable.

  “Blake, good to see you,” the older man said, coming to stand beside his son.