Baby by Midnight?

by Karen Toller Whittenburg

  He nodded, turned to what seemed like a bottomless sack, rummaged in the bottom of it, and pulled out a cellophane bag of Hershey’s Kisses with Almonds. He probably believed the nuts made it healthier, somehow. “Too bad, because I bought these in case she said it was okay for you to have a treat now and then.” He tossed the bag in the air, caught it like a pro. “Guess I’ll have to take these with me.”

  She was not one of Pavlov’s dogs, salivating at the sound of a cellophane rattle. She wasn’t. “You do that. Because, for your information, I can buy my own Kisses anytime I want a treat. Come to think of it, I can buy all the groceries I need whenever I need them, and I’ll thank you to keep your nose out of my cupboards from now on.”

  “Just trying to help, Annie.”

  “No, you’re not. You’re trying to charm your way back into my life for some nefarious reason all your own.”

  “Nefarious?” He grinned and tossed the bag of candy next to the whole wheat bread already on the counter.

  “That means, to put it simply, you are up to no good.”

  “I know what it means, Annie, and I have just one question for you. Do you know what this means?” He waggled his eyebrows up and down, looking silly and funny, and forcing her to fight back an answering smile.

  “No,” she said, trying hard for a snippy tone. “What does that mean?”

  The grin returned. “It means, if my wicked and nefarious purpose is to charm you, how’m I doin’ so far?”

  There was too much confidence in the question, too much cocksure optimism glinting in his sinfully blue eyes, but before the full impact could sink into her lollygagging brain, he’d stored yet another can of green vegetables in her cupboard and come up behind her to put his hands on her shoulders. His breath stirred the pulled-back strands of her hair, his warmth stole through her like a thief, and with his touch, every tingling, wide-awake nerve cell in her body sat up and took notice. “Admit it, Annie,” he said softly. “You enjoy being taken care of as much as I enjoy doing it.

  “As I keep trying to tell you,” she said on an uneven sigh, “I can take care of myself.”

  “I never said you couldn’t. I only said I’m here to help.”

  Be strong. Be smart. Be sensible. The practical litany pulsed through her head, but her heart had skipped school the day they studied wisdom and never quite got the knack of it. Not when it came to Alex. “You’re not going to change my mind by blowing in my ear,” she said in a voice that might have sounded haughty if it hadn’t been so breathless. “Dr. Elizabeth’s office is off-limits to you.”

  His palms felt warm and sheltering against her arms, while the scents of a rugged outdoors, horses and saddle leather conspired with soap, shampoo and aftershave to wrap all around her and draw her back into the familiar circle that was his embrace. “Just trying to be here for you, Annie. Just trying to be your friend.”

  Liar, liar, pants on fire. He wanted to be more than that...for the moment, at least. Alex was always at his persuasive best when he felt he’d been denied what he thought he wanted. “This baby has a father,” she said firmly, doing her best not to dwell on how lovely and warm she felt in his arms but on remembering how cold it would be in the winter when he was long gone. “And he’s not you.”

  Loosey sighed in her sleep, rolled like a lumpy gunnysack onto her side, her neon-colored cast bright against the faded kitchen flooring. Behind Annie, Alex stood like a rock, holding her gently, closely against him, his hands sliding down her arms to clasp her fingers in his. “Then again, Annie,” he said, softly—so softly, “I’m here and he’s not.”

  Which was both truth and lie, yes and no. “Alex,” she whispered, more to herself than him. “Go home. Spend time with your family. Kick off your boots and pick out some melodies on your old guitar. Go over to Josie’s house and count how many cans of green beans she has in her pantry. Do anything except this.”

  “This?” His lips found a patch of neck that wasn’t covered by her hair or any other kind of insurance and kissed it lingeringly. “Or this?” His fingers laced with hers and he carried her arms around with his as he cradled her into an interlocking embrace. When he breathed in the scent of her hair with obvious delight, his chest moved against her shoulders and she remembered all the times before when she’d gotten lost in the wanting of him. It was lovely to be held, lovely to be touched, lovely to know he still desired her and, except for one thing, she knew she’d have turned into his kiss like a ship turns toward a lighthouse on a dark and moonless night.

  But like a silent chaperone, the baby rounded their sensual longing into an awareness that they were no longer a party of two. Three hearts beat in rhythm now. Annie couldn’t afford to forget that. She savored Alex’s warmth for another moment, then firmly unclasped her hands from his, drew her body from the harbor of his arms and turned to look into the deepest secrets in his blue, blue eyes. “What do you want, Alex? What is it you think I have to give you?”

  “A son.”

  She’d asked for that one. Eyes wide open, she’d set herself up for it. “Mighty big request, even for a guy who thinks every sunset is put in the sky for him to ignore or not, as he chooses. I can’t give you a son, Alex. It’s not that simple.”

  “Admit he’s mine. Admit we made love and a baby on that night last April after Josie’s wedding.”

  “I can’t do that. It’s not fair for you to keep asking me to.”

  “Not fair? I’ve offered to marry you, Annie. I’ve said I want to be a part of my son’s life.”

  Marry him. She could grab for the brass ring here and now, take his name for herself and her son. Did it matter that he never said he loved her? Did it matter if he couldn’t see that offering marriage and wanting to marry her were not one and the same thing? She’d wanted to be Alex’s wife for a decade or more. But not so he could be “part” of her son’s life. Not so he could pick and choose when he’d be there and when he wouldn’t. “Please, Alex. Go, before I do something really stupid and believe you actually mean that.”

  His hands dropped from her and he stepped back. The grin was long gone. So was the light of confidence and faith in his eyes. “You’re right, Annie. Believing anything I say would be a really dumb idea.” He picked up his hat and set it on his head with movements as tightfisted as a soldier’s salute. “Just think what a fix you’d be in if it turned out you were wrong.” Then, with an angry set to his jaw and his shoulders, he walked out the door.

  Funny thing, though. Loosey didn’t even know he was leaving until the door banged shut behind him. But by then, it was too late to start howling.

  ALEX STAYED AWAY the next day. He checked on Koby early, before there was a light on in the little house next to the stables, and spent the day mending McIntyre fences. Not the ones that bound the ranch into acres of pastures and grazing range, but the familial fences of family ties and wounded vanities. He persuaded Matt to drive over to Sheridan on the pretext of checking out a brood mare—with blue blood enough to pass for royalty—he was thinking of buying. The trip over was short on conversation and long on cold shoulder, but the road home, paved with the giving and taking of Matt’s opinions on the mare, saw them skirting an edgy peace. Jeff, Josie and Justin came for a late lunch, which Alex helped Willie fix, and stayed to play a nostalgic remember-the-time...game of old stories and shared history.

  It wasn’t until the sun began to set, when the talk turned to Josie and Justin’s baby that Alex felt out of sync and out of patience. He grew suddenly restless for home, but damned if he knew where that was. Here? Among the people and tales that made up his history? Or with Annie and the baby they had made together? Or was home the pickup truck parked outside—four wheels and horsepower enough to take him from the mountains to the ocean and back again, or anywhere else the highway led.

  And the answer to that question was...none of the above. He didn’t belong here at the S-J and Annie didn’t want him with her. But the only other alternative—nowhere in particular—h
ad no appeal at all. And that brought him right back to the conclusion he’d been avoiding all day. Right back to the resolve that some way, somehow, he had to prove himself to Annie. Prove himself worthy to be a father to her son.

  Whether she liked the idea or not.

  So, with no explanation other than a casual “See you later,” Alex put on his hat and headed for town.

  THERE WAS ONLY ONE WAY to handle a situation like this.

  So, armed with four quarts of tomato juice and clenched teeth, Annie half dragged the skunk-stunk collie to the large-animal area behind the clinic. Once they were on the concrete floor, under the metal lean-to type roof, she tied the dog as close to the faucet and drain as possible. “If you hadn’t been so all-fired eager to prove you could run as well on three legs as four, we’d be in the house right now, listening to country-western music on the radio, warm as two pieces of buttered toast and smelling like two petals off the same rose.”

  Loosey looked at her, brown eyes brimming with humiliation and worry.

  “Okay, so maybe neither one of us is any threat to a rose on our better days, but honestly, Loosey, don’t you know better than to chase a polecat?”

  The collie’s head dipped even lower, and Annie felt sorry for her, despite being mad as a rooster in a rainstorm. It was bad enough she’d wasted most of the day feeling sorry for herself, wondering if Alex had left town, wishing she had a fence post to rub the steady ache in her back against, watching a cold front push the sun toward a chilly evening. She couldn’t even eat the chocolate kisses he’d so thoughtlessly left behind, because she kept thinking what if he were right and the baby was suffering somehow for her sweet tooth? So she’d piddled away the entire day, doing large amounts of nothing and feeling worse by the minute, only to decide late in the afternoon that a little exercise would put everything right. What could be better, she’d conned herself into believing. Get out of the house for a brisk walk in the crisp, October air. Stretch her legs and her restless mood. See something other than the four walls of this house. Loosey would love it, and Annie knew she’d feel better for the effort herself.

  Well, she’d been right on one count. Loosey had loved every second of the time outdoors. Every nip of the wind, every crackle of autumn grasses, every wild, sweet second of freedom—right up until the moment she’d decided to shake hands with Pepe Le Pew. Now she had to be washed down in tomato juice and rinsed clean with the hose before Annie bundled her into the clinic for a thorough soap and water bath. That is, they’d get to the bath if they both didn’t freeze to death first. The wind was whipping around the shelter of the building with increasing gusto, and it was beginning to feel as if she and Loosey might turn into Popsicles. Stinky-winky Popsicles that would require fumigation before they thawed out in the spring. Dumb dog. Dumber Annie for letting Alex double-talk her into keeping the collie for him in the first place.

  Loosey whined, deep in her throat. A mourning sound, forerunner of a pitiful howl, and, stinky or not, Annie couldn’t help but lay aside the trickling water hose so she could stoop beside the collie and offer a little comfort. “Hush,” she crooned. “I know you didn’t mean to get sprayed. I know that old skunk was just mad at the world ’cause he got caught out by the change in the weather. I know you feel just awful. Lesson learned, okay?”

  The dog thrust her muzzle into Annie’s open palm and looked at her in mute apology, strengthening the bonds of what was already a formidable kinship. Okay, so the bargain hadn’t been quite as one-sided as Annie had made sure Alex believed it to be. Truth was, she didn’t mind at all that she’d wound up with the dog. Although there was no doubt Alex needed the challenge of responsibility, Annie just flat needed the company. It got lonely in the little house at night, and waking up in the morning, she was first and always acutely aware of her aloneness. The baby would change that, of course, but his birth was still nearly three months away, and ever since Alex had come home, she’d felt as if the walls were closing in on her. So, although it had to be their little secret, she needed Footloose as badly as the dog needed a home.

  To be fair, too, she honestly thought she was giving Alex what he didn’t know yet that he wanted—a way out. She would take responsibility for his dog and his baby and pretend to believe it was a mutual agreement. He would pretend to believe it was only a temporary arrangement She would watch him grow restless and discontented under the critical eye of his family. He would watch the sunset with a yearning only she seemed to see. Then, one day, he’d think of someplace he needed to be, some reason he had to leave, and he’d go. And since nothing she could say or do would stop him, she might as well have Loosey to commiserate with once he was gone.

  But it would be much easier to commiserate with a clean dog than one that reeked to Pikes Peak. “This is going to be much worse for you than me,” she told Loosey. “And that’s the way I mean to keep it, understand? Stay still and we’ll be done in a jiff.”

  Unfortunately, the first impediment to the plan turned out to be a little problem of positioning—mainly how to get from a stooping position to a standing one. Annie, increasingly awkward with pregnancy, couldn’t shift her center of gravity without using her hands as a lever and a point of contact, Loosey, from which to lever from. But a three-legged dog wasn’t much use as a booster rocket, and in trying to put weight on her cast, the collie started to tip over and had to scramble to catch her balance, causing Annie to lose hers. Since there was no point in both of them going down and since it was obvious that one of them was, Annie did the only thing she could and bolstered the collie upright, while she, herself, rolled sideways and landed on her butt.

  The impact radiated in an immediate and upward ache across her abdomen and up her spine. A muscle spasm closed in on her tummy and, with a soft gasp, she laid down flat on the cold concrete. She stretched her leg out straight in hope of easing the cramp, but felt resistance against the sole of her boot and jerked back, sending the spasm in another arc across her belly, and a low groan past her lips. “Oh, nooo...”

  Too late. The juice slopped over the side of the plastic pitcher as it tipped, coating her foot—boot, sock and exposed ankle—before soaking its way up her denim-covered leg in a gunky river of pulverized tomatoes. Yuck. But until the muscle spasms subsided, she could do nothing except lie there getting cold and wet and worried. So she took a quick inventory of her aches and pains and decided nothing was broken or too badly bruised. Her muscles eased into a normal, general complaint against the extra poundage she carried and the awkward position she was in and she began to count her blessings. Never mind the hard sting of cold concrete under her. Forget about the vegetable goo all around her. The baby was okay. So was she. It could have been worse. Much worse.

  Then Loosey came over to check things out in all her musky, aromatic splendor.

  “Ugh, Loosey! You smell terrible!”

  A comment the dog debated by giving Annie’s nose a good lick and then trying to render a bit of canine CPR with breath rank enough to be designated an environmental hazard.

  It was the last straw. Not knowing whether to spit or gag, scream or cry, Annie recognized that it wasn’t fair to blame Loosey for acting like—of all things—a dog. The skunk was hardly at fault for defending itself like a—well, a skunk. And, although, she’d have liked to blame Alex for pretty much everything, there really wasn’t any reason to do that, either. He was always going to behave like—well, like Alex. Popping in and out of her life on his way to some distant dream of a future, leaving her behind with memories—and other, more tangible reminders—of their time together and the indisputable fact that she loved him, for reasons she’d probably never fully understand. So, considering her options, she did the only thing she could to salvage her sanity. She laughed.

  And laughed.

  And laughed.

  Which made Loosey nervous. Her head went up. Her ears perked. Her tail began its metronome wag, swaying from side to side, faster and faster in time with a distant clackity, clacki
ty, cough rattle.

  Wait a minute.

  The collie wasn’t nervous. She was barely paying any attention to Annie’s predicament at all. No. The silly mutt was watching for Alex, having recognized the peculiar noises his truck made even as the sounds were still percolating in Annie’s consciousness. Alex was coming to the rescue, and that seemed somehow hilarious to Annie, too. Nothing like looking and smelling like wet skunk when the man you loved came to call. She laughed some more, and her heartbeat kicked into a glad rhythm, too, not unlike the hopeful, excited, one-two wag of Loosey’s tail. Even the baby seemed to glean the excitement in the air and began to kick. Or maybe it was the saturating cold that was making him as uncomfortable as his mother.

  Given her impending rescue, Annie wondered if it was worth the effort to sit up. Or if she should just let Alex be a hero from the word go, and strain his back trying to get her and her world-class tummy off the floor.

  Maybe it was the smell that kept her indecisive. Or the glue of tomato pulp underneath her. Or the pungent collie standing over her, wagging from one end to the other in anticipatory delight. Maybe she was just weak from laughing. Whatever the reason, Annie was still lying there in the wet soup of trickling water and diluted juice, when he drove in.

  ALEX NEARLY HAD A HEART attack when he realized the crumpled lump of clothing Loosey appeared to be guarding with her life was, in reality, Annie. He shoved the gearshift into Park, flung open the pickup’s cranky door, sprinted across the yard to the metal-roofed bay. His heart did stop when he spotted the blood pooled around her. He wished he could have stopped breathing when Loosey executed a surprisingly agile leap and all but flung herself into his arms.

  “Whoa, Loose,” he said, pushing her away. “You stink.” Then he was bending over Annie, reaching for her wrist to check her pulse, his heart thudding with dread and fear—until she smiled a slightly loopy smile, and relief caved in on him with bone-crushing deliverance.