Devil's Cut

by J. R. Ward

  "I don't know what you're talking about," he grunted.

  To keep her from speculating further, Samuel T. reached between their bodies and thumbed at the apex of her sex.

  As she orgasmed, her Kir Royale spilled all over the place. And wasn't that totally satisfying.

  The ultrasound machine was portable, a mini-Zamboni with a monitor that was rolled in by an orderly and operated by a tech. In order to accommodate it, Lane had to get out of the chair he was in, and while the exam was being conducted, he stayed to one side and averted his stare. One thing he could say for certain? Chantal was bleeding badly. From time to time, as her hospital gown was rearranged, he caught horrific glances out of the corner of his eye of what was going on underneath her, the padding soaked through.

  Clearly in pain, Chantal flinched as they squirted her slightly rounded belly with clear gel and got some kind of transducer going on her. And the tech stopped periodically, tapping a little rolling ball on a keyboard to take pictures that, at least to Lane's eyes, looked to be nothing but gray and black smudges.

  "The attending will be in in a moment," the tech said as she wiped the gel off with a paper towel.

  "Where's the baby?" Chantal's head thrashed back and forth on the thin pillow. "Where's my baby?"

  "The attending will be right in."

  As the tech was leaving, she spared him a quick glance, and he was surprised at the compassion on her face.

  Maybe Chantal hadn't been lying. At least not about the pregnancy.

  "This hurts," Chantal groaned. "The cramping..."

  Lane sat back down in his chair because he wanted to afford her some dignity, and as she sawed her legs like that, he kept catching sight of the blood.

  "Lane...it hurts."

  Her face was pale, her lips white, and she kept gripping her midsection like someone was trying to saw her in half. Gone was any calculation. Hostility. Poor-little-rich-girl drama.

  "Lane..."

  He lasted another minute and a half, and then he burst up, yanked back the curtain, and opened the glass door. Sticking his head out into the corridor, he flagged a nurse down.

  "Hey," he said, "can she get some pain medication? She's really hurting?"

  "Mr. Baldwine, the attending is coming right away. I promise you. You're next to be seen by her."

  "Okay. Thanks."

  Ducking back in, he went over to the chair, sat down again...and when Chantal threw out her hand, he took it because he didn't know what else to do. "The doctor's coming. Right away."

  "I'm losing the baby," she said with tears in her eyes. "I didn't hear the heartbeat. Did you? The machine was silent. When I went last week, you could hear the..."

  As she began to weep, he didn't know what to do. Then again, in the two-plus years they'd known each other, he wasn't sure they'd ever shared a real, honest moment together. And it did not get more real than this.

  "Am I going to die?" she said.

  Where the hell was that fucking doctor? "No, no, you're not."

  "Promise me? That I won't die and the baby is okay?"

  The fear in her eyes and her voice stripped her bare to him, revealing her as more than an adversary--and for some reason, he thought about when he'd seen her for the first time at that garden party. He'd only gone because there were going to be drinks and he'd always felt like less of an alcoholic with a bourbon in his hand at two in the afternoon if he were around a bunch of other people doing the same.

  The sun shining on her blond hair had been what had gotten his attention.

  And he would never have guessed then that they would end up here, in these circumstances.

  "You're not going to die."

  In the silence, she just kept staring at him as her body contorted this way and that. Who knew if she had ever loved him--or loved his father. Maybe it was all a gold-digging scheme gone bad, and yes, she had done a horrendous thing ending her previous pregnancy. But as her pain continued to ramp up, the suffering she was in took precedence over her past misdeeds.

  Lane reached out and brushed a tear from her blotchy cheek. Now her makeup was melting, black smudges forming under her eyes.

  "I'm really sorry," he said roughly.

  Chantal looked away and shuddered. "This is my fault."

  The glass door of the treatment bay opened, and a young woman dressed in scrubs and a white coat came in. "Hi, you all. How are we doing?"

  Dumb question, he thought. How do you think?

  Lane dropped Chantal's hand and rubbed his palms on his thighs. "She's in pain--can you help her?"

  "What about my baby?" Chantal begged. "Where is my baby?"

  The attending went over to the bedside and put her hand on Chantal's shoulder. "I'm so sorry, but--"

  "Nooooo..." Chantal shook her head on the thin pillow. "No, no, no..."

  "--we didn't find a heartbeat. I'm afraid you've lost the pregnancy."

  Chantal exploded with tears, and the doctor said some more things about follow-up appointments, and Lane tried to keep track of everything.

  Okay, good, there was going to be paperwork with notes on what needed to be done next.

  After the doctor left, Lane took out his phone. When he'd moved up to Manhattan--or fled Charlemont, was more like it--he hadn't erased any of his Kentucky contacts.

  When he found what he was looking for, he triggered a call.

  A female answered tersely on the third ring. "Well, this is a surprise, Lane."

  He took a deep breath. Chantal's best friend hated him, and he wasn't fond of her, either. But that was hardly important. "Listen, I need you to come down to the ER at University Hospital...."

  --

  After Lizzie got back to Easterly, she ended up in Chantal's old bathroom again--but this time, she meant to go there as opposed to her just taking advantage of the nearest loo.

  As she started to go through the cabinets, drawers, and shelves, she couldn't believe what she was looking for. Then again, she hadn't been about to ask a state policeman in his squad car to pull in to a Rite Aid and hang out while she bought herself a pregnancy test.

  Especially not with Sutton Smythe in the backseat.

  "Jeez, talk about well-stocked," she muttered as she found enough Q-tips to clean the ears of an entire junior high school. "Zombie apocalypse comes and we're going to be stinking beautiful."

  There were backup bars of fancy soap and pots of facial creams with French labels and bags of cotton balls. Under the sinks, she found lineups of shampoos and conditioners, and hair dryers and curling wands and straighteners. Behind the mirrors, there were prescription pills and laxatives and astringents.

  She had assumed her best chance of finding something like a Clearblue or a First Response or whatever the damn things were called would be in here. Certainly, the woman had recently wondered whether or not she could be pregnant.

  But no. Nada.

  "Crap."

  As Lizzie shut the double doors under the basin on the left, she decided she needed to woman up, get in her truck, and go out herself.

  Pivoting away, she headed for the exit--and decided to check the tall closet by the shower on a whim.

  Holy terrycloth, she thought as she got a gander of the stacks of towels. "Of course. More than you'd have in an NFL locker room, except in shades of pink--oh, bingo."

  In a wicker basket by the folded washcloths, she found what she was looking for, along with a bunch of UTI tests and Monistat boxes.

  She wasn't taking the damn thing in this bathroom, however.

  Tucking the Clearblue box in the folds of her black dress, she hustled down to her and Lane's room and closed herself in. Her first inclination was to tell Lane what she was doing, but what if she was wrong and this was just the flu? Or stress? She would not only feel like a fool, she would regret getting him worked up over nothing.

  Besides, she had no clue whether he'd be excited or if this would be more bad news on top of everything else that was going on: They had never talked ab
out kids, either the having or the wanting.

  Hell, she wasn't even sure how she felt about being pregnant--well, not that she wouldn't have the baby if she were--

  "Okaaaaay," she said out loud. "Let's just get off the plank, shall we."

  Marching herself into her own bath, she read the directions, broke out one of the two tests, and peeled the thing of its wrapper. After doing the duty on the toilet--and managing to not pee on her hand, which, as far as she was concerned, meant she was a genius--she held the end of the stick down and laid the test on the counter between the two sinks.

  Her heart pounded against her ribs like it was scared of being alone in there in the dark.

  Checking her watch, she tried not to stand over the thing. Passed a little time folding a damp towel. Flushed a stink bug down the loo.

  Oddly, the sight of her toothbrush standing up next to Lane's in a sterling-silver cup caught her eye and held it. His was red. Hers was green. Both were Oral-B. Over a little farther, her hairbrush was next to his shaver, and his can of shaving cream was by her bar of Clinique facial soap. A hand towel they had both used was wadded up and left where it had been thrown by whoever had taken it off the rack.

  It was all so good to see, even though it was a little messy: The daily-existence chaos was evidence that their lives were enmeshed.

  Bracing herself, Lizzie glanced at the test.

  When she saw the plus sign, she started to smile. Oh, my God. OhmyGod.

  Mother, she thought. She was going to be--

  Abruptly, she remembered Chantal standing in front of the Bradford family crypt, blood down the inside of her legs. It seemed like a bizarre twist of fate that she should be finding out she was pregnant while the other woman might well be losing her child.

  What was Lane going to think about this?

  Putting her hands to her face, Lizzie looked at herself in the mirror and that happy smile faded.

  Shit, what was she going to say to him?

  As Samuel T. pulled the Jaguar around to Easterly's front entrance, Gin looked up at her family's great house. There had to be two hundred glossy black shutters on the thing, and those clapboards that covered all four sides? If you laid them end to end, she was willing to bet it would lead you across the Big Five Bridge over into Indiana--and possibly all the way north to Chicago.

  "Well?" Samuel T. murmured as he hit the brakes.

  "But of course. I am home."

  She spoke absently because her mind was on other things. Especially as she shifted her stare to the second floor, to Amelia's bedroom.

  "I am going to be out of town for a few days," she heard herself say.

  "Are you? A little trip planned with the husband?"

  "No."

  "Shopping, let me guess."

  She opened her door and got out. A burning headache, right between her eyes, made it difficult to focus on him. "Amelia needs to go back to Hotchkiss. She has to finish her exams."

  "Ah, yes, your daughter." Samuel T. frowned. "She came in for the funeral, then."

  "Yes." In fact, it had been more complicated than that. Amelia had lied and said she'd been kicked out, just so she could return home. "But she's moving back."

  "For the summer."

  "For the rest of high school."

  Samuel T. recoiled and then glared out over the long hood of the Jag. "Did Pford refuse to pay?"

  "I'm sorry?"

  "Did that cheap sonofabitch say he wouldn't cover her costs?" When Gin didn't reply, he looked over at her. "And before you try and deny just how bad your money situation is, I'll remind you that I've seen your brother's financial disclosures as part of the divorce I'm handling for him. I know exactly what's going on."

  "Richard didn't say no." Then again, she hadn't bothered asking. "Amelia wants to be home. She wants...to be with her family."

  "She going to Charlemont Country Day in the fall, then?"

  "Of course."

  He nodded sharply as if that were the only proper choice. "Good. Amelia's a good kid. She looks a lot like you."

  "I'm hoping she doesn't follow in my footsteps."

  "Me, too." Samuel T. waved a dismissive hand. "Sorry, that came out badly."

  And yet I do not disagree, Gin thought.

  "She wants to go to New York City. To work in fashion."

  "She needs a real college degree first. Then she can mess around doing artistic bullshit--assuming you and your husband can afford to feed, board, and clothe her while she's working as an intern at Vogue. But that's none of my business."

  Gin rested her fingertips lightly on the top of the door. Then dug them into the slot into which the window had been retracted.

  "What is it, Gin?"

  Looking down at the seat she had vacated, she thought of the many times she had ridden side by side with him in this sports car. Usually it had been in the dark, not the daytime, and nearly always it had been on the way to, or on the way back from, one of their trysts. Or fights.

  Then again, those two things had usually gone hand in hand with them.

  "I meant what I said." Samuel T.'s voice grew remote and his eyes shifted away to the view down the hill to the river. "You can call me anytime. I will always come help you."

  It took her a minute to realize he was talking about the Richard Pford situation. And she had an instinct to falsely reassure him that everything was okay.

  Maybe because it was hard to admit that, once again, she had made a bad decision.

  One of so many.

  "I have to go," she said roughly.

  "So go. You're the one hanging on to my car."

  Gin had to pull her fingers out of the door, and the tips hummed from having been jammed into the mechanicals of that window.

  For a moment, she had a notion that she would tip her chin up, quip some sort of witty rejoinder, and flounce off, confident in the knowledge that he would be measuring her ass and wishing he had his hands on it as she walked away.

  She could not manage the show, however.

  As she stepped back, Samuel T. put the convertible in gear. "Take care of yourself, Gin."

  "Always."

  He muttered something that was drowned out by the flare of the engine, and then he was gone down the hill, the sweet smell of gas and oil lingering in the still air.

  Standing in the golden rays of the low sun, she waited for the two little red lights to disappear. Then she turned and looked up to Amelia's windows again.

  As if the girl had witnessed the departure, one of the sashes went up and their daughter put her head out. "I'm all packed. Not that I had much. Can we go now?"

  Gin took a second to memorize what the girl looked like, leaning out, that brunette hair flashing hints of auburn in the sunlight, her red and black blouse loose and flowing.

  Mothers were supposed to be kind and nurturing. Whether they were stay-at-homes or full-time professionals...whether they were mavens of an organic lifestyle or proponents of Oreos and soda...whether they were strict or lax, vax or no vax, rich or poor...mothers were supposed to be the ones that kids felt safest around. They were the kissers of boo-boos, the cheerleaders of accomplishment, the dispensers of Tylenol and tissues.

  Mostly, behind all the labels that were applied to them, good mothers were just supposed to be good human beings.

  "What's wrong now?" Amelia said.

  The exhaustion in the kid's voice had been well-earned by Gin's failure on pretty much all accounts: Amelia had been raised by a series of baby nurses and nannies, and then as soon as she was a freshman in high school, she had been shipped off to Hotchkiss like a piece of furniture that had to be re-upholstered before it could be put back in the parlor.

  The girl's decision to come home permanently had been the first pivot point in her life that Gin had been involved in. And Gin had decided to drive her back to that prep school not just because the family's private planes were grounded, but because it was time for her to learn about who her daughter was.

  What
better way than fourteen hours in a car?

  "Hello?" Amelia prompted.

  "I'm sorry. I'll just gather a few things and we'll go right away." Best to leave before Richard got home from work. "Lane has the Rolls-Royce, but there's a Mercedes we can take."

  "Good. I'd rather not be on campus in the Phantom. Too showy."

  "Says the girl who's wearing Chanel." Gin smiled so that she didn't seem censorious. "You have quite a sense of style, you know that?"

  "I get it from you and Grandmother. That's what everyone says."

  For some reason, Gin couldn't process that. It was too painful. "You should probably say good-bye to her."

  "She doesn't even know who I am."

  "All right."

  "So come on. The sooner I leave, the sooner I can come home."

  Amelia ducked back in and shut the window.

  And still Gin stayed where she was, the afternoon sun falling on her shoulders as if God Himself were laying His hands upon her in support.

  Yes, she decided. It was time to tell them both the truth.

  Amelia and Samuel T. had every right to know about each other, and it was more than appropriate for Gin to finally own up to her sin of omission.

  And parts of it were going to be okay. The girl was most certainly going to gain a father. Samuel T. would absolutely do right by her, now and into the future.

  But Gin would lose the man she loved forever.

  Wasn't that what you did for your children, though? Sacrifice your happiness for theirs? Then again, was it really a sacrifice when she had created the problem?

  It more like a well-earned punishment.

  One thing was certain. Samuel T. was never, ever going to forgive her--and for the first time in her selfish life, she acknowledged that nor should he.

  --

  The intensive-care unit was on the other side of the hospital campus, blocks away from the emergency room, but Lane didn't mind the walk through the various buildings. As he went along, following signs and consulting visitor desks along the way, he composed himself in the vain hope that Miss Aurora would be conscious and thus in a position to try to read his expression, his mood, his stress level.

  As he crossed over Broad Street on yet another pediwalk, he looked down at the roofs and hoods of the traffic that was thickening as the workday ground to an end. Soon enough, spaghetti junction, that knot of intersecting highways by the Big Five Bridge, was going to be congested to the point of stop-and-go delays.