She nodded.
“I’m so glad Scott is doing the right thing. I hope he and Brittany can make it work. It’s a tough start with a baby right away. I know I would have a hard time with that.” He stopped and released a shaky laugh. “Sorry, I’m yapping away here.”
“Would you have?” she asked, latching on to his previous comment. “Would you have had a hard time if you had to deal with a baby right away?”
Jess nodded. “Yeah, I would. I’ve told you enough times how I felt about kids. About being a father.”
“Yet you offered to take Brittany in. And you said she would have a home if she and the baby needed it.”
“Of course. But, really, it wouldn’t have been my kid, so I think that’s different.” He frowned, a concerned light in his eyes. “Why are we talking about this?”
Naomi felt her resolve falter, then winged up another prayer and wished they were sitting down. Not standing in a hallway, their words echoing in the empty house.
“I have something I need to tell you and I’m hoping, no, I’m praying you’ll understand.”
“Does it have to do with what you were saying to Allison?”
“Yes, it does.”
Jess’s only reply was to cross his arms.
“I suppose you remember the fight we had?” she continued. “Before I went back to Billy?”
“Yeah.” He dropped the word like a rock between them.
“You talked about how you didn’t think you could be a father and now I know why.” She licked her lips and locked her hands. “I’m sorry I never completely understood what you had to deal with. I never... I never knew how hard it was for you.”
Jess said nothing, his feet planted on the carpet, as if bracing himself.
“The reason I had come to you to talk about being a father, about being married was because...when I came to you...well...I got pregnant.”
The words she’d been storing up for weeks, maybe even years, finally spilled out into a silence so deafening it made her ears ache.
Then she dared look up at Jess and the anguish on his face tunneled into her soul.
“I know I should have told you, but it was so hard,” she said. “It was like I kept the secret so long it became a part of me. It became normal and I didn’t see you. Didn’t expect to see you until I came back here. Then, spending time with you...I fell in love...”
Naomi tamped down the words roiling beneath the surface. The words that would pull her back into a storm of feelings she always experienced around Jess. Words that would pull at the frail grip she had on her fragile self-control. She had to stay in charge.
“So how did you break the news to Billy?” Jess said. “Or did you and him—”
“No. Never. I told you when I first came here that you were the only one.” She wished she didn’t sound so defensive, but Jess had no right to accuse her of what he just did.
“I’m sorry,” he said, shoving his hands through his hair, his face twisted into an expression of anguish. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
Then he looked at her, his eyes blazing with intensity. “So where’s the baby? Did you give it up?”
Naomi shook her head, the old pain surging up from where she thought she had buried it. “I miscarried at three months.”
Jess was silent a moment, as if acknowledging the sorrow she had dealt with.
Then he looked at her again. “Why didn’t you ever say anything?”
Naomi wished she didn’t have to dredge up the memories of the day that sundered her life into Jess and After Jess, but they had to finish this.
“It was hard for me. I always felt as if it was a miracle you were even remotely interested in me. You could have had any girl you wanted, yet you chose me.”
Jess’s frown told her that he still didn’t truly understand how she saw herself.
“I was afraid and young and foolish. I was also pregnant and alone. Then when we had our fight about you not wanting to be a father, I got scared. I didn’t think you would accept this baby and I was only eighteen. Then Billy came back and said he had made a mistake, I thought it was my chance. It was so hard for me, Jess.”
He stared at her shaking her head.
“Do you think it was easy for me?” he asked, stepping closer as if trying to dominate her by his nearness, his very maleness. “You say I could get any girl I wanted, well, I never wanted anyone but you. You were the best thing that happened to me. You were like a bright and shining light in my lousy existence. You were the first person I was ever with who gave me some ray of hope that I could have an ordinary life. Then I had to watch you run back to Billy and leave with him and leave me behind. And now I find out you were expecting my child?”
“A child you said you didn’t want,” she protested. “That was why I ran back to Billy. Because I was pregnant and afraid and you said you would never be a father to the child I was carrying. What was I supposed to do?”
Jess’s eyes narrowed, his jaw clenched and Naomi could see a hardness grip his features that froze her heart. “I never said I didn’t want that child. I didn’t think I could be a father. I still don’t think that, but I would have dealt. I would have stepped up. You should have given me the chance to find out instead of running back to Billy.” Then his eyes grew bleak. “Would you have said anything if Allison hadn’t pushed you? If you hadn’t believed she knew? How long were you going to wait to tell me?”
Naomi felt the ground she had stood so firmly on since she left Jess shift and heave. She had always assumed that Jess didn’t want to be a father. He had made it so clear. Knowing why didn’t change the fact that he had consistently said the same thing.
Now he was saying he could have dealt?
“I was afraid, too,” Naomi said, her voice faltering. “I was afraid to tell you. Afraid to even acknowledge to myself what had happened. I’ve always been the good girl. The one who keeps everyone happy. The one who never does anything wrong. I didn’t even dare tell my sisters. They didn’t know and the longer I waited the harder it got.”
Jess just stared at her. “So who did know? About our baby?”
“Billy.”
He took a wavering step backward. As if that single word was a blow that hit him with the same force his father’s fists had.
“Of course,” was all he said.
He drew in a deep breath, closed his eyes and when she reached out to him, he sidestepped her.
“I gotta go,” was all he said.
Then with each footfall echoing in the yawning emptiness of the house, he walked down the stairs and out of the house.
* * *
She was going to have a baby.
She was going to have his baby.
But she lost it.
Jess rammed his truck into overdrive, spun around another corner, almost fishtailing on the gravel as he headed down the hill. He didn’t know where he was going. Somewhere away from Naomi and the news she had dropped like a bomb into his life.
I got pregnant.
Three words that rocked his world. That he and Naomi had created a child. That she had kept this from him.
You said you didn’t want a kid. Said you didn’t want to be a father.
His own conscience accused him, yet another part of him knew he was right to be angry. Right to feel a measure of grief that Naomi hadn’t told him.
He thought they had been coming to a good place. Now this? She didn’t tell him because, in spite of all her talk, she didn’t think he’d make a good father either.
He had dared to believe her. Dared to test the idea of their being together.
And now?
She hadn’t trusted him then. Didn’t trust him now. If she had, she would have told him sooner. In spite of her assurances to the contrary, he couldn’t hel
p wonder if Naomi would have kept the secret longer if Allison hadn’t forced her hand.
Only Billy had known about his own child.
Jess slowed down at the highway, then stomped on the accelerator, slammed the truck through the gears and drove and drove and drove.
* * *
Naomi walked back to the house, her heart still beating against her ribs. Her heart felt a like a cold center in the hollow of her chest.
She wanted to go after Jess and beg his forgiveness, but anything she had to say would be empty words to him. She had to wait and hope that the next time she saw him she could, again, ask his forgiveness.
Her steps faltered as her thoughts tumbled like rocks down a mountain, heavy and out of control.
What if Jess couldn’t forgive her? What if he didn’t want her back?
Her old insecurities rose and taunted her. You were never the kind of girl he wanted. He could do so much better.
She stopped, her hands pressed to her face as hot tears choked her throat. Please, Lord, make him come back. Let him come back.
Loneliness rose and caught her in its relentless grip and then she caught herself. She was alone. She had to deal with this on her own.
“Naomi, honey, what’s wrong?” Sheila’s voice seemed to come from a faraway place, slowly registering through Naomi’s sorrow. “Is everything okay?”
Naomi looked up to see Sheila standing in the doorway of the other house.
She couldn’t wrap what had just happened in the tiny medium of words. Not yet. So she simply nodded, then turned and walked back to the house.
Once inside, she sat at the kitchen table where, it seemed like years ago, her reaction to Allison’s comments had unleashed this storm.
“Where’s Jess?” Sheila was asking. “I saw his truck leave. I thought you went with him, then I saw you outside. What happened?”
Naomi massaged her aching temples, her tears hovering just below the surface of her self-control. “We had a fight.”
“What? What about? You two looked so happy when you came back a few hours ago.”
We were, Naomi thought. Those bright, silvery moments such a contrast to the anger and anguish she had just experienced.
“What could you two possibly fight about?”
Naomi wanted to tell her, but knew this time she had to do things right. Before she told Sheila, she had to tell her sisters. Her nana.
The thought of facing them with what she had done created a convulsion of shame and guilt. She had always been the good girl. The one who always did the right thing.
“It was...personal,” was all she could say. She would have to, sometime or another, tell Sheila, as well. After all, it had been her grandchild Naomi had carried for those few months.
“How’s Brittany?” she asked, returning her focus to her patient. For now, this was her job.
“She’s doing well,” Sheila said with a smile. “It looks as though Scott will be involved in her life. He’s been making plans.”
“I’m so happy for her.” Naomi had her own misgivings about the situation, but the reality was this was what needed to happen.
Children need their father.
She knew that from her own personal experience. How often she had wished her father was around, especially when her mother struggled with the care of three young girls. Thank goodness she had Nana and Grandpa to help her out.
She thought of Jess and his father and her certainty faltered again.
“Did Jess say how long he would be gone?” Sheila was asking. “I was hoping to get to town this evening. A good friend of mine heard I was around and wanted to get together with me.”
Naomi’s attention snapped back to the present. “Actually, no. He didn’t say how long he’d be gone. You could call him on his cell phone and find out.”
“I’m surprised he didn’t tell you.” Then Sheila held her hand up. “I’m sorry. Of course you wouldn’t know. Not if you two were having a fight.” Sheila sighed and patted Naomi on her shoulder. “I know you are upset about it, but don’t worry, Jess will come around. He was always so crazy about you. I was sad it didn’t work out. Of course Jess’s father and I were having our own troubles, so we didn’t...couldn’t be much of a support to him. But he’s been happier now than I’ve seen him in a long time. More settled. More peaceful.” Sheila patted her again. “He’ll come around. He’ll come back.”
An hour later the sound of Jess’s truck coming up the driveway proved Sheila right.
But half an hour later, he left again. Jess sent a text message to Brittany that she shared with Naomi, saying he needed to get away and would be gone a few days.
Naomi went to bed early that night, pleading a headache. Thankfully Brittany was tired out from the excitement of the day and Sheila left to go visit a friend.
As sleep eluded Naomi, her mind ran over the events of the day. How could a day that had started out with such promise end so badly?
She tried to still her troubled soul. But her mind held an immense, impossibly heavy sadness that she couldn’t shift or move no matter how she tried. Jess was gone. And she didn’t think he wanted to be with her anymore. Not after what had just happened.
What if she had told Jess right away about the pregnancy? Would he have stood by her? Would he have grieved with her? Or would he have felt the same relief she had seen on Billy’s face when she told him about the miscarriage?
The old sorrow of that loss dragged at her, but its fingers weren’t as sharp, its pain not as deep as it had been. The heartache had stitched itself into the fabric of her life and had become part of who she was. She couldn’t separate it from her identity any more than she could separate her eye color from who she was.
She had come to Hartley Creek to find out who Naomi Deacon really was. From the time she went back to Billy she felt as if she had lost herself in him.
And now she was in danger of losing herself in Jess. Of thinking he could give her all she needed. When he walked away from her, he took a part of her heart.
But he didn’t take her essence with him.
That thought brought her up short.
He didn’t take her essence. He didn’t take who she truly was.
She was God’s child. God knew everything about her and He loved her in spite of that. His grace should be sufficient.
Her heart crumpled at the thought of not having Jess in her life. How could she bear it? She had come so close to a happiness she had only experienced when she was with Jess before only to have it taken away.
Please, Lord, she prayed, help me to find my identity in You. Only in You. Help me to know that Your love is unconditional and all-forgiving.
She rolled to her side, hoping to find sleep and as she lay in her bed, in the room that Jess used to sleep in, she sent up a prayer for God to watch over him, as well.
Chapter Thirteen
The first thing he noticed when he pulled up to his house was the car. The second thing he noticed was that it wasn’t Naomi’s car.
Relief was followed by anger, followed by sorrow, which clenched at his heart.
Naomi, who, for as long as he had known her, had been the example of all that was good and true and pure had lied to him. Hadn’t trusted him with probably one of the biggest things that had ever happened to him. How do you come back from something like that? She had spent so much time convincing him he was a good person, he started to believe it himself. But in the end she didn’t think he needed to know he was going to be a father because she believed the same thing about himself. He wouldn’t have made a good father.
Jess parked his truck by his house and dropped his head back against the headrest, closing his eyes a minute. His ears still rang from the endless drone of his truck’s engine, the only noise he’d heard for the past couple of days.
He’d been driving for the past two days. He’d gone over to Vancouver Island, driven up the island to Prince Rupert, then taken the ferry back to the mainland, stopping to grab some sleep when he was tired and then driving some more, trying to outrun the thoughts that plagued him.
Naomi had been expecting his child and hadn’t told him. How could she have kept this from him?
You said you didn’t want to be a father. What else was she supposed to do?
She could have told him anyway. She could have trusted him.
His anger with her had slowly been replaced by hurt, which had morphed into a kind of numbness.
Okay, Lord, he prayed. Now what do I do? Where do I go now?
All his silly plans had to change.
His heart wrenched at the thought. For a few weeks he felt as if his life had shifted in a good direction. He was moving toward a happiness he hadn’t felt in years. Not since he had been with Naomi the first time.
Now?
He glanced at the house, wondering if the car belonged to the new nurse Naomi had found for Brittany. He had texted Brittany every day to see how she was doing, so he knew she was fine. He also knew that Naomi had quit and had found someone who was willing to stop by every afternoon and monitor Brittany’s health. Brittany didn’t want her staying overnight now that Sheila was back, so it worked out.
He should stop by the house, he thought, but he didn’t feel like talking to anyone yet. He knew Brittany would ask a hundred questions about Naomi and he was willing to answer none of them. He had too many himself.
The sound of his booted feet echoed in his empty house, mocking his lonely state, and as he walked up the stairs to his room, again he glanced at the windows where Naomi’s stained-glass windows were to go.
Thank goodness she hadn’t finished them. They would been an unwelcome reminder of what he once had and lost again.
Catching Her Heart Page 16