by Dahlia West
She flipped the radio on to disengage from the conversation. The drive went smoothly enough after that, with her only needing to stop every few hours for something to eat to quell the roiling nausea. She sniffed at the hot dog which had been roasting in a convenience store warmer, possibly for several days, and couldn’t wait to get back home. She’d endure anything for this baby, though, anything at all, and it wasn’t too bad smothered in ketchup and mustard.
“Do you think you’ll be sick like this all the time?”
She glared at Candace over the bun.
“Sorry!”
“I can handle being sick. God knows I’ve had enough practice.”
Candace’s brow furrowed and she picked at her crackers in silence for a while before they climbed back into the car.
Leah said a silent prayer to make it all the way back to Cody without having to yak. As they rounded the final curve before crossing in to the city limits, she recognized the sparkling green water of the reservoir even before the dam itself came fully into view. Candace’s foot came up off the accelerator and Leah felt the car slow. “Do you want to stop?” she asked, nodding at the turn off to the dam.
Leah sighed and shook her head because it was late and Candace was probably tired from driving. “No. Thanks, but no. Let’s just go home.” She gazed out the window anyway, at the one place that always made her feel calm and secure. But somehow Leah doubted even the sturdiness of the concrete Buffalo Bill Dam would make her feel as though she was standing on solid ground.
They passed the museum and it hardly seemed as though it was worth it to have taken the day off. A day of making change and leading the occasional tour would’ve been a walk in the park compared to driving most of the day only to be called a gold-digging whore and having to slink back home with her tail between her legs.
At the apartment, they finished the takeout pizza from the fridge, which wasn’t nearly as good as that woman Sofia’s cookies and lemonade. Leah didn’t feel like eating much anyway. After two bites her stomach rolled again. She could do without the morning sickness, which seemed to happen any time of the day or night. All she wanted to do was go to sleep and put Austin Barlow out of her mind entirely.
She crawled into bed in her tiny apartment and closed her eyes, doing her best not to think about the enormous log cabin nestled in the foothills of the Tetons hundreds of miles away, or the ruby red lips that had once sweet talked her into being naughty in an elevator and then called her a whore for her trouble. She willed herself to sleep so she didn’t have to think anymore at all.
Chapter Eleven
‡
Austin didn’t wake so much as just rise out of bed. He hadn’t slept a minute the entire night, replaying their conversation in his head over and over. He’d played too many hands over the years, and his luck had made him cocky and overconfident. The ability to predict a storm had failed him this time. He hadn’t seen this one coming, and it was one hell of a sidewinder.
He packed quickly but with purpose. He wasn’t sure what he’d need, or how long he’d be away, but he shoved in some clothes and basic necessities. At the last minute, he picked up his checkbook, but he didn’t like the way it felt in his hands—cold, impersonal. He stuffed it way down into the bottom of the duffel bag where he could forget it was there.
The drive took too long, because he was impatient. He risked a ticket, practically flooring it through Yellowstone where park rangers were more plentiful than state troopers on other highways. Luck was with him, once again, and he made it to Cody just after noon. He’d been here before, but didn’t know his way around. She’d said her name was Pierce and he was standing in front of the door of the only Leah Pierce in Cody, Wyoming, according to the internet, an apartment in a rundown part of town.
He recognized the car in the parking lot, at least, so he knew he was in the right place. Standing here now, about to talk to her again seemed daunting. He didn’t know what to say but he was certain he’d fuck it all up, no matter what.
He took a deep breath and raised his arm but beside him, another door opened. A woman shuffled out, looked at him, and visibly recoiled. His appearance probably didn’t help. He hadn’t shaved again in weeks, had skipped it this morning in favor of getting on the road. He probably looked crazy. Or homeless. He reached out and rapped briskly on Leah’s door, so the woman wouldn’t mistake him for a burglar or a stalker and call the police. He wasn’t ready though, not by a long shot, and when the door swung wide he felt awkward and stupid looming on the stoop.
It was Candace who opened the door and it was a bit of a relief. A five, maybe ten second reprieve before he had to do some fast talking about his earlier behavior. The young woman wasn’t happy to see him and he jammed his hands in his pockets, feeling like a heel. “Can I see her?” he asked quietly.
“So you can call her a whore again?”
“I didn’t…I didn’t say that.”
Candace stared at him.
Austin sighed. “Okay, I didn’t mean that.”
“You can’t see her.”
He started. “Why not? Is there something wrong? Is she okay? Is she—?”
“Oh, you care now?”
Austin judged by her sarcasm that Leah was most likely fine and relaxed a bit. “Come on, cut me some slack, Candace. You two showed up, out of the blue, and hit me with a sledgehammer. I didn’t handle it well. I admit it. I’m sorry. But I’m here now, and I want to at least talk.”
The brunette frowned. “I don’t think she’ll want to see you.”
He paused to consider this. He didn’t want to say that he still wasn’t totally sure she was pregnant, or that it was his baby if she was. But he couldn’t discount his own behavior that night and he owed it to Leah and himself to find out the truth either way.
“We need to talk,” he told Candace. “There’s a lot we’re going to have to hash out.”
The woman hesitated, considering his words, then nodded and stepped back from the door. “Just wait here,” she told him. “I’ll get her. Though I can’t promise anything.”
“I appreciate it,” he replied, and he did. He also appreciated Candace’s willingness to protect her friend. Everyone needed at least one friend like that.
Candace set off down the short hallway and he heard the click of a door and assumed it was a bedroom. Glancing around, he took in the shabby, spare furniture. One used couch, one television that looked nearly as old as his grandfather’s transistor radio, a poorly shellacked dining room table with only three chairs around it, all mismatched. It was garage sale stuff, not that that was a bad thing. But he grimaced at the thought of where she’d put a crib (or if she could even afford one.)
He heard muffled arguing from behind the bedroom door and for a moment he thought Candace had been right, that Leah would refuse to see him. Served him right, he supposed, but they had a baby to think about—maybe.
Finally the door flung open and an angry (and tired looking) Leah stormed out. The look she was giving him could’ve melted steel. “What do you want?” she snapped. “Just going home wasn’t good enough for you? You want to chase me out of the state now, too? How far away is good enough? Colorado? Texas? Mexico? Should I cross an ocean?”
“I came to talk, Leah. That’s all.”
She put her hands on her hips and Austin couldn’t help but remember when his own hands had been on them, especially in the elevator. His life would be a whole lot simpler now if he’d kept his promise just to look.
Leah narrowed her eyes at him. “I can’t think what else you’d have to say. I’m pretty sure I got the gist. Thanks for stopping by.” She marched across the room and grabbed his forearm, which surprised him. She actually tried to push him out the door but he’d driven a long way to be here and he wasn’t going to be ousted so easily. He planted his feet and refused to move.
“Leah, I made a whole lot of mistakes from the minute I met you. I’m probably wrong about a lot of things. I’m probably wrong about you
. If you’ll just hear me—”
“You know what, Austin? You’re not wrong. You’re absolutely right about me.”
“Leah!” Candace chastised from behind her.
Leah ignored her. “You’re right. Really. My tits are fake. And guess what? So’s my hair!” Astonishingly, she reached up, tugged, and pulled a handful of it out. She cocked back her arm and threw it at him. Shocked, he still managed to deflect it. The limp hairpiece skidded onto the nearby table, taking out a stack of papers and mail along with it.
“Everything about me is fake! So go on. Just go home. You saved yourself a whole lot of trouble, didn’t you? Yeah, you saw right through me. I’m ugly, and flat-chested, and I have terrible hair and I’m just the worst person you’ve ever met in your life! Forget about the baby. There is no baby! Not as far as you’re concerned. So. Get. Out.”
“I’m not leaving, Leah,” he declared and walked away from the front door to the table instead. He bent to pick up the mess she’d made.
“Don’t do that!” she ordered but he ignored her.
He gathered up the items and stacked them back on the table, which he noticed was wobbly and in need of repair. He reached out to steady it and his hand came down on a piece of paper that crackled under his palm. He glanced down, without thinking about it, and peered at it. Then he picked it up, deciphering the writing scrawled over the now-wrinkled paper.
“Put that down!” Leah hissed and made another move toward him but she was quite possibly too intimidated to actually enforce her demand, because she didn’t come any closer. “Give me that!”
“What’s a Reverse Bucket List?” he asked instead of handing it over.
Silence was all he got in response.
It wasn’t Leah, but Candace who spoke up. “It’s—”
“Don’t!” Leah snapped. “Don’t you dare tell him. Don’t you dare!”
Candace sighed. “Leah—”
“Don’t.” Leah turned from Austin to plead with her friend. The anger in her voice just moments ago had seemingly dissipated. “Please don’t,” she begged.
The two women regarded each other in a silence so heavy that Austin wished he’d never picked up the paper in the first place. Now that he had, he couldn’t seem to put it down or hand it over.
“It’s—” Candace began again.
“Don’t,” Leah whispered, but it was a half-hearted effort now. She wiped at her cheeks and looked away, out the window instead, anywhere, apparently, other than at the two other people in the room.
“Well, you know,” Candace said to him. “You know what a Bucket List is.”
Austin hadn’t known that it was possible to feel any worse than he had right up until this moment, to feel any more guilty than he already did. But his gut twisted anyway and it felt as though there was a nest of rattlers in his lower belly. “Yeah,” he said slowly, cautiously, waiting for the inevitable strike, knowing he couldn’t stop it, but still desperately wanting to.
Candace cast a guilty look at Leah, a sort of preemptive apology. “A Reverse Bucket List is all the things you’re going to do when they tell you you’re going to live.” Candace cast another furtive glance at her friend. “She—”
Leah whirled on her, just as quick as any diamondback. “Don’t you tell him any more. He doesn’t deserve to know.” She threw a cutting look at Austin. “And he doesn’t care anyway.”
Awkwardly, Candace cleared her throat and ducked her head. “Well, she’s going to live,” she finished quietly. “And she was never sure if she would. I always thought she would,” the girl added with a slight smile. “But Leah never believed it.”
Austin glanced around at the bare apartment, the ponytail on the floor, and the paper in his hand. “I—”
“Just get out!” Leah snapped. “Just leave. Now.”
He wasn’t certain what to say and it seemed very likely that anything that came out of his mouth would be wrong right now, anyway. He closed his hand around the paper and pressed his lips together before saying, “I’m staying at the Holiday Inn off the highway. I…I’ll come back tomorrow, when things are less…”
Austin struggled to find the right words. The truth was, he wasn’t sure things would ever be less, or easier, or better, for that matter, but he for damn sure wasn’t going to keep making them worse. “Tomorrow,” he muttered, feeling like an asshole and a damn fool as he walked out the door.
After checking into his room, he slid down into the chair in the corner and smoothed out the paper on the desktop. He didn’t even remember taking it with him. Fuck a cowboy with his boots on. Except fuck had been crossed out. Seeing the words Make love to scrawled above it made him groan out loud. He had a hazy recollection of his night with Leah, but they hadn’t made love, or anything close to it. He was pretty sure he’d ridden her like a greenbroke filly and then collapsed into unconsciousness just after.
Had she been a virgin? He didn’t think so. He had a vague memory of having made sure. That was a relief.
Ride a horse.
Climb a mountain.
Sing a song in public.
Drive a stick shift.
Get a tattoo.
He couldn’t help but smile sadly at them. All things he’d done, that almost everyone had done, what kind of life had she lived if she hadn’t managed a single one?
Austin didn’t know. He didn’t know her at all. But he needed to find out.
Chapter Twelve
‡
Leah leaned against the door and kept her eyes closed for a full minute before finally looking at Candace.
“You could’ve listened,” her friend said gently. “But then if he’d talked to me the way he talked to you yesterday, I think I’d have kicked his ass out, too.”
Leah was still angry and hurt over his previous words. He didn’t know her! How dare he judge her?
“He’ll come back tomorrow,” Candace reminded her. “Will you listen then?”
Leah scowled. “I don’t know.” She sighed. “Maybe.”
“I can’t believe you threw your hair at him.”
She covered her face with her hands. She’d been embarrassed, mostly, not only because of the things he’d said but also because her spartan apartment paled in comparison to his castle in the foothills of the Tetons. When she’d come out of the bedroom, she’d seen the look on his face as he’d been studying the place, judging the place, judging her—again.
“I was just surprised to see him here,” she told Candace, not wanting to remind her friend how little she’d contributed to their shared furnishings. Candace had gotten them all their kitchen utensils and appliances. Leah had bought the furniture mostly second hand. And one chair she’d picked up off the curb. Her friend had never complained, but even so.
“Why’d you tell him?” Leah asked her.
“Because you never would have. And because I think maybe the two of you got off on the wrong foot and then just kept sliding down. Somebody had to reach out and grab you, Leah. Before you went over the cliff and ran him of permanently. He said he screwed up,” Candace declared. “He apologized. I would have told you but you didn’t give me a chance.”
“He screwed up?”
By screwing her? Leah guessed she could understand why he felt that way, but the thought was still depressing.
“I think he’s offering an olive branch here, Leah. And I’m not so sure you should spit on it. He has money—”
“I don’t want his money. I told you before.”
“But it’s not for you,” Candace replied quietly.
Leah had never been one to ignore or run away from her problems and it certainly made no sense to start now. Candace was right, as usual, and it was time once again, to deal with what was right in front of her.
“I’ll talk to him,” she finally agreed.
Candace visibly relaxed in front of her. “You’re doing the right thing.”
Leah hoped so.
That night she could barely sleep, getting less res
t than usual these last few weeks. Tomorrow night (tonight, since it was well past midnight) seemed too far away. She was anxious to get this resolved, to focus on the future, assuming there was anything to focus on. Tomorrow she’d know for sure, when the doctor confirmed it either way.
She tossed and turned and watched the clock until it was a reasonably civilized hour—8 a.m. She dressed quickly and grabbed enough money for the bus across town, the Holiday Inn, he’d said. She knew it but had never been there. Leah hadn’t bothered with the fake hair piece. He’d already seen her without it and it would’ve taken too long to put on and arrange it. Plus she was a little tired of trying to be someone she wasn’t, and that included her short hair. She wasn’t fooling anyone. Everyone around her knew she’d been sick. It was only vanity that had her endlessly fiddling with her hair. She had more important things to worry about these days.
The girl at the front desk, scarcely older than Leah herself, was happy to ring Austin’s room.
There was no answer.
Leah’s stomach twisted for reasons she couldn’t explain. “Has he checked out?” For some reason, that thought did not give her any relief at all.
The girl clacked away on the keyboard, squinting at the screen. “No.”
“Can you try again?”
Leah waited, patiently, but grew more agitated with every passing second. “Can you tell me his room number?” she asked sheepishly.
The girl frowned. “We’re not supposed to.”
“I guess I could wait. All day.” She glanced wistfully over her shoulder. “Or I could knock on every single door.” Leah walked away slowly, toward the nearest hallway, allowing the girl time to contemplate the possibility of getting yelled at once, if Austin complained, versus getting several dozen angry phone calls from disturbed guests.
“Okay, wait!” She glanced nervously toward a door marked Employees Only. “I could get fired,” she whined.
