by Brenda Novak
He crossed his arms and shifted to lean against the door so he could scrutinize her more closely. “She doesn’t smoke.”
“She used to.”
Delaney didn’t seem like a smoker. But on the off chance that Rebecca was telling the truth, Conner thought it better to play along. “How does the future look for her?” he asked.
Rebecca knotted her hands and stared down at them, as though she found the subject almost too painful to talk about. “Not good. She has less than a year.”
“So why would a dying woman drive two hours to get herself laid?”
“She wanted a last hurrah.”
“That couldn’t have happened closer to home?”
“She knows everyone around here.”
“Doesn’t someone who’s facing cancer have more important things on her mind than seducing a stranger?”
She unknotted her hands to rub her arms against the cold. She hadn’t bothered to grab any kind of jacket when they’d fled the salon, but damned if Conner was going to offer her his. He still wasn’t sure he liked this woman.
“She wanted to try it once, to see what it was like. You might have guessed she isn’t exactly an old pro in the bedroom.”
“I had some inkling,” he said.
“Well, we were just trying to have a little fun before the…you know, the end.” Her voice dipped reverently on that last word, which hit Conner hard enough to put a lump in his throat even though he was almost certain he didn’t believe her.
“How terrible,” he said, still watching her closely. “I’m sorry.”
Rebecca nodded and blinked rapidly, as if she were about to cry.
Conner reached out to take her hand, knowing he’d feel like a complete jerk later if he found out she’d been telling the truth and he hadn’t done what he could to comfort her.
“It is terrible,” she said, managing a few very real tears, which served to confuse Conner even more.
“I’m not sure what to think,” he admitted. “I knew she was a virgin, of course, but she didn’t say anything about the rest of it.”
“She was a virgin?” Rebecca said, her voice suddenly strident.
“You didn’t know?”
She pulled away to wipe her eyes. “No. But it figures, don’t you think? She didn’t want to take her virginity to the grave.”
“But she seemed in perfect health. Isn’t chemotherapy and radiation hard on a body?”
Rebecca squinted into the distance. “Yeah, well, she’s a naturalist. She doesn’t believe in ruining her quality of life, and the cancer’s not to the point that it’s painful, you know?”
The tears had been pretty convincing, but…something still didn’t seem right.
“Have you ever met Stephen Armstrong?” he asked.
“Who?”
“My uncle.”
“I told you I don’t know anything about your uncles. Where would I meet this Stephen? And what does he have to do with anything?”
“That’s what I want to know. And I’m wondering why Delaney didn’t tell me about the cancer.” He remembered her saying “Would you want to be a virgin at thirty?” That was the line that had finally hooked him. But she could’ve said “I have only a year to live” just as easily.
“Telling someone you’re dying is hardly an aphrodisiac,” Rebecca pointed out. “Besides, she didn’t want you to do it out of pity.”
She seemed to have an answer for everything. “So you’re not making this up,” he said.
“Why would I do that?”
Conner couldn’t imagine. He thought again of his uncles, but either he’d underestimated Rebecca’s lying ability or she really didn’t know them.
They sat in silence for a few minutes, Conner torn between sadness and raging doubt. Then Rebecca started the car.
“Well, I have to get back or my hair’s gonna be fried.”
“That doesn’t make you sound as though you’re very worried about your friend,” he said.
“I’ve had longer to adjust.”
“I’m going to the library. I want to see her.”
She shook her head adamantly. “No, the doctors wouldn’t like that. Any kind of upset could take years off her life.”
“I thought she only had a year.”
“I mean months. It could take months off her life.”
“But I wouldn’t upset her.”
“There’s no reason to risk it,” she said. “What do you want with her, anyway?”
“Maybe I want a second date. Maybe I’m not a love-’em-and-leave-’em kind of guy.”
She rolled her eyes. “You are totally a love-’em-and-leave-’em kind of guy.”
Was it that obvious? “Okay, maybe I haven’t been Mr. Commitment in the past. But I’d really like to get to know Delaney. She was…different.”
“Why would you want to get to know someone who’s dying in a few months? What’s the point?”
Conner arched a brow at her. “What’s the point? How unfeeling is that?”
“It’s practical,” she said. “Practical is my nature.”
“And it’s my nature to support my friends through crises such as cancer.”
“Right.” She sounded even less persuaded by his excuses than he was by hers. “Well, Laney’s got lots of friends.” She turned onto the highway. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m sorry you probably had to drive quite a distance to find her. And I can’t believe she gave away enough details that you could find her,” she added under her breath. “But Boise wasn’t supposed to be a forever kind of thing, you know?”
“It’s not like I signed a no-contact clause,” he muttered.
“Stalking is sort of an unstated taboo.”
“I’m not stalking her!”
“Then, go back to wherever you live and leave her alone. She wants to spend her last days with the people she already loves, and you need to respect that.”
With an exaggerated sigh, Conner turned up his palms in surrender. “Okay, I’ll keep my distance,” he said. “I’m no stalker. But in a town this size, we’re bound to run into each other eventually.”
She lowered the volume on the tape deck. “Why?”
“Because I live here now.”
“Oh God,” she said, and Conner had to grab the wheel before she ran them off the road.
“WHY DO YOU keep staring at me?” Delaney asked, looking up from the pregnancy book she was reading in her recliner.
Rebecca returned her attention to the television program she’d been watching from the couch. “I’m not staring at you.”
Delaney went back to reading, but soon felt her friend’s gaze on her again. “What is it?” she asked impatiently.
“Nothing,” Rebecca said. “I was just wondering when you were going for your first doctor’s appointment.”
“Not for another ten days or so.”
“Oh. Right.” She nodded, then asked, “How have you been feeling?”
“Good.” Physically, anyway. “Why?”
Rebecca grimaced. “No reason. Just checking.”
Prickles swept up Delaney’s spine. Rebecca wasn’t acting like herself. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Something happen at work today?”
“What makes you think something happened at work? Did one of the other stylists call? Katie or someone?”
“I haven’t heard from anyone. You just seem…I don’t know…edgy.”
“If I’m edgy it’s only because I haven’t had a cigarette since I got home.” Rebecca flipped off the television, scooped her pack of Camels and her lighter off the coffee table and headed for the back porch, where she always did her smoking in deference to Delaney and the owner of the house, who’d asked her not to smoke inside. Now that Delaney was pregnant, she was doubly cautious about not smoking in her presence.
But Delaney doubted that one trip outside with Rebecca would hurt the baby. She grabbed their parkas from the pegs that lined the small, old-fashioned mudroom and followed her onto the porch. “Did
you and Buddy have a fight?” she pressed.
“No.” Rebecca slipped into the coat Delaney handed her and shook a cigarette out of her pack.
“So what’s wrong?”
Her lighter momentarily illuminated her face, which bore a rather pensive expression. “What do you know about Clive Armstrong’s grandson?” she asked, sitting on the top step of the porch and holding her cigarette away from Delaney.
“Nothing, really. Have you met him?” Delaney donned her coat, then stared out over the leafless trees, buried stumps and snow-covered fence the moonlight revealed in their small backyard. Spring was going to be late this year. The weather was still snowy and cold, although it was nearing the end of March.
Rebecca paused. “No,” she said at last.
Delaney shoved her hands in her pockets for warmth. “Then, why did you bring him up?”
Rebecca’s cigarette glowed eerily in the darkness. “You sent him that pie. I was just wondering if he ever responded.”
“No.”
“Good.” Rebecca turned her head and blew out a stream of smoke. “No one knows about the baby, right?”
“Just Aunt Millie and Uncle Ralph. I told them last week.”
Rebecca looked stricken. “You did?”
Delaney nodded.
“Why didn’t you mention it?”
“I don’t know. I guess I didn’t want to relive the experience.” She’d simply pushed that painful confrontation to the back of her mind and tried to concentrate on the more immediate problem of a job.
“So how’d it go?” Rebecca asked.
Delaney shrugged. “Pretty much as I’d expected.”
“That bad, huh?”
“They’re still not talking to me. Millie called once, but only to tell me not to let word of the baby get out. She’s afraid the city will fire me instead of putting me on half pay, and I won’t be able to find another job.”
“This is the twenty-first century, for crying out loud,” Rebecca said. “The city isn’t going to fire you. Having an illegitimate baby has nothing to do with how well you perform your job.”
“We live in a small town,” Delaney reminded her. “Getting fired over something like this is a very real possibility.”
“But you were a virgin, for Pete’s sake! They can’t fry you for making one mistake.”
Delaney felt she could certainly argue that point, but a tug of apprehension led her thoughts in a different direction. “How did you know?” she asked.
Rebecca scowled at her. “How’d I know what?”
“That I was a virgin.”
Her friend gazed off into space, her strange reaction, as much as the way she’d been behaving all night, telling Delaney that something significant was wrong. “What’s going on with you?” she demanded. “How’d you know I was a virgin?”
More silence.
The telephone rang, and Rebecca got to her feet and tossed her cigarette onto the cement steps, then ground it out. “There’s Buddy,” she said. “Thank God.”
But Delaney grabbed her by the arm before she could disappear into the house. “Call him back,” she said. “Something’s going on, and I want to know what it is.”
Rebecca surprised Delaney by not arguing. “I have bad news,” she said simply, turning to face her.
“I’m getting used to bad news.”
“I mean, this is really bad news.”
How could anything be worse than what had happened already? “What is it?” Delaney asked.
“Remember Conner?”
Delaney gave her a “get real” look. “Of course I remember Conner. He’s only the father of my baby.”
“Well…”
An expression crossed Rebecca’s face that said this was definitely going to hurt, and Delaney sucked in a breath to brace herself.
“He’s here,” she said.
“He’s where?”
“In Dundee, at the Running Y Ranch.”
Delaney grabbed the railing to steady herself. “He’s what?”
“You heard me.”
“What’s he doing there?”
“He’s Clive Armstrong’s grandson.”
The blood rushed to Delaney’s head, and she bent over to combat the sudden dizziness so she wouldn’t pass out. “Conner’s the snot-nosed brat Roy mentioned?”
“One and the same.”
Closing her eyes, Delaney shook her head, trying to make some sense of the cataclysmic events of the past six weeks. One mistake and the rest of her life was falling down like dominoes…. “And you weren’t going to let me know?” she said.
“I didn’t want you running over there to tell him about the baby. You heard what Roy said that day he came for the pie. He said Conner won’t last. That he’s no good. He’ll probably head back to California before you even start to show.” She squeezed Delaney’s hand. “I think you should keep your mouth shut and just let him go.”
Delaney didn’t know what to think. She felt as though she’d just been leveled by a two-by-four. “Where did you see him?”
“At the beauty shop.”
“Did he see you?”
Rebecca raised her eyebrows. “He recognized me right away. But don’t worry. I don’t think he’ll bother you.”
“Why not?”
“I told him you need your privacy because you’re dying of cancer.”
“You what?”
“I needed to come up with something,” she said, a defensive note creeping into her voice. “He was angry about all the lies you already told him and was going straight to the library to confront you.”
“So you told him I’ve got cancer?”
“Yeah.”
“How long did you give me to live?”
“A year.”
“Great,” Delaney said. “Now the whole town can start planning my funeral. That should solve everything.”
CHAPTER NINE
WHAT IF DELANEY did have cancer? Conner wondered, scanning both sides of the road as he rumbled into town in the old pickup he drove everywhere. Then he’d feel terrible—worse than terrible—for not treating the situation with the proper gravity. But no matter how hard he tried to believe Rebecca, he just couldn’t convince himself that the woman he’d held in his arms was only months away from the end of her life. Delaney had seemed nervous, yes, but she’d also seemed healthy, passionate and unencumbered by anything so emotionally devastating.
Still, what better explanation did he have for all the lies? When he’d spoken to Stephen last night and mentioned meeting Delaney Lawson, the name hadn’t evoked any response. He’d even called Dwight and Jonathan and received similar reactions from both of them. He highly doubted the three Super Egos would miss the chance to taunt him about falling so neatly into their trap, even if it hadn’t achieved the results they were hoping for. Which led him to believe that his uncles weren’t involved. But if they weren’t involved, something else had to account for Delaney’s and Rebecca’s strange behavior. And the thought of what that “something else” might be made him uneasy.
She could’ve been doing exactly what she’d said—dispensing with her virginity. Or she could’ve heard from someone at the ranch that he was coming to town, that Roy was picking him up at the Bellemont, and purposely intercepted him. Since Delaney lived in Dundee, she knew his grandfather had money, and would probably assume he did, too.
He frowned, remembering their conversation in the bar, when he’d mentioned birth control. “You don’t have to worry about that,” she’d said. And they hadn’t. But what if…
That was crazy, he decided, slinging an arm over the steering wheel as he drove. If she’d purposely gotten herself pregnant in hopes of coming after him for money, why hadn’t she contacted him by now?
He let his breath go in a long sigh. Maybe he didn’t want to know what Delaney Lawson was all about. Maybe he’d be better off heading back to the ranch and minding his own business.
But he didn’t turn around. The library was on h
is right, and an old Volvo still sat in the lot.
He pulled into the alley that ran along the back of the building and parked where he could watch the front door. Then he cranked the heater and folded his arms to wait. If she didn’t come out in the next ten minutes, he’d go home and let the future take care of itself. But one minute ticked on to the next, and he was still there after half an hour.
Did he want to go in? Would he be sorry if he did?
Sitting in the cold certainly wasn’t doing him any good.
He got out and slammed the truck door, then walked through the patchy snow to the entrance. A placard in the window said the library closed at eight on Wednesdays, which was nearly two hours ago. But when he tried the door, he found it unlocked.
THE LIBRARY HAD ALWAYS BEEN Delaney’s safe haven, even when she was a child, and it still was. Between Aunt Millie muttering “What’s this world coming to?” and “Just when you thought you knew someone,” and Uncle Ralph closing himself in his bedroom until she left, she couldn’t visit her childhood home. With Rebecca insisting she shouldn’t tell Conner about the baby, that he’d probably leave town, anyway—haranguing her on the subject—she didn’t feel like going back to her own house, either. And then there was her fear of running into him before she could decide what to do. With all of that, she’d rather just stay at work. She wanted to hide out in the peace and quiet of the library for the rest of her pregnancy. Especially now that Mrs. Minike, her most devoted volunteer, had gone home.
Stretching out on the floor in one of the wider aisles, she turned to the books she’d piled next to her, hoping to distract herself from her worries, if for only a few minutes. She’d been so overwhelmed by the negative consequences of what she’d done, she’d scarcely had time to consider the positive—the fact that she was actually going to have a baby.
She gazed down at the cover of Your Pregnancy Week by Week, entranced by the photograph of a fetus in its mother’s womb. What a miracle! She traced the baby’s tiny fingers and toes, marveling at the absolute perfection.
Page One started from the beginning and showed a picture of a sperm penetrating an egg.
One Month: What’s happening
