by Lilian Darcy
Time to bite the bullet.
From the neat little house in Biggins which she’d been renting since the move, she called Seven Mile as soon as she could. The phone number hadn’t changed, which churned her up a little. She spoke to Lon, who was currently acting as ranch manager on a trial basis. He told her that Lucas was out helping the other hands haul the firewood up to the cabin. He should be back within the hour, for lunch.
Grabbing coat and hat and gloves, she jumped into the brand-new pickup Dad had bought for her after the sale, and drove out along familiar roads that she hadn’t seen in nearly a month. The ranch always looked so beautiful to her eyes at this time of year after the early falls of snow, with icicles bearded on the fence wires and the fields glistening white.
This morning the sun shone, making the trunks of the cottonwood trees near the river look silvery yellow. On the mountain slopes that faced south, some of the new snow had already melted from the dark rocks, making patterns of contrasting color. A herd of cattle in the Lower Creek Field gave color to the landscape, also. She could have climbed through the fence, run to them across the snow and greeted them like old friends.
When she pulled up in front of the house, tires squeaking on the compacted snow, Lucas had just gotten in. He had an opened can of soup in his hand, and his nose still looked red from the cold.
If he was happy about seeing her again, or if he’d have preferred her a thousand miles away with their sizzling connection safely in the past, neither emotion showed. But then, she didn’t give much away, either, as she shook the snow off her boots and entered the warmth and familiarity of the kitchen. She didn’t want him to guess how nervous and churned up she felt.
She couldn’t help looking around. Easier than looking at Lucas. She saw new furniture, fairly plain but not cheap, and evidence of Lon’s businesslike bachelor existence—lots of newspapers and boots. Lon himself wasn’t around right now, which helped.
“See?” Lucas said. “It’s still standing. Want to inspect the place?”
“That’s not why I’m here.”
“No, I didn’t think it was, but—” He stopped, looked at her, waited for a moment, then added, “Want some soup? Grilled cheese sandwich?”
Her mouth began to water in a flood, another pregnancy symptom. She sat heavily in a chair that someone had pulled out from the table earlier. She should have eaten before she came here, because an empty stomach plus the thought of food equalled nausea, in seconds.
She only nodded at Lucas’s offer of food, because she needed to overcome the nausea before she could speak.
He could tell something was wrong. He shook the can-shaped blob of soup into an already overheated cooking pot and it began to hiss, but he didn’t stir it. Instead he stood in front of the stove, denim-clad legs slightly apart, shirt sleeves rolled, eyes watchful.
She went hot, remembering how stunningly good his body had felt under her hands, and how good it had tasted, during the four wild days of their affair. She remembered how well they’d talked, too, and how much they’d laughed, safe within the limits they’d set on what was happening.
But then the nausea intervened again, and he became purely the near-stranger who’d fathered all these astonishing new feelings inside her.
“I’m pregnant, Lucas,” she said.
A beat of silence filled the air, then, “Hu-u-h, what? What?” She could almost feel his scalp prickling and his heart rate speeding up.
“That first time up at the cabin, six weeks ago, before we used—”
“Okay.” He whooshed out a long breath. “Okay.”
He must have gone dizzy with reaction, or limp, or something, because he wheeled around and bent over the bench top, the soup can still in his hand, and leaned his weight on his forearms. The jagged can lid stuck up at an angle, attached to the rim at one point, and Reba had a ridiculous fear that he would cut himself. She almost went to extricate the can from his grip, but the nausea held her in place, and before she could move, he spoke again.
“You said it wasn’t possible, that day. Didn’t you?”
“I thought it wasn’t. I guess I know too much about cow biology and not enough about my own.” The humor didn’t work.
“Have you decided what you’re going to do?” He straightened slowly, and put the can down at last. The soup hissed and bubbled and threatened to burn.
“Is there any decision to make?” she said. “I’m having a baby, in around seven months. Our baby.”
“So what have you decided to do?” he repeated. “Will you keep it?” His voice was careful.
So was hers, hiding a growing anger. “You don’t want any input in this, obviously.”
Silence. She could see his mind ticking over.
“You’ve had just a little more time to think about it than I have. Don’t forget that, Reba,” he said.
The words came out low and heartfelt and oddly gentle, and she knew she’d been wrong to react with anger. Her heart flipped suddenly. She never would have slept with him if she hadn’t believed him to be a lot more than just a hardheaded business man, and she should remember that.
Cling to it, even.
Count on it?
“Don’t jump to any conclusions, okay?” he added.
“I—I’ll try.”
She waited some more, her head buzzing and her body stiff and still queasy. “Do you consider that I have the right to any input?” he finally asked.
“It’s not about rights, is it? It’s about what you want, what you feel.”
“No, I think it’s about rights.”
The word sounded arid, and it disappointed her, but she answered carefully, “Okay.”
“The baby’s rights. Yours. Mine. In that order, probably. The baby—” He broke off, gave a laugh that was almost a bark, as if the word baby was the punch line to some kind of twisted joke, then tried again. “The baby—sheesh!—will be shaped by whatever we decide. And you’re the one who has to go through the physical part.” He gave her a sharp, assessing glance. “Looks like you’re going through some of it now.”
She had her mouth hidden behind a fist, and only just managed to tell him, “Soup would help.”
“Right.” He turned to the stove, added the cup of water, at last, and began to stir.
The appetizing beefy smell reached her, and her mouth filled again. She was grateful that he didn’t try for any more conversation until he’d set a steaming bowl in front of her, along with a spoon and a packet of oyster crackers.
He put a hand on her shoulder, and gave a caress that was rough and tender at the same time.
“I only know one thing, right now,” he said. “We’re going to make something good out of this, for the baby’s sake. We’ve created a life, out of one pretty amazing afternoon, and we’re not going to wreck it. That’s about rights, not feelings. We just don’t have the right to wreck our baby’s life.”
Reba burst into tears.
Lucas opened the door to her the next morning with his ear pressed to his cordless phone.
“Hang on a second, John,” he said into it, then to Reba, “Can I sit you in the kitchen, get you something to drink, or whatever and finish this call?”
“Just a glass of water, thanks.”
She sat and sipped, trying to focus on the light November snowflakes falling outside. Lucas disappeared toward the bedroom end of the house to finish his call. Tension had brought her first trimester nausea to its height, however, and the water wasn’t enough. Breakfast wouldn’t stick around for much longer.
She dove for the bathroom.
Five minutes later, feeling a lot better, she found a clean towel in the linen closet and pressed it to her face, which felt cold and tight from the freezing tap water she’d splashed onto it. Breathing deep, careful breaths, she heard the creak of floorboards as Lucas paced back and forth in her parents old bedroom, still on the phone.
People couldn’t keep still when they talked on a cordless telephone. Reba had notic
ed this before, and Lucas seemed to be a worse offender than most. His voice came and went as he did figure eights between the bed, the closet and the partially open doorway. He must have heard her fleeing to the bathroom, but maybe he didn’t realize she was still here.
“Yeah, that makes sense,” she heard him say, then a moment later, “You’re right, John. I want to take action on this. I want to do it. All I can do is put forward the idea, and see what she says.” He listened for a bit, pacing as before. “Thanks. I’ll be in touch soon, obviously.” Another pause to listen. “You’ve been great on this. Take care, now. Bye.”
Reba didn’t try to hide the fact that she’d been close enough to hear his decisive voice. Lucas came out of the bedroom and she waited for him, leaning a hand on the wall of the corridor.
“You okay?” he asked, stopping in front of her. They hadn’t gotten this close to each other, yesterday. Not face to face, anyhow.
“Uh, yeah. Getting used to it.” She sighed. “Getting tired of it.”
“It’s normal, right?”
“According to the book.”
“You haven’t seen the doctor yet?”
“I have an appointment.”
“You need someone to take care of you. You can have me, if you want.”
He reached out and brushed his forefinger gently down her nose. Clearly he wasn’t sure that she’d react well to the contact. When she didn’t turn her head away, he slipped a strand of hair behind her ear and touched her neck, looking deep into her eyes.
She’d forgotten what a liquid, golden amber his were, and how much they’d had the power to stir her. She felt a wash of powerful emotion that stunned her and made her want to cry.
“I can have you?” she echoed, wits turned to cotton wool, legs as substantial as a ghost’s. “In what sense, are we talking about?”
“To take care of you. To make sure you have what you need, and that everything’s okay. I want to marry you, Reba.” Before she could answer, he added, “That is, I think it would be a good idea.”
“Why?”
“Lots of reasons. The rights of the baby should probably go at the top of the list, and your security a close second. And I’m there in the mix, too. We’d need to recognize that we haven’t known each other long enough to make any promises about commitment. We’d want to draw up an agreement that would spell it all out, allow for the realistic possibility of divorce.”
“Hmm, that’s romantic. If we’re allowing for divorce, why get married in the first place?”
“Don’t you think you might want that for your child someday?” he said. “The emotional security of knowing that his or her parents were once married, even if it didn’t last? If we don’t get married, how many questions are you prepared to answer about our relationship, when our son or daughter is old enough to ask?”
“A lot of women have babies on their own.”
“A lot of those women might jump at the chance to secure their baby’s future by getting married, if the chance was offered. Yesterday, I needed time to think before we talked. Today, that’s what you need.”
“I— Yes.”
“Think about it, Reba. Take some time. Don’t make a decision right away. Just know that I’ve considered the idea, and I really want to do this.”
He touched her face again, and for a moment she thought he was going to kiss her, touch that gorgeous mouth to her lips. They couldn’t get enough of each other, two months ago. She’d lost count of how often they’d made love over those days. Oh, she could call it to mind so clearly!
Now, everything was different. Biting winds and snow on the ground, instead of Indian summer and thick, warm air. She had a different house and a new car and a future so unplanned for that she could only take it one day at a time.
Without having kissed her, not even wanting to kiss her, apparently, or not deeming it wise, Lucas had just proposed that they should bite off a whole chunk of future together and swallow it whole.
“You’re right,” Reba said. “I need to think.”
She felt as if he’d offered her back the ranch, but she couldn’t afford to think that way. The ranch belonged to his father’s corporation, not to him. There was probably a whole complicated tangle of legal stuff relating to the Halliday Corporation. She wasn’t getting the ranch back, and neither was her unborn child.
Lucas had talked about rights, not emotions.
“I need to think,” she said again, even less steadily.
“Look, can I come into town tonight and pick you up? We’ll drive into Laramie, or even Cheyenne, find some place quiet to eat where half the county isn’t going to stop by at our table to say hello. If you’ve made a decision by then, we can talk about the implications.”
“If I haven’t?”
“If you haven’t, we can…just talk. We’re having a baby together. We don’t feel badly toward one another. We should be able to forge a connection that’s going to work at least as far as doing the best we can for our child.”
She nodded, and closed her eyes. “Dinner tonight? I’d like that. Okay.”
“Are you? Okay, I mean. You look—”
This time, she didn’t let him touch her, but stepped back. “You want me to cry again, right, like yesterday? I don’t think I can deal with too much tenderness from you right now, Lucas, without launching a flood. It’s nothing personal. It’s hormones.”
She got out of there with a small amount of dignity still intact, went home, freshened up and phoned Carla, to ask if she could cover for her at the steakhouse tonight. Carla knew about the pregnancy, and she knew the baby wasn’t Gordie’s. So far, she’d managed not to ask whose it was. Reba loved her to death for that alone, but planned to tell her the truth soon.
“Sure, I can cover for you,” Carla said. “Everything okay?”
“Um, is it normal for there to be a little bleeding at this stage? I had some this morning. No pain, or anything.”
Carla let a beat of silence go by before she replied. “It can be. It depends.”
“On what?”
“On whether there’s anything else happening.”
“Nothing seems to be.”
“Then it’s probably fine. But you should get it checked out.”
“Yeah?” Tell me not to panic, Carla, she thought. No matter what happens with Lucas, I want this baby. I want it more with every day that passes.
“Don’t panic, hon.”
“Okay, then, I won’t. Mind reader!”
“Take it easy. Let me take your shifts for the rest of the week.”
“That sounds like panicking, to me.”
“It’s playing safe.”
Reba almost asked Carla about Lucas’s marriage proposal, also.
If she accepted it, would that be playing safe? In the end, she said nothing on the subject to her friend, just finished up the call with her emotions and her stomach still tight and churning.
Across the restaurant table from Reba that night, Lucas felt uncomfortably detached, split.
He’d orchestrated this evening with the finesse he’d been trained in most of his life. He’d chosen Cheyenne’s best restaurant, and ordered champagne, even though he’d correctly guessed that Reba wouldn’t drink more than a few sips. He’d bought her flowers and a gold and diamond bracelet—one that could be easily matched to an engagement ring later, if she wanted one.
She hadn’t given him her answer, yet, although he was pretty confident she’d say yes.
He wanted to marry her, in the same way he always wanted to finalize a new acquisition to the Halliday corporate portfolio—because it made economic sense, and because it put him in control.
His lawyer and good friend John had laid out the facts very clearly on the phone today. Lucas would be legally obligated to contribute to the child’s support whether married to its mother or not. And, barring a deliberate decision to disinherit in favor of someone else, the baby would be his legal heir. Far better to have it bear the Halliday name, an
d the cocooning sense of family approval that marriage would bring.
Given these advantages accruing to her as-yet-unborn child, Reba would surely want the marriage for the same reasons. Her baby’s financial security would belong to it by right, instead of potentially needing to be fought for, with proof of paternity.
Still, Lucas wasn’t so crass or so unwise as to overlook the traditional trimmings, and he wondered what level of intimacy the package should include. Tender words, and promises?
Reba looked so beautiful tonight, in a dark red dress that skimmed breasts already noticeably fuller, from pregnancy, than the last time he’d touched them. Since the rest of her body had shed a few pounds, she no longer had the figure of a work-toughened rancher’s daughter, but looked more like the artificially voluptuous, gym slimmed women he was accustomed to.
She still moved the same way she used to, however, still smelled the same, and smiled the same and had the same incredible eyes. He wanted her with an impatient intensity that was almost like pain. It gripped him, wouldn’t let him go, and wasn’t dampened one iota by the fact that she seemed oblivious to it.
Locked away in the discomfort of early pregnancy, she didn’t hunger for him as she had back in September. What would happen if he leaned across the table and brushed his mouth across those soft lips? Would he ignite the flaming responsiveness in her that he remembered so well? Or would she turn away?
Keep some control, Lucas, he coached himself. Feelings aren’t relevant. We’re only talking about what’s right for our child.
As he watched, she put down her fork and stared at her plate, still half-filled. She rose a little in her seat, then sat again, frowning.
“What’s the matter, Reba?”
“I think I need the bathroom.” She pushed her chair back so roughly that it skewed sideways and hit the wall. Her face crumpled, but he only glimpsed her expression for a fraction of a second before she turned her back. Racing blindly for the bathroom, she bent forward at an angle, with her forearm curved across her lower stomach.