Fifty Ways to Say I’m Pregnant

by Christine Rimmer

  “No.”

  She flinched as if it slapped her. “I just don’t get it. What’s the matter with you? Are you going to try and tell me you’ll be glad when I’m gone?”

  “I never said that.”

  “Then why won’t you just—”

  “Stop.”

  “But I—”

  “We agreed how it would be. That’s not gonna change.”

  “Why not? Why can’t things change? Look at me, look at the person I am now. I’m not the girl you knew six years ago. And you, Beau. You’ve made a whole new life for yourself.”

  “Yeah. A new life. A new life on my own.”

  “That’s right. So take a big chance. Make a life with me.”

  “You’re not listening.”

  “Because you’re not making sense.”

  “Oh, I’m making sense all right. It’s damn simple. I’m never getting married, Starr. That much isn’t ever going to change. I’d be no good at it—and you deserve better than an ex-con from a family of murdering crooks.”

  “But…” She ran out of steam. This wasn’t going anywhere. And she could see by the set of his jaw that no matter what she said, she wasn’t changing his mind tonight.

  The way he was looking at her now, she wouldn’t be changing his mind ever.

  God. She had told him flat out that she loved him. And for that she’d got nothing but a command that she leave him.

  “Starr…” His voice was softer now. He touched her shoulder.

  She turned her head away, shoved at his placating hand. “Don’t.”

  “C’mon. Look at me.”

  She didn’t look at him. She couldn’t. She stared off past the last post at the end of the porch, toward the fence at the side of the yard, and beyond that, to the pastureland rolling out under the reddening sky dotted here and there with grazing cattle. One of Tess’s roosters crowed, long and lost-sounding, out behind the house, and a gust of sudden wind blew down the porch, stirring her hair, so she had to swipe a few wild strands away from her eyes.

  “Starr…”

  In the end, she couldn’t resist him. Damn her for a fool, she never could. She met his waiting gaze. “What?”

  There was pain in his eyes, a lonely kind of hurt. “You gotta know, you’re the only woman in my mind. You always have been, since that first day I saw you…” He gestured toward the driveway that curved around to the barn and the sheds. “Wearing that short, tight black skirt and that T-shirt with no bra under it, strutting across the yard that hot summer day you came here to stay. But how I feel about you—and what I’m capable of doing. They’re not the same. I’m just…I’m not doing that, Starr. Not ever.”

  She didn’t understand—didn’t want to understand. “Not doing what?”

  “You know what. Marriage. Kids. That whole family thing. It’s not for me. I thought you knew that. I told you that, six years ago. I’m never getting married and I’m sure as hell never going to mess up some poor kid’s life by trying to be a dad.”

  She couldn’t be hearing this. “But…that was then. Everything’s different now.”

  “For you, maybe. Me, I’m still a Tisdale. The first honest Tisdale, in two generations, I like to think. Maybe I’ll never be able to vote in the state of Wyoming, now I’m an ex-con. Maybe in a lot of ways, I’ll always be a second-class citizen. I’m okay with that. I’ve got honest work to do and Daniel to look after. I’m…contented with that. Good with it, you know?”

  “Well then, why not take the next step? Why not—”

  “Listen. Try to hear what I’m saying. As far as the marriage and family thing goes, where I grew up, it meant shouting and hitting and burning and cutting.”

  “But…that’s crazy. You and me, we’d never be like that.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Of course it matters, it matters more than anything. Love matters. You and me and what we have, what we can be, together. That’s everything. That’s…what life’s about.”

  “I know that.”

  “Well, then, if you know it, I don’t see why you can’t—”

  “Damn it, Starr. Yeah. I know it. I know it up here.” He tapped his forehead. “But in here.” He touched his chest. “In the place I live and breathe, in my guts and in my heart.” He was shaking his head. “Here, I only know that having a wife and a family is a recipe for disaster. It’s not for me.”

  She gaped at him. “That’s ridiculous. You’re not your dad or your awful brothers. You’re a good man. You’ve made a decent life for yourself. You’ve got a right to—”

  “It’s not what I want. I’m just not cut out for it.”

  “How can you say that?”

  “Because it’s the truth.” He got up—and that time she didn’t try to stop him. “Look. I think it’s about time Daniel and me got going.”

  She stared up at him looming above her. In his face, she could see clearly his eagerness to be gone.

  Though inside she was reeling from all the awful things he’d said, she considered trying to stop him….

  But if she kept him here, kept at him, she would start shouting. She’d call him some ugly things and she’d do it really loud. The hands in the trailers across the yard would hear her. Worse than that, her little brother and her fourteen-year-old sister would hear, too. The last thing Ethan and Jo needed—especially after a day like today—was to hear their big sister screaming at Beau.

  “Yeah,” she said tightly. “You’re right. You’d better just go.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Tess came home on Tuesday, with circles under her eyes and a determined smile on her face. Zach carried her upstairs to bed. She stayed there for about two hours, and then she came down to the kitchen and sat at the table and warned Edna not to put too many onions in the Swiss steak.

  “I’ve been cutting back on them,” grumbled Edna. Starr, at the sink as usual, wielding her trusty potato peeler, tried not to roll her eyes. Edna was always cutting back on the onions—and yet her gravy inevitably came out thick and pungent with them. “And you should be upstairs in bed where Zach put you,” Edna scolded.

  “It’s too quiet up there—Ethan!”

  Ethan came flying in from the great room. “Yeah, Mom?” Lately, it took him forever to come when you called him. But not this time.

  “How ’bout a story?”

  His eyes lit up. “Right now—when it’s not even bedtime?”

  “Right now.”

  He went and got a stack of Dr. Seuss books and scrambled up on her lap, even though for weeks now, he’d been telling everyone that he was too big for sitting on laps anymore. Tess read him the familiar stories. From the corner of her eye, Starr saw how Tess fondly stroked his hair and twice pressed a kiss to his temple. He allowed these attentions, though as a rule in recent weeks he would squirm away from open displays of affection.

  Once, Tess looked up when Starr glanced her way. Their gazes locked. A soft smile curved Tess’s mouth—and the sadness in her eyes was fathoms deep.

  Edna fed the hands early and the family ate in the dining room. Starr watched the tender looks that passed between her father and his wife. They were so lucky, to have each other at a time like this.

  Starr remembered when they’d first gotten married—that year she came back to live on the Rising Sun. Even a mixed-up sixteen-year-old could see they had problems. Then, they’d slept in separate rooms…

  But they’d worked it out. They’d built a good life together, found a strong, abiding love. The kind of love that would see them through this awful loss. They were a living, breathing example of what a marriage could be.

  They had what Beau seemed to think just wasn’t possible.

  Later, Ethan watched a few cartoons and Zach sat in the easy chair he’d reclaimed from his son and read for a while. The women played Scrabble.

  Edna went back to her place at ten. Starr stayed downstairs after everyone else went up. She watched a movie—a romance, where the girl got the
guy and everyone was happy at the end.

  It was late when the movie ended. She turned off the lights and went upstairs to her old bedroom.

  The next night, Wednesday, after the dishes were cleaned up, Starr decided to get a head start on some articles she’d said she’d put together for the following week’s Clarion. She was typing away when Tess spoke from the open doorway.

  “Working hard, I see.”

  It was the oddest moment. Tess stood in exactly the same place she’d stood Saturday afternoon, when she came to tell Starr that something was wrong. Now, except for those fading shadows under her eyes and a certain sad reserve in her manner, she looked well.

  Tough things happened. You got over it. Life went on.

  Starr spun her swivel chair to face her stepmother. “Just getting a little ahead for a change.” Tess gave her a hopeful smile. Starr knew she was waiting for an invitation. “Come on in. Shut the door.”

  Tess pushed the door closed and sat on the bed. “I haven’t seen Beau around….”

  Starr had been expecting that one. “Me neither.” After their little talk on the porch Saturday night, he’d been conspicuously absent. Which was fine with Starr—or so she kept trying to tell herself.

  “Your dad says you’ve been staying here at the house since Saturday.”

  She’d been needed here—at least, at first. But now, with Edna back to help run the house and cook the meals and Tess home safe and on her feet, the excuse was starting to wear a little thin. “Yeah. Guess I’ll go on back to the cabin tonight, soon as I finish up on the computer.”

  “I didn’t mean to get you thinking that you have to go. We love having you here, close, with us.”

  Starr wrinkled up her nose. “You always say just the right thing.”

  “It’s only the truth. I’d like nothing better than if you stayed.”

  “It’s time I went back.” Her own place was important to her—whether Beau was in it or not.

  Tess sighed. “That’s your choice, of course.” She smoothed the blue-and-purple bedspread with a light hand. “I’ve been meaning to tell you how grateful I am that you were here Saturday.” She smiled, a wistful kind of smile. “I squeezed your poor fingers so hard… Didn’t break any bones, did I?”

  Starr held up her hand and wiggled the fingers. “Nope. Still works just fine. And I’m glad I was here, too—though I did feel pretty helpless.”

  “Helpless…” Tess seemed to ponder the word. “I know what you mean.” She smoothed the bedspread some more. “I’m going to be all right, you know. Eventually.”

  “Yeah. I know you will.”

  “But what about you?”

  Starr’s throat clutched—just a little. Tess did amaze her. Even at a time like this, when Tess ought to be concentrating on her own loss, she took the time to find out what was bothering Starr. “I’m okay. Really…”

  Tess looked at her for a long, measuring moment. “Don’t want to talk about it, huh?”

  “You don’t need to hear it.”

  “But I want to hear it—as soon as you’re ready to share with me.” Tess stood. “And now, I guess I’d better let you work.”

  “Tess?”

  “Umm?”

  “Thanks.”

  “I’m here. A little the worse for wear, maybe. A little—” she seemed to seek the right word, and settled on “—brokenhearted. But I’m here. Any time. Never forget that.”

  Starr returned to the cabin later that night. She took a long bath, thinking the soothing water would relax her, make it easier to sleep.

  The bath didn’t work. She lay there alone in that bed for an hour or so, then she got up and pulled on her robe and went out to the front step.

  She was sitting there watching the stars, wondering if she was ever going to get to sleep, when the twin beams of headlights cut the night. The two lights bounced along over the ruts in the twisting dirt driveway—headed for her place.

  Beau.

  Starr resisted opposing urges: to leap up and run out to meet him, and to slip inside, turn off the light, latch the door and not open it no matter how hard he pounded on it. She didn’t want to see his face, she told herself—at the same time as her foolish heart beat faster with longing the closer that pickup came.

  What was there to say to him? She’d pretty much said it all—well, except for the part about the baby.

  And yeah, okay. The one point she hadn’t made was the main one. But she wasn’t blaming herself too much for not saying it. He’d told her he was never going to be anybody’s dad, for Pete’s sake. Chirping up with “Well, too bad, you’re gonna be one…”

  Uh-uh.

  The pickup pulled in next to the Suburban. The engine went quiet and the headlights blinked out, leaving the night seeming darker than before. For several long seconds, he just sat there, a shadow behind the wheel. Maybe he regretted deciding to come.

  She could relate to that. A part of her wouldn’t have minded in the least if he’d just stayed away, left her alone to take her wounded heart and her unborn baby and get on that plane for New York, after all.

  She rose to her feet as he opened his door. He came around the front of the vehicle and strode toward her, halting an arm’s distance away.

  “Well,” she said, staring up into his shadowed face, her heart knocking hard against her ribs—but her tone as cool as the wind that ruffled her hair. “What a surprise. I was beginning to think I’d seen the last of you.”

  He reached for her. She tried to jerk back, to escape his hands, but he caught her anyway and pulled her into him.

  Outraged, she commanded, “Let me go.” He held on, leaving her to squirm and struggle in his hold, furious at him for daring to grab her when she didn’t want to be held—and also, somewhere deep inside, rejoicing at his nearness, at the feel of his body against hers.

  “Starr,” he said, and that got to her—her name on his lips. She let him hold her, pressing spread hands against his chest to keep him from daring any additional intimacies.

  He wanted to kiss her—she could see it in his eyes, in the hungry way his gaze kept tracking to her mouth. He wanted to kiss her and sweep her up and carry her inside, take her to bed where they could do the one thing they both agreed on.

  “Damn it, I missed you,” he whispered. His heart pounded too fast under her hand.

  She breathed in the scent of him, hungry for him as he was for her—and fighting that hunger with every ounce of will and self-respect she possessed. She schooled her voice to an even tone. “I’ve been right here the whole time.”

  He glared down at her. “Waiting for me to change my mind?”

  Fresh anger blazed through her. “No way. I got the point. Your mind is made up and I’d better get used to it—which has me kind of wondering what you’re doing here.”

  “I… Damn it.” He let her go so abruptly she almost stumbled. “You’re right.” He turned on his heel.

  She knew she should just let him leave. But some contrary part of her had to have the last word. “Beau.” He kept on walking. “Wait.” He stopped and faced her again. “Why did you come here?”

  He looked her up and down, that blue gaze burning everywhere it touched. “I told you. It was killin’ me. I had to see you….”

  She hitched up her chin. “So here I am. What now?”

  He swore. “Okay, you got me. I’m a jackass for showing up here.”

  He’d get no argument on that one. “Yeah. You are.”

  He looked down at his boots, shook his head. “I’m sorry, Starr.”

  Tears pushed at the back of her throat and she had to bite her lip to keep it from trembling. “Sorry just doesn’t cut it.”

  His head came up. His eyes were hard, his face set against her—against any hope that they might find their way to a shared life together. “Look. It’s how it is. I can’t be what you want me to be and I’m not going to lie about it.”

  She laughed then. Laughed, to keep those pointless tears from falli
ng. “There’s a great line from an old movie… ‘Can’t lives on won’t street.’ That’s pretty much you, Beau, don’t you think?”

  “You just don’t get it.” He spoke through clenched teeth. “You don’t want to get it.”

  “Well, yeah. That’s the truth. I don’t want to get that I’m the only woman who matters to you, that you’ve never forgotten me after all these years, that you can’t stay away from me, can’t keep your hands off me…but still, at the end of the summer, you’re sending me to New York—whether I want to leave you or not. I don’t get how, if you can’t stay away from me now, you’re going to stand it when I’m gone for good.”

  “Damn it, we had an agreement.”

  “Don’t start in with that again. I heard it all before.”

  “What the hell do you want me to say?”

  “Nothing—not if all you’re gonna do is tell me what I already know.”

  They stared at each other, the short distance between them a yawning chasm of a thousand miles.

  “I’m gone, then,” he said at last. “I won’t come back.”

  “Well, all right, then. Goodbye.”

  She didn’t stick around to watch him leave. Whirling, she raced up the steps and into the cabin, shutting the door against the sound of his pickup starting up and driving off.

  The damn, useless tears tried to rise again. She rested her forehead against the rough wood of the door, sniffing like crazy to keep them at bay.

  But they wouldn’t be held back. In the end, she let them take her, let the great, gulping sobs roll through her. She slid down the door and sat there on the floor, shoulders shaking, the tears streaming free down her cheeks, crying for the love, the marriage—the family—that was never going to be.

  Chapter Twelve

  Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday…

  The days crept by. Starr went to work and helped out at the main house and fought the growing awareness that she couldn’t keep hiding from the thing she hadn’t said.