Fifty Ways to Say I’m Pregnant

by Christine Rimmer

  She had a phone with her. He said he’d call before he started the short trip back to town. They could go to the lawyer’s office together.

  It was after four when he returned. She sat at the counter in the coffee shop, nursing a Sprite, her book open and ignored in front of her, watching out the wide bank of windows as clouds gathered in the sky, turning it leaden gray with a promise of rain for the trip home. He pushed through the glass doors, spotted her and gestured with a toss of his head.

  She’d already set her money down. She grabbed her book, thanked the waitress and hurried out to meet him.

  “Come on, let’s go,” was all he said, his face set. Determined. Closed off to any questions.

  They got back in the Suburban and drove the few blocks to a flat-roofed office building on Pine Street.

  Taft Eldridge and Associates, Attorneys at Law, was on the second floor: a cramped cubicle that smelled of mildew. Battered file cabinets huddled together on one wall. There was a grimy window with a ledge crowded with scraggly-looking potted plants. By the time they got there, the rain had started. Fat drops blew against the dirty glass and slithered down.

  The attorney rose from behind a desk piled high with precariously stacked manila folders. He wore a wrinkled white dress shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbows and a pair of equally rumpled gray slacks. His tie hung loose around his neck.

  “Come in, come in. Have a seat.”

  Starr and Beau sandwiched themselves into a pair of orange plastic chairs between the desk and the looming file cabinets.

  “Taft Eldridge,” the lawyer said. “Mr. Tisdale, right?” He extended his hand.

  Beau reached across the piles of folders and they shook. “I’m T.J.’s brother, Beau.”

  “Ahem. Yes. Let’s see now…” The lawyer sat again and began rummaging through the folders. A pile of them started to tip. He caught it before the whole stack slid from the desk and whipped out a folder from near the middle. “Tisdale…ah. Here…” He looked at Beau. “Mr. Tisdale, though I have informed your brother that we’ve not yet exhausted our options in his case, he wishes that you, as his next-of-kin, should take possession of his personal belongings at this point.” He set the folder to the side, pulled out a drawer and withdrew a large yellow envelope, lumpy with whatever was inside. “I’ll need identification—just as a matter of form.”

  Beside her, Beau sat very still, looking straight ahead, his face a bleak mask.

  “Ahem. Mr. Tisdale…”

  Beau made a low sound of disgust. “You got me in here for this? I don’t need that junk.”

  “Ahem. Well. It is your brother’s wish—”

  “You think I give a damn what T.J. wishes?”

  The lawyer sat back in his chair. “Mr. Tisdale, if you don’t choose to accept these items, that is, of course, your right.”

  “Well, Mr. Eldridge.” Beau’s voice was heavy on the sarcasm. “Thank you for telling me.”

  Starr was keeping her mouth shut—with effort. But when Beau glanced her way, she couldn’t help giving him a questioning look. What was the big deal? Why couldn’t he just take the envelope, if it was something his brother wanted him to have?

  Beau gave her a hot glare—and then waved a hand. “All right, fine. Whatever.” He took out his wallet and showed the lawyer his driver’s license.

  “Ah,” said the lawyer with a sour little smile. “Good. I see we’re all in order.” He stood again, long enough to grab the stack of folders directly in front of Beau. When he couldn’t find another spot on the desk, he plunked the pile on the floor beside his chair. “Now then.” He took a paper from T.J.’s folder and set the paper down in the space he’d cleared in front of Beau. “Sign on the line. It says you’ve claimed the envelope containing the contents of your brother’s pockets at the time of his arrest.”

  Beau took the pen the lawyer offered and scrawled his name.

  “Here you go, then.” Taft Eldridge handed Beau the envelope. “You two folks have a real nice day.”

  When they got out to the street, the rain was coming down hard. They made a break for the Suburban, jumping in and hauling the doors shut as fast as they could against the downpour. Beau threw the unopened envelope behind the seat. Starr longed to ask him to open it right then. But the look on his face warned her not to go there. She hooked up her seat belt.

  He started the engine, gunning it. She sent him a warning glance—but kept her mouth shut. With the windshield wipers slapping at the rain, they set off.

  He drove too fast, sliding around a corner, with the tires screeching in protest. He raced through a yellow light, barely getting out of the intersection before it went to red. She gripped the armrest and kept quiet—until the next light, where he came within an inch of rear-ending a blue van.

  “Beau. I’m not liking this. You’d better slow down.”

  He sent her a lowering look and swore beneath his breath—but he did take it a little easier. Or at least he did until they got out of town onto the two-lane highway that wound its way to Casper. By then, as the rain beat down, making a blur of the road, Beau was once again driving too fast.

  Twice, she asked him to slow it down. Both times, he did, but then, after a few minutes, he’d pick up speed again. They rode in a thick silence to the sound of the wipers beating at the rain.

  The encounter with his brother had really gotten to him. That was obvious. But was it necessary to get in a wreck over it?

  “Pull over,” she finally commanded, when they were maybe twenty miles out of Rawlins and the speedometer hovered at seventy—way too fast for the treacherous conditions and the narrow, winding road. “Pull over now and let me drive.”

  He let his foot off the gas and they slowed to forty. “Happy?”

  “Not particularly—since experience tells me you’ll only speed up again. I mean it, Beau. Just pull over.”

  Finally, he did as she asked, easing the big vehicle onto the shoulder. He leaned on his door and got out without saying a word. A few seconds later, he appeared at her side door. She clambered over the console. Water dripping off his hat—and the rest of him for that matter—he took the seat she’d vacated. “Happy now?” he grumbled, giving the door a good slam.

  She decided against dignifying that one with an answer. Hitching up her seat belt, she put the Suburban in gear and carefully eased out onto the streaming asphalt.

  They rode along in a loaded silence for a while, Starr straining to make out the broken white line in the center of the road, telling herself to be glad that at least there was hardly any traffic. If she did wander over that line she could barely see, there was a good chance she wouldn’t hit anything before she got herself back to the right side of the road.

  The silence from Beau’s side of the car only seemed to get thicker. Gloomier.

  She’d been driving for about ten minutes when she dared to send him a look and to tartly suggest, “You know, it’s not my fault that your brother’s a—”

  “Look out!”

  She snapped her gaze back to the road in time to see the deer leaping out in front of them. Stomping the brake, she swerved to miss it—and she did.

  The deer got away clean.

  They weren’t so lucky. The tires hydroplaned. They went skidding along the edge of the road as she tried to get the wheel back under control.

  She didn’t succeed. They hit the ditch beyond the shoulder, only stopping with a crunching crash when the Suburban drove itself into the bank on the far side.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The Suburban revved high and hard—and then died. The wipers beat on, fighting back the driving rain. Starr put up both hands to shove the already-deflating air bag out of her way.

  Beau shoved at his own air bag. “You okay?”

  “Yeah. Considering.”

  He unhooked his seat belt and pushed open his door. Water flowed in. He hauled it shut. “Great. We’d better get out of here. No telling how fast the ditch will fill up.” He shoved at his a
ir bag some more, so he could see out over the hood. “Hood looks a little crumpled. But the engine sounded okay when it died. Maybe we can…” He didn’t finish. They were both looking out the back windshield. They were wedged in good. The Suburban was going nowhere without the help of a tow truck and a nice, big winch. Beau took the keys from the ignition. The windshield wipers stopped in midswipe.

  Except for the driving beat of the rain and the occasional creaking sound from the crunched up Suburban, it was quiet. Starr shook her head. He’d been driving like a maniac—and she’d ended up getting them in a wreck.

  “Hey.” He squeezed her shoulder. She’d never been so grateful for a reassuring touch, hands-off rule be damned. “Not your fault,” he said. “We’re lucky you were driving. Going nice and slow…” At least the humor was back in his eyes. Too bad it took a wreck to put it there. “Okay?” he asked. When she nodded, he reached over the seat and grabbed her purse.

  “Take the envelope, too.”

  He sent her an irritated glance. “Why? It’s only paper. The damn thing’ll disintegrate in this downpour.”

  “Give it to me.” He didn’t look thrilled about it, but he did as she asked. She folded it and managed to stuff it in her purse—where she found her cell phone. “Shouldn’t I call for a tow truck before we—?”

  “What good’s it gonna do? We can’t wait out there in the pouring rain for the hours it’ll probably take one to show up. We’ll have to grab the first ride we can flag down and worry about the car when we get someplace safe and dry.” It made sense, she supposed. “You got any flares?”

  “Will a flare work—in this?”

  “Sweetheart, a flare will work under water.”

  In spite of their predicament, her heart warmed at the easy endearment. “In the emergency kit in the back…”

  “I’ll grab ’em on the way out. Let’s go.” He leaned on his door again. This time the water came pouring in. He swung his feet over into the ditch.

  With a sigh of resignation, Starr hooked her purse over her shoulder and pushed open her own door.

  When she stood up in the ditch, the swirling water came just below her knees. Lovely. Standing in it and standing under it, she was wet to the skin in seconds. She held on to the Suburban to keep the current from dragging her off her feet and made for the roadside bank, which was gooey and slick with mud. Sliding and slipping, she scrambled up to the side of the road.

  Beau got to the shoulder a little ahead of her, even after a stop at the back-seat door. He held down a hand and hauled her up the rest of the way.

  He had four flares. He gave her two. They went in opposite directions, setting them off at intervals, meeting in the middle by the ditched Suburban once the flares were lit.

  “How’re you holdin’ up?”

  The wind drove the rain against her face and she told herself to be glad that at least it wasn’t hail—yet. “I’ve been better.” She hunched her shoulders and looked down at her wet feet. “Wish I’d worn a sturdy pair of waterproof boots instead of sandals—but the good news is the rain washed most of the mud from between my toes.”

  He wrapped his arm around her, sharing his warmth and turning her so his body took most of the wind. It wasn’t that cold—low sixties, maybe, but she was shivering as the rain beat down on them.

  Within minutes, they spotted the headlights, twin dots of golden light coming their way. Beau waved both hands and shouted and Starr did the same.

  An ancient Cadillac emerged from the downpour and sailed to a stop right beside them. The window slid down. A grizzled old guy in ratty suspenders, a dead cigar clamped between his yellowed teeth, leaned across the wide front seat. “A real toad-strangler, ain’t it?” He pointed over his shoulder. “Get on in.”

  The window went up as Beau opened the rear door. Starr slid across the seat and Beau got in behind her.

  “Oh, thank you,” Starr said to the old guy in front.

  “It ain’t no problem.” He popped the trunk latch. “Got some towels in the back…”

  “We’ll get ’em,” Beau said. He grabbed Starr’s hand. “Come on…”

  She didn’t see any reason they both needed to go back out there—but then she met his eyes. After the things he’d seen in his life, he wasn’t getting out of that car and leaving her in it with a stranger behind the wheel.

  The old man grumbled, “I’m not drivin’ off without you, son.” Then he lifted one suspendered shoulder in a shrug. “But a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do. If you feel you have to drag that poor girl out in that mess out there, do it fast and get it over with—look in the corner on the right side, under that pile of Playboy magazines…”

  So Starr slid back across the seat and they emerged into the driving rain all over again. Beau led her back to the trunk and lifted it.

  “Sheesh,” she said, shivering, wrapping her arms around herself. That trunk was packed full of all kinds of stuff: a bicycle tire, an old computer monitor, piles of clothing, photo albums….

  Beau didn’t give her much time to check out the rest. He found the pile of Playboys, shoved it over, grabbed the towels underneath and slammed the trunk. The old car bobbed like a yacht on a swell.

  They hurried back to the rear door and got in the car again. Beau handed her a thick maroon towel monogrammed with an F.

  The old guy turned around in his seat and winked at Starr. “I buy those Playboys for the articles.”

  “Oh, of course…”

  “Been a widower for over thirty years.” He heaved a huge, blustery sigh. “Never looked at another woman since—well, except in pictures, acourse. Ah, Bathsheba. Empress of my heart. No one could ever come close to takin’ her place, so why even try?” He indicated the towel she was using on her hair. “Those towels are my daughter, Delilah’s. She probably knows I took ’em by now.” He chortled to himself as if at some delicious private joke. “But a few towels’ll be the least of the reasons she’ll be mad at me. She doesn’t like it when I take off. Says I’m too old.” He grunted. “You’re never too old, that’s what I say.”

  Starr grinned at him. How could she help it? So what if his trunk was a garage sale begging to happen? She liked the naughty twinkle in his beady dark eyes.

  They exchanged introductions. “Jones,” the old man said. “Oggie Jones and pleased to meet ya. Where you need to go?”

  Beau wiped his neck with the towel. “Anywhere we can hook up with a tow.”

  “Well, I’m headin’ into Evansville—got a little business to transact. I can let you off in Casper. How’s that?”

  Beau sent Starr a questioning look. She shrugged. “That’d be just fine,” he told the old man.

  They set off, Oggie Jones hunched behind the wheel, peering into the downpour, chattering away. He told them of his family and his home in the Sierra gold country. Before the irreplaceable Bathsheba had “shed the mortal coil,” she had given Oggie three sons and a daughter, Delilah. He had a fourth son, he said, but not by the exalted Bathsheba. He met Starr’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “I know what you’re thinkin’—and I meant what I said before. I ain’t never been untrue. It was before I met my beautiful Bathsheba that my Jack was conceived.”

  “Good to know,” said Starr, huddling close to Beau, taking shameless advantage of the break in her own hands-off rule.

  “Kids.” The old man cackled. “They’re born, they drive you crazy—and then they grow up and drive you crazy some more. But then again, what else you gonna do with your time and your money?” He shifted his cigar to the other side of his mouth. “Family is what the world’s about and that is a plain fact.”

  Yes! Starr was thinking. She even dared to lift her head from the comfy spot on Beau’s shoulder to see if—just maybe—he was getting the point. For her effort, she got a so-what kind of shrug. Not exactly the response she’d hoped for

  But she wasn’t complaining. She was out of the rain and she had Beau’s arm around her—and maybe she ought to start seeing abo
ut getting her car towed.

  She got out her cell, but couldn’t raise a dial tone. So she snuggled close to Beau again and listened to Oggie rattle on.

  At eight that evening, about twenty miles out of Casper, the rain stopped. Starr checked her phone again and it was working that time. She called the Rising Sun and told Tess about their problem.

  “I don’t know if we’ll make it home tonight,” she added after she’d explained their situation. “But we’re okay and we’ll see you at least by tomorrow sometime.”

  “How will you get back?”

  “A rental car, I guess. When we figure it out, we’ll let you know. Right now, we have a ride.” She caught Oggie’s eye in the rearview mirror and gave him a grin. “We’ll probably end up in Casper for the night.”

  Tess offered to come on down and get them. Starr almost accepted. But then she slid a glance at Beau. Hey. This could be her big opportunity. In a whole night alone with him, she’d surely find the right moment to deliver the big news.

  “Thanks. We’ll manage.”

  “Call me,” Tess instructed. “Let me know where you are when you stop for the night.”

  “I will. Promise. Tell Daniel?”

  “Right away.”

  Starr said goodbye and Oggie asked, “So where is it I’m takin’ you two?”

  She and Beau discussed what to do. They decided they’d get a rental to take them home—tomorrow, when the rental places opened up. Since tow fees to Casper would be astronomical, they’d call a towing company in Rawlins and have the Suburban hauled back there.

  “How about a motel, then?” Starr suggested.

  Oggie nodded. “A motel it is.”

  “What a damn mess,” Beau mumbled.

  “Sorry.” Starr sighed.

  Beau’s armed tightened around her. “I wasn’t blaming you. Your only mistake was coming along with me.”