by Leslie North
For a second, Carson was sure he was going to pass out. In any event, he sorely wished he hadn’t given up his walking stick so soon. As it was, he stumbled forward, grabbing the back of the nearest easy chair and groping his way around it until he could sit. He leaned forward until his head was almost hanging between his knees as he’d read a person should do when feeling faint. He thought Kelly might still be talking, but he couldn’t be sure over the sound of blood rushing through his head. It wasn’t until he felt her hand on his shoulder that he looked up again, stars dancing across his eyes.
“Jesus, you didn’t know?” she asked, surprise replacing anger. “Did she seriously never tell you?”
“About what?” he laughed, feeling sick as he ran a trembling hand through his hair. “The baby she miscarried or the one she’s carrying now? Although I guess it doesn’t matter, does it? She said nothing to me.”
“Oh my God,” she whispered, sinking onto the couch beside his chair. “I had no idea. I can’t believe she didn’t tell you.” She sniffed. “I’m such a jerk!”
Carson shook his head, although whether in answer to her self-flagellation or to the thoughts in his own head, he couldn’t say. His mind was racing so fast, he’d be lucky to tell up from down at the moment. The fact that he’d lost a baby without ever knowing—that was bad enough, but that she hadn’t trusted him enough to tell him was far worse. She obviously hadn’t thought he’d be a good father then, and her opinion of him was no better now. And here he’d been feeling sorry for himself.
“Carson?” Kelly asked, sounding like the shy young thing he remembered. “Are you going to tell her what I did?”
He couldn’t answer. She might as well ask him to expound on the theory of relativity. Part of him wanted to get in his truck and speed over to Karen’s place, fall on one knee, and say they should just get hitched. Another part of him, though, felt cheated, so full of sorrow that he couldn’t imagine ever seeing her again, let alone becoming joined together as man and wife. If Karen didn’t trust him enough to tell him about not one but two pregnancies, what kind of future could the two of them actually have?
12
Every time Karen thought about her dinner with Carson, she wanted to cry. She tried to convince herself it was those pregnancy hormones, but she couldn’t quite believe it. Some things simply bothered a girl, no matter what. Being ghosted, especially by somebody you had known almost all your life, had to be one of them.
Pretending to be happy for Carson while dying on the inside had been one of the hardest things she had ever done in her life. In some ways, it had been even harder than losing him the first time around. She knew from experience how painful it would be once he was gone. Worse, she knew that she could lose this baby, too, and she didn’t want to let her stress to be the cause of another child’s death.
Still, she’d been proud of how she’d handled things. She’d even expected to see more of Carson before he left. Since their dinner, she’d called him—three times—without getting a response. She might have been able to believe he was busy on the ranch, except he’d never before not gotten back to her, at least not since his return. At last he’d texted her, cold and distant after the intimacy of the dinner they had shared, somehow confirming her feeling of abandonment—a stiffly worded request to meet and speak in person a couple of days from now—as if she were a client or future sponsor. This Carson felt totally different from the one who had told her he cared about her so much, he’d wanted her to be the first to know about his bill of clean health.
“What are you doing, Karen?” Kelly asked, walking in through the back door into Karen’s kitchen and looking at her like a bomb that might go off at any moment. “What’s the matter?” She pulled off her wool hat, stuffed it in her coat pocket, then shrugged off her coat and laid it over a chair, combing her hair with her fingers.
“Nothing,” Karen answered with a start, her hand coming to rest over her heart, beating a mile a minute. “You shouldn’t sneak up on people like that, Kelly! You scared the daylights out of me.”
“I’m sorry,” Kelly said instantly, her face pinched with concern. She had looked that way ever since she had come over unannounced and found the doctor’s pamphlet on what to expect while pregnant. Though Kelly meant well, she was driving Karen insane.
“Don’t be sorry,” Karen said with a sigh, slowly stretching, her palms pressed against the small of her back. “I’m just feeling cranky.”
“Is there anything I can do?” Kelly asked hopefully, moving forward with her arms stretched out as if she thought Karen was about to drop to the floor. “Seriously, anything. Your wish is my command.”
“No, but thank you,” Karen answered, trying not to let her annoyance over Kelly’s over-attentiveness show as she went for her purse and keys. “I’m just going a little stir crazy. And I might be a little starved for sugar, too.” She took a deep breath and let it out again, trying for a bright tone. “I’m going to run into town, maybe get some ice cream. Want anything?”
“Oh, you don’t have to do that,” Kelly said, wringing her hands nervously. “I can totally do that for you. That’s why I’m here, right? To help!”
Karen had to bite her tongue to keep from retorting that she didn’t actually know why her sister was there, seeing as they’d made no plans to get together. Instead, she smiled and shook her head, pretending not to see Kelly’s look of disappointed dismay. “That’s so sweet, Kel, but I think getting out and stretching my legs will do me good. Besides, you’ve got stuff of your own to do.”
Kelly shrugged, a little defensively, Karen thought, but she didn’t argue, something to be thankful for. She headed to her own car as Karen got in the truck, waving a half-hearted goodbye, which was even better.
Once on the road, Karen started to feel a little more like herself, minus the unsettled stomach and the nagging concern over what might have gone wrong with Carson.
That lasted exactly as long as it took her to find a parking spot along Main Street, leave her truck, and get a few steps down the sidewalk. That was when she saw Carson surrounded by a small, admiring mob. She stopped dead in her tracks, a wave of nausea passing over her, so strong she thought she might puke right there for all to see.
“Buckle bunnies,” she hissed, meaning young, flirtatious women dead set on becoming a permanent fixture in a rodeo man’s life. Carson was all-too-obviously basking in their attention. When she and Carson had been younger, before he had decided he couldn’t chase his dreams with her around, he had often expressed disdain for this kind of girl. Now, however, he seemed perfectly content.
“No,” she said to herself through gritted teeth, her hands balling up into tight little fists by her sides. “He’s more than content. He looks thrilled.”
She made no conscious decision to confront him. She hardly even realized what she was doing as she marched up the street, her scarf coming loose and the cold barely registering.
“Seriously, Carson?” she said under her breath. “You really haven’t changed, have you?”
Carson, in the middle of telling a story that had his audience of perky blondes in stitches, saw her approach and broke off with an expression of such complete surprise, it would have made her laugh if she hadn’t been so infuriated.
She didn’t think about her next move, what she’d say to him. Her head was pounding, so full of her own rushing blood that she thought it might explode.
Carson’s eyes clouded over—he actually took a step backward as if he was afraid of her.
“Really, Carson?” she said in disgust, not bothering to look at the now surprised-looking buckle bunnies. “I guess you’re not quite as busy as you made it seem, are you?”
“Hold that thought a moment, will you?” he responded with a surprising amount of calm that irritated her even more. “Ladies, will you excuse me? It was nice to meet you, and I appreciate your enthusiasm for the circuit. I’m sure I speak for all of us when I say so.”
As his admirers, a
lready whispering to each other, took their leave, Carson and Karen stood in awkward silence. Karen tried to concentrate on the clouds her breath made in the air. She didn’t want to look at Carson’s face—she wanted to cry, or hit him, and she wasn’t sure which way things were going to go.
“You want to tell me what that was all about?” he finally asked when the women were out of earshot. Incredibly, he was looking at her as if he were the one who deserved to be pissed off. Combined with everything else, that was so ridiculous, she couldn’t help herself—she started to laugh, although it wasn’t a happy sound.
“That’s interesting, Carson,” she said, almost spitting the words, yanking her beanie more securely down on her head. “Because that’s what I wanted to know. Don’t worry, though, I think I know why you’ve been avoiding me and blowing me off. Looks like you had some really enticing reasons.”
For a second he looked so shocked, so hurt, that Karen wondered if she’d misread things. Then her mind flashed back to the look in those buckle bunnies’ eyes as they’d walked away, and she knew that this was one time she couldn’t let him charm her feelings away. He had mistreated her too many times in the past to let him get away with it now.
“Is that really what you think of me?” he asked, incredulous, his cheeks quickly deepening to an angry shade of red.
“What else am I supposed to think?” she shot back. “You can’t deny that you’ve been ignoring me.”
“You’re right,” he said, his voice suddenly oddly dull, almost emotionless, somehow making her anger drain away, leaving her feeling unsteady. “I’ve been avoiding you, but not because of those girls. I’ve been avoiding you because you lied to me. Twice.”
“I—I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she fumbled. But even if her mind was trying to play innocent, her hot face and instantly dry mouth gave her away.
“But you do,” he said, crossing his arms across his chest, his wounded eyes never leaving her face. “And I’ve been wracking my brains trying to figure out how we could make things work now that I know you would keep the news of my own child from me.”
“Carson—“ she tried to interrupt, a rough whisper instead of the calm, collected voice she was going for.
“So I suppose I should thank you,” he went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “Because now I have my answer. We can’t. You don’t trust me, and you don’t want me around. That’s so clear now,” she saw his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed hard, “so I’m going to give you what you want, Karen.”
With those words, he turned on his heel and stalked off down the sidewalk, almost all signs of his injuries gone.
13
“Okay,” Karen said to herself shakily, trying to psych herself up enough to look in the mirror. “You’re fine. You can do this, for crying out loud.”
The crying out loud part was something her grandfather had always said, and it usually made her laugh, even when she was the one saying it. Now, all she could muster was a ghost of a smile that felt terribly forced. In the time following her standoff with Carson, almost everything she did seemed forced.
In her more self-righteous moments, she did a halfway decent job of convincing herself that she had been right. She hadn’t been the one who had ended things when they were eighteen, and after being dumped, why reveal a pregnancy, let alone a miscarriage? And she had been planning on telling him everything this time—had been about to when he’d told her he was blowing town yet again. It was easy for him to be all up-in-arms now, but she hadn’t thought he’d be so desperate to know about the coming baby, talking all about his big plans to rejoin the rodeo.
“Right,” she said dully, hardly able to meet her own eyes in her dismal-looking reflection. “I was only thinking of him.”
Try as she might, she couldn’t quite make herself believe her own thoughts. She was also uncomfortably aware that if the roles had been reversed, if he’d kept something so big from her, she would have been furious. She had made a decision—twice—based on what she thought his reaction would be, justifying it later. She hadn’t given him a chance to be better than her expectations. The thought made her want to cry.
Thinking about her sister made her want to cry, too, but for a totally different reason. Kelly had finally confessed. Merely imagining the scene between Kelly and Carson made her want to scream and puke at the same time. She might easily have hated Kelly for what she had done.
She was angry as well as disappointed that Kelly had given away secrets not hers to tell. But even in this dark place, Karen had no wish to cause her big sister pain and, to be perfectly honest, she needed Kelly’s comforting presence. For all her flaws, Kelly wasn’t the kind of woman to say I told you so. For one thing, Karen knew she’d find welcome at Kelly’s house despite everything that had happened. For another, her big sis would be in a different kind of protecting mode now—the soothing kind.
Plus, there’s the little matter of her being right, she reminded herself as she headed out into the cold, her stomach doing an uncomfortable flip-flop.
She’d been thinking entirely too much about something else these past few days, worry nagging at her as she navigated the roads toward Kelly’s house in the steadily descending dark. She had no idea to what extent stress had contributed to her previous miscarriage. Here she was, facing the same situation all over again. This time, she was determined not to lose her baby along with everything else.
“Hey, girl!” Kelly, waiting in the cold, waved both arms as Karen pulled into her driveway and the headlights splashed across her. “I was starting to think you were going to bail on me.”
“Me?” Karen laughed half-heartedly at best as she got out of the truck. “Come on, when have I ever left my sister hanging?”
“You would certainly have the right, after what I did,” Kelly said, wrapping a protective arm around Karen and leading her toward the house.
Something in the gesture was so comforting, it made Karen want to cry. “I know,” she said quietly, swallowing hard as she removed her coat and sat heavily on the couch. “But I don’t want to fight with you anymore, Kel. Not with everything happening. Not with the way it’s all falling apart. “
“Please, Karen,” Kelly interrupted, reaching for Karen’s hand. “You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to. I wasn’t joking when I said I was worried you weren’t going to come.”
“I’m sorry, I never meant to worry you,” Karen said with a sigh. “It’s just that I don’t know how to handle being pregnant again, Kelly, and I don’t think Carson is ever going to forgive me.”
“But it’s you and Carson, honey,” Kelly said softly. She shook her head. “There’s a reason you came back together as soon as he got into town.” She pulled a wry face. “It kills me a little to say it, but you might just be made for each other.”
“No,” Karen laughed despite the tears beginning to slide down her cold, pale cheeks. “Whatever was going on between us, it’s over. He’s leaving, and I very much doubt we’ll see his face in Winding Creek again.”
She broke down then, sobbing uncontrollably. Kelly said nothing, only held her little sister close, making quiet cooing noises until Karen was mostly cried out. Then she pulled back slightly, not a trace of judgement on her face.
“First of all,” Kelly said slowly, considering each word before she uttered it. “And I really want you to hear me when I say this, you have got to forgive yourself.”
“Forgive myself?” Karen repeated, stunned by the response. “That’s really kind of you to say, but you know what I did. I lied to him, Kelly, not once but twice. I was horrible.”
“Maybe,” Kelly shrugged as if she wasn’t entirely convinced. “But you were trying to protect your heart, and you’re certainly not the first one to make a mistake while trying to do that.”
“But it wasn’t fair, Kelly, don’t you see?” Karen implored, her hands twisting restlessly in her lap as fresh tears sprang into her eyes. “He deserved better. He deserved a chance
.”
“And you deserve a second chance,” Kelly said without missing a beat, taking Karen’s hand again, if only to stop its restless movement. “Most of us do.” She took a deep breath. “Tell me honestly: do you love him?”
“I do love him,” Karen whispered, unable to meet her sister’s eyes. She hadn’t spoken the words out loud, not to anyone in a very long time. Now it seemed as if she were giving the feeling more power; she knew for sure that she would never be able to deny the emotion again.
“I thought so,” Kelly nodded. “Which means that you’re never going to be truly happy until you forgive yourself for the past and allow yourself to trust him.”
“I don’t think it will matter anymore,” Karen said quietly, shutting her eyes just long enough to see the way Carson’s face had looked right before he’d walked away from her for good.
“But you don’t know that for sure,” Kelly insisted fiercely. “And you shouldn’t sell him short—not anymore. What the two of you have is special. I think pretty much everyone can see that. If there’s anybody in the world who could work things out after this kind of mess, it’s the two of you.”
“But what can I do?” Karen asked, holding her breath and hoping for some kind of a miracle from her sister.
“I don’t know, but I know you’ll think of something,” Kelly said with a grin. “You’ve always been creative, girl. It’s time to put some of that to use.”
Karen nodded, shocked to find an idea already stirring. All at once, she remembered the box of newspaper clippings in her room, the ones she had started collecting when Carson had first begun to make a name for himself in the rodeo circuit. She wasn’t sure if those paper strips could have any power to help mend the breach between them, but at the very least, she could give something of Carson to their child. It wasn’t much, but perhaps it was a start. And maybe someday, he’d want to know his child, at least.
