by Heidi Betts
Thankfully, neither of her friends seemed to hold it against her. Both were as giddy and upbeat as ever when she called, and wasted no time in talking her into going out with them to the Longneck, Crystal Springs’s local watering hole, on Wednesday night.
She hadn’t been out just for fun in years, probably since she’d moved to L.A. There were bars and clubs aplenty out there, of course, but it seemed that any time she got the chance to frequent them, it was for business purposes. Wooing prospective, high-profile clients or meeting with current, equally high-profile ones at a place of their choosing.
The only problem was that she needed a ride. Jackie worked part-time as a receptionist at a local medical clinic and was the mother of four, two still in diapers. Beth knew from previous conversations with her friend that their family’s only car was a mess of toys, fast-food containers and diaper-bag supplies. So even if Jackie’s husband hadn’t needed the car that evening, she was in no hurry to ride around in a vehicle that smelled like sour milk and old French fries.
And Gail, who was married with no children, worked until seven in the evening. She’d insisted it was no problem to swing by and pick up both Jackie and Beth after she’d run home for a shower and change of clothes, but that would have meant not meeting at the Longneck until nine, which would keep them there probably well past midnight, which was too late for Jackie to be away from her kids.
All in all, it would just be easier for Beth to find her own ride.
She thought about renting a car, since it wasn’t a bad idea to have transportation of her own while she was home. But the nearest car-rental agency was in the next big town over, forty-five minutes away. So whatever she decided, she’d still need a ride.
It pained her to do it, but she would have to ask Connor to drive her into town Wednesday night. After the way they’d parted company this morning, that would be about as much fun as hanging cinder blocks from her eyelids.
Leaving the office, she headed for the kitchen, thinking she might find him there. But the kitchen was empty, clean breakfast dishes propped and drying in the drainer beside the sink.
She smiled at that, remembering how she’d left them for him. It had been a truly beautiful moment…the flash of stunned disbelief that crossed his face and the fact that she’d been able to get in the last word of their highly charged exchange.
Too bad she was about to lose the upper hand by groveling for a ride into town.
She checked the living room next, and then the dining room, but the whole downstairs was empty. Maybe he was in Nick’s room, which he was using as his own.
He’d better not be asleep or in any form of undress. She’d wait to ask him about the ride, if that was the case.
Climbing the stairs, she walked down the short hallway and tapped on her brother’s open bedroom door. From what she could see, the bed was made, the blinds on the single window were open, and the only sign of Connor’s residence was an open duffel on the floor by the dresser. He’d apparently gone home to his own house at some point to collect a few personal items and changes of clothes.
“Connor?” she called out when he didn’t respond to her knock.
She was turning, planning to go back downstairs and see if his truck was even in the driveway, when she heard his muffled voice.
“Connor?”
“Yeah, in here,” he repeated more loudly.
It sounded as if he was in Nick’s old room—the one he’d occupied all through childhood, until their parents had moved to an apartment in a residential village across town. Karen had moved in with him then, and they’d taken over the master bedroom.
She turned the knob and pushed open the door, not knowing what to expect.
Connor stood on the far side of the room, holding a large cardboard box with Nick’s Trophies written on the side in black Magic Marker. He dropped the box on a pile of others and turned to face her as she stepped into the room.
“Hi,” he said, wiping his hands on the side of his pants.
“Hi. What are you doing in here?”
“Do you know if Nick and Karen have any plans for this room?” he asked, neatly avoiding her question.
She glanced around, taking in the plain, fawn-colored walls, complete with pinpricks from where Nick had tacked up dozens of posters, and the thread-bare gray carpeting that had been there when her parents moved in more than thirty-five years before.
“No, I have no idea. Why?”
“Because it would make a great nursery, don’t you think?”
His comment caught her off guard. The room had been used for storage for so long, and had belonged to a teenage boy for a decade before that. It might be smarter to burn it down and start from scratch.
“I don’t know, it looks a little grimy in here.” She wrinkled her nose. “And it smells.”
Connor chuckled. “Nick’s sweaty old gym socks, no doubt. But that should be easy enough to take care of. Seriously,” he said, shifting to stand by her side, shoulder to shoulder, facing the room. “Pull up the carpeting, slap on a fresh coat of paint, stick some pastel curtains on the windows, and fill the room with baby furniture… I’d say they’d have themselves a nursery.”
He turned his head, meeting her gaze. “Wouldn’t it be a great welcome-home present for them?”
“And who’s going to do all this marvelous redecorating?” she wanted to know.
His mouth curved upward in a cocky grin. “You forget who you’re talking to, sweetheart. Your brother and I are partners in our own contracting company, and we work the jobs ourselves ninety-five percent of the time, right along with our crews. I can have the floor stripped and refinished in no time. And how long could it take to paint four small walls?”
He nudged her in the ribs with his elbow. “Come on, have some faith. What do you say?”
Her brother and new sister-in-law would be delighted, she had no doubt about that. They would need a nursery eventually, anyway, and this way they wouldn’t have to do any of the work.
With a small shrug, she said, “Do whatever you want. I’m sure Nick and Karen will appreciate it.”
She started to turn, only to have Connor grab her arm, holding her in place. The warmth of his wide, full fingertips soaked straight through the silk of her blouse, heating her skin and thinning her blood.
“Wait.” When she returned her attention to his face, he continued. “I thought maybe you could help.”
Oh, no. That was too much to ask, too much to bear.
If he wanted to rip the room apart and rebuild, re-paint, remodel, it was his business. His carpentry skills were excellent, so she felt confident he wouldn’t leave the room in shambles.
But she wanted nothing to do with it. Truth be told, she didn’t even particularly want to know a nursery was being designed anywhere near her.
“I’d rather not,” she said, lacing her arms across her chest in a protective gesture. Already she felt chilled, goose bumps rising along her arms and neck.
“Why not? You’d be great. You could help me pick out paint colors, curtains, border paper. Not to mention the crib, changing table, that sort of thing. I’m clueless about baby stuff.”
And she was supposed to be so much more knowledgeable?
A stab of pain hit her low in the belly. She bit her lip to keep a moan from climbing its way up her throat and blinked her suddenly damp eyes.
“Don’t you have to work this week?” she asked instead, hoping to divert his attention from how pale she knew her face must be.
“On and off, yeah, but this is a slow time of year for us. Nick wouldn’t have agreed to take a two-week honeymoon if it weren’t. Most of the deals we have going now are inside jobs, and our men can handle the work in my place for a few days. That’s the beauty of owning your own company,” he added with a self-assured smile.
Seconds ticked by so slowly, they felt like hours. Her head ached. Her ears buzzed. If he hadn’t been holding her arm, she feared she might have fallen over.
&n
bsp; “I really need your help, Beth. I’m not sure I can do this without you, and I want to have it done before Nick and Karen come home.”
Something in his eyes seeped past her resistance. She didn’t want to be involved. Oh, how she didn’t want to be involved. But it would mean the world to Nick and Karen, Connor was right about that. And she was going to be an aunt soon. It was time to start getting used to the idea of being around a baby, whether she liked it or not.
Swallowing hard, she nodded. Her voice sounded rusty, but she forced the words past her dry lips. “All right. I guess I don’t have anything better to do while I’m in town, anyway.”
He didn’t seem to take offense at her answer, even though she’d been half hoping he would. A nice ugly argument was exactly what she needed to drive away cold and painful memories.
Instead, his expression brightened and he gave her a quick hug. Not enough to get her hackles up, but a light, friendly embrace to say thanks.
“The hardware store is closed on Sundays, and everywhere else will be closing soon, too, so we might as well wait until tomorrow to go shopping for supplies. I’ll start making a list right now. Wanna help?”
She shook her head. At the moment, she needed to be alone. She needed a drink and a hot bath and an hour or two to get her mind back on the present rather than wallowing in the past.
“You go ahead. I can add to it tomorrow if I think of anything you’ve missed.”
“Sounds good.” He gave her arm one last squeeze before heading out of the room.
“Oh, Connor,” she said, stopping him before he could disappear down the hall.
“Yeah?”
She cleared her throat before saying more, not wanting him to hear the emotion in her voice. “Some friends of mine want to get together at the Longneck Wednesday night. Since I don’t have a car, while I’m in town, I was wondering if you’d mind driving me. If it’s too much trouble,” she hurried on, “don’t worry about it. I can always bum a ride from someone else, or rent a car between now and then.”
She’d already thought through both of those ideas and knew they weren’t going to be the least convenient, but if he had other plans, she could do it.
“No problem,” he said with a shake of his head. Hitching his thumb into his front jeans pocket, he shot her a brief smile. “I haven’t been to the Longneck in a while myself. It might be nice to go in to have a drink and catch up. Just let me know what time you want to leave, okay?”
She made her head move up and down in agreement, and after a moment, he left.
Beth stood where she was for several minutes, fighting back tears.
That hadn’t been as hard as she’d expected, not after the punch to the gut he’d given her by asking her to help fix up and decorate a nursery.
She never should have come home. She knew it would be this way, knew bad memories and old wounds would be brought to the surface.
If only she’d gotten out of town right after the reception instead of agreeing to stay a few extra days to please her parents. If only she’d left the house as soon as she realized Connor would be staying here, too. Sleeping on the street would have been preferable to dealing with this deep, throbbing ache that seemed to take over her entire body.
And she had only herself to blame.
Beth waited until Connor was stretched out on the couch, feet propped on the coffee table, list of supplies on his lap while he sipped a beer and watched something on the sports channel, to sneak into the kitchen for a bottle of wine.
Tiptoeing back upstairs, she shut herself into the bathroom and started drawing a bath. She poured a generous amount of bubble bath into the stream of roaring water and then started to undress as the small room filled with the scent of lavender.
Once she was nude, she poured a glass of the rich red claret, set it on the rim of the tub, leaving the bottle within reach, and stepped inside the foaming, steaming water.
Ah, heaven, she thought as she turned off the water and slipped beneath its heady spell. A good bubble bath went a long way toward curing life’s ills.
Unfortunately, it didn’t go quite far enough tonight. She would need a lot more bubbles and a lot more wine to block out the memories her latest encounter with Connor had stirred up.
No. She wasn’t going to think about that. Not anymore, not right now. This time was for healing, forgetting.
Taking another drink of wine, she leaned her head back against the edge of the tub, closed her eyes and tried to think of anything other than what weighed heaviest on her heart.
She thought about her brother’s wedding, and how happy he and Karen had both looked while saying their vows. She thought about her parents’ excited faces each time she stepped off the plane after being away for so long, often more than a year.
She thought about all the work that awaited when she got back to Los Angeles. Contracts to go over, phone calls to return, and likely a few high-strung celebrities to calm down.
The more her mind wandered to work issues, the sleepier she got, until her muscles began to relax and she could feel herself starting to fall asleep.
And then the funniest thing happened. Just before she drifted off completely, Connor’s face played across her subconscious and pulled the lid right off of everything she’d been fighting so hard to keep under wraps.
Six
She was twenty-one again and a senior in college—old enough to drink but young enough to still feel carefree and invincible.
Most importantly, though, she was in love. And finally, after so many years of wishing and dreaming, she was pretty sure he was in love with her, too.
She’d gone home to Crystal Springs for the weekend, to visit her parents, and ended up going to a home-town football game with them, her brother and Connor. Afterward, she and Connor had gone off by themselves and ended up making love. Her first time and in the cab of his pickup, but as far as she was concerned, it had been absolutely perfect.
She’d been smiling ever since. Even her friends at school had noticed and asked her about it, pressuring her for details.
But she wouldn’t tell them, at least not yet. The entire experience was too new to her. Too special. Too private. It was something that only she and Connor shared, and she wanted to keep it that way a while longer.
A few days after she’d returned to school from her weekend home, though, her happiness began to fade. She’d expected Connor to call, but he hadn’t.
The next time she phoned her parents, she’d even asked to talk to her brother and tried to subtly feel him out about his best friend. Had they seen each other or talked since she’d been home? Had Connor mentioned her at all? But her brother didn’t seem to know anything and she hadn’t wanted him to grow suspicious.
Connor would call; she was just too giddy and anxious to hear from him. In another day or two, he would call.
But the days passed, turning into weeks, and she never heard from him. Not a phone call, not an e-mail, not a short message passed to her through her family. Nothing.
And then she started getting sick. She didn’t think much of it at first. A flu bug was going around campus and everyone seemed to be catching it, so she wasn’t surprised when she started feeling ill like many of her friends.
Until her virus wouldn’t seem to go away. Everyone else got better, but she still felt terrible. She also noticed that she was sick every morning, but started to feel better by the afternoon. By the time she realized she’d missed a period, she was already pretty sure she knew what was wrong.
She was pregnant.
With Connor’s baby.
At first she was petrified. She was in her last year of law school…how was she ever going to reach graduation and be able to practice law when she was hugely pregnant or caring for a newborn? How would she tell Connor? What would her parents say when they found out?
So many thoughts and fears raced through her head, jumbling together until her nausea grew.
But what if motherhood was wonderful? Wh
at if Connor was delighted that he was going to be a father and proposed on the spot?
They could marry and move into a small house in Crystal Springs. She could do her best to finish school before the baby was born and worry about finding a job at a local law firm later.
The situation might not be ideal, but it could work. And her greatest ambition had always been to marry Connor and have a family with him…so what if they were starting a little early and doing things out of order?
Yes, everything would work out just fine. She would make plans to get home again soon and tell Connor in person.
Then, too, he could explain to her why he hadn’t called since the night they spent together up at Makeout Point. She was sure he had a logical explanation and hadn’t simply been ignoring her.
That thought kept her spirits up for the next two weeks while she struggled through the first month of pregnancy without letting anyone know what was really going on. It wasn’t easy to keep her condition a secret, especially from her roommate, but she managed.
She was getting dressed for class one morning when the cramping began. The sensation was so dull and passed so quickly that she didn’t think much of it. An hour later, though, after she’d returned from class, the cramping was much worse, and she knew something was seriously wrong. She went to the bathroom, only to find blood spotting her panties.
At that point, she didn’t care who knew about her pregnancy. In tears, she’d gone to her roommate and begged her to help her get to the hospital.
But it was too late. She’d lost the baby.
She cried for weeks afterward. Her grades started to slip because of so many missed classes and exams, but no matter what her friends said or did to try to help her snap out of her depression, she remained inconsolable.
Not only that, but she began to harbor a deep resentment toward Connor, who she blamed for everything she’d been through.
