Edge of Paradise

by Lainey Reese

  Andie felt warm all over at the picture he painted and, with a happy sigh, stooped to scoop up more pruned limbs and got back to work. Her back ached like a rotten tooth, and they’d only just started. The two of them were working in the smaller personal orchard that only had a handful of trees, so she hadn’t thought about including it in with the larger one for the hired crew to tend. As she hefted her own overflowing wheelbarrow to follow Abram to the brush pile, she wondered what in the hell she’d been thinking. It was going to be another long day.

  As the days wore on and morphed into one long, painful blur, instead of getting faster, Andie seemed to be getting slower. “You’d think after a month of exercising for twelve-to-sixteen hours a day I’d be getting used to this. I should be stronger not weaker,” Andie told Kiki, speaking into her phone through the headphones as she scrubbed out one of the bathtubs.

  “Maybe you’re just tired. You can’t expect to be Ma Ingles straight out the gates, Andie. This is gonna take a while for you to adjust.” Andie laughed at the Little House on the Prairie reference and, satisfied with the tub, moved on to the toilet.

  “I know. But tired like this is crazy. I can barely stay awake past seven o’clock these days, and I’m sleeping through my alarm. Kiki, you know me; I’ve always been a morning person, but I just can’t wake up lately. And I’m so tired it makes me sick. I can hardly stomach the sight of food most of the time. Even Jax’s cooking, as good as he is, makes me wanna barf sometimes.”

  “You poor baby.” Kiki had a syrupy tone to her voice that made Andie smile. “Having a hot, sexy, tattooed guy come cook homemade meals for you. How dreadful. My heart bleeds. Really.”

  Having finished with the outside of the commode, Andie lifted the lid to wash the bowl. It wasn’t particularly filthy, but there was a few yellow splatters and a hair stuck to the bottom of the seat. Andie had no warning it was coming, no time to prepare or even hang up so her friend was spared the sound effects. The sight of the seat combined with their current topic of discussion worked to trigger her, and Andie’s stomach just emptied. Epically. Over the pitiful sounds of her own retching, Andie heard the yelp followed by gagging noises from the other end of the line, but she could do nothing to help it. The mass exodus of her stomach took all her energy; she couldn’t even spare Kiki by hanging up on her. It took all her effort to just keep upright, as her body felt like it was trying to turn her inside out starting with her intestines.

  “Oh, God.” Andie’s voice sounded like her vocal cords were made out of scrap metal, and that’s kinda how it felt too. “I’m sick.”

  “No shit, Sherlock,” her friend answered. Andie could tell by the sound of her voice that Kiki was concerned as well as horrified. “I’ve never heard anything so repulsive in my entire life. I almost joined you.”

  “Oh, Kiki.” Andie coughed a little and almost cried when another wave of dry heaves hit. “I can’t get sick right now. There is too much to do. How did this happen?” She knew she sounded like a whiny brat, but this was her BFF, the only person in the world she could trust not to judge her, no matter what mood she was in.

  “Of course you got sick,” Kiki said with compassionate exasperation. “You push yourself from sunup to sundown and just told me you’re not eating. What did you think your immune system was going to do under those conditions, get stronger?”

  “No, I guess you’re right.” Andie finally felt strong enough to stand and pushed cautiously to her feet. “I need to brush my teeth and take a nap. Maybe it’s just exhaustion and I’ll feel better tonight.”

  “Maybe.” But Kiki didn’t sound convinced. Andie looked at her hollowed-out cheeks and ghostly complexion as she shakily put paste on her toothbrush and brought it to her mouth. Then her bestie uttered the one sentence that made Andie’s misery complete.

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were pregnant.”

  Chapter 6

  Luke was bent over the engine of his truck, finishing his tune-up, when he heard a car coming down the drive. He didn’t bother looking. He’d find out who had come calling soon enough, and he needed to get this done so he could move on to the next item on his list. Ever since he started helping out at Andie’s, his schedule had become tight as a drum with not a minute to spare in his day. So, he hoped to hell this wasn’t a social call, because the last thing he had time for was a chat.

  “Hey.” If the Queen of England would have come to visit, he’d have been less surprised than he was to see Andie leaning against the fender of his truck.

  “Hey,” he answered her, straightening up and wiping some of the grime from his hands with an old rag. “You okay?” he asked when he saw the pale and stricken look on her face. “You need help with something?” As she continued to stand there and stare at him without speaking, Luke started to get nervous. “Look, Andie, you gotta talk to me. Tell me something, because you’re kinda freaking me out with the zombie impression here. Where’s Logan? Did something happen to my kid?” he asked as the thought of Logan in jeopardy made his stomach knot with dread.

  “No. Logan’s fine.” At last, she spoke. But when she failed to elaborate, Luke didn’t know what to do.

  She looks scared, he thought, scared and alone and a little bit rundown. For the hundredth time, he wanted to kick his own ass for blowing things with this woman. He wanted nothing more in that moment than to wrap his arms around her and hold her until whatever had caused that look on her face went away. But he couldn’t. He was sure that bridge was burned, and there was no one to blame for that but himself.

  “Um.” Andie opened her mouth to say something then thought better of it, apparently, because she closed it again with a decisive shake of her head. Instead, she fished some tissue out of her purse and handed it to him without an explanation.

  Luke eyed her with one eyebrow raised but took what she offered. The Kleenex unfolded in the palm of his hand to reveal a white stick with a tiny window on it that had Pregnant on one side of that window and Not Pregnant on the other.

  “Holy shit.” The window that read Pregnant had a bright blue and a bright pink stripe in it.

  “That’s what I said.”

  Luke lifted his gaze from the life-changing stick in his hand to the woman who was carrying his child.

  Her bottom lip quivered for a moment, and her eyes filled, but she managed to speak clearly. “I don’t want anything from you. I just thought you had a right to know.”

  “You’re damn right I have a right to know.” Luke didn’t mean to be harsh, but like everything when it came to Andie, he put his foot in his mouth again.

  “I’m not getting an abortion.” That lip wobbled again. Then she turned on her heel and marched for her car.

  Luke cursed and dropped the stick. “Andie.” His hand wrapped around her arm, and she stiffened, but he was able to turn her into his embrace the way he’d been aching to since she’d shown up here. “Just wait a damn minute, okay?” He asked it gently, with his cheek pressed to her temple. “Fuck.” Again, he said it without rancor, and she must have realized that, because she wasn’t pulling away. In fact, after a second, she nodded and snuggled in close. She didn’t hold him back but instead kept her arms between them with her chin resting on her clasped hands, but Luke felt her melting into him regardless, letting him absorb most of her weight, and he was thankful she gave him that much.

  “When did you find out?” He kept his voice to a whisper, since he was close to her ear. It gave an intimacy to the moment that he hadn’t earned but was happy to take advantage of.

  “About fifteen minutes ago,” she said, her voice muffled by his chest. “I have been feeling weak and tired, and then I threw up today when I was cleaning a bathroom. I ran straight to the drug store in town. Took the test at the gas station right up the road.” Luke felt a shift in her, like a dam breaking just as words and tears started to pour forth like a flood.

  “Oh, God, Luke. What am I going to do? How can I do this? I don’t know anything abo
ut babies. I never even babysat as a teenager. And there’s so much work to do. I can’t ask Logan to take on more. He’s already doing so much.” She pulled back and looked at him with tears streaming freely and might as well have gutted him. Seeing her so wretched filled him with a helpless panic he hadn’t felt since Logan got his first stitches. “Did you know he was sneaking around doing half my chores for me already? He always denies it, but I know it’s him. What does he think—that I’m not gonna notice all those things on my list are getting done before I get to them? I can’t ask him to do more. I just can’t.”

  “Shh, it’s all right. Everything is going to be all right.” Luke cupped her face in his palms and kissed her forehead. “We’ll get another kid in there to help you out. Then you can stop pushing yourself so hard, all right?” He didn’t think to tell her it was him picking up the slack over at her place. That wasn’t important right now. What was important was getting her calm and keeping her that way.

  “I just can’t be pregnant,” she sobbed, burrowing back into his chest. “I just can’t.”

  “Well, sweetness,” Luke told her with resignation, “that stick over there on the ground says different.”

  “Maybe it’s wrong,” she said, and if he wasn’t mistaken, she followed that up by wiping her nose on his shirt. “Maybe it’s a dud. I’ve heard these things can be wrong.”

  Luke squeezed her a little tighter for a brief second and told her; “You know it’s not wrong. Besides, most false results are when they tell you you’re not pregnant when you are. Not the other way around.”

  Another sniffle. This time, there was no mistaking it; she wiped her nose on his shirt. “Oh go ahead. I was about ready to throw this one in the rag bin anyway.” As he hoped, she gave a watery chuckle at his joke. “Come on in. I’ll get you some tea, and I think we’ve got some crackers. Those’ll help if you’re still feeling sick.”

  “So, I guess I don’t need to ask how you know about pregnancy tests and crackers for nausea?” Andie asked Luke while she nibbled on a saltine.

  In response, Luke nodded in the direction of a picture that hung on the wall just below the clock. Logan smiled out from the frame with his diploma clutched in one fist and his other clamped tight in his dad’s hand, raising them high above their heads between them. Luke’s smile was as big as his son’s, and Andie felt a curl of warmth wind its way through her middle at the obvious pride and joy pouring out of them both.

  “That’s a great picture,” she murmured softly as she went to get a closer look. “God, you can really see how much he looks like you in this.” Her fingers brushed first over Logan’s face then Luke’s. “He’s got your smile.” She turned to give him a smile of her own. “And your eyes.”

  “Yeah. That’s a nut that didn’t fall far from the tree.” Luke seemed a little uncomfortable with her words, like he was unsure what her close scrutiny would reveal.

  “So,” Andie hedged, curious but not wanting to push where she wasn’t welcome. “Ummm… how old were you when Logan was born?”

  Luke looked at her before answering, an expression on his face that gave Andie the impression he was weighing the decision on how much to tell her. “We were both seventeen when she got pregnant. I was eighteen when he was born.”

  “That must have been scary,” Andie said in a quiet voice as she considered it. “I mean, I’m way past my teens and I’m freaked out. I can only imagine what you guys were going through.” Having picked up her tea, Andie took a testing sip. When the sweet warmth hit her tender tummy and soothed it immediately, Andie let out a grateful whimper and took a huge gulp.

  “Careful.” Luke eyed her with intense focus that Andie hadn’t felt from him since that fateful night. “Slowly. You never know what you’re going to be able to keep down. For Christy, it was juice boxes and weak tea. For you, those may not work. It’s best to take it slow just in case.”

  Andie nodded then cupped her palms around the mug to chase the chill from her fingers.

  “So, is Christy close by? What happened between you, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “Christy slept with Jax when Logan was only about two months old, and the two of them ran off together.” Andie was grateful she hadn’t taken another drink, because she was sure she’d have just spewed it all over the table. Solemn now, she slowly lowered back into her seat. “As for whether or not she’s close by, I couldn’t say. After about ten years, Jax came back. Christy never did.”

  “Wait.” She set her mug down just to be safe. “Jax? The Jax I know? That’s who you’re talking about?”

  “The one and only,” Luke answered, sitting back in his own chair and lacing his fingers behind his head as he watched her reaction closely. “He was my best friend, so there’s a cliché and a half for you. I’m not sure they would have left if I hadn’t caught them in the act.” At her gasp, Luke merely shrugged as though the news he just delivered was water under the bridge. “I came home early, and there they were.” He lifted one arm to point to the lovely bay window next to her with its cushioned bench seat and cozy throw pillows.

  Andie let out another shocked gasp. “They did it here? In your family home? Right in front of a window!” Over the weeks, Logan had been opening up little by little to her prodding and probing. She was a talkative person by nature, and although he wasn’t, he answered all her questions about his home and growing up in this small town. So, Andie knew this house had been in Luke’s family for generations and that it had once been a much larger spread.

  By the time Luke’s father inherited the farm, it barely had fifty acres left of the original five hundred, and it was mortgaged to the max. Luke had worked two jobs to help pay off the second and third mortgages—one after school at the feed store, and the other, he manned the projection booth at the drive-in theater on the weekends.

  She also knew from Logan that Luke had raised him with very little help.

  “Yeah, that they did.” Luke nodded.

  “What did you do?” Andie asked, picturing the two men as younger versions of themselves punching it out in the front yard.

  “I lost it, of course.” He shrugged as though it were hardly worth mentioning. “We fought, and she screamed. I was so pissed I think she was afraid I was going to kill him.” He paused for a moment, and she could see him reliving that memory in his head. “I think I might have if we hadn’t woken Logan. Jax was on the ground with me straddling him, and I was giving him everything I had, while Christy had an arm locked around my throat, trying to pull me off. But I felt nothing. Couldn’t feel my fists connecting. Couldn’t feel where he landed some blows of his own, and I sure as shit couldn’t feel her puny efforts to drag me away from him.”

  Luke’s hands dropped to the table, and he braced his weight forward on his elbows and looked at her. “But my son’s crying stopped me in my tracks. I looked at Jax and then her. Both of them naked from the waist down, her hair and face a mess from sex and crying, him a mess from my fists… and I realized something.”

  “What?” she asked, caught up in the drama of his story.

  “I realized that neither of them mattered. None of us did, actually. Logan mattered. It never sank in until that moment that having a kid means you and your wants, needs, dreams, whatever, all take a back seat once you have a child. Logan didn’t ask to come into this world with a couple idiot kids who didn’t have the sense to use a fucking condom. That was on us, not him. But he was here, and from that moment on, my life was not only about me anymore.” He pushed up from the table and walked to the now infamous bay window to sit next to her, and Andie shifted in her chair to face him. “And it hasn’t been. There has not been a single decision I’ve made in the last nineteen years that didn’t start with me first thinking ‘how will this affect Logan?’ That’s how it’s supposed to be.” He put a hand on her knee. “That’s how it will be for you too. You’ll see. But don’t get me wrong. It’s a good thing. A great thing. Being his dad has sometimes been the only thing that’
s kept me going.” When her eyes filled with tears again, Luke shifted closer to her until his legs were bracketing hers and he had both her hands in his.

  “How this happened between us sucks. I know. And I’ve been a world-class dick to you—I know that too. But this kid? This kid is going to be just fine. He’s going to be amazing.”

  “You don’t know that. How can you know that?” she asked as all the fears and endless possible tragedies paraded through her mind with one horror after another. “What if it’s deformed? I’ve had wine almost every week since you and I were together. And what about crib death? Or—”

  “Shhh.” Luke squeezed his legs tight to hers and brought their clasped hands up to kiss the back of her cold fingers. “None of that is going to happen. So what if you’ve had some wine before you found out? You’re not the first person that’s happened to. And the baby is going to be healthy and strong. All you’re going to do by worrying is make yourself sick. So stop torturing yourself with those thoughts.”

  “How are we going to do this, Luke?” Andie’s voice cracked on his name, and she looked at him and let all her fears and doubts show. “We don’t even like each other.”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” Luke’s smile was crooked, and he gave her the briefest of winks. “We liked each other pretty damn good for a while there.” When Andie blushed and looked down at where he still held her hands in his, he touched his fingertips to her cheek. “And if I hadn’t been such an ass that night, things would have went differently for us. We could be celebrating right now instead of panicking.”