by Anna Adams
Her family helped. Her dad set up a mini-workshop in the living room, so Ian could help build the baby’s crib. Ethan, who was using the hand lathes and old-fashioned tools that had built furniture in these mountains since Revolutionary times, was generous with his knowledge. Ian realized how lucky he was to learn from a master—how lucky his child would be to have this hand-hewn crib to pass down to his own family.
After Ethan left each day, Nita showed up with DVDs, videos and some sort of ready-made dinner that she tucked in the fridge to be warmed up later. She did laundry, swept up the sawdust that escaped Ethan’s dust sheets, and generally made the house more habitable before Sophie came home.
Late on a Friday, Ian and Nita were sharing a beer and a tape of a boxing match Ian hadn’t seen when an unfamiliar car spewed gravel in the driveway. Nita stood, twisting toward the wide window.
“Is that Sophie?”
“No.” Ian hauled himself to his feet—one foot and the cast—and leaned over the back of the couch.
A tall man rose from the driver’s seat. His black jacket had to be too warm. He peeled it off to reveal a perfectly pressed white shirt that still looked too hot for July. On the other side of the car, a woman got out. Her dark hair barely moved in the mountain air. She surveyed the cabin with a mixture of surprise and shock that made Ian laugh.
“My parents,” he said.
Nita veered her gaze toward him. “You don’t sound pleased.”
“Wary.”
“Your poor mom and dad. I already know how they feel.”
He liked Nita. She’d gone out of her way to help Sophie while he was out of commission, and he didn’t know that many women who were so happy to share boxing commentary. But she put equal effort into maintaining the blind spot that kept her from understanding Sophie’s guarded affection.
She turned to him, as if she suddenly noticed his silence.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing.” He nodded toward his parents, picking their cautious way to the front door. “Would you mind letting them in?”
“Glad to.”
She greeted Alex and Rachel Ridley with an enthusiasm that made Ian laugh. She’d startled them enough in today’s getup of retro sixties lime-green. She looked hardly ten years older than Sophie, whereas his parents had settled contentedly into respectable middle age.
After the introductions, Nita brought them into the living room. “We were just having a beer.” She pointed to the bottle she’d abandoned on the coffee table. “Want one?”
“No, thank you.” His mom eyed the bottle as she would a poisonous snake. “Alex?”
“Do you have any Scotch?”
Ian waited. Neither of them had pried their eyes off Nita to look at him yet.
“I’ll look in the kitchen,” she said. “Scotch, Ian?”
“No, thanks.” Then he realized she was asking if they had any. “Oh—I think there’s a bottle in the cabinet above the fridge.” He met his father’s relieved expression with a touch of resentment. His dad had not been pleased when Ian had told them about the baby in his call from the hospital. “Sophie thought we should child-proof from the start.”
“Oh, the baby,” his mother said in a faint tone.
“What are you doing here?” Ian saw no reason to waste time with pleasantries. His accident was less urgent than his and Sophie’s wedding had been. They should have come for that.
“Son.” Ignoring his aggressive tone as much as the question, Rachel lifted careful arms around his shoulders. “I don’t want to hurt you. Are you all right?”
“It was hard to find you,” his dad said. “I had to use the GPS in the car.”
“I’m fine.”
“We thought we should meet Sophie before the baby comes.” His mom backed away, eyeing his father as if prompting him to take his turn at showing affection.
Alex stepped up, offering his hand. “Glad to see you on your feet, son.”
“You didn’t have to come now.”
“I had a meeting in New York, anyway.” Though retired, he still sat on several company boards. “We thought we could work in some time in Tennessee.”
“Thanks.” He didn’t want the explanation after all. Ian took his spot on the couch again and wished he’d knocked back that Scotch himself. “How’s Ireland? Sit down. Mom, do you want to take off your jacket?”
“I’m fine. Though it’s a bit warmer here than I’m used to.”
“Ireland’s great, son. You should come over after the baby. I’ll plan a few rounds for us.”
“Sophie would love that,” he said dryly. He could just see her celebrating such a visit. She’d borrow his father’s clubs, maybe play a few rounds on his head.
“What’s all that?” His mother pointed to the dust-sheeted crib-under-production.
“Sophie’s dad is making a crib for the baby. He’s building it here so I can help.”
“And your wife doesn’t mind this mess in her living room?” His mother turned Sophie’s possible understanding into a flaw.
“She’s making do,” he said. “I keep asking why you came.”
“You were hit by a car, son. Naturally, we want to see for ourselves that you’re all right.” His mom leaned over the coffee table to pat his knee, and then she finally sat on the love seat, suggesting with a look that his father possess himself of the cushion beside her.
“I’d rather you’d come to the wedding.”
“It was such short notice.” Alex peered around the room, tugging at his collar. Nita was taking too long with the Scotch.
“How much longer until the baby comes, darling?”
“About nine weeks, Mom.”
“Do you know if you’re having a boy or a girl?”
“We didn’t want to know.”
Nita finally appeared in the doorway with a dose of Scotch in a glass. “It would make things easier for us, wouldn’t it? We’d know what colors to buy. Although I’ve been thinking, Ian, we may have to get the family started on your nursery. Sophie doesn’t seem to have time with work and you won’t be climbing those stairs or painting from stepladders for a while.” She turned to his mom, sitting emptyhanded. “Rachel, I’d love to bring you something. You must be thirsty after your drive. Or maybe you’d like to freshen up?”
His mother lifted a hand to her salt-and-pepper hair with a swift glance at Nita’s more youthful color. “I think I’m fine.” She sent Ian a somewhat desperate glance. “When will Sophie be home? We made reservations at a bed-and-breakfast in town, and I’m not sure we’ll be able to find it if we wait until dark.”
“Are you staying at the Dogwood?” Nita looked pleased. “I’d be happy to lead you down when I go.” She leaned forward confidingly. “I was staying here, but after Ian’s injury, my daughter just threw me out.”
She added a laugh, and Ian believed she was joking, but his mother turned to him again, horribly confused. She faced Nita once more. “Is your daughter very like you?”
“Mom.” Ian found himself on his feet again. Nita simply eyed the other woman as if she’d lost her mind. “I think you and Dad should go back to town for the night. Sophie’s driving me in tomorrow to have my ankle checked, and we can meet you for a meal. Or something.”
“I didn’t mean…” Rachel didn’t finish. What point would there be in saying she hadn’t meant she hoped Sophie was an improvement on her mother?
Nita sipped her beer, a smirk on her face as if she couldn’t believe the newcomers’ manners. Ian had to agree with her. She might occasionally be clueless, but you knew where you stood with her.
The sad truth was he knew where he stood with his parents, too. Back of the line, on probation. At his age it shouldn’t matter, but it was the last place he wanted Sophie to join him. He’d protect her from them, anyway.
“YOU SHOULD COME into the treatment room with me,” Ian said as they waited for Dr. Fedderson to check his ankle. “You can talk to him about the clinic.”
Sophie
hadn’t talked to anyone else about it since her grandmother had been so upset about the idea. “I don’t think so.”
“Why?” He kept his voice low, as if trying to keep her plans out of the Bardill’s Ridge public domain—but the children pushing wooden cars around a track inlaid in the coffee table were probably louder than he was, anyway.
“Gran and I have dropped the subject. I don’t want to make things bad again.”
“When is she going to start cutting her hours at the baby farm?”
“I don’t know that, either.”
He nudged her with his elbow on the blue-padded chair arm. “I’ve never seen you scared before.”
She moved her arm, resisting his teasing. “You’ve never seen my grandparents at each other’s throats. If I thought I’d managed to break them up, too…”
“You didn’t break your parents up. Sophie, you’re not that powerful.”
He probably meant to comfort her, but she hated the flavor of condescension in his reassurance. “Suddenly you’re the family psychologist?” Dr. Fedderson’s receptionist opened the door from the waiting room and called for Danny Sutton. Sophie nodded at the little boy and his mom. “Besides, do you want to look like them? Me going along to make sure you understand your treatment?”
“I don’t care how I look, and I may not be a psychologist, but your parents’ marriage was in trouble if your mom was having an affair on the kitchen table.” Someone had spilled the story. Probably her mom in an effort to justify herself. He sat up straighter. “I don’t like to believe Nita would do something like that.”
“Because she’s your new best friend.” Sophie lifted her feet off the floor and then tapped her heels on the carpet. Her house had become a boy’s club, with her mother as the honorary girl. Even Zach had started dropping by to sand down crib parts and join in the sports commentary. “Beer and boxing. Who knew you’d have so much in common?”
“You’re a bitter woman.”
His teasing finally made her laugh. “I just don’t understand why you get along with her so well when she drives me crazy by the time I’m home fifteen minutes.”
“You’re still upset with each other. She wants you to love her like you did before the table incident.”
“I can’t. You’d think acceptance would be enough.”
He caught her hand, and his was comforting. “Would it be enough for you?”
She stared at their linked fingers. Her kind of acceptance would be a slap in the face from their child. But then again, she didn’t plan to make the same mistakes her mom had. She’d certainly avoid making her mother’s choices. “It wouldn’t be enough.”
“So give her a chance.”
His tone didn’t exactly plead, but he was trying to heal the rift between her mother and herself.
“I’m glad you like her, Ian, but I can’t forget the way things were because you want me to.”
“You don’t like me meddling.”
“It’s a Calvert trait.” She shook her head. “You’re fitting in here better than I am. You’ve started a social club at our house, and I’m trying to break up the strongest marriage I’ve ever known.”
His smile, a hint of understanding, a tang of hurt feelings, made her sorry for being so flippant.
“You don’t want my help.” He looked tense.
“I’m not trying to say you don’t have a right.” Although it was her instinctive response. “I’ll take care of it on my own. You all want to be friends, and you have no history with them—other than getting me pregnant—which you’ve already made up for. I’m still the outsider.”
“That’s in your head, Sophie. They love you unconditionally. I wish you could see that, because most people would give a whole lot for the kind of affection you don’t even recognize.”
“Don’t analyze me, Ian.” Regret gave way to irritation. Her life seemed to be spinning out of her grasp. At night she clung to him. During the day, she worked while he played around with her family. He couldn’t know how long she’d resisted coming back here—and how much her grandmother’s anger over the clinic idea had hurt. He couldn’t know she was feeling shut out as everyone gathered him close.
And if she wasn’t careful she’d start driving her husband away from her because of her own sense of loneliness. She tugged at his arm.
“Ian?”
“Hmm?”
“I didn’t mean to be abrupt, that ‘don’t analyze me’ thing. I’m just—”
“Tired?” he said.
She hated admitting weakness. “A little. Because I’m dancing around Gran at work.”
“Take time off. She’d love to have the place to herself, and you could use a break. Maybe I could close the clubhouse at our place for a day or two?”
She sighed. “It sounds like such a good idea except Grandpa would probably divorce Gran on the off chance she’s making me want to quit working with her.”
“Maybe it’s time you told her to leave. You were able to say it to your mother.”
“Because of you,” she said with a blush. Why was she embarrassed? He had a right to know she’d wanted to be alone with him. “I can’t throw Gran out of the place she built.”
“I can see that.”
The receptionist came back. “Ian Ridley?”
He looked down at Sophie. She hesitated only a moment. And then she helped him to his feet, though he shook off her assistance.
“You can hand me the crutches.” He glanced quickly around the room to see if anyone had noticed she thought him infirm. “But you can’t treat me as if I’m an invalid.”
Sophie nodded, all empathy. He closed his eyes, muttered a “sorry” in an apology that matched hers and started toward the waiting receptionist. Sophie followed, grinning only when his back was firmly turned. He thought she insisted on being too independent?
DINNER AT THE DOGWOOD with Ian’s parents resembled an interrogation. Only Molly and Aunt Eliza, taking turns at serving courses and offering support made the meal with Alex and Rachel Ridley bearable.
That and Aunt Eliza’s cooking. Sophie spooned apple crisp into her mouth. Thank God it was almost over.
“Tired?” Ian rubbed the small of her back with his fist as he asked.
Nodding, she closed her eyes, all but purring. At twenty-nine, she’d expected to sail through pregnancy. She understood the reasons for all the little aches and pains. They weren’t supposed to bother her, but Ian unerringly managed to find and relieve the one ache that continued to nag at her. She put it down to so much time on her feet each day. Remembering his parents, she pulled away.
“Thanks,” she said. “Busy day at the office.”
“You must get tired of babies.” Rachel, in a designer suit and anxious expression, made Sophie ridiculously defensive of Ian. His mother seemed to have no more maternal instinct than Nita.
“Why would I get tired of them?” Sophie asked.
“Around you all day, pregnant women, talk of babies. Worrying about babies. And of course…” Rachel pointed to Sophie’s stomach, where the newest Ridley performed a lazy roll that made Sophie smile.
“I hardly ever get to see them since I came down here. I’m more concerned with the moms, and really, knowing what’s at stake makes me a little bit of a hypochondriac. Who knew?”
“What do you mean?” Alex pulled a cigar from the pocket inside his jacket, inhaled its length and then must have seen Sophie’s look of distress at the thought of telling him she didn’t want the smoke anywhere near her baby’s oxygen supply.
“Dad,” Ian said, waving his father off.
“Sorry.” Alex put it back in his pocket. “But how are you a hypochondriac, Sophie?”
“The morning sickness, for one. I’m almost thirty-two weeks along. It should be over, but I’m keeping the cracker company in business on the off chance saltines will eventually ease the problem. And apart from feeling queasy all the time, every little twinge—the ultrasound—I couldn’t wait to have it done.”
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br /> “Ian said you didn’t know the baby’s sex, but you must have seen…” Rachel frowned, possibly at the thought of a daughter-in-law who’d be a drain on her son.
“I didn’t look.” She glanced at her husband, who seemed the most unperturbed of the three of them. “We agreed we wouldn’t find out, so I looked away from the screen.” It had been one of the hardest things she’d ever made herself do.
“How much longer will your mother be in town?” Alex then summoned Molly with an imperial gesture. Sophie watched her cousin carefully. Molly, resistant to any authority, seemed to consider her response with a swift glance at the bowl of floating candles on the sideboard at her hip.
“My mom.” Sophie braced herself in anticipation of a flying candle, but Molly met her gaze and softened, smoothing her sleeves over her wrists as she started toward their table. Sophie straightened in relief. “Mom’s going back to D.C. on Sunday afternoon.”
“She’s been here a while, hasn’t she? I had the impression you’d grown close to her, Ian.”
Sophie turned to him. Why would his mother think that? Had her mom done something to make Rachel feel left out? “What happened with my mom?”
“Nothing.” He looked at Molly. “We have an unusual request. Port for my mother and brandy for my father?”
“Not that unusual. We aren’t rubes here, Ian. I’ll be right back.”
She flounced away, and Sophie continued to feel as if she were in the eye of a bad storm. “How much longer can you stay, Mrs. Ridley? I’ve hardly seen you both.”
“We had originally hoped to stay a week or so, but—” She flicked a quick glance at her husband. “We’ve had an invitation from Nashville, and when the governor beckons…”
“You understand, Ian?” Alex asked his son.
The undercurrents blew as fast and hard as the look on Ian’s face. “I understand perfectly, Dad.” He looked up, sprawling in his chair. “But here’s something you and Mom should consider. I’m your only son. I hardly know you. You refused to come to our wedding and meet my wife.” He curled his hand around the nape of Sophie’s neck, making her shiver. Then he slid his hand, in a fist, back under the table as if he didn’t trust himself. “Now you don’t find the company here to your liking so you’ve accepted a better invite.”