The Baby Gamble

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  Her bare breasts, nipples erect, brushed against him as he moved, back and forth, and the friction through the hair on his chest was just one more sensation to take in. To appreciate.

  There was no doubt in Blake’s mind that he loved her. Had always loved her. Just as he knew he never wanted to hurt her by imprisoning her within his emotional voids. He didn’t look for a happy ending here. Only a moment. A touch of heaven to take with him into the darkness.

  He could feel the pressure burning within him, building—and he tried to hold on. He didn’t want to spill into her, to end it. And at the same time, he had to give himself to her completely, to know that moment of total release.

  “I want you to come with me.” He hardly recognized his ragged whisper.

  Then he helped her, waiting for her moans of pleasure, the deepening tone that told him she was close. And when she got there, when he felt her start to pulse around him, Blake slid into her one more time, held himself there and offered a silent prayer of thanks.

  A BABY LAUGHED. Feeling strong, capable and knowing, Annie moved toward the sound, aware that she couldn’t touch the child, couldn’t speak to it or interact in any way. She was there simply to watch over. To protect and guide. Not to be known. There was a woman with the child: her friend Becky. Annie smiled, only a little sad as Becky scooped up the baby, hugging her to her breast, kissing her neck, inhaling her sweet scent. Becky was truly happy, and that was good. She loved her little girl. She was content and at peace and hopeful. She was looking forward to that evening, when she and her husband were celebrating their second anniversary. Annie sensed her feeling these things. She wanted to reach out to her old friend. To let her know she was there. That all would be well. To tell Becky that she had another fifty years with the man she adored. And that even when they died, they’d be together still.

  But she couldn’t. It was against the rules to interfere. She might lose her position if she tried to spoil the way life must unfold. And this job was too precious to her. Too vital. She was who she was meant to be. An angel. Watching over all. Never to be loved for herself. But always to love…The movement startled her, jerking Annie from a warm, if slightly bittersweet place, making her forget, even as she remembered the strange dream. And then, fully awake, she remembered too much.

  Blake. Lying in his arms as she fell into an exhausted sleep. Completely peaceful. Having loved with her whole heart.

  He was leaving her. She watched him in the shadows as he collected his clothes from the floor, stepping into them quietly. She had no idea of the time; her clock was still out on the living-room floor. But she knew the night had to be at least half-over.

  And Blake didn’t have a car here.

  “Let me drive you,” she said softly, sitting up.

  He jerked around, and she knew he’d wanted to go without waking her. Without facing her.

  “I need the walk.”

  “Not at three in the morning,” she said, having glanced at her watch as she switched on the light.

  Blinking, Blake shook his head. “I’m not having you get up and go out at this time of night,” he told her. “I don’t want you out driving alone.”

  He could follow her back. They both knew that. Just as she knew that Blake needed to get away from her now. She wanted to understand why. Tried not to be hurt by the knowledge.

  And didn’t really succeed at either.

  “My keys are in the tray in the kitchen,” she told him, lying back down and turning off the light. “I don’t need the car until Saturday.”

  Blake hesitated, and she was afraid he was going to refuse even this little bit of her help. And then he nodded and she relaxed against the pillows.

  “Thanks,” he said. And without so much as another look back, let alone a kiss or a hug, or a promise to come again, he left the room.

  Lying there alone, Annie listened for the sound of her keys being picked up, heard him open and close the door leading into the garage. Waited while he started her car and drove away.

  And then she cried herself back to sleep.

  JUNE STOPPED BY THE River’s Run office on Friday morning to ask Annie if she had time for lunch. It was a regular occurrence between mother and daughter. June asking. Annie declining, and feeling as if she’d done them both a favor. She let June feel she was doing her part as a mother without holding her accountable for any motherly deeds.

  “Please, Annie,” June said that morning. “I’m worried about you. Can’t you spare half an hour and split a sandwich at the Longhorn with me? Just long enough to talk for a bit?”If Annie hadn’t been so tired, she might have been better able to ward off the confusion that swamped her at the unexpected switch from their established routine.

  “I’m fine, Mom, really,” she said, trying to understand what the expression on her mother’s face meant. It reminded her of something, and for a long time she couldn’t place it.

  But late that afternoon, long after June had left to have lunch by herself, it came to Annie. She knew why that look on her mother’s face had been so familiar. It was the same expression she’d seen on her own face the night before. In the dream that had been interrupted by Blake’s departure.

  The look of an angel, glancing down with compassion and tenderness and the promise of infinite love for those in her care.

  And that made absolutely no sense at all.

  WHEN BLAKE CALLED ANNIE on Friday evening, asking if he could drive her to the hospital to exchange cars, she wasn’t surprised. She’d been waiting to hear from him.

  And when, after the exchange, he followed her home and into her house, she wasn’t surprised, either.She’d known he would. That he’d be back in her arms again that night. She offered him a glass of wine.

  He declined.

  An omelet.

  He declined that, too.

  “I haven’t had dinner yet,” she said. “You want to order a pizza or something?”

  “You call, and I’ll go pick it up,” he replied, retrieving his keys from the counter where he’d dropped them.

  He could provide his own dinner. And dinner for her. He couldn’t accept something she made for him. She got that, too.

  “We have to talk about the baby.” Biting into a piece of pizza that she didn’t want at all, Annie forced herself back to reality. To the life that she was going to have to start living again.Blake stopped, a piece of pizza halfway to his mouth. “You already know you’re pregnant?”

  She couldn’t tell if he was relieved, horrified, or if he even cared at all. “There are some over-the-counter tests that claim they can tell three days after conception, but no, I don’t know I’m pregnant.”

  Annie couldn’t help remembering the last time they’d done this—discussed a baby they’d made together. And how very different, and yet completely the same, it was. Blake hadn’t shown much emotion then, either. Not even when she’d told him that she’d been to the doctor and knew for sure that they were finally going to have the baby they’d been trying for.

  When he’d left on that business trip, she hadn’t even been certain that he wanted the child she was carrying.

  “The results really aren’t going to be accurate unless I wait a couple of weeks.” She wasn’t sure why she continued to speak to him about things he clearly had no interest in.

  “So we’ll talk then.”

  And that was that. Regardless of the million and one questions rattling around in Annie’s brain.

  Things such as, If I am, are you really going to insist on some kind of shared parenting arrangement? Am I going to have you skating around the perimeter of my life forever?

  Tempting me to invite you into my bed forever?

  Am I always going to hurt like this?

  They were questions she couldn’t ask. Not because he wouldn’t answer them, although she suspected that he wouldn’t, but because she couldn’t have him know how out of control she really was.

  And that night, after Blake loved her, and left without fallin
g asleep in her arms as she’d invited him to, she knew she couldn’t spend the rest of her life with the feelings of abandonment he always caused.

  Their lovemaking interlude had been an incredibly precious three days. And now it was over. She would not be inviting Blake into her bed again.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “MR. SMITH, you got a minute?”

  Blake dropped the proposal he’d been reading, leaving behind the fine print with regret, as his new semi-employee approached him Monday afternoon. Blake had been fully engaged, focused, in the realm where he was confident and sure and had complete faith in himself.“Sure, Colin.” He waved the young man in, indicating a seat across from his desk. Still not completely sure why the young man was there, or why he’d allowed him to stay, Blake was somewhat curious as to what the college graduate would have to say.

  “I found that horse.”

  He hadn’t expected that. “You did.” Impossible. Or nearly so. Folks spent years looking at breeders, bloodlines, wins. Assessing data and percentages, visiting farms, scrutinizing sires and mares, living conditions and owners, before they even considered spending the kind of money Blake had been talking about when he’d sent Colin on a search for a possible horse for Brady Carrick.

  “It’s the perfect horse,” the young man said, the same passion in his voice now as he’d had when he’d sold himself to Blake. “It’s in Dallas.”

  “You can’t buy a horse sight unseen,” Blake said, enamored enough with the boy’s enthusiasm to be willing to have patience, to teach him a thing or two.

  “I’m not suggesting that anyone do that.”

  “We can’t recommend him to the Carricks, sight unseen.” Blake made his point more clear.

  “I wouldn’t suggest that, either, sir.”

  “Then…”

  “I drove up to Dallas over the weekend,” Colin surprised him by saying. “It’s a seven-month-old weanling that isn’t even broke to bridle yet. He’s the one. I’m telling you, sir, I know he’s the one.”

  Blake didn’t know any such thing. But hand on his chin, he sat back, assessing his new employee, wondering what quirk of fate had sent him to Blake, and whether or not he was going to be a gift or a curse.

  “Go on,” he said, in deference to the fact that he didn’t yet know which Colin was.

  “His sire is Macintosh Red from Dufoil Stables in Virginia. You’ve heard of him, haven’t you?”

  “Who hasn’t?” Blake asked, repeating back to the boy the words he’d used when Blake had asked him if he’d ever heard of Brady Carrick and the Cross Fox Ranch. “He won the Arkansas Derby, the Arlington Million and the Oak Leaf Stakes.”

  Colin seemed neither impressed nor unimpressed by Blake’s knowledge. “The dam is Honey’s Gold from Henleys’ Blue Bonnet Farm.”

  “This horse is at Henleys’?”

  “The Carricks have known Al Henley for years,” Colin told Blake.

  Was this kid a private eye in his spare time? “And how do you know that?”

  “The sale of horses is public record,” Colin said. “The two farms have had several business dealings, dating back a number of years.”

  Good, solid information. Blake wasn’t ready to be impressed, but at least Colin had his full interest. “Go on.”

  “He’s chestnut colored with white socks. His neck is long and his hocks and knees are perfectly straight. His hips are maybe a little narrow, but it doesn’t affect his stride at all.”

  “How do you know so much about horses?”

  “I don’t,” Colin said. “But I know someone who does, and I took her to Dallas with me for the weekend.”

  Ah. A man with contacts. And the sense to use them.

  “He’s being offered at a private sale on January 16, and I’m betting the Carricks can get him for forty to forty-five thousand. He’s a winner, Mr. Smith. You aren’t going to find a better horse.”

  Eyes narrowed, Blake studied the kid. “You’re sure about that.”

  “Absolutely.”

  There was nothing cocky in Colin’s attitude. Nothing unlikable at all. He was someone who knew what he was talking about, and was certain he was making the best recommendation.

  Blake considered his options. To tell the kid to go back to the drawing board just in case. To continue researching because he hadn’t been at it long enough. To go away and never come back. Or to give him a chance to sink or swim, to believe him and find out what the kid was really made of…

  “I’ll give the Carricks a call,” he told the boy. And pretended not to notice when Colin gave a short, completely unprofessional whoop of joy.

  “You won’t be sorry, Mr. Smith,” he said, slightly more collected as he shook Blake’s hand and hurried out to his desk in a cubicle behind Marta’s.

  For better or worse, it looked like Blake had a new kid in the house.

  ANNIE HAD WAITED for Blake Saturday night, having spent the day determining exactly what she was going to say when she sent him away. And again on Sunday. But he didn’t show up either night. Didn’t call.

  By Monday evening, after two sleepless nights thinking about him, running scenarios and outcomes through her mind, plus spending the weekend trapped at home for fear he might show up and she’d miss him, she knew she couldn’t go on like this. She had no desire to chase after Blake. Or to hound him. But she had something to say and a need to say it.She dialed his cell phone on the way home from work, holding her own cell to her ear as she bicycled slowly through the streets of River Bluff—taking the long way because she needed to feel the wind in her hair.

  “Annie?” He answered on the second ring. And obviously knew her number, since he seemed to have recognized it on his phone.

  “Yes.”

  “Is something wrong?”

  “No.” Not exactly. He sounded so good. Alive and vital. Real. It was good to hear his voice. “Am I interrupting something?”

  “I’m still at the office,” he told her. “Just finishing up a proposal.”

  Had he been planning a drive to River Bluff after that? Annie quivered at the possibility of one more night in his arms. Considered asking him to come, just in case she’d been off a day or two on her fertility charts. As a safety measure.

  “A proposal for something you’re considering buying?” she asked. She’d never had a lot to do with Blake’s work when they’d been married. The business had been between him and his uncle. Something they’d always shared. A bond between them. Asking about it had always felt to Annie as if she’d been intruding on their parenting of a beloved child.

  “A condo conversion.” His voice took on the confidence of the successful businessman he was as Blake gave her a brief overview of his newest project. It sounded impressive. Far-reaching. And a little bit risky.

  “You really think people are going to buy apartments?” she asked him, thinking about the realestate column she wrote for the first Monday edition each month.

  “These projects have seen overwhelming success in L.A. and Phoenix.”

  “Mind if I pick your brain for a column in a couple of weeks?” Annie asked after he had given her more details.

  “Of course not.” His reply was more than just welcoming. He sounded genuinely pleased to help her. Honored even.

  And that was her clue.

  “I called to tell you that…”

  Did she really want to do this? Cut herself off from something that gave her more…everything…than anything she’d ever known?

  Did she really want to spend the rest of her life crying herself to sleep alone in the bed her lover had just left?

  “What is it, Annie?”

  “I…missed you over the weekend.”

  His silence unnerved her. Embarrassed her. She’d had expectations when there were to be none.

  “And the fact that I did brought home to me quite clearly something I’d already determined.”

  “And what is that?”

  “I…Just in case you were thinking about comi
ng back…”

  Another silence. He wasn’t helping her out at all. Except that maybe he was. Blake’s silences were a good part of the problem between them. He couldn’t end them. She couldn’t live with them.

  “I can’t do it, Blake.” The words, when they came, did so in a rush. “I can’t make love with you again.”

  “I understand.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes, Annie, I do.”

  “And you’re not mad?”

  “Not at all. How could I be?”

  Because she owed him nothing, he meant? Or because he cared too much about her to be angry, when she had to make a hard decision in order to take care of herself?

  “Okay, then, well, I’ll talk to you later…”

  There was nothing more to do but hang up. Annie rode along, phone to her ear.

  “Annie?”

  “Yes?”

  “You’ll give me a call? Next week when you do the test?”

  The test. The baby they might have made. That he wanted to father.

  “Yes. Of course.”

  Annie was blinking tears from her eyes, furious with herself, with Blake, with a fate that would show her the magnitude of love, only to dangle it just out of reach, when she rounded the corner to her street minutes later and noticed someone stumbling about in her front yard.

  Someone young. Male. With dark hair. In Wranglers, a T-shirt and sneakers. No sweater, in spite of the sixty degree weather. She knew him.

  “Shane?” she asked, sliding to a quick halt and hopping off her bike. “What’s wrong?”

  The young man’s skin was pasty looking. His eyes were big, his pupils distorted. He took a step and almost fell.

  “I don’t feel so good.” His slurred words made her bristle, even as Annie’s heart went out to Becky’s son.

  “You’ve been drinking, huh?” she asked, slipping an arm around his back, intending to get him inside—and sober—before his mother saw him. Becky would hear about this. Annie just didn’t want her friend to see it.