Eye of the Tiger Lily

by Ann Yost

  “Try them,” he said, as she stared at the food. “They always worked for Elise.”

  When she was pregnant with Daisy. Molly’s heart hurt. She picked up a cracker and nibbled on it.

  “Is there any chance?”

  The question seemed innocent enough but Molly knew that it was not idle curiosity. She was going to have to tell him the truth. She wished she had more time to figure out how to do it.

  Here’s the deal, Cam. I found out about your sperm sample at the Spotwood Fertility Clinic and I had myself inseminated so, yes, I could be pregnant.

  She stared into his hooded blue eyes. She couldn’t do it.

  “I haven’t been with anyone but you,” she said, tiredly. The blue eyes flashed.

  “Since when?”

  She hadn’t expected the question but she wasn’t going to lie.

  “Since the last time I was with you.”

  “You mean at the casino.”

  She closed her eyes and leaned back against the pillow.

  “Since the spinney.”

  “What?”

  It was time to tell him. At least some of it.

  “You were married, for Chrissakes.”

  “Daniel married me to protect my parents and my reputation. I was seventeen and pregnant.”

  “WHAT?”

  “There’s no easy way to tell you this.” She knew she should choose her words more carefully but she was too tired, too sick and she’d waited too long. “You aren’t sterile.”

  “All but.”

  He hadn’t yet grasped the essential point so she took the opportunity to probe.

  “What made you get tested in the first place?”

  “Elise wasn’t getting pregnant. Her father wanted a grandson and she was very anxious to provide him with one.

  “She set up tests for both of us at a fertility clinic in Boston and they discovered the low-motility. The problem was with me.”

  Molly didn’t understand. She knew perfectly well Cam was capable of siring a child.

  “Was Elise’s father disappointed when Daisy turned out to be a girl?”

  “They both were.”

  “Elise just wanted to try again. She even considered gender selection.”

  Molly winced. As far as she knew gender selection, a process sometimes called ‘designer babies’ consisted of aborting fetuses of the ‘wrong’ gender.

  “What happened?”

  “Elise was killed in a car accident. Her father got involved with a younger woman with the intent of providing himself with a male heir but nothing came of it and he’s back with Elise’s mother.”

  Molly felt a surge of sympathy for everyone involved.

  “What a miserable family,”

  Cam said nothing and she felt guilty. She was talking about the family he’d married into, the parents of the woman he’d loved.

  “I talked to her once, you know.”

  “When?” The one-syllable word was infused with tension.

  “She was in your dorm room when I called. She told me not to contact you again because she was your girlfriend.”

  “When was this?”

  “That fall. A few months after you’d left for school.”

  His tanned face suddenly looked pale and drawn.

  “You called me? Why?”

  She sighed. She’d already given him part of the story. It was time to tie up the loose ends. She wished she could do it without hurting him. She wished she could do it with a clear conscience. In any case, she had to do it.

  ”I called to tell you I was pregnant.”

  His eyes darkened and he lost what little color he had left.

  “I found out about a month after you’d gone. I didn’t know what to do. I knew we were too young to get married but James and Muriel had done so much for me. I couldn’t shame them. I called to discuss it with you. That’s when Elise told me she was your girlfriend.”

  “And you believed her?”

  Molly shrugged her shoulders.

  “I didn’t know what to believe but you hadn’t contacted me and, like I said, I knew it wouldn’t work between us. I didn’t try to call again.”

  “Goddam you,” he muttered. “Goddam you, Molly.”

  She probably deserved that. In the thirteen years that had passed since she’d failed to tell him, she’d come to realize that the father always deserves a chance to know.

  “I did the wrong thing,” she admitted, “but it turned out for the best, Cam. I lost the baby. If you’d left school and come back to marry me we’d have ended up divorced, too. We were too young for all that responsibility.”

  “You mean I was too young.”

  She looked at him steadily. “Yes. That’s what I mean.”

  His glittered like hard, blue diamonds. “I will never forgive you.”

  She recognized helplessness, guilt, frustration and pain but still the words hurt.

  “I know.”

  She waited while he worked out some of his agitation by pacing the small floor of her bedroom. He thrust his fingers through his thick, dark hair and rubbed his palm against the back of his neck.

  “You lied to me by omission.”

  “Yes.”

  “And, apparently, Elise lied.”

  “I don’t know. It’s possible the test revealed slow motility.”

  “For God’s sake, Molly! You and I had sex once. I’d say that makes my sperm hale and hearty.”

  “But why would Elise lie?”

  His shoulders slumped and all the fight went out of him, like a helium balloon on the morning after. She realized, suddenly, he’d just suffered a double blow.

  “I don’t know. Maybe she didn’t. It hardly matters now.” His eyes came up to her face again. “But if I am potent, you have something new to worry about.”

  His eyes were hard and accusing.

  I will never forgive you.

  She couldn’t tell him what she’d done. Not now.

  “It was only once.”

  “Twice. It was twice, Molly. That time at the casino might have been clumsy and fast but I came inside you just like I did last night. There’s no five-second rule in fucking.”

  She winced at the harsh word.

  “That would be a real déjà vu for you, wouldn’t it? For the second time you’d be pregnant without a husband, stuck with a baby that didn’t belong on the rez. Think Grey Wolf would marry you again? Or would you just cut to the chase and have an abortion?”

  The cruel words cut at her like knives. She knew they were borne of his frustration and his anger with her. She shook her head.

  “I wouldn’t have an abortion and I wouldn’t marry Daniel. Not that he’d have me again. Let’s not borrow trouble, Cam. Let’s part as friends.”

  He stared at her a long minute.

  “It wasn’t just that we were too young, was it? It was that we were too different. You didn’t want to give up your place on the rez.”

  She met his harsh glare.

  “That’s right.”

  ”Damn, Molly.” This time he sounded more hurt than angry. “If there’d been a child would you have let him believe Grey Wolf was his father?”

  She’d never thought that far ahead. Nausea roiled through her, this time caused by guilt and regret.

  “I suppose so.”

  It wasn’t strictly the truth. She’d never intended to stay married to Daniel nor he to her. The point didn’t seem particularly relevant now.

  Emotions flashed in the blue eyes.

  “When, exactly was the miscarriage?”

  Technically it hadn’t been a miscarriage but a premature birth. She didn’t want to tell him.

  “Come on, Molly. No more lies.”

  “At five months.”

  Pain flashed across his face. Of course. Cam knew something about pregnancy. He’d know that it hadn’t been a typical case. She needed to explain. “Placental abruption. The placenta detached too early.”

  His face retained its pa
llor but lost some of its harshness.

  “I’m sorry, Tiger Lily. It must have been hell.”

  It was all hell—losing the baby, losing Cam. It had happened a long time ago but it had never stopped hurting.

  She didn’t have to tell him. He’d always been able to read her thoughts and emotions with ease.

  “That’s why you became a midwife, isn’t it? That’s why you got behind the casino. You wanted the income to build a clinic so this would never happen to anyone else.” Cam dug his finger and thumb into his eye sockets. “Christ. I should’ve been here.”

  “You were eighteen. You wouldn’t have known any better than I what was going on, Cam. It wouldn’t have made any difference.”

  “It would have made a difference. You’d have been living near a hospital, not out on the godforsaken rez.”

  She held very still trying to absorb the pain. He’d hit on the chief source of her guilt about the baby. She should have been closer to good medical care. His face was a hard mask.

  “I’ve got to get out of here.”

  She knew it was time for him to go and she wanted that, too. She also wanted him to stay.

  “Yes,” she said.

  ”You’ll be all right?”

  Her heart squeezed. Right now she was his worst nightmare but he was still concerned.

  “I’ll be fine. I’ll call my mother if I need anything.”

  The pain of watching him leave was making her hear things, specifically an odd pounding.

  “Damn,” he said. “there’s someone at the front door.”

  Molly closed her eyes.

  “It’s okay. I’ll get rid of whoever it is and then I’ll go.”

  A moment later Molly heard a jumble of voices and then the bedroom door burst open.

  “Hi, Molly!” Daisy’s high-pitched voice rang through the air. “Hallie and me camed-ded to see you.” She pulled on the leash in her hand. “Wilbur, too.”

  “Daisy and I heard about the excitement at the Tall Tree’s,” Hallie explained. Her eyes looked a quiet question and Molly knew the curiosity was as much about Cam’s presence in her home as about the events at the sagama’s house. “We wanted to make sure you were okay.”

  “Can I get up on the bed?” Daisy asked.

  “No,” Cam said.

  “Sure,” Molly said.

  Hallie lifted the child up onto the bed but she had the final word.

  “Wilbur stays on the floor.”

  ****

  Cam watched the woman and the girl together and his heart exploded. Not, he realized, for the obvious reasons, that Daisy might have been their child although he’d always wished it were true. Molly’s hair, dark, like his, contrasted sharply with Daisy’s sun-colored curls.

  It was because of Tiger Lily’s smile.

  Without even trying, Daisy had elicited Molly’s magical smile, the one that had, long years ago, been reserved only for Cam. He hadn’t realized until this minute that she’d been holding back.

  Jealous. He was jealous of his own daughter. God. He was a sad case.

  “You need to get off the bed,” he said, more brusquely than he’d intended. “Molly’s sick.”

  Molly’s dark blue eyes met his but she didn’t contradict him. She just brushed a blonde curl behind Daisy’s ear.

  “I’m so glad you came to see me, darlin’,” she said to the child. “But I don’t want you to get sick, too. Will you go to Daddy and talk to me from there?”

  Daisy disregarded the request. She slithered right back to Molly’s arms. Despite Cam’s irritation his heart softened. Daisy had a mind of her own. Just like him. And they had something else in common, too.

  They both loved Molly Whitecloud.

  Cam balled up his fists. It was past time to face that particular truth.

  He understood now, finally, why she’d abandoned him all those years ago to marry Grey Wolf. He could feel the last of his resentment evaporate. She’d been a teenager, desperate to save her position in her adopted family, desperate to save that family’s reputation. Cam imagined there was even more to it than that. Cam’s father had not been thrilled with his son’s obsession with the Indian girl. Had Jesse Outlaw said something to her? And then there had been her fear. She’d been afraid to leave the safety of the Penobscots, the safety of the rez. How could he blame her? She’d been in an impossible position.

  He’d relived over and over the moment he’d arrived at her parents’ trailer that long ago December only to be told she’d married Daniel Grey Wolf. He’d held onto the sense of injury for so long. He probed his psyche like he’d test out a sore gum after surgery.

  The anger was no longer there.

  The relief was acute and tempered only by the knowledge that she might not have forgiven him. It was he who’d abandoned her, who had failed to call after their first and only intimacy, who’d let her cope with the frightening situation alone.

  No. Not alone. She’d had Grey Wolf.

  “Hallie and me and Wilbur brung you some bread,” Daisy was telling Molly. “Asia made it and some soup and we didn’t bring Robert.”

  “I appreciate the food,” Molly said, gently, “but you could have brought Robert. You know I care about him, don’t you, Daze? He’s your cousin so that alone makes him very important.”

  A new pain sliced through Cam’s battered heart. Molly loved Daisy, too but she was choosing her words carefully. She didn’t want him to think she was presuming with his daughter.

  When he’d fallen in love with Tiger Lily all those years ago he’d thought he’d be happy for the rest of his life. Somehow, he’d made that life into a train wreck.

  “Jeez, Molly,” Hallie said. She collapsed in the chair. “Big night for you. First you delivered the baby at the casino then you saved Sandra Tall Tree’s life. You deserve a lot more than soup!”

  “Cam was the real hero,” Molly said. “He kept Winston from shooting Sandra.”

  Cam frowned. He still wasn’t sure what had happened on the Tall Tree’s stoop. A thought occurred to him.

  “How do you know all of this already,” he asked his sister-in-law.

  “You didn’t come home last night,” she said, “so I called Sharon and she mentioned the call from Molly. Apparently she talked to Jake.”

  Cam winced. Everyone still thought he was almost engaged to Sharon and here he was in Molly Whitecloud’s bedroom.

  “Daniel and Sharon are here, by the way,” Hallie said, eyeing him. “They were concerned about you and Molly.”

  Cam met Molly’s gaze. He’d told her it was over between himself and the innkeeper but maybe she didn’t believe him. And why the hell did Grey Wolf keep showing up? He thrust his fingers through his hair again.

  He needed to get out of there.

  He needed time to think.

  “I’ll go talk to them,” he said. A minute later he was in Molly’s driveway.

  “How is Molly,” Sharon asked, leaning toward the driver’s side.

  “Sick,” he said. “I’m going home.”

  Daniel Grey Wolf’s dark eyes studied Cam’s face.

  “Take Sharon home,” he said, quietly. “I’ll look after Molly.”

  Emotions welled up in Cam and he realized he’d been wrong.

  He was still jealous of Grey Wolf. He was still angry at Molly.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Cam spent the night here?”

  It was a personal question but Hallie was a good friend. Molly knew she cared about her and she cared about Cam.

  “I fell apart after the shooting. He waited to make sure I was all right.”

  “I wanna go see the garden,” Daisy announced. “Hallie said there would be daisies and lilies and forget-me-dots.”

  ****

  At lunchtime, Daniel prepared a meal for Molly, Hallie and Daisy. He sliced the bread and warmed up the soup made of harvest vegetables. The foursome sat at the table. Wilbur, in a nest of blankets, watched a taped episode of Emeril LaGasse as the chef
prepared a pork-free Cajun specialty. Molly tried to focus on her visitors but she couldn’t stop thinking about how she had told Cam about the lost baby and then he’d left, abruptly and with Sharon Johnson.

  She hoped he’d told her the truth, that his relationship with the red-haired beauty was over. Molly hated to have hurt the other woman. She hated even more the prospect of Cam’s marriage to Sharon.

  For the first time she wondered whether she could stay on the rez. Even if she wasn’t pregnant, a possibility that seemed less and less likely, she didn’t know whether she could spend the next thirty years watching Cam raise his family with Sharon.

  Daniel insisted on washing the dishes with Daisy while Hallie visited with Molly. The two women had always gotten along well but today their conversation dwindled to silence.

  Molly saw the concern in Hallie’s eyes.

  “You look like you could use a nap,” Hallie said. “It’s time for us to leave. I need to get back to Robert.”

  Minutes later she and Daisy were heading back to town in Daniel’s truck.

  “You didn’t have to stay,” Molly told him, for the third time. “I’m just going to sleep.”

  ”I’ve been meaning to check on the wiring,” he said. “This is a good opportunity to do it.”

  “Daniel, if this really is my house, that should be my responsibility.”

  “I don’t mind, nizwia. Go get some rest.”

  She wished he would leave because his presence reminded her of past mistakes and because it reminded her that she belonged on the rez as did he. Cam and Hallie and Sharon were friends but they belonged to a different world.

  She went to bed and buried her head under a pillow that smelled like barf and Cam. Hell and heaven.

  She might be sick or she might be pregnant or she might be tired.

  She certainly was depressed.

  She awoke when the late afternoon sun filtered through the blinds on the window that faced the west.

  Molly got up, ran a brush through her tangled hair, dressed in jeans and a blue plaid flannel shirt. She found Daniel in the garden snipping the dead heads off the summer roses and bundling the stalks of irises and tulips that had bloomed in mid-summer.

  “Wow,” she said. “I’ve really let things go around here, haven’t I?”

  “You’ve been preoccupied,” he said, mildly.