by Dianne Drake
House calls were taking up a lot of his time, especially on an evening like this where he’d rather spend his time relaxing with Deanna here on the porch. Making things right between them again. But he had an hour then he was off to tend a case of bronchitis, a suspected bout of gout, and a chronic bellyache that was always caused by greasy food. Would have been a perfect night to settle in, though.
“So tomorrow morning we’ll fly in early, you’ll have your exam, and we’ll be back before noon.” Beau handed Deanna a glass of lemonade, and sat down on the porch swing next to her. “Brax will look after Lucas and—”
“And you’ll be the pilot?” she asked.
“Unless you want to be.”
“Why are you doing this?” Deanna asked him. “Not just getting me to an obstetrician for an ultrasound but everything? It’s like you’re settling into that family thing you don’t want to be part of.”
“I really misspoke. That was some of the ugly sentiment lingering from my marriage, which always seems to pop up at the worst times. But it was hell, Deanna. And I was so damned blind to it all...” He gave a deep sigh. “What does that say about me? What does it say about my ability to have the kind of perception and strength a family would need from me?”
“It’s not about your perception or strength, Beau. It’s about your trusting nature, which is a good thing. It’s about the way she hurt you because you trusted her.”
“Trusted her... On the days she was ovulating, she’d call me, beg me to come home. If I couldn’t she’d come to the hospital and just barge in. I felt guilty because I knew I was leaving her alone too much, and I thought she was reacting to that loneliness as much as anything else. But what she did... I was just, plain stupid.”
“We all see what we want to in various situations. You were busy and ambitious, and you believed that was what made her so needy. I can understand that.”
“So it’s not the family thing I don’t want. Even though I wasn’t sure I was ready for a family at the time she was trying to get pregnant, I was ecstatic when I thought she was pregnant. What I said about not wanting to do the family thing was reactive, but it was also a reflection of where I’m afraid I’ll fit into a family situation.”
“What if a family situation came at you from out of the blue? One day you’re free of it and the next day...” she shrugged “...you’re a daddy, or about to become one?”
“Do you mean Lucas?”
“No, I mean...your flesh-and-blood baby.”
“Can’t happen. Since Nancy, there hasn’t been anyone. Before her I was careful. And anyone else claiming I’m the father of their baby...” He shook his head. “Not falling for it this time. You know, fool me once...”
“And that’s your final word?” she snapped.
“Deanna, what’s going on here? I came to apologize for what I said, for the impression I gave you, but you’re angrier than you were when I said it. So what just happened?”
“Common sense, Beau. A great big dose of common sense.”
“And I’m supposed to understand that?”
“You don’t have to because I finally do. Anonymous means anonymous, Beau. I should have realized that from the beginning and let it go. But now I know.”
That clearly made no sense to him. Had he said something else to anger her this way? If so, he didn’t know what. And even a quick rethink of his words didn’t reveal anything. So now what? Chalk it up to a hormone fluctuation and let it go? Or actually consider that there were aspects to Deanna’s personality that were a little off? “And you’re not going to tell me?”
She laughed bitterly. “Tell you? Why would I tell you, of all people?”
“Because I thought we were friends. Even more.”
Deanna drew in a steadying breath then squared her shoulders. “We are,” she said. “And I’m sorry. I didn’t mean...”
“Yes, you did. I don’t know what that was about, or why. But you meant it, and I’m hoping it was a hormone rage.” Hoping for that more than he’d hoped for anything in a long, long time.
She laid her hand across her belly protectively. “Me, too. But I know it’s not. And, no, I’m not crazy, which is probably what you’re thinking. I’m just coming to terms with the way I’m going to live my life, and you’re in the proverbial cross-hairs as I’m working it out. It scares me. All of it scares me.
“And on top of what I already have, I’ve been thinking about keeping Lucas if Social Services can’t find his family. I mean, I’m not even sure I can manage one child, and here I am practically on the verge of making an emotional commitment to another one. So, these questions are boiling up in me and, yes, while I may tell you I’m not crazy I’m wondering if I am. I’m also angry for things that don’t make any difference to you, and it’s hard to control. But that’s what I’m working though right now.”
“You won’t let me help?”
“You can’t.”
He reached over and took her hand. Gave it an encouraging squeeze, which was all he meant to do. But he tried letting go, and couldn’t. Her hand was a nice fit in his. It felt so natural holding it. And she wasn’t resisting. Wasn’t pulling away or getting restless. In fact, she seemed to be relaxing...differently. “I know how it feels being that confused. Been there a few times.”
She laughed, but it was a melancholy laugh. “I think confusion is an understatement for the way I’m feeling right now. And for the way I’m going back and forth with some of the major decisions in my life.”
“I hope one of those decisions is about staying here. I know I’ve mentioned it before, or should have if I didn’t, but have you given it any serious thought?”
She went rigid and yanked her hand out of his. “I have another year on my contract, with an option to extend it a further year, with a substantial bonus. Or rather substantial penalties if I don’t fulfill my obligations.”
Back to square one. This was Deanna doing what Deanna did best—pulling away. His advance, her retreat. He knew better, but with her he couldn’t help himself. It always slipped out.
“OK, I’m going to ask you again and hope this time you’ll tell me. What’s this really about?” he asked.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Yes, you do. There’s something else going on. It’s either about why you’re really here or maybe it’s about your pregnancy. I don’t know, can’t even venture a guess. But I know you like it here and I have an idea you’ve even thought about staying here and raising your baby. Yet look what you do when I mentioned that this might be a life change to consider.”
“Is that how you see my staying here, as a simple life change?”
“You can stay on as my nurse, if that’s what’s worrying you. I’ve already seen how much I need help.”
“Oh, right, like that’s going to solve everything. I decide to stay then you decide to go.”
“I haven’t decided what I’m going to do.”
“But it’s easy for you to suggest what I should decide?”
“Deanna, please...” he cried in exasperation. “Just talk to me about it. Maybe I can help you.”
“Or hurt me,” she muttered. “Look, I appreciate you coming up here to explain what you meant. And I’m sorry for the way I’ve been acting. But...I don’t know anything right now, and that’s the problem. And I can’t figure it out around you because...”
“Because I’m part of it?”
She nodded, brushing back tears. “Look, you’ve got house calls to make, and I’ve got a little boy to take back up to my cabin and get ready for bed. So unless you need some help with your house calls...”
“Take a walk with me, Deanna,” he said, standing up. “If I can’t fix what’s wrong with you, at least let me try to help you relax. Help get you into a place where you can make sense of what’s go
ing on with you. Let’s take that walk I offered the other night. But to a different place. A place I think you need.”
She shook her head, still dazed by all the craziness coming out of her. It was like she could hear it pouring out, and she wanted to shut the dam gate but couldn’t. How could she ever tell him that not only was she carrying his baby but that she’d fallen in love with him?
He might believe the love part, but he’d never believe her about the baby, which would then make her look just like Nancy to him. Someone who’d faked a baby, or a baby’s paternity, just to get whatever they wanted from him.
So, no, she couldn’t let herself get any closer. This wasn’t a game. Wasn’t some innocent flirtation, where they might spend some time together, maybe even have a brief fling. This man was the father of a baby he didn’t want and didn’t even know existed, and as easily as she’d told him the first part of the truth, there was no way she could be around him and not tell him the rest of it. Maybe not now, not at this very moment, but someday it would happen. That was the only thing about which she was sure.
“I, um...I’m really tired, Beau. I just want to settle in with Lucas, if you don’t mind.”
She glanced in the window and saw Lucas and Brax sitting on the floor, playing a game, and a lump rose in her throat. She’d made such a mess of this, starting with getting too close to Beau. Then developing feelings for him. Then, for a moment or two, actually thinking there might be a way she could settle down here, live a happy life, keep her secrets to herself.
“Half an hour. That’s all I’m asking. Just thirty minutes, then you can have your evening back and I can go do my house calls.”
Thirty minutes in which to dig a deeper hole. Of course, she could always crawl into it once she’d dug some more, couldn’t she? “I’m not wearing hiking shoes,” she argued, hoping he would just leave it alone.
But, he didn’t. “You don’t need hiking shoes. It’s a flat walk, down to the creek.” He grinned. “And I’ll carry you, if I have to.”
“And Lucas...”
“He’s in good hands. Besides, he loves the old man. Just look at them.”
She didn’t have to. She’d already seen the way Lucas responded to Brax. “You’re not going to give up, are you?”
“Not a chance. Even if you won’t tell me about the demon you’re fighting, I can still stand there to fight it with you because no one should have to tackle their demons alone.”
He was just too good to be true, which made her ache all the more for what she couldn’t have. But she would tell him the truth. Even with all her vacillating, she’d always known she would.
Although now she had to wait until the situation was resolved with Lucas. If she told Beau the truth now, the wall that would immediately go up between her and Beau could also shut out Lucas in some way. She couldn’t allow that. Lucas needed the three of them united, not separated, in order to get through what he had to get through.
Funny how that worked out. She’d come here wanting to protect one baby and not sure she had the instincts to do so. But her instincts had taken on a razor-sharp precision because she was fighting to protect Lucas now as well. She didn’t yet know the ending to his story, but she knew this part of it and he wasn’t going to be drawn in into the mess she’d made.
Taking one more look through the window at Brax and Lucas, this was the first time she’d felt on solid ground in a while. Sad, but solid. And she was doing the right thing.
“Look, let me go and make sure Lucas is OK, then I’ll be right back.” Truth was, she needed a moment away from Beau to gather her wits and move forward with her plan. “Lucas,” she said, stepping through the door, “Beau and I are going to go for a walk before we go back to the cabin. Is that OK with you, or would you rather go back to the cabin and get ready for bed?” Like she didn’t already know the answer to that.
The boy looked up at her, clearly not happy to be interrupted in what seemed to be a very old board game—the one where you advanced your game piece until you found the lost king of candy.
Had it been Beau’s game when he’d been a child? She could picture a very young Beau sprawled on the floor with his grandfather, going after that lost king in earnest. He had probably been a very serious child, much the way Lucas was. And bright. She couldn’t picture him any other way. Couldn’t picture Emily’s baby any other way either.
“Stay here with Grandpa Brax,” Lucas said. Only Brax came out more like Bwax.
“Grandpa Brax?” she questioned.
“He had to call me something,” Brax explained, grinning a bit sheepishly.
“I suppose he did,” she said, even though she knew emotions here were tugging much harder than they should. “Anyway, I’ll be back in a little while. Got my phone if you need me...or Beau.”
“Take your time,” Brax said. “Young Mr. Lucas here is beating me royally, and I need some time to reclaim my game-board dignity”
“I’ll bet,” she said, then returned to the porch.
As they set off across the meadow, Deanna purposely lagged a couple of steps behind Beau, nothing obvious she hoped. Right now, close proximity was her enemy, and she wasn’t walking into a battle she couldn’t win.
“Is this another one of your special places?” she asked, as they approached a wooded copse.
He slowed but didn’t turn to face her, so he must have sensed she didn’t want to be too close to him.
“No, not really. But I thought it could be yours. It’s so quiet here, it’s soothing to the soul, which is what you need, Deanna. I may not understand why, and you may never tell me, but I do know it’s what you need.”
He was so perceptive. So caring. And this was so painful. “You’re bringing me here to listen to a sound that will soothe my soul?”
“Yes. For you, and your baby.” Stepping out of the meadow onto a path, he finally stopped and waited for her to catch up. Then took her by the arm. “Just so you don’t trip over a tree root,” he said.
“Beau, it’s not that I don’t want to be close to you, but with having Emily’s baby and—”
“No explanations, Deanna. You don’t want to be too close to me, and I accept that. But now this is for your safety. I don’t want you falling.”
Except she’d already fallen. And she wasn’t sure she’d ever truly be able to get up again.
“Do you realize you’ve never once called that baby yours? It’s always Emily’s baby, or the baby, but not your baby.”
“Because it is Emily’s baby.”
“It’s your baby now, Deanna. And I don’t understand what’s holding you back from thinking about her or him like that. But you don’t. I think you may have accepted Emily’s loss but you’ve never let yourself accept Emily’s gift. And you have to do that, Deanna. Because when you do, that’s when you’ll start feeling the joy you’ve been missing in this pregnancy. The baby is yours now. Nobody’s but yours.”
Glancing up to see his face, she found she couldn’t because the darkness was beginning to settle in all around him. But he was so handsome even in the dimming silhouette. “I want this baby, Beau, and I want to find joy in the whole process. But sometimes life just turns into a big struggle that you can’t figure out, so you simply go along and discover later on that you’ve gone the wrong way.”
“Like I did with my wife. But I forced myself into the resolution.”
“By divorcing her. I don’t mean to sound trite about this, but sometimes that’s the simple solution—just walk away from what doesn’t work out.”
“Or ignore it, which was what I did for two years. I knew exactly what I was doing but I just didn’t want to go to the effort of fixing it. Then when I came here, to stay with Brax after his stroke, nothing was that good either. But after a long time of dealing with whatever I had to in order to get to the next day, I rea
lized that one day at a time isn’t enough. It doesn’t make me happy because it doesn’t allow me any room to hope and dream and work toward something that will make me happy.
“Which is why I asked you to help me. I’m working really hard to figure out what it is I’m going to have to do to find a life that doesn’t simply exist from day to day. I think you believe that if you start thinking of Emily’s baby as your baby, that gives you a life you don’t think you deserve. Something more than that one-day-at-a-time existence.”
There was nothing to argue because he was right. As much as it hurt, moving away from her own day-to-day existence scared her to death. Doing it without Beau scared her even more. “I don’t know what I deserve,” she finally said.
“But do you know what you want?”
“Pristine silence,” she said. “Thirty minutes of pristine silence.”
He held out his hand to her and she took it, and for the next couple of minutes as they walked along the trail neither of them spoke. At the end of the trail, save for the noise of the stream trickling over its rocky bed there was silence, and she almost believed she could clear her head here. At least, she wanted to believe it.
“Now, take off your shoes and after that you’ll have a couple of options. The water is knee deep so you can roll up your pants, wade out with them down and get soaked, or take them off altogether, with the knowledge that I am a doctor and I’ve seen beautiful legs before.”
“You’ve never seen my legs,” she said, stepping back as his own choice was made clear. Off with his jeans.
“You’ve never seen mine either, but that’s about to change.”
He kicked off his boots, bent down and pulled off his socks, then stood back up, unzipped then started to slide his jeans down over his hips. And while she should have turned her back, she couldn’t. She wanted to imagine this was going to be something more than wading out into the creek so, like Beau, she undressed down to her panties, then took the hand he extended and waded out into the middle of the stream, where he led her to a large rock.
