Private Lives

by Karen Young

  Elizabeth stared in shock and disbelief. “No.”

  “I’m afraid so. Just four weeks, but she’s definitely pregnant.”

  Elizabeth put a hand to her mouth. “Oh, my God.”

  Seeing Elizabeth’s distress, Megan touched her hand gently. “I thought you said she wasn’t involved with Austin anymore. So, is there someone else that we should notify about this?”

  Elizabeth was shaking her head, wanting to scream a denial. After all this time, then one foolish, impetuous moment—Oh, Gina.

  “Elizabeth?”

  She blinked and brought Megan back into focus, brought herself back into focus. “Oh. Ah, someone else? No. No one else.” Her tone was flat and bitter. “Just Austin. She went out with him after the hearing. They didn’t get home until late. There were bruises on her arms where he…” She drew a shaky breath. “She told me they had…sex. She felt awful about it. Disgusted with herself because she knew it was his way of manipulating her. Or trying to. He wanted her to drop the suit. He—”

  She stopped, stemming the flow of words and looked at Megan. “I’m sorry. I know what you’re thinking, but it’s not true. She wasn’t…easy. You have to understand her relationship with Austin. You have to understand how trapped she was in her need for him. It was neurotic…sick.”

  “You don’t have to apologize for Gina,” Megan said, giving her hand a squeeze. “I understand the syndrome. I see it in the ER too often.”

  “I’m not apologizing. I just don’t want you to think she was promiscuous. She wasn’t,” Elizabeth said, adding bitterly, “She hasn’t been with another man since meeting Austin eight years ago. She never looked at another man.” She turned around and gazed sadly at Gina lying still and lifeless in the bed. A machine beeped with her every heartbeat. The respirator moved rhythmically, up and down, up and down. The monitor situated at eye level showed a maze of green lines, blips and numbers. “Have you told Austin?”

  “No.”

  Elizabeth let out a breath. “There’s no need,” she said, her mouth turned down. “You can bet that’s the reason Gina went out with him last night. I couldn’t understand it until now. She had to tell him that she was pregnant.”

  Ryan had just stepped out of the shower when he heard the doorbell. What, besides an overnight parcel delivery would explain a caller at eight o’clock on Saturday morning? Peering through the peephole, he recognized the face of his troublesome client. With a grimace, he beckoned him inside.

  “Ryan, we gotta talk.” Austin looked around nervously, then managed a short laugh. “Sorry about this, but it’s important.” He cleared his throat. “I guess you wouldn’t have a cup of coffee, by any chance?”

  Gesturing him to follow, Ryan headed down the hall to the kitchen. The pot was just brewed. He hadn’t even had a chance to fortify himself, but he poured his client a cup and shoved it across the counter. “I hope you take it straight.”

  Austin pushed it back. “I could use a shot of something stronger.”

  Ryan looked at him hard. “The sun’s barely up, Austin. What’s with you?” But he reached into his store of liquor and took down a bottle of Jim Beam, poured a stiff shot into Austin’s coffee and pushed it back. “You look like hell.”

  “Yeah. And I feel like hell.” Austin drank half of it down in one gulp, then flexed his neck and released a sound, half sigh, half groan. “Thanks.”

  “Is this about Gina?” Ryan suddenly held his breath, thinking of Liz. It would hit her hard.

  “No, no. Well, in a way.” Austin wiped his mouth. He’d been sitting, but he got up abruptly and went to the window above the sink and looked out. “It’s about Jesse. I need you to arrange it so I can ship her off to my mother in Arizona. She’ll be better off there once Gina…” He took another gulp of coffee. “She shouldn’t stay around here and be subjected to something like that.”

  “Didn’t you say she hasn’t seen your mother in a while? If Gina does pass away and Jesse is shipped off to be with people she doesn’t know very well, aren’t you concerned about how that’ll affect her? Just think a minute, Austin. She was with her mom when the accident happened. She saw Gina’s terrible injuries. Next, she’s at the hospital where she senses that all is not well. She’s smart, Austin. You’re fooling yourself if you think she doesn’t have a fairly good idea what’s happening here. I’d be grateful, if I were you, that she can stay with Liz and Louie through the whole ordeal. From what I’ve seen, you can depend on Liz to help her understand her mom’s death—if that happens. Liz knows what it’s like to lose a parent when you’re five years old. It happened to her.”

  “Liz!” Speaking the name with disgust, he flung out a hand. “Everybody thinks the best of Liz. But what she’s really doing is trying to set the stage to keep Jesse permanently. Don’t you get it? Goddamn it! Has everybody lost it around here?” He hit the counter with his fist.

  “She is concerned about Jesse, Austin,” Ryan said patiently. “All of us are. Jesse’s going to suffer the worst thing that can happen to a child. She’s going to lose her mother. It’s up to us—to you, especially, as her father—to see that she’s not damaged more than is bound to happen anyway.”

  “Enough.” Austin turned away. “I’m not here to convince you to agree with me on this, Ryan. I’m just telling you that I’m sending Jesse to my mother in Arizona. As my lawyer, I want you to do what’s necessary to make it legal.”

  When it snows in Brownsville, buddy. Privately, Ryan longed to tell Austin to find himself another lawyer. This insensitive prick could take what was necessary legally and stick it where the sun didn’t shine. But to do that would take Ryan out of the loop and leave Liz and Jesse vulnerable to Austin’s self-centered plans. What kind of a father was he to even consider removing a child who was suffering from unspeakable grief and pain from everything that was familiar and sending her a thousand miles away? He flexed his jaw, took his time sipping his coffee while he thought how to handle this jerk.

  “Tell you what, Austin,” he said, “let’s wait and see what happens with Gina today. And think about this. Judge Hetherington will probably think separating that child from Liz right now is not in her best interest. I don’t know this for a fact, but I’m guessing that at the first hint Liz gets of you wanting to take Jesse away from Houston, she’ll file for a restraining order. The facts are strong enough that she’ll get it, too. Another point in her favor is that Hetherington’s already familiar with the case.”

  Ryan stood in his open door and watched Austin blast off down the street in the Porsche. His client was one very unhappy man, but hopefully Ryan had succeeded in stalling his plan to send Jesse away, for the moment. But in the back of his mind was a niggling unease about the whole thing. Why the urgency to remove Jesse? And what if he ignored his lawyer’s advice and sent her off anyway? Finishing his coffee, Ryan decided he couldn’t let that happen.

  Upstairs, he heard Jennifer slamming drawers and banging doors. Then her boom box blasted at max level, Dixie Chicks chirping their latest. Somehow, he was more aware of his own neglect of Jennifer and he was working to change that. If it was within his power to do something to rescue Jesse, he was going to do that, too. Looking back on the last few years of his life, he couldn’t see a lot to be proud of.

  His cell phone lay on the hall table at the base of the stairs. He picked it up and punched in the digits for information. When he got an answer, he asked for Lindsay Blackstone’s number. There was more than one way to skin a cat.

  Sixteen

  “What do you mean, I’ve got to baby-sit?”

  “I think you heard me, hon. The ox is in the ditch.”

  Jennifer pulled her earphones off and looked at Ryan in complete bewilderment. “What does that mean?”

  “It’s in the Bible.” His teenager lay on her stomach, her feet waving in the air. Her toenails, he noted, were painted a hideous bruise-purple. Why would a young girl think that color was attractive? He walked over to her bed and shoved asi
de half a dozen loose CDs to clear off a place to sit down. “An ox was as vital in biblical times as an automobile or a computer today, and there were very strict rules about what you could or couldn’t do on Sundays, or the Sabbath as that day was called. Well, some guy’s ox accidentally fell into a ditch and there was some criticism over pulling him out, seeing as it was forbidden to do any labor on Sunday. The alternative was just to leave the poor animal to suffer in the ditch, possibly die. The decision was made to pull him out. Compassion and logic triumphed over dogma.”

  Jennifer’s expression had changed little while Ryan talked. She sighed deeply and pushed the button to silence her CD player before propping on an elbow to look at him. “And your point is, Daddy?”

  It was Ryan’s turn to sigh. What, had he expected instantaneous enthusiasm from his daughter? Keeping his tone even and patient, he gave it another shot. “Gina is lying in ICU close to death this morning. Liz is keeping vigil there. Jesse, who is probably very scared and bewildered, is being minded by her surrogate grandpa.” He paused. “You met Louie, didn’t you?”

  She shrugged. “I guess.”

  “He’s old, if you recall. Caring for a little kid takes a lot of energy, more sometimes than an elderly person has. Not that Louie’s unwilling to watch Jesse right now, because as I said, the—”

  She was already nodding. “…ox is in the ditch.”

  “Now, you’ve got it, baby.”

  Ryan smiled. “So I suggested to Liz that you might be able to step in and take up some of the slack this weekend. And maybe for a couple of afternoons next week depending on Gina’s condition. The accident happened just last night and the first twelve hours after such a trauma are crucial. The prognosis isn’t good, so Liz will probably want to stay.”

  “Well, I can’t.”

  “You can’t.” His eyebrows went up a notch.

  Jennifer shifted so that she was now sitting, legs crossed. “I have a life, Daddy. You can’t just go around arranging stuff for me. It’s a real pain to spend my entire weekend baby-sitting some little kid. What do you expect me to do there, read Harry Potter ? Besides, how would I work it in with my prison sentence? I’m supposed to be the maid and general slave around here to pay for that stupid bike, remember?”

  “I’m prepared to cut you some slack on the prison sentence,” Ryan said, setting his teeth to keep from giving her a good shaking. “Instead of vacuuming and doing the dishes, you become a nanny for a few days. It’ll go toward the cost of the bike.”

  “Sorry, but I’d rather do the toilets.” She put the headphones back on and reached for the CD player.

  Dismissing him. Ryan sat for a moment just looking at her. Didn’t she have a heart? Was there no sympathy for a little kid whose mother was probably dying? Music from the CD plugged into her ears came to him faintly, a solid, hard, rhythmic beat. Even if she told him the artist, he wouldn’t recognize the name. He was so out of sync with Jennifer and her world that they might almost live on two different planets. So, why had he ever thought he could do a better job with her than Diane?

  He reached for the CD player, ignoring her startled, angry reaction and punched the button that shut off the music. “Okay, back to square one, hon,” he said, tossing the high-tech equipment on a chair nearby. “I want you to listen carefully. You don’t get to agree or disagree. Get up, get dressed. We’ll stop at McDonald’s and get some breakfast and then I’ll drop you at Liz’s house where you will put on a happy face and be nice to that little girl who may be motherless soon. If she wants to hear Harry Potter, you’ll be happy to read it. If she wants you to bake cookies, you become Martha Stewart, Jr. You will keep her entertained and tell her nothing about her mom that might upset her. Now, do I make myself clear?”

  She was standing now, glaring at him. “This isn’t about Jesse, is it, Dad? It’s about that woman, Liz. Sending me over to baby-sit is just a backdoor way of you sucking up to her, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, she’s going to really like me a lot when she gets to know you better.”

  For a nanosecond, hurt flashed in her eyes. “I’m calling Mom to come and get me.”

  Ryan reached over and picked up her cell phone from the bedside table and without a word, held it out to her. Keeping her gaze locked on his, she stood toe to toe with him. He could see the passion in her. Frustration radiated from her like heat on a summer beach. Half a minute passed, then with a muttered word that he wasn’t meant to hear, she turned on her heel and headed for the bathroom, slamming the door with enough force to rock the room.

  He crossed the room and stood listening. She was again banging things around and slamming drawers, but now in rebellion. Next, he heard the yank of the shower curtain. He winced, hoping it wouldn’t be pulled off the rod. Then, the hiss of water. He spoke through the door before she had time to get in the shower. “You’ve got twenty minutes, princess.”

  Lindsay didn’t know how he had done it, but Ryan Paxton had managed to reach her via cell phone at the hospital. At first, she’d assumed he meant the call to go to Liz, but no, what he had to say was meant for Lindsay. The lawyer was walking a fine line, she thought, as she scribbled notes in her journalist’s shorthand while he talked. But she made a mental note to try to find a way to thank him once this was all over. She wasn’t quite sure that Liz was ready to trust anybody who was in any way linked to Austin Leggett, but what Ryan was doing removed any doubt from Lindsay’s mind.

  She clicked her cell phone back onto its holder at her waist and made a big to-do of stretching the kinks out of her back and neck. “Boyoboy, Liz, sitting around and waiting like this is murder. I’m feeling almost claustrophobic and you’ve been cooped up for hours. How about us taking a walk to the atrium?” She moved to one of the windows. “It’s stopped raining and we have another half hour before they’ll let us back in to see Gina. What do you say?”

  “I don’t know….”

  It was plain to see that Elizabeth was still in shock over Gina’s pregnancy. Her suspicion, and it made sense, that Gina’s reason for agreeing to go out with Austin was to tell him about it. What wasn’t clear—and maybe never would be—was Austin’s reaction when he was told. Nothing about the last few hours Gina spent with him that night would ever be clear unless Jesse knew something…and Jesse wasn’t telling.

  “There’s something I want to talk to you about, Liz,” Lindsay said, “and the ICU waiting area is a little too public.”

  Elizabeth sighed. “All right, but let’s tell Gina’s nurse. Just in case something happens.”

  “Sure, I’d already thought of that.”

  Ten minutes later, they were at the atrium, a lushly landscaped area on the ground floor of the hospital. The plants were heavy with colorful blooms at this time of year and small trees reached thirty and forty feet into the air. “The sun always seems so bright after a rainstorm, doesn’t it?” Lindsay said as she slipped her sunglasses onto her face.

  “That, too, but I’m always struck by how clean and sharp the world looks after it rains,” Elizabeth said, bending over to pick up a deep-pink camellia bloom that had fallen. She gazed a long moment at its perfect composition. “Maybe renewed is a better word. Considering the reason I’m here, it seems someone has made an impossible, incredible error.”

  Lindsay touched her hand. “I’m so sorry, Liz.”

  Elizabeth could only nod.

  “Since we do know that Gina’s condition seems irreversible—or even if we don’t yet know that for sure—there’s still something that I wanted to suggest to you, something you might not have considered in all this. It has to do with Jesse.”

  “I’ve done nothing but think of Jesse in all this,” Elizabeth said dryly.

  “But this is a legal matter.”

  Elizabeth drew a sharp breath. “Oh?”

  “Let’s sit down.”

  Water trickled from a rustic waterfall in a corner of the atrium. They headed to it and sat down on a stone bench. “Do you have Maude Kennedy�
�s number?” Lindsay asked.

  “Yes. Actually, I called her already. She promised to come, but after a nine o’clock appointment. I want to be sure we can block Austin on the life support.”

  Lindsay glanced at her watch. “If the appointment lasts an hour, she should be wrapping it up any minute. I hope you won’t think I’m overstepping myself here, but I promise you, I’m thinking of Jesse’s welfare. If we wait until we’re blessed with hindsight, it’ll be too late.”

  “What is it, Lindsay?”

  “I think you should call Maude right now and ask that she file an injunction blocking Austin from being alone with Jesse and, failing that, certainly do whatever it takes to block him from shipping her off to his parents in Arizona.”

  Elizabeth frowned. “How did you know his parents were in Arizona?”

  “I think I must have heard it when I sat in court that first day.” She had not recalled that fact. Ryan had mentioned it. But Liz wasn’t to know that. She didn’t want Liz to know that this had been Ryan’s suggestion. It amounted to a breach of legal ethics that he was advising Liz when Austin clearly considered her his chief adversary.

  “Do you think he would do that?” Liz asked with an expression of dismay on her face. Then before giving Lindsay a chance to reply, she added, “Well, of course, he would. He’d whisk her off to people she’s seen only two or three times in her entire life without a blink.”

  “And why would you think he’d do that? I know why I think so, but just so we’re on the same page, why?”

  “Because he’s a—” She stopped, looked sharply at Lindsay. “Because he doesn’t want her to talk about what happened the night of the accident, right?”

  “You’ll have to admit, it’s a possibility. And to be on the safe side—”

  “Thanks, Lindsay. I should have thought of it myself.” Elizabeth put out her hand. “May I borrow your cell phone?”