“I’m just glad this day’s over,” she said, sighing. “As of right now, all I’m going to think about is going home, getting into my gardening clothes and yanking weeds until the sun goes down. After you get your house fixed up, you might think about working your grandma’s old garden.” The metal drawer rattled shut. “Best stress reliever in the world.”
Jenny appreciated the suggestion. She also tried not to look anxious for the older woman to leave as Bess headed for the doorway. The only thing that would relieve her current anxiety was a negative pregnancy test.
“Have a good evening,” Jenny called after her.
“You, too,” came the vaguely preoccupied reply. “See you in the morning.”
The squeak of sensible shoes on the tiles slowly faded down the hall. The back door opened. A few uneasy heartbeats later, Jenny heard it close with a decisive bang.
She had already closed the blinds out front and locked the front door. The phone had been switched to the answering service Nellie Anderson ran out of her home. Except for Greg, still talking on his phone, she was finally alone.
She knew he had calls to return, dictation to complete. It could be an hour or more before he surfaced.
Her stomach jumping, she slipped into the supply room.
The space was lined with tall gray metal shelves filled with all manner of medical paraphernalia. She knew where the pregnancy tests were because she’d stocked them herself, along with diabetes test strips, tubes for blood tests, syringes and a few dozen other items that had come last week with an order from one of the pharmaceutical supply houses the clinic used.
She took one of the small silver foil pouches marked HCG Pregnancy Test from one box and a specimen cup from another. Refusing to make herself wait any longer, she tucked both into the pocket of her scrub smock and stepped into the hall.
For a few interminable seconds she heard nothing but the tick of the timer on the autoclave Bess had set to sterilize instruments used that day. Finally hearing Greg’s voice again, which meant he was still on the phone, she slipped into the bathroom.
She’d barely closed the door behind her before she ripped open the pouch. The test instructions said positive results would be indicated within sixty seconds by two colored bands. Negative results took five minutes to confirm and would only show the top control band.
It took two minutes for her to get everything ready.
It only took thirty seconds for double colored bands to appear.
It took about thirty more for her to move.
The instructions had said to lay the prepared strip on a paper towel while waiting for the results to appear. The towel she’d carefully folded lay on the wide edge of the sink, the dip strip on it.
Still staring at the colored bands, she took a deep breath and stepped back.
Taking another step, her eyes unable to leave the damning strip, she let her back hit the wall. She didn’t think she was breathing at all when she slowly slid to the floor.
Her arm bumped the tall white metal wastebasket on her way down. She scarcely noticed the racket. The knot living in her stomach had just turned to lead.
It didn’t matter that she had suspected it. It didn’t even matter that in her gut she’d felt horribly certain of what the results of the test would be. There was something about having those results stare her in the face that felt terribly final. Before the test, she’d at least had the hope that the result would be negative. Now she had nothing but the numbness that stole through her like a shadow.
That numb disbelief felt familiar. She’d lived with it in Boston from the moment she’d been informed of Brent’s arrest and had been taken in for questioning herself. This can’t be happening had become a litany.
This can’t be happening echoed in her mind now.
She drew up her knees, wrapped her arms around them, dropped her head. When she’d left Boston, she’d thought her life couldn’t possibly get any more complicated.
She’d had no idea how terribly wrong she could be.
“Jenny? Are you okay in there?”
No, she thought, I’m definitely not.
“Jenny?”
Lifting her head, she reached to the doorknob and unlocked it.
Greg eased the door open. From the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of brown loafers and plain brown socks visible beneath the hem of his khakis. No duck socks today.
She’d returned to hugging her knees again when the door opened farther.
In the space of seconds Greg noticed what occupied the edge of the sink across from Jenny and Jenny sitting against the wall by the door. It took about twice that long for him to step inside, note the double lines on the strip and silently swear.
His knees cracked as he crouched beside her.
“I heard something crash,” he said, explaining why he’d so abruptly ended his call. “Did you hurt yourself?”
Her boyishly cut hair gleamed in the overhead light as she slowly shook her head. In that bright light, the faint circles he’d noticed before beneath her eyes were more prominent, her delicate features more drawn.
“I just bumped the wastebasket.”
She hugged her knees more tightly.
“Are you all right?” he asked, wanting to help her up, not sure she was ready to move. He could only imagine what must be going through her mind—if she was even able to think at all. She looked shell-shocked.
Again she gave her head a slow, negative shake.
“I didn’t think you were.”
He murmured the words. Reaching out as he did, he nudged back the hair at her temple. He’d never seen anyone look as lost and alone as she did at that moment. Or, if he had, he’d never allowed the depth of that awful helplessness to register. It wasn’t as if he allowed it now. It simply happened as he knelt there, touching her. Something twisted inside him. Something that made him feel what she felt and left him nearly as vulnerable as she looked in the moments before he scrambled for the protective detachment that came so automatically with everyone else.
He moved his hand from her cheek, dropped it to her shoulder. Beneath his palm, he could feel her trembling.
“I’ll be in my office if you want to talk.”
She lifted her eyes to his. Distress filled those haunted blue depths.
“Okay?” he asked.
That same distress robbed the strength from her quiet, “Okay.”
The desire to reach for her was strong, to give her back a bit of the comfort he had felt from her. As he gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze, the need to let her decide what help she would accept from him felt even stronger. “Take your time.”
He didn’t want to move, but he didn’t want to crowd her, either.
He would give her two minutes, he decided, reluctantly rising. Then he’d come after her.
Heaven knew that in her current situation, pregnancy was the absolute last thing she needed to deal with alone.
She had just reached her two-minute limit when she appeared in his office doorway. Still looking haunted, she glanced toward him, glanced away.
“I paid for the test. I put the money in petty cash,” she explained, her focus on her hands as she rubbed her thumb against her other palm. “I don’t want you to think I just took it.”
Greg rose from his chair. Of everything she must have on her mind just then, he couldn’t believe her first concern was that he not think her dishonest.
“Come on in, Jenny.”
She shook her head, crossed her arms over her scrub jacket. “I have to go.”
“You don’t work at the diner tonight, do you?”
“Not tonight.”
“Then, where do you have go right now?” Mindful of her self-protective stance, he slowly crossed toward her. “Anywhere that can’t wait for a while?”
Once more she gave a negative shake.
“Were you thinking of taking a walk?” he ventured.
She finally looked up. “Did yours help the other night?”
Dismay filled her eyes as she lifted her fingers to her face.
“Come on,” he said, catching her hand when it fell. Tugging her with him, he backed toward the table with its ever-present collection of medical books and notes. “Sit down for a minute and talk to me.”
Her hand felt cold in his. He suspected she might feel that way inside, too, but he made himself let go when he pulled out the nearest chair. As she sank onto it, he pulled over another.
Sitting down facing her, he rested his elbows on his knees and watched her push her trembling fingers through her hair. The motion momentarily exposed the pink, newly healed skin on her forehead. He hardly needed the reminder of all she’d been through—or of how she diligently moved on from each crisis—as the shake of her head had her bangs falling right back over it again.
“This isn’t happening,” she insisted. Leaning forward herself, she hugged her stomach. “I keep telling myself I’m going to wake up any second and find out this is all a bad dream.”
If pressed, Greg would have conceded that there was indeed a certain nightmarish quality to her life of late. “Do you know how far along you are?”
Jenny knew exactly how far along she was. Brent had taken her to dinner after she’d worked late the week before his arrest. The date had been on her calendar. They’d gone to her apartment afterward, as they had so often done. That had been the last time they’d been together.
“Seven weeks.” Nearly two months, she thought. In another couple of months, she’d be showing. “Our protection obviously failed.”
She could feel Greg’s eyes on her. She just couldn’t make herself look up to meet them.
“Do you know what you want to do?”
“Not really. I mean I’ll have it. And I’ll keep it,” she decided, her heart and her instincts reaching conclusions even as she spoke. “Beyond that…I don’t know.”
For a moment Greg said nothing. With her head lowered, he couldn’t see the distress he was sure must be in her eyes. He could hear it, though. And while he hated that it was there, he knew there was really nothing he could do to alleviate it.
He’d dealt with unmarried pregnant women before. He knew their emotions ran from despair to anger to guarded excitement and back again. He’d had women come to him wanting an abortion, which he wouldn’t do, or his help with an adoption, which he gladly had. If adoption had been Jenny’s choice, he would have supported her in it. He would have helped any way he could. But even before he’d asked what she wanted to do, he had suspected what her answer would be. As caring and as compassionate as she was, as committed as she was to dealing with the consequences of her actions, he wouldn’t have expected anything else.
He just hated to think of the added struggle ahead of her.
“What about Brent?”
Confusion colored her tone. “What about him?”
“This is his child, too,” he reminded her. “He needs to know he’s going be a father. If nothing else, you need to let him know so he can pay child support.”
The thought of dealing with Brent made Jenny feel sicker than she already did. “He’s in jail.”
“It doesn’t matter where he is. He still has a financial responsibility.”
He sat back, fully aware of the sharp surge of resentment he felt toward the man who’d gotten her into this mess. Brent Collier had taken everything from her but what she’d salvaged of her pride. And now he’d left her alone and pregnant.
Greg had taken an oath to heal, “to first do no harm.” But he suspected that the words of his Hippocratic oath might well have been forgotten had Brent Collier been in the room just then. Harm was exactly what he felt like doing to the man.
A vivid image of grabbing him by the throat and slamming him up against a wall flashed in his mind an instant before he reined it back. He didn’t do so well restraining the protectiveness he’d felt ever since he’d heard the clank of metal against the bathroom wall. He’d thought Jenny had slipped, fallen. Or, as pale as she’d looked today, passed out.
Someone needed to look out for her. Someone who knew all that she had gone through. She’d trusted him with her secrets. As long as he was there, it might as well be him.
“Just think about talking to the guy,” he finally asked. “If you don’t want to talk to him, talk to his attorney.” Not wanting to talk about Brent at all, he changed the subject. “Do you need to take tomorrow off?”
Either she thought him terribly kind for offering or she was as anxious as he to move on. “What I need is to stay busy,” she told him, tugging up a smile from somewhere inside her. “I don’t do so well when I have too much time to think. Besides,” she added as the low ring of the telephone sounded from the front office, “you have rounds tomorrow, and that would leave Bess here alone.”
One of the lights on Greg’s phone started to blink. Glancing toward it, Jenny saw that the call was coming in on the line used by hospitals, other doctors and whoever else he had given the number to.
Guilt had her rising.
“Do you want me to get that?” she asked. She shouldn’t be dumping this on him. His silence on her offer to assist with his father’s estate made it clear enough that he didn’t want her help with his little problem, so she had no business turning to him with more of hers. As kind as he was being, and as practical, she needed to work this out on her own.
“I’ve got it.” His chair legs bumped against the carpet as he rose and headed for his desk. “I’m expecting a call about my interviews. Hang on.”
She heard him answer the phone then ask the caller to hold for a moment. Hitting the hold button, he turned to where she’d moved between the table and the door.
“I’ll be another hour here tonight. Then I’m going to see Mrs. McNeff. Her family is taking her to St. Johnsbury for more extensive tests in the morning so I won’t see her on my rounds.” He hesitated. “Are you okay to drive home?”
He was letting her know he was available if she needed him.
As reassuring as she found the thought, she didn’t think it terribly wise to start counting on him any more than she already did.
“I’ll be fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.” Still feeling numb, she tried for another smile. “I have my emergency Oreos.”
Her original bag was almost gone by Saturday. By Sunday night she was down to two cookies and trying to figure out where to get more because the general store didn’t carry the chocolate-filled kind. She really needed another bag, too. She’d taken Greg’s advice and contacted Brent.
She wished now that she hadn’t.
Cellophane rattled as she started to pull out the next-to-the-last cookie, then changed her mind and left it. The way her life had been going lately, she’d best save what she had. It was always possible that something worse could happen.
Carefully folding the bag, she tucked it behind the cans of tuna and soup in the cabinet. Her stash was barely hidden before she turned around, listening.
Beneath the creaks and groans of the old house settling in for the night she heard the rumble of a vehicle coming up the drive.
She glanced down at her clothes, brushed at the front of her shirt. She had worked at the diner until four, then changed into her old gray sweats with the stretched-out neckline. For the past few hours she’d sat on the back porch, alternately blanking her mind as she listened to the crickets and the distant babble of the stream and sanding the rickety wood table and chairs she’d found in the storage shed out back. She needed a table in her kitchen.
Not caring to think about everything else she needed, she tried to imagine who would be coming to visit so late. It was nearly eight o’clock. Even in Maple Mountain people didn’t just drop by at that hour.
Her front porch l
ight now worked. The doorbell didn’t.
Greg didn’t have a chance to knock, though, before he saw Jenny look from behind the oval of glass on the door.
He had debated for most of the two-and-a-half-hour drive from the airport about whether he should stop to check on her or wait until he saw her at the office to see how she was holding up.
He’d actually driven past the house with its muted glow of light from the porch and the kitchen window when he swore, hit the brakes and turned back.
The moment she opened the door, a smile sneaked into her eyes. “Are you just now getting back from Montpelier?”
“My flight was late.”
She stepped aside, tugging up the neck of her sweatshirt from where it slipped off one shoulder.
“You don’t have a phone,” he said, dragging his glance from where she’d just covered a delicate pink bra strap. “If you had, I would have just called.”
The light from the kitchen illuminated half of her face as she tipped her head. With her dark hair cut so short around her ears, the line of her neck looked as smooth as alabaster. “What for?”
Because I worry about you out here, he grudgingly admitted, despite having told himself a dozen times that she’d be fine. Much of the population of Maple Mountain had miles between them and their neighbors. There were miles between all the little villages and miles between many of the people who lived in them, too.
“Because you were pretty shaken up the last time I talked to you,” he said, since that reason seemed more relevant. “I didn’t know if we’d get a chance to talk in the morning.”
He’d come by to make sure she was all right. The thought did something strange to Jenny’s heart as she reached behind him and closed out the mosquitoes before they could make their way through the holes in the screen.
“Tomorrow will be busy,” she agreed. “Chaotic, actually. I had to work four appointments from Friday into your schedule.”
“No rest for the wicked.”
“So they say. Come on in.”
Greg stepped past her. The only other time he had been inside the house had been her first night there. The living room was still bare, but the kitchen had been transformed. As much as it could be, anyway, considering the wood rot around the window frame over the sink, the tattered weather stripping under the back door and the rather desperate need for new linoleum.
Trading Secrets Page 13