“Starr.” His voice had gone flat. “What’s the matter?”
She had an image of Tess, bent over, groaning, curly head on her knees, the white knuckles gripping… “I need to find my dad. I need to find him really bad. I called the cell he keeps in the pickup, but he didn’t answer. I called Meggie at the Double K. She didn’t know where to find him. Do you know where he is?”
A pause, then he said, “I just left him fifteen minutes ago.”
Hope had her drawing herself up a little straighter. “So you can go get him? Tell him to get home right now?”
“Yeah, I’ll go get him. What’s going on?”
Relief exploded through her. “Oh, good. Good.”
“Starr…”
She realized she hadn’t told him. “I…”
“What’s happened? Tell me…”
It was like a dam going, then. She told him in a flood of words. “It’s Tess, she’s having a miscarriage, I think. We got the EMTs and they took her out in a helicopter to Memorial in Sheridan and Edna went with her and Tess wants my dad, but I can’t find him. Oh, Beau. She needs him and I can’t find him….”
Beau took the dirt roads out to the Farley breaks at a speed that wasn’t the least bit safe. He must have hit every rut along the way, the undercarriage slamming the ground and rattling, his head bopping the roof when he went over the worst ones. He ignored the possible damage to the old pickup and drove on.
He got up that last ridge and went barreling down into the small valley where smoke spiraled up from either end of the long stretch of clogged ditch.
Zach and Jobeth and a couple of hands ranged along the banks of the stream. One of the hands poured diesel fuel on a fresh section, while the other waited, ready with the spray tank, in case the fire got loose from the bank. Jobeth and Zach raked tumbleweeds into the water to be doused with fuel when the time came. It was a job usually done earlier in the year—and in the morning before the heat of the day. All their shirts were dark with sweat.
Beau lurched to a stop next to Zach’s pickup, jumped out and headed for Zach. He walked fast, but in his mind he was balking, pulling back from the prospect of giving Zach the rotten news.
Zach saw him coming. He leaned on his rake and gave him a wave. “We’re makin’ good progress—and you look like someone just shot your best hunting dog….” His easy expression changed, became wary. “We got a problem?”
“I need a minute or two.” Beau gestured with a toss of his head.
“Sure.” Zach dropped his rake and followed Beau back to the pickups.
When they got there, Beau couldn’t find the words. He took off his hat, beat it on his thigh.
“Speak up, son.”
He sucked in a big breath of smoke-sharp air—and let it out hard. “Starr called while I was at Daniel’s. She’s looking for you. They just airlifted Tess over to Sheridan. Zach, damn it. I’m sorry. It looks like a miscarriage.”
Zach fell back a step. In his face was a starkness, a sudden awful knowledge, like a man who’d just lost his footing at the edge of a cliff. “She’s alive, right?”
“Yeah. She’s alive.”
“The baby?”
“I don’t know. Starr said she didn’t think Tess had lost it. But she said it…well, it didn’t look so good.”
“Ethan?”
“Starr’s got him, over at your place. She said Edna went in the helicopter with Tess.”
Zach swore. And then his fist shot out.
Somehow, Beau stood his ground, unflinching. He’d been punched a lot in his life, and if it would help Zach now to hit someone, Beau was more than ready to take the blow. Hell, he’d take a thousand blows for the sake of the man in front of him.
But Zach only grabbed his shoulder, as if to steady himself. Beau had a sick moment of bleak wonder at his own reaction. Still, after all this time, when a man’s hand came toward him, he expected to get hit.
Zach squeezed his shoulder. “Look after things here?”
“Yeah, we’ll finish up.”
Zach’s hand dropped away. He drew himself up. “Tell Jobeth what’s going on?”
Beau slid his hat back on. “I’ll do that.”
“I’ll be heading straight for Sheridan.”
Shovels and rakes and gas cans were piled in the back of the Rising Sun truck. Beau grabbed his cooler and the two extra rakes he’d collected at Daniel’s and had Zach take the green pickup. “And don’t forget that cell phone of yours. You can call Starr to tell her you’ve gone to Sheridan—and call ahead to the hospital to find out what’s going on there.” Zach grabbed the phone, climbed into Beau’s pickup and roared off.
Beau turned to see that Jobeth was coming his way. Time to pass out the bad news for the second time. The same kind of thing had gone on when Daniel had his heart attack, a never-ending cycle of gently explaining what was going on. When you hung around with folks who looked out for each other and something went wrong, there was a whole damn lot of explaining to do.
He thought of Starr, alone at the ranch house with Ethan. She hadn’t sounded good on the phone. He hoped she was holding up okay. The need to see her face rose in him—a kind of burning ache.
Jobeth was standing in front of him. “Beau, where’d Dad go?”
Beau took off his hat again and started explaining.
Starr stood at the counter by the sink, mixing dough for drop biscuits, grateful to have a dinner to get on the table. At a time like this, it really helped to have something useful to do. She could hear the drone of the TV in the living room. Ethan had been in there for hours now, lounging in their dad’s favorite chair, king of the remote. Starr would check on him every now and then, just to make sure he wasn’t watching anything he shouldn’t be. And yeah, she knew all that TV couldn’t be good for him. When Edna found out she’d probably have a fit.
But this was one of those times when a kid watching too much TV seemed like the least of anyone’s problems. Starr went to the fridge for the milk and when she passed the window, she spotted one of her dad’s pickups rolling in. It pulled to a stop by the barn. The hands jumped from the bed and started unloading gas cans and shovels. Jobeth and Beau, faces soot-blackened and shirts dark with sweat, climbed from the cab. Beau went around to help unload. Jobeth headed straight for the back door. Starr set the milk on the counter and went to meet her.
When Starr came through from the pantry into the laundry room, Jo was pulling off her mud-caked boots. She looked up. “Starr.” Her face kind of crumpled. Starr held out her arms. One boot still on, Jobeth hobbled over. Starr grabbed her tight.
“Oh, Starr…”
Starr stroked her sooty hair and rocked her gently back and forth, as if she were still the skinny little kid she’d been when Starr first returned to the Rising Sun.
Finally, Jo asked, “Any news?”
Starr smoothed a few loose strands of hair behind her sister’s dirty ear. “Dad called about twenty minutes ago. He’s at the hospital. Tess is going to be all right….”
“And the baby?”
Starr bit her lip and shook her head. “Dad said she lost it.”
“Oh, no…” Jo’s mouth trembled.
Starr pulled her close again, rocked her some more and whispered, “At least your mom’s okay…or she will be. She’ll be home in a few days, it looks like. And there can be other babies.”
Jobeth sniffed in Starr’s ear. “The doctor said that?”
“Yeah.”
Jo hugged Starr even tighter than before. “Oh, it’s just so sad….”
“I know.”
Sniffling and rubbing her nose with the heel of her hand, Jo pulled herself together. “God. I got dirt all over your shirt.”
“It’ll wash out.”
“Where’s Ethan?”
Starr almost smiled. “Follow the sound of the television.”
Jo leaned against the dryer, hitched up her other boot, eased it off and dropped it by the first one. “I’ll clean up—and give y
ou some help with dinner.”
“Thanks—oh, and get one of Dad’s shirts for Beau, will you? Leave it in Ethan’s bathroom. He can take a shower in there.”
Jo sent her a sideways look. “Beau’s coming in?”
The question surprised her. How could he not? “Well, yeah. Of course he is.”
“I got the idea he was taking off. He was talking about borrowing the pickup, since Dad took his. I figured that means he’s heading on back to Daniel’s….”
Beau leaving now? How could he leave? A part of her had been waiting all through the awful afternoon for him, counting the seconds until she could see his face. “He is so not going to do that. I need him right here.”
Jobeth shrugged. “Well, better go get him, then.”
Starr rushed outside. Beau and the hands were still unloading. She waited impatiently out of the way as they finished the job.
“Dinner at six,” she told the hands. They went off to their trailers to get cleaned up.
That left her and Beau standing by the tailgate. He lifted it and hitched it up. “You okay?” Beneath the shadow of his hat, under the layer of grime, his expression was hard to read—careful, maybe? Worried?
She wanted to launch herself at him. But she stayed where she was. “I’ve been a lot better.”
“You hear from your dad?”
She repeated what she’d told Jobeth.
“Tough,” he said, shaking his head. “But at least Tess’ll be okay….”
She gave up on waiting for him to reach for her. “Beau Tisdale, if you don’t put your arms around me pretty soon, I think I might scream.”
He frowned and looked down at his sweat-dark shirt and dirty Wranglers. “I’m filthy.”
“I don’t give a damn.” She swayed toward him—and he caught her. Those strong arms closed around her. She sighed and pressed close, breathing in the smell of smoke and sweat, finding comfort at last. “It was so awful,” she whispered, holding on tight. “I thought I might lose her. Right upstairs, in the bathroom. I thought she might die and I couldn’t do a thing about it….”
“Shh…” She felt his lips against her hair. “Shh…”
She shut her eyes, holding him tighter still, longing rising inside her—to whisper her secret. To take his hand and press it to her flat stomach and say…
Oh, God. Say what? No, she thought. Bad idea. This is not the time.
She lifted her head. “You can stay for dinner. It’s pot roast and there’s plenty.”
He held her away a little. “I need to clean up….”
“You can do it here. Jo’s digging up a clean shirt for you. And we’ve had sooty Wranglers at the kitchen table before—oh, and I’ll call Daniel. He can come on over and eat with us, too.”
“You don’t need company now.”
“Company? What are you talking about? You and Daniel are like family. You know that.” He had the strangest look on his face—reluctant. “Please,” she said. “It would mean so much to me, if you would stay….”
He hesitated. That hurt. But then he shrugged. “Lead me to that clean shirt.”
After dinner, the hands left to feed the horses and then for their trailers. Jobeth, Daniel and Beau pitched in to clean up. Even Ethan helped to clear off.
Once the table and counters were clean and the dishwasher running, Daniel volunteered to play Go Fish with Ethan—always an interesting experience, as Ethan’s little hands could hardly hold the cards and he still wasn’t all that clear yet on the whole concept of rules. Jobeth headed for the great room to catch a favorite TV show.
Starr led Beau out to the front porch. They sat on the step and watched the sky darken above the gray-leaved Russian olive tree that grew in the center of the yard. The barn swallows emerged to dip and dive for insects.
She asked the question that had been nagging in the back of her mind since she’d run out to keep him from driving off. “Did you feel like I pushed you into staying for dinner?”
He gave her a look and a shrug. “It’s all right.”
She wanted to shake him. “So you did, then? You really did want to get out of here.” She turned away from him.
“Hey.” Gently, he caught her chin. “I stayed. I’m here.”
But only after she’d pressured him into it. I’m pregnant, she thought. And I don’t know how to tell you. I’m pregnant, and Tess just lost her baby….
She caught his wrist and carefully pushed his hand away. “It hurt, that’s all. To think you’d just leave like that.”
“But I didn’t….” His voice was so soft. Underneath, though, she could hear the note of impatience.
A coldness went through her. At that moment she felt as if she didn’t really know him—as if she never had. She searched his shadowed face, willing him to understand. “It’s only that life is…so fragile. Today I got a scary lesson in how easily it can be lost. All I wanted was to see you. And then you came and you were so…distant. All you wanted was to get the heck out.”
“Starr…”
“That’s it, isn’t? What you wanted? To go?”
He looked at her, hard. And then, with a low oath, he braced his elbows on his open knees and stared down at the clean boots Daniel had brought for him. “Sometimes I think we’ve gone too far with this.”
Her stomach went queasy. And that cold feeling intensified. “Gone too far? How?”
Now he looked straight ahead, out toward the olive tree and the slowly dimming sky. “I drove like a madman, out there to tell your dad what had happened. I told him and he took off and then I told Jobeth. And then…well, I know what you mean. About wanting to be with me. Because that’s all I thought of while we finished up burning out that damn never-ending ditch—that I had to see you, that nothing would be all right until I could get to you.”
She wasn’t following. What was the problem, then? This sounded good. “So what’s wrong with that?”
He still didn’t look at her. “Finally, we had the ditch clear. We opened the headgate farther upstream and we loaded the tools in the pickup. The hands hopped in back and Jobeth got in the cab with me. I started up the engine, threw up a rain of mud and grass as I peeled out of there. Jobeth said, ‘Sheesh, Beau. Where’s the fire?”’ He made a low sound, shook his head. “Well, there was no fire. There was just…you. I wanted to get back to you. And that’s pretty damn stupid, considering that in a couple of weeks, you’re outta here. You won’t be around to come back to.”
The sky might be darkening to night, but to Starr, the world was suddenly suffused with a bold, shining light. She knew, then, how to tell him.
Of course. Before she spoke of the baby, she needed to make him see that she wouldn’t leave him, after all—that she didn’t want to leave. That she wanted, more than anything, to be right here for him to come home to, for the rest of their lives.
She put her hand on his arm, felt the corded power in it—and never wanted to let go. Slowly, he turned his head to look at her. He scanned her face, his mouth kind of twisted, as if just the sight of her caused him pain.
She had to make him see that she would never hurt him, that she would stay right here, beside him. That everything would be fine. “Oh, Beau. I’ve been thinking….”
“About what?” he asked, his tone not especially encouraging.
She blurted it out. “Beau, I really don’t want to go. I could be happy here, at home, with you. I see that now.”
He was already shaking his head. “That’s crazy. You can’t stay here. That wasn’t the plan. We agreed—”
“So?” She cut him off in her urgency to make him see. “Who says we’re not allowed to change our minds? Things happen. Things like you and me. Things like…love.”
He pulled his arm out from under her grip. Not a very good sign. But she wouldn’t—couldn’t—give up. “Oh, listen. I can take that job Jerry’s always offering me. And I can work freelance, too. And it doesn’t matter, anyway. You know there’s money, from my trust. I was thinking
we could build ourselves a house of our own next to Daniel’s, that we could…” His hand came out, lightning fast and slid around the back of her neck. “What?” She blinked in surprise.
He hauled her face up to his and he kissed her, hard. She felt his teeth against her lips. He pulled away, then, as abruptly as he’d pressed his mouth to hers. “No.”
“But—”
“We’re keeping our agreement.” He spoke low, his voice charged with a scary kind of intensity. His eyes burned into hers. “You’ve got a whole damn life ahead of you. You’re not changing everything because of me. No way I’m letting you give up your dreams for yourself, no way I’ll spend your money to build a house so you can live where you don’t want to be.”
“But that’s just it. I do want to be here. And it’s not like I’m a stranger to this kind of life. I’ve lived through a few Wyoming winters. My family is here. Whenever I’m away, I find myself longing for the next time I can get back.”
“No,” he said, repeating the word with more insistence than before. He still had his hand around the back of her neck. He yanked her close again and pressed his forehead to hers. “No,” he said, as if he would drill the word into her mind. Then he let her go and started to stand.
She grabbed his arm again. “Wait. Please.” He stayed seated beside her—but he didn’t look happy about it. “Oh, why won’t you believe me? I love you and I don’t want to go.”
“No,” he said, more softly that time. “You’re going to New York City, the way you planned.” That part came out as a command.
Hurt and anger sizzled through her. She’d said she loved him and all he could say to that was no? And who did he think he was, to tell her that she had to go? She opened her mouth to tell him just what she thought of him giving her orders—then reconsidered. A shouting match wasn’t going to get them anywhere.
She tried a different angle. “For a minute, let’s forget about me and my big dreams, okay? What about you, Beau? I mean, you just said you couldn’t wait to get home to me.”
“That isn’t the point.”
“Yes, it is. It’s exactly the point. You couldn’t wait to get home to me. And I couldn’t wait for you to be here. Can’t you see? We both just want to be together. And there’s no reason why we—”
Fifty Ways to Say I’m Pregnant Page 12
