It was her responsibility to make sure he knew how to respect women and that had to start with respecting his mother. He couldn’t do that if she was weak.
Even though her heart was pounding, Yvette stiffened her spine. “I don’t have to, Cole. I’m sorry...”
“You should be,” he shot back, a smug look of triumph beginning to bloom in his eyes.
“...that I didn’t tell you I was taking this class, but that’s all I’m sorry for.”
He gaped at her. “You don’t think you owe me an explanation?”
“No. It’s my body and, right now, this baby is entirely mine. I have to decide what’s best, and that’s what I’m doing. And what’s more, I’ll be taking more of Gemma’s classes. I’ve already signed up. So you know, I have one on Tuesday and another on Friday, unless Gemma has a patient in labor, then the schedule will be changed.”
His mouth opened and closed a couple of times. “But—but my mom could tell you anything you need to know.”
“Your mom knows a lot, which I’m sure she’ll tell me.” Yvette was tempted to say, “whether I want her to or not,” but knew she had to fight one battle at a time, so instead, she finished up with “She isn’t a medical professional.”
“Well...there are other places that you could—”
“Not here in Reston. And why should I travel thirty miles, in this condition, to another class, another midwife, when I can drive five and learn what I need to know? And as far as someone being at the house the night you were in Tulsa? It was Gemma, along with Carly Joslin. Lisa Thomas was there for a while, too. I got sick at the Sandersons’ barbecue and they took me home and cared for me. I didn’t tell you because I know how you feel about Gemma. But she’s a nurse and a midwife. Isn’t it better for me and this baby to be cared for by a professional rather than my trying to figure this out on my own?”
He blinked and shook his head. A feeling of power like she’d never known before surged through Yvette. She was winning this argument.
“You should have called me, told me you were sick that night.”
“And I would have if not for your insistence I stay away from Gemma.”
Cole seemed to have no answer for that, but he tried to get back on track by gesturing across the street to his truck. “Get in. I’ll take you home.”
“No. I’ve got my car, and I have to go to the grocery store. I need milk—” she pointed to her belly “—to grow this baby, which, by the way, I might have Gemma deliver.”
Standing on tiptoe, she kissed his cheek and headed for her car. She imagined that she could hear her son applauding.
* * *
COLE STARED AFTER HER, his thoughts scrambling. He couldn’t believe what had happened, was stunned at what Yvette had said. He had never expected this, hadn’t planned for it.
Yvette had been exactly what he wanted in a wife—sweet, soft-spoken, obedient. After they’d chatted online for a while, he’d gone to Wichita to meet her. She’d had two part-time jobs—working in a fast-food place and a grocery store—and lived with three other girls in a crummy apartment. Her car had been a joke, held together with duct tape. The front bumper had been wired on with what looked like a couple of rusted coat hangers.
She’d been impressed by his truck, his money and his good job. As soon as she’d said yes to his proposal, he’d bought her a newer car, along with the biggest diamond he could afford. She’d been so sweetly grateful that he knew he’d made the right decision in spite of what his mom and dad had said about the horrors of marrying someone he met online. He didn’t care because he’d waited a long time to find a girl like her and he wasn’t going to let her get away. When he finally made his parents understand that, he and Yvette had been married in a small ceremony his mother had arranged and he’d brought his bride back to his family home, where they’d both been happy, especially after they’d discovered she had become pregnant soon after the wedding.
Now she was defying him. He wanted her to have the best medical care, but she already had a good doctor and seven different books on childbirth and babies. He didn’t understand why she needed Gemma’s help.
At first, he’d wanted to keep Yvette to himself, but then he wanted her to have friends because that would make her want to stay. He didn’t want those friends to include Gemma Whitmire, though. Everything had been fine until Gemma had returned to Reston.
Fear hit him in the pit of his stomach. What he hadn’t counted on was that someone who had been so easy to win might be just as easy to lose. If he lost her, it would be all Gemma’s fault. He considered going into Gemma’s precious birthing center and confronting her, but that might drive Yvette further away. He wasn’t about to let that happen.
* * *
GEMMA STOOD BY the window of her clinic and watched Cole and Yvette. She didn’t know what they were talking about, but she saw Cole point toward her center, a furious look on his face.
When Yvette kissed her husband on the cheek and headed for her car, Gemma felt a spark of pride. Cole hesitated, as if he couldn’t decide exactly what to do. Gemma reached out and secured the dead bolt and watched as he stomped back to his truck.
Gemma hoped Yvette was taking charge of her life and her pregnancy and that Cole wouldn’t stand in the way of her self-worth and independence. The night she and Carly had spent at Yvette’s house had taught her a great deal about the younger woman. She’d had an unstable life before she’d met Cole and was so grateful to him for all he’d done for her. Gemma feared that wasn’t the best start to a relationship because it made Yvette too dependent on her husband.
Rhonda had gone home for the day and Gemma was ready to follow, when her phone rang. She picked it up and was delighted to hear her mother’s voice.
“Hi, honey,” Sunshine sang out. “I finally got a chance to call you.”
Gemma sat down at the reception desk. “I’m so glad you did. How are things going? How’s Dad?”
After assurances that Wolfchild was fine, Sunshine said, “We’ve been so busy, but the project is going well. Roof goes on tomorrow. What about you, honey? What’s happening?”
The first thing that popped into Gemma’s mind was “I’m constantly thinking about Nathan Smith,” but she kept from saying that aloud.
“Gemma? Are you there? Did we get cut off?”
“Yes, I’m here.” She talked about everything that had happened in the past couple of weeks. “I’ve seen a lot of Nathan Smith and...it hasn’t always been pleasant. He’s struggling with family secrets, I think.”
“What do you mean?”
Gemma explained about Nate’s question regarding Mandy.
Sunshine made a sound of distress. “That was a tragedy and since Nathan was only twelve when Mandy died, it must have had a terrible effect on him.”
“He didn’t know you were friends with her.”
“There was no reason he would have known. Mrs. Smith didn’t approve of us and our lifestyle—although, thinking about it now, I realize it wasn’t personal. She didn’t like anyone who was different, or who was comfortable in their own skin...or that she couldn’t control.”
“Sounds like a miserable way to live.”
“I think it was, and by the time Mandy was seventeen, she knew it and wanted something different.”
“So she made friends with you.”
“And Evelyn and Randy Frost, who raised pigs, remember them? They also made their own sausage. I think that experience turned Mandy into a vegetarian.”
“I imagine so.”
“She visited Mrs. Poole and learned how to quilt. Her senior year in high school was a year of learning and exploring and it panicked her parents. They could see they were losing her.”
“What did they think was going to happen when she went off to college?”
“Honestly? I t
hink her mother planned to go with her and would have if Nate hadn’t been so young, and, well, she didn’t leave her house much.”
“Wow. I had no idea.”
“No one knew what happened with Mandy, even a few years later when she came back home, nine months pregnant, and died in childbirth. I saw her during that time, but she didn’t talk to me.” Sunshine paused. “I still don’t know exactly why, but she seemed to be...drifting.”
“What do you mean?”
“It was as if she was floating along and everything would work out fine if she ignored it.”
“That’s so sad.”
“Yes, it was. It was hard to stand by and watch. I felt helpless and I’m sure it was even harder for her parents.”
“And Nate,” Gemma added.
They chatted for a few more minutes, then Gemma talked with her dad, and when they hung up, she was left with even more questions than she’d had before. She was beginning to understand Nathan’s home life as a boy, and the effect Mandy’s death had on him.
She stood and walked to the window, gazing across the parking lot to Nate’s office.
It shook her to realize the depth of her feelings for him. In spite of their professional differences, she was drawn to him as she never had been to any man. She saw now that she always had been. It wasn’t his looks alone, although she couldn’t deny that was a factor. She was drawn to the yearning in him to be better than his father had been, to right old wrongs. He was battling ghosts from his past, though, and she had already seen that he wouldn’t welcome her help.
* * *
ON SATURDAY MORNING, Cole went to work and Yvette began getting ready to help at the hospital renovation. She and Misty Summers would sit at a table in the shaded entrance and hand out painting assignments. She could hardly wait to spend the day with her funny and outgoing new friend.
Yvette hadn’t told Cole of her plans—he might try to stop her. Since the day he’d caught her at the Sunshine, he’d seemed wary of laying down the law, but the old version of her husband would be back soon. It was like waiting for the other shoe to drop.
When she heard a truck pulling in to the driveway, she hurried to see if Cole had returned.
But it wasn’t Cole. She stared in dismay as her father-in-law’s truck backed up with a tarp-covered load in the bed.
Margery’s car pulled in as well, because she refused to travel in her husband’s truck, claiming the ride was too rough. She emerged from her Cadillac like a queen arriving to personally direct an army of minions. Except she had only one minion, and he didn’t take direction well.
Bob unhooked the cords holding the load in place and pulled back the tarp to expose a crib. No doubt, it was the one that would convert into a toddler bed, Yvette thought, then into a full-size bed and, if Yvette’s son was lucky, an escape pod to get away from his grandparents. She heartily wished she had an escape pod.
This thing was as ugly as the changing table—dark-stained wood, carved with curlicues and what looked like some crazy-eyed animals. Also, it was massive.
“It looks like a tricked-out jail cell,” she murmured.
Yvette’s heart sank at the sight of it, and her son set up a ruckus, moving and kicking in a way he never had before. Quickly, she leaned against the back of a chair for support and rubbed her hands over her belly, trying to soothe him.
He was obviously reacting to her distress, and it reminded her of her vow to protect him. Unborn or born, she had to do her best for her son, had to show him what a strong woman was. Even though her heart quaked at the thought of confronting the Burleighs, she knew it was time.
Hands firmly over her baby, she walked out to the driveway. “Good morning,” she called out.
“Good morning, Yvette. We’ve brought the crib. Bob will unload it and put it in—”
“No.” To her annoyance, Yvette’s voice broke. She cleared her throat and tried again. “No.”
Margery didn’t give her the slightest attention. “We’ll take away that crib you bought. It’s completely inadequate, and—”
“No.” This time, Yvette raised her voice.
Finally, her mother-in-law turned to look at her. “What do you mean ‘no’?”
“I’m—I’m happy with the crib I bought. It’s exactly the right size for that room, and...easy for me to move if I need to...and it’s the one Cole and I picked out.”
That wasn’t strictly true. Cole couldn’t have cared less about the crib. There had been a ball game on when she’d been shopping online for it, but his parents didn’t need to know that.
Margery clapped her hands onto her hips and stepped forward. Yvette’s heart thumped, but she stood her ground.
Bob waited by his truck, a fascinated audience.
“What are you talking about, Yvette? I told you I had the baby’s crib all picked out.”
“But I don’t want it.” Power surged through her. “I’ve already got the one I want for my baby. I assembled it myself,” she added proudly. She looked at her father-in-law. “And, Bob, you can take back the changing table and the rocking chair. They’re much too big for that room. I’m—I’m going to order the ones I want. They’re the color I want, smaller and lighter, and they match the crib.”
For the first time since she’d known him, Bob Burleigh smiled at her. Respect sparked in his eyes. “Sure, Yvette. I’ll move them out to the carport right now and be back to get them after I take this load home.” He started inside.
Margery squawked as if she’d choked on a chicken bone, her wide eyes rolling from Yvette to Bob and back. “But—but... I picked out what he needed, and...”
“No, you picked out what you want my son to have, but he’s my son and Cole’s, so thank you, but we’ll get what he needs.”
She almost felt sorry for Margery, who seemed to be having trouble making sense of Yvette’s words. “You don’t want us to buy things for our grandson?”
“You’re welcome to buy anything you want as long as we approve.”
Margery’s mouth opened and closed a couple of times but no words came out.
Yvette smiled, experiencing a surge of warmth she never thought she’d feel for this hardheaded woman. Thoughts, ideas and certainties flooded her mind. Now that she wasn’t bound by fear, she knew exactly what to say.
“You see, Margery, I... Cole and I want our son to love you for who you are, his grandmother, not for what you can give him.”
“What?”
“I want you to bake him those wonderful cakes you know how to make. I want you and Bob to hold him on your laps and read hundreds of books to him so he’ll always remember the sound of your voices, and associate reading with love. I want Bob to take him down to the creek, teach him about frogs and turtles, take him to the lake, and teach him how to fish. I...we want you to teach him about raising chickens, talk to him about his family history, his ancestors, show him what to be proud of. Margery, there’s barely a handful of people in my family I can be proud of, so it’s up to you.”
Yvette watched to see what effect her words were having. She hadn’t even known she felt like this, had these desires, until this moment. Maybe it was only hormones talking, but saying these things aloud had flooded her with the knowledge that this was what she wanted for her son. Even though she and Cole had never talked about this, she knew he would support her.
Confusion warred with tenderness in Margery’s expression. Tears filled her eyes and she dabbed them away with the heel of her hand. “Yvette, that’s... I don’t know what to say.”
“That’s a start,” Bob said as he carried the rocking chair out and set it down. “Margie, girl, we’re about to start a whole new chapter in our lives. Let’s don’t screw it up.” He walked over and gave Yvette the first hug she’d ever had from him. “Yvette, you’ve shown more maturity in five minut
es than my son has in his whole life. I’m proud of you.”
Yvette returned his hug. No man in her life had ever said he was proud of her.
Yvette smiled at him, and then at Margery, whose expression was sliding into joyful acceptance. “All—all right then, Yvette. Okay if I arrange a baby shower for you? Only close friends and family, so you can get to know everyone better? We can take pictures and start a photo album to show the baby when he gets bigger.”
“That would be perfect,” Yvette said as her son settled down in her womb.
* * *
GEMMA ARRIVED AT the hospital for the beginning of the Extreme Paint Over, as Marlene Fedder and her committee were calling it. She’d been thrilled when Nate had taken her suggestion and convinced the hospital board to go along with it.
“I can’t believe Marlene pulled this off in just over a week,” Lisa said, looking at the cans of paint and variety of brushes, rollers and tarps arrayed along the walls of the hospital interior.
“She was all over this as soon as the hospital board asked her to do it,” Gemma said. “She’s been working night and day. Of course, it helped that the contractor got the walls cleaned, repaired and primed in that time.”
“It also helped that she recruited every artist, art teacher and crafter in the county,” Carly added.
“Including you,” Lisa said.
Carly gave her friends a pitiful look. “I know. I’m exhausted and we haven’t started painting yet.”
They laughed, then stopped to admire the way the entire project was organized.
The murals on each section of wall had been faintly outlined, and the necessary paint colors were lined up along the baseboard, each one sporting a number that corresponded to a number on the design.
“Oh, I get it,” Gemma said. “It’s like a giant map, or paint-by-the-numbers picture.”
“That’s right. Marlene thought up the whole concept. Apparently, she’d been dreaming up these murals for years, or ones like them, but didn’t have any place to paint them. I can’t believe the good people of Reston don’t have something else to do on a Saturday, but they’ve signed up in droves, some for only an hour or two, some all day. After they finish, the actual artists will go through and do the shading and final touches. Many of the committee members thought the whole idea was crazy, but Marlene strong-armed everyone into seeing things her way.” Carly shook her head in wonder. “Forget Reston. We need that woman in Washington.”
At Odds with the Midwife Page 12