A Child Under His Tree

by ALLISON LEIGH,

  “Take him to Ruby’s. It’s still open until two.” Pam gestured down the street. “Tabby owns the place now.”

  “Tabby Taggart?”

  “Tabby Clay now. She and Justin got married earlier this year. Bubba Bumble’s the cook. Do you remember him?”

  She nodded, trying to imagine Justin Clay and Tabby as a married couple. From Kelly’s earliest memories in school, they along with Caleb had been like the Three Musketeers. Kelly hadn’t been part of that crew until she and Caleb started high school.

  Until he’d picked her up and dusted her off after she’d done a header over her bicycle right in front of him.

  She pushed away the memory.

  “Good for them. I thought Justin was living back east somewhere, though.”

  “He was. He’s in charge of the hospital lab now.” Pam adjusted the scarf around her neck and glanced at her watch. “I’ve got to run, but remember what I said. If you need anything—”

  “Thanks, Pam.”

  “See you later, peach pit.” Pam poked Tyler lightly on the nose.

  Tyler giggled, watching the woman hurry off. “I’m not a peach pit. I’m a boy.”

  “My favorite one,” Kelly assured him. She had thought about driving them out to the new McDonald’s that Mary had told her about, but Ruby’s Café was just down the street within walking distance. “Come on, buddy.” She turned until they were facing the opposite direction. “Lunch is waiting.”

  They’d made it partway down the block when Tyler stopped and pointed. “What’s that?”

  She glanced at the sign hanging in one of the storefronts. It was a colorful thing, featuring a black-hatted witch and a grinning jack-o’-lantern. “It’s an ad for a Halloween carnival,” she told him.

  “Can we go?”

  “It’s next week, bud. We’ll see.”

  He ducked his chin. “That means no.”

  “That means I have to think about it. Come on. I thought your stomach was all growly. When I was young, Ruby’s Café had great chocolate milk shakes.”

  His eyes widened. “I can have a milk shake?”

  “If you eat your vegetables first.”

  “They won’t be carrots, will they?”

  “I’m sure they’ll have something other than carrots.” They were the one vegetable he really hated. She’d learned that when he’d been a baby and spit them right back in her face. “That’s the café, right there.” She pointed at the building near the corner. “Race you.”

  Tyler giggled and shot off ahead of her. Kelly laughed, keeping pace right behind him. There’d come a day when he’d outrace her. Of that there was no doubt. But for now... She caught him and lifted him off his feet just as he reached the door. “It’s a tie!”

  He wrapped his legs around her waist. “Uh-uh. I won.”

  She tickled his ribs with the hand she kept around him and pulled open the café door. The little bell hanging over it jingled softly.

  Walking into the café was like stepping back six years in time.

  The red vinyl seats and linoleum-topped tables were the same. Even the waitresses still wore pale pink dresses as a uniform.

  Despite herself, she smiled. Tabby might be running the show, but she was certainly staying true to the history of the place.

  “Find a seat where you can,” a waitress Kelly didn’t know told them as she walked by bearing a round tray loaded with hamburgers.

  Tyler wriggled until Kelly set him on his feet. “Can we sit at the counter, Mommy? Please?”

  Four of the round stools were empty. She gestured at them. “Take your pick.”

  He aimed for the one closest to the old-fashioned cash register, climbed up onto it without waiting for her assistance and yanked off his hoodie sweatshirt. She caught it before it hit the floor and tucked it inside her bag as she sat down beside him.

  It was plenty noisy inside the diner, between people’s chatter, the clink of flatware against crockery and the slightly tinny country music coming from the kitchen. She still heard the bell jingle over the door and automatically glanced over her shoulder. A white-haired woman came in and headed for one of the few empty tables. Kelly focused on the specials written on the chalkboard in the corner. The bell jingled again. Kelly was glad they’d come when they had. The place was hopping. She angled her head toward Tyler’s. “Would you rather have a hamburger or a grilled cheese sandwich?”

  “Hamburger.” He swung his legs, making the stool rotate one way, then the other. “And a chocolate milk shake. Don’t forget.”

  Another waitress, who looked like she was about fifteen years old, set glasses of water on the counter in front of them. “Y’all need a menu?”

  Kelly shook her head. “We’ll have two burgers. One with cheese. No onions on either. French fries on the side. And a small salad.”

  “And the milk shake,” Tyler whispered loudly.

  “And a chocolate milk shake. Two straws.”

  “That’s a familiar-sounding order.”

  Kelly started in surprise, rotating her stool all the way around to see Caleb standing behind them.

  “Dr. C!” Tyler held up his cast. “I didn’t break it again.”

  Caleb smiled slightly. “Glad to hear it, Tyler.” His gaze went from Kelly’s face to the empty stool beside them. “Mind if I sit there?”

  She did. But saying so would have revealed more than she wanted. So she shrugged. “Open seating.”

  He swung his leg over the stool and leaned his arms on the counter, looking past her at Tyler. “I like the haircut. Looks sharp.”

  Tyler beamed. “I hadda get it cut ’cause of the funeral.”

  Caleb’s gaze flicked briefly to Kelly’s again. “Your grandma would have been impressed.”

  Kelly shifted. Despite everything, she’d sent cards every year to her mom with a new picture of Tyler inside. Her mom had never responded. And so far, Kelly hadn’t seen any evidence that Georgette had kept them.

  Apparently, she’d valued hoarding her empty oatmeal cartons and shoe boxes more.

  “I never been to a funeral before,” Tyler was saying.

  “That’s a lucky thing,” Caleb told him.

  “Mommy says they’re sad.”

  Caleb nodded. “Usually.”

  Kelly grabbed her water and drank half of it down. It was sad. Especially because she didn’t feel much of anything in the face of her mother’s funeral. And wasn’t that a horrible realization for a daughter to make?

  She unfolded Tyler’s big paper napkin and tucked it into his collar.

  “I don’t want a bib, Mommy!”

  “And I don’t want to wash ketchup out of your shirt.”

  The waitress delivered the side salad, and Kelly placed it in front of Tyler. She plucked out the two carrot matchsticks she spotted. “Eat at least half of it,” she told him.

  He made a face, but she drizzled ranch dressing on top and he picked up his fork and stabbed it into a cucumber slice.

  She grabbed her water glass, focusing on it rather than the disturbing warmth of Caleb’s shoulder brushing against hers when he reached over the counter and grabbed the coffeepot. He sat back, flipped over the white mug in front of him and filled it.

  “Want some?”

  She shook her head and watched from the corner of her eye as his fingers circled the mug. He’d always had long fingers. Deft fingers. And narrow, sinewy wrists that had become even more masculine and elegant all at the same time...

  She took a quick sip of her water. He was numbingly good-looking. Get over it already. She set the glass down decisively. “Slow day at the office?”

  “Had a cancellation. Figured I’d take advantage and grab some lunch.”

  She tapped her foot on the stool rung and hu
nted for something else to say.

  “There’s a picture I haven’t seen in a long time.” A brunette stopped in front of them on the other side of the counter, propping her hands on her very pregnant hips as she smiled at them. “The two of you sitting together right here in Ruby’s. Almost seems like old times.”

  “Tabby!” Kelly stood up on the rung and leaned across the counter to give the other woman a hug. “Look at you! Pam told me you were still running this place, but she neglected to say you were pregnant!”

  Tabby laughed wryly. “Maybe she forgot.”

  “You look marvelous. When is the baby due? Do you know what you’re having?”

  “We decided to wait to find out until the baby’s born. Which, hopefully, will be in about three weeks.” She dashed her hair out of her face and smiled ruefully. “Or less. Can’t be soon enough for me.”

  Kelly chuckled. “I remember those last few weeks all too well. In one sense, time went way too fast, but in another it just crawled. I didn’t know what my feet looked like. Couldn’t even fasten my own shoes.”

  “That’s what husbands are for.” Caleb’s comment was so abrupt, it unnerved Kelly. “To help fasten your shoes. So I hear, anyway.”

  Tabby wrapped a white apron over her belly, tying it below her breasts. “Imagine Justin’s been complaining to you about that, Caleb.”

  He snorted softly. “Bragging, more like. He always has liked doing things first. Earning his PhD before I got my MD. Now he’s having a kid before me.”

  Kelly sank her teeth into her tongue. She was pathetically grateful when Tabby shifted to one side so their waitress could deliver their hamburgers; it gave her something to focus on.

  “Well, if you want a baby—” Tabby’s tartness held the ease of lifelong friendship “—then find yourself a wife. I suggest you start by actually dating someone.” She gestured toward Kelly. “Tell him I’m right.”

  Kelly’s face felt hot. Tabby didn’t have a hurtful bone in her body. She had no way of knowing about the knife she was twisting. “Um, she’s—”

  “For God’s sake, Tab,” Caleb muttered. “You’re embarrassing her.”

  Tabby’s eyebrows shot up. “Why? She beat us both on the marriage front by a long shot.”

  “I’m not married.” Far too aware of the way her son was observing the exchange, Kelly nudged the milk shake toward him and kept her voice calm even though she felt like screaming inside.

  If she didn’t correct the ridiculous lie her mother had spread, it was only a matter of time before her little boy innocently did.

  So she lifted her chin and focused on Tabby, even though the words were meant just as much for the man sitting next to her. “I never was.”

  Chapter Four

  Caleb went still. He angled his head, giving Kelly a long look. “You said—”

  “I never said anything.” She looked defensive. “If you want to blame anyone, blame the person who spread that particular story.”

  Tabby’s brows were knit together. “Your mom—” She broke off. “Oh, boy.” Her gaze flicked from Caleb to Kelly and back again. “Let me get you the special,” she said suddenly and turned on her heel to waddle through the swinging kitchen doors.

  Coward, he thought.

  He looked at Kelly’s downturned head as she toyed with a crispy French fry. “Why’d you leave Weaver then? If there wasn’t a guy involved.”

  She stiffened and gave him a tense look. “You think you held the market on wanting something more?”

  “You never said you wanted to get out of Weaver.”

  “Well, after you told me you wanted to marry someone else, we didn’t talk about a whole lot of anything, did we?”

  They certainly hadn’t a couple years later, when they’d ended up steaming the windows of her truck. He’d thought she’d finally forgiven him for the Melissa debacle. It turned out she hadn’t.

  “Point taken.” He twisted the coffee mug in circles. “Why do you suppose she—”

  “—told a bald-faced lie about me? I’m the last person who could explain why my mother said or did anything. If I had to guess, I would say she was ashamed of me. Tyler—” she shifted focus to the little boy beside her “—stop playing with your hamburger. Are you full?”

  “No.” The boy poked his head forward so he could see past his mom to Caleb. “Are you and Dr. C fighting?”

  “Of course we’re not, buddy. Here.” She dropped a few more French fries on his plate and squeezed out another measure of ketchup from the dispenser.

  Caleb waited until she was finished. “Then you ended up in Idaho working for an old friend of Doc Cobb.”

  She didn’t look at him. Maybe so that her observant son wouldn’t pick up more of the tension between them. “He told you that?”

  “He mentioned it once. I thought it was an office job, though.”

  “It was. For a while.”

  The same waitress who’d delivered the meals for Kelly and Tyler set a plate in front of him. Meat loaf special. Ordinarily, he liked that just fine, but his appetite had taken a hike. “And the nursing bug bit?”

  She finally looked his way. Her amber-brown eyes were fathomless. “It took a few months,” she murmured. “But, yes.”

  “So what happened with the guy? The one you didn’t marry.”

  She looked back at her meal. She’d gotten after her boy for playing with his food, but as far as Caleb could tell, she was doing the same thing. “He never asked me.”

  Caleb frowned. “And Tyler?”

  She tilted her chin, giving Caleb a pained look. “What about him?”

  “Did he know about Tyler?”

  Her eyebrows rose slightly. “Should I have told him? Forced him into marrying me when he clearly didn’t want to?”

  He put down his fork. “People don’t automatically get married anymore just because there’s a baby on the way.”

  “Would you have?” Her expression got even more anxious. “Stepped up to the plate? Done the right thing? Sacrificed yourself in a marriage that wasn’t based on anything but responsibility toward a child?”

  His head suddenly hurt. “We’re not talking about me.”

  “What if we were?” She gave up the pretense of eating and pushed aside her plate altogether. Color rode her cheeks, making her eyes look bright. “For the sake of argument. What if Melissa—that was her name, right? What if she’d come to you one day and said, ‘Guess what? The rabbit died. The stick turned blue.’”

  “That’s different.”

  “How’s it different?” Kelly didn’t wait for him to answer. “Oh, that’s right. You already wanted to marry her.”

  “Yeah, well, she didn’t want to marry me, if you’ll remember.”

  “Fun to learn you’re not really what someone wants, isn’t it?”

  Tyler suddenly hung his arms over Kelly’s shoulders. He’d climbed up until he was kneeling on the seat of the stool and was giving Caleb a stern glare. “Don’t yell at Mommy.”

  Kelly’s sigh was audible. She closed her eyes and patted Tyler’s arms. “Nobody’s yelling,” she soothed, turning away from Caleb. “Now sit on your seat properly. Are you finished with your lunch?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Wipe your face with your napkin, then.” She didn’t look at Caleb while she pulled her wallet out of her purse and glanced at the check the waitress had left. She yanked out some cash and left it on the counter. “Come on, Tyler.” She lifted him down to the ground and quickly pulled his sweatshirt on over his head. “We still have things we need to do before tomorrow.”

  Caleb watched them walk straight out of the restaurant.

  Kelly didn’t look back.

  He couldn’t exactly blame her. He didn’t appreciate people butting their noses
into his business, either.

  He turned back to the meal that he no longer wanted. Tabby waddled back out of the kitchen. Her timing was too perfect to be coincidental.

  “Nice work, Tab.”

  She spread her hands. “How was I to know I was stepping onto a Georgette Rasmussen land mine?” She leaned back against the counter and rubbed her belly with both hands. “I always felt sorry for Kelly, being raised in that household. Seems like nothing she did ever satisfied the woman.”

  Caleb had observed that himself. If Kelly didn’t get good enough grades because she’d been helping so much on the farm, Georgette was mad. When she got the best grades possible, Georgette accused her of acting too big for her britches and ignoring her responsibilities at home. No matter what Kelly did, she couldn’t have won where her mother was concerned.

  “She wouldn’t appreciate your pity,” he told Tabby. He was positive that neither time nor distance would have changed that about her. “She left Weaver. Found a career she probably wouldn’t have if she’d stayed.”

  “I know. But still.” Tabby chewed the inside of her cheek. “You know, I always thought you and Kelly would end up together. You couldn’t keep your hands off each other in high school. Caleb and Kelly, sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G.”

  The glare he gave her had no effect.

  “You even stayed together for a while after you went to college,” she continued.

  “We were teenagers.”

  “If Tyler were a few years older, he could have been yours. Ever think about that?”

  “Jesus, Tab.” First his sister, now his old friend?

  “What?”

  He shook his head. Of course he’d thought about it. Pointlessly. “He’s not mine. Obviously.” The timing could have been about right courtesy of their angry night of car sex, but they’d used a condom.

  Tabby was silent for a moment. Then she sighed and nudged his plate. “Do you want me to box that up for you?”

  He shook his head. “I have patients this afternoon.” He pulled out his wallet, but she made a face.

  “You don’t need to pay for a meal you didn’t touch.”

  “Not exactly the way to stay in business.”