Baby My Baby (A Ranching Family)

by Pade, Victoria

  “I saw the note for your appointment on the calendar next to the phone in the kitchen yesterday. I didn’t want to miss it.”

  “I think it’s just wonderful to see a father-to-be so interested and supportive,” Janet defended him.

  And once again Beth felt like the bad guy. She tried to curb her tone of voice. “I thought you were busy roofing the honky-tonk today.”

  “We hoisted everything up and I showed Linc and Jackson how to get started. I’ll go back as soon as we’re finished here.”

  We? Well, terrific. Get this man into a set of stirrups on the double.

  “When I wanted him around, he was too busy. Now I can’t get away from him,” she muttered to herself. Then, to him, she said, “I think we better talk about this.”

  “I’ll tell Ramona you’re here,” Janet suggested tactfully.

  When they were alone, Ash’s eyes bored into her with the coldness that said he was angry with her. Already. “You know, it wouldn’t hurt for you to be a hair less independent and let me help you with just one thing. For a change.”

  Beth reminded herself to be civil. “I know you’re going to say something about our already having been intimate enough to get me here, but this is the first time I’ve seen this doctor and he’ll want to do a full exam. And a pelvic is bad enough without an ex-husband as an audience. You can’t come in. You’ve wasted your time being here.”

  His bushy brows drew together in a frown. “Actually, I hadn’t planned to go in with you during the exam. I just wanted to be here with you. To be here for you,” he answered through clenched teeth.

  “Oh.” Beth cleared her throat, again feeling chagrined.

  He pointed his chin in the direction Janet had gone. “The receptionist said I could come in before and hear the heartbeat, but I won’t even do that if it bothers you.”

  Great. He’d already discussed it with Janet. Janet, who thought his interest was wonderful. And who would turn around and repeat to the entire population of Elk Creek—by way of the small-town grapevine—either that, in spite of being divorced, they were acting like civilized adults and sharing this experience; or that Beth had turned her nose up at Ash’s wanting to hear his baby’s heartbeat.

  Maybe coming back to Elk Creek hadn’t been a good idea after all, Beth thought.

  “Forget it,” he said suddenly into the silence that she’d left while she thought about this. “I’ll go back to work.”

  “No,” she grumbled as he headed for the door. “I suppose I can stand for you to see my fat belly. But that’s all.”

  He turned to her again, his gaze dropping to her middle as if he’d overlooked something before. But the bulge of her stomach was well concealed behind the oversize shirt she wore. “If it makes you uncomfortable—”

  “It’s all right.” She didn’t know if Janet had been secretly listening, but at that moment the receptionist reappeared to usher them both into one of the examining rooms without so much as questioning whether or not Ash would be allowed to go.

  There was a bathroom connected to it and Beth was handed a gown and told to undress there while Ash was awarded a chair in which to wait for her.

  She wasn’t thrilled about going back into that room after she’d changed. A thin hospital gown with a single tie at the back of the neck was hardly a confidence booster. But she didn’t have much choice.

  Holding the gown closed behind her, she took a deep breath and tried to hide her real feelings about this, all the while wondering how she’d ever gotten herself into it.

  The nurse was there by then and Beth was glad to see her, if only as a buffer between her and Ash.

  Having Beth sit on the doctor’s stool, Ramona took her blood pressure and pulse, finding both slightly elevated but accepting Beth’s explanation of doctor’s-visit nerves. Then she asked her to get on the table and lie down.

  No mean feat, that. At least not while retaining her dignity and trying not to flash bare buns. But once Beth was there, Ramona helped out by covering her lower half with a paper sheet before pulling up the gown to reveal her stomach.

  “Come on, Dad. You won’t be able to hear from over there,” the nurse urged.

  Beth could feel her cheeks heat as Ash stepped to her side, standing just off her shoulder while Ramona squeezed a mound of jellylike ointment onto the small mesa of her naked middle. Then the nurse put an odd-looking stethoscope she called a Doptone into her own ears and slid the other end through the gel like a spatula spreading frosting until she found what she was searching for.

  Beth and Ash both looked on as Ramona checked her watch, counting the beats before she held the business end of the stethoscope in place and handed Beth the binaurals. “Mom first.”

  Beth had heard the baby’s heartbeat once before, at Cele’s office, but it still gave her goose bumps as she listened while the nurse explained to Ash what it would sound like.

  When Beth finally relinquished the device to him, he wasted no time bending low enough to fit the tips into his ears.

  She could tell by his immediate frown that he wasn’t sure he was hearing what he was supposed to. But as she watched, his eyes lit up and widened, his brows took flight nearly to his hairline and his lips parted.

  And then, as she studied the pure wonder in his expression, Beth saw his eyes fill.

  He caught up her left hand in his right, holding it tight and pulling it to press the back to his chest, just over his heart, in a gesture that joined their tiny family, that cherished her and their baby and brought hot tears to her own eyes.

  And then she felt the baby skitter away, as if it had had enough of being eavesdropped on, and the moment passed.

  Ash blinked the moisture out of his eyes, squeezed her hand one last time and let it go so he could pull the stethoscope out of his ears and give it back to the nurse.

  But it was to Beth he said a quiet, sincere thank-you that made her rue ever thinking to refuse him this.

  “I won’t hang around,” he told her then, as if giving a compromise of his own in appreciation. “Unless you want me to...”

  She did want him to. She wanted him there with her—not through the pelvic exam—but to wait for the doctor, to talk about the baby, about hearing the heartbeat, about the nurse’s guess that it was a boy.

  But she couldn’t bring herself to say it.

  “You have a lot of work to do today. You’d better get back.”

  He nodded, just once, and if his smile seemed a little tight-lipped, she didn’t understand why.

  Then he left, along with the nurse, and she was alone in that room. Alone with the baby.

  And wishing she wasn’t.

  * * *

  Linc and Jackson were busy with the roofing when Ash got back to the honky-tonk. He climbed the ladder and pitched in without any of them saying much, and for the remainder of the morning that’s how the time passed, leaving Ash free to think.

  Hearing the baby’s heartbeat had given him a new sense of connection to it. He could have stood there all day long listening to that tiny pulse beating its rapid rhythm through the rush of amniotic fluid.

  And as he worked, it occurred to him that if he’d been loath to end that, how was he ever going to leave the baby behind once it was born? For even if he had custody half the time, that would still leave the other half the time that he’d be away from it.

  But what was his alternative?

  His mind wandered to one—if he and Beth got married again, he could take her and the baby back home....

  But that idea was too farfetched to even consider. Beth could barely be civil to him. Even in front of the receptionist this morning, she’d nearly bitten his head off just for being there.

  She’d mellowed, though...

  Lying on that examining table, she’d let him take her hand. More than that, she’d held his in return, squeezed it back, hung on as if—for only a moment—she’d liked having him there.

  He was probably just imagining it. Hadn’t she basi
cally shooed him away after that? Even when he’d offered to wait?

  But there had been that moment, that one, brief moment, when they’d shared something very special. When they’d shared their baby. And that had been good.

  Maybe good enough to build on...

  Beth had a soft spot where the baby was concerned. No matter how tough she wanted him to think she was, how strong and resilient and capable of doing this on her own, the baby itself was her Achilles’ heel....

  But her feelings for Ash didn’t seem even lukewarm.

  And there was no denying the problems they’d had in their marriage. Could they be overcome? Could he and Beth fix them and try again so they could be together in parenting this child? He honestly didn’t know. But he had to explore the possibility.

  For the baby’s sake.

  For his sake.

  As a father.

  And as a man who still had feelings for his ex-wife...

  Did he have feelings for Beth? Maybe. But he didn’t know what they were. One minute he wanted to wring her neck. The next he wanted to take her to bed.

  How could remarrying her possibly be a good idea under those circumstances? Assuming he could even get Beth to consider the idea?

  “Shall we break for lunch?” Linc suggested into his preoccupation.

  Ash hadn’t realized how late it was. Or how hot. “Sounds good to me,” he agreed, all too willing to put aside what suddenly seemed like crazy ramblings.

  He and Beth getting remarried? Maybe he was on the verge of sunstroke or heat prostration, because surely he was out of his mind to even consider such a thing.

  Jackson put down his hammer, too, and they all headed for the ladder. Once on the ground, they went inside the honky-tonk long enough to douse themselves liberally with cool water, then met under the shade of a huge oak tree alongside the building to share the sandwiches Linc and Jackson had packed for the three of them.

  “How’d the doctor’s appointment go?” Linc asked.

  “Fine. At least it went fine for as long as I was there. Beth didn’t want me hanging around,” Ash answered, watching a train come in at the station across the street.

  “What’s going on between the two of you, anyway?” Jackson demanded unceremoniously.

  Ash glanced at him and then at Linc. “Should I be guarding my jaw?” he only half joked.

  “I’m not sure,” Linc answered, swiveling his gaze to his brother. “Are you askin’ what his intentions are?”

  “I guess I am. I caught Beth cryin’ last night.”

  That took the humor out of Ash. “You must have needed to use the bathroom,” he muttered, more to himself than to his former brother-in-law.

  “I was just headed to bed after havin’ a midnight snack. She had her back against the front door and big tears running down her face. I guess she didn’t expect anyone else to be up, because she got plenty mad at me for catching her at it.”

  “That’s Beth,” Ash confirmed.

  “Did you two fight after you left Kansas’s place?” This from Linc.

  “No, in fact, things went pretty well. For the most part. At least until the end.”

  “What’d you do then?” Jackson asked as if he were interrogating a criminal.

  “Maybe you ought to mind your own business,” Linc suggested.

  Ash decided that confiding in her brothers might allow him some insight and answered Jackson anyway. “I kissed her.”

  Linc gave a hoot and a holler of a laugh. Jackson stayed as sober as Ash did.

  “Guess she didn’t want you to, huh?” Jackson said.

  “Seemed like she did. Then all of a sudden she pushed me away and said she didn’t. But she was dry-eyed when she got out of the car.”

  Linc chuckled. “When Virgie was pregnant with Danny she was like that. Crazy. One minute she’d be happy as a lark, the next I’d find her bawling her eyes out. It’s hormones.”

  “You sure about that?” Jackson asked dubiously. “That doesn’t sound like Beth. Beth’s not a cryer. Shag fixed that when she was a just a little girl.”

  Linc looked at his older brother as if he were out of his mind. “Not even Shag could have kept a pregnant woman from crying.”

  Jackson stared at Ash directly again. “So what are you going to do about it?”

  “Ha! I wish I knew” was Ash’s only answer.

  “Stay out of it,” Linc told Jackson then, firmly this time.

  “Just seems to me two people should be married when they’re havin’ a baby,” Jackson said, as if he felt it his duty to get the words out.

  But Ash didn’t agree or disagree.

  He was too lost in thought again.

  Wondering what the hell it meant that his kiss had made Beth cry.

  * * *

  It was after dark by the time Beth heard Jackson, Linc and Ash come in the ranch house’s back door. She was in her room working on the bridesmaid dress for Kansas’s sister Della, and her first inclination was to rush downstairs.

  She curbed it and just sat listening.

  The house had been so deadly quiet all day and evening, and suddenly it was alive with the hum of deep masculine voices as her brothers and former husband apparently raided the refrigerator.

  Then she heard them go outside again. She moved to the window where she saw Jackson slap steaks on the grill before he, Ash and Linc—now in swimming trunks—dived into the pool like three boys.

  It felt good not to be alone anymore, even though she wasn’t really with them. But when she analyzed the feeling, she knew it wasn’t really her brothers’ return she was glad for. It was Ash’s. In spite of all her arguing against his hanging around, she’d missed him.

  That was a terrible sign.

  Since the air-conditioning was on in the house, her window was closed. She eased it open and propped a hip on the sill.

  Tall, wrought-iron Victorian-style streetlamps surrounded the bricked patio but didn’t cast much illumination on the pool, so she couldn’t actually see them in the water. Rather than try, she closed her eyes, leaned against the window frame and merely listened, eager for the sound of Ash’s voice joking and teasing her brothers as if he were a member of their close-knit club.

  They weren’t saying anything important. In fact they sounded slaphappy, no doubt from putting in a fifteen-hour day of backbreaking work in ninety-six-degree heat. But it was still good to hear. In fact, it made her smile.

  Twice the ringing of a timer sounded to remind them to turn their steaks. They argued about who would get out of the water to do it, but both times Jackson did, grumbling about ruining good beefsteak. When the timer went off a third time, Beth opened her eyes and watched as they all got out, not bothering with towels, and disappeared from her view, no doubt to sit at one of several tables closer to the house to eat.

  That they did in silence, making Beth smile again at the seriousness with which men attacked a steak. Or maybe they were all too tired to say anything, because their meal was over quickly, and once again Beth heard chairs scraping the brick. Both Linc and Jackson announced they had to get some sleep, inviting Ash to stay in the guest room.

  Beth’s pulse doubled, but she wasn’t sure if it was from the thought that he might accept or that he might decline.

  He declined. “Beth wouldn’t be happy about that,” she heard him say. “I’ll just lie here and rest a minute and then I’ll go back to the lodge.”

  She couldn’t see him but assumed he’d moved to one of the loungers. And with the thickness in his voice as they all said good-night, she knew he was halfway asleep by the time her brothers came inside.

  There’d be dishes to clear in the morning, because she didn’t hear so much as a single plate hit the sink before her brothers climbed the steps, mumbled more good-nights and closed their bedroom doors behind them.

  She could tell that Linc immediately threw himself on his bed and that was that. From Jackson’s room there were sounds of him puttering around a little before his b
edsprings squeaked and all grew quiet.

  Then there was only silence in the house again.

  And outside of it, too.

  She didn’t have to see Ash to know he was sound asleep down there, and for a moment she considered just letting him be. But she hated to see him spend the night in a lawn chair after the work he’d done to help her brother. She decided to go down and offer to drive him to the lodge so he could get some decent rest.

  There was also the fact that she had an irresistible urge to see him, but she didn’t want to think about that.

  She was still dressed, wearing a pair of cutoff jeans that barely peeked out from beneath her sleeveless chambray shirt. Her feet were bare, but she didn’t bother to put shoes on.

  She padded noiselessly through the house as far as the sliding door in the kitchen that led to the patio. But instead of going out, she stood at the screen, studying Ash.

  Just as she’d imagined, he was on one of the redwood loungers. But he wasn’t exactly lying on it. It appeared that he’d sat on the end of it and just lain back, because his head was midway up the seat and his feet were still planted on the bricks of the patio.

  It couldn’t have been too comfortable, yet apparently he was so tired it didn’t matter. He was out like a light, his arms crossed over his flat stomach and one big thigh drifting like a yardarm in a breeze.

  And for some reason she couldn’t have explained if her life depended on it, the sight touched her.

  He really was putting a lot of effort into smoothing the waters here. With her. With her brothers. And what he was getting for it was hard work, her bad attitude, and a feeling that he should be grateful just to be allowed to hear his baby’s heartbeat for a few moments.

  Maybe he did deserve a night in the guest room. Even if it would be difficult for her to know he was right next door.

  She finally went out to him, standing at the foot of the lounger, between his knees. Although this man had been her husband for five years, she suddenly felt it an invasion of his privacy to be watching him as he slept. She was also trying not to pay attention to his bulging biceps or his thick, muscular thighs and well-defined calves.

  “Ash?” she said softly so as not to startle him. “Ash, wake up.”