She was busy washing her face when it dawned on her that she should be starting her period that very morning, and it had been thirteen days since she and Paxton had had unprotected sex. She couldn’t be pregnant, or could she? She grabbed her purse and headed out the door.
No way would she buy a pregnancy test at the tiny, local drugstore. The news would be all over town before she could even pee on the stick and find out for herself. Her hands sweated so badly that she had to keep wiping one and then the other on the legs of her jeans so she could grip the steering wheel. She told herself over and over that she had food poisoning from bad pizza. In between times of denial and worry, she scolded herself for drinking beer when there was even a remote possibility that she might be pregnant.
You said you could be a single mother, the voice in her head reminded her.
“But I didn’t mean it,” Alana argued out loud. “I’m terrified at the thought of having to run the ranch all by myself. How am I going to do that and raise a child on my own?”
Driving to Amarillo usually took about thirty minutes, but that day it seemed like a six-hour trip. When she finally arrived at the store, she couldn’t make herself go inside. What if, by chance, someone like Trudy or Billy Ray saw her checking out with a pregnancy test? Folks from Daisy often went to Amarillo and to that particular Walmart. She had to be smart about this thing. She started her truck and drove to a CVS pharmacy on the other side of town, and went into the store without hesitating.
She found the aisle with the pregnancy test—only there were at least a dozen brands and all with different prices. Did the higher cost of the more expensive ones mean they would give her a more accurate result than a cheaper one? She wanted the damned thing to be able to tell her the absolute truth, so she picked up the one that cost the most.
She stared at the rest of them for a long time and finally decided to buy one of each brand and take one an hour over the rest of the day. That way she could compare results; one of them would surely be correct. She put them all in her cart, covered them with a fluffy throw that was on sale, and headed for the checkout counter. She made double sure no one that she knew was in the store before she unloaded her purchases onto the conveyor belt.
A young kid who couldn’t be more than sixteen didn’t even give the tests a second look. He ran them through the scanner, bagged them like he would have if they’d been toothpaste. Then he found the tag on the throw, ran it over the scanner, and hit the total button. Alana handed him cash, got her change, and escaped out the door without being seen by anyone from Daisy—or so she hoped.
Of course, there was always the off-the-wall chance that the kid would go home that night and tell his mama that some tall blonde had come in the store and bought a dozen pregnancy tests. Thank God she’d paid with cash, so he couldn’t go back and find out her name from the credit card receipt.
She drove straight home, and even though her stomach was growling, she didn’t even stop for a doughnut at the little shop in Daisy. She poured a glass of sweet tea and made herself a piece of toast on her way through the kitchen. Then she took her bag of tests up to her bathroom and lined all of them up on the vanity—cheapest to most expensive.
I’ve got food poisoning, she told herself as she unwrapped the cheapest one and read the instructions. In three minutes, after performing the test, there would be two pink lines on the stick if she was pregnant. One pink line meant she wasn’t and she would be able to breathe easy again.
She did what she was supposed to do and laid the test on the box it had come in. Three minutes wasn’t that long, but every time she checked the clock beside her curling iron, only five to ten seconds had gone by. She was ready to throw the clock out the upstairs window when the time finally passed, and then she couldn’t look at the stick.
“I should have thought this through,” she said. “I need a friend, like Bridget, to look for me, but I can’t call her out of the blue and tell her to come over here and see if there’s two pink lines on the stick I just peed on.” She rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. “I’m not pregnant. I’m proving that I’m certifiable goofy by the way I’m talking to myself.”
She shut her eyes tightly and then opened them on the count of three. Two bright pink lines seemed to leap up at her, and she gasped. “It’s cheap,” she muttered. “A more expensive one will tell the truth.” She picked up the one on the other end of the line, did what she had to do, and began the eternal wait again. The directions on this brand said to wait two minutes, and if she was pregnant, the plus sign would turn to blue. If not, the minus sign would turn colors.
“No one gets pregnant with one time of unprotected sex,” she said out loud. “If they did, there’d be so many teenagers with babies that”—she checked the stick at one minute and nothing was showing—“see there, that first one was a false positive.”
Two minutes later, the little plus sign was a nice bright blue. She took all of the remaining tests, one right after another. Pee and wait. Pee and wait. She finished her tea and went to the kitchen for a bottle of water. With each new positive sign, the process became more frustrating. When she’d finished all of the tests and not a one showed a negative reading, she was ready to throw them all in the trash.
Not even that many could be right. There had to be something else wrong with her. She groaned all the way from her bathroom to the desk in her bedroom. She opened up her laptop and researched the causes for false positives for pregnancy tests. According to the experts on the Internet, the most common cause for such a problem was a cancerous tumor.
She threw herself back on her bed, the back of her hand against her forehead. There was nothing to do but call Doctor Wilson that afternoon. She told Mary Beth, his receptionist, that it was an emergency that couldn’t wait until next week.
“Honey, he’s leaving for a round of golf at noon and won’t be back until Monday,” Mary Beth said. “What’s wrong, Alana?”
“I think I’ve got cancer,” she blurted out.
“Oh, honey, I doubt that, but I can work you in at eleven if you can get here in that time,” she said.
“I’ll be there.” Alana tossed all of the sticks with their hateful pink lines and blue pluses back into the plastic bag and stuffed them into her purse. She hurried down the stairs, jogged to her truck, and drove into town. When she pushed her way into the doctor’s office, she was a nervous wreck. Her hands shook so badly that she could barely hang on to her purse. Her pulse raced and her heart felt like a brick was perched on top of it.
Mary Beth pointed to a chair in the reception area. “Doc had an emergency come in a couple of minutes ago. He’s stitching up Danielle Barlow’s son. Keeton was showing off with a pocketknife and cut his finger to the bone. Bless his little heart, he’s only four, and Danielle doesn’t have any idea how he got his hands on one of Richie’s pocketknives.”
Danielle’s husband, Richie Barlow, pushed through the front doors, and Mary Beth pointed down the hallway. “Third door on the left. Danielle will sure be glad you’re here. I’d forgotten that the sight of blood makes her faint.”
“It’s a wonder y’all didn’t have to sedate her,” Richie said without slowing down.
Alana had never seen Richie move so fast. He was a big man and had been a big linebacker on the Daisy High School football team back in the day. His job had been to block, and he had done it well, but he usually moved like he had no place to go and all day to get there when he wasn’t on the football field.
Danielle showed up in the waiting room pretty soon after he arrived. “God, I’m glad Richie is here.” She collapsed into a chair beside Alana. “I can’t stand the sight of blood. I thought for sure I’d pass out cold getting Keeton here to the doctor’s office.” She threw a hand over her forehead and closed her eyes. “What are you in here for?”
Alana quickly zipped her purse so Danielle couldn’t see the bag of pregnancy tests. “My arm is still hurting from that fall at the reunion,” she lied, but was glad sh
e had a good excuse.
Danielle sat straight up and stared at the huge bruise on Alana’s arm. “That Rachel can be a real bitch sometimes. I wish she’d never made the cheer team, because now we have to treat her practically like a sorority sister. She even insisted I let her be a bridesmaid when I married Richie. What could I do? I’d already asked the other cheerleaders, and she would have caused a helluva problem if I hadn’t asked her.”
“I can see that happening.” Alana nodded.
“Then be damned if she didn’t try to sleep with Richie after the rehearsal dinner,” Danielle whispered. “I wish she’d find a rich husband, get married, and move off somewhere far away—maybe like Africa.”
Alana couldn’t keep the smile off her face. “Why would you wish that on those poor people?”
Danielle giggled. “You got a point there.”
“Okay, Alana,” Mary Beth said, “let’s get you into a room and ready for Doc to see you. He should be done stitching up Keeton before too long.”
“I hope Keeton gets along all right,” Alana told Danielle as she picked up her purse and followed Mary Beth through a door and back to an examination room.
Danielle waved. “Thank you, and if you need any help with your wedding, call me.”
Could you please kidnap Rachel and keep her in a remote place until the wedding is over? Alana thought, but she did a finger wave over her shoulder.
Mary Beth ushered her into a room and nodded toward a chair. “Of course, everything that comes through the office is confidential, but I want you to know that I’m real sorry about Matt. You’ve got my prayers, and, honey, I’ve got broad shoulders if you need to cry, and I’ve got listening ears if you need to talk. And you can rest assured, I don’t gossip. Couldn’t if I wanted to. Doc would fire me.”
“Thank you.” Alana managed a smile. “I might just give you a call sometime.”
“Anytime at all.” Mary Beth closed the door behind her.
Alana sat down and picked up a magazine. She flipped through its pages for all of thirty seconds, laid it down, and checked the time on her phone. She’d been sitting there for a whole minute now, and she could hear the doctor’s deep voice talking about golfing with Richie in the next room.
“Small-town doctors,” she grumbled. “They know everyone’s history for generations back.”
“Well, I believe that’s got Keeton fixed up,” she heard Doctor Wilson say. “Tell Mary Beth to give him a lollipop on the way out and make an appointment for a week from now to get the stitches removed.”
“We’ll be here.” Richie’s voice was as clear as if he’d been in the room with her.
“I’ll buy Keeton a whole bag of lollipops if you’ll hurry up and get the hell out of here,” she muttered as she checked her phone again. Five minutes had passed. She could hardly breathe for the brick that was still on her heart. Her hands were sweating again, and her stomach was making noises. She scanned the room for a trash can and located one over beside the sink.
“Good to know that there’s one here.” She glared at her phone again. Six minutes had gone by.
“Well, Alana.” The doctor breezed into the room with her chart in his hand. “Mary Beth tells me you have cancer. Why on earth would you think that?”
She brought the bag out of her purse. “Twelve tests, doctor, and every damn one of them is positive. The Internet says that cancer can cause a false positive.”
“Have you been celibate the past month, Alana?” Dr. Wilson smiled. “Have you had unprotected sex with Pax? I’m not judging. You two are engaged after all.”
“Once,” she admitted.
“Once is all it takes.” He peeked into the bag she had handed him. “I’ll do some bloodwork, but, honey, from a positive result on that many tests I’d say you’re pregnant.”
“But Daddy has cancer and Mama had it, and…” She felt the tears before they even started running down her cheeks. “And I’ve got too much on my plate right now for a baby.”
“Alana.” Dr. Wilson laid a hand on her shoulder. “I’ve treated you since you were born. What your mama had started as skin cancer on her back and got into her blood before we knew it was there. The type of cancer your dad has might or might not be hereditary, but I’m pretty damn sure you don’t have it. What you do have is a baby on the way, so go home and tell Pax he’s going to be a father. If you want to wait until after the wedding to announce the good news, that’s up to you, but Matt is going to be ecstatic, and you know it. He told me the last time I saw him that he wanted to see you settled down and know he was having grandchildren before he dies. I’ll need to do a blood test to be absolutely sure, and after that we can do an ultrasound.”
“Do the test.” Alana held out her arm. “I’m not telling anyone, not Pax or Daddy, until it comes back positive.”
Doc reached into a cabinet and pulled out a sample bottle of prenatal vitamins. “Start these tomorrow morning. I don’t have to tell you about no alcohol, and if you have morning sickness, sweet tea and crackers before you get out of bed might give you some relief. Congratulations, Alana. You and Pax will make wonderful parents.”
“I had a beer a week ago,” she blurted.
“Then no alcohol from now on. I’ll send my nurse in to get a blood sample. Now go home and stop worrying. Things have a way of working themselves out for the best.” He gave her another pat on the shoulder and left the room.
She made up her mind right then not to accept the results of the tests she’d taken that morning, no matter if they had pink lines or blue plus signs. Until the results of the blood test came back on Monday and made it official, she was going to pretend that all of them were wrong. She would throw the bagful of the tests in the Dumpster behind the doctor’s office and keep the news to herself.
* * *
Matt was sitting in the dining room when she got home at noon. His nose was in the morning paper and his coffee cup was empty. He looked up over the top of the paper and smiled at her. “The sale was a bust. The bull we were interested in sold before the sale even started, and nothing else looked good, so we came home. But…” His eyes twinkled. “You up for a little overnight road trip? Delbert, the foreman down at the Broken Arrow Ranch near Odessa, has a bull that I’d love to buy. The two of us got to talkin’ and he said that he wouldn’t sell it to just anyone, and he damn sure wouldn’t bring it to any sale. Says it’s as much a pet as it is a breeder, and he wants it to have a good home. I thought we might have a father-daughter trip. I can drive myself if you and Pax have plans. Since I got off that medicine, I’m pretty clear-headed.”
A vision of her father sitting on the tailgate of his truck earlier in the week flashed through her mind. What if he got turned around on the four-hour trip and wound up halfway across New Mexico? Besides, it would take up one whole day of the weekend. That was one day that Pax wouldn’t be able to see the worry in her face and ask questions.
“I’d love to have you all to myself for a little while,” she told him. “When are we leaving?”
“My bag is packed,” Matt said. “I figured we’d stop in Lubbock at that café we both like so well. I think I could eat one of those big old chicken-fried steaks. Then we’d drive on down to Odessa. I booked two rooms down there for the night. Delbert said we could see the bull about ten in the morning, so I figured, if we buy him, we can be home by suppertime or a little after.”
“Give me ten minutes.” Alana headed out of the room. She stopped halfway up the stairs and yelled. “Is Lucas hooking up the cattle trailer?”
“He’ll have it around to the front of the house by the time you get packed. You want to invite Pax to go with us?” Matt raised his voice.
“No, let’s have some time with just the two of us,” she hollered as she went the rest of the way to the second floor. She threw a nightshirt, some underwear, a pair of jeans, and a shirt in a bag. She always kept a travel makeup and toiletry kit ready to go, so all she had to do was toss it in the bag and she was ready
.
She toted the bag to the bottom of the stairs, picked up her purse, and followed her dad out the door. Lucas was standing by the fender of the truck, the ever-present cigarette in his hands. When they started across the lawn, he put it out on the heel of his boot and shoved the unsmoked remnant back in the pack.
“I can tell by the look in your eyes that you’re going to fuss at me for smoking,” he said. “And I know the damn things will kill me someday, but I’m seventy years old, and I done got the three score and seven that the good Lord promised, so I’m livin’ on borrowed time anyway.”
“Only thing I was about to say,” Alana told him, “is that if the inside of that truck smells like smoke, I’m going to make you unhitch the trailer and put it on the back of my vehicle.”
Lucas’s wide smile showed off a mouthful of crooked teeth. “Darlin’, I didn’t light up until I was out of the truck, and I’m down to only two cigarettes a day. I been workin’ on quittin’ so I’ll still be around and I can hold the grandbabies when they get here. All that other bullshit I said was to rile you up. I’m going to live to be a hundred years old and not kick the bucket until after Matt’s first grandchild is born.”
“I hope you do.” Matt rounded the front of the truck and got in the passenger’s side. “Giving up smoking was the toughest thing I ever did, but Joy told me if I didn’t, she was going to make me wear a mask and a gown every time I held my new baby daughter.”
“I remember that very well.” Lucas followed him and leaned on the edge of the truck window. “Y’all have a good trip and don’t worry about a thing. I kind of like bein’ the boss man when you’re both gone.”
“I never worry when you’re in charge,” Matt told him. “We’ll be home tomorrow evening.”
Cowboy Strong - Includes a bonus novella Page 17