by Beth K. Vogt
“We agreed—”
“We agreed on nothing.” Her voice rose, overriding his objection. “I tried to be okay with your decision to make you happy, but I’m not okay. I’m not happy.”
This conversation was nothing but a replay of words, but she couldn’t stop herself. “You have no idea how often I think about having a child. How often I think that if I say this or that, maybe I can change your mind.”
Geoff muttered something under his breath, refusing to look at her.
No change. Her words never budged his no—not even over to a maybe.
“I can’t do this, Jill. Not now. You know the conference is less than a week away. We agreed to talk after that.”
“What I know is nothing will change. Don’t offer me some kind of false hope by saying we’ll talk.”
“It’s not false hope. We will talk.”
“Why should we talk about having children if there’s no chance you’ll listen to me? No chance you’ll even consider what I’m saying? How I’m feeling?”
Geoff eased to his feet, standing over her. “What is this?”
“What do you mean?”
“Answer the question. What is this? Because what you’re saying . . . it almost feels like a threat.”
“A threat?”
“Are you saying the only hope I can give you is that I’ll change? That I have to agree to children—or else? Nothing else is good enough?”
If she told Geoff that he was wrong, that her hope could survive on less than that, she’d douse what little bit still flickered in her heart. She might as well fill a bucket with water and raise it over her head, turn it over, and empty the contents until she was soaked through.
Jillian twisted her rings around her finger.
She couldn’t let Geoff extinguish her hope.
She’d do it herself.
“Yes. Yes, Geoff, that’s what I’m saying. Knowing you won’t change . . . it steals my hope for my future. For our future.”
Geoff turned. Strode away. Faced her from across the room. “What does that mean?”
Her resolve to face the issue head-on faltered, the distance between them tangible. “I’m too tired to talk about this anymore.”
Geoff’s shoulders slumped. “Jill, you know I love you—”
“Yes.” She closed her eyes for a moment and then forced herself to reconnect with her husband. To remember that he did love her. She couldn’t forget that. “Let’s just not talk about this right now, okay?”
“If that’s what you want.”
Now Geoff was telling her that she could have what she wanted?
No emotion flared at his words. Anger . . . indignation . . . nothing. Maybe all of that had been snuffed out too, along with hope.
Geoff took Winston’s leash from the table in the foyer. “I’m going to take Winston for a walk.”
“Good idea.”
“Do you want to go with me?”
“No . . . I’m tired. You go ahead.”
Geoff accepted her answer without argument. Once the house was still again, Jillian started to pull the blanket off the back of the couch. Stopped. It was a false sense of comfort, wrapping herself inside its folds.
At times like these, she missed Harper the most.
What had Harper said the last time they talked?
“When are you coming for a visit?” Harper’s question came at the end of their hour-long phone call.
“Oh, I wish I could!” Just the thought of visiting her best friend warmed Jillian, as if she and Harper were sharing a hug.
“What’s stopping you? Buy a plane ticket and come see me.”
“But you’re working . . .”
“When I’m working, you can relax. Walk on the beach. When I’m off, we can have some good, old-fashioned Girls’ Nights.”
Harper made the idea of a trip to North Carolina sound simple.
And maybe it was.
That’s what she needed—a good, old-fashioned Girls’ Night with Harper.
8
I WASN’T GOING to enjoy tonight. But being here was necessary—and I would survive. Besides, I was standing outside Axton Miller’s front door, so it made no sense to go home without talking to him. This was the perfect opportunity to tell my boss about my pregnancy. Away from work, away from other employees. I’d have to deal with everyone else at the hospital soon enough.
Tonight I’d face Axton. And his wife.
I remained standing outside his home in Monument, on the north side of Monument Hill. With the hospital also located on I-25 heading toward Denver, he didn’t have to worry about driving that troublesome part of the highway into work when it snowed. No matter what the forecast said.
A press of the doorbell sounded musical notes, and the wooden door swung open moments later, revealing Axton’s wife, her petite stature accentuated by my height.
“Johanna! I’m so glad you’re here. And right on time, too.” She stepped back, ushering me into the expansive black- and white-tiled foyer. “I’ve wanted to have you and your fiancé over for dinner for weeks now.”
I froze under the glare of an Italian chandelier as the woman’s eyes widened and her voice trailed off.
“It’s just me tonight.” I forced my lips to form a smile.
“I’m so sorry. Of course, Axton mentioned you’re no longer engaged—and there I go saying the wrong thing the minute you arrive. You’re going to wish you hadn’t come tonight.”
I’d been wishing that before Axton’s wife mentioned Beckett, but I wasn’t going to say it out loud.
“You’re not responsible to keep up with everything going on in my life.” If the woman only knew what her husband was going to tell her after I went home. “I’m sure you’re busy enough as it is.”
“Oh yes.” Relief tinged her high-pitched laughter. “Sawyer and Shaw, our twin boys, graduate from high school in May. I’m planning their party—it’s a group celebration with several of their friends. And there are all sorts of year-end activities.”
Somehow, I’d forgotten the Millers had twin boys.
“Will your sons be joining us for dinner?”
“Axton and I gave them the option to eat with us or take their dinner down to the family room. They’ve both got homework. Papers due.”
I’d stepped into some perfect family backdrop. Perfect house that looked as if a designer had coordinated the paint and flooring and lights, even the artwork on the walls. A successful husband who probably adored his petite, talkative wife and forgave her every verbal faux pas. Perfect family with two parents and two boys—twins, no less. And I knew how people loved twins.
I pulled my hand away from where it rested on my abdomen as if shielding it from all the too-good-to-be-true surrounding me. This wouldn’t be my child’s life, but we’d still have a good one.
“Axton’s in the kitchen. I put him in charge of the salad.” She led me through the living and dining rooms and into a massive kitchen that anchored the back of the house—all gleaming white marble counters and white cabinets with glass doors. And there was my boss, slicing yellow peppers and tossing them into a wooden salad bowl heaped with mixed greens and tomatoes.
“Welcome, Johanna.” Axton greeted me with his now-familiar smile that produced crinkles at the corners of his eyes.
“Hello, Axton. Thank you for having me over for dinner.”
“Poor Johanna. We finally manage to get her here, and what do I do but mention—”
“Don’t worry about it, um—” I racked my brain, trying to remember Axton’s wife’s name—“Dorothy. It’s forgotten.”
“Call me Dot. Everyone does—well, except for Axton. He calls me Dottie. Always has.”
“I started off doing it to annoy her. Trying to get her to notice me.” With a grin, Axton tossed a slice of pepper into his mouth.
“What, did you two meet each other in grade school?”
Dot’s laugh was a high trill that scaled my spinal column and reverberated in my ea
rs. “No. We met in college. We were both freshman and I had no intention of getting attached to anyone.”
“But I changed your mind, didn’t I?”
“Took you a while.” Axton’s wife’s grin was flirtatious.
“True. Two years.”
“Two years?” I guess Axton didn’t get everything he wanted when he wanted it. “You ignored this guy for two years?”
“I couldn’t really ignore him, what with him calling me Dottie and showing up in my classes all the time. I started thinking he somehow figured out my schedule.”
“I had my ways.” Axton winked.
“What convinced you to go out on a date with him?”
“I felt sorry for him.” Another trill of laughter that rang in my ears like a too-long peal of a doorbell.
“A pity date?”
“Not exactly. He’d gone on a ski trip during Christmas and he broke his ankle. Poor guy was miserable in his cast and crutches. I took him cookies and we stayed up late talking and the next thing I knew, we were going to the movies that Friday night.”
“Smooth, Miller, breaking your ankle to get her to go out with you.”
“Breaking my ankle was an accident, but I was not above using it to my advantage. I admit it.”
“He was waiting for me at the altar, leaning on those crutches.”
“Did you two get married that quickly?”
“No, we got married a year later. But he kept the crutches and I came walking down the aisle to see him balancing on them. He handed them off to his best man before we said our vows. We still have them somewhere.” The oven timer dinged, and Dot opened the door, releasing the rich aroma of cheese, tomatoes, and meat. “I hope you like lasagna.”
“It smells delicious.”
Setting the lasagna on the counter, Dot pulled off the oven mitts. “I’m going to let that rest while I run downstairs to the spare fridge and grab some extra salad dressings. I like a variety of choices. You two keep talking.”
The Millers were keeping the perfect-family persona up, right down to a meet-cute story, complete with the perfect blend of romance and humor. And soon I’d have to confess my own anything-but-perfect family scenario.
Axton watched his wife as she left the kitchen, his eyes warm with affection. How had they managed to keep their love alive for so many years? Not my business—and knowing that wouldn’t change anything for me.
“Axton, I was wondering if we could take a few minutes to talk this evening.”
He seemed to hesitate. “Of course, Johanna. But I’ll warn you, I try not to talk about business on weekends if at all possible—unless it’s an emergency.”
A pharmaceutical emergency. Right.
“This is a bit of business and personal combined.”
“Is everything okay?”
Now it was my turn to pause as Dot’s voice floated into the room just ahead of her. “We’ll let you boys know when dinner is ready.”
“Why don’t we talk after dinner?”
“After dinner it is.”
Dot swept into the kitchen, carrying a trio of salad dressings, and took over, talking the entire time she arranged the food on the expansive island in the center of the kitchen. Lasagna, salad, fresh rolls, tall glass pitchers of water and tea. Her topics pinballed back and forth from her favorite flavor of tea—Mango Tango—to her lasagna recipe—a longtime family favorite—to how she always liked to use two dressings on her salad because one was boring.
“Johanna—” Axton spoke up when his wife paused for a moment to search in a drawer for a serving utensil—“would you like a glass of wine? I have a nice merlot.”
“No, thank you.”
“Axton, what are you doing, offering Johanna wine? She’s probably not drinking while she’s pregnant.”
Dot’s unexpected statement was worse than her high-pitched laughter, causing me to freeze where I stood, bracing my legs against the island. At first, she didn’t even realize what she’d said. What she’d done. She trilled another laugh, plopping a square of steaming lasagna onto a plate and offering it to me. Only when I didn’t accept it did she notice the silence stretching between Axton and me.
Surely every step of this pregnancy wasn’t going to be difficult.
“Is everything all right?” Dot’s gaze flickered back and forth between me and her husband.
“I didn’t know . . .” Axton spoke first.
“I hadn’t had a chance . . . This is what I wanted to talk to you about.”
Pounding footsteps interrupted my fumbling attempts to explain, and two lanky teenage boys burst into the kitchen, all arms and legs, their brown hair sticking out beneath baseball caps that were positioned backward on their heads.
“Hey, Mom, is dinner ready yet? We’re gonna eat downstairs.” One boy took a plate, spinning it on a fingertip like a basketball as he positioned himself near me.
“Yeah, I’ve got a decent rough draft of my paper, so this a good time for a break.” The other brother, so similar in height and coloring, but not as identical as Payton and Pepper had been, took a plate too, jostling for a position.
“Shaw. Sawyer. Settle down and say hello to our guest, Dr. Thatcher.” Axton motioned with a salad tong.
“Johanna is fine.”
Quick handshakes accompanied mumbled hellos. Then the boys filled their plates and disappeared back downstairs, with promises to return for seconds.
Dot set her plate on the counter, any hint of her usual humor gone from her eyes. “Johanna, I’m so sorry. I thought Axton knew you were pregnant and had forgotten to tell me. You know how men are.”
I certainly did.
“No, he didn’t. I was planning on talking with him tonight.” I tore a piece of my roll apart. “I haven’t announced it to anyone yet. My parents don’t even know.”
“Well, you’re not showing that much, but you do have a certain look about you—and then there was the way you rested your hand on your tummy earlier. It’s such a maternal reflex.”
I didn’t realize I had any maternal instincts. Or reflexes. Hormones must cause all sorts of changes in a woman.
“And Dot has an uncanny ability to spot pregnant women.” Axton piled lasagna onto his plate, the action returning a sense of normalcy to the evening. “She sometimes knows when a friend is pregnant before they do.”
Too bad I hadn’t known about Dot’s superpower before I’d accepted their dinner invitation.
Dot might as well have slipped up and revealed an upcoming surprise party or someone’s special Christmas gift. Couldn’t unhear what she’d said. Couldn’t stuff the proverbial pregnant cat back in the bag.
The aroma of the lasagna teased me, undermining my desire to run. To end the evening prematurely.
“As awkward as it is right at this moment, I, for one, don’t want to miss out on dinner. I haven’t enjoyed food much the past few months, but things are starting to calm down.” I dusted off my fingers, my roll a shredded heap on my plate. “I probably need another roll.”
“Absolutely.”
“And salad, please. But no wine.”
My attempt at a joke received a short burst of Dot’s laughter and a grateful smile from Axton.
When we were seated at the dining room table, Axton resumed the conversation. “So. Your pregnancy. No sense in waiting until after dinner to talk about it.”
“Are you sure?”
“I don’t mind.” Dot sipped her wine, probably trying to tamp down her curiosity—and failing.
Talking now meant I could go home sooner. “It’s unexpected, that goes without saying, but I’m planning on working during the pregnancy and after the baby’s born, too, of course.”
“You’ll want to take maternity leave.”
“I haven’t looked into the hospital policy yet.”
“Easy enough to find out.”
“Johanna, let me throw you a baby shower!” Dot seemed ready to jump up from her seat to go find paper and pen—maybe her iPad—to s
tart sketching out details.
“What?”
“A baby shower. It’ll be so much fun. And of course, you probably need everything. A car seat, high chair, crib . . .”
I’d wanted to discuss my pregnancy in a nice, businesslike manner with Axton. And I’d thought I would have to fend him off when it came to a baby shower.
I didn’t want to think about a shower. About everything I didn’t have, starting with a husband. I didn’t even own a single piece of maternity clothing yet. But one day I’d have to abandon leggings and loose tops and admit my body was changing to accommodate a baby.
A baby.
I choked down a bite of lasagna. Dot Miller was ruining this meal for me.
“Honey, this is not the time to talk about a baby shower for Johanna. You know what? Let’s table all discussion of her pregnancy for the rest of the evening. She and I can talk about it more at work tomorrow.” Axton returned his attention to me. “Is that okay with you?”
“Fine. Perfect. Thank you.”
For the first time since I’d met Axton Miller the day he’d shown up at Mount Columbia hospital and stolen my promotion from me, I found myself liking the man. No reservations. If anyone could handle his wife, he could.
Then Dot offered Axton a small, conspiratorial smile. This was the woman who’d fended off his advances for two years. Two years. I could only hope I could get Axton to listen to reason tomorrow—and not to his wife.
9
TWO SUITCASES SIDE BY SIDE on their bed. His. Hers. And Winston curled up between them, his chin resting on the edge of Geoff’s mostly packed suitcase. Everything was compartmentalized in the travel packing cubes he preferred. Jillian had bought him new ones for his last birthday, and now his suitcase looked ready to handle a multicountry trip, not a mere weekend away in Denver.
Meanwhile, her suitcase contained only a few items. Her pajamas, which were a comfortable pair of pink leggings and a white top with a scoop neckline. Jeans and a soft cashmere sweater, along with a pair of wedge ankle boots. One outfit and something to sleep in. Certainly not enough for their upcoming weekend in Denver—the one she was less and less excited about, not that she’d admitted that to Geoff.
