Her Best Friend's Baby

by Vicki Lewis Thompson, Stephanie Bond

  “I know I have no right to ask it of you,” he said softly. “But I’m asking anyway. Just give me a few days after she’s born.”

  Slowly she turned to him, compassion in her eyes. “I can do that.”

  He wanted to hold her so much that he almost pulled to the side of the road. But he kept driving. “Thank you.”

  Moments later, they’d reached their destination. He guided the car to the shoulder next to the mangled guardrail that marked the spot where Arielle’s car had left the road. Wind stirred up by passing vehicles buffeted the sedan.

  He looked at Mary Jane. “Ready?”

  She swallowed. “Ready.”

  He unfastened his seat belt and waited for a break in traffic before he climbed out quickly and slammed the door. By the time he rounded the car, Mary Jane was standing beside the car. She held the vase of rose petals in one hand and the verses she’d copied down in the other.

  Taking the vase from her, he helped her over the twisted metal rail and into the shallow gully beyond. He could swear there was still an imprint of the car in the grass and weeds.

  But there were also butterflies and chirping birds and some delicate little yellow wildflowers he couldn’t name. The scent of the grass reminded him of the hayloft in Garrett’s barn. Mary Jane’s cotton dress nearly matched the flowers, and with her hair loose and touched by the sun, and her rounded belly pushing gently at the material of the dress, she looked like a picture of spring. He wished they were here for a different reason.

  She squinted as she glanced around the area. She’d decided against sunglasses for this occasion, so he wasn’t wearing them, either.

  Finally she took a deep breath and walked to one side of the faint depression in the grass. “I’ll stand here.” She handed him a page containing his part of the service and motioned to a spot on the opposite side of the depression. “You can be over there. That way we’re surrounding the spot, as much as two people can, anyway.”

  Standing on the very place Arielle had died, he was starting to shake. He followed Mary Jane’s directions with gratitude and once again marveled at her strength.

  Clearing her throat, she held her paper out and began to read a poem by Shelley. Her voice trembled a little, but she forged on. He’d heard her practicing the reading under her breath last night in the hotel room. Her earnest attempt to do this right, for Arielle’s sake, affected him as much as grief, and tears blurred his vision.

  Then it was his turn to read a poem by Keats. He set the vase of rose petals by his feet so he could concentrate on the words. He stumbled over the poetry, but managed to get it read. When he was finished, Mary Jane was supposed to say the personal things she’d written down, and then he would say what he’d decided on.

  He looked up, a signal to her that she could begin. She was staring at him, the tears running down her cheeks. Instantly he started around the depression toward her. He couldn’t make himself walk through it.

  “Stay there.” She choked the words out. “I’m okay.”

  “No, you’re not.” He reached her and took her into his arms. “Nobody says we have to follow a script,” he said hoarsely.

  She held on to him and cried softly against his shirt. Not a cowboy one this time. He’d worn a dress shirt, a tie and slacks, as if he needed to dress to please Arielle today.

  Sniffing, she pushed gently away from him and wiped her eyes with her free hand. “Sorry.”

  “No need to be sorry.” His throat felt raw.

  “I didn’t realize how it would affect me, to watch you reading that poem.”

  His heart lurched. He’d assumed she was crying because of Arielle. Instead she’d been crying because of him. Maybe he hadn’t totally lost her, after all.

  She drew in a shaky breath. “I’m ready for the next part. You can go back over there.”

  He laced his hand through hers. “I’m staying here.”

  She didn’t contradict him. Instead she nodded and closed her eyes, obviously concentrating. At last she opened them again and began to speak.

  “Arielle, at a time when I had no one else to count on, you were both mother and father to me.” Her voice gained strength as she continued. “There are no words rich enough to thank you for the part you played in my life, but now that you’re gone, I wish I’d told you more often how much I love you. I love you, Arielle, and I will miss you forever.”

  Morgan held on to Mary Jane’s hand like a lifeline. His heart beat faster as he tried to remember what he’d planned to say. The speech had disappeared from his mind. He’d have to do the best he could.

  “Arielle, you were my first real love,” he began. Then he discovered the words came easily. “We made lots of mistakes, but we got some things right. You loved me enough to give me a child, and I will cherish her and be grateful for your generosity every day of my life. Godspeed, Arielle…my wife.” His voice broke, and he bowed his head as the tears came.

  As he cried, he felt all the hurt and anger wash out of him, and when at last he raised his head and wiped his eyes, when the warm sun dried his tears so that he could once again see the butterflies floating on the breeze, he understood why he and Mary Jane had needed to do this. Arielle’s death had been like a nightmare, a wispy event that had no anchor in reality. Standing on this spot, saying goodbye to his wife, he finally accepted the truth of it.

  Mary Jane’s whisper eased into his thoughts. “Now the rose petals,” she said.

  Releasing her hand, he walked around the depression and picked up the vase. Returning to her, he tipped the vase. “Hold out your hands.” When she did, he sprinkled petals into them. Then he poured the rest into his hand.

  “To the memory of my best friend.” Mary Jane threw her hands in the air, scattering rose petals everywhere. Some fell in her hair.

  “To the memory of my wife.” Morgan flung his rose petals into the breeze. Then he looked at Mary Jane and slowly picked a velvet petal from her hair. “We did it.”

  “Yes.” Her gaze was warm and soft. “And it was the right thing.”

  “Yes, it was.” He wanted to take her into his arms again, but he was afraid if he did that he would never let her go.

  “Morgan, we haven’t talked about this, but have you thought about what to name the baby?”

  He gazed at her and knew that on this matter their minds were perfectly in tune. “Arielle.”

  She smiled. “Yes. Arielle.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  FOR THE TRIP to Austin, Mary Jane tucked Arielle’s journal deep in her suitcase, not wanting to keep it out to read and possibly remind Morgan of its existence. When he insisted she check the suitcase at the gate, she realized she wouldn’t be able to get to the journal until after she returned to Austin. And she was more than a little curious.

  “It’s only a small suitcase,” she told him as they sat waiting for her flight to be called. “I carry trays heavier than that at the diner every day.”

  “Which reminds me. We had a deal that if you lived in my house for the rest of the pregnancy, you’d ask Shelby about cutting your hours at the diner.”

  He was getting kind of bossy, but she was so miserable at the idea of leaving him that she didn’t mind. “I’ll see what she says.”

  “I swear if you don’t cut back, I’ll fly in and work your shifts for you.”

  She knew he was kidding. Right now he still felt connected to her and to Austin, but once he returned to his normal routine the connection would weaken. Still, she smiled at the thought of Morgan waiting tables.

  “Laugh all you like. I have experience. I waited tables all through college, and I’m sure it would come back to me.”

  “Says you.” She winked at him. “I’ll bet when the lunch crunch is in full swing you’d forget and revert to busy doctor mode. Instead of taking their order you’d whip out a tongue depressor and examine their tonsils.”

  “What’s wrong with that? Where else could you get a burger and a checkup?”

  She gr
inned and started to reply when the first boarding call came. Her grin faded as she gazed at Morgan. “I’m going to miss you.”

  His voice was husky. “Yeah, that’s what they all say.”

  She wondered how she’d ever turn and walk away from him. He was such a part of her now. His feeling of connection might fade, but she knew hers wouldn’t. “Are you going to be okay?”

  He nodded. “What we did today…that was the right thing. Thank you for insisting on it.”

  “I feel a ton better about Arielle, now that we had a chance to say goodbye,” she said softly. Morgan was a different story. Leaving him felt like cutting off a piece of herself.

  Her row was called to board, but she couldn’t seem to make herself stand up. “I’d better go.”

  “Yeah.”

  Finally she rose, and he did, too.

  She wasn’t sure if she moved first or he did, but suddenly they were in each other’s arms, kissing as if they would never stop. She tasted salt, and wasn’t sure which of them was crying. Both of them, probably.

  Then, knowing if she stayed another second she’d never leave, she pushed away from him and ran toward the jetway. She thrust her ticket blindly at the clerk and headed down the ramp toward the plane without ever looking back. Seeing him standing there alone would have destroyed her.

  MORGAN WASN’T SURE how he got through his days. Work claimed part of his time, although with the young female doctor Chuck had recruited, Morgan wasn’t required to put in a lot of hours. The rest of the time he took care of the mundane details surrounding Arielle’s death, and there seemed to be an endless number of them. The amount of paperwork was unreal, but at least it kept his mind occupied during the day.

  The nights lasted forever. He told himself that continuing to live in the hotel was ridiculously expensive, but it held memories of Mary Jane so he couldn’t make himself check out. Besides, renting an apartment meant admitting that he wasn’t moving permanently to Austin. Try as he might, he couldn’t give up that dream.

  He couldn’t give up contact with Mary Jane, either. He rationed himself to calling her every third night. Although he didn’t always connect with her, just hearing her voice on the tape was the most vibrant part of his otherwise colorless life.

  She’d moved into the house, and he could feel her excitement about that, although she tried hard to be noncommittal. He had the feeling she was sorting some things out in her mind, and some of them had to do with him. That might explain why she spent more time filling him in on local gossip than talking about herself.

  He listened happily, grateful for the sound of her voice, as she described the controversy that continued to swirl around little Chase Maitland, the mystery baby. Mary Jane wasn’t convinced Janelle Davis was the baby’s mother, but nevertheless, plans were nearly finalized for the wedding between Janelle and Connor O’Hara.

  Meanwhile Sara, the cook at the diner, had a huge crush on Harrison Smith, a guy who kept coming to Austin Eats, and Mary Jane was irritated because Sara was too shy to pursue the matter. Morgan wondered if Mary Jane was projecting some of her frustration onto Sara. Judging from his state, he wouldn’t be surprised.

  Mary Jane also brought him up to date on Garrett’s “secret” houseguests. Since Christmas Jake Maitland, Ellie and Beth’s brother, had been sequestered at a remote cabin on Garrett’s property with a pregnant woman who was hiding out from her gangster husband. No one was supposed to know where they were staying, to protect the woman’s safety, but thanks to Garrett’s sister Shelby, the entire diner staff was aware of the situation. So far no one had seen Jake’s mystery woman.

  Throughout these conversations Morgan clutched the phone and closed his eyes so he could imagine himself sitting next to Mary Jane on the sofa in the living room of that beautiful house. He knew it was too warm for her to have a fire in the fireplace, but he added that to his fantasy, anyway.

  When he had to finally hang up and face his lonely hotel room, he’d have had a moment of insanity when he thought about taking a cab to the airport and hopping on a plane, the way he had once before. This time, though, he’d make a phone call to let Chuck know what was happening.

  His hand resting on the telephone receiver, he’d make himself think of what was best for Mary Jane. Flying to Austin would force a decision about their relationship, and he couldn’t expect her to make a decision like that until after she’d had the baby. The world might look completely different to her once she was no longer pregnant with his child.

  When he could finally make himself let go of the telephone receiver, he’d pull out his desk calendar and mark off another day—another day he’d made it through without adding more chaos to Mary Jane’s life. Then he’d count the days left before the baby was due. And wonder if he could survive that long.

  MARY JANE discovered she could only read Arielle’s journal in short sessions. Reading Arielle’s account of her life with Morgan reminded Mary Jane of taking off a bandage. Some people thought a bandage should be ripped off all at once, so the pain was concentrated in one short period of time. Mary Jane had always peeled a bandage off slowly, adjusting to the pain as she went.

  Therefore it took her nearly two weeks to finish the journal. The night she read the last page, she left the window seat and paced the house, the journal clutched in both hands. Tears filled her eyes as she mourned the death of her idol.

  Only this time it wasn’t Arielle’s physical death that tore at her insides. Instead it was the death of her illusions about the woman she’d placed on a pedestal.

  From the time she was eight years old she’d looked up to Arielle as the essence of elegance and right living. If Arielle said it, it must be true. If Arielle did it that way, then everyone should do it that way, too. Mary Jane had tried to follow in Arielle’s footsteps until she began to realize she didn’t have what it took. She wasn’t as smart as Arielle. She didn’t have Arielle’s inborn sense of style.

  Sometime during her teen years she’d given up on becoming a carbon copy of Arielle, partly because Arielle had found her attempts so amusing. But that hadn’t stopped her from wishing, deep in her heart, that she could be more like her.

  In the past two weeks she’d picked up the journal each night, hoping to find evidence of that wise, elegant person she’d imagined Arielle to be. But no matter how she tried to twist the entries into a different shape, they continued to paint the same picture. Arielle had grown into a shallow, self-absorbed woman who cared for practically nothing except material possessions and her social status.

  And worst of all, the one thing that Mary Jane found so difficult to face—Arielle had never loved Morgan. He’d only been a means to an end.

  She didn’t want him to ever find that out. She didn’t want Arielle’s daughter to read this journal. Several entries were long complaints about how a baby was going to louse up Arielle’s well-ordered life.

  Moving the screen on the huge rock fireplace, Mary Jane opened the flue, found a box of matches and began tearing pages out of the journal. When she had enough to start a small blaze, she lit them and kept feeding more pages into the fire. Eventually she was able to add the journal cover and watch it curl up and burst into flame.

  Poor Morgan. No wonder he hadn’t thought of himself as desirable or sexy after spending six years with a woman who didn’t love him. Now that Mary Jane knew his family background, she had no trouble figuring out why he’d been attracted to Arielle. He’d married someone like his parents, someone who preferred to live on the surface, someone who cared more about how things looked than how people felt.

  But Morgan wasn’t like his parents. And he especially wasn’t like them when he was here in Austin with her. She’d been so afraid she’d be a bad influence on Morgan, when in fact she might be the only one who could save him.

  She felt the baby move and laid her hand over her tummy. “We need to get your daddy to come home, sweetheart,” she said.

  From little things he’d let slip during thei
r phone conversations, she’d become convinced he was staying away for her sake. He didn’t think he was right for her, and that made sense, given the beating his ego must have taken over the years of his marriage.

  Chances were she couldn’t get him to Austin just because she said she wanted him there. She could only think of one sure-fire way to get his attention. She glanced at the telephone, then at the clock. It was late. So much the better.

  WHEN THE PHONE RANG Morgan leaped out of bed as if he’d been jabbed with a hot poker. For a moment he forgot where he was. Then he remembered he was in a hotel, not in his apartment. Heart racing, he whirled to the bedside table, where one of the two phones in the room was located. Grabbing the receiver, he offered up a silent prayer that this call wasn’t like the one he’d answered after the accident.

  His greeting came out a frightened croak. “Hello?”

  “Morgan?”

  “Mary Jane! Are you okay?”

  “I think so. But, Morgan, I’ve been feeling a little…strange.”

  His heart pounded painfully. “Like what?”

  “It’s hard to describe. I just—don’t feel right.”

  “Go to the ER. Now. Do you want me to call Abby? I kept her number. I have it right—”

  “No, no. I don’t think I really have to go to the ER.”

  “I don’t care! Call an ambulance if you’re not up to driving, but go! Or get Garrett out of bed. He could take you.”

  “Okay. I guess I could call Garrett. I hate to, though. He has his hands full with Jake and that pregnant lady, Camille Eckart.” She sounded very quiet, not like Mary Jane usually sounded. “Morgan, I feel scared.”

  That was all he needed to hear. “I’m flying down. Call an ambulance. Maybe it’s nothing, and you’ll be home again by the time I get there. I’ll check at the house first.”

  “Okay, but it’s probably nothing.”

  “Probably. But I want to see for myself.” Wild horses couldn’t have kept him away. “Now call the ambulance.” He was reaching for his pants as he hung up the phone.