by Cindy Kirk
Feeling as awkward as a fifteen-year-old, David rapped lightly on the partially closed door then pushed it open.
July sat in the bed with a tray of food before her, dressed in a simple hospital gown. She wasn’t show-stopping pretty, not like Celeste, but there was something compelling about her. Though she couldn’t be more than five foot three, with her big green eyes, shoulder-length auburn hair and a creamy complexion, she’d stand out in any crowd.
If she was surprised to see him, it didn’t show. She placed the dish of orange gelatin on the tray and stared at the red stitching on his lab coat. “I thought your name was spelled W-A-L-L.”
Relief washed over him. She remembered his name…even if she was off on the spelling. In the delivery room he hadn’t been sure she’d recognized him. And he hadn’t known how to ask.
“Because it’s pronounced the same, lots of people get the spelling wrong.” He ambled to the bed, hoping the tension that held him in a stranglehold didn’t show. “What’s this I hear? The nurses tell me you haven’t even been here twenty-four hours and you’re already asking when you can leave.”
“My insurance policy has a high deductible.” She lifted her chin. “I’m a cost-conscious consumer.”
David rocked back on his heels and cursed his insensitivity. The comment had been meant to tease, to break the ice, not make her feel bad. “If you need financial assistance, we have a wonderful social service department. I can have someone stop—”
“You misunderstand,” she interrupted. “I have savings. I just want to keep as much of it as possible.”
“Of course. Excellent. Well, if you change your mind, let me know.” David found himself stumbling over the words. Normally he could talk to anyone about anything. But here he stood, tongue-tied and awkward. Feeling this unsure didn’t make any sense. Neither did her coolness. After all, they’d parted on good terms.
“Barring anything unforeseen, you should be able to go home tomorrow,” he said finally when the silence grew intolerable. “One of our home health nurses will check on you twenty-four hours after you leave the hospital. It’s an extra service we offer.”
July’s emerald eyes took on a distant look. “I’ll need to buy a car seat and then come back for Adam—”
“When you leave here you need to take it easy,” he said in a firm voice, as if she were one of his patients. “The baby will be staying with us for a while longer so there’s no rush on the car seat.”
“The nurses told me he was doing fine.” Fear skittered across her face and her eyes filled with tears. “Has something happened to him?”
“He’s a little jaundiced. Not unexpected in a preemie,” David said in what he hoped was a reassuring tone. Though he didn’t have a lot to do with obstetrics, the hormone surge experienced after delivery was well-documented. He should have chosen his words more carefully.
“When my water broke, I knew it was too early.” Her voice cracked and she collapsed back against the pillows, looking much younger than her twenty-six years. “I couldn’t stop it. Everything went so fast…”
“There wasn’t anything you could have done differently.” He resisted the urge to pat her on the shoulder. “Your body was ready to deliver when you walked through the door.”
“I don’t know how that happened,” July continued, almost to herself. “The doctor swore I’d go late.”
“What was your due date?” David asked in as casual a tone as he could muster.
“April 15.”
The tension that had been gripping his shoulders slid to his chest. He’d been calculating dates in his mind from the moment he’d recognized her name on the medical record and had seen her swollen belly. If she was due the middle of April she’d had to have gotten pregnant around the time they’d been together in Chicago. Though he thought he was doing a good job at keeping his emotions from his face, he knew he’d failed when her gaze narrowed.
“Don’t worry.” She waved a hand. “He’s not your baby.”
“How can you be sure he’s not mine?” The second the question shot from his lips David wondered if he’d lost his mind. She’d just handed him a free pass and he was arguing? But a man didn’t walk away from his responsibilities. “The dates match.”
“We used a condom,” she reminded him. “Every time.”
“Are you telling me you had unprotected sex with someone else around that time?”
“Look.” She shoved the tray table out of the way and leaned forward. “The Sir Galahad act is unnecessary. Adam is not your son.”
She sounded sincere. What she said made sense. But he remembered that night as if it were yesterday. There had been nothing practiced in her responses, which told him she hadn’t been with a man in a while. Yet now she expected him to believe she’d spent the night with him then promptly went out and had sex with another guy? It was possible, but something in his gut told him she was lying.
He didn’t like doubting her. She’d impressed him from the onset as being one of those people who told it as she saw it. He’d liked that about her.
David opened his mouth to ask one of half a dozen questions poised on the tip of his tongue, but shut it without speaking. The set of her jaw told him he wasn’t going to get anything more from her. At least not by going the direct route.
He rocked back on his heels. “Are you really going to call him Adam?”
“What’s wrong with it?”
David hid a smile at the challenge in her tone. Feisty. That was another of the qualities that had drawn him to her in that hotel bar. “When I was a boy our next door neighbors had two bulldogs. One named Adam. The other, Eve.”
“Well, I have a good friend named Adam and he’s definitely not a dog.”
A good friend? By the caring in her tone…definitely. But more? David fought an unexpected surge of jealousy, before remembering she hadn’t even given this guy’s name as an emergency contact. “How’d you meet? Neighbors?”
July lifted a shoulder in an unconcerned shrug. “Foster care.”
Just when he thought he was beginning to get a handle on her, she’d surprised him again. Without waiting for an invitation, David dropped to sit on the edge of her bed. “You never told me you grew up in foster care.”
“If you remember, once we got to your room we didn’t do much talking.”
David thought back. She was right. Once that hotel door had clicked shut and they’d hit the bed there hadn’t been much conversation. Lots of moaning but not much intelligible communication. But had she forgotten how they’d sat in the hotel bar for hours doing nothing but talking?
“We discussed all sorts of things before that,” David insisted. “Triathlon training. Best Indie Horror movies. Food favorites.”
“We talked about our likes and dislikes,” July reminded him. “But we shared very little about our personal lives.”
He paused for a moment and realized she was right. She hadn’t mentioned anything about her childhood. And he hadn’t mentioned he’d had a wife who’d died. “Foster care couldn’t have been easy.”
An unreadable look filled her eyes. “What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.”
Those horrible days after the car accident flashed before him. Though David didn’t feel stronger, at least he no longer dwelled on something that couldn’t be changed. “I’m surprised you weren’t adopted.”
Instead of a quick comeback, she paused, her green eyes dark. “It was…complicated.”
“Tell me,” he urged when she didn’t continue.
She shook her head. When the bulldog set to her jaw returned he knew she’d shared all she was going to on the matter.
“How did you end up here anyway?” Her gaze narrowed. “When we met, you were supposedly living in Minneapolis and planning to move to Chicago.”
“No supposedly about it. I was working at Hennepin but had accepted the position at Rush when you and I talked.” David shifted his gaze out the window and let it linger on the snowy mountain peaks
in the distance.
He’d felt so lost after Celeste’s death. So alone. Unable to shake the sadness, he’d moved to the Twin Cities, hoping a change of scene would help. It hadn’t. He’d been planning another move, this time to Chicago, the night he’d met July.
“What happened?” she asked.
“I had lunch with an old friend the day after we…were together. We’d known each other a long time. He knew my—” David paused “—situation. After talking to him I realized that being in Jackson—with my family—was where I belonged.”
“Please, don’t let me keep you from your family,” she said, her green eyes as cool as her tone.
“I still have a few minutes.” David needed to get to his nephew’s party but just like the last time they were together, he found himself reluctant to leave her. “How did your friend Adam respond when you called and gave him the good news?”
“I haven’t been able to reach him,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone.
The announcement over the PA system advised visitors it was time to leave. David glanced at the clock on the wall. Ten minutes to get to his sister’s house. Ten minutes or he was in the doghouse for life. He rose to his feet. “I’d better go.”
She didn’t say another word, merely gave him a polite smile, the kind you’d give a casual acquaintance you didn’t plan to see again.
“I’ll check on you tomorrow,” he promised even as he edged closer to the door, still reluctant to leave. “See how you’re feeling, make sure you’re up to going home.”
“There’s no need—”
The door swung open and an older staff nurse, who’d worked for the hospital since David had been a baby, stepped into the room, a blue-wrapped bundle in her arms. “Mrs. Greer, you have a visitor.”
David saw July flinch at the “Mrs.” but she didn’t correct the woman. Instead her green eyes widened and her gaze remained riveted on the baby.
The gray-haired nurse stopped when she saw David. “Dr. Wahl. I didn’t mean to interrupt. I didn’t realize you were still here.”
“It’s fine. I was on my way out.” David knew his sister and family were waiting. Knew his nephews would refuse to start the party until he got there. Even so, he took an extra second to linger and admire the baby that very easily could be his.
“Thanks for coming tonight.” Mary Karen Vaughn stood beside David on the porch of the large two-story white clapboard she shared with her three sons, their maternal grandmother, Fern, and supersized cockapoo, Henry. “Logan was so excited to see you.”
“Three little boys throwing cake at each other.” David winked. “Wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”
Actually, this evening the terrible trio had been fairly well-behaved. And the war-whoop the twins and Logan had let loose when he’d walked through the door had warmed his heart. Of course, with his parents on a European cruise, his only competition was Granny Fern. And while the boys loved their great-grandmother, they’d stuck tight to his side all evening.
After the spaghetti had been eaten and the two candles blown out on the cake, Granny had gone to her room for some well-needed “shut-eye.” Last week she’d tripped over the dog and cracked a rib.
Though Granny loved helping with the boys and watching them while Mary Karen worked an occasional shift at the hospital, David worried about her. The older woman needed more rest than she was able to get in this busy household. That was one of the reasons he’d stayed and helped Mary Karen get the boys bathed and in bed. But that wasn’t the only reason. Keeping busy kept thoughts of July at bay.
“You’re so good with the boys.” Mary Karen turned to the rail and stared out into the darkness. Far off in the distance, a coyote wailed. She pulled her coat tight around her. “You and Celeste should have had children.”
Celeste had liked Mary Karen as much as she’d liked anyone in Jackson, but David knew his sister had hoped more closeness would come when they had children in common.
David wasn’t sure it would have made a difference. Celeste had been so different from his down-to-earth sister. Different than most of the women in Jackson. He smiled. His wife had been a hothouse rose in a field of wildflowers.
It wasn’t an exaggeration to say Celeste had been the most beautiful woman in Jackson. Men would stop on the street and stare when she walked by. She’d been a city girl to the core, a woman who’d loved shopping, travel and him. When they’d left California and moved to Jackson, she’d kept her job as a marketing rep for a company based in Los Angeles. He’d worried about her being on the road so much, but accepted the fact that she loved her job too much to quit.
Then two years ago, on her way to the airport for a business trip, her sports car had been broadsided by a drunk driver. She’d been killed instantly. When he’d heard the news, a part of him had died with her.
At the time Mary Karen had just delivered Logan. Connor and Caleb, the twins, had just turned two. While his sister’s household had always been chaotic, to add to her stress, her husband of three years had started making noises that he’d rather be single.
“I wish we’d had a baby, too,” David murmured into the quiet stillness. “But we wanted to wait for just the right moment. We thought we had all the time in the world.”
The darkness surrounding them made it easier to speak of the past.
“I think we’ve both learned there are no guarantees. Life can be going along just fine then poof…everything changes.” The pain in her voice made David long to slam a fist into his ex-brother-in-law’s face.
“You’re right.” David reached down absently and scratched the head of Henry, the large cockapoo standing beside him.
“But change isn’t always bad,” Mary Karen said, her optimistic nature shining above the gloom. “Sometimes it can be good. Unexpected doesn’t always mean unwanted.”
David thought of the woman in the maternity wing and the baby boy who slumbered in the nursery. His baby? Or the child of another man?
He hadn’t planned on being a father, but if that child was his, he wouldn’t walk away. Because like his sister had said…just because something was unexpected, didn’t mean it was unwanted.
Chapter Three
July pulled on her maternity jeans and slipped a dark green cotton shirt over her head. Although she’d gained only twenty pounds with this pregnancy—and had lost a good chunk of it yesterday—she wasn’t quite ready for skinny jeans and a fitted sweater. Thankfully most of the simple styles she’d purchased while pregnant didn’t have a “maternity” look.
But dealing with clothes was the least of her concerns. Where to go once she and Adam returned to Chicago, now that had her worried. Before she’d started on her four-national-parks-in-four-months photo shoot, her home had been the basement of a friend from her newspaper days. A woman who’d made it clear she could live there only until the baby arrived. Apparently the husband had a strong aversion to crying infants.
A.J. had told her she could room with him once his roommate moved out May 1. That date would have been perfect if the baby had come late as the doctor predicted.
When a door slams shut it means God is pointing to an open door farther on down.
The verse had been on a needlepoint pillow at the home where she’d stayed when her mom had been in rehab for the third time. The mother in that family had been a needlepoint fanatic who never met a saying she didn’t want to stitch.
July took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Everything would work out. She’d made good money photographing wildlife in some of the most beautiful national parks in the United States. Yellowstone had been the final one on the list and she’d finished shooting less than forty-eight hours earlier.
Nylah, the woman who was her liaison with Outdoor Life magazine, had gushed over the images.
A sense of satisfaction rose inside July. When she’d lost her job at the newspaper due to cutbacks, she’d been devastated. But it had turned out to be an unexpected blessing.
Photographing n
ature had always been her passion. Whether it was a single flower growing out of a crack in the concrete or an imposing Bighorn on a rocky ledge, she was happiest outdoors with a camera in her hand.
The tension in her shoulders had begun to ease when the cell phone in her pocket buzzed. July pulled it out and glanced at the readout. Nylah. Her heart picked up speed. Hopefully the woman was calling to tell her the magazine had approved the Yellowstone shots.
Moving slowly to the door, July closed it all the way before hitting the talk button. “Hello, Nylah.”
“Ohmygod, I can’t believe it’s finally you. I was starting to think you’d been abducted by aliens.” The words ran together, tumbling out one after the other. “I’ve been calling the motel since last night. When I finally reached the guy at the front desk, I panicked when he told me he hadn’t seen you since yesterday morning. He told me to call your cell, but it kept going straight to voice mail.”
“I forgot to charge it.” A sick feeling rolled around in the pit of July’s stomach. While Nylah had loved the photos, July knew final approval would come from someone at Outdoor Life magazine. “Is this about the photos? Is something wrong? If they want me to reshoot—”
“No, this isn’t about them. The photos were marvelous. Love them. Love them. Love them.” Nylah paused. “Now that I think about it, the reason I’m calling does involve the pictures, but only in the very best of ways.”
Now thoroughly confused, July took a seat on the edge of the bed. “So Outdoor Life approved the Yellowstone photos?”
“Yes, yes, but that’s not why we need to talk. Are you ready?”
July rolled her eyes and reclined against the pillow, the phone resting against her ear. “Ready.”
“Were you aware that I had brought in several other photographers to Yellowstone to take pictures of the Bighorns?”
“No.” July’s fingers tightened around the phone. The elderly guide had said something about bringing other “shutter-bugs” to several of the sites where she’d gone. At the time she’d assumed he was talking about tourists, not other photographers.