Over at the stove, Edna clucked her tongue. “Is it bad?”
“Just a nasty little slice,” said Tess. She had Starr by the wrist and guided her hand under the running tap. They both watched the blood well, the stream of water wash it away. Tess gave her smile. “Better?”
Starr watched the pink-tinted water as it spun down the drain, wondering at the way life could suddenly get away from a person. You turned around and your brother was just about five, for crying out loud. And your stepmother was pregnant, just like Meggie and Faith Johnston….
Just like me….
“Starr?” Tess was looking at her with a puzzled, slightly worried frown. “Is something the matter?”
The smell of the cooking meat, of the bubbling spaghetti sauce… God. She could not deal with it. “Could you…get me a paper towel?” Tess tore off a towel from the roll hooked under the cabinet. “Thanks.” Starr wrapped her still-bleeding finger in it. “I think I’d better—” she paused to swallow the sudden nausea down “—get a Band-Aid…” Holding the towel around her finger, Starr made for the stairs.
“Wait,” Tess called. “There’s a Band-Aid right here in the—”
Starr didn’t pause—she didn’t dare. She turned and walked backward, holding her towel-wrapped, bleeding finger high. “I’d better go upstairs. Finish the salad for me?”
“Of course, but—”
Whatever else she said, Starr didn’t stick around to hear it. She whirled and bolted for the stairs, taking them two at a time, racing for the bathroom at the end of the upper hall.
Once she got in there, she shoved the door closed, twisted the privacy lock, knocked the lid shut on the toilet—Ethan was always leaving it up—and dropped to the seat.
Still holding the towel around her finger, she put her head between her knees and sucked in a series of slow, calming breaths—all the while half expecting Tess to tap on the door and ask if she was okay.
No tap came. And the feeling that she was going to chuck up what was left of her breakfast was passing.
Still hunched over, she braced her elbows on her knees and studied the bloody towel that covered her finger. “Oh, what am I gonna do?” she whispered to the empty bathroom.
Not surprisingly, no one answered.
An abortion?
No. She just…didn’t want to do that. She put her uncut hand against her flat stomach and thought of how she’d be wearing preggie-panel stretch jeans herself in a few months. She shut her eyes and counted.
April. If nothing went wrong, in April, she’d be having her baby. It seemed such a long way away….
And at the same time, it seemed like tomorrow. She’d have her baby and…he’d grow up too fast. Like Ethan. She’d turn around one day and he’d be sitting at the table, drawing pictures, complaining if she ruffled his hair.
Life was so strange. She stared down at the tiles between her feet, picking out the patterns in the spaces between. You could start out a summer on one road…
And end up somewhere altogether different than where you thought you were going.
“Beau?” she whispered.
It was a good question. What about Beau? She really would have to tell him. Soon.
And when she did…
Well, did she want to marry him?
God. Where would they live?
New York had doubtful written all over it. He wouldn’t want to go there in the first place—and what would he do if he did? There weren’t a lot of ranches to run in Manhattan.
So then. Say, just for the sake of argument, that she accepted the fact Beau wasn’t a New York kind of guy and decided to stay here, in Wyoming, with him.
Was she ready to be a rancher’s wife?
Starr straightened. She felt better. The nausea was gone.
A rancher’s wife?
Well, okay. Yeah. Maybe she was.
Maybe she loved him.
She grinned at the sink across from her. Oh, hell. She did love him. She’d loved him forever, even when she was telling herself she hated him. She’d loved him from the first moment they set eyes on each other, when he stood up in the back of that pickup and put his hat over his heart.
Yeah, okay. It was romantic and foolish. Some would even say impossible…
But then again, why wouldn’t they be able to make it as a couple?
And who said she had to leave home to find herself a job?
So much was done by computer nowadays. She could get freelance work. And she could take Jerry up on that offer of a permanent job.
And money was no issue, anyway. Her dad and Tess liked the ranching life. They lived simply, way below their means. But there was plenty they could draw on if they ever needed it. The Rising Sun Cattle Company turned a tidy profit nearly every year. And her dad had inherited a fortune from Grandmother Elaine’s side of the family. Starr herself had a nice, fat trust fund.
She and Beau could build a place of their own out there at the Hart ranch. She had a feeling Daniel would say yes to that in the blink of an eye. And until the house was finished, they could make do at Daniel’s. He had plenty of room—and if Daniel wasn’t up to having a couple of newlyweds underfoot, fine. They could live in Beau’s trailer. It would only be for a little while, after all.
The point was, they could do it. Get married. Start a life together. They’d have as good a chance as lots of other couples at making it work. Maybe a better chance. It wasn’t as if they’d just met this summer, as if they’d been strangers until a few weeks ago. She’d been in love with him for six years.
And though he’d never said it, she was pretty certain he felt the same about her.
Starr got up and went to the medicine cabinet. She threw the bloodstained paper towel away, took down the box of adhesive strips, and wrapped a strip around her finger—dayglow-green, printed with arching black cats. Ethan demanded bright colors and animal prints on his adhesive strips.
The tap on the door came as she was putting the box of bandages away. “Starr?” It was Tess, sounding worried. “Are you all right?”
Starr shut the medicine cabinet door and called, “I’m fine.” And she was, now she knew what she would do.
Now, if she could just figure out the best way to tell Beau…
After the midday meal, when her dad and Jobeth and the hands had gone back out to work and the dishes were cleaned up, Starr helped Edna put a pot roast on for dinner. Then Edna took Ethan across the yard to her place for an hour and Starr returned to her computer to finish Mabel’s column. Tess came up, too, for a rest. She was feeling a little tired, she said.
The old house was quiet, except for Starr’s fingers tapping the computer keys. Carmen Amestoy’s Aunt Alberta Carr is here from Canada. “Aunt Alberta just loves Bighorn Country in summer,” Carmen reports. “She wants to catch the Lions Club rodeo over at the fairgrounds and she never misses the—”
“Starr?”
It was Tess, standing in the doorway, her face dead white except for two fevered spots of color high on her cheeks. She had a hand over her stomach. And her jeans were…darker, a spreading stain, along the insides of her thighs.
“Starr…” Tess staggered and clutched the door frame for support. “I was just lying there, and I felt something give. I… Oh, dear God. I think something’s gone wrong….”
Chapter Ten
Starr led Tess to the bed, helped her to lie down and then dialed 911.
“They’re sending the helicopter out for you,” she promised as she hung up. “They’ll call Doc Pruitt for us.” Tess moaned, her hand pressing her belly. The stain kept getting bigger, creeping down her legs, spreading wider…. “Should we do something? Try to stop the bleeding?”
Tess was panting now. “No stopping it.” She cried out, drawing her legs up into a tight fetal press. She moaned. “Oh, God. Your father…”
“I’ll get him on that phone he keeps in the truck.”
Tess groaned out the number and Starr punched it up. She heard the ring
ing, and then the canned voice informing her that no one was available to answer her call. “No answer…” she replied to the frantic question in Tess’s eyes. She waited for the beep and left a rattled message. “Dad, it’s Starr. Tess is having problems. She was…resting and she started bleeding…” Tess reached out, groping for a steadying hand. Starr’s was the only hand available. She gave it. Tess crushed her fingers as she cried out again. Starr bore the grinding grip and spoke into the phone. “Dad, they’re sending the EMT helicopter over. You better get back here to the house as quick as you can.” She hung up as Tess shot to a sitting position.
“Bathroom. Now. Help me…” Tess swung her feet to the floor and bolted upright, then almost collapsed before Starr got her under the arms.
“Hold on, hold on. We’re going…” She hauled Tess’s arm across her shoulder. “Lean on me. It’s okay…”
Okay… What a ludicrous thing to say. It wasn’t. Not okay in the least. They staggered out the door and along the upper hall, headed for the closest bathroom, the one near the top of the stairs. “Come on, you’ll make it, we’re almost there…” Starr whispered encouragements while inside she cursed every reeling step between them and their destination.
They reached the bathroom at last. Starr helped Tess get the wet jeans down, biting back a cry of alarm at the sight of the blood-soaked white panties underneath. Tess stumbled to the toilet, Starr supporting her, helping her to lower herself to the seat.
Tess moaned, wrapping her arms around herself, hunching over so her head touched her knees. “There’s nothing…I thought…”
What to say? How to help? “Just…relax…just try to breathe as slow and even as you can.” Starr thought, I’ll call Edna. Edna would know what to do.
But Tess grabbed her hand again. “Don’t leave me. Oh, God. Don’t leave me alone…”
What could she say, but, “I won’t. I swear. I’m right here…”
Tess ground even harder on Starr’s hand. “It’s not…I thought…”
Starr moved in closer. “I’m here. Hold on…”
“Oh, Starr…” With an anguished sigh, Tess rested her head against Starr’s side.
“I’m here. Right here with you…” She stroked Tess’s brown curls and prayed silently, Please, God. Oh, please, please make this stop….
But it didn’t stop. Tess groaned and mangled Starr’s hand and muttered between moans, “It hurts…oh, my baby…oh, hold on…help is coming…”
It went on forever—Tess in such agony, one minute talking to her baby, the next just bent over, moaning in pain. There was more blood—too much blood, it seemed to Starr. The coppery smell of it filled the small room. But it didn’t look like Tess had lost the baby.
At least, not yet…
“Oh, hurry,” Tess kept moaning. “Oh, please, make them come…”
Perhaps fifteen never-ending minutes after they reached the bathroom, Starr heard the sound of helicopter blades chopping the air. She knelt in front of Tess. “Tess. Tess, do you hear it? They’re here. They’re out in front….”
Tess looked at her through wide, terrified eyes. “Oh, get them,” she cried, her pretty heart-shaped face stark white, contorted with pain. “Get them up here now.”
“I will.” Tess still clutched her hand in a death grip. “Tess,” she said softly. “Tess, you have to let go…”
Tess held on all the harder. “Oh, no. Don’t leave. You can’t leave.”
Terrified herself, Starr stared into those glazed brown eyes. The world seemed turned upside down at that moment. For years, it had been Tess she leaned on, Tess she could trust with her secrets and her plans.
Now it was all turned around. Tess needed her. Now Starr must be strong and determined for both of them. She didn’t want to leave Tess any more than her stepmother wanted her to go—not even for the time it would take to run downstairs and get those EMTs up here. But someone had to go….
“Okay,” she whispered, stroking Tess’s hair. “We’ll wait till they ring the bell, all right? Then I’ll have to go down and get them.”
“Yes. Yes, all right.” Tess groaned and hunched low again.
Starr held her hand and rubbed her back. “Just a minute, just a minute now, they’ll be here….” After another eternity, the doorbell rang. “There…” But Tess only let out a panicked cry and gripped Starr’s hand all the harder. “Tess, please. I’ll be back. I’ll be back in no time at all….”
With a groan, Tess released her. “Go, go…”
Starr raced out into the hall and pounded down the stairs. When she flung open the front door, two men in flight suits were standing there, each with a jump kit clutched in his hand. She’d never been so grateful to see anyone. The phone started ringing. Starr ignored it.
“This way,” she said and led the two men up the stairs.
To Starr, things seemed to go by in a blur after that.
They put Tess on a stretcher and brought her down the stairs. Edna, who’d come on across the yard when no one answered her call, insisted on staying by Tess in the helicopter.
There was only so much room in there and someone had to stay with Ethan, but Starr couldn’t bear to leave Tess’s side. “I thought I would go with her…”
“No.” Edna was white-faced, lips pressed together, her pointy chin at its most stubborn slant. “I think I should go.”
“Better decide,” warned one of the EMTs. “Fast.”
In the end, the need in Edna’s eyes was so achingly clear, Starr couldn’t deny her. “Okay. You go. I’ll look out for things here.”
“Zach…Ethan…” Tess moaned as they were lifting her into the helicopter.
“I’ll take good care of Ethan,” Starr promised. “And I’ll get hold of Dad. I’ll keep trying till I reach him.”
Edna grabbed Starr in a quick hug. “Check on the little one right away. He was still napping when I ran out.”
“I will.”
“And don’t let him see that mess in the bathroom.”
For once, she was grateful for Edna’s never-ending advice. “You’re right. I didn’t even think about that….”
“Mrs. Heller. We have to go.”
Edna held out her hand and the technician helped her in. He jumped in himself. Starr stepped back as the big blades started turning. The machine lifted into the sky, blowing up dirt devils. Starr squinted through the swirling dust, using her hand as a visor. As the white-bellied aircraft curved off to the north, she sent along another silent, heartfelt prayer for the safe return of Tess and her baby.
When she lowered her gaze, Ethan was running toward her across the yard. “Starr! Starr, was that a ’copter?”
She forced a wide smile. “You bet it was.”
He launched himself at her. She caught him, hoisting him up, with his strong little legs squeezing either side of her waist. He laughed—and then shoved at her shoulder. “Put me down—I’m too big to be carried.”
So she set him down and he scolded her, “Where’s Auntie Ed? And why didn’t you wake me up if a ’copter was coming?”
She held down her hand and wiggled her fingers. With some reluctance, he grabbed her index finger. “Come on. Let’s go on in the house. I have to make a few calls and you must be very good and quiet while I do that.”
“Where’s Mom?” He tipped his head at an angle, his eyes narrowed in suspicion.
Why was it that little kids always figured out more than they needed to know? “Mom had to go—in the helicopter. Auntie Ed went with her.”
“Why?”
She knelt down in the dirt to get at eye level with him. “Mom’s sick. They’re taking her to the doctor.”
“What’s wrong with her?”
“She’s sick,” Starr said again, praying that this time he’d accept that as an explanation. “And they’re taking her to the place where she can get well.”
He looked very solemn now. “Starr. I want Mom.”
“I know you do, honey. But she has to get wel
l first.”
The minute they got inside the house, Ethan announced he had to go to the bathroom. Starr ushered him into the downstairs half bath with a reminder to wash his hands when he was through. While he was in there, she checked the pot roast and then got busy fixing him a snack of graham crackers and milk.
She let him take the snack into the great room, even set up a tray for him and allowed him to sit in their dad’s big easy chair. She turned on the TV and handed him the remote.
“Can I trust you with this?”
“Starr. I’m almost five.”
She left him to his gleeful channel surfing and ran upstairs to wipe down the bathroom and gather up Tess’s bloody clothes. When the evidence of what had happened there was all cleaned away, she checked on Ethan. He seemed content enough.
“I’ll be in Dad’s office if you need me.”
“Ungh,” he said, chewing a graham cracker, pointing the remote at the TV.
She went to the office off the dining room, shut the door behind her and speed-dialed her father’s cell.
Again, no answer. She tried the Double K—Nate and Meggie’s place—next. Nate and her dad often worked together, Meggie alongside them. But at eight and a half months pregnant, Meggie was keeping close to the house now.
Meggie had no more idea than Starr did as to where Zach might be. She promised to send Nate out to track him down, if her husband came in with any information.
Starr called Daniel’s house. The old man was getting better every day, but he still wasn’t working more than a few hours at stretch. He should be there….
“Hart Ranch.” It was Beau’s voice.
She hadn’t expected him to answer. “Beau. Hi. It’s me.”
“Hey.” His voice was warm. Intimate. Normal.
She gulped to relax her suddenly strangled throat. “What are you doing home?”
He said something about having a few things to pick up, coming in to fill up the cooler, then teased, “What? You’d rather talk to Daniel than to me?”
“No. No, I…it’s just I…”
Fifty Ways to Say I’m Pregnant Page 11
