The Miracle Man

by Sharon Sala

  “I don’t believe you, you know. You did not love me then. You do not love me now.” She bit her lip and told herself it wouldn’t matter if she lied just this once. “Just like I don’t love you,” she said.

  Even to her own ears, she knew that the lie didn’t sound right, but she couldn’t find it within herself to admit to him that she’d loved him ever since she’d found him in the flooded creek. It was humiliating to be the only one who cared.

  “I don’t care what you believe,” Lane argued. “The truth is, I let you take all the responsibility of precautions and obviously they failed.”

  Oh, Lord, Toni thought. They say that confession is good for the soul. I can’t live with a man under these circumstances and let him think this baby was an accident.

  She took a deep breath.

  “I did it on purpose,” she said, staring at a corner of the carpet design to keep from looking at his face.

  Lane didn’t move—couldn’t move. What she’d said had absolutely dumbfounded him. She couldn’t possibly mean what he thought that she meant.

  “Exactly what did you do on purpose, Toni?”

  “Got pregnant.”

  “My God,” he muttered, and got to his feet with a jerk, staring at her as if she’d lost her mind. “Why? Why would you do that?”

  She shrugged. “I wanted a family. But I knew no man would ever want to marry me. It was the only way I knew how to make one by myself.”

  “Bull!” He tilted her chin to his gaze. “I'm sick and tired of hearing you put yourself down.”

  “It’s true, and we both know it. I wasn’t pretty enough or woman enough, not even for you. You didn’t want to make love to me. You only agreed to it after I asked.”

  “You still don’t get it, do you?” Lane shouted. He was angry. With her, the situation, and even himself. He leaned toward her until they were nearly nose to nose. “My wife died because of me. Our child died because of me.”

  Toni felt his breath on her cheek. His voice shook with each word that he spoke. “And now there’s you. I'm living through this hell all over again when I swore never to put another woman—or myself—in this position.”

  Toni pushed him away and stood. “You are obsessed with something that was never your fault,” she argued. “And as for putting yourself through this again, remember this, mister. I didn’t ask you to marry me. You brought that upon yourself.”

  She stomped out of the room, leaving anger in her wake.

  * * *

  It was nearly midnight. The floorboards creaked beneath Toni’s feet as she rolled out of bed and headed for another trip to the bathroom. Being pregnant had its annoying drawbacks.

  Minutes later, she was still up and wandering through the house, taking comfort in the familiar darkness and the safety within these walls. The baby turned within her belly, rolling so distinctly that she cradled herself and tried not to grunt as it settled with a plop.

  “You can’t sleep, either, can you, baby?” she whispered, and absently rubbed the mound of her stomach as she went to get a drink.

  “Are you all right?”

  The sound of Lane’s voice startled her. She spun at the sink, clutching the glass between them like a talisman against something that she couldn’t name as she peered through the shadows to the dark, bulky shape of the man in the doorway.

  “I came to get a drink,” she said shortly, and turned her back to him, afraid that he could see too much of what was in her heart.

  He moved silently across the room on bare feet, wearing nothing but a pair of cotton briefs, and then stood behind her.

  “Let me,” he said, taking the glass from her hands and running the water long enough to let it cool in the pipes before filling the glass. He handed it to her, and as he did, traced the side of her arm, testing the surface of her skin. “Are you cold? I could turn up the heat.”

  Toni set down the glass with a thump. “Lane, if we're going to get through this together, you are going to have to get over this,” she said. “I can get my own drink of water. If I'm cold, I have enough sense to do something about it. I do not bend, and I will not break.”

  He watched her like a hawk eyeing its prey, but did not speak. Toni glared through the shadows and then took a drink too quickly, coughing on the last gulp and hating him for making her appear so inept. She set the glass down on the counter with another thump.

  “I'm going back to bed.” When he started through the house behind her like a silent but persistent shadow, she couldn’t resist a final dig. “I will be glad when this is over, and you can get back to your own business and leave me to get on with mine.”

  Lane stopped short. It was the first time since they had started this travesty of a marriage that he realized she thought it was going to come and go.

  “No way, lady,” he said shortly. “That’s not the way this is going to work. I'm not here just until the baby is born. I'm here forever. The sooner you get used to that, the better off we'll both be.”

  Toni’s heart raced. The surface of her skin suddenly felt cold and clammy as shock slid into her system. And while she tried to think of something to say, Lane walked past her and crawled back into the bed. But he wasn’t alone long.

  She ripped back the covers on her side of the bed and then crawled in on her knees. “What do you mean, you're here forever?”

  “It’s late. We'll talk tomorrow,” he said, then reached up and pulled her down against him, moving her without her permission until she was safe and snug beneath the covers.

  “Be still,” he mumbled, when she would have resisted his embrace, and shifted his hand from her arm, letting it slide over her belly, then cupping the mound beneath with a tenderness that brought tears to her eyes.

  “I hate you,” Toni whispered, and knew that she lied.

  “No, you don’t, Antonette,” he said softly. “It’s yourself that you hate.”

  She lay still beneath his touch because she knew she had no choice. And she heard what he’d said because it was the truth. She did hate herself. For being less than a woman. And for practicing a deliberate deception.

  Chapter 15

  Within the first week of their marriage, Lane had tied up nearly every loose end of his life prior to Toni. His request for an extended leave of absence from his job had been received with shock by all who knew him, but granted nevertheless. He had sublet his apartment, transferred his bank accounts, both savings and checking, to the bank in Chaney, and yesterday his car and the rest of his clothes had arrived via two lawmen who had volunteered to bring it all out on the way to their annual hunting trip in Kentucky.

  But he had yet to confront the balance of Toni’s family or the doctor in charge of her care. The family would have to wait. Lane was determined that Dr. Cross tell him to his face that she was not in danger. Accompanying her to her next appointment was high on his list of things to do.

  * * *

  The phone rang sharply in the hall, breaking the quiet with a persistence that sent Toni scrambling to answer. She picked up on the fourth ring and was gasping for breath when she lifted the receiver to her ear. “Hello?”

  “What’s wrong?” Justin asked. “You sound like you're out of breath.”

  Toni leaned against the wall and pressed her hand to her chest, trying to slow down the rapid thump of her heartbeat.

  “I am, you dolt,” she said lightly. “I can’t even walk without puffing, never mind running for the phone.”

  “You shouldn’t be running,” Justin said shortly. “You might fall.”

  Toni sighed. “Justin, for once, have pity on me and give it a rest. I hear caution on a daily basis now, you know.”

  “No, I don’t know anything about what’s going on over there anymore,” he said, sounding slightly aggrieved.

  “It’s probably just as well that you don’t,” she muttered, and didn’t realize that she’d spoken aloud.

  She saw Lane out of the corner of her eye and tried not to stare. If he would on
ly put on more clothes after his shower, she would be able to cope with his presence in a more dignified fashion. In her mind it wasn’t seemly to be so ungainly with child, and still so in lust for the man who had fathered it. She kept waiting for her nesting instincts to replace the ones that had gotten her into this mess, but they were lost somewhere in the memory of making love to a gentle giant.

  Lane watched her from the hallway, and thought that she grew more beautiful with every day. Hiding his feelings was difficult, but imperative. Telling her that she was loved before she believed that she was worthy was not a wise move. Not after all that had come and gone between them during the past week.

  After a lifetime in sunny Florida, the shock of a Tennessee winter and the warm woman he held each night without possibility of loving was making him slightly insane. Coupled with that, each day he was reliving a hell on earth just by watching her body grow bigger with a child that he’d caused, a child that he still believed might kill her. He was not a happy man.

  Toni turned away from the intensity of Lane’s gaze and realized that Justin had stopped talking. She hoped that he had not been waiting for an answer to a question that she hadn’t heard.

  “So, Justin, other than a small dose of guilt, which, by the way, remind me to thank you for later, was there anything else you wanted me to know?”

  “I was just making sure you had someone to take you to your doctor’s appointment today. And,” he added, “Judy wanted me to invite you...and the lawman...to come to dinner this weekend after church. Everyone will be here.”

  Toni wanted to say no, but there was really no point in delaying the inevitable. Her family already knew Lane as the man she’d saved from the flood, and who later had saved her life. But they had yet to meet him on personal ground as the newest member of the Hatfield clan. The implications of what might happen when they got together boggled, but she knew the time had come.

  “I suppose we could,” she said.

  Lane paused in the doorway, wearing nothing but a towel and giving her a look that she didn’t want to interpret. He was her husband in name only, but she still felt obligated to inform him of the invitation.

  “Justin has invited us to dinner the day after tomorrow. Is there a reason why we can’t go?”

  Lane grinned at the flush on her face, letting his gaze rake her lush, pregnant curves from top to bottom, then shook his head slowly from side to side.

  “Not one I can do anything about,” he whispered for her ears alone.

  Toni inhaled sharply and spun away from his taunting look. Why he kept flirting with her while she was in this...condition was beyond her comprehension. She’d always imagined that men would be turned off at the thought of hugging a whale. She hated pretense, and she was convinced that he was only being nice to her because he was a nice man, not because he really cared a damn about her. She had, after all, deceived him four ways from Sunday.

  “We'll be there,” she said. “And Lane’s going to the doctor with me, so I don’t need you to ride sidesaddle anymore.”

  “Well, if you ever need me, Judy and I are just a phone call away,” he muttered, and hung up the phone.

  Toni replaced the receiver with a sigh. Her brother was feeling rejected, but she didn’t have time to pamper his ego, not when Lane kept putting himself in her direct line of vision.

  “Aren’t you ever going to get dressed?” she grumbled. “We'll be late for my appointment.”

  Lane grinned. “No, we won’t. But just to make you happy...” He came so close to her that she could smell the scent of soap still fresh on his skin. “I'll go put on some clothes. I wouldn’t want to make you mad.” He leaned down and kissed the tip of her ear. “I like to keep my women happy.”

  “And you're very good at it, too, aren’t you? Comes from extreme amounts of practice, I would assume.”

  She glared at him, almost begging him to deny what she’d implied, that he’d had so many women that he was highly adept at keeping them satisfied. But he did nothing but arch an eyebrow and stare intently at the curve of her lower lip.

  “You're very beautiful when you're angry, did you know that?” He tilted her chin just enough to catch the light from the window behind him and knew that she was in shock by what he’d said. “It makes those little gold flecks in your eyes almost burn. And your nostrils flare, just like they do when you make love. It’s a sexy thing to see, Antonette. I hope you know you're making me hurt all over.”

  Oh, my God. I can almost...almost believe he means that.

  She slapped his hand away and pushed him toward the bedroom door. “Just put on some clothes and quit lying through your teeth. I don’t need to hear all of this, and I damn sure don’t believe it.”

  Lane groaned softly with want. Ignoring the pout on her mouth, he leaned down and kissed her, savoring the connection as deeply as if it had been their bodies and not their lips that had joined.

  “But you will,” he whispered as he reluctantly released her from the kiss. “One of these days you will believe everything I tell you.” If it isn’t too late, he thought. If I haven’t already killed you and we just don’t know it.

  “I'll be ready in a few minutes.” He ran a finger down the straight of her nose. “You know what? You don’t have any more lipstick on, honey.” He winked as he walked away.

  Toni held the memory of that kiss and his wink long after they had ended, and reminded herself not to make so much of the lust that she’d seen in his eyes. It had to have been her imagination.

  * * *

  As usual, the doctor’s office was crowded. Women in various stages of pregnancy sat or sprawled, as their conditions demanded, upon the waiting room chairs while herding their other offspring with weary eyes.

  Lane tried to find a place for himself among this all-female show, but considering the location, and his size, it wasn’t easy. His legs stuck out in the aisle, and his shoulders bunched as he tried to make himself as small as possible.

  At this point in their lives, no matter what their marital status, these women were almost past appreciating the male of the species. But Lane Monday was a hard man to ignore, and so he suffered more than one speculative glance.

  Toni checked in, quietly giving the receptionist the new information regarding her name change. But a half hour later when the nurse announced the name of Toni Monday, and the woman everyone had known during the past few months as Toni Hatfield stood, the women grinned.

  “Way to go, girl,” one woman said, and wiggled her eyebrows at Toni and appreciatively eyed Lane’s long legs and backside as they passed.

  “Good grief,” Lane muttered, and sighed with relief as they bypassed the waiting room for an examining room instead.

  Toni hid a grin. It was the first time in their entire relationship that she’d seen him ill at ease. She wanted to laugh at it all. At his unwarranted fears regarding the child. At the way fate had intervened with her plans. But she wouldn’t laugh in the face of fate. Not anymore. She’d come to realize that she was no good at playing God with people’s lives. She’d tried to have a child without the father’s knowledge and look what had happened. She’d ruined his future as well as her future plans. She’d planned on being a mother, not a wife. In her mind the two had still not mixed.

  “Just have a seat,” the nurse said. “Dr. Cross will be with you shortly.”

  The moment that they entered the confines of the sterile-looking room, Lane started to sweat. There were too many ugly memories associated with baby doctors and hospitals for him to relax.

  Toni recognized his agitation and suspected its cause. Instinctively, she sought a way to make his fears a little easier to bear.

  “It will be fine,” she said softly, and patted his arm without thinking that she’d initiated a contact she’d sworn not to make.

  Lane covered her hand with his own, and then caught it to his lips, pressing a kiss on the palm of her hand before pulling his chair as close to hers as it could get.

 
“God, Toni, you just don’t understand. You keep saying that I should look at you and know that you can handle anything. Well, look at me for a change. See me and know the truth. I'm so big, Toni. Maybe too big. I sire children just like me.”

  She shuddered and wanted to throw her arms around him. But that would be admitting to herself, as well as to him, that she couldn’t do this alone.

  “I certainly hope so,” she said. “I always wanted a child with blue eyes.”

  Lane’s eyes widened, and a slight smile spread across his face. “You are so damned hardheaded, aren’t you?”

  She shrugged, trying to think of an answer that was close to the truth; then the doctor entered the room and saved her from lying.

  “Miss Hatfield, I see you're—”

  “Mrs. Monday,” Toni said, correcting him at the same instant that the doctor noticed Lane. “Dr. Cross, this is my husband, Lane Monday. And he seems to believe that I will die having this child.”

  The shock of her statement stayed with Dr. Cross as he watched the man unfold himself from the chair and then stand to shake his hand. He looked up, then up some more.

  “Mr. Monday, it’s a pleasure,” he said, and waved for them to sit as he dropped onto his stool. “And what exactly is it that causes such fears? Your wife is as healthy a patient as I've ever had.”

  “I've already lost one woman I got in this condition, that’s why,” Lane growled. “Now, you tell me that it’s not going to happen again.”

  “I don’t understand,” the doctor said.

  “His first wife died trying to give birth. The baby was too big, and she didn’t survive the shock of other complications. Because of his size, Lane blames himself.”

  “A common, but unfortunate, misconception,” the doctor said. He smiled at Lane as if to ease his words. “You are definitely a big man. But all big men start out as small babies.”

  “Not always so small. I weighed eleven pounds when I was born,” Lane said. “My first wife wife died trying to give birth to a seven-and-a-half-month preemie that weighed nearly ten pounds. Talk me out of this. I need to believe you,” Lane said.