The Love of a Stranger

by Jeffrey, Anna

She made a sound that resembled a laugh, but Doug heard the bitterness.

  “It was pouring rain. I was speeding. I said some nasty things. You know me and my sharp tongue.” Another round of tears and sniffles followed. “He blew up and yanked the steering wheel. The car went into a spin....I lost control. We plunged over an embankment and rolled over, down the hill. Holly was thrown out and the car....It, uh…passed over her.”

  Doug couldn’t keep from sighing. He wrapped his arms around her and laid his cheek against her hair. “Aww, Alex—”

  “Don’t,” she said, pulling away and leaning her backside against a sheet of plywood that substituted for a counter. “I don’t want your pity.”

  He related to her feelings, thinking of his own pain, his own sorrows. Pity wasn’t something he wanted either. “Not pity, sweetheart.”

  “Charlie didn’t know what to do. We were torn between trying to make amends with each other on the one hand and dealing with grief on the other, plus I had a severe head injury. He felt so guilty. I did, too.”

  Doug was familiar with the long scar hidden by her hair. His mind flew back to the night he had taken her home after Miller bloodied her nose and blacked her eye and he recalled tracing it with his thumb.

  Her lips twisted into a bitter smile. “Holly and her dad were great pals,” she went on, sorrow oozing like drops of blood. “She was very smart and mature for her age and they played this word game together and...” She turned to him then, lifted her arms and let them fall back to her sides. “There. That’s my sad tale.”

  Her troubled eyes zeroed in on his. “You can see why it’s impossible for me to have more children. I’m not entitled. I mean, I’ve proved I’m not—”

  “It was an accident.”

  “Don’t you think I’ve told myself the same thing over and over? It doesn’t erase what happened. And it doesn’t make me fit to be a wife and mother. I don’t want to be, ever again.”

  “Let’s go into the living room,” he said, taking her elbow and urging her to the sofa carefully, as if she might bolt if he made the wrong move. They sat down, but she scooted away, all the way to the far end, her shoulders scrunched as she braced her elbows on her knees. “I’m only a few weeks, not too far along to have something done. It’ll be easy in L.A. and—”

  “Hey, are you kidding?” he said softly. “Forget that. We’ll be good parents.”

  She looked across her shoulder at him. “Didn’t you hear me? I don’t want to be.”

  What he thought he saw in her eyes was a need for reassurance and support. Without hesitation, he scooted down the sofa beside her. he leaned forward, he, too, bracing his elbows on his knees. “I’ve told you how I feel. You’ve said you feel the same. Isn’t it logical we would have children?”

  “I’m too old,” she blurted, as if she were grabbing for any frantic excuse. “I’ll soon be thirty-seven. Old women shouldn’t have babies.”

  “Unh-unh. Won’t fly. You’re not old. Besides, nowadays, women in their fifties are having babies.”

  “Well that doesn’t mean they should.”

  He drew her into his arms and leaned against the sofa back, holding her. “I don’t believe you wouldn’t want our kid. I can see how you’d be afraid, but I’m here. And I’ll be here. I want us to get married, Alex.”

  “All we’ve done is insult each other and...and screw. We don’t even know each other.”

  “Shh.” He turned her face to his and laid a finger on her lips. “All we’ve done is make love, Alex. And we know enough. We know we have a connection that’s rare. Why wouldn’t we extend it by fostering a life?”

  She huffed out a humorless laugh. “I was better prepared to be a mother when I was sixteen than I am now. I’m not sure how calculating the cap rate on an apartment complex qualifies you for changing diapers and burping babies.”

  “Chasing down sociopaths doesn’t qualify you either, but I don’t doubt for a minute I can do it. It’s all about love and caring, Alex. I’ll tell you something about me. My old man split when I was a baby. My mom died when I was eight. I barely remember her. My older brother and sister-in-law gave me a roof to keep me out of foster homes, but that’s about all they supplied.

  “Back then, I thought a mom and dad were just about the luckiest things a kid could have. I always believed if I ever had a kid of my own, I’d know just what to do to make him feel loved and wanted because I knew plenty about how it felt not to be.”

  Her hand found his and her fingers interlocked with his. “I have no doubt you’d be a wonderful father. You don’t think I’m too mean to be a mother?”

  He smiled. “We have nothing to debate.”

  He had given up on fatherhood, couldn’t believe it had been handed to him at this late moment in such an unexpected way. But then much of life had come to him in extraordinary fashion. The only explanation he could think of was one he had come to terms with long ago—it was meant to be.

  “Hang with me on this, Alex. I’ll never make you sorry.” He stroked her hair, bent his head and touched his lips to hers, his emotions hovering close to the surface. Her lips trembled beneath his and her palm came up to his jaw. He whispered her name and closed his arms around her, loving her and the idea of her so much his heart ached. “You don’t even realize how good you are. You’re the best woman I’ve ever known.” The statement wasn’t a lie or even an exaggeration. Indeed he had never known any member of the opposite sex as strong and loyal and giving.

  She smiled and lowered her head. “That’s crazy. It can’t be true.”

  “Don’t ever think any part of this is crazy.” He stood and pulled her to her feet. She didn’t resist. He kissed her all the way up the hall to the bedroom where he undressed her, savoring the soft beauty of her body. He even removed her watch and rings, wanting her clothed in no artificial trappings. He kissed the breasts that would nourish his child, made love to the belly where his seed had taken root, held his breath as he eased into the warm sanctum of incubating life. Heat. Desire. Need. And love and tenderness. Each was inseparable from the other. She came with clawing fingers and hitching breaths. He followed, his body jerking and shuddering. Afterward, he kissed her countless times, couldn’t stop, couldn’t leave her. They drifted to sleep still joined.

  ****

  Alex awoke to a sunny day. The storm had moved out in the night. Lying in the circle of Doug’s strong arms, she had never imagined a lover could be as tender as he had been last night. How could any woman not love him? She snuggled closer.

  Awake now, her mind went at once to the pregnancy. Doug seemed sincere in his happiness about it. If he had shown the slightest qualm, she would have been forced to seriously consider an abortion and she doubted she could have handled it. But at the same time, facing motherhood again terrified her.

  She could remember no more than pieces of being pregnant twenty years ago when she was but a kid herself, but she recalled one thing. Back then, she had been fearless. Charged with looking out for herself, her child and her husband who had always behaved like a child, she had lived by instinct, doing what needed doing, whatever the task might be. Life had battered her mightily since then. Her instincts were no longer arrow-straight and compass-true.

  Her next thought was how long would she be able to work? She couldn’t abandon the Salt Lake project and the financial boon she expected from it. The multi-million dollar deal should have closed back in August, but a protest from an environmental group had put it off. Now two months past the original date set, she knew too well that every day dragging past the closing put the deal in greater jeopardy.

  Beyond that, if it didn’t wind up soon, she would be showing up for meetings with a protruding belly. She tried to picture the scene, but the image wouldn’t jell.

  Doug’s arm was wrapped around her waist and she lifted his hand, trying to ease from under it.

  His hand tightened on her mid-section. “Caught ya. Where you sneaking off to?”

  “The shower.
”

  “Not without me.” He threw back the covers, moved over her, framed her face between his hand and kissed her thoroughly. “Morning,” he said at the end of the lush kiss. “Last night was incredible. You’re incredible. And beautiful. And I love you.”

  Oh, he was good for her.

  ****

  Doug thought she seemed happy. He sure was. He had always heard confession was good for the soul. Perhaps that was true. They shared breakfast cooking chores and after they ate, she said she wanted to go back to Wolf Mountain and bring some things back to his house. He drove her up the driveway that, compared to its previous state, looked and felt like a super highway.

  “Guess I’ll have to put locks on the doors,” she muttered.

  “Good idea.”

  “It’s silly not to stay here,” she said as they strolled across the deck. “We might as well be comfortable while you re-build your house.”

  He turned the knob and to his surprise, the door opened. “You know, I thought we locked—”

  “I did, too.” She stepped inside. “Oh my God!” Alex stood paralyzed.

  Doug looked around her, gaped at the sight before them. Oil paintings had been slashed, sculpture broken. Soiled dishes and Styrofoam food cartons littered the living room tables. Trash and several items of clothing dotted the living room floor. A spoiled food odor permeated the air. Doug’s adrenaline surged as he contemplated the possibility that the vandal was still in the house. “Wait here,” he told Alex.

  He walked toward the kitchen, his pulse thumping. Alex was right behind him. He should have known she wouldn’t stay behind. As he made the right turn to cross the kitchen, headed for the bedroom, pain exploded in his left shoulder, tore through his arm and torso like a red-hot spike, taking him to his knees. At the same time, a hand grabbed Alex’s wrist and dragged her into the kitchen.

  She shrieked. “Kenny!”

  Doug recognized Alex’s cast iron fireplace poker in the logger’s hand. From the floor, he dove into Miller’s midsection as the poker swung again. The blow from the poker deflected off the granite cooking island with a loud clunk!

  Doug’s left arm hung useless at his side. He couldn’t lift it. He fended off the poker with his right forearm, looking for an opportunity to land a blow.

  ****

  Alex flailed their attacker with her fists and was suddenly free. She scuttled away. She could see Doug’s bad arm was helpless as he tried, one-armed, to fight Kenny off.

  Knives! Knives were in the kitchen, but she couldn’t reach them. She lunged for her purse, shoved her hand inside, wrapped it around the .357 and fired through the leather wall of the purse. The sound indoors nearly split her eardrums.

  Kenny screamed and staggered back against the breakfast bar, a dark patch spreading on the side of his blue T-shirt. Doug’s eyes darted her way. She struggled to her feet, shaking the purse away from the pistol.

  Kenny’s nose ran, tears streamed from his eyes. “I’m shot. The fuckin’ bitch shot me. Get me some help.”

  Alex was frozen in place.

  “Sweetheart. You okay?” Doug crawled to her, took the gun and leveled it on the monster.

  “I—I think so.”

  “You got your cell with you? Call the sheriff’s office.”

  Alex dug in her purse and pulled out the phone—thank God it was all in one piece—and punched in 9-1-1.

  Doug climbed to his feet and stumbled to where Kenny lay on the floor groaning and swearing. He pulled up Miller’s T-shirt and examined his side. “Flank shot,” he said to the monster. “You’ll live, asshole.”

  ****

  Doug hadn’t yet met Rooster Gilley. After Miller had been hauled away in the ambulance, the skinny deputy sheriff introduced himself, then turned to Alex. “Those cops from Lewiston think Kenny must have been staying up here in your house for the whole time he’s been missing. His foreman’s been bringing him food. They arrested him, too.”

  Doug looked across Alex’s living room and dining room at the mess Miller had made of the normally spotless house. “Looks like it,” he said.

  Gilley leveled a questioning look. “Doug, I think I’m supposed to get a statement?”

  “Let it wait, Rooster,” Alex said. “Can’t you see he’s hurt? We’re going to the emergency room.”

  Doug didn’t argue. The fingers of his left hand had gone numb. Alex drove him to the Callister hospital where Doug had his second encounter with Dr. Thornton. He had seen him the first time examining Charlie McGregor’s corpse lying in the cabin’s ashes.

  “I don’t think anything’s broken,” the doc said, as he outfitted Doug with an arm sling, “but some of that metal in there might be badly bent.” His round belly jiggled as he laughed at his own joke. “I’m going to refer you to an orthopod down in Boise all the same. Somebody did a helluva fine job on that arm and it ought to be looked at by a smarter man than me.” Finished, he poked his glasses into his shirt pocket and turned to leave. “I’ll be right back with some pain meds.”

  “That sounds dangerous,” Doug said to Alex after the doctor left the room. “I could be unconscious for days.” He slouched on the examining table and let Alex soothe and pet him, enjoying every minute of her attention. With his good arm, he pulled her close and kissed her.

  “Don’t get any ideas about going downtown and talking to Rooster or those guys from Lewiston,” she said, fussing with his sling. “I’m taking you home and putting you to bed. I want the father of my child to get well and be in top-notch shape because I intend to be a cranky, demanding pregnant woman.”

  Doug grinned through the searing pain in his shoulder. “Oh, yeah? And what if I turn you over my knee?”

  “Don’t forget. I’ve got the pistol and I can hit where I aim.”

  “Sweetheart, we’re gonna have to get you a permit if you’re gonna carry that gun. I don’t want my wife arrested and I don’t want my son born in jail.”

  Epilogue

  Alexandra McGregor married Douglas Hawkins a few weeks later. Doug’s brother from Nebraska as well as Ted’s mother showed up for the small ceremony. Ted stood beside Doug as best man and Alex’s assistant, Judy, flew up from California.

  Out of jail on bond, Cindy was already back to work at the Rusty Spur and engaged to Butch Wilson. With the sheriff in jail, the county commissioners were looking to hire someone to be the sheriff until one could be elected. Law enforcement temporarily rested on the shoulders of the deputy, Rooster Gilley.

  Logging ceased in Soldier Meadows. Jailed, facing a murder and multiple other charges and monumental legal fees, Kenny Miller became almost docile. He eagerly sold Soldier Meadows back to Alex, including the logs already cut and decked for hauling.

  After the purchase was final, Doug drove Alex around the five sections that was Soldier Meadows and Kenny’s log landing. He stopped the Jeep on Old Ridge Road. They climbed out and looked down on Granite Pond. He pulled Alex in front of him, wrapped his arms around her thickening middle and rested his hands on her belly.

  “I could fix this,” she said. “I could sell all these cut logs and use the money to clean up the stream and pond. I might look into turning the whole glade into a park.”

  “But I thought you loved it for yourself.”

  “I do. But it’s so beautiful it seems a shame not share it. I don’t have the same attachment to it now that I did. Before you, it was all I had to care about.”

  “Don’t forget this,” Doug said, his hands tightening on her stomach.

  “No,” she said, smiling. “I won’t.” Her hands covered his.“What would you think if I turned the house into a museum? It’s more than a hundred years old and it does have historical value. There’s a good road now. I could charge admission and use the money to maintain the park.”

  “Ever the entrepreneur, aren’t you? You mean you’d be satisfied to live in my house?”

  “Well, not entirely. I think we should buy the rest of Stewart’s place. Have some stock an
d a garden. Maybe even some chickens.”

  “We’re gonna be farmers?”

  “It’s not out of the question that we would have more kids. They’ll need horses to ride and chores to do.”

  “More kids, huh? I could handle that. It was fun making this one.”

  “I’d like to help Cindy’s kids, too. Everyone in Callister thinks one of them is Charlie’s and I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s true. Maybe I could set up a fund for their education. I believe in education, even though I have none.”

  Doug laughed and held her tighter. “You’re a special woman, Alex. Do what you must.”

  And because she was Alex, she did.

  THE END

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

  Anna Jeffrey is an award-winning author of mainstream romance novels as well as romantic comedy/mystery. She wrote six romance novels under the pseudonym of Anna Jeffrey and has written two as Sadie Callahan. She and her sister have co-written five comedy/mystery novels as USA Today Bestselling Author, Dixie Cash. ..... Anna Jeffrey's books have won the Write Touch Readers' Award, the Aspen Gold, and the More Than Magic awards. Her books have finalled in the Colorado Romance Writers award, the Golden Quill and Southern Magic as well as the Write Touch Readers' Award, the Aspen Gold and the More than Magic awards. ..... She is a member of Romance Writers of America and several of its chapters. She enjoys many hobbies, i.e., reading, painting and drawing, crafting, needlework and beading among others. She and her husband live outside a small town in North Central Texas.

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