by Diana Palmer
“I’ll have Becky get you an appointment with Ben Johnson and call you with the day and time. More than likely, it will be a month or so before he has an opening because he’s good. Anyway, you’re just in the early stages, and I’ll look after you. If you have any more spotting or cramps, I want to know. All right?”
She almost told him. She tried. But she was so afraid of what he might say. She only nodded.
“And stop worrying.”
She opened her mouth.
“I know, that’s easy for me to say,” he stole her thunder, and grinned as he let her out of the office. “I’ll phone you the test results,” he said. “But don’t expect any surprises.”
“I wasn’t,” she confessed, and smiled as she went out to pay Joan, his receptionist.
She felt odd, as if everyone was looking at her, smirking at her. It made her feel cheap, and she flushed as she paid the bill.
Before she could leave, Becky came out in her white uniform and pulled her out the door, away from the eyes and ears of six other patients.
“Nobody’s staring at you,” Becky told her gently, and smiled. She’d been a nurse for a long time, and she had a heart as big as her buxom body. “And nobody’s going to look down on you. For heaven’s sake, everybody will know that it’s Jason’s, and that he’ll make it right,” she chuckled. “Now go tell him.”
“I think you’re terrific,” Kate said impulsively, and hugged the older woman. Then, before she could burst into tears, she ran for the safety of the Tempo.
Amazing, she thought as she drove home, how everyone was certain that the baby was Jason’s. But Kate wondered if Jason would be equally certain. Perhaps because of the friction between them, he’d automatically suspect it was some other man’s. He might even think that Kate had used him as a stepping stone to other men. That thought was sickening.
She stopped by the pharmacy and had her prescriptions filled before she remembered that the petite brunette who was the druggist’s clerk was a friend of Cherry Donavan’s. But chances were slim that she’d mention them to Cherry. The girl might not even know that Cherry was acquainted with the Kate Whittman on the prescriptions.
After she finished at the pharmacy, she stopped by the town’s only drive-in and got herself a strawberry milkshake. It probably wouldn’t be the best source of protein, but it was delicious and it stayed down.
It was a beautiful summer day. The fields, underneath beautiful blue skies, were still dotted with wildflowers. As Kate sipped her milkshake, she found herself oddly at peace with the world. Well, creation made her one with the earth, after all. The trees put out new leaves in spring. The grass sprang from seed. So did flowers and vegetables and fruit. The earth was constantly in the business of renewal, and now Kate was part of it. Her fertile body had absorbed a seed and would produce a small, human fruit. It seemed profound.
She turned into the dirt driveway that led up to the white clapboard house she shared with Mary and almost went into the ditch when she saw the big Ford Bronco parked at the steps. Jason was standing beside it, smoking a cigarette.
With trembling hands, she managed to stop the car and park it without undue commotion. He looked as if he’d been working. He was in denim jeans, very dusty, with his old boots and black hat and a thin blue-checked Western shirt. He lifted his chin as she got out of the Tempo, and Kate’s heart ran away at just the sight of that lean, powerful body. Time hadn’t helped her hunger for him.
“Hello, Jason,” she said gently.
His dark eyes went over the denim skirt and sleeveless blue blouson top she was wearing with a singular lack of visible emotion. And when Kate saw his face up close, she was sure that the weeks away had closed up the last cracks in his shell. He was free of her. He looked at her as if she were a stranger.
“Kate,” he acknowledged. “You look well.”
She forced a smile to her numb lips and lifted the milkshake to them. “I should. I can afford junk food now.”
He took another draw from the cigarette. She looked paler than he remembered, but there was a new maturity about her. “Yes. I suppose you can.” He wanted to tell her he’d missed her, but he was too used to holding things inside. Even now, he couldn’t express emotion.
“How was your trip?”
“It was productive,” he replied. Productive, hell, he thought bitterly as his eyes ate her. He’d spent five of those long weeks trying to put the memory of her out of his mind, and the last one resigning himself to the fact that he never could. He’d actually thought he could walk away from her. Until he’d tried.
“Thanks for all the postcards,” she said with a short, bitter laugh.
“I had better things to do than send postcards.” He tilted his hat back. “I was doing my best to forget that you even existed, if you want the truth,” he added curtly. “My conscience hurt for a while, but I got over it. I guess you did, too,” he said pointedly, in an attempt to smoke her out. He didn’t want to expose himself to any new wounds until he found out how she felt. Oh, God, she had to care about him. She had to!
But Kate was as cautious as he was, and she couldn’t see through his mask. She took his words at face value. So his conscience didn’t bother him anymore. Only his conscience, not his heart. All right, she thought, if that’s how you want it, if you want me to absolve you from the guilt, I can do that.
“Yes, I got over it,” she told him easily. “Like you, I didn’t take it to heart.” She thought that something touched his face, but she couldn’t be sure. “You don’t have to worry about my throwing myself at you.” She managed a smile. “If you hadn’t come over, I wouldn’t have gone looking for you. It was all just a mistake. An accident. But no harm done.”
Jason stared at her quietly. “I’m glad you’re taking it so well,” he said, his voice cold because he’d had dreams. A lot of dreams, about finding her sick with missing him, hungry to live with him, to share his life and give him children. And here she stood, putting her damned career first. Again.
“Oh, I’m doing fine,” she replied airily. “I’m getting sophisticated. I’ve been to New York, and mingled with the social set. I’m even going back up there in November for market week.”
He took a soothing draw from his cigarette and averted his eyes because sometimes she could read them. Yes, she’d have her career. She’d be independent. There might be other men, now, and she’d learn how to cope with a social lifestyle—the difficulties he’d taunted her with wouldn’t matter. He’d known they wouldn’t from the beginning, but he wanted to keep her at home.
“You might try to look pleased for me,” she said after a minute. The milkshake was freezing her fingers, and she changed hands with it. “Although I guess you really aren’t. You never wanted me to have a career in the first place.”
“That’s right, I didn’t. But now I don’t give a damn.” His eyes challenged, mocked. “I just wanted to make sure you weren’t hoping for a proposal of marriage. Sorry, but I don’t feel that guilty.”
She’d never had anything hurt so much. If she’d seen his face, she’d have known that he was lying through his teeth, but she didn’t.
She had to grit her teeth. “Neither do I,” she replied.
“Of course not. You’re going to be a career girl. Maybe. Personally, I don’t think you’ll fit into that kind of lifestyle any more than you would have fit into mine,” he said deliberately. “You’d never have managed that, judging from the way you handled yourself at the dinner Cherry invited you to.”
Her face flamed. She glared at him. “I’ll learn,” she returned. “I can learn. And most people aren’t snobs, like that Daphne person.”
“Go ahead and try, honey,” he chided, broken up inside from her whole attitude. “Get famous. Get rich. But no matter how high up you get, you’ll still be just plain little Kate Whittman from San Frio. You’ll still be as country as a plow and as out of place in my world as a weed.”
“I’m not a weed,” she said huskily, fig
hting tears. She was carrying his child, and he wouldn’t even give her a chance to tell him. He was making it impossible.
“Well, you’re no orchid, either,” he bit off. “Weeds are hearty. They have character and style and they serve a useful purpose in the order of things. An orchid looks pretty, but it doesn’t survive well under hardship.” He tilted his hat over one eye. “I’ll tell you something, Kate. Given a choice, I’ll take the weed every day. At least it’s honest enough to be what it is, warts and all. It doesn’t try to be something it was never meant to be.”
“If that’s a slam at me, trying to make something of myself, then I’ll prove you wrong, Jason. I’ll show you that I can pull myself up out of poverty by my own talent.”
“To be a career woman,” he taunted. “But it will never suit you. You’re too homey, Kate. You like flower gardens and going barefoot in the summer. You’d be right at home surrounded by those squalling preschoolers you don’t think you want. But you won’t admit it.”
She pulled herself erect, her face pale. How could he know that she wanted nothing more than what he’d just described, but she was going to have to settle for the career. Jason didn’t want her for keeps. Only for an afternoon, just long enough to satisfy the hated desire she raised in him. But that loss of control would have been a weakness to him, and he’d fought to overcome it. He had, judging by his impassive expression. “That’s right, Jason,” she replied. “I don’t want children.”
He looked down at her stomach with black eyes. “Least of all mine,” he breathed, his eyes shooting back up as she was about to speak. “And that’s good, Kate, because I’d rather be impotent than risk giving a child to a woman who’s already said that her career comes first. I’ve already seen how a career woman deals with an unwanted baby.”
Kate felt as if he’d slapped her. She stared at him with the pain going all the way to her toes, swallowing her up. She’d made him believe that, she’d told him her career came first. It didn’t, she’d only said it to spare his pride. But to do that, she’d had to sacrifice her own. Tears stung her eyes.
“A career woman can’t afford to be tied down by a child,” she agreed huskily.
His pride felt lacerated. He glared at her. “Then you’d better take a crash course in precautions before you spend another lazy afternoon with a man, honey,” he said. Contempt glittered in his black eyes. “If you’re going to be liberated like all the other free women, then you’d better be prepared for anything. Of course,” he added icily, “there’s always abortion.”
Her hand clenched around the milkshake so hard that it almost ran out the top. “Yes,” she said. “There’s always…that.”
Pain flashed over his face for an instant before he erased it. “So it’s a good thing I didn’t make you pregnant, isn’t it?” he asked harshly.
She swallowed hard. “It’s a good thing you didn’t.”
The sky started spinning around her. She couldn’t know that he was striking out at her in his disappointment and loss, that he didn’t mean a word of what he was saying. She almost threw his own lack of precautions at him, but that was too risky, he might guess about the baby.
“Well, you’ve sure got the makings of a party girl, honey,” he added coldly. “You gave in to me fast enough.”
She closed her eyes. She was getting sicker by the second. She had to make him leave before she fainted and aroused his suspicions.
Her eyes opened and she stared at him furiously. “You lost control, yourself, as I recall,” she threw at him. “And you seemed to enjoy it enough at the time.”
She hit the target. That remark got him in the heart, that attack in his weak spot, his pride. He couldn’t even speak. His black eyes seared into hers for one long, hateful second. Then, without a word, without a single sound, he turned on his heel and got into the Bronco, driving away without looking at her.
Nothing had gone as he’d planned it. He’d meant to feel her out, to see if she cared anything about him, if she’d missed him. Now he had his answer. No, she hadn’t missed him. She was only glad she wasn’t pregnant because she didn’t want him or his child.
He lit a cigarette with eyes that didn’t see and drove blindly toward home, dreams lying dead in his black eyes.
Back at the Whittman house, Kate made it into the bathroom just in time to be agonizingly sick. Remembering Jason’s taunt about preferring impotence to fathering her child made the nausea even worse. Then she remembered what she’d said to him. Tears rolled down her white cheeks. Amazing, that it could be so painful to hurt him, even when he deserved it. The nausea came again, and cramps with it, but she prayed even now that she wouldn’t lose the baby.
Chapter Twelve
It was late afternoon before Kate got over the shock of what Jason had said to her. The harsh speech was totally unexpected. Part of her had believed that everything would be all right when he knew about the baby. But he hadn’t given her the chance to tell him.
She went through the motions of housework, but she was worried about the future. She couldn’t stay in San Frio now. She was going to have to go somewhere else to live, and that might mean the loss of her job. Clayborn had other divisions, though, and perhaps she could work for the one in San Antonio. There would be an apartment to get, and she’d have to be without her mother at a time when she was going to need her desperately. Not that people would gang up and tar and feather her. No, it would be a much more subtle kind of torment than that. Pitying looks. Whispers. The kind of small cuts that killed pride. And not only she and her mother would have to bear it. So would the Donavans, because everyone would know that Jason was the father.
She wondered how she was going to break the news about the argument to her mother. She decided that it would be best to wait until the next day. Mary had borne enough lately. She could have one more good night’s sleep before she knew. She went into the kitchen and started supper, her mind riveted to the future and how she and the baby would cope. If they would. Dr. Harris’s ominous words about the possibility of a miscarriage were still ringing in her ears, complicating her problems. She hadn’t meant what she’d said to Jason, about getting rid of her baby, but if she lost it, those words might come back to haunt her.
Several hours later, Cherry Donavan sat down absently in the dining room where Gene was waiting impatiently for Sheila to serve dinner. He looked up from a book on art, glaring.
“Where have you been?” he grumbled. “First Jason goes off into his study with a bottle of whiskey for supper, and then you vanish.”
“I had to go into San Frio to get my allergy medicine refilled,” Cherry murmured.
“Hey. What’s wrong?” he asked, aware that her expression was deeply troubled, not like her at all.
She sighed. “Oh, Gene,” she whispered, biting her lip as she cast a watchful eye toward the doorway.
“Well?” he asked, impatient now.
“Kate Whittman’s taking prenatal vitamins,” she whispered.
He stared at her without total comprehension. “So?”
“And medication for morning sickness,” she added.
He sat very still, hardly moving at all. “She’s pregnant?”
“Debbie thinks so. She works for Dr. Cadez at the pharmacy. Not that she’d tell just anybody,” she said firmly, “but she knows that Kate and I are friends.” She shrugged. “I never thought Kate would get in trouble. I mean, she hasn’t been near a man in months except…” Her eyes widened like saucers. “Except Jason.”
Gene said something curt under his breath. “I wonder if he knows. He left earlier and when he came back, he took that bottle in there. You know, he hasn’t touched a drop in three years. If Kate had told him, he sure as hell wouldn’t be drinking. He’d be over at her place browbeating her into marriage.” He got up. “You stay here,” he said. “I don’t want you around Jay when he’s sauced up. And keep Sheila out. I may get my nose broken for what I’m about to ask him.”
“Oh, Gene, be carefu
l!”
“Don’t worry, I know how to handle him,” he said, and mentally crossed his fingers.
He went to the study door and knocked gently. He waited, but there wasn’t a sound. He knocked again, louder.
“Hell!” came a rough reply. “Come in.”
He opened the door. Jason was sitting behind the desk with a brandy snifter in his hand, but it didn’t contain brandy. It was filled to the top with whiskey.
“Come right in, little brother,” he said with a cold smile. It was like old times, before Kate had come along to make the hard man laugh. This was the Jason that Gene remembered from childhood, the one who’d shouldered a man’s burden barely out of his teens. The world beater.
Gene closed the door behind him and leaned back against it. Damn it, Jason made him feel like a kid. “You haven’t done that in a while,” he remarked, nodding toward the snifter.
“I haven’t needed to for a while. I need it right now.” He toasted Gene and downed several swallows. “Not bad. It takes the edge off, anyway.”
“Jay, have you seen Kate today?” he asked.
Jason glared at him. His head tilted at an arrogant angle. “Yes, I’ve seen her,” he said curtly.
Gene pushed a little harder. “And…?”
Jason shifted uncomfortably. “She looked straight through me and gave me the rundown on how her career’s taking off, on how rich and famous she’s going to be.” He took another swallow of whiskey. “What the hell do I care. I don’t want some damned career girl. I told her so,” he added with a hard glance in Gene’s direction. “I told her what she could do with her career, and how far.”
Gene’s eyes closed. It was worse than he’d dreamed. They’d argued again, and this time Jay had dug his own grave. Why, Gene didn’t understand. There was a part of Jason Donavan that nobody ever saw; a hidden part that kept secrets of any emotion he might feel. Even Gene didn’t know how he really felt about Kate. He wasn’t that privileged. Only God was.
“Why did you ask me that?” Jason demanded.