Alex could only sit there, stunned beyond words, having no idea what he should be thinking, much less what he should be feeling.
Or, heaven help him, what Sarah was thinking.
She was five weeks pregnant. Of all the things that could have happened to her! Alex couldn’t imagine what she was feeling right now. Used? Or more likely trapped by a far bigger obligation than marriage? Alex closed his eyes, praying for understanding. Her understanding. He had crawled into Sarah’s bed drunk on whiskey and lust and gotten her pregnant.
Alex finally got himself under control enough to make his way into the hall, then stood outside Sarah’s door, wondering what he should say. Once he realized nothing he said was going to change anything, he quietly opened the door.
She was sitting on the exam table with her bandaged right hand held to her chest and her beautiful eyes covered with soggy bandages. Silent tears were leaking out from beneath the peeling medical tape. He quietly walked up beside her, and Sarah jumped when she felt his presence.
“Who—who’s there?”
“It’s me,” he told her, setting his hand on her shoulder, which made her jump again. Alex carefully gathered her into his arms, careful of her hand, and cradled her against his chest. “I’m sorry, Sarah,” he told her. “I’m so sorry.”
“You’re sorry? I’m the one who should be sorry.”
He shook his head, realized she couldn’t see him, and said softly, “You’ve got nothing to be sorry about, Sunshine.”
“I wrecked my new truck.”
“To hell with the truck, as long as you’re okay.”
“I wrecked Daniel Reed’s truck, too.”
“We’re insured.”
“And John Tate seemed upset that I don’t have a license.”
Alex stifled his groan.
Sarah sniffled.
“Crying only makes your eyes worse, Sarah. I know it hurts, Sunshine,” he told her, “but you have to stop crying so Betters can put more salve in them.”
“Did he tell you what happened to my eyes?” she asked, turning her head in his direction.
Alex found his first smile. “He said you sunburned them on the ozone bulb.”
She nodded, then dropped her head on another sniffle.
“No more tears, Sarah.”
“Did he…did he tell you anything else?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.”
Alex smiled again. That one little “Oh” had a whole world of worry behind it. He didn’t need to see her eyes to know Sarah was unsure if it was a good yes or a bad yes he’d given her. He decided to help her decide.
“How do you feel about it?”
“How do you feel?” she softly asked back.
“How should I feel?” he countered, his smile widening.
She actually harrumphed. He could tell she was trying to frown, but the wet bandages made it impossible. Alex gently nudged her shoulder.
“I haven’t decided yet,” she snapped.
He brought his mouth close to her ear and whispered very softly, “Well, I’ve already decided.”
Just then, a knock came at the door, and Caleb walked in. “Okay, people, if we’ve got the watering pot turned off, let’s put some salve on those eyes and replace the bandages for the third time,” he said tiredly. He shoved several prescription bottles at Alex, then stepped up to his patient. As he worked, Betters issued instructions for tending broken fingers, banged knees, and sunburned eyeballs. He also threw in a few tips on growing a baby, just for good measure.
When he was finished, Alex picked Sarah up and headed down the hall, but he had to stop when he ran into Reed and Tate in the waiting room. Alex glared at John, who just frowned back.
“She doesn’t have a license,” John told him.
“I own the road she was driving on, so she doesn’t need one,” Alex shot back.
“Alex,” John said, only to hesitate at Alex’s lethal look. “I’ll talk to you later.”
Alex continued out of the hospital, Sarah held securely in his arms—just as securely as she was entrenched in his heart.
Chapter Seventeen
S till reeling from the news that she was five weeks pregnant, Sarah absently picked at the bandage on her right hand. Though she wasn’t quite ready to admit it to Alex, she was ecstatic to be having a baby. She didn’t care if it was a boy or a girl, as long as it was as happy and healthy as Delaney and Tucker.
Sarah’s only regret was that her baby would be born right in the middle of a crazy, mixed-up mess of circumstances. But Alex was a good man as well as a great father, and she didn’t doubt for a minute that he would do the right thing for their baby.
But what exactly was the right thing? Would he insist they stay married for real now? Or would he pay child support when they divorced and settle for visitation rights? Being a single mom wasn’t quite how Sarah had envisioned her future, but then, not much in her life had gone as planned since she’d turned fourteen.
“Have your eyes stopped hurting?”
“Yes.”
“And your hand?” Alex asked, his own covering hers to make her stop picking her bandage.
“It only throbs a little. Dr. Betters gave me something for the pain that he promised wouldn’t hurt the…the…” Sarah wanted to kick herself for inadvertently broaching the very subject she wanted to avoid.
Alex’s hand moved from her bandage to her leg, and she felt him pat her uninjured knee. “Our baby?” he finished for her. “Have you decided yet how you feel about being pregnant?”
“Not yet.”
“Poor Sarah. It seems you keep shedding your obligations only to find yourself neck-deep in more. But you take each of them in stride, don’t you? From your mother’s cancer and your father’s death, then your marriage to Roland Banks and his mother, all the way up to marrying a dead man who comes back from the grave and gets you pregnant.”
“I am not a victim,” she said, lifting her chin in his direction.
He gently patted her knee again. “No, you definitely have never been a victim.”
“Can—can we not tell anyone about the baby for a while? It’ll only confuse Delaney and Tucker.”
“I was going to suggest we wait,” he agreed, his hand lifting off her knee just before Sarah heard the blinker come on and felt the truck slow down. She realized they were turning onto the NorthWoods Timber road.
“I’m sorry about my truck.”
“It’s only a truck. They sell them every day.”
“Actually, I think someone sold you a lemon,” she told him. “I couldn’t get the tachometer to go over 3000 rpm.” She turned her head toward him. “In fact, that might be why I lost control when I saw Daniel Reed coming toward me. I think whatever’s wrong with that truck is what caused the accident. My driving was perfectly fine until then.”
“I’ll have them check out the truck when they do the repairs,” he promised. “So, it looks like our roles are reversed for a few days,” he said much too cheerily.
“What do you mean?”
“You can’t see or walk, so that means I get to take care of you, just like you took care of me.”
Holy smokes, she didn’t want Alex taking care of her! “Delaney can help me.”
“After school. I can’t leave you sitting at home alone all day if you can’t even see.”
“I’ll sleep.”
“And if you have to use the bathroom?”
“I can limp from my bed to the bathroom.”
“What if someone comes to the house?”
“They’ll just think no one’s home.”
“And if it’s whoever broke in and stole my map?”
Sarah snapped her head toward him. “What makes you think someone broke into the house?”
“You said you caught those men coming out of the woods on the path that led to the house and that they were folding a map,” he explained. “That was around the same time my map went missing.”
“But it wasn’t
one of your white drafting maps they were folding. It was a regular map.”
“I know you were still shaken up when we got home that day, but did you notice anything unusual in the house that evening or the next day? Anything out of place?”
Sarah frowned, trying to remember. “I remember that I had to mop the floor because there were muddy footprints leading from the back door to the great room. I figured one of you guys didn’t take off your boots when you ran into the office to get something. Grady sometimes forgets.”
“They were all out at the cutting that day, and when I went through the house looking for you, I took off my boots.”
“You think those men I saw coming out of the woods broke into the house?” she whispered. “But why only steal a map of your roads?”
“It was the section we’re moving to next month. And that trail Thumper came walking out of is not a game trail but man-made. Then there’s the vandalism to our equipment,” he added. “Grady, Ethan, Paul, and I have been thinking about it, and we’ve been wondering if it wasn’t teenagers, if there’s something else going on. If you add together the missing map, the man-made trail, and the vandalism, it looks like someone’s trying to slow us down from cutting in the new section.”
“But why?”
“That’s what we can’t figure out. Daniel Reed followed the trail and said it didn’t lead anywhere. It went up Whistler’s Mountain and seemed to feather out to nothing.”
“What about in the other direction?”
“It crossed the road where we took the grade elevations, then continued on until it met up with an interstate snowmobile trail.”
Sarah fell silent as she thought about what Alex was saying. “Then I don’t want to stay home alone if I can’t see.”
“I’ll stay and entertain you,” he promised, again much too cheerily. “Maybe I’ll read to you from the new romance novel I got you for Christmas. You know, that sister book to the one you’ve already read?”
Oh, Lord. She couldn’t let him read that novel out loud. “Actually, I’ve already read it,” she lied. “Maybe I’ll just listen to videos on the television while you…cook and vacuum and do the laundry,” she finished, suddenly a bit cheery herself at the thought of Alex doing the housework.
Concerned faces greeted Sarah at the door. Alex shook his head to tell his father and brothers not to say anything, then carried Sarah to her bedroom and laid her down on the bed.
“You can take a nap while I start dinner,” he suggested, motioning for everyone to leave the room quietly. “Just as soon as the kids get off the bus, Delaney can help me cook, and Tucker can set the table.”
“Tucker needs reminding which side the fork goes on,” she murmured, rolling onto her side. “And don’t let him carry more than two plates at a time to the table. They’re too heavy,” she finished in a whisper, tucking her good hand under her cheek with a sigh.
Alex straightened with a smile. Always the housekeeper and mother, Sarah couldn’t stop worrying about the kids, even though she was half asleep from the pain medication.
She appeared so small and helpless and utterly defenseless. Seeing her bandages scared him so badly that Alex started to shake.
He loved her. There was no way around it, not anymore. This dynamic little whirlwind who had introduced herself as Mrs. Alex Knight only five weeks ago had captured his heart without even trying. And if he had any say in the matter, she would remain Mrs. Knight until the day they died.
Alex took the blanket off the nearby rocking chair and covered her up, carefully tucking her in as he bent over and softly kissed her hair. “Sweet dreams, wife,” he whispered before reluctantly walking away.
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” he told his father and brothers as he came into the kitchen and found them sitting at the table with worried faces. “She’s got a couple of broken fingers and a bruised knee is all. She was wearing her seat belt.”
“And her eyes?” Grady asked.
“It’s welder’s flash.”
“How in hell did she get welder’s flash?” Ethan asked.
Every one of them, at some time or other, had had a touch of welder’s flash. It hurt like the devil for a few days, the eyelids feeling as if they were lined with sandpaper.
“She changed the bulb in the hot tub. The bulb puts out ultraviolet light, and she must have gotten too close to the new one once she got it working.”
“I told her I’d change that damn bulb,” Grady said, sounding angry at himself. “Dammit, she’s always rushing to do stuff if we even mention something needs to be done!”
Alex smiled. “Hey, we have to love her just the way she is, good intentions and bad driving included.”
Stunned silence settled over the kitchen, and Alex grinned like the lovesick fool he was as he looked at his father. “You asked me to give her a month, but I don’t think it took three weeks before the thought of getting a divorce started turning my stomach.” He moved his gaze to include his shocked brothers. “I’m keeping her.”
“Sarah doesn’t exactly act as if she wants to be kept.” Paul grinned. “In fact, she’s been acting as if being married to you turns her stomach. I’ve actually seen her turn green once or twice.”
“I can change her mind,” Alex drawled, leaning back in his chair. “But I need to get her alone to do that, and I’m thinking now is the perfect time. Being completely dependent on someone has a tendency to make a person more…ah, cooperative.”
“That’s a bit devious, don’t you think? Even for you,” Ethan said with a lifted brow.
Alex shrugged. “All’s fair in love and war.”
“So what’s your plan?” Grady asked, rubbing his hands together, obviously not the least bit worried about his son’s deviousness.
“After everyone leaves for work and school tomorrow, I’ll take Sarah up to her sporting camps. I’ll tell her that I want to look around before making my decision on whether they should be opened.” He grinned at his brothers. “If my truck battery happens to go dead and we get stuck there, well, I guess we’ll just have to spend the night.”
“She knows we have radios in all the trucks,” Paul warned.
“Radios are useless if the battery’s dead.”
Grady was shaking his head. “It won’t work. You’ll be spending all your time trying to stop her from worrying about us worrying about you.”
Alex frowned. “Then I’ll say I got through to you, but you couldn’t come pick us up because—” He thought for a minute. “Because one of the skidders broke down, and you’re going to spend all night fixing it. Paul, can you come home early tomorrow to be here when Delaney and Tucker get off the bus?”
“Sure, I’ll watch them.”
“Did you see Sarah’s and Reed’s trucks?” Alex asked.
“We saw them,” Grady said. “Neither one can be driven.”
Alex looked at Paul again. “Get Sarah’s truck towed into town for me tomorrow? Cane Motors can fix it fairly quickly.”
“When we tried to move Sarah’s truck, I noticed a block of wood taped underneath the gas pedal,” Ethan said, his brow rising again with his smile. “She must have been going, what, twenty miles an hour, tops?”
“I’ve learned from an old pro,” Alex said, nodding toward Grady.
“What about what’s been going on around here?” Ethan asked, turning serious again. “Maybe you shouldn’t go to the camps.”
“I’ll bring my rifle,” Alex promised. “But we should be as safe there as anyplace. The camps are at least two miles from the main snowmobile trail.” He sat forward, leaning his arms on the table. “Any news from the border patrol? Do they have any idea what’s going on?”
“John told me there might be a smuggling ring working in the area,” Ethan said. “But the border patrol wants to keep their speculation quiet. They don’t want everyone jumping at every stranger in town and tipping them off. John said they might be planning on using snowmobiles to cross the border in remote areas. The C
anadians are looking into the matter on their end.”
“Smuggling what?”
Ethan turned his hands palms up. “They have no idea. Could be drugs, people, or weapons. Hell, they don’t even know which direction the smuggling is going, in or out of the U.S.”
“But if they’re using snowmobiles to cross the border, what’s the trail leading up Whistler’s Mountain for, if it doesn’t go anywhere?”
“Beats me,” Ethan said with a shrug. “I’m only telling you what the border patrol told John. Maybe the smugglers haven’t finished cutting the trail yet. I’ve been keeping an eye on that trail since you found it, and there’ve only been animal tracks in the snow. If the smugglers cut it, they aren’t using it yet.”
Alex sat back and rubbed his chin. “If it weren’t for that trail, I might think it was Clay Porter who keeps messing with our equipment.”
Ethan snorted. “Porter’s not brave enough to start an all-out war. Besides, he doesn’t know he’s lost his bid for Loon Cove Lumber yet.”
Alex looked at Grady. “Who have we got sleeping at the cutting now?”
“Richard, Harley, and Frank,” Grady said with a nasty grin. “They’re sorely hoping those bastards come back for another go at it, so they can smash a few faces. You know how possessive Harley is of that delimber. I thought he was going to cry when he saw its smashed windows and cut hoses.”
Alex stood up when he noticed the yellow school bus pulling into the yard and turning around. “Then we’re doing all we can to protect ourselves. Time for me to start supper.”
All three men groaned.
Alex turned back to them. “Unless one of you has suddenly learned how to cook?”
“Let Delaney and Tucker fix supper,” Paul suggested. “At least they won’t poison us.”
Alex walked to the door with a laugh and immediately hushed his kids when they came banging onto the porch. “You have to be quiet. Sarah’s sleeping,” he told them.
The Seduction of His Wife Page 18